CooterPatooter

The film makers don't try to disguise their disarmament agenda behind this picture, nor should they. It's eye-opening and upsetting but the mood is often positive and encouraging, as though this is still a threat but it's a threat that we're gradually moving away from through diligence and knowledge. Recommended viewing for everyone!

A very strange and clever comedy starring Paul Giamatti as a semi-biographical version of himself. The soul-swapping premise is perfect for a 90 minute run time... unfortunately this runs at least 10 minutes longer than that. Subsequently, it gets a little draggy and derivative at times but the overall film is quite good. Another fine Giamatti performance to add to the long list of fine Giamatti performances!

A completely accurate documentary about the intelligence level of male fashion models. Very educational.

The book is my all-time favorite children's story and still holds up as a wonderful tale well into my adulthood. So forgive me if I take it a little personally when (the normally competent and entertaining) Spike Jonze comes along and turns it into a complete bore. On top of being a snoozer, the world of the Wild Things is as stale and spartan as you can get... the complete opposite of the lush world created by Maurice Sendak. There are also moments of scariness that I don't believe young children should see despite it's questionable PG rating. So yeah, it's a kids' movie that's unsuitable for younger kids. Good call on that one, Spike. Altogether a huge, thudding disappointment that I would like to say would have Mr. Sendak rolling in his grave... except he's still alive... and he has a producer credit in the film. So an unfortunate big thumbs down to one of my literary heroes. :(....

Abysmally paced, ridiculous crybaby dialogue-filled, on-the-nose sexually exploitative, nearly action-free, cantankerous, dark (not in a noir-ish way but in a literal "it's difficult to tell what I'm looking at sometimes" sort of way), leaden, flabby, incredibly overlong train wreck of a bullsh** movie. I've NEVER walked out of a theater before a film ended until Zack Snyder decided to make me look at Dr. Manhattan's **** for one agonizing moment after another for absolutely no reason. The four of us, exasperated, worn out... utterly soul-crushed by what we had already been subjected to leading up to this moment, finally gave up and left... LONG AFTER EVERY OTHER PERSON IN THE THEATER HAD ALREADY DONE SO! There's a line between just making a crappy movie and actually showing bald-faced contempt for your viewing audience. I'd say Snyder is definitely toeing that line, if not stepping over it here. All I know is that I'm still waiting for him to personally refund my $20. Jerk!

Aronofsky's unique eye and Clint Mansell's near-perfect scoring highlight this bold film about mankind's eternal struggle with the concept of death. The three stories flow together seamlessly and help each other weave a tale that takes place over a thousand years. The Fountain will break your heart many times over before it's through and you won't ever forget it.

Visually, this film strains the eyes like an unending neon kaleidoscope. Mentally, this film strains the brain like a science paper written by a 6th grade special ed student. Avoid at all costs.

A truly great suspense film. Shyamalan hits every nail on its head perfectly and creates a masterpiece of tension, timing and terror. It was a long and embarrassing downhill tumble for him after this, however...

Some good ideas that don't fit together very well. Feels slow and herky-jerky but there's still some good laughs to be had.

Probably Michael Bay's best film... and I did NOT mean that as a compliment!

A vast improvement over Spurlock's freshman effort. This time he takes a much more ambiguous position, neither approving of nor altogether discrediting the overuse of product placement in the media and our everyday lives. After riding a high horse on the subject of fast food in Supersize Me with questionable (at best) results, he decides this time to take a more muted and neutral stance. His intention in this film seems to be more about informing than finger-wagging, which shows a huge growth of character and maturity from his previous film. Crisp and entertaining but still harmed by a lack of interesting subject matter. I also tried POM Wonderful after seeing this film. It's good!

An empty husk of a film who's only goal is to depict an extended act of torture and execution. Unbelievably, families who would run screaming from films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre brought their children to watch a man have his flesh ripped from his body and nails hammered through his hands. This disgusting piece of exploitative torture-porn was screened in churches, schools and just about anywhere for reasons I cannot fathom. None of the teachings attributed to the Christ character exist here, none of the good things he supposedly did... just his gruesome, bloody demise. Halfway through this highly exaggerated beat down on film, I became convinced that Mel Gibson actually relished in depicting his savior being brutalized. The Passion of the Christ does nothing more than reveal Christian hypocrisy and expose children to some of the most hideous torture imagery ever conceived with no redeeming value whatsoever. Way to go, Mel! Way to go, parents!

