Survival of the Pillest. There’s a new black market pill on the streets of New Orleans. It’s called “power.” Gives you five minutes of a super power. But you don’t know what that power is until you take it. You might get super-strungth, become fast as a cheetah, or become invisible like a camouflaging chameleon. Or it might just blow … Read More
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
Webdom-ination…. In THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, Peter Parker/Spider-Man discovers his lost father’s work has come back to… bite his amazing ass. As Spider-Man faces off against a new antagonist created by electricity (Electro), a more familiar antagonist (the Green Goblin) seeks his blood – literally – for a transfusion to save his own life. In a blaze of quipping and … Read More
WHITE HOUSE DOWN
DIE HARDER in the White House with a Vengeance. WHITE HOUSE DOWN (released June 2013) was sold as the “comedic” version of OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (March 2013). Is that why we’re laughing AT it? Not that we can even differentiate them; both are the same level of serious, and the same height of stupidity. With the exact same outcome – … Read More
RIO 2
Flocking dork and deceitful bitch road trip. Jesse Eisenberg has two speeds: superdork nebbish and fast-taking schemer. In RIO 2, he’s phoning it in as the former. Eisenberg returns as rare macaw parrot Blu, who is now married to his parrot love interest from RIO, Jewel (voice of Anne Hathaway), so there is a noticeable lack of the romantic frisson … Read More
I’M STILL HERE
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
RIO
Rio de Generic. Named RIO, one would expect a flashy, exuberant, carnivale dance-a-vale rainbow spectacle. One would be wrong. Rather, an uninvolving tale of a rare blue macaw and his intended mate on the run from poachers, while his owner and her soon-to-be mate try to track them down. Cue seen-it-a-million-times face. Jesse Eisenberg voices Blu the parrot, abandoned at … Read More
DUE DATE
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
STEALTH
Top Dumb. Uninvolving tale of a hi-tech artificial intelligence warplane that threatens to make human pilots redundant. STEALTH stars Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx as the three top gun pilots the robot plane may potentially replace. Ironically, in this movie, they all act like robots. Part of a secret military project (is there any other kind?), overseen by … Read More
DJANGO UNCHAINED
Once Upon a Black Time in the White West. Whiteys: 0. Niggers: 1 Quentin Tarantino, as he did with INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009), once again punches history in the face and rewrites the underdog as the alpha dog in DJANGO UNCHAINED. And says nigger a lot. DJANGO UNCHAINED throws that word at us in such forceful abandon that it becomes hilarious … Read More
HORRIBLE BOSSES
Hitchcock… Hitch-Not. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Two out of three HORRIBLE BOSSES, that is. There’s Kevin Spacey as Boss #1, reprising his role from SWIMMING WITH SHARKS as pure A-Hole; there’s Colin Farrell as Boss #2, creating an eccentric new role for himself as a balding, paunched lunatic. And there’s Jennifer Aniston as Boss #3, supposedly a … Read More
RAY
Tragedy and Triumph on the Cliché Superhighway. A talented superstar like Ray Charles deserves every bit of tribute he receives, so the makers of RAY can be forgiven for their “good intent” (tempered by their desire for profit, of course), but in crafting this ostensible monument to the blind blues-gospel pianist, they step knee deep in every cliché created by … Read More
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
…and Justice for none. Just as every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints. As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer / ‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint… — “Sympathy For The Devil,” The Rolling Stones. Handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser, I see a poster for LAW ABIDING CITIZEN and overhear the … Read More
THE SOLOIST
Biting The Hand That Exploits You. When movies address the supposed nobility of humanity (a fiction created by humans) we’ve got to look past the uplifting orchestration to the deep background on what is actually being sold. With THE SOLOIST, we don’t have to look too deep. It’s the story of Los Angeles newspaper columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr), … Read More
THE KINGDOM
My Kingdom for a (war)horse… If LIONS FOR LAMBS was the cerebral, intelligent take on the Iraq War, THE KINGDOM is the action-packed, piss-your-pants rejoinder – both written by Matthew Michael Carnahan (who should probably be investigated by the CIA for all the inside information he brings to these military stories). Peter Berg starred in LIONS as a strong, sure … Read More
JARHEAD
JARHEAD is the new JACKET. Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. — Henry Kissinger. “Every war is different. Every war is the same.” Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET (1987) followed U.S. Marines from boot camp to Viet Nam. Director Sam Mendes keeps the formula and updates the war in JARHEAD (to the … Read More
THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS
No Truth in CATS AND DOGS. Re-telling of the age-old Cyrano tale with Janeane Garofalo as The Nose and Uma Thurman as The Bod. Janeane is as alluring as she’s ever been onscreen – which is about as alluring as Gerard Depardieu in a unitard. (However – funnily enough – I really was attracted to Janeane at the time of … Read More