The Gleek Critique: "Born This Way" Episode

Rachel takes a spill when Finn elbows her in the nose.  Image property of Fox.

by Jack Garcia

During dance practice Finn's clumsy moves end up breaking Rachel's nose, and while she's at the doctor's office, he suggests that maybe she get a nose job. She worries that it might affect her voice and brings up Barbra Streisand as an example of a great singer with a big Jewish schnoz.  But the doctor convinces her that it might actually improve her voice... and her chances of being famous.  She begins to seriously consider doing it, even though the glee club thinks it's a bad idea (although they all have things they would change about themselves).

Mr. Schuester is shocked that the kids all have such low self-esteem, and challenges them all to find songs that promote a healthy self-image.  He's also hoping the Lady Gaga song "Born This Way" will help them to feel good about themselves.  And while he's trying to help his students, he can't help but notice Ms. Pilsbury needs to tackle her OCD issues.  She thinks it's just who she's supposed to be, but he convinces her to see a therapist anyway, and it looks like we might be seeing some hard changes for Emma.

Meanwhile, Lauren Zizes wants to be prom queen, and Puck wants to help her.  But she's not the only one who wants to take that crown from Quinn; Santana wants it too.  With her keen gaydar, Santana realizes that Dave Karofsky is gay, which leads her to understand more fully why Kurt left.  She figures if she and Karofsky can band together in getting Kurt to come back to McKinely, she'd get the glee club kids to vote for them as prom king and queen.  So they start a club called the Bully Whips to patrol the halls for any signs of bullying.  She even has Karofsky apologize for what he did to Kurt.  Kurt finds out the true motives, but still agrees to come back to McKinley if Karofsky will help him start a chapter of PFLAG.

Oh, and what's Lauren's plan to destroy Quinn?  Reveal the fact that Quinn used to be an ugly fat girl named Lucy at another school... before she had her nose job!  That's right!  "Perfect" Quinn wasn't born that way.  However, it only makes people want to vote for Quinn even more, so Lauren's plan kind of backfires.

The Pros:

• Kurt is back at McKinley!!!!!!!!!
• Santana is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters.  She sure had some hilarious lines in tonight's episode, didn't she?  Like "I'm a closet lesbian and a judgmental b****... that means I have awesome gaydar" or "The only straight I am is straight-up b****."  Hmm... maybe I just laugh every time she says the B-word...
• I love when they mash up songs!  TLC's "Unpretty" mixed with "I Feel Pretty" from the musical West Side Story was terrific.  What could be better than a Quinn/Rachel duet?
• Mike's dancing was showcased again this week, this time while Finn sang Sammy Davis Jr.'s "I Gotta Be Me."  I love watching Mike dance and I feel like Finn hasn't had a musical number in a while... so I was a happy boy!
• For some reason I really liked when Burt told Finn, "Keep an eye on your brother" referring to Kurt.  AWWW!  SO CUTE!
• I loved loved loved Blaine and the Warblers' rendition of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" as a goodbye to Kurt!  I got all choked up...
• Kurt's "As If We Never Said Goodbye" (from the musical Sunset Boulevard - which is based on the great Gloria Swanson film) was beautiful!  Best song of the night!!  I am so glad he's back where he belongs.
• The scene with Emma Pillsbury meeting with the therapist was done very well.

The Cons:

• With all the talk about Rachel's potential nose job, I was surprised that nobody brought up Santana's boob job...
• Watching Karofsky's phony baloney pretense of "changing" made me cringe.  He's still a douche!!
• The dance number in the mall was kind of fun I guess, but I couldn't help thinking it was just a redo of last season's "Safety Dance."
• Sue wasn't in this episode!!  Where was she??

Movie Review: 'Hop' is Like Hip Hop Without the Hip

Hop movie poster, property of Universal Pictures.

by Jack Garcia

Hop AVERAGE

Let me start off by saying this movie is not that bad.  However, it's also not that good.  The first few minutes were spectacular in my opinion.  The movie opened with the bustling and vibrant candy factory on Easter Island, and it was so charmingly magical that it put Willy Wonka's factory to shame.  Adorable little chicks and bunnies scampered about running the shiny golden machines that created chocolates and marshmallows and all of the delicious treats that boys and girls hope will fill their baskets come Easter morning.  It truly was wondrous to behold.

Unfortunately, we don't stay in that fantastical place for very long.  The majority of the movie is set in the boring old "real world" that we inhabit every day.  And for me, the magic of the movie stopped there.  In my opinion, the entire movie should have been animated.  It would have been so much better.  Instead we get a cartoon rabbit wandering around a dusty Los Angeles pooping jelly beans.

