The next time I see that Bleeker kid, I’m gonna punch him right in the wiener.

Juno

So this movie is cute in a pretty messed up sort of way. It’s really witty and quick and all that jazz but it’s making a mockery of a very sensitive subject. You don’t usually see movies about teen pregnancy that are a) bearable to watch and b) not on lifetime.

This is by far one of the best indie style movies I’ve seen, which are admittedly few. I’ve been attracted to this style of film the older and more mature I get. Don’t get me wrong, I still haven’t grown up all the way. I still laugh a fart jokes and think that superheroes  are by far the coolest thing in the known universes (marvel and dc are included in these).

It starts out with cute little Ellen Page walking around he’d neighborhood drinking a gallon of sunny-d. She goes into a pharmacy and takes a pregnancy test and for the third time In a row it comes out positive. Dwight Shrute works at the pharmacy and makes some really funny jokes about how she knocked up.

She tells her best friend, then the guy who would be called dad and then her parents. Doesn’t something seem a little messed up about the order of those informed? In ideal society it would go future dad, parents and then best friend. But let’s face it. This isn’t an ideal society. In a movie about a pregnant teenager they’re not trying to portray an ideal society. This is pretty much how it goes. Unfortunately for parents everywhere, their kids trust their friends more than they do their parents. I hope to become the exception but all parents do and parents don’t get trusted until the child reaches adulthood.

So I’m going to go into a little more depth on the story now. After everyone knows she decided to give the baby up for adoption. She found a nice looking couple in the penny saver magazine and goes to meet with them. the couple is Jason Bateman and big lips Mcgee whose name I can’t remember right now. The ideal looking couple.

Juno finds JB to be pretty cool for an old guy. More shenanigans ensue and she gets more and more pregnant. during this time she has a fight with Bleeker and they stop talking for a little while. She goes and has a n ultra sound and while there the ultra sound tech gets a little self-righteous and says responds to an answer to one of her question very inappropriately. The exchange goes thusly:

Ultrasound Technician: Planning to be surprised when you deliver?
Juno MacGuff: Well, no, but I want Mark and Vanessa to be surprised and if you tell me I’ll just, like, ruin everything.
Ultrasound Technician: Are Mark and Vanessa your friends at school?
Juno MacGuff: No, no, no. They’re the adoptive parents.
Ultrasound Technician: Oh, well thank goodness for that!
Bren: What’s that supposed to mean?
Ultrasound Technician: I just see a lot of teenage mothers come through here and it’s obviously a poisonous environment to raise a baby in.
Juno MacGuff: How do you know I’m so poisonous? What if these adoptive parents turn out to be, like, evil molesters?
Leah: Or, like, stage parents.
Bren: They could be utterly negligent. Maybe they’ll do a far shi***r job of raising a kid than my dumba** step-daughter would. Have you considered that?
Ultrasound Technician: I guess not.
Bren: What is your job title exactly?
Ultrasound Technician: I’m an ultrasound technician, ma’am.
Bren: Well, I’m a nail technician and I think we both ought to just stick to what we know.
Ultrasound Technician: Excuse me?
Bren: Oh, you think you’re so special because you get to play Picture Pages up there? Well, my five year old daughter could do that and let me tell you, she’s not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. So why don’t you go back to night school in Mantino and learn a real trade.

I like how the step mom tells her off. So more of the movie happens and it has a pretty cool twist at the end.

I’ not going to go into anymore detail because of the simple fact that I can’t do it justice. It really is a very good movie. Even more so now that I’ve lived with a woman while she was pregnant. It is just simply put awesome. Go watch it if you have seen and go watch it again if you have already seen it. Thanks for reading and have yourselves a merry little Christmas just in case you don’t hear from me before the holiday. Peace (out) on earth!!!

I’m pregnant.

I haven’t seen Junior in like a million years before now, and let me tell you something. The refresher was awesome! In case you’ve been living in a cave since the early 90s, this movie is about two doctors, who are denied FDA approval for a drug that would pretty much make miscarriage a thing of the past. They decide to take matters into their own hands, and get this. They make Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnant! Could a movie be any better than this? I think not.

Anyway, so Arnie is all pregnant, and he’s all hopped up on hormones, and his behavior is a lot like another favorite movie of mine (also on this list), Mr. Mom. He has the cravings, the hyperdrive emotions, mood swings, the whole bit. And it’s just amazing, is all I’m saying. Danny Devito… I can’t remember what I was going to say about him, because I just remembered to add “Renaissance Man” to my Pinterest and came back and forgot I was writing a blog.

Anyway, the whole cast is amazing. That may be what I was getting at. There’s the one lady. And Emma Thompson, whom I love. And Danny DeVito, whom I love. And Arnold, who I kind of loved before I discovered how freaking messed up he is. He is/was kind of like The Rock of the 80s/90s. You know what I mean? Big tough guy, kind of scary looking, starts out in some really BA movies and then turns to meaningless fluffy films. I’m talking to you, Kindergarten Cop. And stop laughing, The Tooth Fairy, you’re part of this too.

Anyway, so Arnold is pregnant, and the other lady is pregnant, and typical early 90s shenanigans happen, and the whole thing is utterly ridiculous. And awesome. Because “utterly ridiculous” and “awesome” are, for all intents and purposes, completely the same thing in my book. If you haven’t seen it in the last five days or so, I highly recommend it. Steve liked it even more this time around because now he can truly appreciate the psychotic nature of a pregnant person.

Now stay tuned for another ridiculous/awesome film about a pregnant person, Juno, reviewed by Steve!

This isn’t how I go.

Big Fish.

This is my favorite movie of all time for various reasons. Let’s make a list and discuss the individual points, okay? YAY!

