It’s hard to believe that it was over six years ago that I and some ex-TV-Squaders started CliqueClack. We had some pretty high hopes at the time, that we could go out on our own and show AOL what it really meant to be writer-fans of television. It was an incredibly ambitious goal that we never came close to, but we quickly learned that that didn’t matter to us. What did matter was that we had an outlet to write what we wanted, when we wanted, for people who continued to engage in discussion with us.

It’s pained me all these years to never have earned enough with ads and Amazon referrals to pay our writers regularly. We’ve certainly lost some great folks because of it, and I don’t blame them at all. Some have gone on to continue writing for paying gigs, full-time, and that’s been awesome. With the declining frequency of posts comes declining traffic, which results in declining ad revenue … you get the picture. Maybe that’s a bit TMI, but I thought being up-front about where we were at was something I owed you.

This will likely be the final post here at CliqueClack, but there is a silver lining.

For quite some time now, Chuck Duncan and Ivey West had been heading up editing duties for the site. Chuck, I know, very much wants to continue writing. I didn’t want to simply hand over CliqueClack to someone else, though, partly because I’m just not ready to give it away and, primarily, I thought it made more sense to let Chuck have something that was truly his own. That’s just what he’s done.

Friday, April 3, Chuck launches his own site, Hotchka.com, to continue where CliqueClack left off. You’ll see some new and familiar faces there, writing about movies, TV, pop culture, and anything else Chuck might want to throw into the mix. He and his partner, Carl, have already done a fantastic job putting the site together, and I think you’re really going to dig it.

• Check out the site at www.hotchka.com.
• Follow them on Twitter @hotchka
• Facebook
• Google+
• Tumblr
• YouTube

As for CliqueClack, my plan is to keep all of our 11,000+ posts around for as long as I’m possibly able, even if they are thrown in straight HTML and image files in a searchable archive somewhere. I think it’s criminal when sites decide to completely wipe away all traces of past content when they shutter, and dammit I’m going to do my best to make sure that never happens here.

Thank you so much to the writers and, of course, to all of you readers who’ve stuck with us all these years.

ALL PASSES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED. THIS OFFER IS CLOSED.

CliqueClack has partnered with Universal Pictures to offer readers in Boston and Hartford an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new action film Furious 7 starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Elsa Pataky, Lucas Black, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Nathalie Emmanuel, with Kurt Russell and Jason Statham.

Continuing the global exploits in the unstoppable franchise built on speed, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson lead the returning cast of Furious 7. James Wan directs this chapter of the hugely successful series.

The screening will take place Tuesday, March 31, 7:00 PM at AMC Boston Common and AMC Plainville.

Passes will be available on a first come, first served basis. To be eligible, please read and follow the directions CAREFULLY. There will be no exceptions.

• Comment on this post ONLY with HARTFORD. All Boston passes have been claimed. Do not include anything else in the comment box. If you make a mistake, do not edit your comment because it will not register. You must submit a new comment.
• Include your FULL NAME (First and Last) and email address on the entry form (NOT in the comment box!). Double check your email address before submitting. If your email address is misspelled, you will not receive passes.
• ONE entry per person or couple will be accepted. CliqueClack has the right to discard any duplicates or comments that appear to be duplicates. Multiple comments from a single person will result in complete disqualification. Keep these offers fair for everyone!
• Winners will be contacted by email and will receive ONE ADMIT TWO pass. Please make sure to set your filters to accept email from @cliqueclack.com.
• Check your calendar before commenting. If you have no intention of using the passes, please don’t leave a comment. If the studios see that passes we are given to award to our readers are not being used, they will not want to offer us passes for future screenings. Please be considerate!

Please note that passes do not guarantee seats at the screening. Seating is first come, first served so plan to arrive early. CliqueClack has no control over the total number of passes distributed, and is not responsible for seating arrangements at the theater.

Seventh Son is rated PG-13 for prolonged frenetic sequences of violence, action and mayhem, suggestive content and brief strong language. The movie opens Friday, April 3.

Unless you’ve lived under a rock or have lived a very sheltered life, you probably know that Walt Disney became the king of animated films when he first released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. A hit, the film led to more classic fairy tales and children’s stories being brought to life through the wonders of animation.

