In an age of dumbed-down action overblown Hollywood busts that should make the average American enraged, there is a soft glow of nostalgia and self-deprecating campy humor.  Oh Jason Segel, I love you.  True story: Jason Segel pitched the idea for the Muppets to Disney immediately after the success of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  Their reaction: Hell No!  Disney was not excited about having a dude in his 20s who just exposed a full frontal of his long schlong to all of America helm a project about the resurgence of a beloved troupe of talking puppets.  However, he came back and somehow convinced them, through his passion of the Muppets, that he was the right guy for the job.  Pretty damn amazing if I say so myself.

But enough about the backstory, what about the movie itself?  Adorable, witty, charismatic and thoroughly enjoyable.  The film plot begs a question I oftentimes think of myself on nights that I find myself unable to sleep, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling: Where are the Muppets now?  Turns out, Kermit is living a lonely bachelor life in a huge Bel Air mansion, Gonzo is making millions off of toilet manufacturing, or was it doorknobs?, Animal is at an insane asylum with none other than Jack Black, Miss Piggy is off being the Devil Wears Prada in Paris (with Emily Blunt reprising the same role as the aforesaid film), and Fozzy Bear, poor old Fozzy, is performing with Muppet knock offs in some tawdry casino in Reno.  Enter plot twist: an evil Rich Guy is trying to buy up the Muppets stage for the cache of oil beneath it.  And so begins the journey to try to reunite the Muppets once again, get money back in order to buy back the old venerable Muppets stage.

Besides the talented cast (Jason Segel wrote the screenplay and stars with his co-star Amy Adams, Jack Black) there’s a generous dose of random well-placed cameos (Sarah Silverman, Emily Blunt, her husband John Krasinski, Whoopi Goldberg, Serena Gomez, Zach Galifianakis, Donald Glover, Dave Grohl, Ken Jeong, Neil Patrick Harris, that Columbian kid from Modern family).  With the lovely backup musicals provided by Brett MacKenzie of Flight of the Conchords, you can imagine that this is a film that you wouldn’t want to miss.   I even stayed through the credits.  The Muppets are Back! $9

If you heart the Muppets

Recommendations by …
Toy Story 3
Shrek
The Muppets in Manhattan

p.s.  brilliant

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/jason-segel-gets-date-invite-chelsea-gill_n_1185748.html

#1: The top fifteen grossing films of 2011 were all fairy tales. This makes sense as life has become so utterly complicated so as to be considered magical. Everywhere we operate machines that are powered by invisible forces. The Interwebs – invisible. Satellites and televisions – invisible. Cell phones – invisible. Air travel – invisible. Vending machines? I mean, how does the food get in there? Fucking magical.

Also we’ve never been in proximity (temporally or geographically) to more undeniably villainous creatures than right now. Serial killers. Priestly child molesters. Osama bin Laden. Bernie Madoff stole eighteen billion dollars. Eighteen billion. Can you even fathom what that means? It means that if he stole that amount in $100 bills he’d have thrown his back out trying to lift the three hundred and ninety-six thousand pounds of cash (a hundred and ninety-eight tons) into his getaway van. Supervillainous forces are upon us. It is a reasonable response for us to become desperate for superheroes.

The obsession with fairly tales also makes sense since we now live in a godless America. I do not judge Americans for denouncing their various gods. The church has lost so much footing given that 2.6 billion dollars they’ve spent in molestation-related costs. But now our trust has gone out aimlessly. Our spiritual energy has gone out in search of magic, omniscience, predetermination, and moral authority. And it has apparently found Harry Potter and Edward and the Pirates of the Caribbean.

I believe magic can exist at the cinema – but in general I believe it does not exist at the top of the American box office. For me, one of the best markers for good art is surprise. Unforeseen delight. The least surprising artistic pieces are oddly the most profitable and accessible – those showing at your local movie theater. And probably involving Shia LeBeouf. There is an incredible tolerance by American audiences to be consistently disappointed by the movies they go see. I’m not sure if this is courageous or borderline-retarded behavior.

