Not much
news worth mentioning, so how’s about a quick roundup of some crappy-looking
new trailers? Sure, who wouldn’t want that for their Wednesday evening? Stay
inside, avoid the lovely weather and park yourself down in front of the computer
for some gibberish. The good life.
Well,
let’s start with the new trailer for the Farrelly brothers take on “The Three Stooges.”
The first one was wholly
unimpressive and it’s good to see the lads are consistent. This new trailer is
also very unimpressive.
There’s loads of slapstick
violence that just somehow lacks the charm of the original. Also, this new
trailer seems to have swapped Sofia Vergera in for Kate Upton. I guess
depending on your preference, that’s either a good thing. Kind of a push
really.
Oh well, it looks awful so let’s
all not see it.
And then we’ve got the red band “Piranha
3DD” trailer. This is pretty much the exact same thing as the first trailer for
“Piranha 3DD” except it features a lot of… hmm… not sure if I’m allowed to say
this word on the internet, but I’ll try… boobies.
Hopefully that word didn’t get
censored. As of now, a SWAT team hasn’t come crashing in through my window
which means Rick Santorum isn’t president yet and the internet is still a bastion
of freedom and immorality. Like god intended.
Anyway, I’ve been over my
feelings on this movie. Not all that interested anymore. But hey, can you
believe “The Dark Knight Rises” comes out this year? I know! So awesome!
Credentials: 3%, Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com) / 3.3
out of 10 (Imdb.com) / 23 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)
Plot: Jack (Adam Sandler) is a successful--- and very douchey---
advertising executive, living the dream in LA. The only blemish on his idyllic existence
surfaces every Thanksgiving --- his twin sister Jill (Adam Sandler). Jill is
whiny, nasally, loud and extremely annoying. Usually, Jack can’t wait to be rid
of his sister, and this year is no different. That is until she inexplicably becomes a key figure in a business deal that could make or break Jack’s company.
Before you can say “Everyone stop shouting,” Al Pacino shows up playing
himself, dozens of ex-SNL cast members get to come out of hiding and poop jokes
start flying like it’s a playground full of first graders. Woopie. Oh yeah and
Sandler once again gives himself a disproportionately hot wife (also played by
Adam Sand… oh wait I mean Katie Homes).
Why it stinks: Look, let’s not beat around this bush on this
thing. We’re all good, honest, apple-pie eating and god-fearing Americans. We all know why “Jack
and Jill” sucks. It sucks because Adam Sandler did it. It sucks because he hasn’t
been funny in years and yet people keep going to see his movies, which causes
other people to give him money to make more movies.
Just
when Sandler’s career seemed to have finally bottomed out after 2007’s vile “I
Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” he whipped out a dress and a jackhammer
and screamed “rock bottom be damned I can, nay, will do worse!”
And here we are.
There is nothing more creatively
bankrupt than the male comedian in drag routine. Yes, Eddie, Tyler and Martin I’m
looking at you three geniuses, as well. Guys in drag aren’t funny enough to
carry a movie anymore.
So “Jack and Jill” gets all of its
laughs the cheap way: celebrity cameos. There were two highlights for me: one ex-SNL “Weekend
Update” anchor and one super-celebrity/deity. That’s about all the pleasure I was
able to derive from this nonsense.
Story-wise, I almost wish Sandler
and crew had just stuck with the whole “houseguest from hell during the
holidays” angle. Instead, they elected to concoct this idiotic idea tying Jill
into Jack’s business deal.
Long story short: Al Pacino falls
in love with Jill (remember: Adam Sandler) and unless she falls for him, Pacino won’t do
a commercial for Jack’s company. Ugh. Pacino has an Oscar for god sakes and now
he’s doing this crap. Also: Someone needs to do a study and find out when Pacino
officially stopped acting and just started shouting all the time.
All that’s bad enough, but I honestly
couldn’t decide who I hated more Jack or Jill. We’re supposed to side with
everyman Jack and root against the nightmarish Jill--- at least initially.
Trouble is, as Jack, Sandler just comes across as a mega-douche. Both
characters end up being completely and utterly intolerable and we have Sandler
to thank for that.
There are enough go-nowhere subplots (involving Jack's psychotic kids, parents and friends) to fill at least two Sandler movies. That's saying something.
Worst of the Worst
At one point Jack dresses up as
Jill to woo Pacino. So Sandler's playing a character playing a character he also plays. Remarkable. Also remarkable: People were PAID to write this.
Video Evidence
There you have it, “Jack and Jill.”
Bumblebee tuna.
What’s
there left to say about “Human Centipede” director Tom Six that hasn’t already
been said about a backed-up septic system… or milk left out under the scorching
July sun?
Let’s
get this over with. The guy behind the low-budget, gross-out series took to
Twitter--- they’ll let just anyone on Twitter these days--- to shed some light
on the third and god-willing final chapter of the “Centipede” saga.
