“Gru’s back, but being a good person. Made me laugh.”

Great movie. Best dubbing and editing for a movie playing on Family Channel ever.

1. Moneyball
2. Fields Of Dreams
3. Natural, The
4. Eight Men Out
5. Rookie, The

It’s been previously stated that I love baseball movies, plain and simple. Admittedly, while Moneyball is laced with comedy, it is technically a drama. The same can be said for everything penned by Aaron Sorkin. I really enjoy fact based sports films even if there are some liberties taken with the story. Case in point, Jonah Hill’s character doesn’t exist. He’s inspired by someone else who actually joined the team before the timeline of the movie. Field of Dreams is beautiful. The ending gets me every time, hard. Remove it from the film and place it into another genre, and I’d think it was hokey. But there’s something very poignant about a simple game of catch. The Natural seems very far-fetched and yet it plays out so realistically you think that it’s based on fact. The final sequence still gives me shivers. The exploding lights, the crowd cheering, the swelling score, all perfect. Eight Men Out is the true story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox which of course, inspired Field Of Dreams. Much like The Natural, a terrific ensemble cast. The Rookie is another addition to the long line of inspirational true stories churned out my Disney and like the others, I was sucked in. This one seemed to take less liberties. However, Dennis Quaid (who’s great in the role) is much older than his real life counterpart so you think of him as older and so the story loses a bit if you were to read about the guy’s actual age.

Footnote – Although 61* missed the cut, it is a fantastic baseball from director Billy Crystal about the race to beat Babe Ruth’s long-standing single season home run record between Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) and Roger Maris (Barry Pepper). This would easily make my top 5, but I’m restricting the lists to theatrical films only and this one was made for HBO.

Missed The Cut: 61*, 42, The Babe & Blood Games

This was the first movie I ever saw twice in the theatre. It’s still perfect with guns, less perfect with walkie-talkies.

“Nonsense, I have not yet begun to defile myself.”

In 2012, a movie about a foul-mouthed, talking teddy bear was a sleeper hit. In 2015, Universal is hoping that lightning will strike twice for the Thunder Buddies. The film opens with Ted (voiced again by the director and co-writer, Seth MacFarlane) and his girlfriend from the original, Tami-Lynn (played by Jessica Barth whom doesn’t appearance to have worked since the last movie) are getting hitched with the ceremony being performed by Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon). At the wedding reception, we learn that John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) had been divorced from Lori (Mila Kunis) for six months. Not sure why she was written out. Perhaps there were scheduling conflicts, maybe it was because of her pregnancy or maybe she saw A Million Ways To Die In The West. It was more than likely the second reason, but it allowed the writers have it that John hasn’t changed at all and he is still a stoner/slacker.

The movie then fasts forward to a year after the wedding and the marriage seems to already be on the rocks. As all failing unions do, they decide to have a baby to help rekindle the love they have for each other. Since Ted is sans wang, they have to go the sperm donor route which involves a pretty amusing heist attempt of a pro footballer’s semen as well as a Three Stooges like visit to a sperm bank strictly for gross-out purposes. Dennis Haysbert shows up as their fertility doctor and discusses his displeasure with Tami’s uterus. It appears Tami could not carry the child even if they were able to find a suitable donor. Adoption is their only hope now.

The plot of the movie kicks in during the adoption proceedings. It was revealed that Ted can not adopt since he is not a person, and according to the government, he is deemed as property. This alerts other agencies and everything in his name gets revokes, his marriage is annulled and he loses his job. This forces Ted’s hand and with John’s help they intend to fight the government all the way to the top; all the way to Judge Judy if necessary. And that’s the gist of the movie. The rest of the film just goes from scene to scene looking for and trying to set up the next series of jokes. Don’t get me wrong, most of the jokes are funny and a lot of those are very funny.

Enter Samantha Jackson (Amanda Seyfried), and yes her middle starts with an “L”. She’s a junior attorney who’s just out of law school and has been assigned to try the case pro bono by her uncle. Oh, and to mend the broken heart of John. I apologize if you didn’t see that coming before even entering the theatre. Fortunately for Ted and John, she smokes pot and she’s willing to put up with all of their shit and shenanigans even though she’s not being paid. Aside from lawyering, she’s present to be the butt of their jokes, and this time around instead of John rising to the woman’s level, she has to stoop to his. They also manage to stumble across a guitar which gives the filmmakers as excuse to pad the running time by having Samantha sing which does lead to a funny Disney inspired woodland creature scene.

As thin as the plot is, it does manage a subplot. The Ted obsessed man boy, Donny, (Giovanni Ribisi) returns and he’s still yearning for Ted. He finds himself employed at Hasbro as a custodian and purveyor of “fresh cakes”. Donny fan-dangles his way into a meeting with the president of Hasbro and presents some cockamamie plot to capture and duplicate the talking teddy so that he can finally have a Ted of his own. If you’re wondering if they do a callback to Donny’s Tiffany Dance. Yes they do and sadly, it seems so forced.

