Ed's Review Dot Com

AEG Live, Insurge Pictures, Island Def Jam Music Group

Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Sean Kingston, Ludacris, Jaden Smith, Usher, Pattie Mallette

This is a documentary about Justin Bieber. This film follows him from his early years when he was born in a small town with a large love of music, through the You Tube years, to the present where this kid made a huge mark on the charts. Justin is just plain talented. It also follows him on tour and shows scenes from the shows, so it’s a mix of “Behind the Music” or “Biography” and a concert film. A sure hit for those with Bieber Fever!!!

There have been a lot of concert films coming out lately. Trying to mix in the new techniques in 3D with the music of the particular star, I think they hope to make you feel like you’ve been to a concert. This one is somewhat different in that it has a lot of old footage, home movies, and interviews of family and friends in it mixed in with songs from the concert tour. I did NOT see this in 3D, as I watched it at home on DVD, so if there was a big plus to seeing it in a theater of screaming 9 year old girls, I missed out on that. As such I didn’t rate this film very high because I felt it failed on several levels. First of all, as a documentary, it covers highlights of how baby Justin was a drummer from the crib on, and it starts out with a cute montage of viral youtube clips setting us up for the obvious early Bieber clips to come. That was a clever opening and a quick hook, but there was not nearly enough meat to make this a biography film. Then it mixes in the concert footage and I found it pretty good (Justin is one hell of singer) but that too is lacking because it is too few and far between. I think I could have enjoyed this much more as a one hour Biography segment with the documentary stuff, and a 90 minute concert letting him just entertain. I’m not sure why it was done in this half and half format. I obviously have never seen a Bieber concert, so maybe he can’t hold an audience of grown ups for 90 minutes. Or perhaps since the Jonas Brothers film bombed so badly, that they wanted to put move Bieber history in it to make it more interesting to fans, I’m not sure, but it was disjointed for me and not enough of either story.

Obviously any Bieber fans are going to go crazy for this film, and please feel free to get the Blu-Ray and enjoy it over and over, and I wish you well. It just didn’t work that well for me, although Justin is an interesting subject and the little bugger can really carry a tune. And he’s cute as a button, as they say. I just wasn’t blown away by the way this was edited. (Of course it’s possible I was just being a crotchety old guy who is too tough to please.) If you loved it and though it was very good, please take a moment to comment and tell me why. I’d like to know why I just didn’t seem to get it.

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De Line Pictures

Cher, Christina Aguilera, Eric Dane, Cam Gigandet, Julianne Hough, Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, Dianna Agron

Burlesque is the story of a waitress in a small Iowa town who is sick of her life. In her words, she looked at the lives of everyone in her town and found none that she wanted, so it’s off to Hollywood to follow her dream of being a dancer and a singer. But live in Tinseltown isn’t so easy, and finding work means one rejection after another. Ali (Christina Aguilara) is almost out of options when by accident she runs across a small club called “Burlesque” run by Tess (Cher) a retired dancer who is trying to keep running. With stars in her eyes, Ali enters and tries to find a job there. Tess is obviously in love with her co-conspirator Sean (Stanley Tucci) who is unfortunately into guys, and NOT with her ex-husband and partner Vince (Peter Gallagher) who stands against Tess on about everything. To further complicate things, the dancers lip-sync to classic singers while doing an old fashioned show without a pole or any real nudity, just suggestive dancing, but they all have issues that stand in the way of any form of greatness. Marcus (Eric Dane) is a rich real estate mogul who likes to hang out at the club, blow lots of money, and date the girls. But it appears Tess’ days are number as the club is facing a large balloon payment and has no way to pay the mortgage and is about to lose the club for good. Marcus wants to buy it, and offers her a lot of money, but Tess won’t take it, much to her ex-husbands chagrin, and he has some bad intentions for the choice property on the Sunset Strip.

