A fairly generic Disney film that packed no surprises or true laughs. What Works: A fairly generic Disney film that packed no surprises or true laughs. [Families will like this.] What Doesn’t: A fairly generic Disney film that packed no surprises or true laughs. [But I didn’t.] What I Would Have Done Differently: The Winter…
Category: Mindless Mondays
Movie Review: Old Boy
Nobody but nobody went to see this movie last weekend, and it’s barely still in theaters now. Why they opened an obvious Spring release during Thanksgiving, I’ll never know…there’s counter-programming and then there’s just stupidity. What Works: It’s Spike Lee’s remake of a South Korean thriller (which I haven’t seen but is supposed to be…
Redbox Round-Up: Beautiful Creatures, The Call, Gangster Squad, Broken City
Every now and then there’s a movie that slips through the cracks. [Okay, it’s pretty often…but hey, I’m one of the 10 people in America who saw Old Boy, that counts for something, right? No? Well okay then…] And what better way to catch up on crappy February releases–I mean, “forgotten gems from earlier in…
Mom Jokes: Older Employee Notice
Older Employee Notice! Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the economy, Congress has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early, mandatory retirement, thus creating jobs and reducing unemployment. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early). Persons…
Movie Review: Delivery Man
A typical lazy Vince Vaughn programmer (a guy donates sperm and fathers over 500 kids due to an error at the clinic and they want to know his identity) except that it feels a little bit quieter and moodier. It’s hard to say if this is because the film is trying to be honestly more…
TV Reviews: “Walking Dead” and Exactly Why “Treme” Isn’t Good
The TV cycle of life continues, as “The Walking Dead” ends (but is coming back in only two months) while “Treme” begins (but is ending forever after this five episode final season)…hmmm, maybe things are more complicated. The Walking Dead…I guess viewers aren’t the only ones who weren’t satisfied with the third season finale that…
Monday Morning Movie Review: The Hunger Games 2
This is the rare sequel that I think is almost exactly as good as the first one. Even though it’s slightly different (it’s less about the games themselves and more about the revolution against the oppressors who institute them), there’s no real dip in quality. And for a monstrously successful sequel to a film that…
TV Reviews: “Boardwalk Empire” Sputters to a Close as “Getting On” (Barely) Starts
HBO seems to be falling on tough creative times judging by its recent spate of shows. I love The Newsroom, but even I was rolling my eyes with the second season finale. True Blood is a parody of itself. Hello, Ladies is occasionally hilarious but too often feels like it should be called “Depressing Losers…
Movie Review: 12 Years a Slave
A great movie that some people may never check out because of reports of the film’s brutality. Yes, it is hard to watch in certain sections, but I think you’ll survive if you watch it. One woman sitting in the row behind me cried through about three quarters of it—-to the point of distracting other…
Movie Review: Blue is the Warmest Color
This one will probably be forever known as the “long French lesbian movie” and, on paper, it sounds like the ultimate cliche to have a three-hour French film centered around a young woman’s sexual development with other women. Oh, and some of the scenes are steamy enough that the film has an NC-17 rating, and…
Movie Reviews: The Excellent “All is Lost” is Worth Seeking Out
This deceptively simple tale of one man (Robert Redford in arguably the best performance he’s ever given) lost at sea and scrambling to survive is every bit the pared down, beautifully minimalist against-the-odds survival story that Gravity is. Now of course the box office for All is Lost won’t be anything close to Gravity, but…
5 Reasons Why Sundance Channel’s “Dream School” is My Nightmare
The Sundance Channel recently wrapped their six-part series “Dream School,” which features 15 kids who either quit their last schools or were kicked out, and will attend The Dream School filled with celebrity teachers in hopes of graduating high school. [Or something like that, we learned last night that the big test they took didn’t…
Movie Review: Dallas Buyer’s Club
A little rough around the edges, but it certainly won me over. It’s quite possibly the first gay-rights and “AIDs movie” that I think even rednecks might enjoy and that’s no easy feat. It’s as much about the struggles to get the best drugs past a sham-FDA as it is HIV. What Works: Matthew McConaughey’s…