The Year of Living Safely. Either Jack Black is being reined in with a poor script, squelched by a conventional director, or he’s just plain gettin’ too old for this shit. Maybe a combo-wombo of all three? YEAR ONE is a missed comedic opportunity, crying in the wilderness like Charlton Heston as Moses; a biblical comedy of pamphlet proportions. Black … Read More
MARGOT AT THE WEDDING
The Family that frays together… What do you get when you reunite two high maintenance sisters after years of not speaking to each other? Higher maintenance. Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son, Claude (Zane Pais) travel from Manhattan to Long Island, to attend the wedding of Margot’s sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to shiftless musician wannabe, Malcolm (Jack Black), whom … Read More
TROPIC THUNDER
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
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY
Laugh Hard. Musicians: this one’s for us. WALK HARD is not for Guitar Hero fakers or karaoke jackasses or talentless DJs with the audacity to call their fade-ups and fade-downs “mixing.” Let me say it again: WALK HARD is for MUSICIANS; for we who have lived the road, beaten the boards, spanked the groupies, trashed the dressing room, fart-filled the … Read More
KUNG FU PANDA
Movie: Chop Socky. Message: Kung Fooey. With astounding cinematography, well-written characters, directorial creativity, incredible technical prowess and stunning animation, KUNG FU PANDA only lacks in one department – its message that Prophecy Is Better Than Practice. Directed with kinetic frenzy by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson like Michael Bay meets John Woo, the awesomeness of the Panda is diluted with … Read More
BE KIND REWIND
Be Kind – Put this movie out of its misery. BE KIND REWIND looks great in the trailers. In long form, not so hot. Mos Def is an excellent actor. Jack Black is an even better comedy tornado. So putting them together in BE KIND REWIND should have begat gold – instead, a debacle as unfunny as your VHS tape … Read More
TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY
Fueled by Rocket Sauce… oh, and Satan. To paraphrase Salieri from AMADEUS, “Displace one ‘fuck’ and there would be diminishment; displace one ‘suck my cock’ and the structure would fall.” Belched forth from Satan’s unholy vagina, the dynamo Jack Black and the cherubic Kyle Gass master-explode in TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY, their foul-mouthed vernacular so integral to … Read More
NACHO LIBRE
Lotsa Lucha, Lessa Libre. Apparently, wrestling IS real. A body-shaved Jack Black, squeezing his scrote into a sky-blue leotard and wrestling as a Mexican luchador by night whilst tending orphans during the day as a monk, must have sounded good on paper… Greenlighting the writers and director of quirky hit NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared and Jerusha Hess) would have also been … Read More
ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY
When The Anchorman was Man-Anchor. Will Ferrell makes me laugh. I’m not afraid to say it anymore. His shamelessness knows no bounds and I, for one, salute his strangely misshapen nude torso. In ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY, Ferrell is the blowhard, brain-soft title character, in love with his own self-proclaimed legend. And why not? His veteran standing and … Read More
KING KONG 2005
Yes! We Have No Bananas! Pure entertainment. Twenty-five hairy-bottomed, big-dumb-galoot feet of it. And nothing else. Despite the ubiquitous refrain of beauty and beast subtexts and alienation metaphors and caveats against taming nature, searching for deeper meaning within this wholly implausible tale will only lead to senseless cavil and being considered the big ponce for taking it so seriously in … Read More
ENVY
Poo-sillanimous. Nick Vanderpark’s empire is built on poo. In Barry Levinson‘s ENVY, corporate peon and shiftless dreamer, Vanderpark (an uncharacteristically reined-in Jack Black) invents a spray which vaporizes doggy-doo, appropriately named “Va-poo-rize.” His pragmatic neighbor, Tim Dingman (Ben Stiller, in characteristic nebbish idiom), who is also Vanderpark’s co-worker and best friend, is the character to whom the movie’s title pertains. … Read More
TENACIOUS D THE COMPLETE MASTERWORKS
Once every hundred-thousand years or so, when the sun doth shine and the moon doth glow… Not exactly Spinal Tap. Not exactly Martin & Lewis. Not exactly normal. Once in a great while, an act appears that shimmers with such kineticism, such verve and lust, that audiences are scorched into submission – such an act is The Darkness – oh, … Read More
SCHOOL OF ROCK
Tenacious D’s Boy-Thunder Rides Hellacious and Raises The Goblet Of Rock. A beautiful rarity when an actor is bequeathed a role that envelops him (in the words of Ace Ventura) “like a glove.” This movie IS Jack Black. And Jack Black IS this movie. Had he not piloted SCHOOL OF ROCK like a deranged Timothy Leary by way of Keith … Read More
SHALLOW HAL
When Fat is Phat and Hot Is Not. Q: How much does every woman weigh? A: Too much! — Poffy The Cucumber. There’s a horrible paradox eating at the heart of the movie SHALLOW HAL. Hal (Jack Black) only pursues hot women, unthinking of their other qualities; Tony Robbins (playing himself) bequeaths Hal with a power to “see” a woman’s … Read More
THE CABLE GUY
Cable for Nothin’ and your Guilt for Free. “Chip Douglas” (Jim Carrey) is a cable installation guy who gives Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) free cable extras, then psychopathically wields that favor to progress their buddy-ship. An above-average dark comedy, jealously maligned – for the wrong reasons. Incorrectly marketed, burdened by the speculation regarding the largest actor’s salary in the world … Read More