Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Lead Actors: Adam Sandler,
Andy Samberg,
Selena Gomez,
Kevin James, Steve Buscemi,
David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Fran Drescher, Megan Mullally, Dana Carvey, Mel Brooks, Chris Kattan, Jon Lovittz
Producer: Allen Covert
Plot Synopsis: Dracula, played by Adam Sandler, is now a successful Hotel Owner and Manager in Transylvania. He has employed all of his old friends at the hotel, including The Blob, Frankenstein, Werewolf, The Invisible Man and many, many more.
Much to Dracula's chagrin, he has also had to employ Jonathan, his dopey new son-in-law from Santa Cruz, played by Andy Samberg.
Jonathan has an easy, vague marketing/human resources job under Dracula at the Hotel. He continues to recommend humanizing the hotel a little more, and Dracula keeps turning him down.
The big news in this second installment is that Dracula's daughter, Mavis, played by Selena Gomez, is pregnant.
This excites everyone. It also creates tension because Dracula is desperate to extend his family lineage, and it appears as if Jonathon and Mavis' child may be his only opportunity to do this.
When the child comes out a boy, this is good...but Dracula wants more. He wants to know if the child will be a human who turns into a vampire, or just a human. At first, it appears as if the child is simply a nice little boy.
Dracula, restless, takes matters into his own hands by trying to scare the fangs out of the boy. This, he says, is a trick his father Vlad used on him.
He gathers all of his cronies: Wolf Man, Zombie, The Blob, The Invisible Man and they embark on a road trip. The purpose of the road trip is to help the boy become his true monster self. Even children viewers can see that the road trip doubles as a way for these monsters to rediscover their youthful, monster selves.
Dracula et al romp through the greater Transylvania area, and visit all their old "haunts" and try to show the boy the "virtues" of being part monster by revisiting their own ghoulish pasts.
Who Would Like it and Why
Sandler fan and also fans of Robert Smigel. This was co-written by Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler, who first teamed together so many years ago at Saturday Night Live - Smigel head writer there and Adam Sandler an actor. Smigel was a mentor to Sandler when Sandler first worked for the show. Later, Smigel went on to head write for Conan O'Brien. One of Smigel's more popular creations while at Saturday Night Live was the cartoon, "Ace and Gary, the ambiguously gay duo".
Sander and Smigel find the humor both for children and adults, in Transylvania. The animation was good and showed the monster's soft and gooey sides.
Who Might not Like it and Why
In the past, many have found Adam Sandler
obnoxious as the lead in his own movies. He has out-aged his good looks and let's face it, his acting chops were never that great in the first place. Here he does an OK job as the voice of Dracula, the doting and overbearing father, and now grandfather.
Highlights/Top Scenes
Dracula thinks that he will get his grandchild to fly for the first time by throwing him off a very high up structure.
He throws the kid off a very high building, and the kid doesn't show any signs of flying so Dracula has to dive down and catch the child who is hurling towards earth. This is all caught on several smart phones and a social media mash-up is made from the incident.
All of Dracula's monster friends are overweight and past their prime, and about as scary as Teddy Bears. The werewolf has literally exchanged his tattered clothing to a white shirt, tie and pants. He also has a littler of 300 puppies who have worn him thin. He walks with a hunched back and a slightly resigned way about him.
The blob proves to be critical in the plot as he can carry anything inside of him and also can be blown up into a giant flying raft.
Gomez is great as Mavis, the still youthful and exuberant yet careful and doting mother.
Three Mike and Ikes.
Director: Stanley Kramer
Lead Actors: Sydney Poitier, Tony Curtis, Theodore Bikel
Producer: Stanley Kramer
Plot Synopsis: Two men are driving a prison work crew back to prison. They sit in the front of the bus, trying desperately to make out the road!
What happens next is a crash in the rain. By the time the authorities arrive at the crash site, we realize that some on the chain gang died, some are being taken to the hospital, but that Noah and John escaped.
Who Would Like it and Why
People who like movies about people. This movie centers not only on the two prisoners and the humanity they might or might not have hidden under their rough exterior, but also the Sheriff Max Muller whose job it is to find them.
As the two make their way through the countryside, we meet a bloodthirsty mob, a compassionate former convict, a young boy and a very lonely widow.
We get to see these people through the eyes of the prisoners for a short time and how they act under extraordinary circumstances.
