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Welcome to the Punch

MPAA Rated – R
It’s 1:39 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

Welcome to the Punch
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: James McAvoy, Mark Strong
MPAA Rated: R
Released By: IFC Films
Released On: July 23, 2013
Kiddie Movie: Please put them to bed – there’s a lot of violence.
Date Movie: She might snuggle.
Gratuitous Sex: More would have helped.
Gratuitous Violence: Lots of guys who can’t seem to hit anything with their automatic weapons.
Action: It’s got some chasing.
Laughs: Not really.
Memorable Scene: The slow-motion, guns blazing, kidnapping scene was pretty cool.
Memorable Quote: Nothing stood out.
Directed By: Ridley Scott
Cool Things on the Blu-Ray: It’s got the “Making of…” for you film buffs.

Oh, how I wanted to like “Welcome to the Punch” a lot more than I did. How I really wanted to. Alright, before I give my final analysis, let’s get to the story a bit.

In “Welcome to the Punch” we get Max (James McAvoy). He’s a cop. Okay, he’s technically a detective, but who’s really countin?. We also get Jacob (Mark Strong). He’s a thief who robs banks. No, not your corner bank with a few bucks in it but the major money locations, with enough cash to live off of in a nice lifestyle for the rest of your life. Opening with Jacob in the middle of what is supposed to be his last run, his money-maker as it would be, his “I can retire from this life of crime now and live in a nice retreat in Iceland” kind of heist, he is almost taken down by Max, and during the ensuing fight Jacob get the upper hand, and instead of just shooting Max in the head, Jacob shoots Max in the leg, leaving Max to a life of guilt and gimpiness. So, Jacob gets away and is living a relaxing life, Max is trying to get through his demons, and then, wouldn’t you know it, Jacob’s son ends up living a life of crime, ends up shot, caught by the cops, and now dad has to come and break him out of the hospital.

Yup, you know what that means! Max is now going to get his chance to get his bad guy and get the demons out of his head! So, of course, Jacob comes back, Max is hot on his trail, but what kind of movie would that be? It could have developed into a great “cat and mouse” kind of flick, but nope, the movie folks decide to throw in some conspiracy crap, some government corruption, and a backend storyline about gun-running, or some stuff like that, and of course somehow Max and Jacob find themselves in the middle of it all, and although not becoming the best of friends, their life courses intertwine in their own quests to find the truth about what is really going on with Jacob’s son.

Here’s the thing… For the most part I was enjoying the movie, at least until it became all cookie-cutter on me with the story and some of the action sequences. Sure, there was a lot of low-talking by bad guys complete in nighttime scenes when all bad things happen, and there were an awful lot of bad guys with automatic weapons who really needed some time at a shooting range because, most of the time, these guys couldn’t shoot the broad side of a barn if they were standing ten feet in front of it. And, oh yea, I wondered how Max even still had a job what with his bad leg and mental issues. And, oh yea yea, I was close to wondering why no one really cared the lady cop was missing for the longest time. In the end, though, I was okay with most of that. It was really the “government officials are corrupt and now the bad guy and good guy need to team together to save the world, or at least get revenge” story that annoyed me.

The movie is good-looking, well shot with some great scenes (and yes, complete with the obligatory, slow-motion, show bullet come out the chamber, and here’s the bullet hitting the bad guy complete with blood splatter), and even the acting is good, but all of the Ridley Scott goodness gets lost in the not-really-original story.

The Ridley Scott goodness gets the movie 4 stars, the cookie-cutter story 1 star, so I suppose I’ll average everything together and add ½ star because I’m in a good mood.

With that it’s 3 stars out of 5 for “Welcome to the Punch.” So much potential lost in a story anyone could come up with.

The Blu-ray has a bunch of interviews, and a nice “Making-of” featurette, but unless you are an avid film buff looking for some artsy insight into the character development, you’ll probably skip it.

A decent rental none-the-less – enjoy it for the basic-ness that the movie is.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Love and Honor

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:36 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

Love and Honor
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Austin Stowell, Liam Hemsworth, Aimee Teegarden, Teresa Palmer
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: IFC Films
Released On: July 23, 2013
Kiddie Movie: Probably best for the teen girls.
Date Movie: Nope.
Gratuitous Sex: They get it on, but nothing gratuitous.
Gratuitous Violence: Some war scenes, but they kind of look fake.
Action: Not really.
Laughs: Nope.
Memorable Scene: Mickey and Candace just have sex and they she pretty much goes, “Oh, by the way, the cops are looking to arrest you.”
Memorable Quote: Nothing really.
Directed By: Danny Mooney

And now I bring you “Love and Honor,” a movie trying to tell a love story set under the backdrop of the first moon landing and the Vietnam War. Yes, it’s a movie set in 1969, and it looks like the movie folks raided the prop room and found anything that seemed to resemble 1969, from cheesy t-shirts, to an acoustic guitar propped next to the period-piece couch, to the malt shop, to cheesy protest signs, to the afghan that looked like it was knitted by your grandmother, and somewhere along the way found cheesy, protest dialogue to go along with it all.

