Movie Review: The Secret Life Of Pets

We were able to get our hands on some sneak peek tickets again, so this weekend we were able to see The Secret Life of Pets nearly 2 weeks early.

The Secret Life of Pets starts off telling the story of how Max, the main pet, and his owner Katie found each other. They had the perfect life together, until Katie brings home a new, much bigger, dog Duke. Max immediately doesn't like this move, and runs to Katie's side to tell her all of the reasons he doesn't like Duke. When Duke overhears this conversation, it creates a feud.

The feud gets Max and Duke into trouble, and their friends Gidget, Tiberius, Chloe, Buddy, and Mel have to join together and save their friends.

I've seen other reviews that aren't that positive. They talk about how the story doesn't have enough filler, or that there's too many characters, or that someone wasn't rubbing their shoulders while they watched it (the last one I made up). I guess that's where I differ. When they go to a movie, it's their job. When I go to a movie, I go to escape and to be entertained.

I thought The Secret Life of Pets was a great movie. There were multiple times that the entire audience busted out laughing at the old hound stepping on his big floppy ears, or as the tatted up pig comes crashing through the roof.

As a dog person, I thought they were dead on with a lot of the characteristics and antics for the dogs, and blended them perfectly to create an English speaking pet. Basically, you don't hear a voice talking and it's just the body of an animal. The character is acting exactly how you would expect that animal is be acting, but can talk (kind of like what I do with Rhett in my head).

3D movies are usually either really great, or super cheesy and you can tell that they just added this explosion or whatever so they could have a 3D effect, but it doesn't belong. I enjoyed the 3D work here, and really thought it was one of the better ones I've seen. There were a few moments that I could see coming, but when they happened they still surprised me.

I absolutely loved the movie, and if you're a pet person, have kids, don't have kids, or just like fun movies, I think you will too. As long as you're not a movie critic, you're probably going to enjoy The Secret Life of Pets. We'll more than likely be buying this the day it comes out, so we can watch it at home with Rhett.

He's even already made friends with Max and Buddy, and holding Max's paw.

Movie Review: American Sniper

The movie American Sniper is based on the book of the same name. The story is about Chris Kyle, who is credited with the most sniper kills in US military history, 160. I first learned about this story when Dawn got me the audio book 4 years ago, and have been a huge Chris Kyle fan ever since. I mean, how could you not love and respect a man that did his job as great as Chris did? To serve, protect, but most importantly, save American lives.

We've just gotten home from seeing the movie, and all I can say is that I love that man even more than I thought I did before. I'm sitting here writing this post in my "The Legend" shirt, because of Chris and men like him.

I'm a firm believer that, while most of us are put on this Earth to make it go 'round, some are put here for a specific reason. I believe that although America may be turning its back on God, that God put Chris Kyle on this Earth to save American lives.

If you go to see this movie wanting to watch a high-octane, 100 miles per hour, non-stop action packed war movie, you're going to be let down. This is a movie about Chris Kyle's story, not just his tours overseas. Now, don't get me wrong, there is plenty of action in this movie and it will keep you on the edge of your seat, but just know this is about the full story, not just a few months/years.

I was listening to the radio on Thursday and heard the DJ say "American Sniper was nominated for Best Picture of the Year, but it doesn't even come out till tomorrow. How can a movie be the best movie of the year before it even comes out?" Well, the reason it can be the best movie of the year before it comes out, is because it's the best movie of the year. There's going to be movies with more "better" action scenes. There's going to be movies with more "better" love stories. There's going to be movies with with "better" drama plots. There won't be any better complete movies than American Sniper this year. Clint Eastwood directed this movie, perfectly. Bradley Cooper played this character, perfectly. It says something when the wife of Chris Kyle and his friends all see the movie and say that there were times that they got wrapped up in the movie and forgot that it wasn't really Chris.

If you've read/listened to the book and/or followed Chris' story, then you have a pretty good idea of how the movie will go. The ending is a tough one, but beautifully done.

When you go see this movie (because you will, or better), be prepared for the ending. If you've never walked out of a theater in absolute silence, and everyone around you in absolute silence (minus the sound of sniffling noses), then you're about to have a new experience in your life.

If I could do 10 pigs, I would. We will buy this movie with the million hours of bonus footage when it comes out, and I can't wait to watch every last second of it.

Movie Review: The Interview

North Korea, this is America. We're a free country that can view any movie we want ... even if we scratch our heads afterwards asking what we just watched.

