Bad Teacher (JT Vol. 2)

We continue this week with another Justin Timberlake film. That's a bit of a misnomer. Even though he is billed second, he's really like the 5th lead in the movie. But front and center is Cameron Diaz playing an awful person. Even though she's not my favorite actress, she does tend to do good work when she feels like it (Being John Malkovich / Gangs of New York / Vanilla Sky).

The best way to describe this movie is a live action version of Road Runner. The "perfect" teacher loves brow beating her to "do better" and "hang in there" while also trying to get her fired. In this case, Mrs. Squirrel (Judy Punch) plays Wiley Coyote. JT gets to be a weirdo sub who basically agrees with what anyone says. Jason Segel plays the gym teacher and has some of the best lines. He is basically playing the only sane person in the film.

This movie is light entertainment. It's funny. It's raunchy. It's original. It's also not super memorable. But I give it points for effort and originality. In order of comedies I would recommend you seeing, it ranks second (behind Bridesmaids, but before Hangover II).


Did you enjoy it?
Yes.

Would you see it in theaters again?
Maybe.

Would you buy it?
Nah.

Would you rent it?
Sure.

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
Yes.

Fancy New Theme Song

You may or may not have noticed a fancy new widget above the posts. I'm assuming you haven't, hence this post.

KRULL NUGGET THEME SONG

Many remember when I had the Kickstarter donation widget on the blog. It was to help a friend, The Bassturd, raise money to get his last album pressed. Well, it's out. And since I helped donate, he wrote a theme song for the blog.

Originally titled Gimp Fry (inside joke, wink) it hearkens back to a time in the 80's when you could hear Harold Faltermeyer compositions on great movies or you could hear Devo on the radio.

It will stay at the top of the site for a while, and then it will make its way to its final home at the bottom of the page.

Please to enjoy.

(Thanks, Dan.)

Friends with Benefits (JT Vol. 1)

Oh man, this movie. First off, it is painfully close in theme to a movie we saw not too long ago. I am pretty sure I saw it, but I can't find it in the nugget archives, so maybe I spared you the pain of "No Strings Attached". If you find it, let me know.

Anyways, apparently I felt the need to see it again. So the story goes, headhunter gets a guy to work as Artistic blah blah at GQ magazine. He's from LA moving to NYC. She is the only person he knows. So they hang out. Then they become groin buddies (classy). Then they don't. Then they do. Then they're in love. Huzzah.

They also (they meaning the writers, not the characters) do this thing where they point out all the cliches of this kind of movie. They even have a movie within a movie starring Jason Segel and Rashida Jones full of every cliche (but still was not funny). But its kind of hard to laugh with them when they're doing the same thing they're making fun of. You're trying to pretend you're above it when clearly you are not.

On the plus side there is a lot of bare skin. A few funny moments, but not nearly enough to recommend it. It comes out at the end of next month. I hope it doesn't fade from my memory so I get fooled into going again.


Did you enjoy it?
Meh. Not really.

Would you see it in theaters again?
On accident only.

Would you buy it?
Nope.

Would you rent it?
Negative, Ghost Rider.

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
Unlikely.

Green Lantern



"In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!"

Of all the DC Comic properties, The Green Lantern was always going to be a tough live action film to make. I remember those 70's and 80's Justice League cartoon. Using your will power to create objects is inherently cartoony. Making a live action version is going to be a hard sell for today's kids. They're used to things more grounded in reality. Like the recent Iron Man and Batman movies. Plus he uses a lantern and jewelry to create these objects. It sounds like a 7 year old doing a movie pitch.

But if you can get into the right frame of mind from the outset of the movie, you'll be in good shape. The movie starts in space. We learn about the GL Corps and their mission. We learn about the evil that is about to be the villain of the movie. The plot is pretty thin. Which is too bad since we're given a lot of characters involved in the plot. You've got the guide, the trainer, the boss, the bosses, the company men, the scientist, the Congressman, the secret government woman, the love interest. Seriously, Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) has a best friend. I have no idea what his name is or if they even mention it in the movie. The reason I know he's his best friend is because that's one of his 5 lines in the movie.

It may sound like I'm really ragging on the movie. I think I am more "disappointed" in the film than anything else. I was excited to have more "comic" comic book movies. I like fantasy. Superman is a great example. Nothing about Supes is grounded in reality. And I think this movie would have been received better if it had come out in 2001 (prior to Spider-Man in 2002). It's a fun movie.

But another issue with the film is budget / plot. I didn't have any problems with the special effects. I know some people were concerned about how his suit would look since it is all CGI. It actually looks pretty good. But you spend so much time on a far away planet for a lot of the film, I could picture a money counter scrolling in the right hand corner of the screen. Because of that, we don't get a ton of sweeping action. Mrs. Nugget said a lot of it was boring. A film really cannot afford to commit that sin. Especially when a woman says that. Usually for her, things are too loud or violent. To bore her is inexcusable. Of course, this movie isn't really aimed at her market (but should be if they want a huge box office). Well, I guess Ryan Reynolds is shirtless for some of it. So, there's that.