How many films can you list that didn’t waste a single opportunity? I thought so. Michel Hazanavicius created the only truly ingenious picture of the year. He made ten times the film of the any other and he did it using one-tenth the money, one-tenth the technology. Still, the magic got in there  . . . $14

If you heart The Artist:

Recommendations by Li’l Fatass:
Campbell Scott’s & Stanley Tucci’s Big Night
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights
Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler

#2: Do you believe in ghosts?

What is a ghost?

Is it a spirit? Is it a spirit that seems to be caught in bed sheet? And it hacks in the night and often is sort of hovering?

A ghost can be many things. For example when you have a mentally-unstable wife that you chain up in your attic. Chain her up non-sexually I mean. Chain her up so you can kind of go downstairs and forget about her. When you chain her up, chain her real good so she won’t get away and maybe set the house on fire. That is sort of like a ghost.

When you have someone you do not love. When you suspect there is someone who loves you and you think you should love them. But you are always thinking, “She has kind of a little rat face.” And so you do not love them or envision them sexually. Sometimes you imagine a rat face on Fergie’s body but that is more hilarious than anything. But there is a lot of pressure riding on your love. When there is so much pressure and your friends are often trying to get both of you to the same party but you keep saying you have the flu. That is sort of like a ghost.

When someone loves you. When they love you but they are blind so they cannot see your beautiful face. They are deprived of your beauty and so that love is so sad and dependent on smell. And they have a gangly beard or overgrown eyebrows because it is now too dangerous to shave with an actual sharp edge. That is sort of like a ghost.

When you are in love. When you love a man but they do not live in the same city. They live in a different city from where they write letters. They write letters saying they are setting aside money so as visit soon. So every night they just sprawl out in bed and imagine your body. They imagine they have not just one penis but five to match your equally-magical five vaginas. And when you have sex it is like a puzzle piece being penetrated on all sides – a perfect alignment. They are saving and soon they will be flying and checking into a nearby hotel room. But there are so many bills that get in their way. Like last month they were getting behind on paying the installments for their dog’s chemotherapy. But it is worth it. He is looking better all the time, old Rex, he is a fighter. But then another setback. Last week Rex escaped from the backyard and got raped. And now he is traumatized. Now there are psychotherapy bills to pay. But still, little by little, they are getting closer to the cost of the plane and the hotel suite. A suite! So do not betray their love! That is sort of like a ghost.

Cary Fukunaga believes in ghosts. Moira Buffini believes in ghosts. Mia Wasikowska believes in ghosts. Michael Fassbender believes in ghosts . . . $13

If you heart Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre:

Recommendations by Li’l Fatass
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt
Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love
Pedro Almodovar’s Hable Con Ella

#3: The problem with Western cinema is it’s difficult to say retard or homo anymore without the audience using that slur to characterize the speaker. Yes, the SPEAKER not the SUBJECT. The audience member thinks, “Oh that Chinese woman just called her Jewish neighbor a money-grubbing kike. I guess they are trying to tell me she is a racist bigot.” While it COULD be the case it is NOT NECESSARILY so. That Chinese woman could totally be a very nice lady. She probably recycles and gives her leftovers to homeless people. Her neighbor might be Bernie Madoff.

Let’s say we have a character with a shaved head and wearing an army uniform. If he calls one of his bunkmates a “faggot” does it necessarily mean that character is a redneck? No. That character could be a Black or a Mexican for all we know. The use of pejorative slurs rarely gives a good indication of background or education or grooming. I myself went to a private university (cum laude) and I call my friends “queers” and “fairies” all the time. This is not because I am a bigot or even that my friends are homosexuals. It is because they like it. We laugh about it! They sometimes call me a “cocksucker” even though I’ve never even touched an erect penis when it wasn’t a dare in High School (and even then it was just with a tree branch and not my actual mouth). Sometimes slurs are just good for producing confusion. Like the time someone on the street asked me for spare change and I said, “No I hate stupid Chinks.” The homeless guy was Black!