In 1950, Walt Disney Productions brought Cinderella to the big screen and the film has charmed audiences ever since. Now Disney has gotten into the business of remaking its classic animated films, past and present, as live action extravaganzas. Last year’s Maleficent, based on Sleeping Beauty‘s grand villainess, was a monster success and more remakes — Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book — are in the works (and let’s not forget Disney did remake 101 Dalmations several years ago). For now, we have Disney’s Cinderella brought to magical life.

You probably know the story: young orphan is treated badly by her stepmother and stepsisters, basically treated like the help instead of family, she meets a prince in the forest, he is smitten and holds a ball to which everyone is invited, she arrives with the help of her Fairy Godmother, clock strikes midnight, she must run, loses a shoe and he takes the shoe (a glass slipper) throughout the kingdom to find its owner. And, of course, they live happily ever after. Spoiler alert?

The 1950 version followed that plot and the 2015 version is extremely and thankfully faithful to its source material. There’s been no attempt to modernize the story, although you’d be hard-pressed to pinpoint an exact time period (but there are no cars) which helps make the film and the story timeless.

Lily James, better known as Lady Rose MacClare on Downton Abbey, is simply wonderful as Ella (the Cinder part is attached to her after she is forced to work in the kitchen). She radiates innocence and purity and love and happiness, she’s pretty but not beautiful, she gives Ella a nice down-to-earth charm that should be a good role model for young girls. Even in her darkest moments of being emotionally bullied by her step-family, she remains true to herself and never wallows in her own self pity. Once she’s transformed and knows the prince wants to marry her, she still retains that charm that had been instilled in her from childhood. James makes Cinderella someone to really root for.

On the other hand, you have the deliciously evil Stepmother played with aplomb by Cate Blanchett. The character certainly could have given Blanchett reason enough for some juicy scenery chewing, but she manages to keep Stepmother just this side of a caricature. And as with Maleficent, the script gives us a little bit of an insight into why she’s so mean so as to humanize her, but you’re still happy that she and her daughters get what’s coming to them in the end.

Richard Madden, Game of Thrones‘ Robb Stark, is a prince any girl would want to marry and any boy might aspire to be. Even with his regal bearings, he’s just as down-to-earth as Ella and refuses to be married off to another kingdom’s royalty just because his father and the royal court says that’s the way it’s done. He goes to the end of his land to find the mysterious girl from the ball, and you can’t help but fall in love with them as they fall in love.

Helena Bonham Carter shows up for one scene as the comic relief Fairy Godmother (she also sings “Bibbity Bobbity Boo” over the end credits), Derek Jacobi is the King and Stellan Skarsgård is the Grand Duke. Director Kenneth Brannagh firmly grounds the film in its own special world, opting to use mostly physical sets over the routine CGI creations which really helps the fairy tale fantasy feel more realistic. The scene where the clock strikes midnight and Cinderella must flee the ball before everything returns to their normal states, from lizard footmen to the goose carriage drive, is a breathtakingly shot and edited chase scene that will keep you on the edge of your seat even though you know how it ends. And kudos to the CGI department who really give life to a bunch of digital mice. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear they were real, trained performers.

Cinderella is certainly geared towards a female audience, young and old alike, but the action, special effects and palace intrigue should be appealing to everyone. The film is enjoyably pleasant (and also features some gorgeous costumes) and you won’t feel like you just wasted two hours of your life after you exit the theater.

As a bonus, audiences are treated to the new animated short Frozen Fever featuring the cast of the original film. The story follows Elsa as she tries to plan a birthday party for Anna, but a cold could prevent her from getting Anna to her party. It’s wonderfully animated and tells a cute story with one big laugh, but it’s ultimately not quite as memorable as Frozen. Luckily, Disney announced there will be a Frozen 2, so this should hold fans over until then.

It’s rare for a film to come along and be consistent from head to toe. Which makes Unfinished Business a true feat when you realize just what a failure of a film it is on every conceivable level.

Unfinished Business  is the new “comedy” from the director of Delivery Man, and the writer of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (those words should be enough to get your spidey sense tingling). Vince Vaughn is Dan Trunkman, a fast talking salesman of some sort (the film never really explains what he does very well … something with numbers and making deals). The film opens on him having a heated discussion with his boss (played by Sienna Miller) over a five percent cut back to his salary. Long story short, Trunkman thinks he can start his own business and do a better job than his jerk of a boss. He then does his best Jerry Maguire tribute when he starts asking who will go with him and ends up alone in the parking lot. There he bumps into Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), who coincidentally has just been forced into retirement, as well as Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), a young enthusiastic but dim applicant who has just been turned down for a job. Of course Vaughn’s character hires them both and they get to work.

