June 17th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Michael Leydon Campbell, Eddie Jemison, Rachel Leigh Cook, Grace Zabriskie
Director: Craig Carlisle
Runtime: 106 Minutes
Distributor: Magnolia
Rating: R
The clue is in the title. His name is Bob (Campbell) and he’s in a bit of a funk. Bob’s a drunken, misanthropic mattress salesman with appalling people skills, an infinitely more buttoned down older brother Ron (Jemison), and a mother (Zabriskie) who’s also his boss fast running out of patience. Cue Rachel Leigh Cook’s klutzy cupcake Ms. Thorne, who Bob instantly warms to in his own sweaty way and who must now supervise his latest period of job probation. It’s a workplace comedy with all the elements present and correct for a riotous giggle fest with just one teeny tiny – hardly worth mentioning really - little flaw. It’s apocalyptically unfunny.
Now that hit television shows like The Office have dragged the comedy of embarrassment out of the cult corner in which it languished we’re seeing something of a shift towards more and more writers trying to feel the boundaries and push the envelope.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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June 15th, 2009 admin
Land of The Lost
2009
Starring: Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Danny McBride, Jorma Taccone, Matt Lauer
Director: Brad Silberling
Runtime: 93 Minutes
Distributor: Universal
Rating: PG-13
Approximately two thirds of the way through this big screen, big budget overhaul of the campy `70’s television series comes a sequence in which, after being sucked into an alternate dimension, our heroes – joke of the scientific community Dr. Rick Marshall (Ferrell), his research assistant Holly (Friel), and a trailer park survivalist Will (McBride) – frolic around a motel swimming pool, one of the many odd looking landmarks transported there in similar fashion. Having frantically dodged the rampaging T-Rex, narrowly escaped a malevolent tribe of lizard people, and finally retrieved a vital piece of equipment from the volcanic nest of a giant Pterodactyl, the group enjoy a refreshing drink from the fruit of a local tree and unexpectedly wind up tripping their balls off.
Why is this happening? Seemingly because in a realm that literally has no rules, where at any given moment you can expect to see a pack of Velociraptors tear limb-from-limb a terrified ice cream vendor, this spectacularly humdrum drug humor is apparently what passes for imaginative comedy. For sure, from start to finish Land of the Lost is a film so guilty of squandering its comic potential that you don’t so much want to tell people not to see it as drag it in front of an International Justice Tribunal at The Hague. It’s a film that has precisely one good joke that is set up in the first scene and paid off in the last. Between those two points is a tired rehash of Ferrell’s inept egotist routine marbled around a story so unregulated in terms of its own boundaries that it crosses dimensions in its own right.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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June 2nd, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn, Woody Harrelson, Fred Ward, Margo Martindale, James Hiroyuki Liao
Director: Stephen Belber
Runtime: 93 Minutes
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Rating: R
Electing to forgo the achingly familiar genre paradigms that are the bane of the modern romantic comedy, Management sees writer/director Stephen Belber bravely attempting to break new ground in the realm of boy-meets-girl and getting caught between his desire to subvert convention and his instinct to play it safe. The result is a film of two halves that ultimately finds Belber lacking the courage of his convictions and sinking his own brave idea halfway to the shores of success.
It’s a shaky start as motel night manager Mike (Zahn) attempts to woo traveling saleswoman Sue (Aniston) by dropping by her room with a complimentary bottle of piss-tasting wine. As the good-natured schlub fumbles through nervous small talk, tripping over his own unintentional innuendo, your interest level will be somewhere on the floor having its own conversation with the sticky pools of soda and the trampled on popcorn buckets.
Then having disarmed you of all expectation, Belber skillfully goes about building it back up, shedding all the sickly sweet whimsy of typical big screen couples that float smugly towards eternal bliss. Instead we’re gently drawn into a hazy fog of decidedly dark impulse, odd sexual tension, and wonderfully strange idiosyncrasy. Rewarding Mike’s uncomfortably persistent advances at the end of her two-night stay with a butt touch (“you can touch my butt, but then you have to go”), Sue goes on her way, but returns just as swiftly for a no-nonsense hedonistic shag in the laundry room, an encounter Mike simply can’t get over.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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May 29th, 2009 admin
Without a Paddle
2004
Starring: Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard, Seth Green, Ray Baker, Burt Reynolds, Abraham Benrubi, Ethan Suplee
Director: Steven Brill
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Distributor: Paramount
Rating: PG-13
A God-awful cinematic experience that could just as easily be re-titled Homophobia in a Canoe, Without a Paddle is an ugly, badly conceived Frankenstein’s monster of an film that hacks large chunks out of such beloved classics as Stand By Me, The Goonies, and (of all things!) Deliverance and misguidedly sews them together. John Boorman’s iconic white-water nightmare, depicting a group of cocksure Atlanta businessmen emasculated and nigh on swallowed whole by the unforgiving wilderness, is unparalleled in the annals of man versus nature. But – who could have imagined – its an idea loses something when played for potty humor and frat-boy giggles.
