Film School

Kumail Nanjiani rates movies based on how educational he found them.

The Five Year engagement

Two life lessons

1. When you get into a relationship with someone, make sure it’s somebody who allows you to grow and accomplish the things you want to accomplish, and that you allow them the same. The strongest relationships are the ones that allow each individual to become the best they can be.
2. Don’t leave a loaded crossbow in the kitchen.

The Hunger Games

Four life lessons

1. Don’t run for the major weapons right in the beginning of the match. It’s a fucking bloodbath. 
2. When in a contest to the death in a giant booby-trapped field controlled by the Capitol as a way to subjugate the districts, remember to hydrate. 
3. Be really really great at bow and arrow.
4. Purple hair & weird curvy beards are all the rage in the future. (I know it’s not the future. I know it’s a different planet. Don’t be a nerd. SEE: Bully.)

Bully

One life lessons

1. Don’t be a nerd so you won’t get bullied. Didn’t watch it, but pretty sure that’s the message. 

The Avengers

Three life lessons

1. Don’t get Bruce Banner angry. You won’t like him blah blah blah I’ll go fuck myself now.
2. Bruce Banner always refers to The Hulk as “the other guy.” This is good strategy in real life. Someone cut in front of you in line at Starbucks? Just say “It’s fine with me, but (pointing creepily at your own head) the other guy really doesn’t like this.” They’ll move to the end of the line. 
3. When fighting an intergalactic army of flying space serpents and skull zombies, you don’t need the bow & arrow guy on your team. It’s like trying to kill a bear with a tooth pick. Or like trying to defeat an intergalactic army of flying space serpents and skull zombies with a slightly big toothpick. Hawkeye’s specialty is a weapon that can fire one shot at a time, is cumbersome to reload, and is useless against armor of any sort. Also, you can only ever carry about 15 “bullets.” Maybe he should watch this one from home. The SHIELD guy should bring Hawkeye into his office. “Hey, you’re great, but we already have the guy who turns into a rage-monster, the genetically enhanced super soldier who defeated the Nazis, the billionaire in an indestructible mech suit, and a fucking demigod. Kinda don’t need a guy who (reading resume) is really great at bow & arrow. Maybe sit this one out? Or, actually, you would do really great over at Hunger Games. It’s two screens over.” Also, get Captain America a better weapon than a shield that is very easy to knock down.

This article was originally published May 2012

Film School

Kumail rates movies based on how educational he found them.

Chronicle

Five life lessons

1. If you see an unnatural crater in the middle of a forest with a weird sound    emanating from it, DEFINITELY go down it. Your life is about to get awesome.

2. ...unless you are with the weird creepy loner kid whose dad hits him every day (heretofore referred to as WCLKWDHHED). Do NOT let that kid get superpowers. 

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1. What is your dad’s favorite food? 

Acceptable answers: quiches, scones, finger sandwiches.

Unacceptable answers: alcohol, my tears, my blood on his fists.
 

2. When did your dad last hug you?

Acceptable answers: When I hit the winning homerun/threw the winning pass/dunked the winning dunk.

Unacceptable answers: Is face-punching a kind of hug?

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3. Use your magic powers to get laid.

4. Watch out for planes while playing sky football.

5. Don’t piss off the WCLKWDHHED.

Ghost Rider 2

Two life lessons

1. When being chased by a guy whose face is a skull that is completely on fire, pumping bullets into it for 90 minutes straight is not the way to defeat him. You might as well be pelting him with paper planes, ice cream sandwiches and unsold Blu-Rays of Ghost Rider 1.
2. Never tell Nicholas Cage to “really go for it this time.”

The Woman in Black

Four life lessons

1. You know that house that everyone in the village says is haunted? It probably is. Especially if it has a DIY graveyard attached to it.
2. Do not spend a night in the obviously haunted house that has no phones and is on an island that is connected by a windy, submerged road to the village where all the kids kill themselves.
3. Do not vacation with your son in the village where all the kids kill themselves.
4. I will never be able to see Daniel Radcliffe as anything but Harry Potter. For instance, in this movie he is basically Harry Potter except that he makes the “Voldemort is nearby because my scar hurts” face the entire movie and his Patronus is sadness.  