Let’s start with the story basics…

Dolton (Austin Stowell) and Mickey (Liam Hemsworth) are young soldiers serving in Vietnam. The only thing that keeps Dolton focused on staying alive is the love of his girl back home, Jane (Aimee Teegarden), but sadly she sends him the proverbial Dear Dolton letter telling him it’s over. What to do? Well, if you’re Dolton and you have a week of leave; you head back to the states to win your girl back. What to do if you’re Mickey? You tag along on the trip to help your buddy.

So, our two soldiers find themselves in smallish-town America, albeit with an active war protest movement, and to stave off the angry hordes, or at least avoid the confrontation, Mickey concocts the story that they are deserting, hoping to give enough time for Dolton to reconnect with Jane, maybe even propose, and head back to Vietnam. For Mickey, though, along comes Candace (Teresa Palmer). He’s smitten and now is in a pickle of lying to her, trying to get laid, and then having to leave, and maybe fall in love along the way.

Yup, they are entrenched in war protest central, they have to make life decisions, and through it all Mickey is somehow able to keep this shit-eatin’ grin on his face the entire time, at least so says my assistant, and spout wonderfully awesome lines like “When I was 14 I was just trying to figure out how to get laid.” Granted I was two years old in 1969, but did the pretty boys really use this as a line to get in the girl’s pants back then? Someone who might have been 18 back then please let me know.

Okay, back to the review and summary.

Sadly the movie comes off more like “Let’s put some pretty boys in this movie so some teen girls will watch it and keep saying ‘Oh, he’s dreamy!’ We can build it around the Vietnam war, I mean, who doesn’t like the story of the soldier and his girl?”, when, if the material was done with a different cast and some tighter writing, rather than seeming to try to appeal to the teen girl crowd, it could have really been a look at the conflict of soldiers, the protest movement, and love.

All I know is that from about 5 minutes into the movie I couldn’t wait for it to end, and my assistant gave up after about 20 minutes. There was potential in this movie, somewhere, but it just didn’t find it. It’s 1 star out of 5, although, if you are a teen girl you might give it 4 based on dreamy and shit-eatin’ grininess. I’m sticking with 1 star.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Do You Drink Coffee in the Morning?

I go in streaks. No, I didn’t say I go streaking, though I did, once, lose a foosball game resulting in some running around with only my sneakers, but that’s a story for another plight. No, my drink of the morning goes in streaks. For the longest time I was a tea drinker, then it shifted to coffee, and now I’m drinking a cup of green tea followed by coffee. I’m not sure where the green tea thing came from, probably from reading how it’s supposedly good for you or some crap like that, but here I sit, as I type this, with my cup of green tea and it’s antioxidant goodness, or some crap like that. Later, though, I’ll fire up the coffee machine and shift to some coffee seed goodness.

A simple plight this morning: Do you drink coffee in the morning?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Have you ever been to a football training camp?

Here in Chicago, the summer has become a vast wasteland of sports. Sure, we had the Chicago Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup, so at least that carried some excitement into the summertime, which just seems wrong as it’s hockey and it’s summer, but at least it was something to pay attention to. Now we are stuck with two baseball teams that are pretty much sucking as the Chicago Cubs are still on their twenty year plan for greatness, or something like that, and all of the White Sox fans who, at the beginning of the season, were saying the analysts were wrong in the prediction of Sox mediocrity, well, they are quickly finding out that White Sox mediocrity has turned into suckosity.

Thankfully there is hope as Chicago Bears training camp is right around the corner, July 25th for what it’s worth, with the public being able to start getting their football fix on the 26th. I’ve never been to training camp, I never really saw the point although a lot of fans say it is a fun time, and actually I’ve never been to a Bears game. My original team is the Cleveland Browns, and I remember some games at the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which is now at the bottom of Lake Erie. Don’t get me wrong, I love football, and I’m ready for some football, but from what most people say, and I vaguely remember, going to a game is 5 seconds of excitement with 2 minutes of dealing with the drunk people around you until 5 more seconds of excitement.

