Dumb and Dumber To

Dustin: 3 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.25 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: Dumb and Dumber To rounds out the epic Dumb & Dumber trilogy. Like all great epics, going back to Homer’s Odyssey, the story began in the middle with 1994’s Dumb & Dumber, then took us back to the beginning in 2003 with Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. Now 20 years after the epic saga began, we experience the exciting and emotional conclusion with Dumb and Dumber To.

Nick: The Farrelly’s had nothing to do with the prequel. I don’t think it’s considered part of the canon so let’s call this the second film in the series. One way to prove this is I laughed constantly through the original and the new one while I only laughed once in the prequel and that was because of the gas station clerk played by Brian Posehn.

Dustin: I should mention I only saw the first movie shortly after it came to home video. I remember the famous Sea Bass scene, the boy with the dead parakeet, but not much else. I didn’t see the prequel. I went into this movie knowing what it was, but still pretty fresh.

Having said that, I think this movie basically did a good job fulfilling what was promised in the trailers. As a low-brow comedy about a couple of cartoonish buffoons, it worked on that level.

Nick: I have fond memories of the original, mainly because my mother wouldn’t let me see it (I was 7), but then she also wouldn’t let me rent it (I was 10), but then my awesome ne’er-do-well cousin rented it and let me watch it. It was epic… for what my 10-year-old brain considered epic. Dumb and Dumber To is not only as funny as the original, but it might have a slightly better concept and plot for a wacky comedy. The first film is just Lloyd falls in love with a woman who left her briefcase in his limo and wants to return it to her in the hopes she will return his undying love. This one has the same road trip comedy feel, but has a lot more players with a couple of twists at the end.

Dustin: As I don’t remember the original too well, I’ll say judging from this movie, the characters weren’t always consistent. I thought they showed different levels of stupidity at times, which was distracting. Sometimes they seemed like they had autism, other times they just seemed somewhat goofy. Was that something established in the first one? Did you ever get that feeling?

Nick: In the first one and in this one it seems to me that Jeff Daniels is Dumb while Jim Carrey is Dumber. Whenever Dumb is around Dumber he becomes slightly more dumb by proxy.

Nick: Daniels’s Dumb mostly lacks social cues and can’t function on his own, so it could be a possibly form of autism. While Dumber is just be in erratic idiot who functions as well as a 6-year-old. But to be honest I have never tried to pick it apart that much before. It’s bothersome, but so many more movies have such larger issues than the varying levels of dumb that are displayed by characters who are Dumb and Dumber. Like Mark Wahlberg growing up in Texas with a Boston accent while building robots and understanding alien technology in order to build said alien robots back together.

Dustin: As it occurred to me a couple times these characters probably had some kind of autism-spectrum disorder, I wasn’t always comfortable laughing at them. I’d like it better if they were just slow like Homer Simpson, sort of a cartoonish stupidity.

Nick: I feel they are. I mostly laugh at the stuff they caused and not so much at them. Jim Carrey’s rubbery face always gets me. He could have been portraying a Texan with a Boston accent who somehow understands alien technology enough to build robots with it, and I would still laugh hysterically.

Dustin: Did the first one have the gross-out humor this one had? I know other Farrelly brothers movies have it, but I didn’t feel like it was necessary.

Nick: There was a diarrhea scene in the original that was actually quite funny. This one has a lot of that humor, but while it normally annoys me (especially in their films) for the sheer stupidity it mostly works besides one instance of when the cat had farted out bird feathers when I thought enough happened in that scene to make me laugh. I was laughing pretty hard, but when that happened I ceased laughing out of anger while everyone around continued to bust a gut.

It seemed Lloyd had found his true love in the first one, and yet it didn’t end in that manner. Made me kind of sad.

By the way... What do you think sex is?

Dustin: That’s an interesting question, as it ties into the something said near the end of the film. I usually default to penile penetration of the vagina, but I know experts pretty much say any form of undressed intimacy is sex.

