Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)

Can Katy Survive a 2-Hour Show?  And Can Robert Survive a 1.5-Hour Katy Perry Movie?

I’ve still been trying to fill any gaps left in the year 2012 as the end of the year approaches, but I think I might have been perfectly fine leaving this particular gap unfilled.  That was not an option for me as my friend Janet not only requested today’s movie, but provided me with a copy of it.  It is against company bylaws to refuse a request, regardless of how disinterested you are in both the movie and the subject matter of the movie.  After bracing myself for the worst, I sat down to watch … sigh … Katy Perry: Part of Me, directed by Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, starring Katy Perry and Russell Brand, and with cameos by some people I don’t know (or don’t want to know) named Kesha (I refuse to spell that with a dollar sign), Adele, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Jessie J, Ellen DeGeneres, and Rebecca Black.

Katy Perry (Katy Perry) makes what some people call music, and this movie is about that.  She’s embarking on a concert and that apparently requires that a movie be made about it, since it is probably the very first concert in history.  During this concert, we learn how Katy Perry mutated from a gospel singer named Katheryn Hudson into an international pop sensation.  At some point, she also forgets how ridiculously hot she is and she actually gets bummed out that British comedian Russell Brand divorces her.

I’d like to start off this review by making a distinction.  There is a clear difference between saying, “This is not a good movie,” and saying, “I did not like this movie.”  I would say there was nothing really wrong with this movie, but I was definitely not the target audience, especially since going into this movie I could only say that I knew about two Katy Perry songs.  I personally could give two shits about Katy Perry, her music, or her life.  And that is the summation of the entire movie, leaving the movie to be kind of a trudge for the disinterested audience.  In its defense, I assume the movie’s actual audience would love this.  They get to get closer to someone they probably like more than is healthy and listen to her music that they like for whatever reason.  People like me will hear them say things like, “She just wants to be the first Katy Perry,” and feel the irony because her music seems like the 10^th or so Britney Spears, or the 20^th Tiffany, maybe setting herself apart by being the one in that group that has the sense to send great moral messages to her fans by strapping whipped cream sprayers to her tits in her music videos.  She also sings songs about fireworks, but she forgets that those things burn bright but they fizzle out in a few seconds.  She is taking way too long to fizzle out for my tastes.  I would say that one thing I did enjoy seeing in the movie was that Perry’s religious crackpot parents still loved their daughter, even though she spends a lot of her time half-dressed and shaking her cans for an audience.  And one thing that made me laugh was that Katy Perry used the term “Cray Cray” at one point, and the subtitle felt the need to translate that to “(Crazy)”, just in case the audience had a few people that weren’t stupid being dragged to it.

There’s probably not a whole lot to be said about the music and visual style of this movie.  If you have any intention of seeing this movie, I assume you already know what Katy Perry concerts look like and sound like.  For everyone else, the visual style is what happens if you raid a candy store and throw it up all over a stage.  I don’t know why I have to sit through seizure warnings on most of the video games I play, but this movie didn’t have one in the beginning.  There were so many colors smashed into every frame of this movie that I almost had a seizure.  I also resented that at no point during this movie did Katy Perry shoot whipped cream out of her boobs.  That’s the one thing I remember about her!  As for the music of the movie, it’s the typical pop stuff that I do all I can to avoid.  We hear all the songs that I assume she’s famous for, starting with the song that made her popular, “I Kissed a Girl”, which I always thought was called “I’ll Go Gay if You Pay Attention to Me.”  I did think it was a little strange – but also hilarious – that the movie juxtaposed scenes of Perry’s fans crying because of the profound experience of seeing Katy Perry in concert with Katy Perry singing a song called “Peacock” which, as best I can tell, is a song about Katy Perry demanding to see someone’s dick.  And it’s not even subtle about it!  It seemed like the lyrics were originally, “Let me see your cock,” and someone said they wouldn’t play that on MTV so she added “pea” so that no one would have any idea what she was singing about.  But I’m onto you, Perry!  I would also have to mention that my own bias against pop music made me resent things like opening the movie with someone playing a Katy Perry song on the violin and Katy Perry herself holding a guitar on numerous occasions.  “Instruments are reserved for talented people,” I would think to myself.  But, during the course of the movie, I learned that Katy Perry actually made music before she became famous, so I had to learn my lesson that the rare few musicians that are popular today can actually play an instrument.  I guess Katy Perry is one of them.

