Elijah Wood looks like a sweet boy and he plays such beloved characters like Frodo in the The Lord of the Rings. He has also showed us that he can do comedy really well via Wilfred. But when he plays crazy, he goes for the gold. His sweet puppy dog eyes can get so wide that they get contorted into something so creepy, unsettling, and deranged, like in Maniac, a horror movie that looks like a disturbing masterpiece. The trailer alone scared the shit out of me…because I am a scaredy cat.

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Let’s face it. When the end of the world comes the only thing that will survive are cockroaches, Cher, Twinkies, and the Fast and Furious franchise. At this point in the game, do the movies even need a plot? There isn’t a need to put reason into amazing high octane, gear shifting, car commercial malarky — but they decided to give a plot to Fast and Furious 6 any way.

Fresh off their multi-million dollar heist, Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian’s (Paul Walker) bromance is still thriving with no homosexual undertones whatsoever. Brian has a new baby boy with Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and everything is hunky dory — until Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) comes in to drop a metaphorical bomb that will shake Dom’s world: LETTY IS ALIVE! (Letty played by Michelle Rodriguez, who died in the first F&F…or was it the second one?). Turns out she’s been keeping company with Shaw (Luke Evans), a ruthless criminal mastermind in London that Hobbs is after. Hobbs needs Dom to help him get Shaw and Letty is the bait. Dom bites. He wrangles the gang to help out: the wisecracking Roman (Tyrese Gibson), the techie Tej, (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges), and the lovebirds Han (Sung Kang) & Gisele (Gal Gadot). Where are those other two who can’t speak English? I don’t know. I don’t care. As soon as they reunite, they join forces with Hobbs and his new partner Riley (Gina Carano…don’t worry, she does her fair share of mix martial arts stuff) and the craziness begins.

Oh lord. Where should I begin? The entire movie is just one big blur of bonkers ridculousness. Directed by F&F auteur Justin Lin, the movie is so outrageous and WTF-worthy that you just have no choice but to sit back and enjoy the ride — and that is the best thing about the Fast & Furious franchise. It is so aware of what it is that the audience accepts it. It’s “suspension of disbelief” at its greatest.

Fast & Furious 6 has all the elements needed: super duper cool fast cars, well-crafted chase scenes, numerous shots of people’s hands shifting gears, fast camera cuts, fist fights, girl fights (Rodriguez vs. Carano!), gun fights, super sexy girls with super sexy accents, snappy one-liners, and best of all, the dueling bald heads of Vin Diesel and The Rock. All of this is injected with nitrous to up the ante of action movie absurdity that will have the entire audience hootin’ and hollerin’.

However, if the movie was solely based on the presence of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, it would be as interesting as seeing a bag of hair try to drive a Fiero. Trying to endure them on screen is a daunting task. Vin Diesel’s mumbling is intolerable. It seems like his tongue has grown a couple sizes since the last movie. And it’s a good thing that Paul Walker is pretty because his version of acting is the equivalent of Keanu acting on public access on a bad day. Even his fight scenes lacked personality. Watching a stiff marionette fighting a teddy bear is more exciting. The thing that makes them look good is everything around them: the fast cars, the too-good-to-be-true high falutin’ action, the charisma of Tyrese and Ludacris, and the strong screen presence of The Rock. All of that makes the entire movie worthwhile.

I found myself hollering “WHAT THE HELL?!” throughout the whole entire movie because that’s what you are supposed to do in a movie like this. It relentlessly goes into overdrive with all of its gravity defying sequences, car acrobatics, and an explosive finale that seems to happen on a 30-mile runway. It gives what the audience wants: fantastically ridiculous, no holds barred action of the Fast and Furious variety — and is really generous about it. Fast & Furious is crack and Justin Lin is our dealer. That said, give us Fast and Furious 7. We need our fix and we need it soon.

Fast & Furious 6 opens in theaters today.

The post ‘Fast & Furious 6′ Does Ridiculous Really Well appeared first on the finer dandy.