Nick: Experts can be pretty dumb.

Dustin: This thought was going through my head when Kathleen Turner explained what sex is to Harold and Lloyd. We didn’t hear what she said, but what Dumb and Dumber had apparently done with her would probably be considered sex to a lot of people.

While Dumb and Dumber To is a ‘90s-style low-brow comedy made to cash in on nostalgia, it delivered enough laughs to please fans of the original.

Dear White People

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 4 of 5 stars Average: 4 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Dear White People is a comedy/drama/social commentary showing some of the bone-headed ways white people interact with black people, while also poking fun at some of the ways black people are oversensitive to media depictions (like Sam’s argument for why Gremlins is a racist movie).

What did you think of Dear White People, Nick?

Nick: A comedy that is able to transcend the tag of just being funny to give its characters depth and the ability to grow and change is a rare find. Dear White People is so good at certain times it felt as if I were in the room talking to college kids about their radical views and not just watching actors portray that on film.

Dustin: The movie wasn’t as funny as I was expecting from the trailer (this is one of those comedies where all the funny stuff is in the trailer), however, I agree the characters had enough depth that I was able to enjoy this movie on its other strengths. This is the first commentary on race that I’ve seen where I didn’t feel like it was preaching to the choir (A Day Without a Mexican) or insulting to the audience’s intelligence (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner).

Nick: Dear White People isn’t funny in a losing your breath from laughing sort of way, but more in a poignant way. The dialogue made me smile constantly from its clever ways of depicting a person, place or thing in terms of the perspective of each race. So, stop me and edit this out if I’m being insensitive at all, but my favorite part of seeing the film was being the only white person in an all black audience. When the movie started there were only 10 people in the theater and 30 minutes into the movie there were almost 40. There was a joke in the movie about how the stereotype of black people being late is not true for all black people! Not only that, but there is a joke early on where the black kids confront one of the main characters, Lionel, a young black man who is gay, and tell him that just because they’re black doesn’t mean they are homophobic.  So when the character said that I kind of scoffed because in my experience that is not the case, but my belief was somewhat proven later on when a character kissed the black kid. When the film was setting up that kiss the whole theater started to scream, “NO!” Not kidding, wish I was. Every other person, other than me, started freaking the fuck out, and not in a humorous way, but in “that’s fucked up” sort of way. It pissed me off beyond all reason. This is the first time I kind of enjoyed the loudness of the movie theater as it acted kind of like a reassurance for what the film was trying to put a finger on. Though in saying that, I still look forward to viewing the movie in a quiet space.

Dustin: I saw it in a far less packed theater, maybe 10 other people. I cringed during that scene, and I felt the audience’s reaction too, but it wasn’t so strong. I don’t know if that makes me a homophobe, but I often find kisses on screen, even between straight characters, to be awkward, as well as in real life.

Nick: I don’t know. I think it’s more of how you feel on the inside about that.  Anyways, I had to move three times in that movie theater because of the people who were arriving late would decide to sit next to me and show me why I would not want to sit next to them very quickly. The first time, an older woman came in and had her phone volume turned up and brightness all the way on and kept playing with her phone for 5 minutes. In the 10 minutes that I sat next to her she would speak every time a character uttered a word she would turn to her friends and go, “Mmhmm, that’s right!”... sigh…  

All the main characters served a purpose and did, equally, both likable and unlikable things. It’s really enjoyable to watch people who have faults instead of “perfect” people portrayed by Hollywood films.

Dustin: I thought some of the characters were stereotypes, but I believe that was the intention of the film makers. I’m referring to the university president’s son who is a total pig and the militant guy in the black student group. I think they balanced each other out and showed some of the extreme ends. The other characters were very well developed and had arcs.

Nick: All the characters started out as stereotypes, but all the main characters, the four main black characters, grew into a blend of the beliefs they held and what they have come to realize.  

Dustin: I thought the best touches where in the ways liberal whites can unintentionally be racist, and showing how that hurts black people. Such as touching black people’s hair.

