Vaughn Chronicles

Stop this man from making any more films!

All it takes is a million signatures (probably won’t happen), but hey its worth a shot!

Click here to visit the petition and sign it, to cleanse the industry of this idiot!

Cloverfield (A)

Many might disagree with my scoring of the movie, but I really don’t care, this movie kicked my ass seven days from Sunday.

This flick was intense as any I have seen in a very long time. I don’t remember ever feeling adrenaline flowing as much as Cloverfield induced. This is a modern monster classic, and it does it so well, yet J.J. Abrams adds his own ingredients to the classic monster recipe. The main ingredient he adds is the cliffhanger, there aren’t any scientists letting the audience know what it is, where it came from, and how to kill it. Now, people hate cliffhangers, everyone does. Initially I felt a little ripped off at the end, but my imagination kicked in, and took over from there. That was the point, this was what so many reluctantly ignored, they were ignorant and they needed the ending to be spoon fed to them. Cloverfield to me represents a new age in filmmaking. Utilizing not only traditional mediums of advertisements, but introducing viral marketing, and ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) into the mix. Viral marketing is somewhat young, but not entirely new, it went so well for Cloverfield, that many fan sites popped up about it, and had everyone talking about it.

The movie was shot entirely with a Panasonic HD mini-cam, and the budget for the flick was only $25 million. That it folks! $25mil… Most blockbusters are at least $100mil. The premise of the movie being a tape recovered by our Government was great, it really made you really feel you were experiencing something great, something on a very personal level, and something very tragic. A love story is thrown into the flick, and is one of the things that grab you further into the movie; you really feel their pain, and their love.

I would have given this movie an A+ if it had not been for a couple of things I feel inclined to nit-pick. First off, it’s that literally everyone at the going away party looked like a model. I know its NYC, but not everyone there looks like a model, trust me. Secondly is the character Marlena Diamond. Her humor didn’t feel right, it felt a little forced, and stale. Lizzy Caplan was pretty good in Mean Girls, but in Cloverfield she looked identical to Zooey Deschanel in every scene (not thats a bad thing at all, just if she was going to be like her, fucking be LIKE her and step up the acting, k?).

T.J. Miller was great as Hud, bringing a much needed comic-relief to a terrible disaster. Wonder if anyone else noticed the person with the camera was named Hud, as in H.U.D. (Heads Up Display), coincidence or not, good shit.

I do plan on seeing it again, just for the experience, if you haven’t, I insist you do, its quite a ride.

~Vaughn

FRED CLAUS (D+)

I wasn’t going into Fred Claus with much expectation… okay, I really was. I always go into holiday movies with a good amount of expectation, no matter how bad the trailer was. The sad part was, the trailer for Fred Claus was much more funny than the actual movie. Christmas being my favorite holiday, I had my hopes up there. Two things killed this movie for me, Vince Vaughn and terrible CG (Computer Graphics).

First off, Vince Vaughn’s character, Fred, felt like the same characters he played in Wedding Crashers and The Break Up. You might know what I’m talking about. If not, I’m talking about Vince Vaughn’s signature “Ramble on about something, throwing in witty comments, then abruptly change the subject in which to confuse the person hes talking to”. That shit gets old, quick.

Secondly, the CG in this movie was one of the worst I’ve seen in a VERY long time! I was very, very disapointed with Director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers, Shanghai Knights). How could a Director let something as shitty as this slide? Was he high while editing this all together, were the people pre-screening it high before release? I don’t know what the budget was for this, but good lord was this a perfect example of laziness.

The reason I gave this D-rate movie the hardly earned “+”, was the fact that I really enjoy watching Paul Giamatti, Kevin Spacey, and panning shots from the legs up of Elizabeth Banks in a little elf costume (not as a short, stubby elf thank god).

BEE MOVIE (B+)

This flick is completely underrated. This movie was funny, fun to watch, and honestly a refreshment being with whats currently out in theaters. People complained about the lack of detail the movie had, but thats what I liked about it. Pixar does detail like no one else, so why does everyone else have to? I felt the lack of detail on the characters, but the complexity of their environments, like the honey factory was a lot of fun.

Renée Zellwege’s voice throughout the flick really bothered me. It sounded very nasally, and I felt her voice hurt the movie slightly. Her character didn’t feel real, the animation felt a little forced in some parts.

Patrick Warburton’s Ken was funny at times, but felt more annoying as the movie progressed, as we had to listen to the big man bitch about pretty much everything.

In the end, there were a lot of jokes I got, that the rest of the audience obviously missed. I think thats the reason Bee Movie isn’t getting the credit it deserves.

~Vaughn