Change Your Image
MrQuackie
Reviews
World War Z (2013)
Really --- Aren't You Sick of Werewolves, Zombies, and Vampires YET?
A Brief Prelude:
Kids were laughing about werewolves, zombies, and vampires by the 1940s -- is there really anything more to any of them? They've done them 'scary'. They've done them funny. They've even done them as mysteries, romances, and even *shudder* musicals. So the best I can figure is, as with gross-out comedies, producers keep making them for teens and brainless people (yes, I got taken in, too) to waste money on.
Case in point, World War Z.
Plus: Brad Pitt is in it. Minus: Script, Acting, Plot, Directing
My excuse? I took a chance because Brad Pitt makes interesting movie choices -- mostly. Wrong decision by both of us, in this case. Frankly, I find it very difficult to justify wasting even more time to go deeper. Suffice it to say that if you enjoy watching flashbacks of survivors (a la Blair Witch jigglecamery) telling you how scary it all was, or if you enjoy seeing Saganistic "billions and billions" of fractalized zombies crawling around -- this tripe is for you.
For the rest of us, we've been seen and heard all this before. Dreck!
Hypothesis (2010)
Just What the World Needs ... More BS
I'd write a more conclusive review, but that is exactly the problem. It would legitimize nonsense.
For those who wrote dissertations on how Eminem has advanced Western culture, cool. For anybody else, save the brain strain -- it's just another conspiracy theory in a world overflowing with them.
This was suggested to me by a wacky friend. I'm currently reviewing HIS status for wasting my time with this. The same guys who think the aliens have landed offer more tripe that fits with Ghost Hunters, Crossing Over, Roswell, etc.
PFFT!
That's My Boy (2012)
Pls, God, Let Adam Stop Making Movies ...
After seeing a new resurrection of the "Adam Sandler in Snowboard Accident" hoaxes from 2010, I decided to take a chance and see if anything changed. Nope -- still making armpit-level movies.
Sandler seems to put out a new movie every day. In that flood of crudity and junior-high level stupidity, he actually showed a flash of talent -- wit "Wedding Singer", for example. I figured maybe, if Adam stayed away from doing the Howie-Mandel-type "wee voice" that made him popular 30 years ago, in the 80s, if he stopped casting has-beens and movie chums, if he ... well, no luck. It's the same tired formula we've seen for years. The worst thing that can happen to a comedian is to have one of his bad comedies become popular.
If you've had your brain amputated, or if you are 8 years old, you will enjoy this. Otherwise, don't even waste time if they pay you $5 to watch it. Save the hour+ of your life and you will be grateful.
Jack and Jill (2011)
God to Adam Sandler: Please Quit Making Movies
Awful movie, replete with all of Sandler's worst "gags".
When you get the message, Adam? Porky's was 30 years ago. Put away the jokes about throwing up, passing gas, and every other elementary school cliché. Your audience of (lowbrow) children, if not any smarter, has at least grown up. They are not as interested in bodily functions as they were in kindergarten.
Sandler's movies, like those of Tom Green and John Waters, are the bottom of the trash barrel, fit only for knuckle-walking dummies and their scary offspring.
Wish I could give it a -10.
Angels in America (2003)
Should be called "Gays in America"
HBO should have advertised the movie, "Angels in America", in the way the play was touted: "A Gay Fantasia on National Issues". For indeed, gay issues are the soul, substance, and thrust of this adaptation. After watching this debacle, I think it should be called "Gays in America".
The movie is a screen adaptation Tony Kushner's Broadway play from 1991. As in the play, the author is definitely in command of the material. But while the original work was a ground-breaking examination of AIDS and social attitudes toward homosexuality, in these times the material is clearly worn and dated. By setting the play in 1985, AIA neatly sidesteps recent advances in the very gay issues that it is based on. This is a mixed blessing because it also denies a more uplifting tone to balance the bleak outlook of its inhabitants. Further, AIA fails to contribute anything original or to provide much of anything else that wasn't done more accurately in "And the Band Played On", more compassionately in "Philadelphia", or more humorously in "La Cage Aux Folles".
And pretensions to the spiritual? That's just plain silly. Like most current gay propaganda pieces, AIA struggles to blend Christianity and homosexuality into an existential issue of some larger scale, like merging Native American paganism and "the land". It wants to leave the independent emotional morass of its characters behind to find some sort of transcendence-via-lifestyle. This is one plane that just ain't gonna fly. In fact -- albeit through metaphor -- AIA falls just short of offering up the Prior character as a new Christ, given in sacrifice to atone the multitude of man's sins! (The "sins" in this case apparently being the failure to grant homosexuality the stature of sainthood). Thank heavens Kushner didn't take that idea any farther than he did ... because for all of the author's wriggling, people are just not going to buy the idea that being gay is on par with the religious experience.
