End of Days

We're gonna party like it's 1999.

"Prepare for the end."
Hello everyone! I thought since this is more of a approaching the new year movie that I would post it early, though I suspect you won't be reading it until sometime on Tuesday night when you wake up from New Year's Eve festivities. We already saw over the past week and change what I think of when I think of Christmas, but what do I think about New Years? I think that the only proper way to celebrate it is for the Terminator to fight Satan in a battle for the fate of the world. That brings me to today's review: End of Days. Now I don't know what it says about me that apparently holidays all remind me of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies but... there it is. Let me set the scene: It's 1999. People are convinced that the laziness of computer programs is somehow going to precipitate the end of days, and not just make some computer clocks think it's the wrong day. Having just survived another apocalypse related to people keeping track of what day it is, we can all easily relate. Cashing in hardcore on this collective seizure of brain function, Universal Studios produced a movie about the devil making a bid at birthing the Antichrist, using the only vessel appropriate for a movie produced at the end of the 90s (...I guess): Robin Tunney.

Rise of the Guardians

He looks like kind of a creeper to me.

"Legends unite."

Hi everyone! How was your Christmas? Today I'm going to talk about the seasonably appropriate Rise of the Guardians, which does prominently feature Santa Claus (Only a big sword wielding Santa, voiced by Alec Baldwin). Mostly it is a movie about Jack Frost (Chris Pine, aka Kirk in the recent Star Trek movie) though, a young (appearing) spirit who likes to freeze stuff and be a dick to everyone by freezing their stuff. Jack is depressed because no one can see or believes in him, and he doesn't know why he was dragged out of a frozen lake by the man in the moon (who never like... talks he just sort of... shines at people.) Meanwhile, the scary mean spirit Pitch Black (aka the Boogie Man, voiced by Jude Law, who's good at sounding evil) sets out to wipe out all the good dreams and hopes of children and replace them with fear and nightmares, because he is a real jerk-off. To do this, Pitch plans to knock off the four guardians, who include Santa, the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher, who I really liked as that psycho in Wedding Crashers) The Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman, the australian bunny, who recently appeared when I reviewed Real Steel) and the Sandman (who has no actor attached to him, he's weird and animated and never talks). Around the time Pitch begins his attack, a new guardian is chosen by the moon to protect all the lil' chilren of the world: Jack Frost. Not everyone is on board (especially the Easter Bunny, he's a contentious sort) but Jack goes along with it, in the hopes that he will find out who he is, and why he was chosen.

Off-day

I didn't take Christmas off, so I am taking today as an off day. I'll be back with a review on Saturday, and here with an end of the year/new year review on Tuesday. It's been about half a year since I started this blog up again, and I never thought I'd have so many people reading it. So thanks to everyone for supporting my blog, and I hope you'll continue to stop by!

This is how happy I am right now.

Jingle All the Way

Put that cookie down! Right now!

"Two Dads, One Toy, No Prisoners."

Hello all and Merry Christmas from The Tagline! What better way to ring in this magical day, than with a movie where Arnold cold-cocks a reindeer in someone's living room. I'm referring of course, to the ridiculous Christmas movie Jingle All the Way, starring the Governator himself as Howard Langston, an absentee father (which is apparently the preferred protagonist for these movies) who has forgotten to buy his son Jamie (the nauseating Jake Lloyd) a Turbo Man action figure, the hot toy for the Christmas season, and the television super hero that Jamie looks to as a male role model in the vacuum left by his actual father, who is too busy selling... I'm not sure what I don't think you find out really. Realizing that he has forgotten to get this really shitty looking action figure for his son on Christmas Eve, Howard sets out to try and find one last minute, while his sleazy neighbor Ted (Phil Hartman God rest his soul) puts the moves on his wife Liz (Rita Wilson). Along the way, he encounters a postal worker also trying to get a Turbo Man figure at any cost, named Myron (Sinbad, yeah that's right), and the two become embroiled in a bitter race to obtain a Turbo Man.

Christmas Nightmare Double Feature

Hello all! Christmas is right around the corner, so I had decided I wanted to do a list of Christmas movies that were bad or just scared me. Then I realized that there were really only two movies I wanted to talk about. One was bad, creepy, and depressing. The other was just plain creepy. Actually I found it so unsettling that I didn't even want to watch it again for this post. Alas, duty drove me to it, so now I will share with you all:

PRE-CHRISTMAS NIGHTMARE
DOUBLE FEATURE

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

ホビト輪とてもすごいです！

"From the smallest beginnings come the greatest legends."

Hey everyone! As promised, today I will review The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Based on the Tolkien book, The Hobbit, Unexpected Journey is the first part of a three movie arc adapting said book into epic movie form. This particular film follows Bilbo (Martin Freeman, most notably he plays Watson on the BBC Sherlock) as he sets out with the party of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage, who you might know if you watched the BBC Robin Hood show, he was Guy of Gisbourne) and his dwarven companions. Also Gandalf is there (Sir Ian McKellen, of course). The group sets out with their eyes set on a grand prize, the lost dwarven kingdom of Erebor, to which Thorin is heir. Erebor resides inside a massive mountain (The Lonely Mountain to be specific) and is the lair of the massive and vicious fire drake Smaug. Bilbo is roped into this enterprise, despite his initial reluctance, by Gandalf, as a potential infiltrator, because hobbits are just that easy to ignore and overlook. Their journey carries them through a countryside that is gradually growing darker in aspect, as sinister forces long dormant begin to stir across Middle Earth.

The Long Kiss Goodnight

You know it's a movie, because Samuel L
Jackson is in it.

"What's forgotten is not always gone."

Hey everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! I thought today I would eaaase us into Christmas with a movie that... well isn't about Christmas but takes place around it. For that purpose I decided to dig up an entry from my pile of "movies no one remembers or possibly ever saw in the first place The Long Kiss Goodnight. You see, Christmas is about family, and togetherness. It's about giving, and love. Also it's about a mild-mannered suburban mother and schoolteacher, who is actually an amnesiac killing machine who used to work for the CIA. That's what this movie is all about. Starring Geena Davis (Of Thelma & Louise and Beetlejuice fame) as Samantha Caine, a woman who was found 8 years before the events of the movie, washed ashore with no memory. Also she was pregnant. She has attempted several times to hire private investigators to figure out who she is, but there's been absolutely no trace of her previous life. The latest P.I. she's hired is Mitch Hennessy (Samuel L.) who despite being of questionable ethics, seems to be proficient at his job, So, then what happens?