Nick: I know this is a filmmaker thing, but with the camera Sam uses and the video cam that Coco uses they wouldn’t be able to get anything but distorted sound on their devices. So I laughed every time when their videos were shown and the sound was crisp and clear, especially in Sam’s last video when she records the fight and it has clear sound and voices, yet she has no sound equipment and that kind of camera doesn’t record sound! Sorry… had to get that out there… phew!

Dustin: Overall, Dear White People was a clever satire aimed at both liberal white audiences as well as black audiences. It was entertaining, even though it was rarely laugh-out-loud funny.

Gone Girl

Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars  Jenius: 4 of 5 stars  Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live Canary)

Nick:  Gone Girl is a chilling story about the disappearance of a beautiful suburban wife (Rosamund Pike) and the media circus that pounces on the number one suspect, her off-putting husband (Ben Affleck).  The film is more of a comedy masquerading as a drama than the trailer would have you believe.

Jenius:  It’s a cold blooded movie.  It definitely made me cancel a date I had planned.  It’s not just a movie about a missing girl, it’s also a biting criticism on how the media and public opinion can change, flip and skew everything at a moment's notice.  Like many of David Fincher’s films, it’s a small peek into the mind of a sociopath.  I really dug this movie.  

N:  That’s funny considering that one of the blurbs in the trailer is “The best date movie of the decade!”.  The first half of the film had me hooked even when the “twist” happens I was still in love with the movie.  But as the story unraveled and more time was spent after the “twist” the more silly and preposterous the film became.  The movie should be seen a second time before you should fully judge as I will return to it thinking of it as more of a satire instead of a mystery.

J:  I never read the book so I thought it was going to be a mystery, then it became like it an episode of Law and Order (which they said it themselves in the movie) then after the twist, which caught me off guard, it became a satire.  Once the Nancy Grace character appeared the film became obvious in its message. Very few movies nowadays can surprise me, but I think it was because in this day and age, we view woman as the victims of their lumbering, abusive husbands.  We have been nursed by lifetime movies of the week, the media, social outcry, etc...  it’s always in our face.

N:  It takes quite a bit to surprise me these days as well.  This film did not surprise.  It might be because film noirs are my favorite films, mysteries are my favorite books and my favorite TV shows often border somewhere around adventurers, cops, or The Venture Bros.

The trailer plays up that he killed his wife so much that I believe the opposite is true when going into the film.  Needless to say I still enjoyed the moment when it revealed the “twist”.  I keep using the quotes because the surprise comes so early on that discovering it would only ruin the first 45 minutes of the film.

J: Funny thing just happened!  A story came on my Facebook news feed stating “Just saw Gone Girl with my hubby for our anniversary…not the best one to watch for the day.”   This is definitely true.  The trailers did misinterpret the movie a bit.  Batfleck de-evolves right before our eyes as they look for the girl, from a romantic charmer, to a swarthy, unfaithful brute.  All the while the diary of the woman plays as narration.  The diary had me convinced because of the husband’s infidelity.  But Fincher is always throwing curveballs at us to make us look left, so he can surprise us on the right.  

N:  Fincher might be the best at bringing tension into a situation.  The Social Network convinced me of that.  Never would I have thought a movie about Facebook could be entertaining and yet it was my favorite film of that year.  Which also had to do with the amazing score done by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who both stuck around for this movie as well).  The score is normally my least favorite parts in films but these sounds are some of the greatest I’ve ever heard.  Reznor has an article in this weeks EW which he stated, what I have always believed to be true, the score is not the star so make it subtle but effective.

J:  The music was pretty fitting as it underlined the theme of each scene.  There were never and “DUH-DUHS” to overstate the obvious, and it was all very effective.  In fact, all the technical aspect of this movie were very effective to me.  Sometimes I do find it hard to see Trent Reznor doing the score, as i’m always excepting odd clangs and ticks while someone screams “I want to f’ you like and animal”.  I expect 90’s Nine Inch Nails playing in the background.  I’m still wrapping my head around him doing scores about movies not set in an industrial goth club in the fall of 1997, but that’s my own bias… ahhh… good times.  