1. The story line is amazing. It’s very reminiscent of the relationship that I had with my father.
2. The cinematography is fantastic.
3. The Music is enticing.
4. The acting is well done.

Reason #1: My father was a big talker, he told impossible stories and was never around while I was growing up. In the movie it was because he was a traveling salesman. In my life it was because my dad left when I was VERY little. I never knew the real him. He was a likable guy and tried to be everyone’s friend including mine. Unfortunately for me that isn’t what I needed, I needed a Father. Someone there to teach me how to shave, someone there to baptize me, to be a positive influence, to keep me going on the right path. Someone to help me with my advancement in the various levels of the priesthood. Someone to go through the temple with me for the first time, to cheer me on at my choir concerts. Like I said these are the things I needed.

What I got instead was a guy that we would go up to see in Montana over the summer for maybe 3 weeks at a time. His stories were very entertaining for a young boy but as I became a man I was struck with a hint of realism. I wanted the truth of how he lived his life, not what he thought I wanted to hear to think  that he was a cool guy. As an adult I wanted nothing more than to call him on it like Will does in the movie. I’ll never have that chance.

My father passed away on January 22, 2010. He went in for a surgery earlier that day and my step-mom found him lying on the floor in the middle of the night. The doctors say that it could have been a blood clot or perhaps a pulmonary embolism. He had had health problems for a long time but even still we didn’t see it coming this soon. Brittany was a savior for me, for even though I wasn’t as emotionally traumatized as someone would have been that had their father with them their whole life I still wouldn’t have handled it nearly as well. I’m just glad that they got to meet each other in this life.

Unlike the movie, my father’s funeral wasn’t filled with all the characters from his tall tales. Over the last year or so of his life he claimed to have been in the marine corps for all of his life. If he was as highly decorated as he claimed to be then there would have been a 21 gun salute and the whole enchilada. Instead some of the employees from the mortuary folded the flag and handed it off to my step-mom who, incidentally, still believes his impossible stories.

Enough of that.

Reason #2: The cinematography was marvelously done. All of the angles and the little details were very well taken care of. I have found that if your camera placement isn’t in a proper location for the moment you lose 90% of  the effect that is being sought out.

Reason #3: I eat, sleep and breathe music. I was once told by my best-friend Matt Maughan that if you were to dive in my head you would get caught in a musical tornado of lethal proportions. With that being said I think it safe to deduce that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to music. It is all very appropriate for every scene. It truly helps to draw you in deeper into the story and experience the same emotions as the characters.

Reason #4: The acting. All of the actors did a fantastic job at their individual roles. I was, still am and always will be very impressed with the caliber of the casting agent chosen for this movie.

Tim Burton, I know that you love Johnny Depp and all but I know with every iota that makes me me that Ewan McGregor was the perfect choice for this film. Johnny Never could have pulled this role off. I’m sorry to all of those Depp fans out there but admit it. He couldn’t have done it.

Well that’s all I have to say about the best movie known to man. A movie of such high caliber that it deserves a post of such length to describe it. Interweb, for now I bid you adieu. My beautiful and ever so lovely fiancee is asleep by my side and needs to go to bed and so do I.  Keep checking for the next review. Blades of Glory reviewed by the always stunning Brittany. Peace out!

Chicken mummy

We just finished the first movie of the experiment. The Adventures of Milo and Otis.

When I was a child I remember loving this film. Holding it in a place of high esteem.  Thinking that it was a great film. After watching it so many years later, I ponder what mental ailment I was suffering from that caused me to enjoy the movie to the extent that I did.

As a young lad I guess I didn’t know anything about animal rights because I think that the makers of this film violated every single one that they have.  I am shocked and appalled after seing this in my old age. I can understand that kids watch it with the mindset of hey they’re animals doing funny things. As an adult all you see is a bunch of animals being put in life threatening situations. We watched the credits to see if there was a way that PETA could sue the trousers off of the makers, but alas, there was no statement saying that no animals were harmed during the filming of this feature. At least they didn’t hide the fact that they probably went through 4 Milos and 7 Otises.

Another thing to be discussed. Puppy and kitten birth.  When we started watching my lovely fiancee made a statement to the effect of “I hope that you’re done with the french toast by the time that they show the pugs giving birth.” In my head I thought “Oh silly, they wouldn’t show that. It’s a kids movie for crying out loud!” Now I think “Why did I doubt you my love?” They show animal birth! No editing. No clever camera angles. All you see is, “Oh hey the kitty’s going into labor, they should cut away right about…” and it happened. A kitten pops out of that cat. Covered in embriotic nast, you see it. You hope that it’s over with that but oh no. You’re not that lucky. It switches over to the adorable pug family… in the midst of their intensive labor process. Not only does it show the puppy hanging out of the orifice but it displays the method of choice for removing the stubborn embryo. Dragging the little thing across the cave floor hoping it realizes that it needs to exit the womb that was its first apartment.

I love my grandma to death but so help me if she shows that movie to my children, I will move to a distant state where her cinematic preference will not affect my offspring. Ok that was a bit dramatic but you get the idea. SHE was the one that showed that to me and I do not want my children seeing it without my being there. Which ain’t going to happen cause I’m not sitting through it again.

There you have it. One down and who knows how many we have left but this will be a fun experiment. Tune in next time, same blog address and same blog time, for Aeon Flux. I think Brittany isn’t going to like but she’ll post the next review so you’ll find out.

BEFORE

I'm... hesitant.

Steve makes french toast before gross movies. At least THAT will be good.

AFTER

I have no words. Fetal position anyone?

I don't know why they say grown men don't cry. Steve pretty much lost it.

A scene reenactment for us to remember this movie by:

Yes, that is Steve holding an innocent animal precariously over a fire.