Diary of a Douchebag. Johnny Knoxville leads his troupe of professional sado-masochists through another array of idiotic stunts in JACKASS 3D, that I’m guessing is for the purpose of: a) getting themselves killed; b) satisfying their torture-porn kink; c) touching each others’ balls. “Professional” because these guys are somehow getting paid to perform these stupid, elaborate stunts, and “sado-masochists” because … Read More
Spanking the Dragon. Should I assume HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is a sex manual on controlling premature ejaculation? Oh, a cartoon about a Viking boy that learns understanding and tolerance after befriending a dragon. (Still, that blond chick’s pretty hot for a cartoon; ‘scuse me while I train my dragon…) TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is Dreamworks, but like the greatest … Read More
Not all there. It’s the biggest Andy Kaufman joke ever played on the public, not played by Andy Kaufman. Joaquin Phoenix takes Hollywood on a long ride in I’M STILL HERE, by proclaiming he is retiring from acting and starting a career in rap music. And Hollywood buys it. It’s a strange animal, this film, because it was originally sold … Read More
Red Film over White Eyes. …and they weren’t even Indians. We called them that by accident – and we still call them that! Like, we knew in a month that it wasn’t “Indians” – but we just don’t give a shit. We never correct it!… — Louie C.K., LIVE AT THE BEACON THEATER, 2011. Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond dismounts the … Read More
Like taking a shot in the mouth and not having anywhere to spit. It’s about a woman craving a baby. And 90% of the men have left the room… Let’s try for the other 10%: It’s about Just Friends, with Her asking Him to help her find some semen. Are there any men left watching this at all? THE SWITCH … Read More
Where Ethics meets Greed – and Greed wins. An enjoyable thriller about a suitcase of CA$H being found by a young couple. And the young couple being found by the owner of the suitcase. Young couple Sam (pre-THOR, pre-acting Chris Hemsworth) and Leslie (Victoria Profeta) think all their financial troubles are over when a suitcase of cash falls from an … Read More
Like a Moth to a Lame… In MOTHMAN, the eponymous man-moth returns to the small town of Point Pleasant to avenge a murder that has gone unpunished. And all cheap special effects break loose. A group of Point Pleasant teens accidentally kill one of their own on a camping trip. Instead of alerting the authorities to what was a prank … Read More
I vont tu harvest yor blud. Imagine a world where the vampires won. They’ve taken over. Everything. They have overrun every facet of “normal” society. Except they are the normals now: the corporate executives, the managers, the laborers and cubicles, the military and infrastructure; they work in supermarkets, in advertising, in agriculture; they are the cops, the criminals and the … Read More
Fear and Loathing and Shark-Teeth. It’s like bad-delicious candy. You know it’s not healthy, it’s not educational, and it will probably destroy a few brain cells. But you eat it anyway. It’s PRIMAL. This bad-delicious Aussie candy is mindless, gory, indie – and effective. Six college-age kids visit an Aboriginal rock-painting deep in the Australian bush; cut off from civilization, … Read More
Target Malpractice. A man down on his luck accepts an invitation to make big money – and inadvertently finds himself the 13th gunman in an underground Russian Roulette game. “13” sets up the clichéd premise immediately: electrician Vince Ferro (Sam Riley) needs money for his dad’s operation. While he is busy connecting wires at a client’s home, he overhears the … Read More
Moulage of the Ripe Cheddar. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER: where characters we care not one whit for embark on a journey we have absolute zero interest in. After two movies, author C.S. Lewis’s epic saga of the magical Narnia universe is going nowhere fabulously fast. And by that I mean, director Michael Apted (THE … Read More
The Tween Team. So it has come to this. After the vampire wars and the werewolf killings, after the tempest of accepting a human unto the clan of the undead, after the dark skies of Forks presage death raining rivers of blood, TWILIGHT ECLIPSE has come to this, the most chilling decision mankind has ever faced: Team Edward or Team Jacob. Edward … Read More
Iron Hangover. Not exactly the road trip from hell (that honor goes to PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES), but DUE DATE swings so close to hell that you might as well make the detour and visit the gift shop. Kicked off a cross-country airplane flight for causing a disturbance, his wallet and luggage lost, business traveler Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) … Read More
Carnival of Damaged Souls. A married businessman spends his money on a prostitute. (And right now you’re thinking: ‘So what’s new?’) WELCOME TO THE RILEYS follows married Indianapolis businessman Douglas Riley (James Gandolfini) to New Orleans for a conference. While out on the town that night, he befriends 20-year-old stripper, Allison (Kristen Stewart) – no, not in that way. He … Read More
Dear John, I never want to see you again. Who knew dating was so frickin’ BORING?! DEAR JON is a weepy date movie, where army guy Brick Rockchest (Channing Tatum, champion mumbler) meets beach chick Blondie Cocktease (Amanda Seyfried) and they bore us going on talk-dates. Then they get caught in the rain and kiss. Then they have a beach … Read More
Swan Quake. My God, but ballet is boring! Thank God for Natalie Portman masturbating! Neurotic ballerina Nina (Portman) jockeys for the coveted Swan Queen role in a production of Swan Lake… Let’s not pretend elitism – all the roles look the same to me: girls on their tippy-toes and guys in penis-hugging tights. The obsessive director (Vincent Cassel) tells the … Read More
Grave Trouble. Primal Fear time! One actor, one location, one goal: get me the hell outa here! An ingenious piece of filmmaking! Taken as a thought experiment, as a Hitchcockian mystery, as a suspense thriller, as an intense gutshock drama, BURIED – to borrow from a breezy Clint movie – will turn you Every Which Way But Loose. Ryan Reynolds … Read More
Melancholia all over ya. Never has depressing looked so… BIUTIFUL. If you thought you knew tragedy or heartache or squalor or depression, from the likes of TRAINSPOTTING or ETHAN FROME or SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE or THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s gritty film about a small time Spanish thief from the slums of Barcelona, who discovers he has cancer and … Read More
Freakonomics and Con-sumerism. “The mother of all evil is speculation…” So says Gordon Gekko in WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS. 23 years after WALL STREET (1987), Gekko’s back! Oliver Stone‘s sequel to that pimping film is just as confusing and hedonistic, with its insider knowledge and corporate thuggery, but set very much in the present of the 2008 economic meltdown. … Read More
Ghost stories for the sensible. HEREAFTER, produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, is a pondering of What’s Next from three very different human perspectives. Clint Eastwood is at that age when we would all be inclined to ponder the possibility of a Hereafter, a Life after Death (by definition, an impossibility, but for many otherwise clear-thinking humans, this paradox makes … Read More