N:  There is nothing bad to say about this film beyond the way the film unravels in the final third and its not so much the change of tone as the implausibility of the ending that’s been chosen and the events leading up to it.  I believe I’m very good at suspending disbelief, i.e. Lucy, but the technical aspects, plot and acting all led me to believe this is a story based in the real world and the ending is as far from reality as any film this year.  Yet I still fully enjoyed the film and can’t wait to see it again.

J:  As for the ending, I did and didn’t enjoy it because I need closure. I want to see that bitch get her comeuppance!  I want to see Batfleck’s revenge!  She has to be one of the most vile, twisted, manipulative villains this side of a horror movie.  I didn't want her to get away with what she had done.  I felt bad for Batfleck at the end.  

N:  I don’t mind her getting away with it, in fact, I really like that she does.  It’s a unique thing in American cinema for the criminal to get away with their crime such as when the British film Kind Hearts and Coronets (one of my favorites) was released in America they were forced to add an alternative ending where the killer pays for his crime. My problem was with the way she got away with the crimes after her fake kidnapping that I had a problem with.  I found that her story while on the run was very uneventful, unfulfilling, and lacked the intelligence that she had shown when framing her husband for her kidnapping/murder.  Though all this didn’t put me off the eventual ending.  It was the murder of her former lover (Neil Patrick Harris) and her story of how she was kidnapped by him and how she eventually escaped that seemed so implausible.  Wouldn’t the former lover be one of the first suspects considering he has been charged with stalking her at a prior time to where the cops would have searched through all of his assets to the point where should would have been found?  There are many more holes in her statement but I’ll shut up because the film was very enjoyable and that’s all that truly matters.

J: Let us talk about your last statement in order:  1: Nah, that bitch needed to pay.  She should not have gotten away with it.  Maybe because she was a rich and beautiful, white girl and in the media’s eyes, they can do no wrong. From a minority's perspective I can see this whole heartly (not to play the race card, but in the media’s outlook there is a nugget of truth to that).  American media loves that type of thing.  Sensationalism sells!  That’s why the cops/media are so quick to believe her story about NPH and not look deeper into it.  But your idea of implausibility was shared by the cop, played expertly by Kim Dickens.  2:  Because you're jaded is why you didn't like her ‘on her own’ story. Jaded in the sense of we love to watch movies to the point where we see the finer details within them.  I loved her story until she got NPH involved.  It was fulfilling as she got robbed, beaten and became homeless.  I loved it.  A dose of the real world is sure to knock anyone, even a manipulation she wolf, off her high horse. 3:  You are right that we can nit pick all day, but the bottom line is that this was a very enjoyable movie.  Was it “based on a true story”?

N: It was not but it was based on a novel by a former EW columnist by the name of Gillian Flynn.

J:  Man, with her being all evil and manipulative, I thought it was based on a true story about one of my exes.  I think everyone should go see it… but not with your partner or on a date.

Tusk


Nick: 3 of 5 stars  Jenius: 4 of 5 stars  Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live Canary)

Nick:  Tusk is the latest film by Kevin Smith, who seems to be enjoying a recent affair with the horror genre (Red State), about a self-loving podcaster (Justin Long) kidnapped by one of the odd characters he likes to interview for his show.  This odd character is Howard Howe (Michael Parks) who has many interesting stories and quite the affinity for walruses.

J:  I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.  I am a huge Kevin Smith fan even though he makes some missteps but Tusk is his best film in quite a while.  It’s not scary, but it’s billed as a horror movie though it’s more disturbing than anything.  Think of Human Centipede with walruses… walrusi(?) It’s not entirely a horror movie, but it’s not entirely a comedy.  It’s that weird in between gray area.  It starts off as a comedy, then goes for very disturbing and right when you think it’s about to take a very dark path BOOM.. Johnny Depp with a french canadian accent, then it gets funny.. then dark again, then more odd than anything.  

