SAB – SNO
SABOTAGE
Release: Mar 14 – Review: 25 Mar 15
Tools Carrying Tools.
This would be a concern for us viewers – if it weren’t for Breacher’s team being the most unlikeable group of tits this side of Doucheland.
THE SAD SACK 1957
Release: Nov 57 – Review: 24 Oct 18
Sad.
… story is so stupid and the characterizations so irritating that no amount of Jerry mugging can save this sad sack of shit.
SAILOR BEWARE
Release: Feb 52 – Review: 1 Aug 18
Kissed Off.
… two pals enlisting in the Navy and getting involved in a kissing contest that somehow gives one of them the reputation of a Lothario…
SALT
Release: Jul 10 – Review: 29 Dec 10
DIE HARD With a Vagina.
A bunch of guys chase after Angelina Jolie. So what’s new?
SANDS OF IWO JIMA
Release: Dec 49 – Review: 24 Nov 06
Jingo All The Way.
… thirty-something teenagers with clean shirts and Christian mouths storm battlegrounds where they die operatically from bullets that don’t make exit wounds…
SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE
Release: Nov 85 – Review: 5 Jan 17
Idiot Clause.
The trailers allude to the villain: “Now someone wants to take the magic out of Christmas!” Don’t look now, movie, but you’re doing a great job of that yourself…
THE SANTA CLAUSE
Release: Nov 94 – Review: 11 Mar 14
Insanity Clause.
Santa Claus has his own kind of occult life insurance.
THE SANTA CLAUSE 2
Release: Nov 02 – Review: 13 Mar 14
Papa’s got a brand new bag – I mean, wife.
… Santa Claus must find a wife or he will magically stop being Santa Claus, presumably leaving one billion spoiled brats on Earth wailing in frenzy for their free toys.
THE SANTA SUIT
Release: Dec 10 – Review: 3 Jan 11
Cognitive dissonance retained for one more year…
Kevin Sorbo (HERCULES) dons another mystical suit and battles evil (corporate America).
SATANIC
Release: Jul 16 – Review: 13 Feb 19
Millennial Belial.
… four annoying Millennials visit satanic sites in LA. They’re so preppie and goth and YOLO that we hope they get killed. And Satan answers our prayers.
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER
Release: Dec 77 – Review: 9 Aug 15
A Sweathog Comes of Age.
Oh, there’s lots of disco in it, but as a backdrop to a young man’s disillusionment and search for identity. And a tighter pair of tourniquet bellbottoms.
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
Release: Jul 98 – Review: 25 Aug 10
A Spielberg fantasy done horribly right.
… Spielberg turns his camera on a very American World War II story.
SAW
Release: Oct 04 – Review: 25 Dec 08
To Die For.
… displays a depth to its cutting edges that raises it miles above the average bear-trap nipple-twister.
SAW II
Release: Oct 05 – Review: 12 Oct 09
Seen It Once, SAW It Again…
After this grand opening, though, SAW II is on a tricycle downhill.
SAW III
Release: Oct 06 – Review: 29 Oct 09
Now it’s just painful.
A horror movie with brains… splashing all over your feet as they fall out of someone’s skull.
SAW IV
Release: Oct 07 – Review: 6 Nov 17
Fourth Time’s the Harm.
SAW IV, filled with improbable traps within traps, gratuitous gore and people driven to insanity with their amoral decisions, actually raises the series up from the mire it was bogged in.
SAW V
Release: Oct 08 – Review: 17 Nov 17
Cinco de Pain-o.
If we enjoy this blood-gushing movie, doesn’t it say something about how damaged we truly are as a species?
SAW VI
Release: Oct 09 – Review: 26 Nov 17
Would you like a little Death to go with your Life Insurance?
Jigsaw’s back, and this time – he’s killing Health Insurance reps! And I think I speak for everyone when I say, “And?”
SCARED STIFF
Release: Apr 53 – Review: 15 Sep 17
Dead Serious Comedy.
… surprisingly drenched in suspense and tension, and loaded with well-crafted bits from the greatest comedy team on Earth at the time, Martin and Lewis.
