Posted by: D'Anne Witkowski on April 24, 2009 at 10:30 am
Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) used to sell pirated DVDs on the streets of New York like a good Christian boy, but then he found his true calling and will now punch you in the face for money. This is all thanks to Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) who sees Shawn as a potential street fighting champion. With Harvey as his guide, Shawn enters the bare-knuckled underworld where shirtless studs beat the shit out of each other for cash prizes in order to entertain rich people/gangsters/assholes in Fighting. It is, as you can imagine, a chance of a lifetime for a kid with nothing. It’s what most parents hope of for their children, after all, and there he is, living the dream. Unfortunately, as he gets better, the stakes (money, y’all) get higher and people start demanding more and more from him and it’s all, Jesus, can’t a guy just beat the shit out of other guys for a living in peace? Also there’s a girl he likes. Her name is Zulay (played by Zulay Henao. I know. Same first name. What were the chances?). She has a pretty mouth.
Taking “Crazy In Love” to a whole new level is Obsessed, a morality story about inter-racial dating. Oh, wait. My bad. It’s a morality story about psycho-stalking temp workers. Derek (Idris Elba. You know, Stringer Bell from The Wire) is an asset manager (meaning he caused the current economic crisis) who just got a big promotion (probably with bailout money). When a pretty blonde named Lisa (Ali Larter) becomes his secretary things spiral out of control. Because you know temp workers these days. With the economy so fucked up and so many people looking for work a lot temp workers are Read more
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Posted by: D'Anne Witkowski on April 17, 2009 at 1:15 pm
When Mike O’Donnell (played by Dudley Moore. Wait, no. Judge Reinhold? No. Oh, it’s Matthew Perry!) falls off a bridge after pursuing a magic janitor/hobo (think: It’s A Wonder Life crossed with Bill Cosby’s Ghost Dad) he somehow becomes 17 Again. Teen Mike (Kirk Cameron. Wait, no. Fred Savage? No. Oh, it’s Zac Efron!) decides to enroll in high school to relive the best years of his life – the very years that ended once he knocked up his high school girlfriend and married her only so she could throw his ass out of the house at age 37. Creepiness abounds when Mike befriends his own son (Sterling Knight) and starts hanging around his old house ogling his once-wife (Leslie Mann). He also realizes that he’s been kind of a failure as a dad as his son gets bullied at school and his daughter is planning on running away after graduation with the school’s biggest meathead. So Mike decides to finally step up and be a dad, except he’s 17. So, you know, it’s, like complicated. Rated NC-17 for excessive MILF content.
Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) plays modern day Tin Man Chev Chelios in Crank 2: High Voltage. After an Asian crime syndicate steals his heart and replaces it with a battery, Chelios will stop at nothing to get the original throbbing organ back. The only problem is, the battery that’s now sitting in his chest is about as reliable as a MacBook’s, which means in between gun battles and car chases, Chelios is constantly after his next charge. It’s hard to watch a man spiral out of control because of an addiction. But that’s what Chelios has. He is a sick man and he Read more
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Posted by: D'Anne Witkowski on April 10, 2009 at 11:00 am
It’s common knowledge that seeing a man’s penis, specifically when that man is flashing you in a mall parking lot, will make you fall in love with a mall security guard played by Seth Rogen. Or at least drive around in a golf cart with him. That’s the premise of Observe and Report the best screwball mall security guard comedy since Paul Blart: Mall Cop paved the golden way for screwball mall security guard comedies. Both movies feature chunky actors fighting evil at the mall, and both feature at least one scene in which those actors are decked out in grey sweatpants (hot!), but at least Seth Rogen is funny. Or can be. And Anna Ferris, who plays Rogen’s dream girl Barbi, isn’t hard to look at And that goes a long way when you’re spending $9 (because you’re totally going alone) to see a movie about a security guard gone rogue (just like Sarah Palin) in order to protect a bag of Read more
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Posted by: Scott Bragg on April 4, 2009 at 11:41 am
I think it’s time for some hip indie band to bring back the mom joke at the beginning of its next video. Or maybe not a hip indie band, but some old, stale, washed up band, in order to gain some much needed ironic cred. Like U2, perhaps (OH, snap!). [Bono: "Yes, The Edge, your mum is so stupid that she doesn't even know the per capita GNP of Zimbabwe nor the amount of aid provided by the G8 to poor East Asian countries from the years 1990-1999."]