A film that starts out in an intelligent and entertaining way but utterly collapses into a sluggish, head-scratching albatross in the third act. Although it apparently attempts to lampoon religion and its origins (which can't be done enough, in my opinion!), the last 40 minutes felt an awful lot of preachy bullcrap to me.

Easily the most horrid **** of source material ever put to film. Repugnant and just plain WRONG in every conceivable way. Bears no semblance to the fantastic TV and radio shows it pretends to be based upon. Written by troglodytes and acted by a gaggle of abrasive creeps with an end result on par with the very worst of the worst films in cinema history. Shameful, unfunny, repellent, shoddy and insincere buck-grabbing at its most egregious.

At one point the Lorax shouts "You've got to stop! This is BAD!" and I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony. This film is annoying, screechy, monkey-written and completely hollow... basically everything that Dr. Seuss WASN'T! Theodor Geisel would roll in his grave if he knew his life's work was being mutated into one horrendous movie project after another. For shame!

The label of "science fiction" doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want and expect audiences to believe it.

A bunch of unlikeable jerks grunting and cussing and punching and stabbing and running and shooting and hi-yaaing and sweaty boobs bouncing everywhere until all the jerks are dead and one jerk is left alive. Roll credits. So yeah, a WWE movie.

David Twohy took his solid Pitch Black film and spun it off into... complete and utter crap. With horrendous dialogue and tiny sets that look like they were built by elementary school kids for a school play, you're inclined to think that this is supposed to be a comedic parody of the first film. But no... the film presents the material with the same seriousness as a production of Hamlet or GlenGarry Glen Ross. Whatever. After slogging your way through one awful "action" set piece after another, the final battle turns out to be a joke where the universe-conquering, death-defying bad guy turns out to be a pathetic wet noodle who crumbles under Riddick's unstoppable awesomeness. Yawn.

Yet ANOTHER attempt to trick young viewers (and readers of the books) into embracing Christianity by disguising its main story points in a fantasy setting. But dishonest and underhanded proselytizing techniques aside, the film itself is still below average at best. By the time the film finally picks up pace... it's the end. A fairly exciting battle scene at the end featuring many different creatures is the one and only high point but prepare to sit through nearly two hours of marginally-disguised preaching to get there.

I probably could have done without seeing Ricki Lake's ummm... "thing", but her argument is compelling nonetheless. The American hospital system, at the corporate level at least, consists of for-profit businesses who don't always have your best interests in mind. These hospitals, in turn, are heavily influenced by for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies who definitely do NOT have your best interests in mind. Lake's focus on the extreme overuse of labor-inducing drugs and cesarian section procedures in the US, along with the arguments for "squatting" vs the seemingly-stupid "feet in stirrups" method of birthing are probably the most compelling points that she makes. However, the argument that "we've been having children at home since freakin' forever" doesn't necessarily cut it either. Old ways of doing things tend to die out for a reason. The solution should be to improve certain hospital practices, not necessarily to bolster expectant mothers with a "do it yourself" attitude. If the baby comes out bright blue, it's unlikely that a midwife can provide the same emergency care that a hospital staff can. But then again, empowering women to take back the control over their bodies that's been slowly stolen from them is an awesome thing too. It's a tricky subject that Ricki Lake can't hope to cover in 90 minutes but she does just enough to light a spark in the minds of folks who just accept the status quo.

Christian propagandizing piffle pretending to be an action-adventure movie. Apparently, after most people die and the rest are left to suffer in a living nightmare, we're supposed to feel good that a man (the messiah?) comes along and recites the bible. Exactly what has been solved or even improved in the slightest way? The Road does it a million times better and without the sermonizing.

You'll rarely hear me speak these words about anything starring Will Ferrel but I gotta call it as it is... this is a genuinely funny movie. It works both as a silly comedy and as a lampooning of the ridiculous NASCAR culture. I had a great time watching this!

A fun film that was made back when Vince Vaughn was actually charming and Jon Favreau was actually in movies. I miss those days!

