The pReview Re-viewing
Half-Monthly Breakdown for
August 2013
Part Two
Clicking movie posters will take you to their Official Websites in a separate window!
by Jeff Finck
written: 8/27/2013
August was just too big of a month for movie releases and now you have to suffer through a whole 'nother entry. So.. You know.. Take that, internet viewers! Netizens? Internet people.. Something like that.. I don't know. If you missed the first five movies of the month, be sure to reverse the flow of time and catch what I wrote about (earlier this month).. Or, because you failed to read it when it originally posted, you could just click this very disappointed donkey:
August 16
Kick-Ass 2
Everyone remembers where they were the first time that they heard an eleven year old call someone a cunt, right? Granted, some of us were at our Uncle Richie's ranch witnessing their preteen cousin berate them for not being able to bring themselves to shoot a squirrel with a pellet gun, but I digress.* Most of the rest of us were probably sitting calmly in a theater, being bathed in violence and Nicolas Cage as Big Daddy. This would become his most fantastic performance since Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
*not a true story
Now, after the tomfooler-ous adventures in the first flick, Dave (Aaron Johnson.. hehe A-A-Ron.) aka Kick-Ass-- a boy who suffers such severe nerve damage, that he decides to become a superhero version of that bad guy from Die Another Day, and who is so supernaturally lucky in his bouts against crime despite his terrible fighting skills, that Domino and Han Solo send him fan-mail-- This go-round, Dave teams back up with Hit-Girl (Chlo(funny "e") Grace Moretz). Hit-Girl, you may remember, is the previously mentioned, impish little girl that parents across the nation condemned for her foul language.. But seemed to be blind as a drunken fucking mole when it came to the fact that this same little girl was graphically gutting people and spouting off desensitized one-liners.
So, the two heroes from the first film are back! ..and fighting the evil machinations of The Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Kind of. He's not really The Red Mist, anymore. In the first movie, he was helping his dad (Mark Strong) with taking down Kick-Ass, Big Daddy, and Hit-Girl, but then his dad caught the first train to a rocket in the chest and exploded forty floors above fucking everything. Well, The Red Mist dons a new name and immerses himself in cos-play as the world's first real super-villain, called The Mother Fucker. In order to take him out, Kick-Ass and Hit Girl need to recruit a whole slew of Mystery Men-like allies with equally great Mystery Men-like names. Names like Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), Battle Guy (Clarke Duke), and The Waffler (Dane Cook)*!
*The Waffler is actually briefly and *only* in Mystery Men. You should probably go watch Mystery Men.
Paranoia
Basically, Adam (Liam Hemsworth aka Baby Thor) is a low-level employee at Gary Oldman Industries. In a turn of events, however, he is sent in as a corporate spy to work for The Harrison Ford Corporation of America. As he gets deeper undercover into the world of white collar crime, I assume no one goes to jail and everyone has to pay a small fine because the government is full of pussies that are comfortably sagging in the pockets of CEOs. (graphic.)
The Butler
Forest Whitaker portrays a man called Cecil Gaines. Gaines is based on the real life Eugene Allen, a butler to eight presidential terms, one presidential assassination, MLK, Jr's assassination, the Vietnam War and several major civil rights movements. Basically, the Weinstein Company wanted to try their hands at a more grounded, realistic version of Forrest Gump.
Jobs
Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs in a biopic. Seriously.
August 23
The World's End
What do you get when you snag Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, and Eddie Marsan and team them up with Edgar Wright? I don't know, yet, because it's not out yet in the U.S., but I assume it will blow my testicles directly through my knees. (*Editor's note: I saw this last Saturday and am still recovering from testicular evacuation. GO WATCH IT, NOW!) The story seems to follow Gary (Simon Pegg), an alcoholic who looks like he hasn't quite let go of his early 90s goth days. Well, twenty years ago, Gary and four pals (Oliver (Freeman), Steven (Considine), Andrew (Frost), and Peter (Marsan)) tried, and failed, to make a Middle Earthian journey down the Golden Mile-- the greatest twelve pub bar-hop known to their hometown of Newton Haven-- Which terminates at The World's End. Now, Gary decides to hunt down his old drinking buddies (who, by the way, have moved on with their lives) and somehow convince his dear friends all to join him once more unto the beer-soaked breach. Now that they're older and wiser, can they, at long last, reach The World's End? Or will they have to rely on their ancient and storied martial arts training to fend off an alien invasion?
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
Remember my last entry and how I was talking about how certain book-to-movies are still trying to fill the billion dollar void left by the finales of literary movie-gods Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Twilight? Yeah, well, here's another scrapper for the battle royale. Based on a, the first book in the not-so-fantastically named The Mortal Instruments series, City of Bones follows the plucky adventures of Clary (Lily Collins). Wait a minute.. Seriously.. What the fuck is with main character names in young adult fiction?! ..Anyway.. Clary (..fucking Clary) discovers that she descends from a long line of demon hunters who hunt demons down because demons keep, you know, popping up and generally causing mayhem and, you know, like, they keep being dicks. So fuck 'em, I guess? She is joined by Jace, the offspring of Johnny Rotten and that albino from The Da Vinci Code. He's played by good friend of the YA genre, Jamie Campbell Bower. (Really, though.. Motherfucker was in Harry Potter AND Twilight!)
You're Next
You know what's fun? Family togetherness in the woods! Yeah! Nothing bad ever happens! Yay! Oh wait.. No, nothing bad ever not happens.. Nothing.. Never? ..YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN! So the Davison family decides to ignore the fact that you can't go into the woods without something terribly Godawful happening to you and your loved ones. As their gathering gets underway, people immediately start getting killified by masked murderers. What the killers don't know, however, is that one of their victims, Erin (Sharni Vinson), knows how to step the fuck up.
August 30
Getaway
Finally! Get Selena Gomez back into action! ..er.. uhm.. I mean, Ethan Hawke! Get Ethan Hawke back into action! I haven't been this excited since I found out there's a Prince and Me Part 4! As far as the plot goes, all I can really tell is that Jon Voigt is obsessed with making Ethan Hawke drive places. Then he makes him kidnap a wizard of Waverly Place and then.. I don't know.. Drive some more? I guess? It kind of looks like Gone in 60 Seconds went out for a night of drinking, found the Phonebooth and then they both took home and tag-teamed Collateral. Yeah.
One Direction: This Is Us
In the immortal footsteps of Miley Ray Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers and Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.. And Michael Jackson, to a lesser extent.. One Direction is FINALLY releasing a pseudo-documentary about their totally outrageous lives on the road! ONE DIRECTION ZOMG!!!!!!111one1one11!!!!
Final Breakdown: This half month's Final Breakdown is brought to you by coming up with totally unique and completely never thought-of-before (noooooot sarcasm) dirty names for all the movies coming out! And Jack in the Box (tm)! ..not really Jack in the Box.. Although, I did just eat some pretty damn tasty Yogs in Zee Bogs and it was exquisite. Mmm.. Remembering terrible-for-me food.. :drooool: What was I saying again? Oh yeah!
Kick-Ass 2
Paranoia
The Butler
Jobs
The World's End
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
You're Next
Getaway
One Direction: This Is Us