AIA gets somewhat stagey in the second half, and the devices of fantasy sequences and schizoid reality-breaks seem overused and contrived in the first half. The movie might have played just as well without them altogether. That being said, the production values are uniformly solid, and the level of acting is outstanding. Pacino, Streep, and Thompson offer radiant performances, as does the ubiquitous Jeffrey Wright. Justin Kirk and Ben Shenkman are also worthy of note. They seem to be doing all they can with the material at hand. Mary-Louise Parker, on the other hand, overplays an overdrawn character, and is just tolerable in her role as the demented wife. She carefully manages to avoid capturing the haunted, other-worldly quality her character might have sought and achieves something just north of daffy. Patrick Wilson, as her husband, is positively stultifying. His stone-faced rendering of the sexually-repressed, zealously-religious Joe Pitt comes off as one-dimensional and cliché to the fourth power. In fairness, his was a thankless role, given the author and the material. It's hard to see how anyone could have done much with the part.
As for dialogue, the movie is certainly literate. To its credit, it tries to avoid well-hackneyed roads where it can. Though the characters tend to wax shrill and preachy in their condemnations of, well, just about everything between that lies between Reagan-era politics and religion, there is an equitable supply and distribution of good lines. But don't look for poignance or penetrating insights! This is Kushner, not Chayevsky. AIA often achieves intelligent exposition without sacrificing lucidity and focus or becoming too wordy (as adapted plays, understandably, often are). The dialogue doesn't quite keep pace with the quality of the acting, try as it will.
That said, the only revelations should be to people living under a rock or Dr. Phil devotees. I was left with the feeling that there is hardly anything to raise the viewer's eyebrows, much less dialogue about. What should we be thinking about regarding these issues that we didn't already tackle a decade ago? Sure, the graphic descriptions and depictions of AIDS symptoms are shocking, but the feel is more one of revulsion than enlightenment. (For example, Louis' blood-covered hand in the hallway scene with Prior. The viewer winds up knowing way more about explosive rectal exsanguination than he or she would ever really want, yet Prior expounds on it no less than three times in the first half alone! Hello-oo-o ... too much information!) We've already seen and tended to issues of gays and discrimination, gays and marriage, gays and the church, gays and the military, gays ad infinitum. I don't know about you, but if a movie doesn't offer something new or interesting -- particularly a movie that is as consistently in-your-face as this one -- I really don't care about it.
And that is the problem with AIA. It beats a dead horse that neither good acting, dialogue, nor even angels can resurrect.
So unless you are a homosexual or a die-hard Pacino fan, you'll probably feel more gratified spending the six hours watching "Philadelphia" a few times.
SpongeBob SquarePants (1999)
Nickelodeon=Bah / SpongeBob=YAY!
Rule #1: SpongeBob is NOT especially for:
a/ children. b/ dummies. c/ cynics.
To love SpongeBob, you have to get to appreciate the many subtleties, parodies, and references -- much as in the Simpsons. Only to lunkheads are SB or the Simpsons "just cartoons".
Okay, first things first. Nickelodeon has become garbage, let's get that straight from the top. (What the hell is with "Slime Time" anyway? Can they really think kids are so stupid that pouring slime over their parents' heads has them rollicking with laughter?) However, with "SpongeBob SquarePants", they booked a solid winner. At last check, the "Bring Back SpongeBob" petition, which wants new episodes to be made, had 35 thousand names. And that was months ago.
As a parent, having always to be values-conscious, this square yellow guy is the essence of fairplay, friendship, enthusiasm, optimism, honesty, and plain old joie de vivre. His "Im Ready!" song, for example, has him up and off to start his day with a positive attitude and spring in his step. He faces the same routine, but its a routine he cherishes, and he makes the viewers cherish it, too.
But SpongeBob has more depth than that. In most episodes, he faces a crisis (just as in most cartoons). However, (and unlike most cartoons) SB does fretting out loud, using this as a vehicle for often-telling commentary on our society. Just as telling is his eternal friendship with the lovably stupid, but loyal starfish, Patrick, and his devotion to his job at the Krusty Krab. His home, his friends, and his job are the centerpieces of his life. But with the help of a sturdy Bikini Bottom Ensemble -- themselves a sturdy and well-defined group of characters -- and through his upbeat attitude and broad parody, he brings a newfound joy to what would otherwise be the boring monotony of another day at the salt mines. And in this, there is a lesson for us all.
Each episode has a moral rock tucked away in the snowball. For example, the price of stealing is tackled in the "Free Balloon Day" episode (where they even manage to work in a comic turn on "The Treasure of Sierra Madre"). Then they examine friendship in the episode where SB and Patrick have a falling out. Then a lesson on being careful what you wish for, when Squidward moves to Squidworld. SB takes on profanity, violence, and a host of other social ills with equal dash.
I challenge anyone (see Rule #1 above) to watch four episodes, and if you still hate it ... then Im sorry for ya -- because SB is a delight! :)
Gigli (2003)
Good!
GOOD! Everyone who has been silly enough to spend money to see Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lopez in ANYTHING deserved exactly what they got.
Worse than almost any movie in history, the flick easily surpasses "Glitter" in the areas of inept acting, awful accents, fumblefooted direction, and moronic dialogue. The details are too atrocious to waste breath on. Suffice it to say that if you have a shred of intelligence or taste, don't walk from this pig ... run.