There’s even less to say about the performances in this movie than the look and music of the movie.  It’s mostly just people being themselves, or at least being the version of themselves that they want to be portrayed as.  I would say that Katy Perry herself comes off as very likeable in the movie.  Not only is she hot, but she’s also cute and goofy and very endearing.  I actually did feel twangs of sadness for her when she was crying before going up on stage because of her divorce with Russell Brand, even though I resent the fact that she’s acting like that’s even a speed bump in her life.  Does she realize how hot she is and how out of his league she is?  She’ll be fine.  The rest of the cast is filled by a bunch of other women I don’t give a shit about, like Jessie J, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Justin Bieber.  I don’t care about those ladies either.

I feel that my comments still indicate that I hated Katy Perry: Part of Me.  That’s not really the case.  The simple fact of the matter is that I am not the audience for this movie.  I have no interest in Katy Perry, her life, or her music, and her visual style feels like it could either give someone seizures or make them diabetic.  But the movie wasn’t painfully bad to make it through and Katy Perry came off as very likeable, and even managed to elicit an emotional response from me at one point in the movie.  The only way to make a recommendation for this movie is completely unnecessary as the people that would see it already have, and I don’t recommend it for anyone else.  Katy Perry: Part of Me gets “The bad that comes along with the good is a journey” out of “I got an ass like Nicki Minaj in this one!”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook and Twitter.  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Rock of Ages (2012)

This Place is About to Become a Sea of Sweat, Ear-Shattering Music and Puke.

My interest was piqued in today’s movie while listening to the Nerdist podcast. Chris Hardwick was talking about this movie because he was in the original LA cast of the musical that this movie was based on. Another thing that drove me to want to see the movie was the ridiculous hotness of some of the actresses in the movie. That’s always a driving factor for me. But it didn’t drive me hard enough to bother to go and see the movie when it was still in theaters. When I was perusing a RedBox, I saw this movie along with the movie I was looking for and decided that I might as well watch it. If nothing else, I would enjoy the hotness and tune out the movie. Did I have to do that? Find out as I review Rock of Ages, based on the musical by Chris D’Arienzo, written for the screen by Justin Theroux and Allan Loeb, directed by Adam Shankman, and starring Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bryan Cranston, Malin Ákerman, Kevin Nash, Jeff Chase, and Will Forte.

A girl named Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) moves to Los Angeles to become a singer, but realizes pretty quickly that most of LA is a cesspool when her prized record collection gets stolen from her. A barback named Drew Boley (Diego Boneta) rushes to help her and the two later start dating even though this pansy didn’t even try to run the guy with her records down. Maybe it was because he gets her a job as a waitress at The Bourbon Room, a famous rock club that’s fallen on hard financial times. To help their situation, bar owner Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) and his right-hand man Lonny Barnett (Russell Brand) book the famous band Arsenal – and their temperamental lead singer Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) – to perform their final gig at the club before Jaxx embarks on a solo career. Also going on, Patricia Whitmore (Catherine Zeta-Jones), wife of Mayor Mike Whitmore (Bryan Cranston), is trying to shut down rock and roll, Constance Sack (Malin Ákerman) has sex with Jaxx and writes a scathing review about him in Rolling Stone, and Paul Gill (Paul Giamatti) tries to make a star out of Boley, knowing that Jaxx is unreliable.