My point is INSENSITIVITY does not just have a single function. But it is rarely used for purposes other than characterization. The Guard is changing all that. The Guard is changing a lot of things. The very idea of A HERO for one. Brendan Gleeson, too busy fucking around, too busy getting fucked-up at the moment. Or villains. When was the last time you saw the antagonists of a film given equally sharp, snappy lines as the protagonists? It is an unfair world where the most morally righteous (usually played by the most famous actors) are also in possession of the sharpest wits, the keenest intuitions, the cleverest comebacks. Did no one ever question why Humphrey Bogart coveted all the best lines? You think this is actually how it works in real life? Take a look at Mother Teresa; does she look like a woman that could make you laugh? Give me a fucking break.

The only brothers who rival the Coens for their strange, brutal and aggressively humorous renditions of film noirs are Martin and John McDonagh . . . $13

If you heart The Guard:

Recommendations by Li’l Fatass
Beat Takeshi’s Sonatine
Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels
Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy

#4: It is hard seeing your friends growing older. Not keeping old friends. But literally SEEING them. Looking into their fat faces. Pretending not to notice their coarse, gray hairs jangling around up there. You think, God they are so disgusting. How can they live with themselves? Why aren’t they crying? I am crying for you! You think, am I really such a piece of garbage to them they don’t even put on decent clothes when they answer their door? Look, he’s wearing the same sweatpants he wore three days ago when we went to Cold Stone Creamery and he ate enough cake-batter ice cream to fill up a sleeping bag.

Then of course there’s the other side to it. Where it’s hard for your friends to see you. Hard for them to say your name without wincing. Hard for them because you won’t eat anywhere you don’t have a coupon for. Hard for them because the last time you stayed over at their house you got drunk and suggested an orgy. And when they wouldn’t take their clothes off you got belligerent and told them to get you a gauntlet so you could slap them in the face with it.

Kristen Wiig is getting older. There is no denying she is getting older and will someday be dead. But before that happens she is going to make a little noise. She is bringing her Jets with her and her Jets are making a little noise. Do you think Tina Fey hates Kristen Wiig’s guts? Because they are both funny and oddly pretty in the same way? There is such fierce competition out there between smart but awkward, Jewy women. But I like to dream they are pals. I like to dream Tina Fey and Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler are great pals with each other. And they go to lunches together and eat yogurt or whatever funny women eat. And they say, we are really just as good as men at being friends. At being friends and at being funny. And even though everyone knows that is not true – we let them believe it is true. In that moment. Over a lunch of yogurts and possibly some grapefruit. Friendships are worth fighting for. Fighting for it until you are rolling on the floor, throwing fistfuls of sand in your enemy’s eyes! That is what this movie and every movie is about. Except Walt Disney’s African Cats. That movie is about lions. And rape . . . $13

#5: You remember what it was to be young. To be cherishing your young blood like it was a temple. A tiny temple to the executor of your unrequited loves. To be young and to have only kissed one girl. And when that girl became floppy and terrifying. You remember pushing that girl into a pond. You remember how she shook that pond water off like a dog. You remember how that pond water stung upon your face, the scum getting in your hair. You remember the fat face of your first kisser.

You remember taking long walks on the beach by yourself. And narrating your life to yourself as though you were someone more important. But you were never important. Even to your mom you were just one character in the story about her life. And how she went from being an optimistic young woman into your mom and now no one watches the story of her life anymore.

Richard Ayoade remembers you. He was behind a rock, taking notes. He was stashing away notes to use for the movie about your life. Of course he had to change a few things. He made you Welsh, for one. He made your parents into Jews. He gave them the noses of Jews and also the hypochondrias. But so much of your life is there. Your attempted suicides. Your girlfriend’s mother’s brain tumors. The handjob your mother gave to that neighbor with all that leather and a ponytail.