Sydney Poitier Fans
Sydney Poitier is a dynamic, good-looking actor who was doing his thing before Denzel Washington had even left his mom's house. He always said he would never play a character demeaning to his people, and he safeguards that oath here in this movie. Poitier gives Cullen a quiet dignity, and reveals a bit of soul underneath the terrible prison garb.
Tony Curtis Fans
The father of Jamie Lee Curtis. He displays great range in this character study movie.
Who Might not Like it and Why
Well, this movie is in black and white, and it moves a little slower. But it is solid!
Highlights/Top Scenes
The Posse that Sheriff Muller assembles has some pretty interesting yet blood thirsty characters in it. There is the man in charge of the dogs who is more protective of his K9s then he is the prisoner. Then there is the temporarily deputized hillbilly who insists on playing rock and roll music on the radio during the entire chase.
Bikel's relaxed pace as the Sheriff, then his mounting intensity as he realizes his job might be on the line if he doesn't catch these men is interesting to watch as well.
Three Mike and Ikes.
Director: Andrea Di. Stefano
Lead Actors: Josh Hutcherson, Claudia Traisac, Brady Corbet, Benicio Del Toro, Carlos Bardem
Executive Producer: Benicio Del Toro
Plot Synopsis: This movie starts in 1991 in what is considered to be the height of power for Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
We meet Escobar, played by Benicio Del Toro, the day before he has agreed to surrender to state authorities and serve time in jail for the assassination of a state official.
On a wacky 1991-era mobile phone he calls his mother, and with terrible reception, he prays with her and confesses to God that everything he has done, he did for his family.
Then he gets down to business - the business of hiding away his fortune.
His plan consists of fanning it out into different towns, and hiding it in caves all throughout rural Colombia, and closing the caves with dynamite, and then finally killing those who know about the location.
This is where the naive Nick, played by Josh Hutcherson of Hunger Games fame, steps into the plot. Escobar asks Nick, who is now an affiliate member of his family (through his marriage to Escobar's niece Maria,) to drive one truck full of loot to a small town. He is then to accompany himself with another man to take the loot to a cave and blow up the entrance.
Escobar then tells Nick that he will have to kill the other man once the errand is done.
In Nick's face, we can see that this will be a problem. We can tell, in Nick's eyes, that he has never killed anyone before.
But how has this skipped the mind of Pablo Escobar, the most successful drug trafficker of all time, a billionaire who has risen to his level by taking care of every detail at every point. Or has it? Is this a test? A final test to truly earn the hand of his niece and prove himself a useful gringo?
Who knows? We are then catapulted to two years earlier, when Nick meets Maria, played delightfully by Claudia Traisac. https://claudiatraisacfanfl.tumblr.com/
Nick and his brother, played passionately by Brady Corbet, are setting up a camp and surf school in the woods near a beautiful beach on the coast of Colombia. Maria is running humanitarian errands funded by her Uncle in the closest city to the beach.
Nick sees her from a distance, then makes his move. He asks to rent her truck, a rare and useful machine in this era in rural Colombia. She offers it for free. Smiles are exchanged, pheromone, no doubt, released.
Nick, a happy-go-lucky surfer dude, proceeds to seduce Maria with the ease that only a surfer dude can have. Maria perhaps not used to the zeitgeist of gringo-surfer-dude charm,
falls head over heels for him.
In one scene Nick awakens and she is awaiting him, sparsely clothed, right at the foot of his hammock, as the sun rises over the beach.
As this dream-like courtship ensues, Nick slowly, slowly, perhaps too slowly, realizes why Maria would have a nice truck at her disposal in this poverty-ridden state, and more importantly WHO her uncle is.
Her uncle is Pablo Escobar. At at that time, in 1991, that name perhaps didn't carry much weight to Nick, a Canadian surfer. But now, as I read about him posthumously, I know that he was and remains in death the world's most lethal cocaine kingpin.
Let's put it this way: if you did cocaine in the 1980s in the US, it was most likely brought to you by Pablo Escobar.
Finally, after being flown to a private island via helicopter to celebrate Escobar's wedding, Nick asks Maria a very important question: "where does your uncle get all of his money?"
"Cocaine," Maria says, matter-of-factly. "My people have been chewing the cocaine leaf for years, and why shouldn't we make money for our country exporting it?!"
It was at that point that I could almost see powdery-nosed Charlie sheen spring up from the bosom one of his angels screaming "WINNING!"
