Cedar Rapids

A warm film at the perfect length and the best film i’ve seen in theaters in awhile. The best way to go into this film, and the way I went into it, is to try and not see or hear anything about it and just check it out cold. 

 The film features Ed Helms best role yet, he’s finally found his grove and is never too over the top like in ‘the office’ or ‘the hangover’. John C Reilly is the films ringer and kills - one of his best comedic performances ever. Isiah Whitlock Jr. was another awesome surprise and an amazing break from the usual stereotypical role that his part could have definitely been. Loved how Mike Birbiglia, Seth Morris & Mike O’ Malley rounded out each scene they were featured in. Anne Heche seemed a little forced at being the ‘quirky cool chick’ but then the story flips it on you and it actually works!

 Just Go With It

A stereotypical post-‘Big Daddy’ Adam Sandler movie fused with a stereotypical Jennifer Aniston movie. That’s all I really need to say. Is it funny? Well, the ‘funniest’ parts could be watched out of context as clips on YouTube or Funny or Die. There are a few recurring jokes and an ode to the warmth of Dennis Dugan’s past work but it never ever gets anywhere close to there. Surprisingly I realized this was my first actual Jennifer Aniston movie (excluding ‘Office Space’ & ‘The Iron Giant’). I thought she was good in it. I mean she wasn’t horrible, she did exactly what she signed up to do and some of her parts as she acted like the ‘hot shitty LA wife’ was in good humor, but nothing mind blowing. 

Things that I liked were the kids in the movie, they were pretty funny and are going to be ones to watch. Any bit with them should be YouTube’d for sure. Kevin Nealon has a pretty funny cameo as a super plastic surgery’d up dude from LA and Nick Swarson rocked with what he had (which wasn’t much). 

Stand-out horrible cameos included Nicole Kidman in a WTF role as Dave Matthews (yes from the band) wife and a terrible one line pop-in by the one and only Heidi Montag. 

Unknown

Geezus this film sucks. Like it’s really bad. I stayed in the theater just hoping that the ‘Hitchcockian’ twist would be cool but regrettably it wasn’t. I was explaining the movie to someone the other day and it actually sounded cool but in the end it’s terrible. As my roommate describes, it’s the unofficial, straight to DVD sequel to ‘Taken’. I also think the producers were sitting around thinking “ok. let’s take everything that’s cool about ‘Taken’ and throw it out the window’. January Jones continues to be a terrible actress. Another account likened it to a Jason Bourne film told by someone who didn’t understand ‘Inception’.

I think the worst part of the film was that after Liam remembers he’s a badass, he says “I didn’t forget everything” in the middle of a fight. Then they ADR’d in “I remember how to kill you, asshole” to make it sound more badass. Problem is, by that point in the movie it was to little to late.