From there on forward we are exposed to some of the worst writing, lazy filmmaking, and oddest tone you might ever find in a major studio release. From the start we get an odd and overbearing five-minute Dunkin Donuts product placement, Vaughn sets a meeting with his staff at Dunkin, and there are several shots prominently featuring their logo including an establishing shot of the building’s outside sign that lingers far longer than needed. The movie’s logic immediately starts falling apart at this point. We are taken to one year later and see that our three leads are not having as much luck as they had hoped, but what sticks out more is that they also apparently know next to nothing about each other. Every piece of information we learn about them through the movie is a complete revelation to the other two. Somehow, while working side by side, the only three people running an upstart company, and they managed to learn next to nothing about each other.

Fortunately everything that defines these characters is two-dimensional and often cringe inducing so at least they didn’t miss out on anything important. Wilkinson’s character is an old horny man with a filthy mouth who wants to make enough money so that he can divorce his wife who is “the shape of a vending machine.” He constantly wants to see naked women, get trashed on booze and drugs, and curses nonstop. Of course we’re supposed to think it’s cute … ’cause he’s old! Franco’s character is defined by two things. First, his last name is Pancake, and apparently everyone they meet think that’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Second is that he’s mentally challenged. Yes, like literally he went to a special school and lives in a special facility. This fact doesn’t come up to his colleagues for over a year! Vaughn’s character is, well, the same character Vince Vaughn plays in every single movie. Except here he is somehow both a workaholic father who doesn’t notice the trouble his kids are having at school (another cyberbullying subplot, as is all the rage these days), yet the film also shows him constantly Facetiming with his family on the road. So we’re supposed to think he doesn’t know what’s going on but that he’s still a good dad.

Through a series of convoluted and frankly stupid events, the three must travel to Germany to close the one big deal that can save their company and send Vaughn’s oldest child to a private school where kids hopefully will stop picking on him for his weight. Once they arrive, it’s offhandedly said that the G8 summit, a gay and fetish festival, and a marathon are all happening the very same week. Hmm, I wonder if those will come into play somehow? Spoiler alert: they do, in the most forced and ham-fisted ways.

From here there is just scene after scene of unfunny, overly vulgar, and distasteful situations. Also from the previews you would assume a little swearing and some crude situations but the amount of nudity in the film is extremely surprising and used in ways that are the definition of gratuitous. Worst of all, none of it is funny. The “high point,” as I imagine the writers saw it, is a scene during the fetish festival where they use the bathroom at a gay nightclub. There they find four gloryholes along with four gentleman waiting for service behind said holes. Even after Vaughn explains he’s just looking for a friend, they stay as they are and have a five-minute conversation with cutaways to each man’s genitals as they speak. It actually gets worse from there, but I’ll leave that to your imaginations.

The production itself seems to have been plagued by either laziness, lack of budget, or even lack of talent. Some scenes early in the film appeared blurry or shot on a low-grade camera. Some of the same scenes had lighting that stuck out as blatantly fake. There were also two glaring continuity issues in the film. One being when the leads get off a train, bright sunny day, cut to the building they arrive at, still sunny mind you, and their shoulders have been noticeably rained on between the two shots. While it’s possible there was a scene cut out that explains this, in the film it just looks like sloppy filmmaking. The second issue is Vaughn is shown driving to the airport for his big trip, but when he arrives back to the airport his family has his car and is there to pick him up.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. When looking for negatives, this film comes fully stocked. I would say I chuckled three times over the excruciating ninety minute run time. Needless to say the cast and crew obviously cared little to nothing about the making of Unfinished Business and you as the viewing public should concern yourself even less with experiencing its failures.

Any die hard movie musical fan knows that MGM produced most of the greatest musicals of all time in the 1950s. The Arthur Freed Unit became the touchstone of musicals with productions ranging from The Wizard of Oz in 1939 to Bells Are Ringing in 1960. While the 1940s was a productive decade for Freed, the 1950s gave us some of the most beloved, classic musicals of all time.