Moral of the story, Seth Rogan and James Franco needed some money so they made this movie. In reality, it wasn't that bad, but if I wasn't a couple of drinks into the night I feel like my opinion would be a little different.

Thanks to Jim Carey, we're now stuck with the Stupid Comedy genre of movies. They're either epic hits (Dumb and Dumber) or they're epic fails (pretty much anything he's done the past 10 years). The Interview has it's moments, but even then they drag the jokes out past the funny time. Ok, I get it, he has to shove a big huge contraption in his butt, ha-ha.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I'm even mad at North Korea. We watched it on Amazon Prime for $5, but if we had to go to the theater to see this, we would have spent over $20 to see it.

It's worth a cheap lazy laugh ... just don't forget the alcohol.

Movie Review: Taken 3

I'm not movie snob, I can see the same movie with a little twist for the third time, and still enjoy it. For some, they'll say "Liam Neeson blows stuff up and saves the day, same ol, same ol." But for me, it's about the story line.

When you think you know what's going on, they throw in a little twist to keep you off the trail. Then, out of nowhere, it hits ... and you have the "aahhhhh" moment when it all starts to make sense.

I do have to say that I wasn't a big fan of the ending. It felt almost as if they writers were tired of writing and said "ok, we're done."

With that said, the story line and twists were enough to check it out. It won't win any "Best Movie of the Year" awards, but it's a good date night.

After hearing his comments this past week in-regards to "too many guns in the America." I would have not seen this in the theaters, and waited to rent it. I have a problem with people preaching gun control propaganda, and then using guns to earn millions through Hollywood.

Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been one of my favorite stories, ideas, whatever you want to call it, for as long as I can remember. When I was little, if I was at home sick, I would watch the first 2 original movies, in order, and that would get me through the day. Even when I had my surgeries, I still made my wife sit through them. We'll call it a happy place of mine.

Needless to say, I was a bit skeptical when I heard they were redoing them in this world of remakes and no originality that we live in now. I was like most of the other avid TMNT fans, and I was furious when it came out that they were going to alter the story of them being mutants and having them as aliens. I mean, they're called Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtles. That's just something you can't really change. My favorite line of the movie has to be the nod to that whole situation. April O'Neil's camera guy looks at her and asks, "So, they're aliens?" and she looks at him and replies, "No, that's just stupid. They're turtles."

Leading up to us going to see the movie, I checked out the reviews and saw what people were saying. I kept reading comments about how certain parts were so over the top and just not believable. All of that had me confused to be honest. One mentioned that it was just completely impossible for an 18 wheeler to slide down a mountain like it does. Ok, so let me get this straight. An 18 wheeler sliding down a mountain is unbelievable. However, 4 human sized, English speaking, ninja fighting turtles makes sense? All of the reviews basically are against this movie because it's different than the originals. Yes, this is a completely different movie, but that doesn't make it a bad movie because it's not the original.

Heck, one review even dogged this movie because Leonardo was the leader, Donatello is the techy nerd, Raphael was the angry one, and Michelangelo was the goof ball. Umm, I'm pretty sure that's exactly how they're supposed to be. I mean, that is the basic description of the characters.

If I had to nit pick, I didn't really like Whoopi Goldberg in her role, I don't like Splinter's voice (I'm just used to the old raspy voice of the original, not a normal sounding voice), and I really don't like the changing of the voices of the turtles. I don't understand why you need 2 voices for Leonardo...?

I feel like it's the "cool" thing to do to not want to like this movie, but I've never worried about what was cool or not. I really enjoyed the movie, and think they did a really good job with it. Are there little details here and that that I would change if I could? Yeah, but I could say that about every movie we see. Ok, rant about all the other reviews over.

I really liked the movie, and Dawn even made the comment about how she really liked it too. Everyone that I over heard talking as we left really enjoyed it. All of the kids loved it, all of the people around our age (20s-30s) loved it, and even the older crowd said they loved it.

I've been asked if it's kid friendly. There were tons of kinds in the theater starting anywhere from 3-4 years old and up. I can't really think of a single time during the movie that I thought "I can't believe they have kids in here seeing and hearing this." I'm guessing the PG-13 rating is because of the "violence", but they're fighting crime so fights have to be expected, right?

If you like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I recommend you going to see the movie. Don't go see it all pissed off a the world because they're remaking another movie they shouldn't and you're just not going to like it no matter what. Go see it as a new movie based about a group of 4 butt kicking teenagers that we all have loved for so long.

