Sausage Party

Take that Disney and Dreamworks!

In a random supermarket there is food that is waiting to be taken away by gods (humans) to the great beyond (out of the store). This movie follows Frank the sausage (Seth Rogen) and his girlfriend Brenda the bun (Kristen Wiig). The air were separated from their friends in a package and must find their way back so they can be chosen before "red, white and blue day" (Fourth of July); however, Frank doesn't trust the story of the gods that he has been force fed through out his entire life. He decides to go on an adventure to figure out exactly what happens to food after they leave the supermarket. 

I couldn't even begin to fathom how Seth Rogen and company got away with this. This is one of the most sexual, brutal, deranged movies I have ever seen.... and I absolutely loved it. There is not one moment in the theater where I wasn't either laughing or cringing from what was displayed. There are some obvious jokes, but that doesn't impede the movie from being one of the smartest and funniest movies I have seen this year. Moments like singer/actor Meatloaf being portrayed as a meatloaf don't really bring me out of the experience too much. This movie is filled with every dumb stereotype that you can think of and it serves as more of a comment on them than actually offensive. From a Jewish bagel, to the fruits being gay, to an antagonist douche. This movie hits all the markers but does so in such a funny way that I can't hold it against them. In an almost bizarre way, I can't hold anything against this film. It makes fun of itself, while making fun of everything else. Whenever it comes off as preachy, it immediately makes a joke to remind you that it is a cartoon about sentient food. There is a song in the movie about the gods and when we meet the people responsible for making the song they start to say that it was changed for more propaganda related purposes. This is an obvious comment on how religion changes to adapt to whatever someone is trying to preach at the moment, but it is done in such a way that you are laughing at it more than being taken back by it. The same thing happens when they comment on "crackers" taking an aisle away from "Fire Water" and the other none perishables. The preaching never comes off as overly preachy, it just comes off as funny.

The voice acting in this is great simply because we have the Seth Rogen crew all accounted for. Nick Kroll as the douche was the funniest part of this movie. He put on a "Jersey Shore" level of "typical douche-bag voice" through out the entire movie, and it made me fall in love with him even more than I already had, There isn't a single misstep on the voices anywhere. Edward Norton doing his best Woody Allen impersonation for the voice of the bagel, Seth Rogen just being Seth Rogen and having an amazing voice, Craig Robinson playing Grits. It all works in the best of ways.

In conclusion, there isn't a whole lot to say about this movie, accept that it is great. There are clever jokes, mixed with eye rolling jokes. There are great voices. There is graphic violence. There are fourth wall breaks. Needless to say if you have enjoyed anything from Seth Rogen and company you will enjoy this. This is possibly in the pantheon for my favorite thing that they have done and it will make a nice addition to my BluRay collection when it is released for the home. Go see this movie. 

A letter to readers

I recently released a movie review for Suicide Squad, I hadn't released a movie review for over a year before that and I decided to take some time out in order to write down my plans for the future. Before I get into the future, I decided to give a brief explanation of the past by saying:

What Happened?

I love writing, I especially love writing about movies which is why I have done it for so long without being paid for it. I am under the impression that if you love doing something you should want to do it regardless of any money involved (even though I would eventually want to make a career out of writing about, or for movies). It's been my extreme pleasure to write on this blog, while also being able to write on different websites through the years. Given this information, why would I stop? Well, while I love writing about movies I still had bills to pay. The last time I wrote about movies I was working for the site upcomingdiscs.com, I loved working at this site. The editor was very generous with me, and extremely patient. He helped me to hone my writing to a more professional level. The site opened my world to movies that I would never have seen without being employed there. It has always been a dream of mine to be published on a website (or in print), and I was finally realizing that dream. Unfortunately, my schedule was beyond insanely busy. I was going to class (physically, not online) full time, working a full time work schedule, and had a slew of other things pressing for my time. I was always unable to go to premieres that I wanted to go to because my schedule was so unforgiving, and I was constantly pushed to the wire with deadline dates. I don't like turning in half-ass work at the last minute simply because my outside schedule was too stressful, so I had to quit. I quit during the week of my final exams and was unable to turn in my last two reviews, so my name was taken off their site. It was very clear to me why they did this and I harbor no ill-will towards them. When I quit upcomingdiscs.com, I couldn't come back to my blog because my schedule hadn't slowed down. It's only been recently that I have been able to get a handle on my work and finally get back to writing.

What now?

Now I am going to go back to my weekend format of writing at least one review per week on the newest movie in theaters. It won't always be the biggest blockbuster out, and my format is going to change from the way I used to write. I will no longer write in the "angry, joking" manner I did in my blog previously. I think every movie is important to someone out their. Even if I think a movie is bad that doesn't mean that their isn't someone out there that thinks a movie is great (or vice versa); coincidentally, my most recent review happened to be for Suicide Squad a movie that has gotten a lot of hate from critics and viewers a like. I happened to like it, takes different strokes to move the world. Now, just because I am writing in a more respectful manner doesn't mean I won't talk to people about movies in the comments of my review. I love discussing movies, and the difference in opinions most people have. I'm not going to argue, but I'll always talk civilly about anything you love, hate or are indifferent towards in regards to the movie. 

Other than the reviews I will be releasing random articles about movies at random times (like this, but about movies). 