Incorporating the real-life legend of D.B. Cooper, the infamous highjacker who parachuted out of a plane over the Pacific North West with a bag full of money and was never seen again, the film opens with four young boys in a tree-house swearing they will someday track down Cooper’s treasure. Flash-forward twenty odd years and one of their number is sadly dead, leaving underachiever Tom (Shepard), underachiever Jerry (Lillard), and successful young doctor Matt (Green) to embark on said expedition in honor of their late friend, Billy. Matt it seems is straight-laced and rendered guilty of the unforgivable frat-boy comedy crime of wanting to be really good at his job. Valuing such ridiculous things as his personal safety, Matt’s duty is seemingly to be poked, patronized, and pissed-on as the butt of every lazy gag the film has going.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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April 13th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Anna Farris, Jesse Plemons, Michael Pena
Director: Jody Hill
Runtime: 86 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: R
It’s somewhat tough to describe the tingle of anticipation we felt as we entered this screening of Observe and Report having hungrily consumed the online buzz surrounding it. “Quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” said one source. “A dark and delirious blend of comedy and violence,” said another. Imagine how we felt then after about twenty minutes as we slowly realized that what we were witnessing was not the birth of comedy not as we know it, but the death of writer/director Jody Hill’s big studio career.
You can certainly see what Hill was aiming at. After all, in the post-Will Ferrell era the idea of another comedy centered around an inept egotist with a massively inflated and yet entirely unjustified sense of self-worth might strike you as so far, so formula. But as Hill demonstrated with his breakout debut The Foot Fist Way, he has a propensity to push the envelope, displaying a penchant for offering up brutality as belly laughs. Danny McBride playing a martial arts instructor who can’t control his temper can get away with that because he’s clearly a harmless buffoon who, when challenged, will cower. Seth Rogen playing a bullish bi-polar case who is off his meds simply cannot.
Angry and given to fits of paranoid delusion, head of mall security Ronnie Barnhardt is the lord and master of all he surveys; even if that translates to shoplifters, old people power-walking and fatties congregating around the ice cream fountain. When a serial flasher invades his domain, Ronnie seizes his chance to show off his law enforcement skills to Detective Harrison (a decidedly unimpressed Ray Liotta) and make-up counter girl of his dreams Brandi (Anna Faris showing why she is one of comedy’s brightest stars). Mustering his troops in the form of sycophantic lieutenant Dennis (Michael Pena) and gun nuts John and Matt (the Yuan twins) Ronnie sets about restoring order with an iron fist (typically aimed at someone’s face). And that’s the problem.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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March 31st, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Spencer Berger, Brian D. Phelan, Gabriel Tigerman, Kerry Knuppe, Jennifer Batter, Ned Bellamy, Marta Martin
Director: Monty Miranda
Runtime: 88 Minutes
Distributor: Shadow Distribution
Rating: NR
In the world of Indie film the plotless ramble has been a staple for many years now, chiefly because they’re suitably cheap and suitably manageable. Dialogue heavy, character driven, they can be set anywhere you like, with whoever you like, about anything you like. And while some are outstanding and others just plain dreadful, most of them at least have the decency to be about something. It’s a relatively small, but relatively important detail that seems to have gotten lost somewhere with Skills Like This, which is maddening because it offers a quite unique and intriguing set up that’s positively bursting with possibilities.
During the final act of his latest stage opus, somewhere around the closing soliloquy delivered by the spaceman, the WWI fighter ace, and the Hispanic gypsy (which is so bad his grandfather has a coronary in the audience), Max (Spencer Berger) decides he’s an awful writer who’s never going to make it. For Max, who has never been able to do anything else this comes as something of a gut punching moment of clarity that leaves him bereft of both hope and options.
Joining his two buddies in a nearby diner for a little post-disaster dissection, Max is flanked by professional underachiever Tommy (Phelan), who, desperate to support his friend, is over the moon at Max’s decision to abandon all hope. Offering a slightly more centrist view is Dave (Tigerman) who preaches Max should straighten up, fly right, and get a job, despite the fact that he’s there because his own boss thinks he’s called Roger and therefore won’t notice he’s absent. Desperate for a mere ounce of self-determination, Max acts on his split second impulse to tear into the bank across the street, grab the guard’s gun, put it to his own head and demand all the money. Something he finds, feels pretty damn good.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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March 22nd, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Zach Creggor, Trevor Moore, Raquel Alessi, Molly Stanton, Craig Robinson, Hugh Hefner
Director: Zach Cregor and Trevor Moore
Runtime: 90 Minutes
Distributor: Fox Searchlight
Rating: R
It might be difficult to believe that two young, not exactly hideous guys with their own TV show have trouble getting themselves laid. But based on this effort Zach Creggor and Trevor Moore of The Whitest Kids You Know have likely not only never been laid, but if they carry on like this never will be either. Coming out of this appallingly unfunny teen sex comedy, that’s as unoriginal as it is unnecessary, it’s clear these guys not only have no clue how to talk to women, they don’t know how to write a script either. In fact they don’t really have a script, they’ve got a couple of ideas for gross out set pieces (wouldn’t it be funny if some girl you were with spat out a mouthful of cum in front of your girlfriend’s conservative parents) and those dictate the resulting slew of directionless, tasteless, humorless, vaguely related vignettes that follow.
