The Couch Potato Report – October 11th, 2014
The last time iconic Canadian comedian Mike Myers was included in a new release on The Couch Potato Report was in 2010, at the end of the run of the very successful Shrek films.
I didn’t have anything positive to say then about SHREK FOREVER AFTER…and I still don’t today.
But I do have plenty of positive things to say about Mike Myers’ latest, his first movie release in four years and his first in the director’s chair. And it’s not a comedy, it’s a documentary, called SUPERMENSCH, about the life and career of legendary Hollywood talent manager Shep Gordon.
Shep Gordon has had an astounding career. He went from selling drugs in Hollywood to befriending Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix suggested he become a manager, and so he did, working with many superstar artists since the mid seventies, including Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Groucho Marx, Teddy Pendergrass and Canadian superstar Anne Murray.
SUPERMENSCH: THE LEGEND OF SHEP GORDON is very interesting, informative and even touching at times. Plus its full of some great historical footage of Janis, Jimi, Jim Morrison and even Anne Murray.
I really liked it and can easily recommend it.
When the trailer for FAMILY GUY creator Seth MacFarlane’s second film A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST first appeared, it looked very good.
It was to be a comedy western that starred MacFarlane, along with Academy Award winner Charlize Theron and Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Sarah Silverman and Neil Patrick Harris.
Sadly, even with that great cast and an interesting story of how a cowardly sheep farmer finds his courage with the help of a mysterious new woman in town, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST just isn’t funny.
It has a few laughs, even a couple of big ones, but for a comedy, it really isn’t that funny.
I never disliked A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST, so I will mildly recommend it, just know going in that it isn’t very good.
I love baseball and baseball movies, so even though MILLION DOLLAR ARM is cliche in every way and completely predictable, I still sort of liked it.
MILLION DOLLAR ARM stars Jon Hamm from MAD MEN as a failing sports agent who needs a miracle to save his business and career and what he decides to do is recruit talented cricket players from India and train them to play baseball.
Everyone tells him that his plan won’t work, and if MILLION DOLLAR ARM wasn’t based on the true story of baseball pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel who actually signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates, I wouldn’t believe it either.
But it is based on a true story, a great true story, however a great story does not a great movie make.
MILLION DOLLAR ARM is cliche and predictable, and if you like baseball and baseball movies as well, I can mildly recommend it to you. Otherwise, even though I still sort of liked it, you might want to just skip it.
There are some films I can easily recommend this week, but only one that is a true classic, Walt Disney’s 1959 animated film SLEEPING BEAUTY.
SLEEPING BEAUTY was a disappointment at the Box Office when it was originally released, so disappointing that Disney didn’t adapt a fairy tale again for another 30 years later, with the release of 1989’s THE LITTLE MERMAID.
It may have been a disappointment initially, but time has seen the film endure and become the classic it deserved to be, both because of the story of a princess under a spell that only a prince can break, and technically because of how it was produced.
I’ve always enjoyed SLEEPING BEAUTY, and it looks so fantastic now in HD on blu-ray!!
It is a classic the whole family can enjoy together!
Now, on the other hand, one Summer Movie trailer that didn’t originally grab my attention was the one for director Doug Liman’s EDGE OF TOMORROW, and it is one of my favourite films of the year, so far.
Tom Cruise stars here as Major William Cage, a man who is killed within minutes of the start of a suicide mission. Yet, he somehow survives and finds himself caught in a time loop, forced to live out the same mission over and over, fighting and dying again and again.
Emily Blunt from LOOPER is one of the military’s best soldiers and is one of the only people who understands what Tom is going through.
Cruise is great here, Emily Blunt is great here – as are all the members of the supporting cast – and the action and story are all also great in EDGE OF TOMORROW. Yet it didn’t do well in theatres…and I have no idea why.
This is a very entertaining Summer action flick, one that I easily recommend to you.
The great action flick EDGE OF TOMORROW; the Disney animated classic SLEEPING BEAUTY; the predictable but okay drama MILLION DOLLAR ARM; Seth MacFarlane’s only occasionally funny western comedy A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST; and Canadian comedian Mike Myers’s great entertainment industry documentary SUPERMENSCH: THE LEGEND OF SHEP GORDON are all available now, either on disc or on demand.
And that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!