The main character, E.B. (Russell Brand), is the Easter Bunny's son who does not wish to follow in his father's footsteps.  Instead of taking over the family business by delivering Easter candy to all the children in the world (except China, which was actually a pretty funny little joke), E.B. wants to be a rock n' roll drummer.  So he escapes Easter Island and heads to Hollywood.  Soon he finds our human, Fred O'Hare (James Marsden), who is an unemployed twenty-something-year-old house sitting for some rich people.  Together they form an unlikely friendship and help one another live their dreams.

The story is cute enough I guess, and Russell Brand's E.B. actually had some really funny lines.  His one-liners helped me to watch the whole movie without falling asleep, actually.  Unfortunately, everything that happens just never lives up to it's opening scene.  Even the end was oddly non-climactic.  I heard someone describe this movie as an Easter version of the The Santa Clause.  And it really is.  Fred O'Hare ends up becoming the Easter Bunny and he even flies around in a sled...  It tries so hard to be hip and cool, but the end result is a forgettable family film that never lived up to its potential.

Movie Review: Wimpy Kid Should Stop Writing in His Diary

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules movie poster, property of Twentieth Century Fox.

by Jack Garcia

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules AWFUL

Diary of a Wimpy Kid was actually kind of a cute movie.  I never got a chance to see it in theaters, but I saw the movie on HBO recently and I thought it was a pretty funny and heartwarming kiddie movie.  It had a lot of spunk and quirkiness, which made all of its wildly improbable hijinks not only tolerable but endearing.  However, its sequel Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules was quite the opposite.  It just plain sucked.

The movie is about Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) being forced to bond with his brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) by their constantly clueless parents (played by Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris).  They seem to be oblivious to the fact that Rodrick is unnecessarily cruel to his younger brother, and seem to think that leaving the two of them alone for the weekend will make them be best friends.  It doesn’t work out that way of course, and we get to see the two of them fighting annoyingly for two hours.

Rodrick’s character was juvenile and obnoxious in the first movie as well, but you only saw him in small doses.  In this one, he’s given a much bigger role and that is unfortunate.   I can’t stand Rodrick.  And Greg’s character isn’t much more lovable.  Although you sympathize with him because he’s little, and gets picked on, and blah blah blah… he’s not really a very nice kid.  The whole first movie was about him realizing that his friendship with Rowley (Robert Capron) was more important than being a popular middle schooler, yet in this sequel he has forgotten that lesson and continues to be the worst friend possible to poor Rowley in hopes of being seen as cool.  He embarrasses Rowley in a YouTube video hoping it will make him cool.  He forces Rowley to lie about a party Rodrick threw in order for his brother to think he’s cool.  He won’t do a magic show with Rowley because he doesn’t think the girl of his dreams (Holly Hills played by Peyton List) will find it cool... and on and on and on.

Newsflash:  You aren’t cool Greg Heffley.  And neither are you, Rodrick.  You are both petty and annoying and I’m tired of watching your ridiculously contrived antics on the big screen.  Thank you, and please shut up.

Movie Review: ‘Sucker Punch’ is My Newest Guilty Pleasure

Sucker Punch movie poster, property of Warner Brothers.

by Jack Garcia

Sucker Punch AVERAGE

I’ve been accused of always sharing Brian’s opinion about movies.  The assumption is that I don’t have a mind of my own, and that if Brian likes a movie I will also like it, and if Brian dislikes a movie I will also dislike it.  I will admit that a lot of the times I agree with Brian’s opinions, but let me assure you that I do not simply mimic him like a trained monkey.

Case in point:  the movie Sucker Punch by director Zack Snyder.  Brian absolutely hated this movie, but I actually liked it!  Notice I didn’t say that I loved it, but I definitely did not hate it like Brian did.  The movie is exactly what you would expect from a Zack Snyder film as far as his visual style is concerned.  Have you ever seen 300 ?  It looks a lot like that with sped up and slowed down action sequences, a certain grittiness, and a definite nod towards comic books and animé alike.

While not as good as some of his other movies (like Watchmen), I found Sucker Punch to be highly watchable and entertaining.  The story is of a girl named Baby Doll (Emily Browning) who is sent to a mental institution after accidentally killing her sister.  There, the corrupt Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) strikes up a deal with her stepfather to have her lobotomized before the week is out.  As a coping mechanism, Baby Doll reverts to a fantasy world in her head where she is not a mental patient but actually a sort of prostitute/exotic dancer working with the other girls in a club ran by Blue.  These other girls include Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung).  They plan to escape before the “High Roller”—the doctor coming to lobotomize Baby Doll—comes for her.