I’m admittedly torn about Rock of Ages. I’m about dead center in my feelings for it. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. I think it was mainly the story that didn’t work for me. It just didn’t strike me as all that funny. And, without the comedy, it’s basically just a run of the mill love story/musical. There’s also a little bit of Empire Records in the people trying to keep their dream of rock and roll alive in the Bourbon Room, and perhaps a little bit of Footloose in the religious crazies trying to shut down something for whatever stupid reason. But I’ve already seen those movies, and I didn’t really like them either. And I think I wanted it to be funny, but it never managed to pull that off. Stacee Jaxx got a few laughs with his wackiness, but he also frequently bordered on depressing. I also always appreciate a good shot at boy bands, but then I get depressed because – let’s face it, rock fans – they’ve kind of won. Sure, they don’t have staying power, but that genre has made far more unworthy millionaires than rock has, at least recently. I think the only thing in the movie that got a good, solid laugh out of me was when Sherrie applied for a job by saying, “I can wait tables! I’m good!” Fer real? That’s what you’re gonna put on your list of special skills. Not writing, sketching, speaks limited French. You’re gonna post up with, “Excellent waitress.” I think there’s about one job that qualifies you for…

One of the things that definitely worked for me in this movie was the music. Gangnamed that’s a good soundtrack! Check out some of these songs: Paradise City, Sister Christian, Juke Box Hero, Wanted Dead or Alive, I Wanna Rock, Pour Some Sugar on Me, Here I Go Again, Any Way You Want It, Rock You Like a Hurricane, We Built This City, Don’t Stop Believin’, and the list goes on. Add some Metallica to that and I could survive on just that soundtrack for the rest of my life. I know everyone’s taste in music is not the same as mine, but if you don’t agree then your opinions are wrong. The reason this movie was so easy to get through even with the mediocrity of the story was because of the kick ass music throughout.

The performances in this movie were fine enough, but I was focused mostly on a different kind of “fine.” Namely Julianne Hough and Malin Ákerman. SO hot! Want to touch the heiney! Amongst other things. I guess the same could be said for Catherine Zeta-Jones, but she never really did it for me. Certainly not when I have Hough and Ákerman to distract me. They did fine jobs in the movie, but you also get to see them in underwear and other such skimpies! The only thing that bothered me about that is that there were times in the movie when Hough wore less clothes then when she was acting as a stripper at one point. When she was a stripper, she rocked something that looked like an old-timey one-piece bathing suit that was low cut in the front. She wears much hotter stuff when she’s not supposed to be getting naked for money! Tom Cruise also made me take note fairly frequently. I thought at first that I would be watching him do this part and be mostly thinking about how Chris Hardwick would have done it, even though I’ve never really seen Hardwick do it. But Cruise does an interesting enough performance of his own that I never really got to thinking about that part. But, y’know what? To hell with complimenting Tom Cruise! He got to make out with Malin Ákerman AND touch Julianne Hough and Catherine Zeta-Jones boobs! ALL IN THE SAME MOVIE!

Rock of Ages was an underwhelming but totally watchable movie. Its mediocre story was elevated drastically by the awesome songs in the musical numbers. The actors also did a very good job, especially Julianne Hough and Malin Ákerman who did an exceptional job being hot and Tom Cruise who did very well at being interesting to watch. But altogether, this is probably a skippable movie. You can buy the soundtrack without sitting through the movie, and you can see Julianne Hough and Malin Ákerman being hot with a Google image search. Rock of Ages gets “It’s not an improvement” out of “I just threw up. In my pants … out of my ass.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people. Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense. Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated. You can also add me on FaceBook and Twitter. Don’t forget to leave me some comments. Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Hop (2011)

Talking Rabbits Freaks Her Out

I confess that the only inspiration behind wanting to watch today’s movie was to shit on it.  I feel like it’s been a while since I really got to ridicule a movie for how bad it was since it seems people have actually been requesting movies that they genuinely want my opinion on, as opposed to movies they just want to punish me with.  But I need to watch a piece of shit every now and then.  It builds up my immune system.  And it’s a lot funnier when I hate the movie and can give you numerous reasons why.  When I saw today’s movie was available in a RedBox, I reserved the shit right out of it.  So let’s get into a movie that you all may have seen commercials for, but were all probably well aware of the fact that you didn’t want to see it.  This movie is Hop, written by Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch, and Cinco Paul, directed by Tim Hill, and starring James Marsden, the voice and physical form of Russell Brand, Kaley Cuoco, the voice of Hugh Laurie, the voice of Hank Azaria, Gary Cole, Elizabeth Perkins, David Hasselhoff, and Chelsea Handler.