Winning indeed. Escobar has a ranch on a private island. He has a vintage car collection. He not only has his own stable of horses but also a few elephants (and hippos that were not pictured in this movie).
Wikipedia estimates Escobar's net worth at the height of his power at $30 billion. To put that in context-that's a lot more than Magic Johnson.
It is unclear from Hutcherson's limited reserve of acting expressions
whether Nick is seduced by this, or simply very in love with Maria, or both. But he does convey some fear and apprehension which is normal.
Nick and Maria end up moving in with Escobar and his family. In one scene, the family sits at a table eating, and Escobar's henchman have their guns with them at the table, just to the right of the steak knives. This unnerves Nick.
Who Would Like it and Why
The people who liked The Last King of Scotland and other political thrillers would enjoy this. It is a political thriller but it's also a way to showcase Benicio Del Toro's growing acting abilities. He plays Escobar as eccentric and incredibly charming, calculating and of course, ruthless.
Del Toro seemed to be having much fun in this role.
Who Might not Like it and Why
Rational people might be appalled at Nick's ignorance and his slowness in realizing that being linked with the Escobar clan would shorten his life by about 60 years.
It raises the question: if you met the perfect woman and she is wild about you, would you let it bother you that her uncle's henchmen were always washing blood off of themselves in the horse stables?
Why do drug dealer's relatives have to be so beautiful and enticing?!
Highlights/Top Scenes
There are several "sizing up" scenes between Escobar and Nick that are transparent to the audience as to what's really going on.
Escobar seems to be deciding what to do with Nick- whose only real skill is surfing. How can he be of use to the family? All of these scenes are acting highlights for Del Toro, who most of us first saw about 20 years ago in the movie Usual Suspects, where he played a much pettier criminal.
Also, let's face it, Maria is seductive and innocent and lovely.
There is a scene where Nick is supposed to kill a young man. This scene and the build-up to it were done exquisitely well by Di Stefano - a first-time director but an accomplished writer who gave us the movies "Life of Pi" and "Nine".
No one is exactly sure how Nick is going to handle this dubious errand handed down by Escobar. What ensues is a moral dilemma that this surfer never expected to encounter as he left Canada with his brother to surf south of the equator.
Another epic scene is when Escobar serenades his new bride in front of his family at a wedding. I am not sure the style of this singing, but it is clear that Del Toro nails it to the wall, and his bride as well as some of the other women in the crowd are ALL hot and bothered.
It was funny and charming and again Del Toro, who also gained much critical praise in another movie about cocaine, Traffic, was having a blast.
And why not?! Life is short, especially if your vocation is supplying the United States of America with that white gold!
Three Mike and Ikes
Director: Andy Fickman
Lead Actors: Kevin James, Raini Rodriguez, Keir O'Donnell, Eduardo Verástegui
Producer: Mary P. Ewing
Plot Synopsis:
Paul Blart- eccentric mall cop, father, man.
This is a further examination of the lovable Blart, played brilliantly by the even more lovable and talented Kevin James of "King of Queens" fame.
Blart, and his buddies that he meets up with at the Security Officer's Trade Association convention in Vegas, seem to embody what the average person sees in security guards. They are slow, overweight and weird with a devotion to their job that is hard to grasp. As this movie goes on though, we learn that they are also passionate about service and what they do, and at the end of the day they cannot resist the urge to help someone.
This is where the beauty of the movie was for me: the hearts of these sincere security guards who would instinctively save the life of the cruelest most base individuals without even thinking about it.
This is beautifully illustrated in a realistically emotional speech in the middle of the movie as Blart speaks to his fellow security guards at the convention as the key note speaker. Much like ambulance drivers, doctors and other freakishly devoted professionals, security guards share the urge to help their common man. That's what distinguishes them, and gives them reason to get up in the morning, every morning without fail and without calling in sick to work.
Therein lies the key to any good character development in story-telling: likability. Likability, and that is why James, about sixty pounds short of having a perfect body or six pack abs, has enjoyed a long and illustrious career in comedy. He makes Blart someone I would want to be my friend and someone I would care about.
In Blart's latest adventure, after a series of terrible personal troubles and losses,he is invited to speak at a trade convention for security officers in Las Vegas.
This invitation is a boost to Blart and he is eager to attend. So he goes to the convention, with his daughter, who has just been accepted into the University of California at Los Angeles, but is too afraid to tell Blart about this.
Blart, to the delight of viewers who have stuck with the movie this far in, reunites with some old friends in the Security Officer's Trade Association convention.