Sure, someday I hope to go to a Bears game, but as a basic fan, I can tell you that there is 99% no chance of me ending up in Bourbonnais, IL, for Bears training camp. I am wondering about everyone else out there, though, and so I plight: Have you ever been to a football training camp?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

One

Artist: Sarah Miles
Listenability Scale: 91%
Released by: Rock Ridge Music
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

I’ve been listening to “One,” the “debut full length” (as the press release calls it, I suppose because she has released some EP things before) album from Sarah Miles, mostly as background music for about a week now, and have found myself humming along and occasionally bouncing around/tapping my foot while sitting in my chair. With its recent release I decided to actually “listen” to the album, and I’ve decided I’m really liking her little mix of pop/folk/and sort of countryish music. I believe you might as well.

The album kicks off with “Middle of Nowhere,” an upbeat sounding tune, and continues through ten more tracks ranging from being in love (“Just So You Know”), where I have to say you don’t always find the word “capsulize” very often in a song lyric, to being kind of a sucker for love in “Bad Intentions,” and then pretty much totally realizing it’s over in “You’re Not.”

There are empowering songs with the more pop-country sounding “Stand Up,” a song that reminds me a bit of Sara Evans, complete with the lyric “Stand up, face the world, and shout out loud – ‘It’s all about me!’”, and “One,” a collaborative effort with Matt Duke, Steve Mandile, and Ingram Hill, almost autobiographically detailing her taking off to chase her dream of singing in the “city of unknowns.”

Things slow down to the acoustic guitar driven “Gray” and hit a nice stride with “Take the Lead,” a great duet of working life’s dance together with Matt Duke.

Sarah MilesI don’t know why, though, but, when all is said and done the song I like the most is actually “I Don’t Wanna See You,” an upbeat, kiss-my-ass kind of song, that I’m sure many of the dudettes out there can relate to when, as Sarah puts it, another girl is trying to steal her thunder.

If I’d ever get off my butt and review some concerts again I think I would put her up there on my list of folks to see because from the CD it sounds like she would be great in a smaller venue, with just her and a guitar, although I’ll bet she can easily connect with the big crowds, too.

The only confusing thing about her as I was looking for info online is her stage name change. She used to be under Sarah Jane Wilson, and now is Sarah Miles, but in the end, it doesn’t matter that much because what she is is good.

If you are a fan of the pop/folk/country-ish, girl sound out there, I highly advise checking out Sarah Miles and “One.” You get love, you get heartbreak, and you empowerment, and you get someone who won’t take crap. I really liked ten out of the eleven tracks, so that puts it as a 91% on the Entertainment Ave! Listenability Scale!

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Do you inspect your pet’s poop?

Our dog, Milo, has sensitive insides. At the earliest stages of his life it was a challenge to find food that worked for him without giving him intestinal issues that ranged from vomiting, to regurgitation, to diarrhea, to generally being sick, not eating, ending up underweight, and with icky poop. We finally found a vet, Dr. Karen Becker, who is both awesome and also seemed to know what was going on. After starting him on a simple diet of turkey and canned pumpkin, we finally got Milo’s digestive system on a decent track. She explained the benefits of a raw food diet, which when you think about it makes perfect sense, they are dogs after all, and where, in nature, would they find processed kibble to eat? No, they are generally tearing an animal to shreds and eating raw meat, remember? The other thing she told us was that the ultimate goal was for Milo to have “bronze-able poop.” Yup, we were instructed to inspect his poop regularly, and as his digestive system would get in line, his poop would become the kind you could bronze and put on a plaque on the wall proudly telling your friends, “Look at my dog’s poop!”

So, with instructions in hand, I began years of inspecting Milo’s poop. I would pick it up (No, not with my hands), and regularly check it for firmness, and yes, looking for anything wiggling in it signifying a really bad problem. Sometimes there are long hairs in it which causes it to dangle from his butt when he poops, and every now and then he gets in the habit of eating his dog litter so low and behold, there is some litter in it. Happily he hasn’t eaten anything like money or jewelry where I’ve had to actually break apart the poop, but I’m happy to say that, for the most part, Milo’s poop is “bronze-able!”

It was the other day, while doing my daily inspection, that I wondered if other people are out there doing the same, and so I plight: “Do you inspect your pet’s poop?”

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Do you prefer your newscasts fun and light-hearted, or serious and to the point?

I guess I’m kind of old-school in the fact that I like a good newscast. The structure is generally similar, I know they are going to usually start with a quick look at weather, then the hard news, than some special interest story, eventually getting to the full weather forecast and sports. My go-to news on weekday mornings is the Channel 9 news, WGN, here in Chicago. They tend to keep things light and fun for the most part, and sure, they’ll get serious when the story calls for it, but the news incorporates some fun audio drops during some stories, and the music bumpers in and out of commercials many times somehow relates to some of the news stories.

