The Qwipster Film Review Podcast

Twenty years after the first war for Earth between humans and their would-be alien exterminators, Earth has made light years of advancements in adopting things they've learned from the remnant alien technology, which they've not only used to rebuild their destroyed cities, but also to jump far ahead in terms of air and space travel, including to the moon. Those who helped save the planet have become heroes and celebrities, all of them had an aching feeling that they haven't seen the last of their newfound enemies in the universe, and with the long-dormant alien specimens and tech they've gathered since the battle seemingly coming to life in would appear that another battle must be imminent. Turns out they are right. A rag-tag crew of returning heroes and their offspring are not leading the charge to defend the Earth yet again against an ultra-powerful alien force unlike anything they've ever seen before (well, they have a bigger ship this time, and a bigger boss alien), who, according to this movie, want us out of the way so they can get to Earth's creamy magma center.

The storyline starts in 1996. A young, CG-enhanced version of Dwayne Johnson plays overweight and geeky misfit Robbie Weirdicht, the frequent target of ridicule by the bullies in his high school.  By contrast, the most popular kid in school, Calvin Joyner, is the kind of most-likely-to-succeed guy who excels in school in all the ways Robbie does not, but bestows an act of kindness on the pudgy kid during a particularly humiliating prank that exposes him, clothesless, in front of his entire student class at an assembly.  Fast-forward to today, approaching the day of their 20th high school reunion, and mid-level accountant Calvin, who feels he peaked in his teenage years, is adamant that he will not go, protesting to his wife, his high school sweetheart, that he can't face up to feeling like a disappointment.  She suggests a marriage counselor to work all this out. That's when Calvin gets a Facebook friend request from out of the blue by someone he thinks is a stranger named Bob, but ends up being Robbie, now a hunk, rippling with muscles, even though he seems the same goofy kid inside, and who has spent two decades idolizing the closest thing he ever felt to having a friend due to one small, selfless act (the movie hints at but stops just short of replicating The D-Train in this regard).  The two catch up on old times, but Calvin is soon confused with being Bob's friend by CIA agents looking to arrest him, accusing him going rogue from their agency and in secretly being the notorious international criminal known as the Black Badger, looking to sell top-secret information regarding U.S. government satellites to bad guys.

De Palma is strictly a documentary about Brian De Palma, in his own words. No other people are interviewed, and the interviewers voices are not heard. All you see is Brian De Palma on the screen, either front and center, or while clips of each movie play out under them, or while photographs and newspaper articles give us a glimpse into the public and private life he experienced at the time.

The story revolves around two people, Will Traynor, a rich-but-dejected London man who is living a life of pain and solitude as a quadriplegic, and Louisa, aka "Lou", a chatty and free-spirited woman hired take care of Will's basic needs as well as to lift her spirits with her effervescent company. The problem is that the pain Will is in is not just physical; he misses his old life as an athletic, globe-hopping man of adventure, only to lose it all when being struck by a speeding motorcycle, so being stuck in a chair as an observer to life is particularly torturous. In short, Will wants to die, and Louisa soon realizes that her employment rests on changing his mind. However, to do that, she will first have to melt that thick, icy exterior of his, which proves nearly impossible given his distraught mind-state.

Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) directs and co-scripts this insightful drama with mild thriller elements about three unrelated refugees from the war-torn island nation of Sri Lanka who find it hard to assimilate to life in the rough-and-tumble public housing projects of Paris.  Dheepan is the name of a dead man that the older man of the trio assumes the identity of in order to escape from his life as a rebel fighter on the losing side, hoping to make a better life in France after the loss of his family.  Along for the ride is a woman and an unrelated nine-year-old orphan, who assume the roles of Dheepan's wife and child.  While living in a run-down housing project in Paris, Dheepan takes a job as a building caretaker, which is a difficult enough occupation without having to worry about the dangerous thugs who inhabit the neighborhood at seemingly all hours.

Ellen Degeneres voices the short-term memory-addled Dory as an adult blue tang, continuing her friendship with clownfishes Marlin and his son Nemo in the reefs near Australia. Dory is struggling to remember her parents that she was separated from at an early age, though she sometimes remembers fragments of those early days, with enough clues to set out on her own to try to find them in, "the jewel of Morro Bay, California." With worrywart Marlin and excitable Nemo in tow, Dory sets off on her quest for a (hopefully) happy reunion across the Pacific, where a marine-life rehabilitation facility may hold the key to the mystery of the parental whereabouts, if only the new creatures she meets can help her remember the clues along the way.

