Sutter is brash. Sutter is funny. Sutter has charisma. Sutter comes from a nice home and has a part-time job. Sutter is popular. Oh, yes. Sutter also drinks too much. Based on a novel by Tim Tharp and written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (“(500) Days of Summer“), James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now…
The “Cornetto Trilogy”, as people started calling it when the prospect of a third film reared its head and we all patiently sat through “Paul,” is surely something to be studied. If you don’t like “Shaun of the Dead,” people treat you like you’re some soulless homunculi poorly imitating human opinion, and with good reason….
Let’s face it, the sheer existence of the numeral “2” behind any film title automatically relegates said picture to the garbage heap of cinematic experiences (see “The Hangover Part 2” and “The Smurfs 2” as recent examples). Of course, there are rare exceptions where the sequel is better than or as good as the first,…
I’m told Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters is not the new “Twilight,” although I’m very skeptical of that — the trailer released today by The Weinstein Company to the roar of teenaged girls everywhere tells me I am right. Based on the Richelle Mead novel series, it features young, attractive high school girls (who happen to…
If the mind of “National Lampoon’s Vacation” director, Harold Ramis, was to morph with the unkempt, lewd intellect of Bob Saget or Louis C.K., you’d have the framework for We’re the Millers. It mixes harmless family humor with blandly offensive material, creating a slapstick comedy that, against what some may think is a good mix,…
The buddy cop genre gets a gender twist in Paul Feig’s The Heat, much as the pre-wedding shenanigans genre did in Feig’s 2011 film “Bridesmaids.” Both films are comedies full of outrageous moments that are determined to throw subtlety out of the window. Of an airplane. Into a volcano. Yet as important as it is…
If ever a motion picture suffered enough schizophrenia for a roomful of Sigmund Freuds, it’s 2 Guns, the newest effort from director Baltasar Kormákur (“Contraband“) starring Mark Wahlberg (“Ted“) and Denzel Washington (coming off of his Oscar-nominated turn in “Flight“). While the running thread of the mismatched black and white partners forced to work together…
