Wanna know how I got these (O)scars?… Joaquin Phoenix is unpredictable, funny, disturbing, and when you meet him, he might just kill you. In JOKER, he won the 2020 Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Actor… But was he really acting? JOKER, like STEPHEN KING’S IT, shows clowns for what they really are: insecure, unbalanced, traumatized sociopaths. Again, was Joaquin … Read More
WHEN THEY SEE US
When They See Us… they still won’t give a fuck. WHEN THEY SEE US is a mini-series dramatization of the 1989 “Central Park Five” case, where five young boys were wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for the rape of a jogger in New York’s Central Park. In 2001, the real rapist confessed, precipitating the release of the Five, and their convictions … Read More
JOY 2015
A mess that needs to be Miracle Mopped! After the confusing marketing campaign, we were left wondering what JOY was actually about? Hmm, from the trailers, seems like she has a dead-end job, her father hates her husband, she’s walking determinedly in the snow, she’s firing a shotgun, she’s cutting her hair, a funeral, a wedding, a business, cops, kissing, … Read More
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
Frankenstein’s Mobster. MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN has the reputation for following its infamous source material closely – Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The fact that it follows the book only barely, and the fact that people yet put on airs when lauding the movie as authentic shows how much people actually read. Kenneth Branagh directs and … Read More
GRUDGE MATCH
Raging Rocky. It’s Rocky versus Raging Bull in a battle to the retirement community. It’s old versus older in a rampage to the replaced hip… Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro square off as old – and I do mean old – boxing rivals who ended their careers unbeaten, except by each other – once each! Now, thirty years later, … Read More
THE FAMILY
Familiar Famiglia. An American mobster in the Witness Protection Program is plopped into the midst of a bucolic French village with his wife and two kids. Cue fish out of water tale, where the fish is a piranha. THE FAMILY stars Robert DeNiro as Giovanni Manzoni aka Fred Blake, a mafia don who has ratted on his crime syndicate and … Read More
SNL 40
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
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Couldn’t find the silver lining. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a teachable moment in filmic history. They showed us how to cure bipolar disease. You just need to get laid! Two damaged people Meet Cute. They pretend to hate each other. By movie’s end, they love each other, which apparently means they’re not damaged anymore. Yay. All it took was sex. SILVER … Read More
LIMITLESS
Full Frontal Lobity. Bradley Cooper takes a pill that makes him even sexier. Now how is that even possible? LIMITLESS is a breezy fantasy about a shiftless writer, Eddie Morra (Cooper), who is given a mysterious pill that allows him to access 100% of his brain, instead of the usual 20%. A super-man tale (or, in the case of Cooper, … Read More
WAG THE DOG
Conflation Nation. “Of course there’s a war – I saw it on TV.” –Robert De Niro, WAG THE DOG. War is only real if you let them get away with it. As George Carlin used to say, “Why do the troops keep turning up?” But even if the troops didn’t turn up for active duty, WAG THE DOG is an … Read More
MACHETE
Carving a niche for immigration heroes. If you really wanna be street cool, you’ll pronounce it ‘Ma-CHET-tay.’ The much-overlooked yet mustered Danny Trejo brings his battleground face to the title role of Robert Rodriguez‘s hilariously vicious MACHETE, the story of an ex-federale (code name: Machete) going undercover against illegal politicians against illegal immigrants. The hook is that Machete prefers as … Read More
RIGHTEOUS KILL
Righteous Swill. Dream cast, nightmare script. What a shameless waste of Acting’s two elder statesmen. RIGHTEOUS KILL re-unites Robert de Niro and Al Pacino as two New York cops on the trail of a killer who is wiping out the city’s vilest criminals. The plot of MAGNUM FORCE resurrected, except in this movie, it’s Dirty Harry without the Dirty. Or … Read More
MEET THE FOCKERS
Fock This! There are two big laughs in MEET THE FOCKERS – but I can’t remember where they are. Sequel to the minimally-superior MEET THE PARENTS, this movie once again makes a fool of Robert De Niro, continues to make a neb of Ben Stiller, while orbiting megastars Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman add little or nothing with their “oversexed … Read More