Next Stop: Unoriginality Central. Six Millennial friends try to contact unseen entities supposedly haunting an old house where murders were committed. Where have we heard this before? Oh, everywhere… There are a couple of interesting tidbits thrown into this mix of horror and detective thriller, but for the most part, DEMONIC has a devil of a time coming up with … Read More
GROWN UPS 2
Would you like a little movie to go with your pee jokes? Rob Schneider isn’t here. Nonetheless, GROWN UPS 2 is still worse than its predecessor. It starts with a pee joke, then a tit joke, then a shit joke, then another pee joke, then a combination burp-sneeze-fart trifecta douchefecta. You couldn’t make a movie this bad if you were … Read More
GROWN UPS
Groan Ups. This movie should be spanked on its botty and sent to bed with no supper. Written by Adam Sandler and longtime collaborator Fred Wolf, directed by longtime Sandler director, Dennis Dugan, GROWN UPS stars Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade and tiresome tool Rob Schneider. Now I ask you: with the wealth of filmmaking experience in the … Read More
WORLD TRADE CENTER
A Date With Density. The pitch: Two men get trapped in a mine shaft. Nothing happens. Then they get rescued. The end. The suits harrumph: where’s the drama? The screenwriter and her agent scramble: well, we flash back to generic good times with families and watch the trapped guys banally discuss heroism and loyalty and STARSKY AND HUTCH. The suits … Read More
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
Black Lung Satire. Aaron Eckhart has always deserved to play a role as ferociously incisive as this. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING fleshes his latent silver-tongued devil in the form of Nick Naylor, a spokesman for Big Tobacco; the type of guy who could sell ice to Eskimos in winter. Movie opens with Nick on one of those daytime talk shows … Read More
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
When the Evil Twin Piques. Director David Cronenberg assails his audience with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, surface “pulp thriller,” with an undercurrent of vigilantism, Darwinism and Plot Conveniences. A simplistic tale which careens against the cerebral precepts of Survival of the Fittest, Natural Selection and Freudian sublimation. (Any more big words, or are we done for the day?…) Loosely screenplayed … Read More