It’s difficult to expect a lot from a third installment of a raunchy comedy franchise (remember American Pie: The Wedding?). You may argue that by the time it reaches the third installment it has overstayed its welcome. In fact, creating a comedy franchise in general is quite a task, but if you find the right brand of inappropriate bro humor and cleverly up the ante with each installment, then you may be on to something. The Hangover was a hit because of its outrageous 21st century take on the bachelor party. It not only made a bunch of bros flock to Vegas for debauchery, but it put its three leading men, Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms on everyone’s radar. Hell, it even gave us the “toodaloo muthafuckaaaaah” greatness that is Ken Jeong. It established comedy magic that spilled over into The Hangover II, giving us a taste of the same humor, but set in Thailand. It didn’t break any new ground, but it did serve as a fumbling layover to The Hangover III, the final installment that is no better than the first, but a few notches above the second.

Directed once again by Todd Phillips, the wolfpack is back for fun: the pretty Phil (Cooper), the uptight Stu (Helms), and the bizarro strange one Alan (Galifianakis). After the death of Alan’s father and a hilariously unfortunate accident involving a giraffe, Alan’s friends and family decide to have an intervention for his reckless behavior and is forced to go to a rehab clinic. The wolfpack decides to take a road trip to the clinic and they run into a minor speed bump (of course they do). A random man named Marshall (John Goodman) stops them and demands that they find Chow (Jeong) because he stole his gold. Why did he stop them? Because Alan has been communicating with him ever since his Shawshank-style prison escape during a majestically violent prison riot (which we see in the beginning of the movie). Marshall takes Doug (Justin Bartha) hostage and makes the wolfpack find Chow and the gold. If not, he kills Doug. Thus begins the adventure…and an excuse to make a third movie.

For what it is, The Hangover III is a sweet ending to one of the raunchiest comedy franchises that serves as a vending machine of dick jokes, crazy situations and one-liners that get tired as soon as they reach the echelons of frat boys and middle-aged husbands in suburbia.

Besides a couple of new pleasant surprises (Melissa McCarthy and the original “Carlos” all grown up), everything that you expect is in this movie is there. Even though the writers don’t try to shock us anymore with their foul gags and nastiness, they still know how to make us laugh. It was also nice to see Phil and Stu take a backseat (they were getting boring any way) and give Alan and Chow the opportunity to have fun. Without Alan and Chow, there is no story and there is no comedy. Seeing that Galifianakis and Jeong are the strongest comedic actors in the bunch, Phillips and his writing team were smart to put them in the front and run the show. I would have been fine if the movie was titled, The Hangover III: Alan and Mr. Chow’s Crazy Adventure.

Even though they are selling this as an end to the trilogy, the post-credits scene leaves the door open to another. I’d rather just shut that door. For good.

The Hangover III is currently playing in theaters.

The post ‘The Hangover 3′: The Most Hangoveriest of Them All appeared first on the finer dandy.

In the wake of Damon Lindelof‘s confession of Alice Eve‘s gratuitous underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams recently appeared on Conan and let us in on another gratuitous scene: Benedict Cumberbatch taking a shower…an evil shower. The only kind of shower Cumberbatch’s villainous character could take. Unfortunately, the scene got cut. Watch the video with J.J. and Conan below:

Now that we know this useful information, here is a GIF of the evil shower scene so that we can enjoy it all the live long day.

J.J. probably cut a couple of other scenes like an evil brushing teeth scene, an evil cooking breakfast scene, an evil washing hands scene, an evil taking a dump scene, etc. I can’t wait to see those on the DVD extras.

The post When Benedict Cumberbatch Takes an Evil Shower, You Have to Watch appeared first on the finer dandy.

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There’s a new trailer for The Wolverine. Let’s watch it.

I’m excited for this. It not only looks good, but anything is better than that first Wolverine malarky that featured will.i.am and Tim Riggins in a purple silk shirt.

In any case, here are important bullet points from the trailer that need to be brought to your attention.

1.) In one reality, Jean Grey and Logan had a wild slumber party!

2.) Is that Wolverine? Or Jean Valjean?

3.) There’s a character named Yukio. She is bad ass because she does cool stuff with a sword…

4.)…and it looks like she has the funnest wardrobe in the movie! (Love the stripes!)