Burlesque is a simple story. It’s been told many, many times before, and I think that’s what held this film up at the box office. Cher has a couple numbers that are vintage Cher, and excellent, and of course Christina is an amazing singer and plays the poor girl from a little town who had a big voice and makes it big in a hurry. This is her life story for crying out loud. It’s a very old story going back to the silent films and classics like A Star is Born or dozens of others. Actually it could be described as the PG-13 version of Showgirls which probably hurt it as well.

But this is a musical theater drama, and is not bad, (i.e. ok for older kids) and is a good story with redeeming qualities unlike the title would suggest. This is old time classic Burlesque, not a stripper story, and the music is excellent and the acting is pretty decent. Marcus is a bastard, and Sean is a very lovable queen. Tess is the bitchy dragon lady boss with a heart of gold inside, and Ali is the sweet little innocent girl from Iowa who everyone takes advantage of until she learns her way around to save the day in the end. Kristin Bell also appears as Nikki, the lead lip sync’r of the group who has so many issues and tries to torpedo Ali when Ali takes her place by turning off the music track which gives Ali a chance to really sing. Nikki’s part was pretty small, and I was a bit surprised that it wasn’t developed better, but I guess this is the Cristina and Cher show, so there’s not much time for any of the others to step up. But the songs are good, Cher and Christina are awesome singers and everyone is a great dancer. This looks and feels like one of those musicals from the 40’s that filled up the screen and it’s a big movie. I think I understand why it did not kick butt in the theaters with all the competition up against it over the holidays, but it’s definitely worth catching on Blu-Ray, especially if you have a large screen and a great sound system! This is a nice little film that looks very big on the screen. Give it a chance.

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Summit Entertainment, Touchstone Pictures, Offspring Entertainment

Rick Malambri, Adam G Sevani, Sharni Vinson, Alyson Stoner, Keith Stallworth, Kendra Andrews, Stephen Boss, Martin Lombard, Facundo Lombard, Oren Michaeli, Joe Slaughter

The new gangs I guess are street dancers.  The Pirates including Luke (Malambri) and Natalie (Vinson) team up with a kid the see dancing on the street named Moose (Sevani) and try to take on the number one champion hip hop dancers in New York in contest.  They need the money, and they need the respect.  The showdown of the century “The First Annual World Dance Jam” is destined to change their lives forever.

Yeah, right!  I hated this film.  I don’t get the modern street dancing anyway.  I’m much too old to enjoy seeing people flip-flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water or a chicken with his head cut off.  Then the dialog in this film is enough to make me choke!  “One move, can make you believe there’s something more.  One move, can set a whole generation free.”  Gak.

I did not see this in 3D.  I understand the 3D process added a lot to dance fans and I watched it on DVD.  But I was bored to death.  Practice-battle-fight-battle-practice-battle-battle-battle-done.   There was no story at all, just a bunch of kids who live and practice in a big building and do dance battles at every time they meet somebody.  There was just nothing going on here at all.  I was horribly bored with the whole thing, and the climax was about as boring as the rest of the film.  The Pirates got their butts kicked 900 ways to Sunday and then the judges without any question just name the Pirates the winners.  Like there wasn’t really any real contest to begin with.  And the commentary by the announcer was really lame!   On and on with stunning insight like “Did you see that?” “Ooh, that’s old school” “Say what?”
This was a waste of my time!

Note: My better half is a big fan of “So You Think You Can Dance”. At least one of the stars of this movie is from that show. She was thrilled to recognize someone from the show, then promptly fell asleep. The next day we tried to watch it again, but she was as bored with it as I was.

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Parker Film Company, Luber Roklin Entertainment, Bossa Nova Productions

Adam Goldberg, Marley Shelton, Elon Bailey, Lucy Punch, Vinnie Jones, Zak Orth, Ptolemy Slocum, Michael Panes, Svetlana Efemova

I gotta get with my blogmaster to get a half star, or a ZERO stars, as giving this piece of  crap a whole star is like giving one of those guys on the side of the freeway exit a fifty for a bag of oranges.  It’s not worth it.