1989s “Just a Friend” pretty much blew my 6th grade mind. To be honest, I was still a bit too innocent to understand all of the song’s subtleties (which don’t seem all that subtle in retrospect), and I was absolutely offended when one of the more “mature” kids in my class devised a variation on Biz’s theme: “You, you got a disease. But you say it’s just Read more
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Tags: Biz Markie, Just a Friend
Posted by: D'Anne Witkowski on April 3, 2009 at 10:30 am
With the auto industry slumping, what Detroit needs is a movie about futuristic robot cars that will have sex with you and pay your mortgage. What we get instead is Vin Diesel in Fast & Furious. To say this is your typical action movie is to do this film a disservice. It’s got hot chicks, fast cars, exploding semi trucks, guns, guys chasing other guys (with and without guns), cross-border adventure, and so much testosterone that intact male dogs will Read more
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Tags: Adventureland, Fast & Furious, Revanche, Sunset Boulevard, Three Stooges
Posted by: D'Anne Witkowski on March 27, 2009 at 10:30 am
Have you ever opened your refrigerator to find all of your food covered in mold? You’re probably just a slob with too many take out boxes from Panda Express, but it could also be that your house is haunted. At least that’s the case for the totally fucked family in The Haunting in Connecticut. Based on a true story (which means facts. Believe it!), Haunting will scare the spirit out of you, if you’re into that sort of thing. Need proof? Check out the back story on the film’s spooky Web site , which is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors because even Microsoft Word was too Read more
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Posted by: D'Anne Witkowski on March 20, 2009 at 10:00 am
Two sexy people get all duplicitous as Julia Roberts plays an ex-CIA officer and Clive Owen plays an ex M16 agent in Duplicity. They have sex, they fight, they have sex (not always with each other), they scheme, they have sex, they bicker – all while corporate lives are at risk. Who will come out on top? Only their hairdressers know for sure.
If that doesn’t sound scary enough, then how about this: Your plane will crash, your subway car will explode, your son will disappear! Unless… you listen to Read more
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Tags: Amy Adams, Clive Owens, Emily Blunt, Francois Truffaut, Jason Segel, John Malkovice, Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Paul Rudd
Posted by: Mike White on March 18, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Rotten Tomatoes has started its own video podcast and show on Current. I stumbled upon this quite by accident as I’m not a huge fan of Rotten Tomatoes but was in need of some podcasts to fill my iPhone for a long drive. Rotten Tomatoes Show isn’t anything revolutionary when it comes to its fast-paced mix of reviews and webcam remarks hosted by a wiseacre guy (Brett Erlich) and attractive gal (Ellen Fox). If anything, you might Read more
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Tags: Attack of the Show, Current, Rotten Tomatoes
Posted by: Mike White on March 13, 2009 at 11:57 am
Knock Off (Tsui Hark, 1998, HK)
If you’re an action star, you should run (not walk) away from Rob Schneider. Only three years after he was the “comedic” sidekick slung like an albatross around Sly Stallone’s neck in Judge Dredd, he teamed up with Jean-Claude Van Damme during the Muscles from Brussels’s Hong Kong phase of his career. After Jean-Claude worked the cream of HK’s talent pool, he went on to star in a few films by Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark, far lesser talents in Hong Kong’s cinema. As if pairing up with Dennis Rodman weren’t bad enough (Double Team), Jean-Claude’s second excursion with Tsui Hark put him side by side with Schneider as a pair of bumbling HK fashionistas who get ensnared in a web of intrigue and knock-off designer duds. It’s haute couture meets high intensity action in this wrong-headed action flick.
Van Damme and Schneider have as much chemistry as bleach and ammonia; stand too close and you’ll choke on the fumes. Schneider tries his schtick while Van Damme throws some kicks as the pair try to foil an international plot in which booby-trapped baby dolls threaten to destroy democracy. It’s unclear what’s the worst aspect of this film — the dubbing, the directing, or the dumbass plot. Yet, there’s always something charmingly disarming (pun intended) about Van Damme’s films and Knock Off is no exception. It goes down smoothest after a night out at the bar.
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Tags: john woo, ringo lam, rob scheider, tsui hark, van damme
Posted by: Mike White on March 10, 2009 at 2:59 pm
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974)
If you aren’t aware of it, let me let you in on a little secret… Walter Matthau kicks ass. Known more for the Neil Simon comedies he did with Jack Lemmon, Matthau should best be remembered for a trio of films he made in the early ’70s — Charley Varrick, The Laughing Policeman, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Matthau stars as Lt. Zachary Garber, a transit worker who gets stuck between a quartet of criminals who took a subway train hostage and the bureaucracy of City Hall. With his hangdog expression, Matthau perfectly plays Garber as someone trying to do the right thing despite everyone around him. Also along for the ride are a cadre of character actors including Kenneth McMillan, Jerry Stiller, Hector Elizondo, Martin Balsam, and Robert Shaw as the criminal mastermind behind the heist. This is the film that gave Quentin Tarantino the idea to use colors instead of names for the robbers in Reservoir Dogs.
Remade once already as a TV movie with Edward James Olmos in the Garber role, a new remake is due out in June. Trust me, the original is the way to go with this one. Stick It In Your Queue.
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Tags: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Quentin Tarantino, remake, Reservoir Dogs, Walter Matthau
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