Miss March opens with youngsters Eugene (Creggor) and Tucker (Moore) in the midst of a life changing experience – the discovery of an elder brother’s Playboy. Flash-forward to senior year and Eugene is a slavering pervert while Tucker and his girlfriend Cindi (Alessi) preach abstinence to kids; scaring them with the aforementioned elder brother’s tale of debauchery resulting in teen pregnancy, retarded children, and a house full of people burned to death (don’t ask, really). On prom night when the pair pledged to do the deed Tucker instead accidentally knocks himself into a coma. Awakened four years later (Eugene cracks him over the head with a bat), Tucker is astonished to find Cindi spread across the pages of Playboy. Desperate to escape his rampaging epileptic girlfriend who he just stabbed in the face with a fork (again, really better to just not ask) Eugene suggests a fact finding road tip to the Bunny Mansion.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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March 19th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jason Spevack, Clifton Collins Jr.
Director: Christine Jeffs
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Distributor: Overture Films
Rating: R
Glancing at this latest offering from tiny indie production outfit Big Beach Films, it’s hard not to draw comparisons to their 2006 sleeper smash Little Miss Sunshine. From the comically misleading title, through the estranged siblings, to Alan Arkin acting as the blunt sage to a troubled, precocious child, the similarities are unmistakable. But earnest, committed performances from an all round stellar ensemble headed up by two young women destined for mega-stardom mean this is far from just a cheap imitation.
Yes, it does look like you’re garden variety Sundance movie (where it was unsurprisingly nominated for a Grand Jury Prize); the Anywheresville Midwestern setting (specifically Albuquerque); the acoustic indie soundtrack; familial dysfunction – a distilled amalgamation of every “colorfully quirky” indie you’ve ever seen. The film makes no bones about its intentions, announcing itself in an opening scene that sees a gentleman enter a sporting goods outlet, politely ask to inspect the 20 gauge in the display case, insert a shell from his pocket into the chamber, and promptly splatter his brains all over the store. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a black comedy. But beneath the wearily hip veneer is a deceptively simple ballad of decent, ordinary folk trying to do the best with what they’ve got, that unlike many of its kin is thoroughly unpretentious and that earns our appreciation rather than demanding it.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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March 16th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Piper Parabo, Andy Garcia, Edward James Olmos, George Lopez, Cheech Marin, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Raja Gosnell
Runtime: 91 Minutes
Distributor: Disney
Rating: PG
As it goes in the movie business and the age of Digital 3D the once mighty live action animal movie seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur (along with the dinosaur movie). But looking at last fall’s release slate, with the likes of Marley & Me, Hotel for Dogs, Wendy and Lucy and now Beverly Hills Chihuahua, it appears the good old fashioned dog movie is back in business. Somewhat ironically in these days where animation is king, it’s Disney that’s providing the push.
Drew Barrymore (in full on squeak mode) is the voice of Chloe, a pampered pooch with a penchant for the finer things in life: Prada booties, Chanel cologne, and poolside parties with her ensemble (a metrosexual pug, a high-class collie etc). A not so thinly veiled slight at Paris Hilton complete with a diamond-encrusted dog collar, she’s admired from afar by Papi, a feisty male Chihuahua who belongs to gardener Sam (Manola Cardona). Jamie Lee Curtis is her cosmetics mogul owner who jaunts off to launch her new overseas line and leaves Chloe in the care of her niece Rachel (Piper Parabo), who is less than impressed having to prioritize her weekend around this literal rich-bitch.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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March 2nd, 2009 admin
2008
Starring: Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler, Jay Baruchel, Kristen Bell, Carrie Fisher, Seth Rogan, Ray Park
Director: Kyle Newman
Runtime: 90 Minutes
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Rating: PG-13
There is a moment near the opening of Fanboys, after our heroes have crashed a fancy dress party decked out as stormtroopers and Darth Vadar where Kristen Bell’s impossibly hot nerd, Zoe, grows weary of them bleating on about the impending awesomeness of The Phantom Menace and declares “I can’t listen to this shit for another six months.” Despite only having to listen to it for another eighty-five minutes, we whole-heartedly share her sentiments.
First conceived by co-scripter Ernest Cline and his buddies a decade ago when the world was collectively salivating at the prospect of another bombastic trilogy (how naïve we were), this passion project has been ten stop-start years in the making propelled along by big names lending their support (Kevin spacey takes a producer credit). On paper it’s got all the makings of a solid comedy in the bro-mance vein, ticking one genre box after another.
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