Up first this week is Taurus. Now I haven’t paid attention to new music/musicians in well over 15 years so for the first 80% of the movie I had no idea the lead actor was rapper/singer Machine Gun Kelly. On the Blu-ray box it says the name Colson Baker which is his real name. I didn’t know that until I looked it up. There is a scene in the third act where actress Megan Fox shows up playing the ex-wife and it made me think, hey is this guy Machine Gun Kelly? For some reason I know they date in real life and it turns out it was him. Baker plays a tatted up rapper/singer working on a new album. He does a lot of drugs. He’s late for things. He ignores his kid. He’s mean to his assistant. If you’ve ever seen a music biopic or episode of Behind the Music, you’ve seen this movie. That’s the unfortunate part about it, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Even the ending you can see coming because it’s nothing original. Baker won’t be winning any awards for his performance, but I can’t tell if it’s because he was bad or if the character was just so one dimensional he couldn’t bring much to him. I guess if you are a fan of MGK it’s for you, but I won’t be running out to see any more of his work.
Poppy is an Australian film about a girl with Down Syndrome who wants a driver’s license and to work on cars at her family’s auto shop. Her brother is in charge of her and the shop because of the death of her parents. She wants to be more independent and to compete in a burnout competition. Her brother is somewhat of an alcoholic who wants to protect her. As she is gaining independence and falling for a boy, her brother struggles to keep his life together. You’re not quite sure how it will end, but you do expect somewhat of a happy ending. It’s just a nice little film with solid performances with characters you don’t see too often in film.
The next two releases come from Mill Creek Entertainment. Up first is London. I had seen London 15+ years ago when it first came out, but despite starring Chris Evans, Jason Statham and Jessica Biel had never seen it again. The only thing I remember from it is all the cocaine they do in the bathroom. Watching it a sceond time I definitely didn’t remember how honest and authentic it was. A pre-Captain America Chris Evans finds out his ex (Biel) is moving out of town and is having a going away party. He decides to crash it, but first buys a lot of coke off Statham who he invites to the party. They snort all the coke in the bathroom at Isla Fisher’s house and talk so much (they are on coke). But it’s talk you expect people to have. Evans is upset his relationship is over and wants Biel back. Statham talks about his divorce. There are a couple of side characters who come and go, but it’s pretty much both leading men talking with Biel not showing up until later on. I like that it doesn’t end how you figure it will and all of it feels genuine. Not remembering most of it helped in the rewatch because it felt new to me.
Mill Creek’s latest Ultraman release is Ultraman Max: The Complete Series. This is about Touma Kaito who is somewhat of a hot head, but wants to do good. After saving a boy’s life he is bonded with Ultraman Max to stop creatures. Now part of an organization to defend Earth, Max is saved by another Ultraman and given the special weapon, the Max Galaxy. The series isn’t bad, but it feels like a lot of the others. The effects are cool and I always enjoy the campiness of the shows, but this is one I will definitely confuse with other series because it’s very similar to them. But if you have been collecting all of the Ultraman box sets you have to add this one to your collection.
The Nerds Templar 