Do you want to watch a movie about your own life? On one hand it recapitulates all the humiliations you endured during your adolescent (i.e. prime masturbatory) years. On the other hand it affirms the importance of those humiliations. Maybe they will help you to own those humiliations. You will own them and then they will empower you. Or maybe they will smash you into a jelly like a very pressurized atmosphere. Either way you are old now and not very important. Your life is not worth very much. Very much money or very much to the earth. If a coyote were to find your meat he would say it is not very much meat to write home about. Make your meat work for you. Make your meat take a few more risks in this life . . . $11

If you heart Submarine:

Recommendations by Li’l Fatass
Wes Anderson’s Rushmore
Nicholas Jasenovec’s Paper Heart
The Hess Family’s Napoleon Dynamite

Part Un: Leg

The most controversial and provocative character in Hugo is Inspector Gustav’s leg.  Villains often are marked by a physical deformity – a disfiguring scar or handicap.  Here, Inspector Gustav (Sasha Baron Cohen) is marked by a disability, Leg, giving him an over-the-top limp with markedly loud squeaks.  Leg is not only a mark of evil, its complex character runs through a number of phases.  Slap stick humor is one of them.  Tsk tsk for teaching kids to laugh at Leg, that’s cheap. Then, Leg moves into phase pity.  Look at that poor gimp, half of a man, he is.  Leg is equivalent to a large vagina doused in perfume and wearing pumps.  Inspector Gustav is emasculated to the point of obscurity, the poor chump can’t even talk to the plain flower lady (Emily Mortimer).  As Leg’s final phase, it is transformed into a source of goodness.  Through Leg, Inspector finds the strength of compassion.  Finally, Leg is reborn as a functional limb and Inspector Gustav emerges as a fully whole man.  Happy ending (at the expense of Leg).

Part Deux: Hugo

There are too many bits and pieces I was unhappy with, it’d be too tedious of a list.  So I’ll stick with just one.  I’m willing to give up a lot of standards when I walk into a children’s movie, but above all, I expect an imaginative and entertaining story.  Instead, Hugo has lots of mystery around characters that are weak, bland, and boring.  Makes it difficult for me to get involved in their secret histories if I just don’t care.

The only redeeming quality about this movie is the celebration of early film makers.  I didn’t know anything about Georges Méliès, but watching his footage and other old footage was pretty tight.

Overall, complete lack of charm.

Recommendations from Yolkie:

City of Lost Children
The Secret Garden
Harry Potter

I knew in the opening lines that this movie was for me: “Mary Dinkle’s eyes were the color of muddy puddles, her birthmark, the color of poo.”

How come I’ve never heard of this movie?  Mary and Max, written and directed by Adam Elliot (Harvey Krumpet), is a humorous, dark film about the friendship of a lonely Australian girl and a middle-aged New Yorker.  The voice cast includes Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, and Barry Humphries.  Mary and Max forge a friendship despite the complete and thorough alienation that the world has forced upon them.  Don’t be fooled by the claymation, the story will take some bitter downturns.  It will go there.  But there is plenty of room for laughter.  And I did.  Outloud.  I also cried, at least once.  Maybe three times.

As I sat through, enraptured by the poignant story emerging, I thought – why the hell didn’t this movie get more attention?  Then I remembered that American hearts only have room for shit that smells like roses.  It’s got the quirky, oddball feel of Amelie combined with the cringe-filled pity of Muriel’s Wedding.  Mind you, this is all on top of wonderfully crafted claymation. Add a soundtrack full o’ heart, you got a stew goin’.

I would like for you to see this movie.  Here are three things that I hope will help you watch:

1) The trailer.
2) It is streaming on Netflix.
3) If you won’t take my word, check out Rotten Tomatoes – 94%.

I have to dedicate my last lines to Philip Seymour Hoffman.  What a voice you have… $11

Recommendations from Yolkie:
Triplets of Belleville
Amelie
Muriel’s Wedding

Other Reviews:
Life With Aspergers
Animation for Adults
More Than Expected

I’ve never seen a man so disfigured, give me the biggest chubby I’ve never known.  Nicolas Winding Refn doesn’t seem to know how to write women (Valhalla Rising would miserably fail the Bechdel Test); but, Refn knows how to write the most sexually electrifying  male leads to ever see the big screen.  See Drive.

To say Valhalla Rising is slow-paced, is a sure under-statement.  The first spoken words come as a surprise, because so much time has passed without language.  That is not to say it is silent.  Refn selects jarring, intense music that sets a perfect Purgatorial mood.  Normally, I give up easily on slow-paced movies.  I am often impatient and bored.  I was neither during this one.  The moments of stillness added to the suspense.  The gorgeous landscapes (filmed in Scotland) interspersed with shocking red clairvoyant impressions were enough to keep me at the edge of my seat.