Now, Warner Brothers Home Entertainment has taken two of these MGM classics, plus one from the Warner Brothers library, and has given them a good scrubbing for Blu-ray and the results are astonishing. Best of all, you can purchase your favorite film as a stand-alone disk or get them all in the new Musicals: 4-Movie Collection. The three new titles are The Band Wagon, Calamity Jane, and Kiss Me Kate. Warners has added Singin’ in the Rain as a bonus to the 4-disk set.

The first movie in the collection is The Band Wagon (1953) starring Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan. The story follows a nearly washed up Hollywood actor (Astaire) who decides to head to Broadway to see if he can untarnish his star in a big stage musical (shades of the Oscar-winning Birdman!). An egotistical director hijacks the frothy musical and turns it into a depressing version of Faust, ensuring a huge flop but the cast bands together to save the show.

The film is very entertaining, and it allows Astaire to take on a different character than we’re used to seeing from him. No top hat and tails this time around, but his dancing is still on point, especially in the scene where he dances with a shoe shine man (who was a real shoe shine man in New York). Cyd Charisse is stunning as always and is simply magnificent to watch in what was her first real starring role. The film also introduced Broadway star Nanette Fabray to movie audiences in what was, surprisingly, her only MGM musical. The movie also has a great score, but it’s most well-known for introducing “That’s Entertainment” as THE song about showbiz, supplanting the standard “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

The film looks terrific on Blu-ray. The image is bright and colorful but still has a film-like quality to it with an appropriate amount of film grain. The 1080p image(presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio) has not been completely scrubbed of any detail, and the soundtrack has been given a nice DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix that keeps the dialog and singing front and center, allowing the orchestra to swell, but never overwhelm, from the surrounds.

Bonus features include:

• Commentary by Liza Minnelli and Michael Feinstein
• Get Aboard! The Band Wagon (37:09) — A vintage “making of” looking at the production of the film with many behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the film’s stars, crew and family members.
• The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli (58:25) — An episode of the WNET series focusing on Minnelli.
• Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet (6:00) — Comedic musical short film starring Band Wagon c0-star Buchanan.
• The Three Little Pups (6:46) — MGM cartoon featuring Droopy Dog in a variation of The Three Little Pigs.
• Theatrical Trailer (3:14)

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Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A con man walks into the room and stares at you. He winks and says, “Am I playing you or are you playing me?” After some daring adventure, the “game” becomes increasingly convoluted and less and less feasible. Soon enough, you say to the con man, “Perhaps ’twas I that played you, eh?” After another few twists that only make sense if you had read the script beforehand, you part ways feeling happy but hollow, like you just ate a giant inflatable plate of spaghetti smothered with real cheese. Sure, it was good going down, but it won’t leave you with anything.

Focus is a heist movie in the spirit of The Italian Job or Ocean’s 13 (that’s right, I said 13). It stars Will Smith as Nicky, an older, talented thief who has charisma nearly akin to Will Smith himself! That’s a minor miracle, Will Smith actually showcasing his fun, dangerous side (not too dangerous, but still). The movie also stars Margot Robbie as Jess, a grifter wannabe who stumbles across Nicky and decides she wants a mentor in the “art” of what you might call “gentleman theft.” It’s all slick moves and distractions, nothing violent, but a lot of pickpocketing.

So after a bit of reasonable back and forth, Nicky agrees to let Jess join his huge team of thieves as they steal from innocent victims at a “Super Bowlish” football event with a thinly defined and tossed out code of ethics that basically excludes the elderly and disabled. This leads to the most tense and interesting scene of the movie, where Nicky faces off against a foreign rich guy (a fantastic B.D. Wong). Although the resolution is decently done, it’s ultimately a bit of a letdown because the rest of the movie doesn’t get that interesting again.

The second part of the movie is three years later, where Nicky is about to run a new con, paid for by a Formula 1 rich guy (Rodrigo Santoro). And wouldn’t you know it, he runs into Jess again! But who’s really playing the con here and who’s playing an even deeper con? Will love conquer all? Unfortunately, the chemistry between Margot Robbie and Will Smith isn’t that great, and the writing is very flip on why they like each other. That said, Margot Robbie is great with an underwritten character, stealing “focus” every moment she’s on screen. Gerald McRaney as the rich guy’s head of security is also curmudgeonly amusing, while Adrian Martinez as Nicky’s friend Farhad is hilarious. Although I didn’t really like how he was just assigned to be Persian, considering the actor isn’t.