SCHINDLER’S LIST
Release: Nov 93 – Review: 12 7 Oct 15
The Ones That Got Away (Alternate title in Germany?)
No homeland, no dignity, no succor. The emotive impact of SCHINDLER’S LIST is beautifully exhausting.
THE SCHOOL OF ROCK
Release: Sep 03 – Review: 12 Aug 05
Tenacious D’s Boy-Thunder Rides Hellacious and Raises The Goblet Of Rock.
Black treads that knife-edge between sociopath and savior, milking the storyline like a blue-ribbon set of udders, for the pleasure of rock burnouts of the Alice Cooper generation.
SEASON OF THE WITCH
Release: Jan 11 – Review: 28 Apr 13
Witchy Poo.
Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman must transport an alleged witch to a faraway monastery for the monks to decide her fate. Let the comedy begin– I mean, drama– I mean–cough–hairstyle..
SECRETARY
Release: Nov 02 – Review: 13 Apr 10
The Love That Dares Speak Its Name.
Sado-masochism. Not easily understood. Too gutless to speaketh Its Taboo Name. Something so wrong – so right.
SEMI-PRO
Release: Feb 08 – Review: 28 Dec 11
SEMI-PRO is Mostly Amateur.
Will Ferrell shoots for another absurdist hoop and misses.
THE SENTINEL
Release: Apr 06 – Review: 26 Apr 06
Running Fast but Standing Still.
… intermittently excels when it relaxes its grip on trying to be too hip.
SERENITY
Release: Sep 05 – Review: 1 May 14
A ‘verse not big enough for Joss Whedon’s ideas.
… bold and brash and throbbingly original even as it pulls every trope from the science fiction and action thriller handbook.
SEVEN POUNDS
Release: Dec 08 – Review: 15 Jun 09
Heavy.
It’s Shakespearean, it’s Biblical; it’s a story that rivals the most tragic star-crossed lovers’ tales of the ages…
SEVEN SAMURAI
Release: Apr 54 – Review: 8 Feb 20
The Jedi of Japan.
… one of the most touching, savage and layered stories about sacrifice, courage and redemption, released in 1954 and still standing as one of the greatest films of all time…
SEX AND THE CITY
Release: May 08 – Review: 1 Jun 10
High Maintenance Harridans.
Four ugly women bitch and moan about men. The End.
SHALLOW HAL
Release: Nov 01 – Review: Jul 05
When Fat is Phat and Hot is Not.
… a snide wink to the hotties in the audience that if the fatties and quadriplegics onscreen are amenable to “laughing at themselves” then we can laugh AT them also…
SHAME
Release: Dec 11 – Review: 11 Nov 13
Pure sex, hold the shame.
… actually depicting sex as it really is: an integral part of the human animal.
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Release: Dec 17 – Review: 12 Mar 18
Interspecies Love and the Balls it Requires.
Guillermo del Toro has re-cast the Beast that can remain a Beast and still be respected, revered, loved.
SHARKNADO
Release: Jul 13 – Review: 20 Jul 13
Shark Sandwich.
Recall the wisdom of the reviewer who wrote the two-word summation of Spinal Tap’s album, Shark Sandwich: “Shit sandwich.”
SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE
Release: Jul 14 – Review: 13 Aug 14
Just when you thought it was safe to get blown…
If you want to tweet about how much you love SHARKNADO, go right ahead, but I suggest you stop voting and driving…
SHARKNADO 3: OH HELL NO!
Release: Jul 15 – Review: 8 Aug 16
Trumpeting Incompetence.
… takes all that is good about movie-making and science and acting, and shit-squirts it up against the wall like dysentery.
SHARKNADO: THE 4TH AWAKENS
Release: Jul 16 – Review: 11 Aug 16
‘Tard-nado.
… should be expunged from filmic archives with extreme prejudice for systematically dismantling the intelligence of an American population that is already teetering on the edge of imbecile and fuckhead.
