Review: "Project X" (2012)

To invite a cheap comparison to a wedding speech, Merriam-Webster defines ‘glory’ (noun: \glȯr-ē\) in one of five distinct ways. The first is “a praise, honor or distinction extended by common consent”. In other words, via popular demand. 

In that, this film definitely succeeds (see the audience aggregate).

Not to be confused with the 2004 Jim Shepard novel of the same name, the Todd Phillips-produced “Project X” is an 88-minute found-footage teen sex comedy laced with a “Heart of Darkness” tang. It follows three high-school seniors as they attempt to singularly reverse their less-than-spectacular reputations in a single night. To accomplish this, they set out to hold “the most epic party of all time”.

But when the guest list swells to 1,000 plus, that's when things start to get out of hand...

Criticature: "Touche pas à la femme blanche" ('Don't Touch the White Woman!' (1974))

If indifference is a disease then one might start analogize the artists of society as the doctors who fight it. And as far as this one loaded yawp is concerned, there’s about as much lasting power as a handful of Walgreens tylenol. 

This Franco-Italian Western set in the heart of 1960s Paris takes an absurdist look at the Battle of Little Bighorn in a way that is about as subtle as a scalping.  As irresistible as all that sounds, it makes for typical bleeding heart boredom.

Review: "Uncertainty" (2009)

As irresistible as this film appears to be, don’t be thrown by the pretenses of the “indie virus”. Now, you may be unfamiliar with the aforementioned malady but let me be plain: it is no laughing matter.

Beware. The contaminant is subtle but significant. Its deception, of both the makers and the viewers, is tempting and total. It occurs when a fledgling director has taken the necessary steps to acquire a basic knowledge of films and its techniques. Armed with the insularities standard of higher education these starry-eyed kids brimming with ego try out every tool at their disposal, bombarding their audience in an attempt to prove just about anything.

“Uncertainty” is among the infected.

Criticature: "Starter for 10"

Writing negative criticism is fun. I admit that much. It’s definitely more fun than writing something that is gushy and overflowing with praise. And it is precisely for such reasons that the following review of Tom Vaughn’s charming college-bound coming-of-age tale is only going to be somewhat amusing. Because that is what the movie is.

In step with a wave of nostalgic 80’s-themed retrospectives of the last decade or so, “SFT” follows whiz-kid Brian Jackson (McAvoy) during his freshman year at Bristol as he attempts to prove his worth, both to himself and to his romantic pursuits, on the quiz show University Challenge.

Thoughts: The Kids of "Waiting for Superman" Make Me Want to Cry

I once had a teacher in 8th grade who everyone hated. For the sake of privacy let’s call him Mister K. He was a bit older. Gray hair and bags under his eyes. His face had a sort of droopy quality to it and he always wore memorably nondescript sweaters and herringbone shirts. But as I said, everyone seemed to hate him.

There were a lot of reasons why people claimed to dislike him. Either he gave out too much homework or was too easy. I heard that he was unfair and would mete out punishments on personal whims. Other people attacked his personal life, layering rumors about the campus regarding Mister K’s his ex-wife. Some people even said he used to ogle the girls.

A Review in Tandem: "Elektra Luxx" (and "Women in Trouble")

I’ll admit that I was a bad critic when it came to this movie. I didn’t approach it with a clean slate. I stumbled in actually wanting to like it. Wanting desperately to capture some semblance of quality or cohesion or subversive wit. But before I take this apology any further I must state that I wasn’t the only one who broke the rules. Director Sebastián Gutiérrez also shattered some cardinal precepts when he made “Elektra Luxx”, a tentatively-rendered sequel to his oddball sex comedy “Women in Trouble”.

Part deux of a proposed trilogy (the upcoming installment appropriately or inappropriately titled “Women in Ecstasy”), “Luxx” has all the same parts that made “Women in Trouble” great (at least in my mind).

