Contrary to its premise, Goon is actually a really sweet movie with a lot of heart. That doesn’t mean it’s bad ass full of blood, hard punches, and manly sports action either, though! Goon is based on the true story of Doug Smith and an adaption of the book, “Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey” by Adam Frattasio and Doug himself. In the movie, Doug Glatt is played by Seann William Scott and he’s not too bright. He’s a bouncer at a local bar in Massachusetts and feels like he doesn’t have anything going for him until his hockey-obsessed friend Ryan (Jay Baruchel) takes him to a game where he’s discovered.
Dougie isn’t discovered for his hockey playing ability, no, he’s discovered for his pounding fist and relentless ability to take pain. He’s hired by his local hockey team, the Orangetown Assassins, to be a Goon…otherwise known as an enforcer in the hockey world. The movie glorifies all the fights you see on the ice. Sure, there’s something about shooting a tiny puck in a tiny goal but the main show is the fist to fist assaults these guys have on each other. Quickly, word spreads about Glatt and he’s sent to Halifax, Novia Scotia to play in the minor leagues and protect a star hockey player whose become to afraid to make plays, Xavier Laflamme (Marc-André Grondin). In a previous game, another enforcer, Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber) hit Xavier so hard that it gave him a concussion – he’s never played the same again. Dougie is sent to protect him and inevitably, the entire movie is set up for the showdown between Glatt and Rhea.
Glatt vs Rhea
Surprisingly, there’s a lot more to the movie than hockey and fighting. First of all, there’s the family problems in the Glatt household. Dougie’s Jewish parents played by Eugene Levy and Ellen David are never proud of their sons and aren’t afraid to show it. Their one son Ira (David Paetkau) is gay and Doug is stupid. Stupid. Gay. Stupid. Gay. They don’t approve of him bashing people’s heads in and getting punched himself. However, Eva (Alison Pill) instantly falls for Doug…she’s into hockey guys but has never met one as nice as Doug. Problem is, she has a boyfriend. This is one of the cutest love stories I’ve seen in a while and it’s hilarious that it’s hidden in this macho sports film. Dough is literally a sweetheart touched by the first of God.
Alison Pill is way too cute in this movie
The movie has a great tempo and keeps you interested in all the subsequent stories. Hockey fans are going to love noticing the allusions to real teams, players, and incidents that are portrayed in the film. There’s even a cameo from Georges Laraque. The acting is good enough and the script is pretty funny. “I think it’s a pretty name, like your face.” There’s a lot of laughs especially from the wise-cracking Jay Baruchel whose annoying Boston accent is as annoying as a real sports-crazed Bostonian. The movie did skip around a bit and I think they edited out a good chunk in the end but in that respect, it cut right to the meat of the film when you wanted it the most. I wish they developed the whole team aspect a little more but that didn’t take away from the main story. This is going to be a great On Demand addition and rental. Something you might have not expect to be so good.
I was disappointed but I had pretty high hopes. I was looking forward to this movie because there was so much potential in almost every aspect of the production. You have a coming of age story mixed with magic and adventure, sound familiar? This is definitely going to be compared to Harry Potter and sadly, it doesn’t hold a candle next to it. But even so, it does conjure up an adventure for kids and fans of movies like the National Treasure series which shares the same director (Jon Turteltaub) and producer (Jerry Bruckheimer) as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as well as the star, Nicolas Cage.
Disney started their showcase with a first look at Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time starring Jake Gyllenhaal, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Mike Newell…all three were in attendance to talk about the movie. Prince of Persia is based on the popular video game of the same name. It follows the adventures of a prince who stumbles upon a mythical object which can affect time itself. He teams up with the princess of his rivals to stop a sandstorm which would end of the world. From what they showed and said, it’s definitely an action-packed summer blockbuster but Jerry kept highlighting the points that it would have lots of comedy and romance. Pretty much, it’s trying to have mass appeal and target the largest market possible. It was filmed in Morocco where it was said to be over a hundred degrees every day. Additionally, they sent teams around the world to take authentic pictures and bring back the images to build unique sets. But even with that backdrop, a lot of the movie will be computer generated. The footage they showed looked very common and bland. Granted, it’s still early and the scenes weren’t polished up yet. However, the time travel affects with the sand looked awesome as well as the scenes with snakes…they did some really cool things there. It’s reminiscent of the director, Mike Newell’s work in Harry Potter, very magical. You can expect a lot of free running/parkour type stuff from Jake who literally runs up walls.