His friends are as weird in appearance and personality as he is, and together they all form a weird posse.
This section is great character development on the director's part, as I feel like I've seen all of these characters before, somewhere, whether it was a mall like the one where Blart works, or an airport, or a convention building, or even a Ralphs or CVS in Los Angeles.
Let's face it, it takes an abnormal person, in my eyes, to go after a job as a security officer.
The plot is that some very attractive and elite criminals who have decided to steal all of the art from the Wynn Casino and Resort.
They are highly trained, athletic, and they have a plan. It's a great plan too, but either they ignored the fact that security officers from around the country would be sharing the hotel with them that weekend, or they underestimated the significance of it.
You can see this coming a mile away, but through a twist of events Paul Blart catches wind of the heist, and tries to stop it, at first alone then with the help of his fellow security officers.
What ensues is an underdog story, the ugly and not so pretty battling the beautiful. This culminates in a standoff for the ages, where Blart and his posse use non-lethal weapons to ultimately defeat world-class criminals.
The actual fight scene is poetry-in-motion where belts and jackets and human body fat are used to gain the ultimate advantage.
Who Would Like it and Why
Fans of the underdog, of course. Also, fans of the first "Mall Cop" movie. Also, fans of Kevin James. The man might be slightly overweight but he can move quicker and is more agile than an NBA basketball player.
This agility is in full display when he rolls over onto an athletic lady criminal and through wriggling around and digging his shoulder blades into her, he disables her!
Also, the man has dance moves! This is in display when Blart chases a criminal into a full-on production of Swan Lake. Blart ends up with swan wings on, strapped into a trapeze wire, stealing the whole show with crazy dance moves.
Let's face it - James has undeniable charisma, which fans of his hit sit com King of Queens are very aware of.
Who Might not Like it and Why
Blart has a very strong personality and it is thrown at you very early on. This is something that needs to be endured to get to the comedy gold at the end of the movie.
Highlights/Top Scenes
There is a love interest who is a possible ten in terms of physical looks. She plays a big wig in the Wynn Hotel and Casino. Blart accuses her of having a crush on him, which she vehemently denies.
She keeps running into him, and Blart calls her on her obvious crush each time. After one denial of hers, Blart says, "oh please, your upper lip is sweating!" She checks, and it is. This is funny writing.
Two Mike and Ikes
Cinegeoff Podcast, a popular Los Angeles podcast, has declared comedy war on everyone.
"Everyone bro, look it up!" assured podcaster Geoffrey Altrocchi when asked by reporters if that meant women and children. "For the record, I think women and children are just begging to be made fun of!"
Ty McLemore, Altrocchi's partner in crime on the podcast, announced that even midgets, while small and difficult to find, would not escape the jokes, funny half truths and altogether witty exchanges that go on in the podcast.
A taste of Geoff and Ty's handiwork can be sampled here:
https://soundcloud.com/tyster66/sampler
"We find it especially funny how high their voices are," McLemore assured.
The Podcast, which is over 2-years-old now, and has garnered critical praise, or rather has garnered criticism from those who listen to it, is centered around entertainment and making fun of the news. The podcast also takes a special kind of relish (but hold the tomato) in pointing out the eccentricities of Los Angeles.
When asked if this comedy Chinese star would spare Mclemore and Altrocchi, Mclemore simply declared, "no way man.".
"We are both fully prepared to make fun of one another, if need be," Altrocchi said, sizing Ty up, most likely thinking of a possible burn.
"Oh, I've been saving up some lyrical, comedy ammo since the first day I met this clown," McLemore assured.
McLemore is a living, walking and talking Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He's so white I asked him for insurance quotes the first time I met him," Altrocchi said of his outwardly African-American comedy partner. "He's SO white that the NAACP revoked his Black card. They say he can reapply for it in 2017."
Asked whether or not the two were ready for the backlash from the over-politically correct and sensitive world they live in, both McLemore and Altrocchi said they have an action plan.
"We call the groups right after we offend them and turn ourselves in. It seems to build up a sort of good will. If we offend an ethnic group or something, we call them up and tell them what we said, then we describe how we are going to punish ourselves. Sometimes this creates a weird sort of S&M vibe, but it all makes for fantastic podcasting," Altrocchi said.
Legendary radio man Howard Stern, when asked if he was afraid of the mad cap comedy waves that Altrocchi and McLemore were making, denied knowing who they were . . .