The protagonist, a Norse warrior, begins as a slave with unrivaled fighting skills.  Refn’s movies are like the bashed-in heads he loves so much.  Rough, bloody, and raw, but soft on the inside.  The Norse warrior is 100% hero.  A noble savage that meets his match when he meets nobler savages, also known as Injuns.

Valhalla Rising did have a fatal flaw – a disappointing ending that I won’t spoil for you.  Even still, the movie is entirely worth watching.  I wholeheartedly recommend it… $11

As a side note, the picturesque landscapes of this movie reminded me of one my all-time favorite music videos.  Though entirely different in tone, it shares gray skies and rolling hills. See here.

Yolkie’s Recommendations:

Drive
The Hidden Blade
Let the Right One In

Other Reviews:
Vahalla Rising Review
The Speculative Scotsman
Between the Seats

The movie does not employ a locked room scenario—a snowbound cabin, an island vacation, an elevator malfunction, a sniper poised to shoot your telephone booth, etc. The two men live in this city, know this city. Either one can leave the other at any time. This is the danger we feel as we experience their courtship. There is no landscape to contain them. From time to time, the camera works hard (perhaps a bit too hard) to remind us of this fact, observing from a vantage point that illustrates all the empty space framing the couple. The melancholy is not overwhelming. No movie will be rejected by its audience when each and every scene is a possible occasion for sex.

Time rules the mechanism of the movie, yet it is the movie’s most artificial element. We know one weekend can easily comprise a two hour movie. We believe it. We know it. There is nothing we can’t believe. The actors rehearsed for months. The actors are improv artists. The actors are real life lovers. The actors are straight. These are all possibilities within the spectrum of current movie going experience. These possibilities no longer shock us, though we would like to know, one way or the other. This is the kind of arty thinking done by the character Glen that is a little annoying, but we accept it; it is okay because we love him as his new lover Russ loves him.

This is Russ’ movie more than Glen’s. Russ is the more attractive one, who thinks he is the less attractive one. We are over Russ’ shoulder. We follow Russ into the bathroom for a bath, to his job as a city lifeguard, to his goddaughter’s birthday party. When he and Glen have an argument, we follow Russ into retreat, where we see him recoup in silence. The movie places Russ in rare dramatic territory: when a gay man is comfortable out and has achieved a level of peace in both his private and public life, what is his life? What continues to contribute to his loneliness? One more ridiculously basic question this movie dares to take on.

There are several points in following Russ that the movie could abandon its project of reality and enter into a romantic haze: the morning after scene, the night of fun and drugs, the confessions of personal history, the goodbye at the train station. These scenes contain the possibility of transitioning into montage at any moment, cue majestic atonal score. Weekend has no score. Its music is diegetic, as well as its drama. Andrew Haight knows that love is an act as well as an emotion. There is danger to anything that can only be manifested as an act, and Russ and Glen are too aware of this, yet love generously, the best they are able to, for as long as they are able to. Andrew Haight makes sure you witness all the angles of their love. Andrew Haight has made the romance of the year, possibly of his generation. Weekend is worth every one of your $12.

If you don’t live in LA/NY and can’t catch this marvel, some acceptable replacements:

• Before Sunset
• It Happened One Night
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Let’s start with a list of what Tower Heist is not.  Tower Heist is not:
- an Italian Job/Fast Five/Ocean’s Eleven type thriller
- a raunchy funny comedy like Bridesmaids, or that funny at all
- an award winning film on any level

Tower Heist does have:
- current relevant material (it’s about a bunch of working class folk getting duped by a douchebag billionaire into a Ponzi scheme)
- a stellar supporting cast (Gabourey Sidibe with a Jamaican accent, where can I see MORE MORE of you?!, Eddie Murphy, GADS how I’ve missed you, Tea Leoni, you always surprise me by how freaking likeable and adorable you are)
- a ridiculous plot and premise, that is so laughably ludricrous

Things I could do without:
- Ben Stiller. I have seen too much of you, and you are boring and ugly. I am tired of looking at your pushover face and seeing you furrow your catepillar brows.  Go away.
- Matthew Broderick. You were so adorable, funny and cute when you were young. That does not translate into middle age, unfortunately. You just seem sad, very very sad and you depress me.