SHARKNADO 5: GLOBAL SWARMING
Release: Aug 17 – Review: 21 May 18
Shit-nado.
… if you watch because you sincerely consider SHARKNADO a top class movie franchise, then you need to wear a MAGA hat at all times, so people can avoid you.
SHE-FREAK
Release: May 67 – Review: 2 Apr 12
A Grotesquerie – and not because of the freaks.
… an attempt to remake Tod Browning’s disturbing 1932 paean, FREAKS.
SHERLOCK HOLMES 2009
Release: Dec 09 – Review: 21 Nov 10
The Adventure of the Hero’s Rebirth.
… not quite a reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s infamous British detective; more like a punch in the face. An analytical punch in the face.
SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS
Release: Dec 11 – Review: 1 Se 14
Too mysterious for its own smart.
… director Guy Ritchie’s brash, bombastic, brainy and body-shaved sequel…
SHIN GODZILLA
Release: Jul 16 – Review: 2 Apr 18
Renaissance Zilla.
Written like a bullet train, directed like a fighter pilot, SHIN GODZILLA is the most compelling Godzilla film since the original 1954 Ishiro Honda production, GOJIRA!
SHOOT EM UP
Release: Sep 07 – Review: 4 Dec 08
Love it. Hate it. You won’t fall asleep.
I mean, really! How sensible do you think a movie called SHOOT ‘EM UP could possibly be?
SHOOTER
Release: Mar 07 – Review: 2 Apr 07
Shooter is Sharp but Misses the Marky.
… achieves that sensible balance between action, political skullduggery, pretty orange explosions and Mark Wahlberg’s big guns (and I don’t mean his military sniper rifles)…
SHOULDER ARMS
Release: Oct 18 – Review: 11 Sep 14
War is only as stupid as its combatants.
Writer-director-star Chaplin, the king of physical comedy, addresses the greatest comedy of all – war.
SHUTTER ISLAND
Release: Feb 10 – Review: 3 Jul 11
Just dropped in – to see what condition my condition was in…
… not “scary,” but creepy, disturbing and filled with enough tension and intrigue to drown a plush toy.
SICARIO
Release: Oct 15 – Review: 29 Sep 15
When Right is Might, and Wrong is Hot Sauce.
He’s Luca Brasi. He’s Leon. He’s The Wolf. He’s Keyser Soze!
SICKO
Release: Jul 07 – Review: 18 Jul 07
In Sickness and In Wealth.
… plants the seed of dissent in another area of our lives we’ve regarded with complacency – an aspect we’ve been programmed to believe is doing us right even as it does us morbidly wrong.
THE SIGNAL
Release: Jun 14 – Review: 25 Feb 16
Bending new boundaries with classic old tropes.
… brimming with original ideas, the likes of which used to emanate from the greatest science fiction novelists of the 60s and 70s…
SIGNS
Release: Aug 02 – Review: 4 Apr 09
Cream of the Crop Circles.
… creative angles, smart reveals, subtle foreshadowing, tension-filled tableaus, nuanced humor. No frame wasted, no scene superfluous, no Night un-Shyamalaned.
THE SILENCE 2019
Release: Apr 19 – Review: 3 Nov 19
Evolution Convolution.
Didn’t they just make this movie and call it A QUIET PLACE?
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Release: Dec 12 – Review: 9 Jul 13
Couldn’t find the silver lining.
… a teachable moment in filmic history. They showed us how to cure bipolar disease. You just need to get laid!
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE
Release: Jul 07 – Review: 17 Jan 09
Call of the Simpsons.
… pretty much a SIMPSONS television episode. No better, no worse. Just longer.
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
Release: Aug 92 – Review: 23 Apr 11
When Roommates Go Tribade.
But seriously, who wouldn’t stalk Bridget Fonda?
SINISTER
Release: Oct 12 – Review: 6 Dec 13
Ghouls on Film.
A family moves into a house where serial murders were committed. To all those acclimated with the Horror Movie Flow Chart, do I really need to say any more?…
SINISTER 2
Release: Aug 15 – Review: 17 Mar 20
Less Sinister than before…
The main reason SINISTER 2 fails is that the supposed leading man looks like Elias Koteas doing Concerned Face #9.