The Vow

Two life lessons

1. It’s hard to make Channing Tatum look like a hipster, no matter how many flannel shirts and fedoras you put him in. He looks like a cat trying to backwards-crawl out of the cat sweater you made. 
2. Don’t watch The Vow.

This article was originally published March 2012

Film School

KUMAIL NANJIANI RATES MOVIES BASED ON HOW EDUCATIONAL HE FOUND THEM.

Ted

2 Life Lessons

1. If you call 911 because your magically sentient teddy bear has been kidnapped, do not say “My magically sentient teddy bear is kidnapped!” Instead, say that your friend has been kidnapped. It’s true, and will yield a more considered response.
2. If a magically sentient bear is born and everyone knows about it, the government will let the boy keep the bear. Instead of, you know, sticking it in a lab for testing. This whole movie should be set in a research facility. The bear would not be renting hookers or cracking wise or singing Hootie at a karaoke party. It would be strapped down in a gurney with syringes sticking out of it, surrounded by men in lab coats saying things like “But it has no lungs! How does it convey oxygen into the blood stream?” or “Some guy who looks like Marky Mark shows up every day to ask for his Christmas present back” or “If it has no hormones, why does it keep telling Dr. Cheng that he wants to see her big wontons? Also, this bear is casually racist.”

Prometheus

6 Life Lessons

1. Just because a movie has closing credits does not mean it has an ending.
2. Trained geologists will freak out at the first evidence of a far away ancient civilization, but will be totally fine petting an obviously evil reptile vampire monster just 20 minutes later. Totally fine.
3. Make sure your captain is Idris Elba.
4. Idris Elba is the shit. He’s just awesome.
5. This movie is a prequel to Alien, so apparently later the space ships get shittier. The biggest technological upgrade that the Nostromo (ship from Alien) gets over the Prometheus (ship from Star Wars--joking it's the ship from Prometheus) is the addition of a room with wet, rusty chains hanging from the ceiling. And I don’t know what kind of technological upgrade that is.
6. About a year ago, Patrick Wilson’s agent called him and said “Can you do a British accent, and are you free this afternoon?”

Magic Mike

12 Life Lessons

1. Full disclosure: I didn’t see Magic Mike, but my wife has seen it 3,222,556 times. High five. Good joke.
2. I should stay away from carbs, I guess?
3. How many sit-ups does it take to get a six pack? I don’t know, but I do know that it’s more than I’ve done in my whole life.
4. Maybe I’m not drinking enough protein shakes? That might be it.
5. Okay, this nutrition thing is hard. Did you know onions have calories? Fuckin’ onions, guys. Straight to your butt. That’s where the phrase onion booty comes from.
6. I mean, I bet Channing Tatum doesn’t get onions on his burgers right? I bet he doesn’t even eat burgers. I bet he eats raw chickens that have been shown Pumping Iron clips their whole lives.
7. Maybe if I shave everything I’ll see my results quicker. BRB.
8. My everything hurts.
9. Every muscle in Matthew Macaunaghey’s body points to his dick.
10. Don’t leave your wife/girlfriend alone with Matthew Macaunaghey. But you already knew that. (See 9.)
11. I don’t know how to spell Matthew Macaunaghey. And I don’t care. And get away from my fucking wife, dude.
12. My friend’s wife used to call him “Matthew McCumOnMe.” They got divorced later that summer.

The Amazing Spiderman

5 Life Lessons

1. If you are going to be a nerd, it helps to have the bone structure and hair of Andrew Garfield.
2. You are a nerd even if you don’t look or sound like a nerd, as long as the people around you treat you like a nerd.
3. The webbing apparatus that is extremely cutting edge, is also surprisingly cheap! How else could a high school student from a lower middle class home afford it?
4. Big time research labs will allow high school students to do experiments there, and to lead in depth tours of other high school students. As long as you look like Emma Stone.
5. The scientist who really hates that he has only one hand, and stares at it sadly all the time, and is working on a thing that’ll regrow limbs no matter what the cost?  Yeah, he’s the bad guy.

This article was originally published July 2012