Pants on Fire! Little Boy Leo is now Big Bad DiCaprio. In BODY OF LIES, Leo has finished growing the beard he started in BLOOD DIAMOND and is neck deep in Syriana. He is undercover CIA operative Ferris, stationed in the Middle East, embroiled in an undercover plot to plant a Taliban newbie as a rising demagogue, in order to … Read More
HORTON HEARS A WHO
For Whom The Who Tolls. An animated feature that kids will enjoy and adults will find tiresome, HORTON HEARS A WHO! is a Dr. Seuss tale about Horton the elephant in the jungle of Nool, discovering a microscopic city called Whoville on a speck of dust, and vowing to the microscopic mayor to transport the speck to a safe place … Read More
THE FOOT FIST WAY
The Foot Mouth In. FOOT FIST WAY is the literal English translation of Tae Kwon Do. And the ancient Tibetan translation is Not Quite Comedy. Produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, Danny McBride‘s THE FOOT FIST WAY is an uneven bid at indie cult, as it explores themes of narcissism and self-esteem, filled with non-sequitur characters, bad actors, and … Read More
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Youth is wasted on the Pitt. For the longest time, I held off on watching this movie because I thought it would be as depressing as rain on a Monday morning. I was wrong. It’s worse; like seeing police lights in your rearview mirror, like finding your lover in bed with someone else, like watching an AMERICAN IDOL winner attempt … Read More
STEP BROTHERS
Steps in it. Will Ferrell as Adam Sandler and John C. Reilly as a funny Will Ferrell. Both 40 going on 14. Both thrown together as step brothers when their single parents (Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen) marry; set in their ways, yet forced to share the same house, they must somehow find a way to co-exist – or this … Read More
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
The Fast Track to Brotherly J. Well, it in’t MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. Welcome to the new edge of comedy. There’s something very brave about Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen films – how they eschew Hollywood protocol and make their leading men (their male leads) each other’s love interest! Not gay. Love, you prurient, fundamentalist bigots. Two men who can swear eternal love for … Read More
IN BRUGES
Quentin Tarantino’s THE ODD COUPLE. Humor so black and ironic, it’s like stabbing nuns with the same ruler they used to rap your knuckles during piano lessons. IN BRUGES. It’s in Belgium. It’s where mismatched hitmen Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) are sent by Harry the Boss (Ralph Fiennes) to lay low after a hit, to await his … Read More
THE POKER CLUB
Poker Haunt Us. Four friends in a weekly poker game. A burglar breaks in. They kill him. It looks bad (they tied his hands; he tried to escape and one of them baseball-batted him). They don’t report it and dump the body. Then things get really bad. From a novel by Ed Gorman, Johnathon Schaech produces, co-screenplays and stars in … Read More
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?
War of the Worlds. First, he was nearly killed by clowns feeding him junk food (SUPER SIZE ME, 2004), now Morgan Spurlock, insurrectionist, free thinker, the man who caused a sea change in the fast food industry, is nearly killed by all those amerikan and arab clowns in the Middle East, committing to film the issue on every adult mind on … Read More
BOLT
O.D. on QT. If cuteness ever becomes a sin, this movie is going straight to hell. BOLT (voiced by John Travolta) is a little white puppy that was raised from birth as a superdog. Well, he’s not really a superdog – but HE doesn’t know that. For the sake of realistic reactions from Bolt, the producers of his weekly television … Read More
BEDTIME STORIES
Wish it into the Cornfield. Idiotic and contradictory messages fly at us like fart jokes in a movie bankrupt of ideas, which BEDTIME STORIES is. Without the fart jokes. Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler), a shiftless janitor, discovers while babysitting his sister’s (Courteney Cox) children, that the stories they make up at bedtime are actually coming true for him. Ever the … Read More
EAGLE EYE
Computer Bluesie, Computer Floosie. The movie Shia LeBeouf makes when he’s in between blockbusters. Still as dumb. EAGLE EYE. Kinda juvenile title, no? After watching the movie, it fits. Shia is Jerry, a shiftless copy boy (sorry, “copy associate”), who one day discovers boxes of CIA-type weaponry delivered to his shoddy apartment (that he is behind the rent on, of … Read More
SEVEN POUNDS
Heavy. Seven deadly sins. Seven ways to win. Seven holy paths to hell And your trip begins… — Iron Maiden, Moonchild. When Will Smith gives you his heart, he REALLY gives you his heart… A love story that will disturb you. Now that’s more like it! But more than a love story. An emotional puzzle that won’t let you stop thinking … Read More
JCVD
Muscles from Brussels in Tussles. It’s Jean-Claude Van Damme as Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD (that stands for, uh, Jean-Claude Van Damme), as you’ve never seen him before: acting. This movie is so much gritty, guilty fun you need to go to confession afterwards. In his home town of Brussels, Belgium, Van Damme unwittingly steps into a bank holdup and … Read More
FLASH OF GENIUS
Motor City Mad Man. The David versus Goliath story – with David wielding an Intermittent Windshield Wiper. Antonio Meucci, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Alfred Russell Wallace – all these men had their ideas stolen, only credited years, decades after their ideas had entered the fabric of society under other mens’ names: the telephone, Superman, evolution… Who knows how many … Read More
CHANGELING
Conspiracy Sneerly. CHANGELING is based on a true story, but I think it’s fiction. I mean, come on – Angelina Jolie with only ONE child? Clint Eastwood directs Jolie as Christine Collins, a working, single mother in 1928 Los Angeles, who comes home one day to find her son, Walter (Gattlin Griffith) missing. As unbelievable as it sounds, the police … Read More
YES MAN
YES means Mo.’ In YES MAN, anti-social Carl (Jim Carrey) has been sinking lower into negativity since leaving his girl, Stephanie (Molly Sims), making dumb excuses not to attend any social events with his friends, turning down loan applications at his job, saying ‘no’ to life in general, spending every night blankly watching DVDs in his apartment. Kinda like you’re … Read More
MARLEY AND ME
The Pursuit of Crappyness. In the insensate family comedy, MARLEY & ME, a young couple (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) buy a labrador puppy that we know the film wants us to regard as mischievous, lovable, cute, but which is, in reality, retarded, for when it grows to adulthood, it still has not learned one shred of discipline and cannot … Read More
LAKEVIEW TERRACE
Jules Winnfield in the ‘burbs. When Samuel L. Jackson gives you “that look,” you don’t wanna be on the receiving end of it. Jackson is Abel Turner, a widower and strict, old-school father with two young kids. He lives in LAKEVIEW TERRACE, a modern Los Angeles suburb. He’s an eccentric cop, who likes to patrol the neighborhood at night and … Read More
HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY
Laffing it up lamely, while the world bleeds shamely… In HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn), are mistaken for “terrorists” on a plane to Amsterdam, and are thrown into Guantanamo Bay prison facility, without any trial, legal counsel or investigation. Just the way the criminal Bush Klan like it. Whereas the first … Read More