However, if you're a kid or maybe just plain stupid (say, for example, you thought "Freddy Got Fingered" was a 'kinda funny') ... then, line up at the video store!
Because J-Lo and Bennie have cars, houses, and swimming pools to pay off, and it would be impossible without the continued donations of suckers like YOU! :)
Signs (2002)
Stupid Ending for Marginal Movie
Well, the honeymoon for Shayamalan since "Sixth Sense" is over.
Forget the boxoffice numbers -- this is a big Shayamalan buildup that leads to a moronic conclusion.
The 'scary things' in this flick came off as tragic and pathetic. Teletubbies would give these creatures a run for their money. Incredibly lopsided, with nothing more than a hint of alien danger. No kidding -- by the end of the movie, I was rooting for the 'bad guys'.
And you will cringe in your seat as badly as I did when you find out what the big-deal, "Swing for the fences" message was all about. The ending was so utterly idiotic that I was embarrassed to have spent money to see it.
M. Night Shayamalan better watch more "Alien" and less "Crossing Over". Because a little more s*** like this, and I will be "crossing over" to watch some other director's movies.
Final verdict: Marginal, occasionally suspenseful fare -- but wait for the video, or you'll be kicking yourself. (You won't see it at the Oscars unless they've been taking stupid pills - guaranteed. And considering that the epic "Road to Perdition" is lagging behind the worst movie of 2002 ("Master of Disguise"), it looks like the youth-saturated audience has already finished the bottle.)
Like Mike (2002)
Save Your Money
Better titled "Li'l Bow Wow: Portrait of an American Moron", this film's primary job seems to be reinforcing negative stereotypes.
But then again, the only cause you would expect a movie about magical basketball shoes to advance would be stupidity, and only here does it not disappoint. I won't waste your time with the plot, because there isn't one. Suffice it to say that this flick continues that uniquely American brand of ludicrosity that suggests being uneducated and inarticulate is great as long as you can excel at sports. This idea is bad enough when foisted on adults -- much worse when our kids follow the lead of rap-prodigies whose marginally-intelligible, slang-choked dialogue reinforces the fact these kids should be attending school instead of ... um ... "entertaining".
But we can't pin the full weight of this fiasco on Li'l Bow Wow and the rest of the cast -- the rightful shoulders are those of the producers, writers, and directors. (Incredible that they hired writers for a basketball-jones rehash of "The Red Shoes"!)
Even if your one dream in life is shooting hoops, save your hard-earned bucks and wait for this garbage on Showtime. If you've already seen it ... well, you shoulda bought fireworks. At least then you could stand watching your money burn up.
Carpool (1996)
What Did You Expect from Tom Arnold?
From Tom Arnold, I never expect much, considering his background. (Roseann Barr's manager/husband, who sprang from the same Colorado trailer-park roots). Even so ...
"Carpool" tries to be an energetic circumstance-comedy, yet it winds up vacillating between frenetic and dull. When nothing is happening, you fall asleep, and when too much is happening, you wonder what all the fuss is about. Not worth going into more detail, but worthy of remark is the sad fate of Rod Steiger, who finds himself in his sunset years being bundled in with no-talent hacks like Arnold. David Paymer isn't bad either, but ... Rhea, why are you here? You'd think Danny could find you something better.
Oh, well. I gave it three stars (with two of them being a nod to Rod Steiger for his unrewarded role in "The Pawnbroker"). However, I had to subtract two for being any movie with Tom Arnold in it. Then I added one once more for Paymer's brave attempts to keep things afloat. Net result = 2
Damaged Care (2002)
A Compelling and True Story
"Damaged Care" is an often-poignant, always compelling look at the true story of HMO whistle-blower Dr. Linda Peeno.
Laura Dern's portrayal of a somewhat naive and vulnerable Linda Peeno is outstanding, with excellent supporting work from a solid cast. (One odd bit of miscasting is James LeGros as her husband, Doug. Inches shorter -- and looking ten years younger -- LeGros' character seems no match for Laura Dern's Linda. It might have worked better for LeGros and to switch roles with Adam Arkin, who did a fine, if thankless, turn as a health-claims lawyer.) Michelle Clunie gave a good performance in the interesting minor role of Linda's antagonistic secretary, Gemma, along with Suki Kaiser's underplayed (how could it be otherwise?) Dawn Dubose.
The lovely, haunting musical score and poetic narration cleanly underline and enhance this well-written, well-acted drama. Beyond that, the clear and present dangers of HMO practices that "Damaged Care" warns about are all too real. That alone would make this a must-see movie of 2002, though it offers much more.
Look for this one in the Emmy nominations.
Mission to Mars (2000)
Most fulfilling Sci-Fi ending in years.
How many times have you watched a sci-fi movie, only to be left high and dry at the end? Well, it won't happen with THIS movie, I guarantee you. It doesn't get any simpler -- watch the movie and wait for the ending, just to see the effects and understand the point of it all.
Rent it -- you just can't lose for the money.