SISTERS 2015
Release: Dec 15 – Review: 4 Oct 16
The BACHELOR PARTY of ladydom.
Kate and Maura throw one last party in their childhood home before their parents sell it. One sister needs to prove she is responsible. One needs to get laid.
THE SITTER 2011
Release: Dec 11 – Review: 5 Sep 14
Somewhere over the pain flow.
… where Hill finds himself babysitting three of the most annoying kids in the world…
SKY HIGH
Release: Jul 05 – Review: 2 Oct 05
The Bastard Offspring of John Hughes and Joel Schumacher.
… elevates the hormonally-drenched pseudo-problems of libidinous, over-privileged, studiously-hip teens to the import of a United Nations Symposium on Global Oil Embargos…
THE SKYDIVERS
Release: Nov 63 – Review: 22Sep 14
Never gets off the ground.
If you enjoy dreary, talentless non-actors delivering lines in a bland monotone over a plot that goes from Point A to Stop Making Sense, then Coleman Francis’s THE SKYDIVERS is your cup of tea, er, coffee.
SKYFALL
Release: Nov 12 – Review: 28 Jan 14
Bond-fall.
… Bond’s threat is no longer just a platonic baddie who wants to rule the world while guffawing bwohahahaha, but one who robs Bond of the very support structure that defines him as the hero…
SKYLINE
Release: Nov 10 – Review: 6 Sep 11
Invasion of the Puerile People Eaters.
Not again! Aliens invade Los Angeles! And this time – they’re not Mexican.
SLEEPER
Release: Dec 73 – Review: 18 Apr 10
OrwelliAllen.
Woody Allen pays slapstick homage to Charlie Chaplin in this futuristic satire on totalitarian societies.
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE
Release: Jun 93 – Review: 26 Sep 14
SLEEPLESS will put you to sleep.
… are any men left watching at all, except those balled-and-chained pussies holding their wives’ purses?
THE SLEEPOVER 2020
Release: Aug 20 – Review: 3 Sep 20
The Sleep Through It.
… two kids discover their boring suburban mum is an ex-super-thief blackmailed into one last job…
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Release: Jan 09 – Review: 1 Mar 09
Hip to be Slumdog.
Pommie Danny Boyle’s kinetic vision, from the screaming slums of Bombay-soon-to-be-Mumbai; vibrant, shimmering, frenetic – but thank god no smell, otherwise the “ooweh” vomit sound…
SMOKIN ACES
Release: Jan 07 – Review: 11 Feb 07
It’s a mad mad mad mad assassination.
There is more unnecessary dialogue here than in the Pam and Tommy sex tape.
SNAKES ON A PLANE
Release: Aug 06 – Review: 9 Sep 16
Reptile Dysfunction.
… as much a waste of time as you imagine it to be.
SNATCH
Release: Jan 01- Review: 5 Sep 06
SNATCH will grab.
… a Molotov cocktail of a movie; a careening, chain-wielding maniac of a film.
SNL 40
Release: Feb 15- Review: 22 Feb 15
Celebrating 40 Years of Stunning Mediocrity.
… continues its tradition of not being funny, by throwing a 40th Anniversary Special and not being funny.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
Release: Dec 37 – Review: 17 Jul 11
Madness disguised by innocence, and mind-blowing cartooning.
… a magnificent technical achievement, setting the bar for the industry the world over. And it is still a marvel to view.
SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR
Release: Aug 97 – Review: 1 Feb 14
Once Upon a Terrifying Time…
… suffers from inauthentic sets, TV production values and bad editing. And big dwarfs.
SNOWPIERCER
Release: Jul 14 – Review: 14 Feb 15
Noah’s Ark and Lang’s Metropolis on a Midnight Express.
… make you question your place in society, the innate class system that drives humankind, and the ultimate meaning of freedom. It will also make you question what the hell Chris Evans is doing actually Acting…