What’s a bit strange is that Baby Doll seems to revert to an alternate reality within an alternate reality.  So beyond the pretend club, there is also a world where she battles with bizarre creatures and receives guidance from Wise Man (Scott Glenn).  He tells her that she needs to collect five things in order for her to escape.  She needs a map, fire, a knife, a key and a mysterious fifth object (spoiler alert: it’s herself).  So throughout the movie the girls obtain each item in turn, simply dancing and seducing in the one reality, while kicking butt with machine guns and samurai swords and explosions in the other reality.  We never see what they actually do to get the items in the real world situation of the mental hospital, we just flip flop between the dance club and the war-torn fantasyland.

For me, I liked the look of the movie, the rockin’ soundtrack, and some of the more human moments.  I wasn’t too interested in the fighting (it is cool to look at but basically pointless), but I was pretty drawn into the other aspect of the movie.  Although Baby Doll’s character isn’t developed at all and the story is a bit lacking in terms of depth, we get some pretty strong performances from sisters Sweet Pea and Rocket.  Jena Malone and Abbie Cornish are very talented actresses, and for me, they added a lot to the group dynamic and made me care about their escape.  Another performance that I found incredibly fascinating was Oscar Isaac’s portrayal of the villain Blue.  Without him, I don’t think I would have liked this movie at all.  He was just so sexy and suave, yet deeply disturbed and twisted.

So will you like this movie?  I don’t know.  Brian hated it.  Most critics hated it.  But for me, it turned out to be a lot better than I expected.  There are probably a million reasons why I shouldn’t like it, but Sucker Punch sort of became my guilty pleasure.

The Gleek Critique: "A Night of Neglect" Episode

Sue meets with the "League of Doom" in her office.  Image property of Fox.

by Jack Garcia

After a month-long hiatus, my favorite show Glee is back!  This week's episode (the first of the final six for the season) was all about the kids needing funding to attend Nationals in New York City.  Will's suggestion is that they sell saltwater taffy, but his girlfriend Holly Holiday tells him that he's thinking too small.  Her idea?  Throw a benefit concert to raise money!  So the New Directions kids begin to plan "A Night of Neglect" featuring songs by sometimes overlooked artists, because they feel, well, a little overlooked.  They've won Regionals yet they are still getting slushie facials in the hallways.

To add to the neglect, some of the members of New Directions are also part of Brainiacs which is an academic decathlon team.  Who knew Artie, Tina, Mike and (wait for it...) Brittany were members of this club?  Well, turns out nobody did.  The four of them competed on local television on the show Smarty Pants and none of their fellow choir members even tuned in to watch.  The Brainiacs are supposed to go to Detroit to compete, but they don't have any school funding either.  To make amends, Mr. Schuester decides that "A Night of Neglect" will benefit both groups.  Isn't that sweet?

But someone is very much against this benefit concert, and I'll give you one guess who that is...  Did you guess Sue Sylvester?  You'd be right.  However, she's not taking on the glee club on her own anymore.  She's formed "The League of Doom" consisting of the old glee club coach Sandy Ryerson (aka The Pink Dagger), Will's ex-wife Terri (aka The Honey Badger) and Vocal Adrenaline coach Dustin Goolsby (aka Sargent Handsome).  Sandy's job is to form a group of hecklers to throw insults during the benefit concert, and Dustin's job is to destroy Will and Holly's relationship.

Turns out Dustin doesn't really have to do anything to split the two teachers up.  Holly is afraid of commitment so she breaks up with Will all by herself.  She's taking a substitute teaching job in Cleveland, leaving Will alone to try and patch things up with Emma, who's just revealed that Carl has left and is wanting an annulment of their marriage.  Obviously I'm not surprised that Will and Holly or Emma and Carl didn't work out... because Will and Emma are madly in love with each other!

In the end, Dustin and Sandy have failed in their missions, and Sue is not very happy.  Although the benefit concert had low turnout, they still managed to earn the money they needed.  How did that happen?  Sandy's kryptonite is Aretha Franklin, and when he heard Mercedes sing he couldn't help but donate all of his drug money.  So like I said, Sue is not happy.  She announces that it is Honey Badger's moment to shine, and Terri looks absolutely ecstatic.  I'm sure Terri is poised and ready to stop Will and Emma from ever getting together again.

