Last Man Standing- TV

Last Man Standing 

ABC Friday nights 8p

Last Man Standing is a tv show staring Tim Allen that is on ABC Friday nights.  If you are not watching it you really should be.  Very funny show.  One of my favorites.  I had a trip to LA planned and decided to take in the filming of a couple tv shows while here.  Many shows are filmed in front of a live audience.  Mostly half hour sitcoms and talk shows.  They need butts in the seats and the tickets are free.  There are a few different websites designed to give away those free tickets to people they want to laugh themselves stupid and clap when they want you to.  Luckily for me Last Man is very funny and we never needed prompting on when to laugh or clap.  I have used www.tvtickets.com a couple times to get free tickets to shows.  There are many shows on all the networks available.  

I received my emailed pdf tickets and info a couple weeks ago.  Last Man Standing starts filming at 6p.  The tickets say to check in atleast an hour before.  I found out the atleast should have been in all caps ATLEAST.  Like many Delta flights they oversell the tickets and it's first come first serve.  I got there at 445p with another couple from Orange County and all the tickets were already gone.  We were the first three on the waiting list.  Seems they had a large amount of VIP invited guests show up that were bumping some of us mere mortals.  Luckily some of the VIP's did not show and I was in.  First they put me in a bad seat in the far corner of the stadium seating of 220 seats.  Then they realized I was THE Royce Brown from Atlanta and they moved me to the front row center.  Or one of the VIPs didn't show and they had one empty seat they needed to fill.  Whatever.  

They make you leave your cell phone in the car or you can't get in.  So I have no pictures.  They are very strict on this.  The soundstage is very cool.  About a hundred yards long with five or six different sets that looked like different places you see.  One for the kitchen area, one for the living room, one for the outdoor store, ect.  No seat can see all the filming areas so there are tvs overhead so you can see the filming as it happens.  

They have a warm up comic that keeps the crowd loose and laughing before the show and during the lulls when they are setting up the next camera shot.  He introduced the cast one by one at the start.  Tim Allen took the mic and welcomed everyone.  What was surprising to me is they have what looked like forty writers for the show.  Tim made a joke that they were all depressed from the last elections were the Republicans won many.  He said the only people depressed were the liberals and since this was LA that meant almost everyone but him.  He was funny and came across as a likable nice guy.  

I was surprised the taping for a thirty minute show took just over three hours to film.  They do most every scene twice.  Sometimes tweaking the lines a bit from take to take to see which goes better.  Of course the funniest parts are when they mess up on their lines.  Tim would mess with the other actors to cause them to mess up.  What I found interesting was the behind the scenes.  The actors when they were not in the shot were often sitting on one of the other sets texting on their iPhones or talking quietly among themselves.  

After the show some of the actors came out the same exit we were.  We were able to say hello and give a high five.  I'm sure that was the highlight of their day. : >    This was a fun experience that I'd definitely do again.  

Going to see the Craig Ferguson show tomorrow!

Interstellar

Intersteller

Rating 6.5 out of 10

Paramount Pictures did a great job marketing this movie.  They showed a few clips that barely told what the movie was actually about yet I REALLY wanted to see it.  Still wanted to see it when I found out it was a three hour movie.  Is getting great reviews so I went on opening day.

The movie starts in the near future.  The Earth is dying.  The soil is so depleted due to overpopulation that it won't grow food.  Giant sandstorms are the norm blowing in out of nowhere and lasting for days.  Our star Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is an ex-military pilot turned farmer that is struggling to find something that will still grow to feed his family.  He meets up with his old military leader who shows Coop his plans of a rocket ship to a far off galaxy that will hopefully support human life.  It's many years away and to get there they have to use placed (by whom we don't know) worm holes that speed up the process.  The survival of everyone on earth depends on them.  Somehow three days before liftoff they don't have a main pilot and Cooper is recruited to run the show.

The acting in this movie is very good.  Anne Hathaway is good (even with her still super short haircut that I don't care for), Jessica Chastain (wow), Michael Caine, John Lithgow and Casey Affleck.  The visuals are even better.  It's nothing short of fantastic.

What keeps the movie from having a higher rating for me was it's WAY more complicated than it needs to be.  At times I felt like I was dropped into a class full of rocket scientists discussing at great lengths how worm holes and space travel really works.  Not to mention how in certain areas an hour on this planet equals seven years on earth.  They could have made it far easier to understand without completely dumbing it down.

If you have any desire to see this movie and I did enjoy it- I would say it needs to be seen on a big screen.  The bigger the better.  I saw it on the IMAX screen at NCG and am glad I did.

Chef- Rental

Chef

Rating 8 out of 10

When this movie came out earlier in the year I thought it looked interesting, but didn't have a big desire to go to the theater and see it.  It started getting great reviews which gave me a little more interest in seeing it . Yet it was only playing in a few theaters and I went to see something else.  A few of my friends saw it and highly recommended it.  The movie finally came to RedBox so I gave it a try.

