Monday, June 18, 2012

Movie Reviews: Rock of Ages (IMAX), That’s My Boy

Movie Reviews: Rock of Ages (IMAX), That’s My Boy




Rock of Ages (IMAX)

Now one of the things that I have liked about writing the movie reviews for the past 5+ years is that I get to show others why I either like or hate films. For these 2 films, I took one of my nephews along with me so he could see his first film in the IMAX format. After the film, he now loves this format.

I knew that the film was based off of a very successful Broadway play. I also knew that the star of this film was Tom Cruise. The last thing that I knew about this film was that the music of this film was from my high school and college days from the 1980’s. This is what I was unsure about the most of this film. I had memories of all of these songs and I knew all of the words to these songs and I was wondering would my knowledge of the music really make me want to hate this film more because of their misuse in this film.

So I really went into this film with not knowing anything about how the musical story or any of the characters and after it was over, I could not believe how much I really enjoyed this film.

The film opens up with a girl from Oklahoma getting on a bus and moving to Los Angeles. While she is on the bus ride, the bus passengers start up singing the Night Ranger song, “Sister Christian”. I was listening to their singing of this song and thinking, well this film has my attention, now what will they do with the rest of it.

I really liked the 3 sub stories of this film, The Alec Baldwin/ Russell Brand arc, and now I will never listen to a certain REO Speedwagon song the same way after their story. The young rockers story and how dark their love story goes throughout the film. The last arc was the Catherine Zeta-Jones character, (based on the 1980’s Tipper Gore anti-Rock crusade. )

But the film will either work for you or fail for you with one thing; do you believe that Tom Cruise is the 1890’s rocker, Stacee Jaxx, whos' best friend is a monkey by the name of “Hey Man”? I wasn’t sure until I heard him do a great version of Bon Jovi’s, ‘”Wanted, Dead or Alive”.

After the film was over, I asked my nephew what he thought about it and he liked it. This 1980’s child loved it. I could not believe how much I liked this film and I will add this film to my Blu-Ray collection when it comes available. Please see it in the IMAX format if you can.

Grade: A



That’s My Boy



Now I knew that this film had gotten some great publicity from when it was shown at one of Super Bowl 46’s many pre-parties. I also knew that after the failure of Adam Sandelers’s last film, “Jack and Jill” that he needed to do something very different.

The idea of this film was different, What if a 13 year old male student had had a relationship with his teacher? What if this same relationship had produced a love-child who is given the legal name of Han Solo Burger? The scene in which the lover get caught was interesting, to say the least and then the film takes a look of what happens to the child-parent and to Han.

I must admit the cameo of Rob Ryan, Coach of the American Football New York Jet’s, being a huge New England Patriots fan in this film and then calling their coach a genius just made the entire audience laugh a lot. He was playing the role of Adam’s lawyer and the whole scene just seemed to work for me.

Now the rest of the film idea is that Adam hasn’t paid taxes in a long time and he must pay 41k$ in 4 days or he will go to jail. He soon sees his son’s photo in the paper and he has become successful and he will be getting married that weekend. He want to see if his son will give him the $ so he can stay out of jail.

The rest of the film just gets wilder and crazier and this will definitely not be a film that you can take little kids to see. This one is adults only.

When the twist came that comes with this type of comedy film, it just made the audience a little squeamish. I really could not believe that the film went there and some people will this its funny but some will really turn against the film because of it.

I don’t know if this film will pay in Korea. Adam’s comedy, in the past, really hasn’t worked outside of the USA.

My nephew loved it and I liked it but I am not sure that I will see this film ever again.

Grade B

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