The Pros:

• I am glad that Charice's character Sunshine Corazon came back, along with the Vocal Adrenaline coach Dustin Goolsby (played by Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson).  They were both in the season premiere and I always thought it odd that they were brought in never to be used again.  I mean, they are both superstars.  Charice's song "All by Myself" was great.
• Brittany sure knows her cat diseases!  I loved that the ditsy ex-cheerleader actually turned out to be an asset on the Brainiacs team.
• The League of Doom was very silly but I enjoyed it.  I particularly liked how they kept getting confused over the name... sometimes calling it The Legion of Evil.
• Sue talking about Holly Holiday:  "She's looser than a thrift store turtleneck and probably just as diseased."  Hilarious!
• Mercedes had plenty of screen time which always makes me happy!  She turned into a demanding little diva in this episode, but by the way she sang Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way" she earned the right to be!  That girl is amazing!
• Mike Chang's dance solo was terrific, and I thought Holly Holiday did a great job singing Adele's "Turning Tables."  She sang it as a goodbye to Will Schuester... and a goodbye to the show in general  (at least until they decide to write her back in again).
• Did Santana stand up to that bully Dave Karofsky or what?!

The Cons:

• Although Will and Emma need to just get together already, I am sad that Carl is getting his marriage to Emma annulled.  I feel sorry for both of them.
• Apart from Kurt and Blaine, only Sandy and his hecklers came to the benefit concert.  I seriously don't understand how the entire town of Lima is so oblivious to the talent these kids have.  Seriously?  Not even older couples wanting to enjoy a night out bought tickets to this thing?  Not even their parents??
• It seems to be the running joke that whenever Tina starts a song something happens to make her stop singing.  Usually she bursts into tears for some reason or another.  Glee writers, if you are listening, STOP DOING THAT!  Let the girl sing, dang it!
• Blaine and Kurt didn't sing.  I'm always sad when they don't sing.

Movie Review: Bradley Cooper Does Limitless Drugs

Limitless movie poster, property of Relativity Media and Rogue Pictures.

by Jack Garcia

Limitless ADMIRABLE

Limitless is a really good movie starring Bradley Cooper as Eddie Mora, a man struggling to get anywhere in his life.  He’s been trying to write a novel for who knows how long, his girlfriend has just left him, and he’s simply not living up to his fullest potential.  In short, he’s a loser.  But when he runs into his ex-brother-in-law Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) his life changes for the better… or does it?  Vernon is a drug dealer selling a new drug called NZT that instead of impairing the user actually enhances them.  You know how we only use a fraction of our brain?  Well, NZT lets people use 100% of it!  The possibilities are, well, limitless…

So with this heightened capacity for learning, a greater memory, and a new sense of drive Eddie finishes his novel in record time, makes lots of money, and soon begins to dabble in the stock market where he meets Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro) who hires him on to tackle his big competitor Hank Atwood (Richard Bekins).  All of his success causes his old girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) to take interest in him again, and with a new career and his girl back, it seems like life couldn’t be better.

However, there are two sides to this coin.  He borrows money from a thug named Gennady (Andrew Howard), who later begins demanding NZT pills as payment.  Vernon is murdered early on, making it more difficult to get a hold of the pills.  And on top of supplying to Gennady and battling with his own addiction, Eddie also finds himself being followed constantly by an unknown man.

I really liked this movie for several reasons.  One, I found the story to be very intriguing and full of action.  Lots of twists and turns!  Two, it’s nice to see Bradley Cooper doing something a little different.  But more than anything,  I liked the movie’s visual style.  The opening is a really cool shot zooming along the streets of New York, and it seems like we are zooming into a photo into a photo into a photo (kind of like navigating the street view of Google Maps).  It also does some cool stuff with the lighting, using warmer and more vibrant colors whenever Eddie is using NZT, and reverting to a grainier, duller look when he is off it.  At times we’ll see multiple Eddies in the same shot, referring to his improved capacity to get things done… very cool.

And the ending?  I loved it!  It’s one of those endings that has you asking questions!  Is he off NZT or is he still a user?  The answer is debatable, and I highly recommend seeing this movie if you haven’t already.

Movie Review: 'Source Code' is a Good Source of Entertainment

Source Code movie poster, property of Summit Entertainment.

by Jack Garcia

Source Code ADMIRABLE

The creators of Source Code knew how to draw Brian and I in.  They cast Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead!  We love him... swoon.  However, as much as we love him, we don't always love the movies he is in.  Like last year's Prince of Persia?  Embarrassing.  But Source Code?  Really quick-paced, entertaining, and fun!