Yes folks, it's a pretty good movie.  It is a fairly low budget movie with an amazing cast and a good script.  It stars Jon Faverau who has been balancing his acting with directing (he directed the first Iron Man movie and many others) which he bout acts and directs this movie.  Faverau plays master chef Carl Casper working in a big Los Angeles restaurant.  He is frustrated because the owner (Dustin Hoffman) won't let him spread his wings with the menu instead wanting to put the same thing on the table year after year.  When a big food reviewer calls him out on this he goes nuts.  It gets filmed and everyone sees it.

The movie is about Casper reinventing himself and getting back in touch with his son that lives with is ex-wife.  It's a likable movie with a good story.  Besides Dustin Hoffman it has Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Robert Downey Jr and more.

With the cold weather coming in you could do worse than curling up on the couch with a blanket and popping this movie into the DVD player.   I enjoyed it.

St. Vincent

St. Vincent

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I saw the previews for this a couple weeks ago and it caught my interest.  I like Bill Murray and like Melissa McCarthy when she is more in the Mike and Molly tv show mode as she is here.

Maggie (McCarthy) after a nasty divorce moves into an older neighborhood with a new older, nastier neighbor (Murray).  Vincent is a very rude and nasty guy.  Hardly any redeeming qualities.  He smokes and drinks too much.  Owes everyone money.  Has a cut rate pregnant prostitute (Naomi Watts) visit weekly.  Yet Murray somehow makes us like him.  Maggie is starting a new job and is desperate enough to have someone watch her son after school that she pays Vincent.

I rarely go see a movie during peak times when a theater is packed.  Opening night is not going to happen with me.  This can be an issue when seeing comedies.  Something is much funnier with a theater full of people laughing with you than when you are in with a dozen other movie watcher.  Movies like St. Vincent suffer from this.  A friend of mine said when she saw it in a packed theater she was going to have to go back and see it again due to laughter drowning out the next words.

This movie thanks to Bill Murray has lots of funny laugh at loud parts.  It kinda drags in the middle when it really shouldn't but does wrap up with a touching grab your hanky ending.

I liked this movie.  Good acting.  The little kids is also very good.  I was entertained.

John Wick

John Wick

Rating 7.5 out of 10

The ladies have movies that lean toward their tastes more than they do for us guys.  The love stories with lots of hand holding and staring into each others eyes.  Then there is movies like John Wick clearly aimed toward the dudes.  This movie is like a big piece of steak on a plate with no veggies.

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) at on point was the best hit man in the business.  He finds the woman of his life and is able to walk away.  Several years later his lovely wife passes away from Cancer.  In his grieving period he locks horns with the son of one of the big Russian mobsters.  The son messes with the wrong guy.  Body counts are high.  That's pretty much all you need to know.  This is a 96 minute roller coaster ride of bullets and things that go boom.

This movie is similar to the better Denzel Washington movie The Equalizer released last month with less plot to get in the way.  There are even some of the same actors playing Russian mob bad guys.  I liked both movies alot.

As I have said with John Wick you get what you pay for.  It's entertaining.

Fury

Fury

Rating 7 out of 10

I like war movies.  Movies from Saving Private Ryan to Platoon.  Fury is most definitely a war movie.  It's just amazing the things those soldiers went through back then.  Amazing and sad.

Fury starts in the mid 1940's in Germany.  World War II is winding down.  Hitler is on the run and getting desperate.  A super-tough sergeant that has the nickname Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) has seen it all. He has a fatherly feel of the three guys in his tank.  He feels it's his job to keep them safe.  When one of his own dies the replacement Army sends is a green youngster that wants nothing to do with it.

The Germans have better firepower in their tanks and are kicking our butts in that department.  US Forces are at this point going from town to town taking it over trying to force Hitler to give up.  Fury doesn't have a plot line A to Z like Private Ryan did.  It more a week in the life of.  Oh what a week it was.  They are sent ahead of the other soldiers to protect some crossroads for the soldiers to soon follow.  When the tank hits a land mine they are forced to kill time until reinforcements come. Only to have a battalion of German soldiers come around the corner.  They need to hold that cross roads or to protect all the unsuspecting soldiers behind them.

Pretty boy Brad Pitt is not that pretty here but does a good job.  The acting is very good all round.  The real star of the show is the director and how he shows the real pain of war.  You feel like you are in it with them.

This is a good movie.  Wouldn't recommend it for the squeamish.  There is a lot of blood an guts from the opening sceen to the last.  If you like war movies this one is for you.

This is Where I Leave You

This is Where I Leave You

Rating 7 out of 10

In the sea of action and shoot 'em up films released lately this is a good family drama with a great cast.  It has some laughs and some tender moments.  It stars Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphan and Rose Byrne.

The movie starts with Judd (Bateman) having a very bad day when he comes home from work early and catches his wife in bed with his boss.  Later in the day he finds out his father has died.  He goes back to his hometown for the funeral and his large family.  Mom (Fonda), Sister (Fey) and two brothers (Corey Stoll and Adam Driver).  I am not Jewish but I guess there is a tradition where after a death the family the survivors share a house for a week.  This is a dysfunctional family with lots of issues.

Bateman and Fey are always funny.  Mom has a running gag of huge boob job and inappropriate talk of dads private parts.  Sometimes they hit the mark.  Sometimes they don't.  There are side stories a plenty.

This is much more light hearted and comical than the Judge.  I enjoyed it.