Are there twists? Turns? Etc? Of course! Some predictable, some silly, some very predictable, and a few kind of cool. The lesson seems to be “love is more important than money,” which while seemingly important, also seems out of sync for a heist movie. The romance angle just doesn’t work, but the rest is decent fun.

Judging from the box office grosses, audiences were not looking forward to another chapter in the Horrible Bosses saga, and who could blame them. The first film racked up more than $100 million in the U.S. but after being burned by the diminishing returns of The Hangover — with a second chapter that was basically the first movie, beat by beat, in a different location — Horrible Bosses 2 grossed about half of what the first made.

But, Horrible Bosses 2 is actually a better film than the first because it’s not simply a retread. The plot expands on the story, making the three leads, Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day), their own horrible bosses as they attempt to start a business of their own. They enter into a partnership with a catalog distribution magnate (Christoph Waltz), but when the deal goes south, the guys revert to their old bad habits and attempt to kidnap the son (Chris Pine) in hopes of salvaging their business. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned and the results are pretty funny.

The addition of Waltz and Pine elevate the film, but there is also room to fit Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Jamie Foxx into the story organically. They never feel shoe-horned in just for the sake of bringing in familiar faces. I’ve seen the film twice now, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around as I did the first. The new Blu-ray edition of the film also includes about seven minutes of additional footage, but it’s nothing that consequential to the plot or that changes the theatrical R rating.

The Blu-ray, released February 24, has a nice sharp, colorful image and the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is active when needed but keeps the dialog front and center without being drowned out by music and sound effects. The Blu-ray also contains a nice batch of extras.

• Endless Laughter Guaranteed! (17:28) — A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie with input from the stars and a nice collection of outtakes and flubbed lines. It shows that the cast genuinely had a great time making the movie.
• Let the Sexual Healing Begin (2:24) — A faux infomercial about sex addiction.
• Who Invented the Shower Buddy? (1:29) — Kurt or Dale?
• Nick Kurt Dale INC.: Employee Testimonials (2:13) — Ray, Lupe and Candy reflect on their bosses.
• It’s the Shower Buddy – Infomercial (1:10)
• High Speed Crash Course (2:47) — A brief behind-the-scenes look at shooting the climactic car chase scene.
• Off the Cuff: One-Liners You Didn’t See — Extended/outtake versions of several scenes in the film including Pumping Your Buddy (1:31), Julia’s Cog Collection (1:23), Don’t Drop the Soap (1:09), Spit It Out (1:28), Sex Addiction Group (1:11), Kiss and Tell (1:31), Half-Assed Brushing (1:15), Racist Dale Arbus (1:44), Stuck in the Middle (1:08), Coma Boners (1:45), A Tender Bottom (1:31), Who Gets What? (1:04), Dale’s Not Dead (1:39)

Horrible Bosses 2 may not be great art or even great comedy, but there is something about watching a bunch of people who obviously enjoy each others’ company having a great time trying to entertain us. Looking at the outtakes, they certainly had more fun making the movie than the final product shows, but it’s still worth a few good laughs here and there, and it’s miles better than The Hangover Part II. Horrible Bosses 2 would make a great party movie, and the Blu-ray, with its bounty of extras, is worth picking up.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment generously provided Horrible Bosses 2 to CliqueClack for review.

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After generating a lot of buzz during its theatrical run, and quite a few awards nominations and wins along the way to Oscar night, audiences who may have missed Whiplash in theaters can now check it out on home video. Does the film live up to the hype?

The story is fairly simple: young musician attends a prestigious music school in the hopes of becoming a great jazz drummer like his idol Buddy Rich. The student, Andrew (Miles Teller), doesn’t get much support from his family, is an outsider at school, and is terribly awkward with the opposite sex. Andrew stays focused on his music and thinks he’s on the right path when instructor Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) seems to take him under his wing. But the dream becomes a nightmare as Fletcher goes from mentor to monster.