What I hope for from the future

I want to get my podcast off the ground in November. The only thing I am waiting on right now are microphones; beyond that, I will be finding everything else through out the coming months (like: a theme song, cover art, possibly sound drops, etc). My podcast will be weekly or twice per week. My boyfriend, Sean Shimoji, and I will watch a "classic" movie and give our opinions on it (we are also thinking about doing new movies as well, hence the "twice per week"). I came up with this idea because, unlike me, my boyfriend wasn't raised by movies growing up. He's missed a lot of the classics, and (oddly enough) the classics I have shown him he seems to dislike. I'm thinking of calling the podcast "Millennials at the Movies" or "Gayte Night." 

Other than that I still want to bring my reviews to a video format but it is going to be a while until I get that since I have no camera and know fuck-all about video editing at the moment. 

In conclusion

It feels great to write in my favorite format again. If an offer ever came along to work at a website I would still have to think about it. I'm still going to school, still working full time. The reason I started to blog again is because this is a schedule set by me. I would still love to work at another website, but I would want to make sure that I was able to put in all of my effort instead of my remaining effort. Other than that:

This week I will be reviewing Sausage Party. See ya later.

Suicide Squad

A DC victory

Suicide Squad follows a group of villains employed by the government to accomplish tasks that the heads of state would rather keep quiet. With the code name "Task Force X" we join Deadshot AKA Floyd Lawton, the hitman that never misses his mark; Harley Quinn AKA Harleen Quinzel, The Joker's number one girl; Enchantress, the centuries old witch with immense power; El Diablo, the pyrokinetic ex-gang memeber; Captain Boomerang, the Australian criminal who uses boomerangs as his weapon of choice, Killer Croc, the incredibly strong, mutated, crocodile-man; Rick Flag, the soldier in charge; and finally Katana, the assassin whose sword keeps the souls of whoever it slays. The team must rescue an important person in the middle of the world ending, while trying to make sure those in charge don't blow their heads off.

I really liked this movie. I didn't love it, it's not my favorite superhero movie (not even my favorite DC movie) but it was good. It has been a while since I've seen a DC movie and had so little to complain about. So let's get the complaints out of the way first. The pacing was a bit crazy. It went from being drawn out, to being rushed to get to the end, almost instantly. When the movie took it's time it shined a lot more than when it started trying to wrap everything up. In the beginning, the audience is introduced to the team individually, the team is recruited, the team is sent on a mission, and everything seems to be going well. All of a sudden when The Joker shows up for Harley Quinn and it goes off the rails. Next thing you know, we are finding out Rick Flag's true intentions, going into a bar and finding out about El Diablo, being lectured about values, fighting a big villain. It's so much crammed into such a small amount of time. Much like Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice this movie could have stood to have an extra 30 minutes attached to it. 

I have now seen the Suicide Squad brought to life four separate times (the episode "Task Force X" in Justice League: Unlimited, the "Suicide Squad" episode of Arrow, and the DC Animated Film Batman: Assault on Arkham) the thing the other incarnations all had in common was that the Suicide Squad was always put on missions where you never really saw them fighting anything huge. They are always trying to steal something/retrieve something and that works for them because they are "bad guys" so it plays to their strengths. That's the main place where this movie stumbles. The mission is for them to get a person out of a hot zone while crazy stuff is going down around them, and that is a great premise for a suicide squad movie. When you take away that premise and make them fight a big monster at the end we are left with just another run-of-the-mill superhero movie. The characters in this deserve more than that.

The place where this movie shined the most was in the performances given by the incredible actors. The person that always makes or breaks a good Suicide Squad is Deadshot. He is the person that will always be in the squad, and usually gives the squad a certain amount of heart. Will Smith played this character perfectly. Just the right amount of touching scenes with his daughter, and clever quips to make me believe he was really Deadshot. As good as Will Smith was he is almost completely out shined by Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. I never thought I would see Harley Quinn played so perfectly. Every "Mistah J," or "Puddin' " instantly brought me back to seeing that character on Batman: The Animated Series. The rest of the cast did very well with their roles as well, but not everything was perfect. I was not a huge fan of Jared Leto in The Joker role. I admit I had reservations about the way he looked before this movie came out, but I always said that his acting could probably save my perception of his look. He does do well in a lot of aspects; his laugh is great, his menacing stare is great, and I did feel generally uneased by him overall.... its just that stupid mouthpiece that really trashes his performance. Most of the time I was wishing for subtitles because I couldn't hear half of what he said. 

The directing in this was phenomenal. During El Diablo's arch you get to see some true struggle and it is shot in a great way that pulls you into that characters troubles. You can go from the bright neon of a car chase between the Joker and Batman, to a dirty sewer waiting for Killer Croc and feel completly at ease with the major changes in scenery. The job of the people involved in this is to make me lose myself in each transition, and they did that almost effortlessly each time. I'm a big fan of David Ayer From Fury, Training Day, and End of Watch, I could see a major difference in his style of "Comic Book movie" then someone like Zack Snyder's style. The only thing I wished for was more time with the characters as individuals and less time fighting the big bad guy at the finale.

In the end, this movie may not change your life, but it was extremely fun and it is the best thing DC has put out since The Dark Knight. It would be a disservice to this movie to not see it in theaters. It feels good to write reviews again after a long break, and thankfully I didn't have to see something awful as my introduction back into the writing game. 

Score: Decided to do away with the scoring system, never believed in assigning numbers to how I thought about a movie. Read the article to discover how I felt about the movie.