Tag: College

TRUTH OR DARE (2018) – Review

Ah, it’s another special Friday, a day to avoid black cats while walking around a ladder in order to see a new horror flick at the multiplex. On this thirteenth, we’re not getting another incarnation of Jason Vorhees, or Freddie, Leatherface, or Michael Myers (the Halloween guy, behave!). Nope this flick is in a part of “Scare City” that’s a bit more genteel than where those dudes do their mayhem. That’s because (speaking of the thirteenth) this movie’s rated “PG-13”, an area that’s more in the wheelhouse of the company known as Blumhouse. Just in case you were thinking they’ve gone all “respectable’ with their Oscar win (Best Original Screenplay) for last year’s smash GET OUT, here’s another movie for teens who love to see slightly older, very photographic young adults in jeopardy. And just so you don’t confuse it with that ancient 1990’s Madonna documentary, the studio’s moniker precedes the title in all the marketing with Blumhouses’s TRUTH OR DARE.

The frights begin with a scene of savagery down south of the border prior to the title card. Cut to a sun-speckled college campus just north of said border, probably California (USC Sunnydale, perhaps). Perky, bright-eyed brunette Olivia (Lucy Hale) is speaking into her laptop screen, imploring the followers of her You Tube channel to join her for Spring break at a Habitat for Humanity site. Not so fast. Her roommate and BFF Markie (Violette Beane) insists that Olivia join the gang on a Spring break trip to Mexico. As Olivia hesitates, Markie and friends agree to work at the next H4H project (“Twelve hands are better than two”). And so, they pile into the gas-guzzlin’ vehicle. Markie’s got her beau (for whom Olivia secretly pines) Lucas (Tyler Posey), there’s another couple, hard-drinking Penelope (Sophia Ali) and shady drug dealer (he’s got a prescription pad) Tyson (Nolan Gerard Funk), along with the closeted (from his clueless cop dad) Brad (Hayden Szeto). After countless selfies and cell phone videos, the group convenes at a beach-side bar for the last night of the “vacay”. Unfortunately Olivia bumps into obnoxious party dude (same school) Ronnie (Sam Lerner) just before she meets the mysterious hunk Carter (Landon Liboiron). Darn, it’s last call, but Carter knows a secluded place where they can keep the party going. Wow, it’s a super-creepy old run-down church. Inside, Carter suggests they play a game of Truth or Dare. He ducks out quickly as the game reaches an uncomfortable end. Or has it? Back at school, seemingly possessed strangers (with sunken dark eyes and Joker-like grins) continue the game with the group. Some find out the hard way that you’ll pay the ultimate price for refusing to play. Oh, and lying in “truth” mode gets you killed. As does refusing a “dare”. As the bodies begin to pile up, Olivia realizes the game is cursed and tries to convince her friends as she figures out a way to end the game before it claims them all.

The simple plot is pushed forward mainly by the tag-team efforts of the film’s two main actresses. Of course, the central heroine is Hale, her sharp-angled bobbed do’ and accented eye shadow making her resemble an anime star, who has the difficult job of not only figuring out the deadly on-going game, and then struggling to convince those around her of the deadly danger. Unfortunately her role is too “squeaky-clean” with almost new flaws or foibles. Most of those are loaded onto the Markie character played with great energy by Beane (so good as Jesse “Quick” on TV’s “The Flash”), Still reeling from her father’s demise, Markie throws herself at any man, even grinding up against a stranger on the dance floor mere feet from her dull-witted steady guy. She’s the story’s true “wild card”, threatening Olivia, then refusing to the ‘dare’ to smash her hand minutes later.. The others are mainly “creepshow cannon fodder”, popping up to display bad behavior, then pay for their “dirty deeds”. We’re left to wonder why Penelope boozes to extreme excess. Why’s her man Tyson nearly as big a jerk as that lunk-headed horndog Ronnie? Plus it trivializes Brad’s big decision subplot. And why does it seem that Carter wondered in from a more interesting recent horror flick, IT FOLLOWS (he should be wearing a T-shirt with “bait’ printed in blood-red letters across the chest).