Tower Heist felt like a sequel to a very funny film, in the sense that the humor was too safe, and mostly toed or overstepped the line into just not being all that funny.  In the end, not as many laughs as I would have liked, only a few thrills, but in general, good if you just want to make your mind melt for a couple of hours…$6

If you heart Tower Heist:

Recommendations by …
Meet the Fockers
Beverly Hills Cop
Oceans Twelve

Drive is about perfection. Which is to say PERFECTION is what Drive IS DOING. Ryan Gosling for example has no pores. Pores for him would be a marker of defeat. There is no defeat in Ryan Gosling’s complexion. His complexion is a flawless ecosystem of radiance and coincidental lubrications. Ryan Gosling’s face is in fact an epiphyte. An epiphyte collecting its radiance from the moisture and nutrients in the air and rain and other coincidental detritus.

There is something perfect about watching a cat chase a mouse. Especially when the cat is deranged Albert Brooks armed with many shivs and abalone-encrusted razorblades.

People who saw Anton Corbijn’s The American know it was not perfect. The American did not contain Ryan Gosling for one thing. Well, Ryan Gosling could never be CONTAINED. But The American did not make an attempt to touch Ryan Gosling, did not attempt to CORRAL him, which was its primary mistake. In other ways The American was allowed to share some characteristics of Drive’s perfection. Its sparseness. Its assiduous attention to the movement and pacing of THE SCENE. Its desire to connect lonely souls for momentary alleviations of sufferings. Its desire to tear loved ones apart so as to intensify the sensation of longing. Its longing. Its willingness to produce longing. A longing to break from unsalvageable situations.

Sofia Coppola should sue Drive. For one thing Drive has stolen HER MOVIE from her. They have stolen HER MOVIE and made it better than she could have made it. That is the most painful form of stealing. As when a thief steals your lemons and makes his lemonade. As when a thief steals your girlfriend and puts her on a diet. Drive gives the illusion the narrative is meandering when the opposite is true. Each deviation adds up to the tightly-wound contraption of their narrative.

No Country for Old Men was perfect but not because of Javier Bardem’s haircut. Or was it? Maybe aesthetic perfection can be achieved by making a handsome man very, very ugly.

Oscar Isaac does something ingenious with his role. He saves his role from being easily forgettable. He is his own savior. That is sort of like being Jesus Christ if Jesus only saved one person. And that person was a role in a movie.

Violence – too much? A lot of spurting involved. A lot of spurting and Ryan Gosling stomping his boot through skulls. Skulls are like pumpkins to this guy.

Music. David Lynch thinks music should be very intrusive upon the spell the movie is making. David Lynch also thinks the Transcendental Meditation technique is going to help him levitate. The soundtrack of Drive does seem to levitate and speak above our conscious desires. When I put the Drive soundtrack in my own car I did think I was levitating for a moment, but it turned out I was only driving very slowly up a hill. Then I felt disappointed in the car I was driving. Conversely my car felt even more disappointed I was not Ryan Gosling.

Carey Mulligan is looking good as a blonde.

Slow motion. No one uses slow motion anymore. That is because nothing is perfect anymore except for brevity. But Drive is not afraid of slow motion. So as to prolong brevity. So as to prolong the only scrap of perfection that is offered to us.

Best movie out right now . . . $11

If you heart Drive:

Recommendations by Day Gun Sho
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Wild at Heart
Punch-Drunk Love

Evidence ONE – The plot: The movie draws you in with promises of cool effects with ultimate fighting, rampant injury (and possibly death!) and  machines and robots from the future, but REALLY it’s a manipulative plot to get grown men into the theaters to see the tale of an estranged father re-connecting with his emotionally retarded son and emasculate them into puddles of tears.  Yes, you will cry.  Unless you have a heart of steel like mine and laugh in the face of the cheesiness.