5.) At one point of the movie, Wolverine loses his healing powers. He realizes it sucks to feel pain like a normal person.

6.) This Asian dude has a one of those pin point impression needle art frames as a bed!

7.) Apparently, Wolverine doesn’t own an umbrella.

8.) Ewwwww! What’s with her tongue?!

9.) What is all that?! Used condoms? GROSS.

10.) Peel-off facial masks are the best.

11.) Things get a bit kinky and naughty for Wolvie.

12.) Looks like these extras from The Matrix traveled in time to crash the set of Wolverine.

13.) There’s samurais of all kinds!

14.) There’s an old school samurai!

15.) There’s a obscenely giant samurai too!

16.) There are NINJAS too!

The post 16 Things I Took Away From the new ‘Wolverine’ Trailer appeared first on the finer dandy.

YouTube Comedy Week is in full swing and Comedy Bang Bang music man Reggie Watts has done something amazing. The comedian has flawlessly recreated Rick Astley‘s iconic song of love and devotion, “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Enjoy:

…and here is the original for reference. You’re welcome.

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This week’s workout song, “Cotton-Eyed Joe” is dedicated to the gang over at the New Girl as it reminded me that I had the maxi-single of this hit on casette. A “Where are they now?” special is long overdue for the Burning Man/Haight St./steampunk homeless hybrid known as Rednex.

Resisting to fist pump is futile.

And yes, it is actually a dance. We used to perform it in elementary school during gym class.

The post Workout Song of the Week: ‘Cotton-Eyed Joe’ by Rednex appeared first on the finer dandy.

Fruitvale Station (formerly known as Fruitvale) was praised at Sundance and it is already generating bushels of early Oscar buzz…because it’s never to early for that. All of this hype may be valid because 1.) the true story it is based on is layered with intrigue, 2.) Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer are wonderful and 3.) it hits close to home for me because every time I ride BART I pass the Fruitvale station and wonder what happened on that New Year’s Eve night. Check out the trailer and see if you think this buzz will last:

The post Trailer of the Week: ‘Fruitvale Station’ appeared first on the finer dandy.

Star Trek Into Darkness opened in theaters yesterday and it pretty much marked the start of the summer blockbuster season (because Iron Man 3 certainly didn’t). Director and the greatest fanboy of them all, J.J. Abrams pretty much set the bar for summer blockbusters — and he set it high. Real high. Star Trek Into Darkness is one of the few movies that should be seen in 3D (and in IMAX if you get the chance). It’s an all-enveloping movie experience that is one lens flare away from becoming an amusement park ride. It’s damn amazing and I shall watch it multiple times because I am just that cool and have that much time on my hands.

To enhance your moviegoing experience whilst watching Star Trek Into Darkness, I have created a scavenger hunt for your pleasure. All you need is a ticket to the movie, a bucket of popcorn, some Twizzlers, and your wits. Please enjoy:

1.) Count how many lens flares there are in the movie. I’m pretty sure J.J. Abrams doubled the amount of lens flares in this movie compared to the last one just to spite all lens flare haters.

2.) Search for a “Not Penny’s Boat” moment a la J.J.’s TV mind meld, Lost.

3.) Remember that singing sensation Frenchie Davis from The Voice? There is a look alike in the movie. FIND HER.

4.) Take note of how many times the evil and intense John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) says a threatening line like this (and then start using it in your every day conversation).

5.) Each time Spock (Zachary Quinto) says something profound, shove a handful of popcorn into your mouth.

6.) This one is a toughie. One of the miscellaneous crew members on the Enterprise was a cast member of Felicity, another one of J.J.’s masterpieces. Find him or her! HINT: it is one of the people in this picture:

7.) Eat one Twizzler every time Uhura (Zoe Saldana) nags Captain Kirk or Spock.

8.) Tally up all the times an exciting incident catches everyone by surprise via a big explosion or an abrupt CRASH! or BANG!

9.) High five the person next to you every time Kirk and Spock disagree about something.

10.) Finally, giggle like a school girl every time Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) flashes a smirk and/or smile.

Star Trek Into Darkness is currently in theaters. Please report the results of your scavenger hunt below in the comment section or email me at thefinerdandy@gmail.com.

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