This trite exercise is a real step down for director and co-screen writer Jeff Wadlow after his last theatrical feature five years ago, the flawed but often entertaining KICK ASS 2. Of course, he’s loaded this up with telegraphed scares, fake-outs, and sound manipulations, which is still more watchable than the mind-numbing vacation montage that precedes the fateful night. At least the writers thought ahead and inserted a new rule that there could be no more than two “truths” before a deadly “dare”, which makes some characters go for the danger to spare the next player. Plus, the “ghoulish grin” CGI effect is powerful the first couple times, but its repetition blunts its impact. Those death punishments have none of the “Rube Goldberg” zaniness of the FINAL DESTINATION franchise. By the third act, Olivia and her pals are hopping back and forth over the border so frequently that we wonder why the border security didn’t hold them for questioning. It all winds up back at the now crumbling church that’s falls apart much like all the big estates and mansions at the end of the Corman Price/Poe pictures from the 50’s and 60’s. The finale is so muddled and clumsy that the set-up for a sequel is laughable. The producers will discover that those playing this game of TRUTH OR DARE will probably pass on another round.

1.5 Out of 5

BLUE LIKE JAZZ – The Review

BLUE LIKE JAZZ is based on the New York Times best-selling book of the same title by Donald Miller, and an official selection in the SXSW (South By Southwest) Film Festival. This alone may be enough for some to count this film as an unwavering success, but despite the film’s valiant efforts, it is not without it’s flaws. That being said, the film is also far from being a waste of the viewer’s time… in fact, I encourage seeing this film for what it is, flaws and all, because it’s the kind of movie we rarely see in theaters, and one that is rarely as accomplished as this one has turned out within it’s distinct genre of storytelling.

Directed by Steve Taylor, BLUE LIKE JAZZ is a story of faith and how it collides with one’s struggle to find his place in the world. Marshall Allman plays Donald Miller, the central character and author of the book from which  the film is based. Donald is a young Texan man, a Southern Baptist with divorced parents, son to an uber-conservative Jesus-freak mother (Jenny Littleton) and a liberal intellectual atheist father (Eric Lange) whom he refers to as “The Hobo.” Life is peachy and grand for Donald, as he goes about his quaint little life as assistant to the youth pastor of his church… until he discovers a life-altering secret about his mother and the servant of God with whom he served. At this moment, Donald’s continuing collegiate course changes drastically, choosing to attend Reed College in the Pacific Northwest instead of Trinity Baptist in Texas.

This is the setup, having successfully framed Donald as the proverbial square, a holy-roller without a clue, but a nice guy who gets dumped on by those he loved. BLUE LIKE JAZZ presents itself in an oddly, often forced quirkiness, but given the nature of the film and the tone of the film, this forced quirkiness actually lends a certain pleasant peculiarity to the film’s charm, which permeates even the lower moments. From day one, arriving at Reed College, Donald is clearly a fish out of water, but this is carried over from his time in Texas, where Donald was already something of a fish out of water without truly realizing it. We’re introduced early on, perhaps subconsciously, to this idea of Donald being different from the average folk, falling somewhere between the two extremes. This may be slightly cliche’ in it’s execution, but once more… it works here.

Donald meets and befriends two fellow students at Reed College that ultimately hold extremely influential roles in his personal epiphany. Kenny (Jason Marsden) — aka, The Pope — is a wild card, a free spirit and a sort of rebellious anti-religious version of Donald, while Penny (Claire Holt) is a straight-laced, well-mannered do-gooder with whom Donald develops an infatuation with despite the unknown similarity they share. Donald struggles to reconcile between his being drawn into the life of parties and pranks that Kenny leads and the more righteous, conscience-driven life led by Penny. Somewhere in the middle is the relatively insignificant but welcome friendship Donald makes with a lesbian student named Lauryn (Tania Raymonde).

BLUE LIKE JAZZ plays out much like ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) meets ACCEPTED (2006) as a college film with lots of partying and craziness but with substance and a message, even if the message is heavy-handed. BLUE LIKE JAZZ definitely wears it’s heart on it’s sleeve, making no effort to hide it’s agenda as a film focused on making a statement. BLUE LIKE JAZZ stands up and proudly says “I’m a Christian and that’s alright, because we’re not all crazy extremists and I have a sense of humor about my life.”

