Dirty 30 (2016)

The big 3-0. Why is there such a fear in certain people about turning 30? It is just an age after all and, as the saying goes, you are as young as you feel. Another saying is “Age ain’t nothing but a number.” People either plan an awesome time for their 30^th birthday and look forward to it or they dread it and do not want to let go of their 20s. At the time of this writing I am one year away from turning 30. Not sure how I feel about it. I guess I kind feel old but at the same time I still feel like an idiot kid who still has yet to get their adult shit together. Whenever I see people I knew from high school on Facebook post their wedding pictures or pictures of their kids I freak out because seeing that shit makes me feel old and also immature (But am I jealous of these people and would I want that kind of life? HELL FUCKING NO!).

            There have been plenty of movies where someone turns a new decade older and they either have a life crisis or go all out. For example, the (terrible) movie This Is 40 where everything goes wrong for the main characters. Then there are those dumb annoying movies about someone turning 21. We get it you are turning 21 and want to get completely trashed it has been done and is not fun anymore. I feel like movies about turning a new decade or a milestone are clichéd and boring. Usually the characters are downers or they are too over the top. But let me tell you that the world has been saved from boring clichéd turning-another-decade/millstone-movies with the incredibly hilarious, ridiculously well-acted, and fabulously written Dirty 30.

            Kate Fields (Mamrie Hart) is turning 30. She is a single girl and works as an orthodontist assistant. The movie begins with Kate on a horrible date with a guy who likes to go Goth on the weekends and has no concept of real life. To make things worse she sees her ex-boyfriend walk into the restaurant.

            Sometime later Kate’s best friends Evie (Grace Helbig) and Charlie (Hannah Hart) come over for dinner. Evie sees there is a letter from one of their old high school teachers. The letter is actually a letter they wrote to their future 30-year-old selves. Evie reads the letter out loud. Apparently Kate thought she would be a dentist with a great husband and some kids. And also for this popular Ashley Driscol in their school to eat shit. Charlie and Evie realize they have completely forgotten about Kate’s 30^th birthday that weekend. Kate does not want a huge party she just wants a small get together with her friends and that is all. Evie and Charlie of course have something else completely in mind.

            Evie is stuck in a crappy marriage. Her husband is a jerk who just cares about himself and his parents are rich snobs. Her husband has plans to take her skiing with his parents to celebrate his promotion at work which is not a shock because he works for his father. Evie manages to get out of going skiing that weekend by saying that something came up at work. With her husband and the in-laws gone Evie gets to work planning an epic banger for Kate.

            There is not that much more I want to give away with the plot because Dirty 30 is so freaking good. There are so many great scenes and lines that I cannot bring myself to spoil in any way for you.

            This is the part where I am just going to go out all out and gush about how fucking amazing Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, and Hannah Hart were. Holy shit they just nailed every scene and every line. Grace and Mamrie came up with the story and Mamrie and another writer wrote the script. This is truly a Holy Trinity movie through and through. A lot of the humor is their individual humor along with some big exaggerations which were hilarious. I really have to give it to Grace in this movie. I was not expecting her character to be as funny as she was and Grace just totally nailed Evie. I cracked up the hardest with her scenes. Mamrie is a damn genius with her comedy and acting. Hannah was awesome as this competitive character who gets more and more competitive with one of the party goers as the night goes on. Mamrie did the best job of writing Charlie. Hannah is a figure in the LGBTQ community and Mamrie wrote Charlie like she was just another person with a girlfriend and it was no big deal. Exactly the way an LGBTQ character on anything should be portrayed.

            The rest of the cast was so outrageously perfect. My girl Anna Akana played the bitch Ashley Driscol and I loved every second of her scenes. Besides the Holy Trinity I was looking forward to see Anna Akana the most. Mamrie’s BFF Flula Borg played the DJ and had some really funny lines. Whenever I see Flula all I want to do is hug him so hard! Rhett and Link make hilarious cameos as two stoners. Drew Monson was great in his few scenes he had. Mikey Murphey is one of the most adorable human beings I have ever seen. Chester See is, of course, in scenes with Grace and his character was crazy! Lee Newton is a treasure not matter what she is in. She did not really have a lot of lines or screen time which I wish she did but she was funny as hell in her scenes. And I have to give a big shout out to Joselyn Hughes who plays a waitress at the beginning of the movie. I was so excited to see her too.

            I may be insanely biased when it comes to Dirty 30 because I adore Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, and Hannah Hart so much but I gotta tell you guys that the movie is hilarious. If I did not know who the three of them were and just watched it on like, Netflix, I would think it was really funny. If you are a fan of the Holy Trinity, you will love Dirty 30 much. There are a lot inside jokes and puns the girls are fond of throwing around. The story is original and creative which makes it all the more enjoyable. Within the main story there are a bunch of others about other characters who learn some things about themselves and even get some nerve to stand up for themselves. Go watch Dirty 30 as soon as you can even if you are a fan or not and just want to have a good time watching a comedy movie. 

