Monthly Movie Reviews – July, 2015

Stats

• Movies watched – 9
• Movies that were new to me – 5
• Movies for the bros – 4
• Monthly Masterpieces – The Adventures of Robin Hood

July 30

• Two Weeks Notice (2002) – An excellent example of the appeal of the romantic comedy at its most formulaic and mindless.  Just don’t think too hard or you’ll realize just how soulless Hugh Grant’s one-liner spouting love interest actually is.

July 24

• 27 Dresses (2008) – Possible lack of chemistry between the two leads aside, this really is one of the better romantic comedies.  Too bad Heigl became the box office whipping girl, because she really is fantastic in this.

July 23

• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) –  Superlative classic adventure film that could never get away with its dialog in today’s cynical world.  The final sword fight alone remains unmatched to this day in both its earnestness and its thrills.

July 19

• Home (2015) – Decent enough animated film about a naive alien going on a road trip with Rihanna.  I’ve seen worse, but it does seem a bit lazy that the main character is basically just a carbon copy of the Big Bang Theory dude.

July 17

• Magic Mike XXL (2015) – Pretty great road movie that has to be one of the more bro-centric films of the last decade while still coming off as, possibly, almost feminist at the same time.  My only real complaints are that the “WILD AND CRAZY DUDE-BRO ADVENTURES” the dude-bros get into aren’t really all that crazy, and that the final dance number section is way too long and not all that impressive due to the increasingly high bar set by the Step Up franchise.

July 14

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) – A prime example of the modern animated film trend of cramming a bunch of clever little “for the adults” jokes into a film that has little else to say.  Of course, I’ve never seen the first one, so maybe this was all bound to be lost on me.

July 12

• The Boxtrolls (2014) – Weird, dark animated film about cowardly trolls that live in boxes and the human child they take in.  Not bad, it is just a shame that with all the work spent on the beautiful animation, there wasn’t a tad more effort put into the script.

July 10

• Magic Mike (2012) – A rom com/drama directed by an art director, and, thanks to the earnest performances, it all actually turns out about as well as something like this can.  Plenty of D&A (well, not much dick actually), but this movie has more heart than you might expect based on the trailers.

July 4

• The Girl Hunters (1963) – My dad sums it up best: “This movie is like Spillane’s writing: good fun, a bit of style, but he’s still a hack.”  That said, Spillane is surprisingly mostly competent at playing his own literary creation.