Movie Review: Hercules

FINALLY, HERCULES HAS COME BACK ... TO SAVE THE DAY!!!!!

The Rock (a.k.a Dwayne Johnson) is one of my all time favorite wrestlers. He can say a line or give a look that will scare even the strongest of men, or a little smirk and goofy comment to make the meanest man laugh. He takes the term entertainer very seriously, and does everything in his power to make sure you get your moneys worth.

In all honesty, I feel sorry for the guy that did the other Hercules movie recently. I mean seriously, how do you think he felt when he was beating his chest saying "yeah, I get to play Hercules because I'm a bad ass." Then one day he gets a call, "so, Hollywood is releasing another Hercules movie." He probably laughed at first until the voice on the other end said "Dwayne Johnson is playing Hercules." I can't confirm this, but I'm pretty sure he dropped the phone to the ground as his head hung in embarrassment.

This movie, to me, is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Legends are more times than not created by stretching the truth a little. Hercules basically says this guy was a beast, but that doesn't mean he was alone in all of his feats.

From the very beginning of the movie Hercules layeths the smacketh down on mythological creature candy asses. He spends his adult life as a mercenary fighter. Having his legend spread by word, along with a few well placed shades to bend the truth.

The story really gets interesting when this "jabroni" decides to not be so truthful to Hercules, and use Hercules and his men (and woman) for his own personal gain. It finally comes to a boiling point as Hercules goes face to face with the jabroni and in not so many words asks "who in the blue hell are you?" ... obviously ... IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU ARE!!!!!

Hercules will always be the people's champion, and this movie hits you like the people's elbow off the ropes. If you haven't figured it out by now, I definitely recommend you checking this one out.

IF YA SMELLLLLLLLLLL ... ok, ok I'll stop.

Movie Review: Last Vegas

There hasn't been a whole lot of movies come out lately that we've wanted to see, but we've had our eye on Last Vegas for a few months. I've heard it referred to as the "old peoples Hangover", but I didn't think that at all.

The movie begins in the 1950s, and shows how the group originated their bond together. It starts in a general store, the owner's son starts bullying Billy, but then Patty steps up and knocks him out. As they run out of the store, one picks up a bottle of whiskey and the group unites. 

With just an hour and 44 minutes, there isn't a lot of time to kill. Each section of the movie builds the story, and really has something to add to the movie.  

To go back to the Hangover reference, in the Hangover movies, everything is taken to its extreme. The only real stretch in this movie is how the group acquires their suite. To not spoil anything, I'll just say that I believe it would take a lot more to have a casino offer you a free room.

With a cast like DeNiro, Douglas, Freeman, and Kline it's easy to forget you're watching a movie. Towards the end of the movie as they're all giving their goodbyes I actually felt how much they were going to miss each other. Then it hit me, oh yeah, these guys are just actors pretending to care about each other. 

This is a can't go wrong movie. If you need a good laugh (and maybe a little choke up or two), check this one out.

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips is Tom Hanks's newest movie, inspired by the 2009 cargo ship hijacking by Somali pirates. I'll go out on a limb and say it'll be his next award winner. 

The movie starts off showing the relationship strain that a job like this can have on two people. His wife kisses him goodbye and wishes him well as he flies to shipyard to take over the cargo ship. 

Once Captain Phillips boards the ship he checks multiple doors and locks, and tells crew members to make sure all doors are locked because they will be heading into dangerous waters. The crew isn't thrilled about the direction they're heading, but with only one way to go, they have to put their worries aside and continue marching on. 

The next morning Captain Phillips wakes and has the crew run through a hijacking situation, in an almost psychic move. The crew sets up the water hoses, which turnout to be their only defense against smaller, quicker boats. 

The crew bands together and does all it can to keep the pirates off the ship. Once that fails, they then do all they can to help each other survive. 

This is one of the best movies we've seen in a very long time. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and it'll blow you away all at the same time. In 20 years when they put together a "Best of Tom Hanks" collection. This will be in there with Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan and many others. Hollywood has actors, good actors, great actors, and then you have the level that Tom Hanks and a select few are on by themselves. 

Before we even made it out of the theater Dawn turns to me and says "I'm making an executive couples decision. If this doesn't get 5 pigs I'm punching you in the face." So ... to save my face, and because it's deserving .. 

