The Olympics are over and I am extremely sad! With that being said, the closing ceremonies are just a joke. Just like the opening ceremonies. I guess I might be the only person who does not like these things. I mean do not get me wrong, I usually get over emotional over a Nike commercial or a patriotic moment that NBC has manufactured. But the opening and closing ceremonies seem too manufactured and overly corny. Just not on my must watch list. Overall the coverage for the Olympics has been good, the fact that they wait until almost 11 to show you the race that you really wanted to see has always bothered me. But I can deal with that. The thing that most annoyed me has to be the streaming feeds from the website. They are constantly plagued by slowdowns and buffering, even during the commercials!! I waited no joke, at least 3 mins for a 30 sec ad to run because of buffering. I understand it’s across the Atlantic and half of the US is being unproductive at work and have the women’s soccer game streaming on a portion of their desktops, but these are things that could have been planned for. Hello!!! The world actually tunes in for the Olympics, believe it or not. Maybe invest in a ton of bandwidth and servers, expect 5 million streams for the popular events. It is going to happen.
The Campaign hit theaters this weekend and my initial reaction after watching the trailer was luke warm. However, since the promo campaign has ramped up, I’m all in. I also went back and watched Ferrell’s HBO special You’re Welcome America and realized just how funny his character might be. So I’m excited to go check this flick out, did not make it opening weekend, but that didn’t stop it from pulling in close to 30 mil. Good enough to knock Batman to third place. Yet, Bourne “Insert serious sounded word” took the top spot, with right at 40 mil. This marks a quazi re-launch of the franchise with Jeremy Renner as the star. Here goes me being negative again, but I am not sold on Renner’s ability to carry a movie. There is a reason he’s finally blowing up in his late thirties. He is a great actor, prefect for challenging, difficult roles, but summer popcorn movies…I just don’t buy it. Unfortunately, there are very few people today in Hollywood that can actually carry a big budget movie these days. Because they are just so damn likable, they have a charismatic quality that always seems to bubble through in their characters. This summer, I think we’ve learned that Taylor Kitsch is not one of them. Last summer it was Ryan Reynolds. I don’t think we can really add Renner to that list yet, he’s great as a peripheral figure, just not your main guy. Here is my list of leading actors that I think can carry a movie…again, Man card revoked, because I have developed Bro-crushes on some of these guys.
- Chris Evans (never thought I would say that after Epic Movie, but he’s entertaining and seems more than capable)
- Robert Downey Jr. (Duh)
- Johnny Depp (Again, duh)
- Will Smith (Seriously, tell me someone that doesn’t like Will Smith, I will show you a hipster douche)
- Chris Hemsworth (Yeah, Thor…he has that it factor and he’s incredibly enjoyable to watch, even that god-awful Snow White movie did well with him as the male lead. Yes, I give him credit for that, because Kristen Stewart is the worst actress in Hollywood and will never receive credit for doing anything decent from this web-site.)
- Channing Tatum (Fun fact, NO ONE had 3 movies in the same year that made more than a 100 mil at the box office, until he did this year. )
- Mark Wahlberg (He barely makes the list and honestly if he did more comedy, he would be a sure thing, the guy is pretty fucking funny.)
Random Thoughts:
- Red Dawn, the movie about a band of teenagers hiding in the hills fighting the damn Commie Soviets as they try and take over the US, is getting re-made and the trailer is out. I am not even going to try and figure out how North Korea is able to cross the Pacific Ocean with an enormous fleet and somehow take over the Pacific coast or is it the Atlantic coast, I am just going to enjoy the awesome ridiculousness of it all and yell “Wolverines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Then go play paintball in the woods for a few hours…
- Hey, notice that the second most successful movie of all time has 3 of the guys on my list from before? Marvel did an amazing job casting all of their main leads. Thor is prefect, RDJ is beyond awesome as Ironman, and Chris Evans personifies Captain America. However, with that being said, bringing back the writer-director Joss Whedon for the Avengers sequel was genius and had to be done.
- Chris Pine (who narrowly missed my list, mostly because he and Tom Hardy made me watch ALL of This Means War…) teams up with Keira Knightley in Jack Ryan, for those of you that do not know, Jack Ryan is the hero in countless Tom Clancy books and was previously played by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, and Ben Affleck. So this should be interesting.
- Keanu Reeves…I really just cannot finish this…gulp…Bill and Ted….Sequel…Ohh the horror…it is moving forward and has a director (no script cause it after all is Bill and Ted).
