Ah, what would this time of the season be without another motion picture featuring sex, drugs, rock and roll (and loud, annoying rap, to boot), fights, prostitutes, female pimps, gun threats, corporate layoffs, drunk driving (among other idiotic things committed while intoxicated), psychological disorders, sacrilegious sequences, rampant vulgarity, sexual harassment, child abuse, serious physical and…
Oh boy. There’s nothing quite as middling or eyebrow-raising as a belated sequel, is there? 2003’s “Bad Santa” was a morbid, distasteful, apathetic middle-finger to more warm and fuzzy, politically correct holiday ventures and I absolutely love it. Upon hearing that a sequel was finally coming I was excited, although I knew it could fall…
In an effort to recognize every genre and cultural sub-group, Walt Disney Animation Studios has scored again with Moana, a tale recounting how Pacific Islanders traversed the South Seas in search of lands to inhabit. Here, a few archaeological facts are mixed with the Legend of Maui, a demigod/shape-shifter/adventurer who, with his trusty ivory fish…
One rule that definitely SHOULD apply for Rules Don’t Apply, “Thou shalt not let your main and most interesting character be overshadowed by two supporting actors that have neither the chemistry or the intrigue to carry a short feature, let alone a two-plus hour one.” But, like the moldy 1994 romcom, “I.Q.,” where Walter Matthau’s…
To Leonard Cohen, Eliezer who went just before the big wave rose. A bulldozer wanders the streets, threatening buildings in ruins through a little Polish village that little knows about its decay. It circulates through the narrow streets silently, streets that remain unwitting to its presence. A mobile bridge appears, a ferry. A lone passenger…
It’s hard to dissect a movie when you can’t even tell what it’s going for in the first place. Such is the case with My Dead Boyfriend, a bizarre dark comedy with a lot going on, but very little to say. As its only the second feature directed by prolific actor Anthony Edwards and based…
What a squandered opportunity for director Greg Mottola to churn out a generically noisy suburban spy spoof in the toothless comedy caper Keeping Up with the Joneses. Woefully strained and exhaustive, Mottola’s off-kilter espionage bag of cheap chuckles barely manages to scrape off a scattered selection of smirks here and there. It never takes full…