It’s not hard to see why Simmons has been winning every acting award in sight (including the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). He takes what could have been a horrible, one-note character and gives him many complex layers. He may appear to be a bully, but perhaps he just cares enough to want to help a young musician achieve their own greatness … or he could just be trying to show the world that he can create greatness. It’s a challenging role and Simmons shows us a side of himself that we haven’t seen before. Teller also gives a terrific performance that’s been overshadowed by Simmons, showing us Andrew’s insecurities and determination through his facial expressions. With Fletcher, you never really know what’s going on under the surface but Andrew wears all of his emotions on his sleeve. And Teller learned how to drum for the part as well!

The film is directed astonishingly well by Damien Chazelle, who based the story on his own experience, and produced a very accomplished film in the span of nineteen days! The final musical performance is a head-spinning montage of constantly moving camerawork and sharp editing that deservedly won the Best Editing Oscar. (Most prognosticators pegged Boyhood for the editing win, but there was no question in my mind Whiplash had it sewn up based on this one scene.)

Whiplash is now available on home video, and the Blu-ray is a thing of beauty. The image, consisting of mostly warm browns and inky blacks, is beautiful with enough fine detail to capture lines and scars on faces and drops of sweat and blood as Andrew drives himself to perfection. The disk’s 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio favors the center channel for the most part, but when the orchestra kicks in during performances and rehearsals, the surrounds fill with music.

The disk also contains a wealth of bonus material … something that’s been lacking in a lot of home video releases of late.

• Audio commentary with Damien Chazelle and J.K. Simmons — The two discuss the process of making the film from casting to locations to crafting performances, with Chazelle being the serious filmmaker and Simmons the comic relief.
• Timekeepers (42:56) — A collection of professional drummers talk about how they got started, their careers, education, influences and more. Featured drummers include Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Doane Perry (Jethro Tull), Roy McCurdy (Blood Sweat and Tears), Gina Schock (The Go-Gos), and Wally Ingram (Timbuk3). The film is entertaining to a point, but I lost interest after about twenty minutes.
• Whiplash Original Short Film (17:56) — The “Rushing/Dragging” scene from the movie with J.K. Simmons and many of the film’s actors/musicians in the same roles. Chazelle recreates this scene in the movie almost shot by shot. Also with optional audio commentary.
• Fletcher at Home (1:30) — A deleted scene with optional commentary. The scene was wisely cut from the film because it reveals a lot about Fletcher that could have affected the rest of the film.
• An Evening at the Toronto International Film Festival with Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons and Damien Chazelle (7:50) — Q & A at the festival, we learn it took 19 days to shoot the movie, how the director chose the actors and how they prepared for their roles. Best answer is from the director on why he went from jazz drumming to film directing.
• Theatrical trailer and Previews for other Sony titles.

I can’t say that Whiplash is the best film of the year, but it is certainly worth a look. It’s accomplished, the music is great and it features two outstanding performances from Teller and Simmons. The video/audio quality and bonus material on the Blu-ray is certainly an incentive to pick up the title and judge for yourself. And after Oscar night, we can look back on the film and realize that this is the moment Simmons went from more than just a familiar face (and voice of the Yellow M&M) who seems to pop up everywhere.

The Whiplash Blu-ray was generously provided to CliqueClack for review by Sony Pictures Home Video.

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It’s that time of year once again when Hollywood congratulates itself for another year of a job well done. Most years have pretty clear front-runners as to who and what will win, but this year has only a few clear-cut winners. The biggest prizes of the night are up for grabs in many categories including Best Director, Best Adapted and Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. The only sure things this year seems to be in the four acting categories.

I’ve made my predictions based on my gut and some internet research to come up with what I think will will. In my Oscar pool last year, I tied for first place but lost out on how long the ceremony actually ran, but last year was less of a game of chance than this year. So, with a deep breath, I’ve made my choices. We’ll see later tonight how close I actually came. Feel free to let us know who or what you think will win! Be sure to check back to see the winners.