Lindon plays Thierry, who we find at the beginning of the film unemployed for a year and a half since being laid off from his job as a factory worker, desperate for any form of work in order to make ends meet, with a wife and special-needs child to take care of, and an apartment that he's just a few years from paying off. He's trying as best as he can to get back on his feet, but he feels less than himself without a job, such that he's willing to suffer as many indignities as required from a host of potential employers and job center employees who either treat him with apathy, if not belittle him with acute condescension.

Much like in Homer's "The Iliad", the storyline told from both parties involved in the war, we're introduced into this fantasy universe through the Orcs first, a warlike race of strong brutes who livelihoods are on the verge of extinction, forcing them to find a new home with the magical invention of a portal, crafted by the Orc-mage Gul'dan, to connect them to the realm of Azeroth, there the Humans live in a time of relative peace and prosperity. In order to have the magical energy necessary to bring all of the Orcs through the temporary gateway, Gul'dan is using Fel, which is a type of magic that extinguishes the life from those around him to fuel the wielder, while also furthering him on the path toward evil and madness as he grows more powerful. This means the Humans are going to be exterminated so that the Orcs can survive. However, some of the Orcs recognize that following a mad and power-hungry leader also means going against their core beliefs as a race, so a faction of the Orcs, under the leadership of the noble soldier Durotan, begin to ally with the Humans to put plans in place to stop Gul'dan from more acts of destruction. Meanwhile, the Guardian of the Humans, a mighty wizard named Medivh, is also utilizing the power of Fel in order to help protect the kingdom, though that also means that he too will be seduced into darkness that will put the lives of everyone, not just Orcs, in mortal jeopardy.

The wildly popular troupe of master illusionists known as the Four Horsemen do mostly for self in this outing, no longer the Robin Hoods of the glitzy stage one year removed from prior events. This one's more personal, putting a backstory to the behind-the-scenes ringleader of the Horsemen, FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes, tying in the mystery of his magician father's death with a connection to the magic debunking man from the first film, Thaddeus Bradley, who was the television reporter covering the fateful event back in 1984. In the present day, the quartet replace Henley Reeves character with a newcomer Rhodes has discovered from the 'underground circuit', magician Lula May, played by Lizzy Caplan, who manages to fit right in. Circumstances lead them to being coerced by a powerful tech billionaire pulling plenty of strings in the year since faking his death and living in Macau, Walter Mabry, who wants them to con their way into a high-tech security facility to steal a very valuable computer chip. Also out to trip up the Horsemen is Merritt McKinney's estranged twin brother, and the return of nemesis Arthur Tressler, the wily tycoon who hasn't taken kindly to losing millions to them during the events of the first film.

The story starts in 1976, with an introductory nod to the case that made the Warrens most famous, in Amityville, the source of a best-selling book and a whole slew of horror movies. allegedly based on true stories. Their reputation spreads to other parts of the world, as the church sends the Warrens to Enfield , a borough of north London, where they set about investigating the home of Peggy Hodgson, a poor single mother, and her four children, whose youngest girl, Janet, is frequently being harassed by what she considers to be malevolent spirit in the form of Bill Wilkins, an old man who died in the home and who forcefully declares his current ownership from beyond the grave. Loud noises, moving furniture, eerie voices, and ugly apparitions increasingly disturb the family until they're at wit's end. Meanwhile, the Warrens are plagued by the vision of a hideous demon in the visage of a scary Catholic nun that is haunting their dreams, while Lorraine contemplates a respite from their demon-busing activities after she sees the grisly death of her husband, Ed, in one of these visions.

Taran Killam stars as Justin, who we meet at the beginning of the film waking up to hear his girlfriend of five years' voice on a popular national shock-jock radio show breaking up with him after revealing she had a threesome to get back at him for forgetting their anniversary. It seems everyone he knows has heard it, and rib him mercilessly before they encourage him to get back out there and forget her by diving headfirst into casual sex. With the help of his horn-dog telecom company office friends Sammy and Louis, Justin signs up for a one-night-stand site called "Casual Encounters". However, Justin is unprepared for the kinds of women out there looking for a quick hook-up, from those who grossly lie about their appearance, to those with devious, even dangerous, sexual appetites. Meanwhile, off-site, he becomes closer friends with his attractive co-worker Laura, though his run-ins with the women with whom he's had casual encounters may come back to haunt him.