The biggest sin the plot commits is scope. For a cosmic space story it feels really small. It's almost like a tv series. You have three sets. The airport / office, the military bunker, Hal's apartment and space. That's kind of cheat, there are other set pieces. But those are the main ones.

Of course, like every movie today, this film is mostly trying to set up the sequels. Again, think back to the Justice League. Who was GL's enemy? Sinestro. In this movie, he's the leader of the Corp. So you know in this movie or the next, he's gonna be the big bad. I wish two things, I wish that they had made him the Big Bad in this film, or conversely I hope this movie makes enough money that I get to see that movie in a sequel.

Overall, I was really hoping this was the best movie the summer. My expectations may have been too big. Its a fun movie and worth checking out. But if you have to choose between this and X-Men, I would say go to X-Men (then you can always double feature). Also, it is in 3D. I didn't mind it. I wouldn't seek it out due to the surcharge for 3D, but I didn't hate it. It added some fun to the effects and space shots.

Did you enjoy it?
Yes.

Would you see it in theaters again?
Nah.

Would you buy it?
No.

Would you rent it?
Yes.

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
Yes.

Super 8

A lot of people old and young (Nugget and Mrs. Nugget parents have mentioned it) are interested in finding out about Super 8. I would say it is a combination of J.J. Abrams "mystery box" and nostalgia for Spielberg films. And that's really what you have here, a mash up.

There are two stories being told here. One is about a kid who lost his mom in an accident. The other is about the U.S. Government transporting an alien via train. Sorry, spoiler alert, there is no spoiler. It's an alien. Not a smoke monster that can take the form of dead people.

These two stories are sort of conflicting. And that's why I'm not in love with this movie. The kids are kind of just taken out of the story when the screenwriter decided he had nothing to do with it. There is the start of a budding romance that is like Romeo and Juliet, except it's just kind of resolved in a sentence.

I've actually heard in interviews that JJ Abrams said that originally this movie came about because he had two ideas. So, he decided to combine them together. But really, its not like there are parallels of the monster story and the kid's story. It's just like mashing a hamburger and piece of chicken together and putting it on the grill. That doesn't really make a chicken burger. You've just kind of made a mess.

That being said, I still liked it. It's a fun time at the movie and does call back to some of Spielberg's films. The only thing that I would say tips it back over to the thumbs down side of things are the lens flairs. I mean, someone needs to just smack JJ over the head and tell him to knock it off. It just makes it look like incompetent film making.

Did you enjoy it?
Sure.

Would you see it in theaters again?
No.

Would you buy it?
No.

Would you rent it?
No.

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
Eh.

X-Men: The First Class

The X-men series has gone from good to bad within 4 movies. So, like Pirates 4, I had no interest in this film. But then reviews started coming in saying it was pretty good. That couldn't be true. The only reason Fox keeps making these movies is so they retain the rights to the Marvel characters and they don't revert back to Marvel Studios (shrewd, but Marvel is doing pretty good on their own with Avengers coming next year).

X-men 3 was bad. Just a hollow attempt to end the series. Then they went with an origin tale for Wolverine. Just so terribly terribly bad. So, I guess they had nowhere to go but up.

And up they went. This movie is really good. I'd say it's one of my favorite so far (but I did just win passes to Green Lantern next week, so I wouldn't hold onto that title belt for too long). The filmmakers stayed true to some of the original four movies while also blazing a trail on their own. There are some neat twists and turns throughout the movie.

Setting the movie in the 60's was a good idea. You get to see some of the classic X-Men suits, and you can just blame it on the period. The special effects aren't great, but some are okay and they're all passable.

The only real issue I have with the movie is you don't get to know a lot about the bad guys. You learn a little about one of the five bad guys. But that makes sense, I guess. They do focus a lot of character development to the "good" guys. I say good in quotations, because Magneto is a good guy for now. But we all know he won't stay that way (for anyone who knows anything about the other 4 movies and comics).

If they keep up, this might be a good series of films again. Yay.
Did you enjoy it?
Yes.

Would you see it in theaters again?
Maybe. Might pop my head in after seeing something else.

Would you buy it?
No. I owned X2 at one point but a crack head took it from me and I never replaced it.

Would you rent it?
Maybe. Mrs. Nugget didn't attend the screening and I think she would like it.

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
Of course.

The Hangover Part II

The Hangover Part II (the quest for more money). If I were to use a keyword find and replace on MS Word I could have made a lot of money with this sequel. Instead of Doug getting married, now it is Stu's (the dentist) turn. No, he is not marrying Heather Graham. Apparently, you make promises to hookers that you can't keep.

So, it's a repeat of the first one. Which isn't the worst thing, since the first one was funny and made garbage truck loads of money. So, you can't really blame them. And it is funny. That said, I don't really see why you need to rush out to see this one. Wait until its out on video.

Did you enjoy it?
It was funny. I laughed. Roger Ebert didn't think that was enough to give it a thumbs up.

Would you see it in theaters again?
No.

Would you buy it?
No.

Would you rent it?
No, because I have seen it and own the first one on DVD, I can just watch that.

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
Sure.