NK:  Although the movie was very enjoyable, one of its many poor aspects was the shifting of tone.  As you said it keeps going back between odd, funny and horror.  The scenes with Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez and Guy Lapointe (Johnny Depp) seem out of place and by the end of the movie the characters don’t really affect anything.  These scenes ruin the tempo set by the scenes prior and make the scenes after create the tempo all over again.  That being said I did like the character Lapointe but I believe that character was wasted with what he was given to do.

J: We need an entire La Pointe movie.  He could be the Inspector Clouseau of the Great White North.  The scenes with Haley Joel Osment (I see doughnuts), the lovely Genesis and La Pointe seemed out of place, but yet it’s their quest to find Wally Walrus.  It’s an odd catalyst.  I mean I could watch Michael Parks wax philosophic all day, and the scene with him and Justin Long are wonderful, but without them  (Genesis and Osment) looking for Long, would we even care what happened to him?

NK:  Depp is actually coming out with a movie (Mortdecai) where he plays a character that seems inspired by Clouseau.  It looks horrible.  In Tusk, Long’s character never reached a depth to made me have any sympathy for him.  While my problems with the secondary characters is not that there are secondary characters but what their goal ultimately ended at.  There are quite a few scenes of Genesis, Osment and Lapointe and in every single one Lapointe tells them of what he knows about this serial killer.  By the end of the film,  they don’t affect anyone outside of the three of them which as a whole keeps them out of the overall story.  They don’t stop the bad guy nor do they affect any detail in the plot.  The characters do all this work on screen but serve to burst in, look at Long, then screech.  Which right after that, there is one more scene which serves the same purpose.  Once again, its not the characters, it’s their overall progression throughout the story which ends up being fruitless that I have a hard time dealing with.

J: They might have seemed fruitless (SPOILERS) because they lose.  The good guys failed.  The ultimate goal of Michael Parks was to make a human go full walrus, that sounds silly even when typing it.  And he achieved it.  Long’s character could never go back from full walrus.  

NK:  It’s not that.  If they put Long out of his misery then they affect the story.  They would be the ones who end his troubled existence.  I would want to be killed if I was in his position.  Yet the characters run in there with guns (after the killer is presumably dead), look at Long and they cry and shriek.  Then Lapointe runs in and pulls his gun out as if to shoot Long then the screen goes black.  At that moment I was still okay.  Then the scene that bothers me is the very last where Genesis and Osment pay a visit to Long at his “new home”.  Some friends! So what happened between the shot of Lapointe pulling his gun and the decision to keep a human alive that has been transformed into a walrus and then to keep him in a seemingly deserted zoo?  It all seems rather pointless.

J: Hahah.  You’re right.  They were shitty friends, but I think thats also the point. They were just as selfish on the inside as Long’s character was (in the beginning) on the outside.  They couldn't put him out of his misery and then sent him to the crappiest place in Canada.  That makes Long’s fate even worse.  That is what would make him suffer.  His friends showing up and giving the walrus a brief remembrance of a former life, of what is is to be human, then to walk away while leaving him stuck in his sub par Seaworld.  It’s not a happy ending.  

NK:  My favorite part of the movie which was also the thing that kept me intrigued was Michael Parks as Howard Howe.  Every scene and every line that he delivered made me both comfortable and frightened.  He had the same affect on me when he played the pimp in Kill Bill Vol. 2.  He is an actor that should be in more films.  Speaking of actors, it was nice to see Haley Joel Osment back although I believe he was miscast in the film.  His character doesn’t do enough to where I can see past the fact that its just a more robust HJO.  If his character was more fleshed out then it would not have been an issue.

J:  More fleshed out. A robust HJO.  That gave me the giggles.  I see fat people.  HJO needed more things to do than bray at Long’s jokes and sex-up his girl.   And I think we can both agree that Michael Parks is a Damn National Treasure.  