The movie starts off immediately in the middle of the action.  Our hero, Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal), awakens to find himself sitting on a commuter train in Chicago, seated across from a beautiful woman who seems to know him.  Her name is Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) and she keeps calling him Sean.  Who's Sean?  Why is he there?  He goes to the bathroom and sees another face in the mirror.  And as if things couldn't get any weirder, there's a huge explosion and he's whooshed to a new location where he's talking to a woman named Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) through a computer screen.  She tells him that he's on a mission to find out who bombed the train.  "Find the bomb and you'll find the bomber," she says.

And so she sends him in again, to relive the same 8 minutes over and over.  All this time travel is explained with some quantum physics mumbo jumbo that might not necessarily make any sense but doesn't need to.  If you over think the science, you won't allow yourself to have any fun.  With each new attempt at completing his mission, he finds himself getting to know Christina.  It's obvious that he's beginning to like her, and so he decides that he doesn't just want to find the bomber, he wants to stop the explosion.  He wants to save Christina's life.  Goodwin's scientist boss Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), insists that this is impossible and only wants him to focus on the task he was given.  But adding to the complexity of things, Colter's getting to be curious of the circumstances that brought him to be on this mission in the first place... and the movie just gets more and more interesting with each new journey into the "source code."

I only have two small criticisms for the movie.  One, is that I wish we could have learned about Christina's character a bit more.  Colter begins to care about her so much that he wants to save her and be with her, yet I don't really buy it since he keeps seeing her in the same 8 minutes of her life.  She basically says the same things over and over.  And two, I felt like the ending was a bit too happy; a bit too convenient.  But both of those complaints are only minor.  They really didn't bother me too much, because the movie was just so gosh darn entertaining.  Go see it!

Movie Review: 'Rango' is Resplendent

Rango movie poster, property of Nickelodeon and Paramount.

by Jack Garcia

Rango AWESOME!

I have been absolutely dying to see this movie.  Ever since I saw the very first trailer in theaters, I knew Rango was a must-see film.  In those brief minutes I could tell that the animation was phenomenal, the story-telling was bold, and that Nickelodeon Pictures was really stepping up it's game.  What a shame that the circumstances of my life would leave me waiting an entire month after it's opening to see it!

So I really don't know what I can say about this movie that hasn't already been said.  Roger Ebert, one of my favorite film critics, wrote, "Rango is some kind of a miracle: An animated comedy for smart moviegoers, wonderfully made, great to look at, wickedly satirical, and (gasp!) filmed in glorious 2-D. Its brilliant colors and startling characters spring from the screen and remind us how very, very tired we are of simpleminded little characters bouncing around dimly in 3-D."

And I agree with him 100%!  So many "family" movies these days seem to have been cookie-cuttered out of sugar cookie dough then quickly slapped with some brightly colored frosting and rainbow sprinkles.  The end result is a sugary mess of emptiness with no nutritional value to speak of.  Yet Rango seems to think that maybe, just maybe, kids are ready for some real food.

The story is of a lizard who enters a town in desperate need of a hero.  They are living through a horrible drought of water, feeling pressure from many foes.  Folks are selling off their land, they are tormented by hawks and snakes, and they are beginning to lose faith.  But when Rango comes in, talking big and (accidentally) defeating one of their foes, he becomes their sheriff.  He then begins to unite the townspeople in a quest to bring their water back, all while grappling with the existential question: who am I?

The film, for the most part, has the look and feel of a classic western complete with gunfights, and saloons, and tobacco.  Some people have an issue with that.  Someone I know wrote on Facebook that Rango was the worst movie she had ever seen.  She said she wanted to walk out of the theater because she found the movie immoral, which is simply not true.  Is it gritty? Yes.  Is there some violence?  Yes.  Are the characters a bit rough around the edges?  Yes.  They say things like "hell" and "damn."  Some of them smoke cigars or make off-colored jokes.  They don't pretend to be perfect, but they all have a value that I feel many would admire:  they have faith and the strength to carry on.

And it's a shame that some people would get so caught up in their haughty habits of passing righteous judgment, that they would somehow be oblivious to the religious overtones.  Right from the get-go Rango encounters a prophet-like character named Roadkill.  He's an aged armadillo on a sacred mission of sorts who speaks in metaphors about life and destiny and death.  Then we meet the townspeople who are passing through many trials and tribulations, yet still clinging desperately to the hope that their salvation will come.  In one scene they even pray to The Spirit of the West for their deliverance.  And Rango, in a beautifully otherworldly scene, gets to stand in the presence of The Spirit of the West who reminds him that no man can leave his own story.  Rango returns to the town to be the hero he was meant to be.

All this elevated impact while being incredibly funny, totally unexpected and off-beat, wildly action-packed, and sparkling with visual panache.  Rango is easily one of my favorite animated movies of all time.