Movie Review: We're The Millers

Let me start by saying, this movie is freaking hilarious. I'm not one of those to bust out laughing in the theater. I'll smile during a funny joke, maybe chuckle to myself, or if it's really funny, throw in a leg kick while covering my face laughing to myself. However, there are always a few movies or one liners that I just can't control it. This movie had me laughing out loud (ah, I sound like a 13 year old HS girl now) on more than one occasion. 

If you've seen the trailer, you pretty much know the whole story line of the movie. Jason Sudeikis' character, David Clark (not to be confused with David Clark from the Revenge TV show), starts out as a small time drug dealer and through some misfortune ends up having to help his boss out by going to Mexico and picking up this "smidge" of weed ... ok, a smidge and a half.  

The movie takes an interesting twist when the "Millers", a family of misfits, meet fellow RVers, the Fitzgeralds, a straight laced by the book family. As completely opposite as these two groups of people are, they both find themselves leaning on the other for help through challenging moments in their lives. 

One of the other major story lines of the movie is Jennifer Aniston, Rose, being a stripper (ducks frying pan thrown by wife). She's taken to these "dirty girl" roles and ran with them. She played the naughty dentist in Horrible Bosses (another great movie), and was great. The part that makes this character so good is that you're used to her playing the good girl/girl next door. It just further proves how great her "acting skills" are. (we have a joke that if someone is attractive we say their acting skills, dancing skills, singing skills etc etc are good)

This isn't a very family friendly movie, but I'm sure you knew that already. If you need a good laugh, and want to chance kicking the guy in the back of the head in front of you, do yourself a favor and go see this movie.

Make sure to watch the bloopers immediately following the movie. They're before the actual credits, so you don't have to waste 10 minutes of your life. We both agreed that the nod to Jennifer Aniston and her "Friends" days was the best one. 

Movie Review: RED 2

If you saw and enjoyed RED, you'll love RED 2. From the get go Marvin is up to "the world is out to get me" old self, until tragically, the world catches up and actually gets him. Ok, so maybe he's pretending.

A huge story-line is built when Miranda Wood (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) shows up and lays a big honking kiss on Frank (Bruce Willis) and his girlfriend Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) is standing there to see the doozy it puts Frank in.

Victoria (Helen Mirren) is ordered to kill Frank, but her old ties to the group forces her to side with her friends over her country and teams up with them to find a portable nuclear device that was created in the 1970s (maybe the 80s).

Like RED, the sequel is action packed with some "experienced" great actors and actresses. This reminds you of how great Hollywood used to be when they were able to build a tremendous story with the perfect amount of action and even a few chuckles along the way ... did I just say chuckles? Geez.

I'm one of those people that try to figure out plots or "find out who done it" before it's revealed, and I'm normally pretty good at it. Well, as RED 2 states on more than one occasion ... "I didn't see that coming."

This might not be the big mega blockbuster of the Summer, but it's a great movie for sure.

Movie Review: The Lone Ranger

 

If you didn't know, today (July 3rd) is my birthday. From the moment we saw The Lone Ranger would be opening on my birthday Dawn has been saying it would be my "birthday movie". She's a big time Johnny Depp fan (ok, she's in love with him), so me being the loving husband that I am ... I refused to go see it on my birthday, and instead had been telling her we would be going to see Despicable Me 2. Of course the whole time I had all intentions of going to see The Lone Ranger, but it was more fun torturing her ... loving husband, remember?

 

The past few years Hollywood has ran the creative pool dry, and have mostly been doing remakes. With remakes you're either going to win the lottery, or you're going to go broke and be sleeping under the bridge overpass. I don't envision the people that made this movie having to warm their hands from a trash can fire anytime soon.

 

The Lone Ranger gives us a movie that we've all longed for whether we knew it or not. We all grew up hearing about the great Wild West TV shows and movies, but it seemed those shows and movies were a thing of a past ... until now.

 

Although it is a remake, The Lone Ranger gives us that classic Cowboy and Indian, Wild Wild West movie, with a Johnny Depp twist to it. Not only does it have his sense of humor that we've come to know and love from the Pirates series, but it also throws in little nods to movies past. Don't ask for them, because I don't know them all, but there were a few Monty Python and other slight hints.

 

I would give it a 5 pig rating, but it's a 2 1/2 hour long movie, so there are a few sections that seem to just be time fillers. I was falling into one of those moments, and then the end started closing in and this movie TOOK OFF!