Along the way, the movie is chock full of cameos. Some don’t work, while others do. Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t while surprisingly, Jay Leno does. The cast of SNL doesn’t, Patrick Warburton does. He, of course, is a returnee from the original. Still a friend of John and Ted’s and I assume still a co-worker of John’s? It’s never mentioned whether or not he is still employed at the rental car dealership. While funny, Warburton’s (and his new boyfriend’s) appearance only exists for the fan boy reference payoff near the end. However, early in the movie comes a scene of pure magic. It comes out of nowhere; it’s totally ridiculous; it does nothing to further the plot, but if they’d removed the scene you’d be missing one of the greatest cameo ever, Liam Neeson. He’s so deadpan and so funny. If you doubt his comedic ability, do yourself a favour and watch his appearance on Ricky Gervais’ series, Life’s Too Short.

The movie weaves its way through the comedy traffic. Sometimes they miss, and sometimes they hit dead on. There’s some funny running gags involving Google searches, candy dishes and Gollum as well as a well timed homage to Jurassic Park. Finally, we arrive at the ending and there’s one more familiar face and voice, Morgan Freeman. It’s not a surprise. His name is in the opening credits. He plays a top civil rights lawyer and it’s a pretty thankless role. I see it as stunt casting. Freeman’s presence is a blatant attempt to give the role more weight and help give the ending more emotional heft. He’s also there for comedic relief so he can swear and be sworn at.

The movie is clearly not as good as the first. There are longer lapses between the jokes and not all of them work, but when they hit, they hit hard. Not that I look for believably in a movie featuring a talking teddy bear who is only alive because of a young boy’s wish, but I wish they would have had a little plausibility with a couple of the authority figures. For example, the first judge (Ron Canada) was very funny, but there’s no way most of the procedures in that trial would have been allowed. And then there’s a bit at the end that requires some assistance from a doctor. Again, no way this would ever happen. However, the doctor delivers a line that makes up for it. All in all, it was better than I was expecting while being exactly what I expected at the same time. It probably had 3 endings too many. Is it crucial to have seen the first one to enjoy it? No, but if you didn’t see the first one, why are you only coming to the party now? Ted 1.0 fans will be satisfied leaving the theatre but it won’t have the staying power as the original.

Richard Jenkins is a revelation. Beautiful perfomance, beautifully moving film.

“For people who like video games, comedy, butts, nuts and coconuts.”

Don’t get me started on how much I hate this movie. How did this movie beat out both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture at the Academy Awards?

Those who know me, know I love movies. Those who know me well, know I love Raiders of the Lost Ark. Those who know me best, know I used run around the house wearing nothing but my underwear and blanket tied around my neck, cascading down my back, and answered to the name Super Ginch. But enough about last month.

My love affair with Raiders started at an early age. Let me just add something quickly. I am talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark, not Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark as it’s been re-titled for various recent releases. Anyhow, the first time I saw Raiders was when it was first released on VHS. I was 8, and I saw it was at school on the last day before Christmas break. There was no PG-13 rating yet so there wasn’t any issue with showing a bunch of elementary schoolers melting faces without parental consent.

One of the things I remember during my first viewing was just a simple giving of misinformation from one of the teachers. There’s the scene when the villain with the eye batch poisons the dates. The Capuchin monkey then steals one from the bowl and is later found dead right before Indy consumes the date he had. I remember Mr. Wong stating that the monkey had eaten a bad olive. I recall thinking, “Hey stupid, those aren’t olives. The guy just said they were dates”. Nothing earth-shattering. I was 8, what do you want from me? I enjoyed the movie well enough and after school I went home only to discover that my parents had rented the movie for us to view that same night. I watched it again and I was hooked.

Six months later or so, my folks decided to buy our first VCR. We had been renting one up to that point because that’s what you did back then. We ventured to the local Radio Shack to peruse the selections. It was finally decided that we’d get a front-loading VHS player with a corded remote for the reasonable price of only $800.

We set it up as soon as we got home. Upon providing it with some power, I noticed that the tape-in light was on. I hit the eject button and out popped a blank VHS tape with the word “Raiders” written on the front label. We were a tad surprised and my mother was a tad skeptical that it really was the movie. I asked her if it was the movie, could I watch it? She said sure thinking that it couldn’t be the movie and it was a nice day out so she would have preferred me to be playing outside. We put the tape back in, pressed play and low and behold, it was indeed Raiders. It has been a factory-sealed box and inside was possibly one of the first pirated copies of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Please, I implore you. Don’t rat me out to INTERPOL. That became the first movie we ever owned and I watched the hell out of it.

I don’t watch it as frequently anymore. I try to pop it in every couple of years. And every time I’m reminded of its greatness. It’s still fresh, my favourite scenes still resonate and it’s still pure entertainment. I know I have since seen better movies in my lifetime, but Raiders will forever be at the top of my list.