Start by being totally convinced of something and then try to invent an experiment to fit your preconceived notions... aka "exactly how NOT to conduct an experiment". Super Size Me fails at the most important level... the one where Spurlock is supposed to convince me that fast food is killing people. His weak concept involves him eating McDonald's food three times a day every day for a month and if asked, accepting the "super size" upgrade. In one scene he eats so much garbage food that he exceeds his stomach capacity and vomits. Then we're all supposed to be surprised and horrified that he (gasp!) gains weight. He mentions nothing about exercise, healthy snacking or other responsible living choices... just the same monotonous drone of "fast food kills... fast food kills..." He never seems phased by the fact that NOBODY eats freakin' McDonald's 84 TIMES A MONTH! Of course most McDonald's menu choices aren't healthy, but it's not intended to be a daily staple!!! As long as you consume it in responsible moderation, you wont gain an ounce. That's what RESPONSIBLE ADULTS do. If you don't want to eat fast food... then DON'T! And the irresponsible folks who can be saved from making bad food choices aren't going to be convinced by this halfassed production. The final joke comes at the very end when we're told that Spurlock's girlfriend (i think) is planning an entirely vegan menu to cleanse his body of the evil McDonald's effects. Yet another wild claim that's just assumed to be correct and isn't backed up by a shred of evidence, like the rest of this film. A mildly entertaining presentation of a completely bad experiment.

From the arena scene until the end credits represent one of the most amazingly fun and exciting 40ish minutes I've ever seen on a theater screen. From the opening of the film until the start of the arena scene represents one of the most stilted, badly acted, face-palmingly awful drags I've ever seen on a theater screen. A sizable improvement over the monkey-at-a-typewriter bull crap that was Episode 1 but this is still in a galaxy far, far away from the original trilogy.

The failure of this film comes from the rapid-fire and never ending series of embarrassingly awful decisions made by the two main characters and how easily they get away with all of them. Suspension of disbelief is the film makers' responsibility.

An unnecessarily overlong and depressing sequel that has Peter Parker happily embracing the dark side until minutes before the end credits roll. Having him change his mind at the last possible second and then show up in time to get his butt pummeled for ten minutes straight is a terrible way to end a franchise. Crying, blubbering and egotistical trash-talking abounds. Throw in Topher Grace as a criminally uninteresting and underpowered Venom (you can't be serious!!!) and you have a recipe for total meltdown. I suggest you pretend that Spider Man 2 was the final movie in the series and avoid this quagmire completely.

Greatest comic book movie ever. While a considerable improvement over the first in all areas, the choice of Alfred Molina as villain Doc Ock was beyond brilliant. A total joy to watch over and over.

The film opens with an old man collapsing to his knees under the weight of the guilt of having survived all those years ago. We see it in his tear-filled eyes and hear it in his trembling voice... This scene has the power to move me like virtually no scene in cinema history. The rest of the film is both terrifying and beautiful but it's those quiet moments of raw human emotion that Spielberg captures perfectly and makes Saving Private Ryan one of my top ten all-time favorites. A truly unforgettable experience.

Films like these absolutely MUST present you with characters that you make an emotional investment in. Otherwise, as they start dying off one-by-one, you end up shrugging and checking your watch rather than feeling their terror. See The Abyss for an example of how this is done correctly. The entire cast of Sanctum is so brainless and unlikeable that the entire heart of the film is DOA. It's annoying when the amateurs are still questioning and rebelling against the one guy who knows what he's doing 3/4 of the way through the film when he's been completely right all along. Ugh.

Not funny, not inspirational, not convincing, not entertaining, not memorable... actually it's not much of anything.

It will make Resident Evil purists and fans of quality film making alike puke their guts out for the duration. A lame 97 minute **** over Milla Jovovich, as if anyone cares about her any more.

I know this comes as lukewarm praise, given Anderson's horrendous catalogue, but this is his best film. Skip the rest of the series. Actually, skip this one too.

Is there seriously a market for this kind of "video camera horror" nonsense nowadays? Or have unimaginative copycat directors not figured out that we don't care about the crap they're peddling anymore?

War Zone is like a bomb going off in your TV. Its a nerve-jangling cacophony of noise and flashing lights and splattering DNA that doesn't bother with anything resembling story. But strangely, I couldn't help feeling slightly more entertained than I did with the Thomas Jane outing.

Roger Ebert said it perfectly. When your shot-for-shot remake turns out to have zero of the intensity of the original, it serves as excellent proof that **** sense of timing and atmosphere simply cannot be duplicated. Totally pointless and completely forgettable. Watch the original.