 

We both commented as soon as we left the theater about 2 awesome parts. I won't tell you what they are, but I'll let you know what to look for when you go to see it ... and yes, you WILL be going to see it.

 

The first is during a battle, when the gun fires, glass breakings, bodies falling, and all of the other commotion, actually happen to the beat of the music. It's almost like a dance, where the dancers hit moves to the beat of the music, but this is a fight scene in a movie. I've seen a LOT of movies, but this is the first time I've ever seen this done, and it was a very nice touch. Hats off to whomever that idea was by.

 

The second part was when something took place ... was said ... was done ... who knows, I'm not telling ... but Tonto says "Don't ever do that again." It's another Johnny Depp one liner to keep an otherwise serious scene back down on Earth, and not too serious. Like I said, it's a Wild Wild West movie with a Johnny Depp twist.

 

If you don't go see this movie, you will be missing out.

 

 



Movie Review: The Heat

I feel like Sandra Bullock has played this character before, but the addition of Melissa McCarthy (one of Dawn's new favorite actresses) gives The Heat a little extra spice. If you've ever seen a McCarthy movie then you probably know what spice I'm talking about. If you've been under a rock and haven't seen on, well, she's hilarious and you're definitely missing out. 

What makes this movie so good is the action mixed in with the, what I will call, literal comedy. What I mean by that is when Bullock and McCarthy are holding the drug dealer over the balcony to get information out of him, but then they're not able to pull him back up. Another good example, is when Bullock is interrogating a suspect and McCarthy, literally, throws the book and hits the suspect in the face. The whole movie is jammed pack with action and laughs. 

I do have you warn you though. If your easily offended, or not a fan of extreme language ... you may not like it. One of the story lines is how clean cut Bullock's character is, and how "non polished" McCarthy's is. 

I definitely recommend this movie to anyone that wants a good laugh. 

New Rating System

Since I've been doing the food reviews, and now movie reviews, I thought I should have my own way to rate them. I thought I could do thumbs up or down, but then I'd only be able to do 1 thumb up or 2 thumbs up. I wouldn't be able to hit the in betweens. Then I thought, I can just do stars. You see a lot of 5 star award winning restaurants or movies getting stars from magazines. The more I thought about that, I just didn't want to copy everybody else. 

Then it hit me. I will just stick with the BBQ side of things, and do pigs instead.

I will try to go back and add the pigs to some of the older posts so they'll have ratings, but so you'll know the rating system I've posted them below.

Movie Review: White House Down

Last Saturday, I got suckered into go to Zumba with Dawn so we could get free passes to White House Down. How I got stuck having to work out to see a movie I really wasn’t too thrilled to see in the first place shows you the power of marriage.

I tried my best to go into the movie with an open mind, but I must be honest, we’d already seen Olympus Has Fallen and these appeared to be (more or less) the same movie. Still, I told myself “be open to it, you may like it.” The longer the movie went, the longer I felt like they were ripping off Olympus Has Fallen (or visa versa and Olympus just beat them to the punch releasing it). Obviously, Dawn went into the movie googoo and gaga over Channing Tatum, but she even leaned over once and said “I feel like I’ve seen this movie already.”

Minus the deja vu, again, it was a good movie. It won’t be one I go out and buy the DVD for, but it was a good free movie. The parts that were mirror images of OHF were laced in comedic one-liners. I should have expected it with Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum, but the previews mad it look like a serious action movie. The rest of the auditorium seemed to enjoy the wise cracks a breaks in action, but for me, it just came over cheesy and never really added to the movie.

It wasn’t my cup of tea, but you may still like it if you went to see it so I wouldn’t say it’s a “don’t waste your money” kind of movie. I will say, if you’ve already seen Olympus Has Fallen I don’t think White House Is Down will live up to your expectations.

I give 2 ½ pigs.

A New Addition

I’ve always been a big movie goer, so it just seemed to make sense to add a new little kick here. There’s very few weeks that go by that we don’t watch at least one movie, and some weeks, multiple movies. Everyone is always asking one of us “what did you think about (insert movie title)?”, so I figured I would add movie reviews to mix things up a little bit.

We’ve been able to receive preview screenings on a few different movies lately, so I thought that would be a good opportunity to start with some new movies that haven’t been released. So, I will start doing some movie reviews in addition to the cooks, restaurant reviews, tools of the trade, and other random posts that I tend to make.