Jerry Bruckheimer stayed in his seat as the panels changed because he was presenting his 2nd upcoming film with Disney, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel and is directed by Jon Turteltaub. Set in modern-day, a college student in New York City finds himself in a magical battle between good and evil. He is destined to become a great and powerful sorcerer trained by an old wizard by the name of Balthazar. On the plot, Jon Turteltaub commented on how fundamental this plot is to Disney and that it originated from a segment in Fantasia. He comically said that obviously they’re not doing a cartoon for two hours of a mop (even though the iconic sequence of the mop is in the film). To me, the footage looked amazing. This is going to be a homerun for Disney and regain them some lost fans while gaining them a lot of new ones from the younger generation who has no idea what Fantasia is and would definitely not sit through it today. You can tell it’s still geared towards kids, but it looks really funny and entertaining…kind of a Harry Potter like feel. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice looks at magic a different way than Harry Potter though. Turteltaub said he wanted to create a very realistic and modern weird feeling as if you were in this world with the characters on the screen and then the magic would enter all of our lives.
Finally, Disney’s last film showcased was a continuation of a little known franchise from Disney Pixar called Toy Story 3. The third film in this series follows the characters as they are abandoned in a day care while their owner, Andy, goes away to college. At first, to all of the toys except Woody, it looks like a paradise but kids love new toys…The director, Lee Unkrich, said that it took two days in a cabin to come up with the story but over two and half years of storyboarding and fine tuning. He felt the pressure of taking this huge franchise and creating a third feature length film every day of the process of making it but it doesn’t look like he failed…every time a new character was shown to the audience, there was a collective “awww.” There’s no doubt in my mind that this film will resonate with the new generation of kids and that the old fans will flock back to see the new instalment. When an audience member asked Jeff Garlin about improvising in the movie he said that when the script is good, he doesn’t like to improvise. He likes to improvise in order to help a movie out but with Wall-E and Toy Story 3, he felt that the scripts were great so that should give you an idea of how good this one is going to be.
WonderCon is one of the country’s best comics conventions featuring guests and events for comics, movies, video games, and other popular media. This year, WonderCon had presentations by such Hollywood studios as Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, and Lionsgate.
Let me start by saying: Wow. Every aspect of this movie was great – the story, the visuals, the music, the characters, the whole package. This is DreamWorks Animation’s best work yet. The title of this movie, How To Train Your Dragon, does not do it justice as there is so much more to the movie. You go in to the movie not knowing what to expect, which may be a good thing, because by the end, you’re blown away. It’s a story about a young Viking unlike all the rest of the Viking town since he’s not blood hungry for dragon slaying. Where he’s from, hunting and killing dragons is the way of life and everybody expects each other to do the same. To make things worse, his dad is the head honcho in town who is a bit embarrassed that his son hasn’t turned out like himself: all muscles with guts and glory on the side. Instead, Hiccup (yes, his name is Hiccup) is a small toothpick with a brain on his shoulders. He likes to tinker and make things; he’s an engineer at heart. He doesn’t fit in with everybody else but that’s all he wants – to be like everybody else, or at least that’s what he thinks.
People don’t seem to know what to expect from this movie. The friend I went with said she didn’t think the movie would be any good based on the name and poster. That’s probably why they did so many advance screenings across the country (especially to colleges) because this movie is actually pretty good and hopefully will benefit from all the positive word of mouth it should get. It was really funny (yet, not hysterically funny like I thought it would be from the previews) and actually came with a story line that was enjoyable. She’s Out Of My League is both a chick flick and an underdog story. Girls are going to love it because it will make them go awwww and guys will like it because it’s funny, has some great eye candy, and will boost their confidence level.