The character of Mr. Bean, perfectly designed for 10 minute sketches, fails to fill out an 85 minute run time effectively. There's a couple of great jokes, several bad ones and a whole lot of so-so ho-hum in between. I'm a huge fan of the TV show but neither of films manage to impress, regrettably.

They disguise how terrible the sets look by covering them up with an endless barrage of open-mouthed sweaty faces in extreme close-up. However, nothing can mask the god-awful squealing that passes as singing or the amateurish camerawork.

Are you kidding me? You remake Miami Vice and play it totally straight??? There's not a single moment of wink-at-the-camera humor, no recognizable references to the TV show (besides their names), no cameos... nothing! All you end up with is a listless, uninspired snooze-fest featuring some of the grainiest picture quality I've seen since the last time I watched an extended-play VHS tape. Atrocious handheld work makes the frame shake violently even during slow dialogue scenes, which is about 95% of this film. Michael Mann has always taken as much time as he wants to tell his stories, but at 134 minutes, Miami Vice is a bloated, boring, sleep-inducing nightmare that is nothing like Miami Vice I love... or the Michael Mann I love for that matter. Good grief!!!

Another of my all-time favorites. Deep, compelling and always toeing the line of audaciousness. Great cast, genuinely original and watchable a dozen times over. A masterpiece that got swept under the rug years ago, shamefully.... An absolute must-watch!!!

This film masquerades as a high-adventure war picture, but is actually at its heart, a simple and perfectly-told story of friendship and camaraderie. The pursuit of the French vessel, magnificent as it is, is just the backdrop to this elegant, emotionally stirring and intellectually powerful narrative. Easily one of my top ten favorite films of all time. All of the haters can go watch something that appeals more to their intellectual level, like Transformers 2.

Margaret Cho is tied with Dane Cook as the most consistently grating, phoned-in, fake, irritating, trashy and unfunny stand up comic in show business. This title does nothing to improve my opinion of her and I feel like I did her a big favor by even viewing it. Tripe.

Actually makes nature's lamest animal seem interesting.

By-the-numbers material about a closeted, currently-in-denial homosexual man (my opinion only and not necessarily that of the film) named Tom who decides to selfishly destroy the upcoming wedding of his friend because he decides at the last second that he wants her all to himself. All the "chick flick" cliches are in place and quite dull to behold. Wait... why am I even reviewing this???

The moment a young woman nonchalantly pulls a cell phone out of her cootch for no particular reason, this film hits rock bottom and never recovers. Unfortunately for Machete, this disgusting event takes place about 5 minutes in. A shockingly solid B-movie cast (Jeff Fahey, especially) is wasted in this exploitative trash that starts with a bang (the first few minutes, anyway) then instantly succumbs to an unambiguously and pretentiously preachy "illegal Mexican immigrants throw off the shackles of your oppressors!" narrative nose-dive. Utterly vile and the complete opposite of entertaining. Robert Rodriguez at his all-time worst, which is saying a lot, given his embarrassing resume.

The absolute pinnacle of Monty Python's career is represented in this zany romp through ancient Judea that runs parallel to the story of Jesus. Holy Grail has nearly all of the classic one-liners, it's still not as funny and certainly much rougher than this polished cousin. While definitely not for those who are unable to laugh at a lampooning of the roots of their Abrahamic faith or who squirm at the sight of full frontal nudity, Life of Brian is still one of my highest-recommended films of all time. Brilliant!

Besides being a springboard for Jet Li's Hollywood career (for good or ill, depending on your view), this film is just a forgettable, uneventful money-grab. The cuts between Gibson and his bad-wig-wearing stunt-double are some of the most unconvincing I've ever seen in a big-budget picture. But that stands as a great analogy for the entire film... slap shod, sloppy and unconvincing malarkey.

Lethal Weapon 2 represents the rarest of rare Hollywood enigmas: the superior sequel. It's tighter, funnier and more memorable, which is impressive given that the original was already well paced, funny and full of memorable moments. Take a trip back to the 80's and watch these two excellent action flicks but skip the later two sequels/money grabs.

Any early potential this film has as a comedy gets drowned out quickly by the self-indulgent, preachy whine of "See? Girls can do smart stuff too!"

It's actually impressive to me that this runs a meager 89 minutes and yet I felt as though half my life had drained away in that time. I can't even picture the most simple-minded good ol' boy enjoying this.