The problem with making a satire about Hollywood is that the real thing, ego-and money-driven to the point of madness, is so much more absurd than anything writers can come up with. TROPIC THUNDER succeeds as a brilliant piece of inspired lunacy because it doesn’t try to top reality, instead it reflects it with just… Read More »
MADAGASCAR — ESCAPE 2 AFRICA
MADAGASCAR 2 ESCAPE TO AFRICA begins with a backstory, the better to set up the forestory of this animated piece. Alex (Ben Stiller), the dancing king of New York, was not always an inhabitant of the Central Park Zoo. Nor was always an inhabitant of the New World, for that matter. No, when he was… Read More »
LITTLE FOCKERS
There is in LITTLE FOCKERS barely a trace of the spark that made MEET THE PARENTS interesting. Ben Stiller as the husband and Robert DeNiro as the father still antagonizing one another over oddly placid wife/daughter Terri Polo has run out of what little steam it had left after MEET THE FOCKERS. Stiller and De… Read More »
WATCH, THE
Simultaneously subverting and celebrating several genres of he-man testosterone flicks, from horror to buddy action flick, to, heaven help us, the existential suburban angst of John Updike, THE WATCH does what a good synthesis should. It becomes more than the sum of its parts, inviting the audience in on the joke, and then taking that… Read More »
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY
There are perhaps more reasons to NOT do a remake of a classic film than reasons to do so, yet THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY is that rare and delightful example of why its only perhaps, not always. It is also a bold re-imagining of both the short story by James Thurber, and the… Read More »
STARSKY & HUTCH
I think I know what happened here. Someone came up with three really good jokes and decided that an entire film could be created around them. For insurance, that same someone decided to slap those jokes into a big-screen version of a 70s television series, hoping that the identification would also bring in a ready-made… Read More »
ENVY
I have always adored Christopher Walken, but never more than while enduring ENVY, a flick as deadly to the concept of entertainment as the deadly sin of the same name is to ones mortal soul. Walken is an actor who can do more with less than pretty much anyone else I can think of and… Read More »
DODGEBALL — A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY
There are some things that just cant be defended rationally, but nonetheless hold an irrational sway over us. A banana split falls into that category. Whatever molecules of calcium, protein, and potassium that the confection contributes to our nutritional requirements, they are more than outweighed by the sticky, gooey wonders of all that is bad… Read More »
MADAGASCAR
As I was watching MADAGASCAR, the new animated flick from Dreamworks, it occurred to me that there just aren’t enough lemurs in films of any kind and that’s a darn shame. Not just because as primates they’re our cousins, distantly, but also because there is something intrinsically and compellingly absurd in their large eyes and… Read More »
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
It’s not that NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is a bad film, it’s just that it’s not a particularly inspired one either. Fine special effects, an interesting plot line, and competent direction, those are all there and greatly appreciated. Still, the very best thing about this fantasy aimed squarely at kids is that it reminds us… Read More »