On Easter Island (ha ha, fuck you movie), all of the world’s Easter needs are handled underground, run by Mr. Bunny (Hugh Laurie), the current presiding Easter Bunny.  He hopes that his son, E.B. (Russell Brand), will take over for him one day, but EB just wants to play drums and open a vaguely successful string of video game stores that he will later sell to GameStop.  EB runs away to Hollywood in hopes of finding success as a drummer (The White Stripes could use a new one).  His father sends his royal guard, the Pink Berets, after him.  Fred O’Hare (James Marsden) (also, could you lay it off with the puns already?) has just been kicked out of his house by his dad, Henry (Gary Cole), and told to find a job.  His sister, Sam (Kaley Cuoco), lets him stay at a mansion that she’s housesitting.  On the way there, Fred hits EB with his car.  EB’s dead, the end.  Okay, it didn’t go that way.  Instead, EB feigns injury in order to get Fred to take him in.  Through the course of the movie, Fred and EB must find their true calling in life.

I definitely found a few things to make fun of in this movie, but the weirdest thing that happened here is that I did not hate this movie.  I’m a surprised as you are!  This movie is actually pretty cute and I’m sure kids would really like it.  There are even a few jokes in the movie that made me laugh and I did not see that coming at all.  The story of the movie is nothing new and reminded me a little bit of the Prince and the Pauper by the end.  It’s a couple of stories about people that want to do something, or don’t know what they want to do at all, and the people around them just don’t get them, man.  This story is so familiar that I tend to refer to it as “My Life”.  Later on is the Prince and the Pauper part, where Fred decides that he would like to be the Easter Bunny so that EB can go about his dream.  This is around where the story really loses me.  How the hell is a human going to be an Easter Bunny, let alone the Anything Bunny?  It’d make a lot more sense if the chickens that helped out actually took over after their coup d’état.  Chickens make more sense for a holiday that centers around eggs anyway.  And if it was going to be a human, why not a woman instead?  They actually have eggs.  That’d be a pretty icky Easter though, and it’d have to happen every 28 days.  These, of course, were not the only things that didn’t make sense to me in this movie.  First off, why the hell would Sam let her slacker, loser brother housesit a giant and expensive mansion owned by her boss?  The movie actually made the biggest surprise they could have by not actually making him burn the house to the ground by the end of the movie.  He actually left a fairly small footprint on the mansion.  Fred also makes a really big deal about trying to hide the fact that EB is a talking rabbit, but the greater majority of the people in the world inexplicably don’t even bat an eye at it.  Except when it serves the story, that is.  Like when EB makes a scene at Fred’s sister’s Easter play, when people are suddenly interested because they wanted to waste about 10 minutes with a whole ventriloquism bit they wrote.  Also, though you kind of expect their specific talents to play into the resolution of the movie, I felt like it didn’t make that much sense that EB was able to save Easter by playing the drums.  The puns in this movie got on my nerves because it felt like they weren’t even trying.  The upcoming Easter Bunny’s name is EB, the other guy’s name is O’Hare, they work from Easter Island, etc.  They were either not trying or they actually thought this shit was hilarious.  Many other jokes didn’t work in this movie, and some of the stuff just seemed crass, like the random fact that EB shit out Jellybeans.  It’s gross, unnecessary, and the reasoning they tried to make behind it was stupid.  EB showed Fred to prove that he was a special bunny.  Apparently him talking wasn’t getting that job done.  And there’s also one big spoiler that made me have a problem with the entire movie ::SPOILER ALERT:: The Easter Bunny isn’t real.  ::END SPOILER::

