“Yogi Bear” is not a good movie, but it’s also not without its good points. It’s refreshingly innocent, with none of the snark and cynicism that dominates pretty much all aspects of pop culture today. (Imagine someone taking a movie from 1976, and updating the special effects.) Unfortunately, it’s also terribly naïve, written not just for children but from the mindset of one, where everyone is either good or evil with no in between. It also boasts some of the laziest 3D work to come down the pipe in ages. Spit takes, ahoy! Jellystone Park is not bringing in the…
Author: David Medsker
After “The Princess and the Frog” failed to live up to the studio’s usual holiday expectations (though the movie still took in a perfectly respectable $267 million worldwide), Disney was understandably concerned that their next animated release, an update of “Rapunzel” called “Tangled,” would suffer a similar fate at the box office, to the point where the first trailer they released for “Tangled” was so boy-friendly that Rapunzel only got one line. Even stranger, most of the amped-up footage in the trailer isn’t even in the movie. Those involved in its production could not have been happy with the studio’s…
There’s a good movie lurking in here somewhere, one where the main character – who’s simply known as Driver – isn’t impossible to find despite leaving a veritable trail of bread crumbs, one where he actually gets noticed in public thanks to his mug being plastered all over the evening news after killing a man. “Faster,” unfortunately, is happy to take the easy way out, and after a while it’s hard to tell if the movie is even aware that it’s bordering on self-parody. And the frustrating part is that even self-parody could have worked here, had it been handled…
The big buzz behind “I’m Still Here,” Casey Affleck’s documentary about the decision by his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix to walk away from acting in order to pursue a career in hip hop, is that the whole thing is a hoax. Affleck even works it into the plot, so to speak. The fact of the matter is that it’s difficult to tell whether or not the movie is a hoax. Unfortunately, it’s even harder to care. Ponderous, needlessly profane and at times embarrassing, “I’m Still Here” is a miserable viewing experience. If it’s fake, then Phoenix and Affleck will be viewed…
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I” is as good as one can expect from a movie that ends in the middle of the story. Warner Bros. had no choice but to split the final installment in the Harry Potter series into two parts – the book is over 750 pages long – but doing so leaves an unsatisfying feeling when the credits roll, that while everything that just happened was well executed and entertaining, it isn’t enough. The movie also has the “nerve” to let the characters breathe, rather than tossing them straight from this battle to that…
When chatting with comedian Bill Burr, be prepared to lose all control over the direction of the conversation. This isn’t intentional on Burr’s part, mind you; he just has a lot on his mind, so a simple question about his (hilarious) new DVD “Let It Go” will make him think of music piracy, which will lead to the hipster movement, and then, somehow, “The Social Network.” We were happy to play along, and occasionally ask him a question or two about going back to Philadelphia, his surefire method to get children to shut up, and lastly we introduce Burr to…
Three years ago, the Onion A.V. Club ran a list of great films that are too painful to watch twice. That list has a new Number One. Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” takes a hellish premise that Jigsaw himself would be proud to call his own – mutilate yourself or die! – and turns it into a moving and even amusing testament to what men will do to survive. Best of all, the movie is careful not to paint Aron Ralston as a victim because, well, he’s not. He got himself into this mess, and while his escape makes for a…
“Megamind” is good at keeping the audience busy, but only after the credits roll do you realize that most of it was just noise, an endless barrage of destruction that occasionally advances a story with very little emotional punch. It looks good, and has some good laughs, but it’s also cold, as if it either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that thousands of people are dying during the big battle sequences. There is lots of action, but no consequences. Life just ain’t like that. The story has fun with the origins of “Superman” as a baby Megamind (Will Ferrell) and…
Nothing about “Conviction” makes sense. For starters, how did this routine Lifetime Movie of the Week (with excessive profanity) get the green light to become a major motion picture? And once that happened, how did Fox Searchlight, the best and most tasteful live action studio working today, become its home? Lastly, how did they convince Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell, good actors both, that it was worth doing? Was it the faint whiff of Oscar bait? You’d think that Swank knows what that smells like, and this movie isn’t it. Set in rural Massachusetts in the year 1980, Betty Anne…
“RED” is like “Shoot ‘Em Up” for grown-ups. It’s silly but not too silly, armed with a well-scripted plot that stays on mission even when the action sequences color outside the lines. And what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in Helen Mirren with a gun, which should be a requirement of all movies from now on. Retired CIA “analyst” Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is bored out of his mind. He calls Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) and complains that his most recent government check has yet to arrive (even though it has) just to have someone to talk to.…