Evidence TWO – The kid’s name is Dakota: Ok so, not Dakota Fanning, but similar in the sense that the kid is  freckly fresh faced little boy named Dakota Goyo with a spunky attitude and you quickly get the point of his role.  To get at your heartstrings.  HA! Only if you are a pathetic sucker

Evidence THREE – The robot looks like WALL-E:  Now who is the most beloved robot of all (with a possible exception of Rosie from the Jetsons, Vicki from Small Wonder, oh and R2D2 and C3PO of course, and I also really do love my Roomba, but yeah, you get the idea)?  WALL-E!  the cutest mute robot in the whole darn universe.  Not only does Atom look like WALL-E, but it even has this slightly eerie smile…slightly eerie potentially cuz it’s always there…

Evidence FOUR and possibly the most compelling evidence – The dialogue: I don’t have all the dialogue with me here, since I don’t have the script but the ones I remember are the following (BTW Charlie Kenton is Hugh Jackman and Max Kenton is the kid, Dakota Goyo):

Charlie: I know I’ve done all kinds of wrong by this kid. I’d just like to do one thing right.

Charlie Kenton: What do you want from me?
Max  Kenton: I want you to fight for me.  That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

Max Kenton: I need you to teach him to box.
Charlie Kenton: Are you kiddin’ me?
Max Kenton: You know this fight game inside and out. He needs your moves, your commands!
Charlie Kenton: I can…I can’t!
Max Kenton: Yes, you can!

I hope you will see, ladies and gentlemen, that this is clearly an attempt to be and be with Ron Howard.  I say NO! Don’t let it happen.  No one can replace Richie Cunningham in our hearts and minds….rest easy Ron, I’ll stand by you.

And does anyone complain about robot-abuse in this movie?  All the poor robots, beating up on each other like a page from Michael Vick’s private playhouse but do I hear any complaints?  NO!  and why?  oh the infamy….$4

If you heart Real Steel:

Recommendations from Bernard Liptenstein LLC:
Iron Man
A Beautiful Mind
Apollo 13

Follow @FatKidsList

For a star studded cast, Crazy, Stupid, Love fell a little bit short of expectations. There was too much hype and too much expectation before I saw the movie. And while watching the film, I began to doubt whether I really liked movies starring Steve Carell as the main lead and the disappointment mirrored my experience when watching Date Night, except substitute Mila Kunis with Ryan Gosling as the resident hottie.

The biggest excitement of the film hands down is Ryan Gosling…I mean the only reaction you can possibly have whether you’re a guy, girl, single or not, straight, gay is HOT DAMN when you see those artfully crafted chiseled fucken abs. It was refreshing to see Ryan Gosling in a film where his function was to be just a hot piece of meat. I feel like I haven’t seen that in awhile…he’s either wooing his lady fans as the tragically lovesick lead in rom coms like The Notebook or beautifully tragic and dejected lead in Blue Valentine. It was quite cheesy the way they milk his hotness down to the Dirty Dancing “homage,” but you know nobody cares. It was actually funny to see and hear the reaction of the audience as they squirm in their seats in excitement.

Here, he plays a womanizer who volunteers his services to help Steve Carell rediscover his manhood with a makeover (one that I was not seeing significant transformation, but whatevers). Steve Carell plays the same used up role as in his other films. Frankly, it hasn’t really worked since The 40 Year Old Virgin. I will give this character more credit as it has a little more depth as he struggles between holding onto the love of his life and regaining his dignity.

The women in this film certainly took a back seat to the budding bromance of Steve and Ryan. The only thing I would say is that they didn’t really add or detract from the film. I don’t think Julianne Moore or Emma Stone was particularly great. I didn’t find their chemistry with their respective pairings particularly convincing, but I also don’t expect much of that from this sort of romcoms. Marisa Tomei was funny. Overall, the movie was entertaining, but fell a little flat. Definitely, not the best comedy of its class of the year as some might claim. The key is to watch with no expectation and you’ll walk out pleased. $6

If you heart Crazy, Stupid, Love:

Recommendations from Lil D:
Date Night
The Hangover
Bridesmaids