One thing that was ridiculous but later grew on me was the walrus suit.  It looked goofy and seemed weird to me, but then I thought about it later on and it became ‘endearing’.  It was like and old Godzilla movie, where this guy is in a big rubber suit and makes you believe he is a giant monster destroying Tokyo.  This movie is about a guy in a rubber suit making you believe he is a walrus monster who is having his soul and humanity destroyed.

NK:  I loved the suit right when it appeared.  Probably because it never occurred to me that they meant for it to look realistic.  While the body and tail were silly the face was frightening.  The fact that his tusks are made from his femur bones was something I couldn’t get out of my head.  Though I was still in hysterics laughing so hard every time the walrus appeared.  

One thing about the movie which I was pleasantly surprised was that the film never went for what Hostel and Human Centipede did which was to disturb someone with gore alone.  While I like a good and silly gory film, like Dead Alive, its nice to see a film that doesn’t go that far.  There are no scenes of Long’s body being cut up, vast amounts of blood being spilled, nor sounds that make one cringe.  It was a refreshing change of pace.

J:  I love gore. Especially when it’s done right and if there’s a purpose.  Though it WAS good to see it not take the same route as Hostel/HC.  Sometimes gore for gore’s sake is a waste.  That was all Kevin Smith.  he is a storyteller from the start.  He spins yarns like there is no tomorrow.  He didn't rely on the blood and violence to disturb you.  He let the story, and Michael parks do that.  Yes this movie could have EASILY became Human Walruspede, but it didn’t and became a story on what it meant to be a walrus.  

NK:  Kevin Smith can be a fantastic writer and we have been treated to some really good films that he has written but something Smith has not gotten any better at since Clerks is directing.  Framing, wardrobe, editing, lighting and knowing when to let a scene go is not his strength.  His scenes lack depth which is something most directors know how to create.  Michael Bay, for all his shittiness, is fantastic at creating depth within the frame.  Most shots within the film are straight on with a dead background and lighting that is just there so you can at least see what is happening.  There was a fantastic shot which was when Long finds out that Mr. Howe can walk.  Everything about that shot was great but to pinpoint one shot as a good shot is not necessarily a good thing.  Now a scene that should have been either scrapped or shortened is when Guy Lapointe happens on the serial killer in a flashback.  This scene was very long and long-winded.  It was two characters talking without saying anything pertinent.  This is something that is normally Kevin Smith’s bread and butter but in that one scene it made me ponder on whether or not this film would have been more fulfilling with a different director at the helm.

    

J: Such blasphemy!  This was Kevin Smith’s think baby.  It could not have had a different director.  The way it came to be, from his podcast, to being fund raised, to making it happen is an awesome thing.  As for the scene with Park and La Pointe, we will have to agree to disagree.  I thought it was funny and odd. Out of place?  Yes, but it was a good scene.  Kevin Smith is a better director than you seem to think.  There is an incredible amount of detail put in each scene and if there is nothing but a blank wall, it’s to make the focus on the character or the words they speak.  While some of his movies are not the best (i’m looking at you Cop Out),  he gives it his all and everything is there for some reason or another.  

NK:  I know he gives his all and is extremely passionate towards the things he cares about.  But sometimes you need someone there who disagrees and helps guide you in the direction that will make the film better.  Every writer’s work is their think baby but are often directed by other people.  Smith’s directing works when it is just two people conversing.  Which is why films like Clerks and Chasing Amy are never chastised about the directing because the writing is so fantastic to the point that it doesn’t truly matter how its captured.  I just felt that the scenes with Long and Parks could have been captured by another director who can create drama by just adjusting the camera a little bit.   

J: Special guest director: Quentin Tarantino!

NK:  Totes!  I was thinking Edgar Wright.

J: That would be good too.  Just not Frank Miller or Eli Roth.

NK:  What?!  You didn’t like the Spirit? (sarcasm)