Another week, another disingenuous trifle from Hollywood celebrating the power of independent thinking. It’s called “Dinner for Schmucks,” but a more apt title would be “A Movie for Schmucks,” given how the film industry, in its infinite condescension, views its gullible customers.
Did you know nuclear weapons are a legitimate threat to our well-being? Shocking, isn’t it? Or, at least it is to Lucy Walker, who breathlessly spells out the obvious in her remedial but well-meaning documentary, “Countdown to Zero.”
Zac Efron sees and talks to dead people in “Charlie St. Cloud,” but don’t go in expecting any late-in-the-game Shyamalan-like twists to legitimize its grief-laden machinations.
Wanna hear my new “pet” peeve? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.” Not only does the utterly unnecessary sequel to 2001’s espionage parody “Cats & Dogs” redefine the term “heavy petting,” it presumes to treat the viewer’s mind as its personal litter box, depositing loads of animal waste.
If any genre has benefited from the rise of DVD and Blu-ray, it’s film noir. As evidence, I offer Warner Bros.’ latest “Film Noir Classic Collection,” the fifth one from the studio.
One of the great French comedies of the past decade was “The Dinner Game.” I still chuckle just thinking about it. So Paul Rudd and Steve Carell have a lot to live up to in an American remake, in which Rudd plays a brownnosing executive trying to please his boss by bringing the stupidest guy he can find to dinner. That would be Carell.
Rumors are flying regarding the much-talked about Janis Joplin biopic - and if it will ever get off the ground. The idea has been in the works for more than a decade, but so far nothing.
Last weekend, the AMC television show “Mad Men” returned for another season of drinking, smoking and character-driven product pitching in the mid-’60s heyday of Madison Avenue advertising agencies. A documentary now available on DVD looks at the reality behind the age of advertising.
New on the Flicks hatin’ list is animal movies — specifically comical, live-action animal movies in which the animals speak, but the humans are either completely absent or oblivious.
Word has it, Bill Murray took a voiceover role in “Garfield: The Movie” by accident. Murray said this week that he took the role because he mistakenly thought the movie was written by Joel Coen. It was actually by Joel Cohen. When asked why he also took part in the sequel, he said it was because he enjoyed working with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Now I know he’s lying.
Bette Midler doesn’t do a lot of screen acting these days. For the past couple years she’s been on an extended concert tour, keeping those divine vocal chords in shape.
As if this summer’s sour crop of movies wasn’t painful enough, the folks at Sony have gone and dumped “Salt” into the wound.
Films in this week’s Reel Deal column strap your mind into a rocket-propelled racecar and send it into overdrive. Prepare your mind to zoom, whir, weave and spin through a twisty, tangled track. You’re going to need a helmet. Afterward, you’re likely to feel dizzy, disoriented, daffy (and DiCaprio’d) as you try to make sense of what you’ve just witnessed.
A lot of male sexual fantasies will be answered when Angelina Jolie comes packing heat of all kinds in "Salt." And Disney brat Selena Gomez and newcomer Joey King play siblings in an adaptation of Beverly Cleary’s series of popular children’s novels.
Naming an action hero after a condiment only invites all kinds of stomach-wrenching word play. With "Salt," I will show restraint and refuse to pepper this review with comments that don't cut the mustard.
It’s not that I hate Angelina Jolie. It’s just I have an unending, roiling, burbling, barely contained dislike for everything that features her face or voice — except for “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” hence referred to as “MMS,” because everyone has an exception to their own rules.
In playing a lesbian, Annette Bening may have finally won the man of her dreams. His name is Oscar, and although he’s twice spurned her for the likes of Hilary Swank, I have a hunch this is the year the two finally get together.
I get a lot of DVDs here at the office. A lot. And 99.9 percent of them aren’t worth taking out of the cellophane. But every so often something crosses my desk that turns out to be brilliant, the sort of thing I can’t wait to force random strangers to watch.
Like a stocky, neckless penguin on stilts (and with a pointy nose reminiscent of Danny DeVito in 1992’s “Batman Returns”), Gru (voiced by Steve Carell in “Despicable Me”) wants desperately to be despicable. He’s got everything an evil mastermind could want: A mad (though somewhat senile) scientist, a fully equipped lair and an army of adoring minions. So what do you get the villain who has everything?
Whoa! Did I just have a bad dream? It had to be, but everything seemed so real: the restlessness, the yawning, the exasperated head slaps. I’m telling you, this stuff was freaky. Things were blowing up left and right – in slo-mo. What was this “dream” trying to tell me? That no matter how glossy and well-edited a dream might appear, there’s absolutely no substance behind it?
