There is a great deal of mileage to be had with characters as intrinsically adorable the Minions. And MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU takes it as far as it can go with a script that wobbles as uncertainly as Otto, the most loyal and least competent of little yellow creatures, does on the steep streets… Read More »
THE BOB’S BURGERS MOVIE
THE BOB’S BURGER MOVIE gives us a few origin stories for the long-running animated sit-com artfully woven into a brand-new musical adventure. Far from playing out as an extended episode of the series, it expands to fill its feature-length running time with a murder mystery, a financial crisis, and a nifty low-speed chase involving an… Read More »
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT
Having starred in a deliciously odd self-portrait by and of Charlie Kaufman, ADAPTATION, Nicolas Cage has waited two decades to take the surreal meta-plunge again and waiting for just the right script has paid off for him and for us. In THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT, he plays a fictionalized version of himself, hamstrung… Read More »
THE LOST CITY
Let us praise the genius of Sandra Bullock’s gift for physical comedy. It makes even the small business of teetering on a stool in a fuchsia-sequined jumpsuit an epic of determination, embarrassment, grit, and uncertainty. It is in no small part that THE LOST CITY, on which she was also an executive producer, is such… Read More »
MARRY ME
MARRY ME falls into the category of mostly harmless. As a rom-com, it shadows its inspiration, NOTTING HILL, at a respectful distance in an exercise tailored to showcase its star/co-producer Jennifer Lopez as an actress and a singer fond of sparkly outfits. It’s bright, shiny, and no more serious than its premise of a superstar… Read More »
BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN
BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN is neither for the intellectually timid nor the prudish. Radu Jude’s romp through cultural hypocrisy and the human penchant for being not just cruel, but also idiots, is designed to confront and confound with savage humor and brutal satire. Lest we have any illusions about the direct approach Jude… Read More »
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA is a relentlessly obvious and overplayed exercise in draining the last dregs from a moribund franchise. Let me put it this way. Adam Sandler, not known for discriminating taste in projects, took a pass on this material that continues the saga of Drac, the vampiric proprietor of the titular establishment that caters… Read More »
THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2
There are many words that spring to mind when viewing THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2, and few of them are laudatory. The twisted humor of Charles Addams’ original cartoon, or of the cult-classic of the 60s television series, or of the previous incarnation of the franchise are little in evidence in this dreary exercise in, of… Read More »
COPSHOP
Click here for the flashback interview with Joe Carnahan and Frank Grillo for THE GREY. There has rarely been such an effusive, even whimsical, satire on violence as that which is found in Joe Carnahan’s COPSHOP. This blackest of black comedies adroitly combines tension and goofiness with an insouciance that is nothing short of breathtaking.… Read More »
JUNGLE CRUISE
Disney surprised us all when it turned one of Disneyland’s attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean, into a top-notch action/adventure/comedy. Alas, Disney has surprised us again, but with JUNGLE CRUISE, based on one of the venerable attractions from that ci-mentioned theme park, it’s more along the lines of disappointment. We relive that attraction in due course,… Read More »
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