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 »
THE ROCKER
Rainn Wilson brings his particular brand of prissy, tightly focused outrage to the large screen in THE ROCKER, an uneven film with moments of wacky physical humor that mostly work, obvious lobs at the music industry done fairly well, and a soundtrack that is to die for. The effort may veer off the rails into… Read More »
THE HOUSE BUNNY
THE HOUSE BUNNY is yet another variation on the theme that it’s always better to be yourself. Only better. Of course, that takes a broad swath of heavy make-up, push-up bras, and platform sandals of dizzying heights. It’s a mixed message designed to sell what it purports to subvert, also known as having it both… Read More »
BURN AFTER READING
It is a suitably perverse twist that the only person who has the clearest idea of what’s she is doing in the Coen Brothers latest offering, BURN AFTER READING, is Linda Litzke, the inadvertent femme fatale of the piece played by the miraculous Frances McDormand. Not the CIA operatives, not the Treasury Department guy, not… Read More »
THE WOMEN
Some films are very much the product of a particular time. They reflect the sensibilities, the anxieties, and the dreams of that time and of no other. The remake of THE WOMEN is that kind of film. Unfortunately the zeitgeist it represents is that of the early 1970s, attempts at snappy dialogue hearkening back to… Read More »
GHOST TOWN
GHOST TOWN is a film about ghosts, but the focus is not on the afterlife. No, it is firmly in the life of here and now. The ghosts that populate the film are still all too caught up in the lives of those that they have left behind to move on. Unfortunately, for everyone involved… Read More »
MY BEST FRIEND’S GIRL
A perfectly reasonable reaction to a viewing of MY BEST FRIEND’S GIRL is to plaintively inquire of an unfeeling universe what the heck was that? Aside from being a complete waste of everybody’s time, it is a tired retread of an earlier, equally time-wasting Dane Cook flick, GOOD LUCK CHUCK. There is a different lady… Read More »
HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE
There are a few bright moments punctuating HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE based the memoir of the same name by Toby Young. Very few. And all of them courtesy of its star, Simon Pegg, a man of great comedic gifts who finds himself in a vehicle greatly unworthy of them. Pegg plays Sydney… Read More »
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO
Kevin Smith has the unique ability to find the tenderest of emotions in the most profane of situations, and that talent is what makes ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO more than just a one-note dirty joke. Not that there aren’t a lot of dirty jokes working here. There are. A LOT. Frequently. Mostly. The… Read More »
ROLE MODELS
ROLE MODELS is ragged around the edges and pretty threadbare in between. Co-writer Paul Rudd, sharing credit with a small army of fellow screenplayers, has a genuine gift for a sight gag, and there plenty popping up here. Alas, he falls short with all the stuff that links them together. Yet, for all its failings… Read More »
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