I recall one of the episodes of Penn & Teller’s Showtime series “Bullsh*t” where they went to a fancy restaurant in LA and sent the staff out to the back of the restaurant to fill up water bottles with the garden hose.  Then they brought it into the restaurant to sell for up to $8.00 a bottle to a sucker public who raved about the flavor of the water.  They were told it came from some glacier in Greenland and contained all these fabulous minerals.  Every one of the patrons raved about the quality of the water from a garden hose.

I feel like the kid from “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.   If you tell someone it’s expensive art, even if a chimpanzee painted it with his butt, someone is going to plunk down $50,000.00 and call it genius!

This film could have taken on this kind of B.S., but instead it truly is what it’s talking about.   I expected maybe some ridicule about the so called “art experts” who tell us what is art and what isn’t.   But instead, they seemed to take it seriously and it never did anything but show us what spoiled, nasty rotten, smug people these characters are.

One is a really bitchy art dealer.  One is a famous artist who can’t decide whether his works should be displayed closer together or farther apart to really show thier impact.  The other is a musician who bangs on pans, drops chains in a bucket and pounds away incessantly on a piano making a hell of a racket while a lady blows on a horn like a party favor.  They call this noise music, and of course the 15 people who showed up for the “concert” walk out in the first few minutes.

Sullen and dreary, he’s disappointed that people don’t enjoy his genius.  So both of them like the girl, but all of them are too stupid to have a real relationship. 

So I gave this piece of crap a chance.  I watched the whole thing, although I used Netflix Watch Instantly and didn’t waste a spot in my queue.  I hate people who review films they haven’t watched or when they say the turned it off after 10 minutes and then sent it back and wrote a review.  But this is one I really wish I had forgotten the review, and really turned it off after 10 minutes because it never got any better.  The opening weekend grosses on this film tell you how great it is.  It made a gross of $18,002.  

Now you can read reviews from people who give this 5 stars and rave that it’s the most relevant film ever made.  But I have to cry out as loud as I can.  The Emperor has no clothes.  The ones who made this film are laughing at the idiots who think there is any value to this in the least!  I can hear them laughing from here!

WARNING:  I do not know how to classify this junk, so I am choosing Music & Performing Arts but there is NO music I could recognize.    Art is in the eye of the beholder.  Yikes.

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River Road Entertainment

Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Stella Maeve, Riley Keough, Scout Taylor-Compton, Alia Shawkat, Johnny Lewis, Tatum O’Neal, Brett Cullen, Hannah Marks

This is a biopic of Cherie Curry, not Joan Jett.  It looks like it ought to be Joan’s movie, but though Kristen Stewart does a good job of playing her, she’s not the focus of the movie.   This means that Dakota Fanning (Cherie Curry) is the focus.  In the special features, Dakota talks about how much fun it was to play a real person.  She’s never done that before.  Well, she has now, and believe it or not, she actually carried it off.  If you don’t belive me, check out Cherie Curry on You Tube. 

There are also some special features with interviews with Cherie herself.  She wrote the autobiography and assisted Dakota through the making of the movie.  She has lived an interesting life.  The events of the film cover 2 years.   Cherie started with Joan and the Runaways at 15, but 18 it was over.   Cherie fell into a world of drugs and fell hard.  Finally, after nealy dying, she pulled out of it and went through rehab and spent time helping others avoid the pitfalls she fell into.  Believe it or not, she’s now know for chain saw wood carving!   Quite a long way from practicing in an old trailer and singing Cherry Bomb!

The characters are gritty, and the rock and roll is good.  The soundtrack is great if you’re  a fan of the genre.  I have never been a rock fan, soul music was my forte in the 70’s when this all happened, but it was an interesting story to hear how it all happened.  And according to those who lived it, it’s very accurately portrayed.  The music business is hard, and nobody wanted to see an all girl rock band in 1975, but Joan and Cherie and the rest certainly paved the way.

If you’re a fan of biopics or rock and roll, you’re bound to enjoy the history of this film.  If you are bored with the subject, then there’s not much else to the movie, it’s just a story of how they met, and the two years that turned them into Rock and Roll superstars.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog