Weekend Movie Round-Up

Pretty much every weekend you will find my family with butts firmly planted on couch or chair with the dog watching TV. Netflix delivers 1 - 3 new videos for us to watch or we rent something from iTunes or dive into our own collection of DVDs. What better way to spend some time than with the whole family doing something we (typically) enjoy while having a bit of popcorn or frozen yogurt dessert. This weekend has been no exception with 3 new (to us) movies from Netflix and one from our own library. Here are some quick reviews of each.

From the Rough - We started with Pierre Bagley's bio-pic about Catana Starks, the first woman to coach a college men's golf team. The setting is Tennessee State University where the administration has just decided to start a golf program. Coach Starks takes over and has to search far and wide for members of her fledgling team. This is a typical feel-good sports movie with a scrappy coach working hard, running into major challenges mid-way through the movie, and then…(well you know). Tajari P. Henson is very convincing as Coach Starks and our favorite character was Roger played by the great (and unfortunately, late) Michael Clarke Duncan. If you want a sports movie that hits all the right notes, you can't go wrong with From the Rough, it gets 4 Mick Happies. Side note, my family usually won't watch sports-based movies with me but they watched this one and enjoyed it.

Draft Day - To follow one sports movie with another, I was on my own. Draft Day stars Kevin Costner as the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns, Sonny Weaver Jr., on the fictional 2014 NFL Draft Day. Joining Costner are Jennifer Garner as his co-worker and girlfriend and Dennis Leary as the Browns Head Coach. In this movie, we are given a glimpse into the high-pressure behind the scenes work at an NFL franchise on one of the biggest days of the year. It is hard to know if what is portrayed on screen is accurate to what goes on in real life, but what you get in Draft Day is compelling and will keep you interested all the way through. Weaver is tasked with making "a splash" to help put fans in seats or it may cost him his job. We get to go along for the ride as Costner deftly plays a man who is on the edge of losing it on the biggest day of his GM career. By the end of the movie, both my wife and daughter had joined me to see how things wrapped up and asked questions to be caught up on what they missed. There are many many ESPN cameos and interesting characters. Draft Day was an excellent movie and never seemed to have a slow point. Draft Day gets 4.5 Mick Happies.

Moms' Night Out - We followed up the sports movies with a comedy about stressed moms and incompetent dads thinking that would be fun. The Andrew and Jon Erwin directed film includes some familiar actors/actresses/celebrities including Patricia Heaton (who we liked from Everybody Loves Raymond), Sean Astin and Trace Adkins. Sarah Drew plays the lead, Allyson, who is losing her mind trying to deal with 3 kids and needs a break. What follows is a car crash of a night as Allyson and two friends try to get a little down time. The movie started off well and hit many of the right notes with some sharp (and accurate) portrayal of the modern stay-at-home overworked mom. It then proceeds to be less fun as the film progresses with the husbands being nearly useless - it's bad with the men without kids are the ones with the most common sense. Trace Adkins is fun as Bones, a tattoo artist the ladies run into. Another quibble with the film is that it is a bit over the top with the presentation of Christian values - I am completely okay with faith-based films, but this one tends to get a little preachy at times and wastes screen time that could have been used for more laughs or wrapping up minor plot points. Overall, Moms' Night Out was the weakest of the films this weekend at 2 Mick Happies.

Hackers - Last but not least, my wife wanted to end on a proven good movie after Moms' Night Out didn't quite leave us happy. Hackers is the classic 1995 film written by Rafael Moreu, directed by Iain Softley and starring none other than Jonny Lee Miller and Angeline Jolie (both looking very much like teenagers - or at least early 20-somethings). The film also has Jesse Bradford and Matthew Lillard along with Lorraine Bracco and Marc Anthony (yep, that one). This is the fictional story of some high school hackers who get into some trouble when they tap into the wrong company's computer and have to fight the company and the FBI to save themselves. Miller plays a hacker who 7 years previously had been indicted for crashing over 1,500 computer systems with a virus. Jolie plays his present day nemesis and, of course, erstwhile love interest. As I said before, this is a classic. There is chain-smoking teenagers, weird outfits, edgy computer geekery, a laughable visualization of the interior of a computer system and generally a lot of fun. Including one of our favorite lines ever about Spandex. You can't go wrong with a movie that has a character named Cereal Killer who proclaims "Look at that pooper". Hackers is a must see if you haven't already and gets 5 Mick Happies. If only 1995 was really like that.

Fall 2012 TV Review

My family and I don’t have regular TV in our house. We watch all of our TV online, through Netflix (DVDs or on-demand) or by purchasing the shows through iTunes. Surprisingly, that doesn’t keep us from missing out too much on what comes out each year. We have also found it cheaper to buy Season Passes than to have cable TV for more than a year now. What it does make us do is choose what we want to watch more carefully and not waste our time on crappy shows just because they are on. In this post, I will cover all of the shows we are watching and those that we have stopped.

Go On – This NBC comedy starring Matthew Perry as Ryan King is one of our favorite new shows and about the only comedy we are still watching besides the Big Bang Theory. I have watched a lot of failed Matthew Perry shows since Friends and this one finally seems to get it right. We get a sarcastic and self-centered character for Perry to play. We also get an ensemble cast of likeable weird people who are part of the grief support group that Ryan King joins when dealing with the loss of his wife. There is some out there quirkiness going on in the show, but it is consistently fun and funny. Four Mick Happies.

Elementary – The Sherlock Holmes in New York with a lady Watson show. This new procedural drama has the right mix of smart insight by Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), banter with Dr. Watson (Lucy Liu) and everything is wrapped up in ~42 minutes. I am a big fan of the BBC Sherlock show and this is not it and is good all on its own. There is definitely room in my viewing world for both. Besides, Elementary’s Holmes seems way more edgy and at risk of drug relapse (and associated problems) than the BBC version Holmes. If you want to buy it like we do, iTunes has the Season Pass in SD for only $24.99 (about a dollar an episode). Also Four Mick Happies.

Malibu Country – Reba McEntire’s new comedy about a recently divorced woman making it on her own with her kids. We gave this one two episodes and stopped in the middle of the second. It isn’t as good and the cast isn’t as interesting as her former Reba show. Lily Tomlin is good as her mother, but that isn’t enough to carry any show or we wouldn’t be waiting for The New Normal to come out on DVD (Ellen Barkin ruled that show in the pilot). Malibu Country gets two Mick Happies.

Suburgatory – This little comedic look at up-scale suburban living us by surprise last year and we really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the delay between seasons has left us feeling that the best was behind for this show. The jokes seem the same, the characters also seem the same, but it just wasn’t as funny this time around in the first two episodes we watched. Don’t think we will be giving Suburgatory a full season pick up in our house. Two to three Mick Happies.

Revolution – The post-apocalyptic show from Eric Kripke on NBC. The show is set in a future where all forms of electricity have stopped and looks at how things might be eleven years after that event. Some of this show really scratches my dystopian future genre itch and the writers are trying to have reason behind how it happened and (if) it can be fixed, but the stories and situations are pretty far fetched. I have been watching this online from NBC.com and will probably keep watching though I find I have to really work up to finding the 45 minutes to tune in. At best three Mick Happies.

Big Bang Theory – The king of all comedies right now. We have all of the seasons on DVD or in iTunes and have been watching this one as a family. It is too bad that this season seems to be going downhill for us. We are not as amused by the typical jokes. My wife and I discussed it and where the show is losing us is:

·      Leonard and Penny – these two need to break up.

·      Penny – she needs something other than drinking and back and forth relationship with Leonard.

·      Howard – needs to grow up a bit. C’mon, man, you’re married to Bernadette (one of the more interesting characters on the show).

One of the few bright points, besides Sheldon (as always), has been the budding “bromance” between Stuart and Raj. The other is Alex, Sheldon’s new assistant. More of that, less of the 3 bullets above please. We are still watching, but just less amused. Three Mick Happies.

Grimm – This is one of our favorite shows right now. It is based on the premise that all of the Fairy Tales creatures are real and hiding amongst us. The Grimm are people who are descended from the Brothers Grimm who can see the creatures for what the really are and have traditionally hunted them. Grimm is a procedural cop show with a supernatural element and season one was good and season two (this year) is as well. We are about eight episodes in (out of 12 aired to date) and liking it. The only nit to pick here is the storyline about Juliette’s memory – if you are watching you know how annoying it is. This show has supplanted Supernatural as our supernatural weekly fix – Four Mick Happies.

Other mentions of shows we liked but aren’t watching this year:

Supernatural – The wife has seen everything up to the end of last season and I have watched most of them as well. The end of last season was a let down with where the characters ended up. Felt too much like that time when Dean went to Hell and Sam was left on Earth. Maybe we will catch this season when it hits Netflix next fall. Certainly didn’t seem worth us paying to see the week they air – we can wait if we watch at all.

Raising Hope – We have been big fans of Raising Hope since it started, but gave up after last season when they killed the pig (the new version of Jump the Shark) and brought back Hope’s mom. Haven’t watched and probably won’t until a far future date when it is the only thing available on Netflix on demand.