This morning Jim Ramsey was the designated weather dude, filling in for the generally fun Paul Konrad, and most of the time I find Jim a little stiff. I don’t know what happened this morning, though, because Mr. Ramsey looked like he was having a good old time, especially when he was hanging in the weather center, seated at the console, waving his arms and sticking his finger in his ear.

I know the morning news is generally a little more light hearted than the evening news, but for me the WGN morning people tend to do a great mix of light-heartedness and serious news, so it’s a great start to the day.

I guess while I was watching Jim Ramsey with his finger in his ear I plighted: Do you prefer your newscasts fun and light-hearted, or serious and to the point?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Have you ever used a metal detector?

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remember playing with a metal detector when I was a kid, or maybe it was when I worked at Radio Shack. In any case there is some buried memory in my head of holding the contraption in my hand and waving the detector portion of the device across the ground, listening for changes in some annoying tone that would signal I struck it rich, or more likely found some scrap piece of metal or if I was lucky, a penny.

It was the other day while my wife and I were walking in a local park that we saw a father and a son using some metal detectors, and I vaguely remembered my history of metal detecting. My wife asked me why they would be there in the park, especially by the “beach” volleyball courts, and I had to remind her that there are people jumping up and down on a volleyball court, and they sometimes have precious metals, or at least a few coins in their pockets, and sometimes those items fall out of their pockets and get lost in the sand. She said “Oh, yea.”, and I also reminded her of my other run-in with a metal detector enthusiast who bragged of his finding a wedding ring once in the same park.

I was curious as I started this plight about the proliferation of detectorists (A term I found referring to those who are metal detector enthusiasts) so I did what anyone would do – I Googled “metal detector club.” Low and behold Google listed over 15,000 hits, and a quick look at the “Midstate Metal Detector Club“, a group based out of Wisconsin, and “World Wide Assocations of Treasure Seekers” (WWATS) websites, and I quickly learned that the detectorists take themselves very seriously, and that it seems the world of metal detecting considers itself on the endangered list thanks to a myriad of government regulations and not enough representation on the part of the detectorists.

It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to the whining of the speaker and watched the needle of the metal detector to see if I found a buried treasure, and I don’t see myself doing it again anytime soon, but after seeing the father and son I couldn’t help but plight: Have you ever used a metal detector?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Did you even consider going to see “The Lone Ranger” this weekend?

The big movie news over the weekend was twofold. First there was joy in Universal-land with “Despicable Me 2” as it brought in some $142 million over the long 4th of July weekend, a new record for a an animated film over the long, 5-day opening. Hooray! And then there was “The Lone Ranger.” Yup. you know the movie, at least I’m thinking you’ve heard of it. The one with Johnny Depp. He plays Tonto. And there is something about a train over a bridge and it blowing up? Yea, that’s the one. Well, it appears people heard of it, but for the most part no one went to see it as the news for Disney was bad with the movie only making about $48.9 million. Now, that seems like a lot of money, but the budget rumors say the movie cost anywhere between $215 and $250 million to put together, and when all is said and done after worldwide stuff and video it might break even, but if there were Disney dreams of replacing the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise with something new, they seem to be squashed.

Me, I relaxed a bit this weekend, working on some long-term projects, so I have to say that I didn’t even think of going to see “The Lone Ranger.” Well, there was that and the fact that the movie just didn’t look that good in the trailers, but as this weekend is over, and we get back to our normal schedule, I’m plighting: Did you even consider going to see “The Lone Ranger” this weekend?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Do you know what PBR stands for?

First off, let me say that I’m not thinking Professional Bull Riders, nor Petroleo Brasileiro Petrobras, the first two results in Google when you, well, Google PBR, when I think of PBR. Should you think of those first, however, I’ll give you a pass and commend you for your knowledge of Brazilian oil, Silvano Alves, or maybe the lyrics from the Garth Brooks song, The Fever, “Keep your mind in the middle while your butt spins ’round and ’round.” Nope, I’m thinking of a fermented malt beverage, originally from the land of “Laverne and Shirley,” though not from Shotz Brewery.

The reason I bring this up is there was a story on the local news, and in the copy the anchor was reading was a reference to PBR. She finished the story, looked at her co-anchor, and said something like “I don’t know what ‘PBR’ is. Sorry, I’m not hip.”

Immediately I thought to myself, “Who doesn’t know what PBR is?”, and then I thought, “Probably a lot of people I suppose, especially folks not from the midwest.” Then I thought, “Who uses the term ‘hip’ anymore?” I think a lot to myself, sometimes.

The news anchor didn’t know what PBR stood for, and so I plight: Do you know what PBR stands for?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!