From the Terrace (1960)

Magic City Memoirs (2011)

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (2016)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Sausage Party (2016)

Suicide Squad (2016)

“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?”

“We're bad guys, it's what we do.”

            I am currently interning at a museum that has a security guard on duty. The guy is awesome. He comes into work every day with his lunch box which happens to have all the Marvel superheroes on it. I started talking to him immediately when I first started over his lunch box. I quickly learned the guy is just totally obsessed with comic book superheroes. He has Batman and Ironman and all kinds of superheroes tattooed all over him. It is cool to have a conversation with this guy because he knows the comic books inside and out. He knows the characters are supposed to be dark and twisted not all light and fluffy like Disney has made The Avengers. We had a good discussion about Daredevil and Jessica Jones and Deadpool being dark and awesome like the comic books.

            I like the fact that Daredevil, Deadpool, Jessica Jones, and even Batman vs. Superman was dark because to me it seems more like real life. These superheroes are really just antiheroes. They are human beings with shitty dark lives and secrets. DC, to me, as far as movies, has always been a bit darker with their movies even down to their cartoons (I used to watch the cartoon Batman with my brother when we were little because the stories were so good. Have you ever seen Batman: Mask of the Phantasm? That movie is incredible). Ever since I saw the trailer for DC’s Suicide Squad where the bad guys were the main focus I was beyond excited to see it especially after seeing Jared Leto looking freaky as fuck as the Joker and Margot Robbie batshit crazy as Harley Quinn. This finally looked like the dark and twisted comic book movie and DC movie I have been waiting forever to see. Good thing I kept my expectations for this low.

            The main premise of this story is this top secret government group run by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) wants to use bad guys they have put in a prison out in the swamps of Louisiana to defend a city against this entity called the Enchantress. Waller puts this soldier Rick Flag in charge of this bad guy group to not only keep them in line but also because Enchantress is his girlfriend. Well, not necessarily Enchantress herself but the woman June Moone (Cara Delevingne) whom she possesses. The group of criminals consists of Deadshot (Will Smith) who is a gun expert and crazy talented assassin, Killer Croc who is a hybrid of a croc and a human, Boomerang an Australian bank robber, Diablo who can manipulate and control fire from his body, and last but certainly not least the notorious Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) aka girlfriend of The Joker (Jared Leto).  

            There is a lot that goes on in this movie. There are so many side stories with the characters that is just more than I care to write out here and honestly a lot of the side stories are not that interesting. Also I do not want to spoil too much for you guys.

            I do, however, have to spoil a little bit and tell you guys that The Joker and Harley Quinn were barely together in this. I think everyone thought the pair would have a bigger role and more of a story in this than they did. I was disappointed with how little screen time they had together considering Jared Leto is the best Joker I have seen in a Batman/DC movie. He was fucking amazing. Margot Robbie was the perfect Harley Quinn. Leto and Robbie’s Joker and Harley were very close to the cartoon/comic versions that everyone who has grown up watching or reading Batman knows them. Robbie had all the crazy mannerisms and way of speaking like Harley from the cartoon she was so spot on. Robbie and Leto were the best parts of this movie hands down. I think Leto and Robbie are so fearless with their acting. Leto definitely is fearless when it comes to his acting because he just delves right into his roles. You never feel like you are watching Leto as an actor play his roles you are truly watching his characters. The same can be said for Robbie from what I have seen her in. I am praying to the movie gods so hard that one day Jared Leto as The Joker and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn get their own movie. I would be there at the first showing on midnight if there ever was one. And one other kind of small tiny spoiler, they had the best ending and it left off as if they could get their own movie eventually.

            The rest of the cast and their characters were alright. Rick Flag played Joel Kinnaman was annoying as fuck. I was so hoping one of the bad guys he was surrounded by would just shoot his ass. His whole storyline with Enchantress/June Moone was crap. Deadshot I felt could have been a really awesome character and he was just made to look like he was a criminal with a conscience which essentially he was. As for the other characters I am not really going to go into them too much because they really did not have too much else going for them. Diablo has a story but to me it was boring.

            One thing the movie had going for it besides Harley Quinn and The Joker was the soundtrack. From the first song to the last it was perfect. When Harley Quinn is introduced in her cage they played “You Don’t Own Me” and dear god was that complete perfection. It was a mix of Margot Robbie’s insane acting talent and the way the scene was filmed along with the song that just made the song and scene so fucking brilliant. Another scene that had a good song was one of the many fight scenes that had Eminem’s “Without Me” playing. The song is so old now but it was like crazy good in that scene.

            Suicide Squad was alright. My biggest pet peeve with the story is that everything felt so rushed because there was too much going on. There was the story with Flag and Enchantress, there was the story with Deadshot and his daughter, there was the story with The Joker and Harley Quinn, there was the story of Diablo and his family. It was all just too much, to me there was barely any focus. The only reasons I would say to go see Suicide Squad in theaters is because it is a dark comic book movie, Jared Leto is fucking awesome, Margot Robbie is fucking brilliant, and the soundtrack and cinematography are great.