Review: "Tales from Earthsea"

So I think I’m one of the few people who saw “Cars 2” and actually didn’t hate it. Yeah, the concept to me was always a little strange but I got what they were aiming for: the car lovers.  I detected a lot of the inside jokes but I was inescapably alienated from the material.  Therefore, I appreciate how easy it would be for others to feel the same way (before kind of tearing John Lasseter a new muffler, as it were). Ah, the life of a black sheep; so easily misunderstood.

But “Tales from Earthsea” is another matter.

Review: "Kapò" (1961)

I was researching the background on this film and found surprisingly little details. What I did find hardly does “Kapò” justice. Verbatim, the plot summary reads thus on IMDb Pro : “A young Jewish girl leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp.”

This almost makes me want to vomit with rage.

Review: "Management"

Unrequited love.

 I do not wish to understate my degree of bias in the writing of this review so bear with me here…

…because one might argue that Stephen Belber’s directorial debut is just another run-of-the-mill rom-com; ready and willing to join the rest of last year’s valentine’s detritus on the opposite bank of Styx. And in a lot of ways it is. Yet that doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t bring anything to the table.

We start things off with Mike (Zahn), a lonely night manager working at a ma-and-pa motel in Arizona. Suddenly he’s graced with the presence of a tightly-wound travelling saleswoman named Sue (Aniston) and it proves to be a game-changer in his humdrum life. After a casual fling in a laundry room and a trip back to home in Maryland, Sue of course assumes things will resume their normal pace. That is until Mike, hopelessly and awkwardly infatuated, follows her.

For Your Consideration: Movie of the Month

Don't believe in "isms".

Anybody familiar with the work of director Billy Wilder knows right off the cuff that he was a man who understood that nothing, despite of his occasional dramatic proclivities, can be taken too seriously. Not even a war.

You know, that cold one.

And if there was ever a man who could see the bright side of a German POW camp or the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, it was him. Take for instance this month's highlight: the 1961 motor-mouthed comedy of communists, commercialism and Coca-Cola, “One, Two, Three". 

Review: "Cedar Rapids"

I think my lasting impression of Ed Helms will not be as toothless Stu Price from “The Hangover”. It will be this one moment during Season 3 of “The Office” when his character, Andy Bernard, angrily (and literally) punches a hole into the office wall, to which he calmly replies: “That was an overreaction.”

And I’m certain that is why seeing him in this year’s new salesmen satire “Cedar Rapids” is actually quite refreshing. Rather than playing a sycophantic office drone or a whipped dental hygienist, Helms takes us one step further into the well-trod realm of the man-children.

What are man-children, you might ask?

Definition, according to the noted pundits at Urban Dictionary---noun, plural (‘child’—singular): “a grown man who is very immature, therefore considered a man-child.”

"Lebanon": Intellectual masturbation (with gun oil).

Is...is that garlic?

I remember the days when the dynamic movie-going duo—that is, my dad and I—were once a dynamic trio. I refer, of course, to the days when my grandpa used to be with us.

At the center of this inter-generational exchange were war movies. It’s an expansive genre that each of us had been exposed to at least some point in our lives. Each of us could relate to it in one way or another. The ultimate male-bonding experience, right? That said, 1998 was a big year for us.

Review: "Inception"---7/20/10

I doubt science fiction has ever looked this chic.

Over the course of the weekend, as I’d been tinkering over a few other projects, walking the dog, humoring my dad’s fractured ankle, and ruminating over a second viewing of this summer’s best (not to mention brightest) blockbuster, I came to realize that I was not suffering nearly the same degree of confusion that I had come to expect from Christopher Nolan. And I was a bit sad because of it. At one point during the film,  two women sitting behind me, who seemed to by tripping over the mechanics of “Inception” rather than the story, exclaimed “What’s going on?”

Review: "Predators" 7/14/10

You...one....ugly...mothaf*cka...

