FINDING DORY is lost at sea. She worked so well as a supporting character in FINDING NEMO (2003) that Pixar spins off Dory’s origin story in FINDING DORY – and only ends up highlighting what a horrifying brain disease she suffers from. Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang fish with short term memory loss, first appeared in the … Read More
Angry Birds so Roundy Roundy. A flock of flightless birds on an isolated island has their eggs stolen by a group of pigs. The birds angrily get their eggs back before the pigs can make an omelet. Shakespeare this ain’t. THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE is the animated cartoon based on the “most downloaded freemium game series of all time,” Angry … Read More
I willfully waited for the fervor to die down. So I wouldn’t have to deal with ubergeeks in Wookiee masks and errant lightsabers up the nostril, while trying to sit comfortably surrounded by idiots wearing Imperial armor or a three-man rancor costume. I succeeded, and EVENTUALLY saw the movie whose hype exceeds its content, in a bare cinema where I … Read More
Celebrating 40 Years of Stunning Mediocrity. The American comedy institution SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE continues its tradition of not being funny, by throwing a 40th Anniversary Special and not being funny. SNL 40 is not only Not Funny, it’s embarrassing, pathetic and painful. Why do these people put themselves through this? Why do they put US through this? Why do audiences … Read More
Kind Encounters of the Close Third. It’s a buddy comedy of the crude kind, a road movie of the chase kind, a close encounter of the third kind! Hey, isn’t that Roger from AMERICAN DAD? Or do all aliens just look alike to me?… Two Brits on a pilgrimage to famed UFO sites in Nevada pick up a real extraterrestrial … Read More
I’ve already forgotten. Forgettable romantic comedy about a jilted guy who takes a Hawaiian vacation alone to forget the girl who jilted him, only to find she is on the island, in the same hotel, ultimately in the room next door – with her new boyfriend. Beige, uncomfortable laughs ensue. Redeeming factors of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL: Judd Apatow is producer, … Read More
Superbad: The Quest for Piece. It’s juvenile. It’s simple. It’s stupid. But it’s so good, it’s SUPERBAD. For the Now Generation of nerds. The age-old tale of three underage dorks on a quest for alcohol and chicks in one eventful night, where life happens while they’re trying to live it. We’ve seen this all before (DAZED AND CONFUSED, 1993; THE … Read More
Stretchmark Benchmark. Marriage is an institution. And you have to be crazy to be in an institution. — Gene Simmons. One could say KNOCKED UP is writer-director Judd Apatow’s baby – and as malformed as the rest of his hobgoblin brood. Seth Rogen is Ben, a shiftless layabout (rooming with a menagerie of oafs: Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, … Read More
Bringing the Thunder. As gut-wrenching as APOCALYPSE, as heartfelt as RYAN, and as filthy as fuck, TROPIC THUNDER is another in the small oeuvre of Ben Stiller writer-director-actor comedies where Stiller goes “full retard” for maximum satirical jungle juice. Action movie juggernaut, Tugg Speedman (Stiller) and a platoon of spoiled-rotten actors (Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Brandon T. Jackson, Jay … Read More
Snot Rod. Here’s one you can watch with a straight face, with a script so bad, even Will Ferrell wouldn’t be in it. There are two laughs in HOT ROD. 1. The Punch-Dance. Stunt rider Rod “needs to go to his quiet place” and before anyone can say Kevin Bacon, he is footloosing a passionate, overwrought bodyswerve to the strains … Read More