In this entry, the dreaded nemesis of humanity, Shedder (Tee) is broken out of prison by kooky-but-brilliant scientist Baxter Stockman (Perry), who has been entrusted to invent an ultra-powerful transporter device that will allow for travel between dimensions. Also on board is the maniacal alien Krang, who is part giant robot, part evil living brain, who sets about getting Shredder to use some strange, mutating ooze to make an army of super soldiers out of the Foot Clan, starting with the dimwitted but burly thugs Bebop (Williams) and Rock Steady (WWE's Sheamus), who immediately turn into a Rhino-man and Warthog-man, respectively. Krang's wild scheme involves gaining the otherworldly pieces together to form a gargantuan spaceship, the Technodrome, which is so powerful that he can usurp the entire planet of Earth with it once assembled. Leading the resistance yet again are the titular quartet of Turtles, along with ally news reporter April O'Neil (Fox), spirited hockey-loving cop Casey Jones ("Arrow" star Amell), and Vern Fenwick (Arnett), the smarmy cameraman who got credit for saving New York from Shredder and gang the last time around because the Turtles weren't 'ready for the world'. Meanwhile, the Turtlesare conflicted about what to do about the mysterious ooze, as it not only has the power to turn humans into creatures, but also to turn the Turtles into humans, which could mean an end to them feeling like pariahs in a world where they're seen as monsters, despite their determination to be New York City's protectors.

Greta Gerwig plays liberal arts college advisor Maggie Hardin, 30-something in age, neurotic in stage, feeling her biological clock is ticking in thunderous tones, thinking it best to go the route of artificial insemination, given her history with men seems to be little more than a bunch of relationships that fail before the six-month period. Through a clerical mishap at the school she works in, she's introduced to adjunct ficto-critical anthropology professor John Harding, who immediately becomes colleagues and even fast friends with her, then more. Trouble is, he's married with two kids. Flash forward about three years and Maggie has the child she's dreamed of having in daughter Lily, and a husband in John, who left his more successful anthropology professor wife Georgette and two kids to pursue a life with Maggie, she's no longer sure she wants to be with. Unable to leave things in an untidy state by just walking away from the marriage, Maggie's titular plan is to try to manipulate the romantic reunion of John with Georgette so that they can all come away with how things should have been.v

Andy Samberg stars as Conner, the most popular member of a Beastie Boys-esque hit rap trio known as the Style Boyz, know known under his stage name, Conner4Real. He retained the services of the other Style Boyz member, Owen, who produced the music, as his current DJ (just for show -- he plays the music set from his old iPod), even though it's pretty much all for show these days, as ultra-narcissistic Conner has chosen to go with a whole slate of popular producers (over a 100!) for his sophomore solo album, "ConnQuest", which ends up being a critical disaster. This puts a damper on his upcoming world tour, which relies on Conner bringing in an up-and-comer for an opening act to help fill out half-empty arenas, the wildly erratic Hunter the Hungry, who ends up stealing the show most of the time. Meanwhile, the Style Boy, Lawrence, that wrote most of their lyrics without much credit and has bitterly chosen to leave the game altogether, chooses farm life in rural Colorado and avoiding the spotlight, unlike Conner, doesn't want to do anything unless it is watched by his millions of followers in social media.

Widowed Marnie Minervini lives in the Los Angeles area, a New Jersey transplant, to be near her daughter Lori, who has moved there to pursue her career as a screenwriter. That's much to Lori's chagrin, as Marnie, without her husband or any friends in the area, is lonely and doting, calling and texting her daughter constantly, to the point where most of her attempts have started to go ignored, resulting in lengthy voicemail messages about nothing much in particular. As a result, Marnie has gone to other means to try to find someone to talk to, perhaps even to supplant her grief, babysitting for her daughter's friends (even doing wedding planning, using the sizable amount of cash left by her husband's life insurance), the Apple genius who helps her with her phone questions, a mute and bed-ridden elderly woman she runs into in the hospital, and Zipper, a retired local cop who raises chickens up in Topanga that could be a love interest, if Marnie could ever convince herself that her late husband could ever be replaced in her heart.