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Are You Laughing Yet?! <i>Mirror Mirror</i>, Reviewed.
Everybody involved with Mirror Mirror is trying to be funny. It's a strange, sometimes uncomfortable, sight to see, not unlike when a dramatic actor or an athlete hosts Saturday Night Live and you think to yourself, "Let's see how this is gonna work ..." And in the case of Mirror Mirror, it mostly p...
Release The Crappin'! <i>Wrath Of The Titans</i>, Reviewed.
1. Everyone looks so bored in Wrath of the Titans that I honestly felt bad for them. Sure, this sequel is an obvious quick-hit money grab, the sort of cash job that it's difficult to raise one's dander for, but hey, that's the reason most movies exist, after all. No, Wrath of the Titans inspires a p...
Why The Phony Ratings Controversy Over <em>Bully</em> Is Giving The Movie A Wedgie
Once upon a time, Harvey Weinstein, the unofficial king of independent film distribution, wanted to release a movie that shined a light on the harsh reality of teenagers' lives. But the harshness of that reality found him running afoul of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board, wh...
7 Ways <i>The Hunger Games</i>'s Bleak Future Is Exactly Like All Other Bleak Sci-Fi Futures (Except With Lenny Kravitz)
The Hunger Games finally comes out today, but already the movie's been analyzed from every angle: its potentially huge box-office numbers, why Katniss Everdeen is a female role model, whether or not it's the new Twilight, and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not Lenny Kravitz's stylist characte...
The End Of The World Will Be Announced By Pat Kiernan
About three minutes into 4:44 Last Day on Earth, an extremely indulgent and stupid movie that opens tomorrow and that you should absolutely not see, NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan stares into the camera and prepares us all to die. If the world is gonna end, if we're all gonna go out together, if that's how ...
<i>The Raid: Redemption</i>: Why We Love Our Ultra-Violent Movies
Audiences crave what they're not allowed to see. When you're a kid, there's an undeniable thrill in sneaking into your first R-rated movie, but even as adults we're suckers for the forbidden. That's why we can't get enough red-band trailers—oooh, extra swearing and nudity!—and why we'll buy the "unr...
Watch Teens Get Snuffed In A Sick Dystopia Where People Like Watching Teens Get Snuffed! <i>The Hunger Games</i>, Reviewed.
1. I feel I need to say this out front about The Hunger Games, since I'd never read the young adult book and wasn't quite sure what I was in for: This movie has a lot of on-screen child murders. Now, maybe on the page, this was less jarring, with the whole inherent textual not-having-to-look-in-the-...
Nicolas Cage, Dying (And Humping January Jones) Before Our Very Eyes
We have reached the point where the release of a new Nicolas Cage movie is less fodder for humor than it is an indignity upon everyone involved with its making. It is odd, actually, that movies like Seeking Justice, which will slink across 250 screens today, less a movie release than a walk of shame...
Will Ferrell, King Of WTF
Will Ferrell has a movie coming out this Friday, and there's a chance you aren't even aware of it. That's probably fine with him—although that doesn't mean he's not really proud of this film....
Say Goodbye To Mumblecore: How The Duplass Brothers Rise Above The Ramble
It's really easy to hate mumblecore. Not the movies—just that name. A collection of like-minded low-budget indie films about 20-somethings (usually white and pasty) trying to find their way in the world, "mumblecore" calls to mind all the weakest tendencies in these movies—specifically, their ineffe...
Channing Tatum Is Funny. Really. <em>21 Jump Street</em>, Reviewed.
1. It's surprising that it took this long for someone to mix the peanut butter of Apatowian bromance comedies with the chocolate of the buddy cop film. They're natural allies, with their undercurrents of false machismo, crippling fear of women and unmistakable male panic. It's tough not to lament th...
The Eddie Murphy You Love Is Dead
While suffering through this year's Oscars—ha ha, Billy Crystal kissed George Clooney, ha ha—it was hard not to think, "Geez, if Brett Ratner had kept his mouth shut, none of this would have happened and Eddie Murphy could have been the host." Indeed, the news last year that Murphy had agreed to hos...
<i>Silent House</i> And The Rise Of The Gimmicky Horror Movie
On Friday, the horror movie Silent House comes out. One of its selling points is that it stars Elizabeth Olsen—who was terrific last year in a very different sort of horror film, Martha Marcy May Marlene—but probably the hook that will be most intriguing to genre fans is that the whole movie takes p...
They Don't Make Alien-Punching Movies Like They Used To. <em>John Carter</em>, Reviewed.
1. I know that the main reason John Carter exists right now is because the technology is available to produce it, that you can have armies of CGI characters that don't look ridiculous, that you can invent sprawling vistas of Mars desert, that you can have spaceships crash into spaceships crash into ...
The Oppressively Nihilistic Anti-Comedy Of Tim And Eric, Who Think You're Stupid For Laughing
Every week, Tim Heidecker, with Gregg Turkington (who also performs as Neil Hamburger), hosts a podcast called "On Cinema." Like every other movie podcast, it features two friends and movie nerds talking back and forth about a particular movie. The thing about "On Cinema," though, is that it's horri...
A Teen Movie That Really Wants To Offend You (And Show You Its Boobs). <em>Project X</em>, Reviewed.
Project X is one of those movies I suspect really, really wants certain people to give it bad reviews. Produced by Todd Phillips, the director of the Hangover movies and Old School, this teen comedy has set its sights on nothing less than being the most shameless, most titillating crazy-party film e...
What Happened To Robert De Niro? <em>Being Flynn</em>, Reviewed.
1. When did we lose Robert De Niro? The popular image of Robert De Niro, America's Actor, Master Craftsman, Maestro of Method, has lingered in the public consciousness in spite of his work over the last 20 years rather than because of it. De Niro these days seems far more interested in being The Pub...
There Is A Tim Tebow iPhone Game, And It Is Terrible
While the iTunes Store exploded with Tim Tebow-related apps in the heyday of Tebowmania, none of them really qualified as "games," most being trivia or Bible-related. Sensing a gap in the market, an outfit called TriStar Games (presumably no relation to the film studio) released "Tebit Time" earl...
Nyjer Morgan Was On The Red Carpet For The L.A. <i>Twilight</i> Premiere Last Night
Nyjer Morgan—or his alter-ego Tony Plush, depending on your take—is a tremendous weirdo. He flies kites when he gets prompted by his Twitter followers. He gives interviews in character. He might actually be a little bit insane. And to add to the tally: he appears to be a legitimate fan of the Twilig...
David Foster Wallace Wrote A Book About You
When David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest was published in 1996, the publicity-shy author was catapulted into the literary spotlight and heralded as the heir to Thomas Pynchon. The thousand-plus page novel—whose plot is vastly sprawling and fantastic but essentially revolves around a lethally ...