Regardless of where you stand on the scale of religion, BLUE LIKE JAZZ is a film that can be appreciated for it’s willingness to expose itself and have fun with a topic otherwise taken far too seriously by far too many people. BLUE LIKE JAZZ is funny, light-hearted and quirky… until the final act, specifically the long, drawn-out ending scene when Donald has his ultimate epiphany. This scene removes itself from the lighter touch of the rest of the film, sinking into the preachy depths from which it had successfully avoided up to this point. My advice, enjoy the film up to this point, then bite your tongue during the end, followed by an intriguing and intelligent debate with a number of various outlooks on the film with others as you leave the theater.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

BLUE LIKE JAZZ opens today, April 13th in St. Louis at Wehrenberg Theatres.

More information about BLUE LIKE JAZZ can be found at bluelikejazzthemovie.com

Review: ‘College’

Travis:

I have a request to make… if ever I am faced again with a decision like whether to go see a movie such as ‘Babylon A.D.’ or to go see a movie like ‘College’… if I truly must choose then make sure I err in favor of the special FX… otherwise, clamp my head in a vice grip and manually lobotomize me with a rusty drill bit, because that would make more sense than actually paying money to see ‘College’. I suppose I didn’t get the hidden message when the studios yanked all the press screenings. Oh, no… I said “What the Hell do the studios know? I bet this movie’s going to be funny. I’ll pay $8.75 and see for myself. That’ll show ’em!”

My advice… DON’T! I was wrong. There, I said it. ‘College’ is basically this: ‘Van Wilder’ meets ‘Super Bad’ with one major difference. It ain’t funny! [OK, so it did garner a guilty laugh or two more than ‘Disaster Movie’ but that is no compliment.] What a horrible year for the box office on Labor Day weekend… ‘Disaster Movie’, ‘College’ and apparently ‘Babylon A.D.’ is no Oscar winner either. Three friends take a road trip to Fieldmont College to have the weekend of their lives, hoping to hit some major college parties, drink lots of free beer and score lots of college girls. Soon after they arrive, these three high school students find themselves the subject of a bored fraternity’s amusement and they suffer greatly. But, as one might expect, all works out in the end. Oh, darnit! Did I just give away the ending? Shucks!

Where are the similarities? Aside from the obvious ones, high school kids hitting as many parties they have no business being near getting drunker than they ever should, trying to get laid by college girls and being tormented by the frat boys, ‘College’ attempts to reinvent a perfectly good wheel and comes up with something the vaguely resembles a paper boat, because this movie sinks as soon as it sets sail. It has a fat kid that thinks he’s cooler than he really is (Super Bad), who’s best friends with an up-tight responsible skinny kid (Super Bad) who’s friends with a nerdy bookworm with glasses who simply doesn’t get it (Super Bad). They’re tormented by a fraternity led by an a**hole who was obviously cast to closely resemble Van Wilder, but this would be the evil version of Van Wilder, because Ryan Reynolds played a super-cool Van Wilder that wasn’t an a**hole. “It” sort of continues to roll downhill from here, if you’re familiar with the phrase. ‘College’ is unoriginal and lame, rarely humorous and has dialogue that maybe matches that of TV’s ‘Saved By the Bell’. My advice… just let this one die out quickly. The more people that go and see it the longer it will linger.

[rating:1/5]

Scott:

The previews for this movie are very deceiving, and they lead you to believe this movie is going to be the next generation’s ‘Animal House’ or ‘American Pie’. Let me say that if this is the case, the next generation is going to SUCK. This movie is a blatant rip off of other teen movies of recent years such as ‘Dorm Daze’, ‘American Pie: Naked Mile’, and many more. The most obvious reference is to ‘Superbad’. You have The Skinny guy who gets the girl, The Chubby Funny guy who hooks up with a girl that wouldnt give them a second glance in real life, and the super nerd.

There are a handful of funny moments, and they are “chuckle” moments at best. Like your typical direct to dvd movies, all of the funny stuff is in the trailer, so maybe instead of going to see this movie you could watch the trailer a bunch, and then go rent ‘American Pie: Naked Mile’ instead.

[rating:1/5]