Six
said: “#humancentipede3 will have a 500+ person pede. XXXXL American style!” He
added that it “will feature a porn-style centipede the size of one of those
porn star sex competitions.”
Of
course it will. After the hurricane of gross that was part 2, man needed to top
himself somehow. My guess is for part 4, Six is just going to show up in
theaters and take a dump in audience member’s popcorn.
To the
handful of people who support this man, enjoy. You’ve earned it.
I’ve
been over my thoughts about Dimension’s idiotic decision to delay the release
of “Piranha 3DD” already.
Well,
the thing finally has an official release date: June 1.
When “Piranha”
was due to come out in November, I was excited. Now it’s scheduled to come out
about a month and a half before “The Dark Knight Rises.” Needless to say, my
obsessive personality is a little occupied with that film.
Also, I’m
not sure how wise it is to try to open a John Gulager movie in the summer.
Better to just fly him under the radar, but what do I know?
MEH, either way you ruined it for me Dimension. I should have seen this three or
four times by now, instead I’ll only see it once, Sad times.
It’s
just like that old song says: “What the world needs now are vampires… more vampires.”
I think that’s how the song goes, but either way, it’s the truth.
There
really is a startling lack of vampire fiction in the entertainment sphere these
days. I mean, off the top of my head I can only think of the “Twilight” films, “True
Blood” and “Vampire Diaries,” the “Fright Night” remake, the “Dark Shadows”
remake and “Being Human.”
The world hungers for more
vampires.
And if
there’s one man we can all trust to satiate that hunger, it’s Alexandre Aja,
director of such films as “Piranha 3D,” “Hills Have Eyes” (Remake) and “High
Tension” (or “Haute Tension” if you’re pretentious). It should also be noted
that Aja, for reasons that don’t need to be explained, is also my nemesis.
Anyway,
Aja is in negotiations to direct the big screen adaptation of the vampire comic
“Undying Love.”
“Undying
Love” tells the story of an ex-soldier in modern day Hong Kong who falls in
love with a beautiful woman. One problem: She’s a bloodsucker. So, he goes off
on an epic quest to kill the chief vampire, thus freeing her from her curse so they
can be together forever.
Finally, a vampire love story. It’s
about freaking time!
No shirts were harmed during the making of this franchise
Welcome
to Tweeny
bopper heaven
I’d
advise you to put in your earplugs riiiight now. You’ve been warned.
So, it
seems the trailer for “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2” will be showing
before “The Hunger Games” when the latter hits theaters on March 23. (Puts
fingers in ears, waits for unearthly shrieking to subside)
If you’d like your ear drums to
remain un-ruptured, you might want to steer clear of theaters for a little
while, seeing as though these are the two most popular non-Harry Potter books
for young girls in recent memory.
God the
only way the midnight showing of “The Hunger Games” could be any more of tween
girl heaven would be if Justin Bieber was selling popcorn and Taylor Swift was
ripping tickets.
I’ve
heard good things about “Hunger Games,” though the whole idea of a dystopian
future where people fight to the death on TV for food was handled pretty
thoroughly already in “The Running Man”--- both movie and book.
But
hey, let the kids have their fun. How’s about the rest of us go out for ice
cream sundaes and mini golf that night? No kids as far as the eye can see.
We have a saying around my house: You live by the sword, you
die by the sword. It’s one of those family things, you know. We write it to
each other in Christmas cards, say it before meals, have it tattooed on our
wrists.
Usual
stuff, really.
Anyway,
that old family motto seems extremely appropriate in regards to this story.
George
Lucas, the king of the tinkerers, has just had his films tinkered with… by
someone else! Burn! Extra burn? The man responsible is none other than… Topher
f’n Grace star of “That 70’s Show” and uhhh other things.
Grace
took Lucas’ three “Star Wars” prequels and edited them together into ONE 85
minute long movie. That’s one hour and 25 minutes. The length of your average
Adam Sandler movie. The prequel trilogy originally totaled almost SEVEN hours.
Holy lord.
Among
the highlights of Grace’s edit:
Jar Jar
Binks is reduced to ONE line
Jake Lloyd’s
young Anakin is totally gone
No
General Grevious (Sad)
No
Trade Federation, midichlorians, Gungans, etc.
Basically,
Grace cut out all the fluff and crap and left 85 coherent minutes that tell basically
the same story (Anakin’s rise and eventual fall) without wasting everyone’s
time.
Grace
screened his cut in Hollywood for a group of his friends and that will likely be
the end of it. There are obviously copyright problems that go along with this
kind of project. In order for anything more than the occasional private
screening to take place, Lucas would need to grant permission.
And let’s face it, that seems…
unlikely isn’t a strong enough word… snowballs have better chances in hell.
Apparently, Grace’s version is
pretty good. So “Star Wars” geeks everywhere can take solace in the fact that
Lucas, the perpetual changer of his films, has finally gotten beaten at his own
game.