The law of averages gives us a cheap, mathematical kind of hope. But it’s hope nonetheless. After two films of such stunningly bad quality as "AVP" and "AVPR", I was starting to wonder if 20th Century Fox had forever squandered one of the most beloved creature-feature franchises this planet has ever known. But just as I was about to rig up another Paul W.S. Anderson dummy in effigy, I happened to stumble upon Nimrod Antal’s “Predators”, a surprisingly faithful reboot of John McTiernan’s singular action classic (let’s face it, the 80’s was only man enough to only handle one Predator).

Review: "Robin Hood" -- 6/1/10

If you’re expecting Russell Crowe, in all of his ham-fisted glory, to slice through a length of curtain with a rapier and make like Tarzan through a candle-fraught plywood castle, then you might be more than a little sad. Still other tragic moments abound in the tradition of Lincoln green spandex: Alan Rickman is no longer the Sherriff of Nottingham. The Merry Men don’t have any musical numbers. There’s even a slightly tragic overlap of William Wallace-ness.Yet where the movie fails to hold up to the exacting demands of a woodland bandit's largesse—oft-personified in the creed 'steal from the rich n' give to the poor'—this update remains more than faithful in spirit.

Review: "Iron Man 2" - 5/17/10

"Eat this, Andretti."

It’s amazing the way one churlish grin from Downey Jr. telegraphs to the rest of us to leave our spidey senses and batarangs at home. But I guess, for an actor who’s as disarmingly impish as he is, it comes with territory where you’ve had to see how bad things will get before you can see how good they are. So with one wise little wink and a nod from our man, and you know that to expect the same serious sensibilities to which most other franchises have attached to themselves would be asking a bit too much. It’s a refreshing fact that most of us appreciate about the first installment of John Favreau’s take on the prodigal entrepreneur turned mechanized wonder.

Review: "Knife in the Water" - 5/13/10

"Come on Bishop, do the thing with the knife!"

You know what? Roman Polanski has had his fair share of a life. I think we can all agree with that. But I guess even great directors can’t really escape their personal lives. Especially when one’s extracurricular activities involves underage girls, Quualude and sodomy, am I right? All pedophilia jokes aside, this guy has quite a story though, as a Holocaust survivor and having had his pregnant wife butchered by the Manson family. In light of such darkness, can’t we just give the guy a pass this one time? I hope you don't take that sentiment as any kind of Freudian slip, hmmm?

Criticature: "Play Misty for Me" - 4/25/10

Oh crap.

Who would have thought that Jessica Walter (now 69 years old) could have spun two separate strains of crazy out of the same well of pluckiness? Somehow, though, she does. Except where one is loveably uncouth and spirited, the other is the stuff of Casanova’s nightmares. It's hard to believe. Especially for those of us who saw her as Lucille Bluth first. It’s like going from B to A. And I'm not afraid to say that I would’ve been the last to guess she’d be making whoopie with Clint Eastwood. But here we are.

Criticature: "Un Prophete" - 4/25/10

I KEEL YOU!

What makes a good prison movie? The sheer volume of convict chronicles might suggest that the devil is in the details. But then what details make or break a mold we’ve seen and joked about so many times? Machine shops? Time spent in ‘the yard’? Solitary confinement? Protection dues? Conjugal visits? Shivs? Corrupt guards? No, wait. I got it…shower scenes, right?

Review: "Kick-Ass" 4/19/10

Go Ninja, go ninja, GO!

No doubt you’ve gotten your senses (if not your ass) kicked by the viral ad campaign that’s been sweeping every which way in the last few months. And if you’ve caught any of the red-band chaff then you know that the movie’s allure pretty much hinges on its extreme violence, a decidedly uncharacteristic attribute of the men-in-tights genre. In that vein, think of this as the schlocky Clockwork Orange of superhero films, except where Alex DeLarge was essentially the rapist version of Dennis the Menace, Dave Lizewski—a naïve boy wonder who decides he’s had enough of the dull life and suits up to kick ass—is kind of like a masochistic Michael Cera who has a hard time keeping it in his pants. Which is good for us. Because it’s funny. I think...