watching movies one cup at a time

88 Minutes stars Al Pacino as Dr. Jack Gramm, a college professor and a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI. A series of murders are being committed that match the work of a serial killer on death row whom Gramm help send to prison. When Gramm receives a death threat claiming he has only 88 minutes to live, he uses his skills and training to try and narrow down the possible suspects and the connection to the murders before his time runs out. Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman and Neal McDonough also star.

To say this movie is getting ripped to shreds by the critics would be an understatement. Metacritic.com, which compiles reviews from movie critics around the world, has ranked the film at #3 on their All-Time lowest review scores. Having seen the film, I must say that while it is far from being a good movie, I don’t think it’s one of the all-time lowest. It’s got some tension, some mystery, and a couple twists. But ultimately the movie just collapses from it’s own laziness. It’s a lethargic movie that never matches the energy level it WANTS to be at. Instead, Al Pacino kind of sleep walks through this with wide-eyed confusion. Boring.

This movie is a time-travel sci-fi flick based on a short story by Ray Bradbury. I’m a sucker for time-travel sci-fi. I can’t get enough of it. But there have been so many time travel stories it has gotten very cliche. And often the logic and science loosely involved in these stories barely holds together. Well, A Sound of Thunder pretty much tosses out all attempts at applying logic to time travel. Almost immediately you can start picking apart the plot holes and watch the film go veering off into the ridiculous. It’s a true exercise in “suspension of disbelief.”

The story centers around a company that offers time-travel safaris to super-rich people who want to go back in time and shoot a dinosaur. Supposedly they have lots of safety protocols to make sure they don’t alter the past, but of course that all gets jacked up and the present begins to transform as the past sends “time waves” forward that alter the world to conform to the new history that has been created by altering the past. Pretty standard stuff as far as time travel stories go. Read the rest of this entry »

Since The Dark Knight opens today, they are playing a lot of the previous Batman movies on cable. Batman Forever was included and I’d forgotten how stupid it was. Way stupid. It’s the second worst Batman movie after the criminally terrible Batman & Robin. Val Kilmer is a terrible Bruce Wayne/Batman, just stiff as a board and looking bored the entire time. Nicole Kidman is a disposable vamp who is just filling in the cliche, must-have love interest role. Tommy Lee Jones is over-the-top in a bad way and just annoying, a total waste of his talents. And Jim Carrey… holy crap he needs to be shot! Over-the-top doesn’t even cover it. He blew the top off, ate it, vomitted it up, and blew it off again. And it’s all 100% stupid.

This movie really desperately wants to be Superbad but it is a much weaker and lamer version without any of the cleverness or heart. Superbad had a lot of crude humor but at least it felt genuine. This film just feels like one cliche after another strung together with beer and topless women. It’s pointless, not funny, and not worth it.

Yea, this kinda sucked. I think we all knew that going in. When Spider-man made $50 bazillion at the box office, it was only a matter of time before a horde of superhero flicks showed up, passed out by an all too eager Marvel Comics looking for some cash. So we get two Fantastic Four movies as they make a weak attempt at establishing a franchise.

The first FF wasn’t good and this one is actually worse. The story is paper-thin and so are the characters. Jessica Alba looks like a robot the whole time and any hint at drama from the first film is stripped away in favor of clich

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is the sequel to 2004’s Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, the stoner comedy that became a hit on DVD generating a well-deserved large group of fans. This sequel picks up immediately after the end of the first story as roommates Harold and Kumar set off on a trip to Amsterdam to get the girl Harold is in love with and of course do all the things stoner’s would do in Amsterdam. Things go terribly wrong however when they get mistaken for terrorists on the plane and wind up getting sent to Guantanamo. Wackiness ensues.

I really enjoyed the first film. I thought it was clever and well done with just the right balance of low-brow humor and good natured fun. But for the second movie it feels like the filmmakers took all the things I liked about the first one and tossed them completely out the window. Any cleverness, any subtlety, and any logical sense has pretty much left the building. Instead we get 100 minutes of wince-inducing gross-out humor strung together with a series of nonsensical skits that are neither funny or fun. While the first film was one adventurous night in Jersey, this film is all over the place for no apparent reason and with no apparent direction. Read the rest of this entry »

The commercials for this movie actually made it look pretty funny. And in general I find Will Ferrell to be very funny. So I was pretty surprised to find this movie to be not only unfunny, but basically pretty stupid. None of it makes much sense, it ignores a lot of the original character of the TV series it’s based on, it’s not funny at all, and most surprisingly there is a lot of foul language for a movie that’s based on a kid’s show. It’s rated PG-13 but I think that’s pushing it. I’m sure they were one F-word away from an R. It’s just crude humor that falls flat. Don’t bother with this one. A complete waste of time.

Way stupid. Pointless. Why bother? This movie is the direct-to-DVD sequel to 1987’s The Lost Boys, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and several other fine actors. The Lost Boys was a big deal to me in 1987. As a 16 yr old spending time in the 80’s punk/goth/alternative scene, it was right up my alley. And it was well done with a decent story and acting. So why are we getting a sequel 21 years later? They are about 19 years too late and must have spent all of those 19 years watering down this story into something paper-thin and ridiculous. All the good things about The Lost Boys are not here at all. Instead we get a lame story that would barely hold up on basic cable, the tiniest possible plot connection to the first film, uninspired and lazy directing, hacky and cliche’d acting, and no clear reason why this movie had to get made at all. Yuck. Don’t waste your time.

Musicals. When they’re great, they’re really great. And when they suck, they REALLY suck. I never saw Rent on broadway so I don’t have that to compare the movie to. But I couldn’t even get through this movie. It just got so annoying after awhile I gave up. In opera, the entire performance, dialogue and all, is sung and performed as a musical piece. So Rent tries to be that, but in a modern, “hip and edgy” kinda way. Big mistake. Trying to make this thing into a non-stop song was just plain stupid. These people walk from one situation to the next and are just singing nonsense constantly. It’s not like Chicago or Moulin Rouge where they’re singing some of the time. These people are ALWAYS singing. “Going to the bus? Let’s sing about it!” “Like to eat peanuts? How about a song!” “Dying of AIDS? Singing might help!” and after awhile I just felt like saying SHUT UP for 2 frickin’ minutes PLEASE! It maybe, MAYBE, would have been okay if the songs were decent, but the songs were TERRIBLE. Stupid lyrics, boring music, WAY over the top emoting going on. And the story was just plain stupid too. I had high hopes for this movie cuz everyone always raves about it. But like I said, I had to turn it off about half way cuz I could not stand another second of someone constantly singing these crap songs. The only song I did like was the one in the trailer. And that was in the trailer so why did I need to see 2 solid hours of songs that were NOT that one? No thanks.

This movie is based on a video game and oh boy is that obvious. There really isn’t much of a plot. Just a series of “spooky” images tied together with some vague story about a burnt down town and missing kids. Radha Mitchell just kind of sleep walks through this. She never, ever seems phased at all by whatever demons are headed her way. Sure, she screams and all the things you’re supposed to do. But it doesn’t feel genuine. It feels bored and rote. It really does feel like watching someone play a video game. Boring when it should be scary, silly when it’s supposed to be deep. Paper thin and ultimately pointless. You’ll have a better time probably just playing the dumb video game.