Credentials: 3.9 out of 10 (Imdb.com) / 14% Certified Rotten
(Rottentomatoes.com) / 22 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)
Plot: A group of college kids head to a remote lake house
for some premarital relations, boozin’ and other assorted acts of youthful debauchery.
Sadly, their fun-filled weekend takes a turn for the worst when a gang of
hungry sharks show up and crash the party. And not just your run-of-the-mill
sharks either, but all sorts of strange and exotic sharks including hammerheads
and this weird kind that lights up. What a world. Anyway, all this gives rise
to one very important question: Who will make it to graduation and uh what will
be left of them?
Why it stinks: This should be pretty easy. I can sum up
everything that’s wrong with “Shark Night 3-D” in two letters and one number:
PG-13. What jabbering lunatic thought THAT was a good idea? I mean honestly,
making a PG-13 film called “Shark Night 3-D” is like putting sunglasses on the
Mona Lisa--- what’s the point?
Sure, “Shark
Night” tries to pass itself off as existing in the same trashy, gimmicky, exploitation-y
vein as “Piranha 3-D,” but it’s not. Not even close. The rating makes all the
difference.
Subtract
the endless amounts of gore and scantily clad ladies from “Piranha” and you get
“Shark Night.” And instead of a rollicking good time, what you get is boring.
Seriously boring. Really, really f’n boring.
Basically
“Shark Night” ends up at about the same level production and story-wise as a
Scy-Fy Channel movie, only without the self-aware, so-bad-it’s-good humor to
save it.
The
special effects are sad. We get some cheap-looking CGI sharks and even a few
rubber puppets that characters get to wrestle around with in a shallow body of
water “Bride of the Monster” style. Hang your head in shame, effects
department.
The acting
is what you’d expect from this sort of movie… not great. To be fair though, the
likes of Donal Logue (always fun), Katharine McPhee (very pretty) and Joshua
Leonard (totally unrecognizable from his “Blair Witch” days) make it tolerable.
At times even mildly enjoyable. So well done to those three.
Can’t
say the same about Dustin Milligan, who plays Nick, a med school student,
videogame nerd, loser who also happens to have a six pack. Wait what? One of
those things doesn’t belong. Hmmm… Anyway, Milligan spends most of the last
two-thirds of the movie taking off his shirt and diving into bodies of water
which gets pretty old and his goody two-shoes character irritated the hell out of me.
Now, truth
be told, I saw this thing in 2-D instead of its native 3-D. So perhaps I missed
something. But I doubt it. There wasn’t even the traditional 3-D staple of a
character playing with a yo-yo. Even “Avatar” had that… duh.
--- The origin story of the sharks has to be addressed because it is such a steaming pile of nonsense. But I don'r want to ruin it, so I'll just say it's got a dash of "Scream 4" mixed with a hint of hillbilly. Where the money or the resources came from for this project, well god only knows.
--- Leading lady Sara Paxton looks too much like one of the "Gilmore Girls." Confused the hell out of me.
--- Absolutely NOT so bad it's good. Just bad. Bad bad. The kind of bad that makes kittens cry.
Worst
of the worst
One of
the college kids has his arm bitten off by a shark. The kid is understandably
traumatized by this experience. For like 10 minutes. Next thing you know, he’s
running into the lake with what I can only assume is a homemade spear in order
to get revenge. On a shark. And by god he wrestles with the shark and
everything. Despite having his arm amputated very recently. I mean wow. It’d be
funny, but… I don’t know. It’s just not.
Video
Evidence
Poor Katharine. Oh well, at least she's got a show on CBS so things are looking... it's on NBC? Girl, you need a new agent...
There
you go. Sorry for the lengthy break between reviews. Bumblebee tuna.
God,
not much going on in the world of crappy movies. Just some more trailer talk.
Although, this one is a bit of a doozy.
Doesn’t
Adam Sandler have enough money yet? I mean for the love of god does he REALLY need
to force feed America 3-4 lousy movies every stinking year?
Take
some time off, Adam! Go see the world. Maybe try your hand at carpentry or
something. Just stop making movies for a while.
His
latest, “That’s My Boy,” is rated R! Oh boy! So that means we can say the
script is comprised entirely of “shit jokes” instead of “poop jokes.” Great.
Even
better is the fact that Andy Sandberg is also in this thing, playing Sandler’s
kid. The only good thing Sandberg has ever done that didn’t involve Justin
Timberlake was “Lazy Sunday.” Otherwise, to me, he’s a physical embodiment of
the steaming crap storm that has replaced “SNL” for the last decade or so.
Anyway,
Sandler plays a deadbeat man child of a dad whose own son has gone on to great
success. Turns out the father hasn’t been paying his taxes, so he goes to hit
up the son for money. Along the way, the dad learns some sort of life lesson
about the importance of family. Or something. Who cares.
Sandler,
please, think of the children. Your country NEEDS you to stop making movies.