Best Picture: Boyhood [Winner: Birdman]
Best Director: Alejandro G. Inarritu, Birdman [Win]
Best Actor: Freddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything [Win]
Best Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice [Win]
Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash [Win]
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood [Win]
Best Original Screenplay: Birdman [Win]
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Theory of Everything [Winner: The Imitation Game]
Best Animated Feature: Big Hero 6 [Win]
Best Foreign Language Film: Ida [Win]
Best Documentary Feature: CitizenFour [Win]
Best Documentary Short Subject: Crisis Hotline – Veterans Press 1 [Win]
Best Cinematography: Birdman [Win]
Best Film Editing: Whiplash [Win]
Best Production Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel [Win]
Best Costume Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel [Win]
Best Original Score: The Grand Budapest Hotel [Win]
Best Original Song: “Glory,” Selma [Win]
Best Visual Effects: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes [Winner: Interstellar]
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Grand Budapest Hotel [Win]
Best Sound Mixing: Whiplash [Win]
Best Short Film – Animated: Feast [Win]
Best Short Film – Live Action: Aya [Winner: The Phone Call]
Best Sound Editing: American Sniper [Win]

I was never sure if the original Hot Tub Time Machine was actually funny. I had seen the movie as the second part of a double feature at the drive-in, and I had been put into such a bad mood by the first movie — Kick-Ass — that I couldn’t even crack a smile during HTTM until about two-thirds of the way through. So I thought I’d give the sequel a shot to see if maybe there was something hilarious I missed because of that other movie.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 picks up after the events of the first movie with Lou (Rob Corddry), his son Jacob (Clark Duke) and friend Nick (Craig Robinson) as the leads. John Cusack (wisely) opted not to reprise his role from the original, although the character of Adam does hang heavily over the film, especially when the three meet Adam’s son Adam Jr. (Adam Scott … that’s a lot of Adams in one movie!) in the future.

Yes, this time the three think they’re going into the past to prevent Lou’s murder (and, let’s face it, he really deserved to be shot in the dick), but the hot tub actually takes you where you need to go, not where you want to go, so they end up ten years in the future and have to try to figure out which red herring killed Lou in the past. Was it the unaccounted for Adam? His jacket is lying next to the hot tub, so perhaps he used it to escape. Was it one of Lou’s disgruntled employees at Lougle? (Yes, Lou invents Google before Google, so it’s now Lougle). Was it actually Jacob, who seems to have benefited greatly in the future from his father’s death? Or someone else? Whoever it is, you can be sure a dick joke will be involved.

Yes, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 seems to have been written by a group of horny twelve-year-old boys who have a fascination with penises and the word “fuck.” Unfortunately, they never seem to be able to figure out how to make either thing the least bit funny (although some squirting semen does garner the film’s one big laugh). Not only is it not funny, but the character of Lou has been made even more grating than I remember him from the first movie (perhaps because Cusack was the real star of that film instead of Corddry). A little Lou goes a long way, and even when a SmartCar tries to murder him, you have to wonder why anyone else would care to save his life. He’s just awful, but there should be a huge cheer from the audience when he gets his comeuppance at the film’s end.

Craig Robinson probably comes off best with his musical ambitions and theft of popular songs like Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” (right down to recreating the original music video). Some of Nick’s songs, which Robinson actually co-wrote, are clever and funny so I have to give him points for that. Duke is fine and Jacob is not as obnoxious as Lou, but you have to wonder why he’d even care about saving the life of someone who is just so utterly terrible to him, even if Lou is his dad … who treats Jacob like a butler instead of a son. Adam Scott fares well too, especially as he goes from weird and needy to completely off his rocker after having a hit of something called Electric Ladybug. Chevy Chase makes a brief appearance and Community alum Gillian Jacobs appears as Adam’s fiancée.

There are not really a lot of good things to say about the movie. They can’t even keep their main concept of how the hot tub time machine works straight! They have to put some kind of blue crystals in to get it going and then there is a big deal made about getting totally plastered with drugs and alcohol, then blacking out and waking up at the destination. They go through this process at the beginning of the journey, but then any other time they use the machine, they just add the blue crystals and off they go. Why make such a big deal out of getting hammered if that really has nothing to do with the mechanics of the time machine??? Or at least address it later with a “huh, guess we really didn’t need to do that” after they time travel again. And almost everything you see in the commercials for the movie happens in the last five minutes!

When asked what we thought of the movie by the studio reps on the way out, the most positive things we could muster were, “the color processing was excellent,” “the sound was loud and clear,” “the picture was really big.” That was about it. I’m sure fans of the first Hot Tub Time Machine will flock to see this one, but right about now I’d like to jump in the tub myself and try to get that wasted 90 minutes of my life back.

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