The performances in this movie were exactly what they were.  First off, all of the bunnies (and mostly EB) were so ridiculously cute in their animation.  Women will swoon.  I may have swooned myself, but I’m not entirely sure what swooning is.  Is that when you pass out and wake up with no pants on and covered in blood that’s not your own?  EB himself had occasional moments of funniness, but almost as many occasions of annoyance.  I think that’s due to Russell Brand lending his voice to the character.  I’ve always felt like Russell Brand’s idea of comedy was to constantly have things coming out of your mouth and then, even if only 10% are funny or worth hearing, at least people will still leave thinking he was hilarious.  What didn’t annoy me about EB was that he was a fantastic drummer.  Sure, there was no good reason for him to drum in the movie, but he was animated to be good at it.  James Marsden was mostly manic and over the top on his side, with a little bit of stupid mixed in, but he never really bothered me.  Gary Cole was mostly an asshole through the movie.

This movie doesn’t have a lot to offer you unless you have kids, but I think you’ll actually find it mostly cute if you end up watching it with them.  The story is silly, nonsensical, and somewhat dumb, but it’s also really cute and has a couple of funny moments in it.  If you like Russell Brand, that would be a plus for you with this movie.  If you’re like me, he’ll be very hit and miss but bother you much less since you barely have to see his face.  I’ll recommend this movie for kids, but say skip it for the single people.  Hop gets “I am a bunny and am incredibly sexy” out of “This must be the rags part of my rags-to-riches story.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Arthur (2011)

I find the true glory of RedBox is that it allows me to be less discerning in my tastes. For a dollar a night, I will watch almost anything. And, tonight, I put that to the test. I rented the remake of Arthur (starring Russell Brand, Elektra, and Helen Mirren), even though I never had anything resembling a desire to watch this movie. What can I say?  I’m spontaneous.

Since this movie came out, I feel as if I had heard nothing about it that was good. As is customary for me, I went to Rotten Tomatoes to find out what everyone else thought of it, as the opinions of others make up my own. But, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 26%, I found that their opinions would not actually be helping me this time around. I found Arthur to be a very enjoyable movie, and I don’t care if you disagree.

Arthur (Russell Brand) is a drunk, British dude that is living in New York City. I know that because I’ve become VERY familiar with NYC from the Spider-Man games. Many times in the movie I thought to myself “I crawled on that very wall”! Anyways, Arthur lives in NYC, drinks and parties a lot, rides around in a DeLorean, and sexes the prostitutes. Not sexes as you may a chicken (I’m sure he knew their gender beforehand), but I refer to intercourse. The story, in desperate need of a catalyst, gets started by his mom telling him he has to marry Elektra (As I think was Jennifer Garner’s name in this movie, but I get very confused when off my meds) if he wants to remain rich. Now, he doesn’t want to do this, even though she is very hot, because she’s kind of a twat. Then he meets this very interesting blonde-haired lady named Naomi (Insert the actresses name here … come on, I don’t research this people!) and falls for her. Hijinks ensue, and later a happy ending.

I’m not sure if I was able to be fond of this movie because I’ve not seen the original or just because I’m not some jaded film critic, but I liked this movie. I hated Russell Brand before this movie, and I hate him slightly less now. Also, just so you’re up to speed, I still think Jennifer Garner is hot and Helen Mirren is awesome, but more awesome with a sniper rifle in RED. There were more than a few moments in this movie that got me to laugh out loud (Or LOL if you’re 20 and under) and I rarely laugh in movies. Also, I’m not too masculine that I can’t say I got a little choked up in this movie at points.

So, I guess what I’m getting at is this movie is definitely worth the maybe 2 dollars I’ve paid for it by now. Do I feel the need to add it to my enormous movie collection? Meh, not at the moment. But maybe one day if I find it for like 5 dollars.

On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, I give Arthur “Pretty good”. …Do I not understand the way rating systems work?