We expected “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” to share the TV show’s frenetic blend of lowbrow humor and biting, take-no-prisoners wit. What we didn’t expect was for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make the best musical in 20 years. But that’s exactly what they did; “South Park: BLU” is everything you could possibly ask for in an adaptation. It’s savagely funny, it’s true to the core essence of the show, and it expands on the show in ways that television, due to content restrictions and time limitations, simply couldn’t allow. And the tunes rock. The movie begins with…
Author: David Medsker
As premises go, it doesn’t get much bleaker than a father trying to protect his son from murderous cannibals in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (though the lead character in “Precious,” twice impregnated by her father, could give them some stiff competition). I have not read “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but if it’s as joyless and hopeless as its movie adaptation, then it is surely the most horrifying book ever written. (My wife’s one-word review: “Dismal.”) Joylessness, of course, can be a good thing, if handled properly. Here, however, it’s joylessness with no emotional impact, sad for the sake…
Many have groused about the demise of the major studios’ indie branches (Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage, Warner Independent, etc.), but something strange and wonderful has blossomed in their absence – the major studios have begun to start thinking like indies, at least some of the time. Sony, in particular, has had a great year between the critical success of Sony Pictures Classic’s “Moon” and the massive commercial success of TriStar’s “District 9.” However, they have saved the best for their flagship studio Columbia: “Zombieland” is an instant classic, a road movie that occasionally breaks out into hilariously gory zombie madness. Self-aware…
This year’s most anticipated adaptation of a much-loved children’s book is…well, “Where the Wild Things Are,” Spike Jonze’s take on Maurice Sendak’s largely word-free story of one ornery boy. And if the pressure wasn’t already on Jonze to knock “Wild Things” out of the park, it certainly will be after people get a glimpse of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” the season’s other adaptation of a much-loved children’s book. “Cloudy” takes the basic premise of the book to insane extremes, like a Roland Emmerich movie with self-awareness and a finely tuned sense of humor. It’s not every day that…
They might make them faster and slicker now, but “An American Werewolf in London” is still one hell of a monster movie. Anyone considering making a horror movie today should take a look at what John Landis does here. The three leads have personality – the kids in modern-day horror movies are deathly serious and dull – and the main man in a position of authority is actually willing to listen to what the protagonists have to say. As a bonus, Landis injects a fair dose of comedy to keep things lively. Young Americans David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin…
It’s always nice to see someone make an animated feature that forgoes the toddler set in order to try something more grown-up. However, making a movie that’s not appropriate for kids is not the same as making a movie for adults, and that is where “9” loses its way. It contains some dynamite animation, along with action sequences that make “Jurassic Park” look like, well, child’s play. But who is this movie’s target audience? The story doesn’t have enough meat on its bones to satisfy adults – which makes sense, considering it was originally a short film that its creator…
Talking with Marshall Crenshaw is like being invited to the rock ‘n roll grown-up table. After minding your manners at the kid’s table for years, you finally get the chance to show your elders how much you’ve learned about music…only to realize just how little you know. The man is an encyclopedia of rock, which makes sense when you consider that he played John Lennon on the stage, Buddy Holly in the movies, and wrote the instructions for fictional rocker Dewey Cox on how to walk hard. On the eve of a series of shows on both sides of the…
There’s this game coming out soon, you might have heard about it. It allows the players to pretend that they’re in the greatest band of all time. “The Beatles: Rock Band” is primed to be the alpha and omega of music games, the type of thing that will lead people who have never played a video game in their lives to get a game system in order to play it. The three trailers for the game have us literally salivating, and the opening cinematic might be the coolest thing we’ve ever seen. Ever. Like the rest of western civilization, Bullz-Eye’s…
After becoming wisely self-aware in its third installment, the “Final Destination” franchise has taken the tongue that was firmly planted in cheek and impaled it on a 3D stick. Everything takes a back seat to the effects here, and that is the rule of 3D, but is that the right play? As Roger Ebert once said, the effect alone doesn’t matter, but whether the audience cares about the effect. When it comes to “The Final Destination,” the answer to that question is a resounding ‘no.’ The movie takes place at a well-worn race track, where Nick (Bobby Campo), his girlfriend…
It’s cute that Robert Rodriguez wants to make movies that he can show his kids, but it’s a shame that he panders to their inner (or is it outer?) juvenile delinquent in the process. His first foray into family-friendly territory, “Spy Kids,” was fabulous, but after two inferior “Spy Kids” sequels and one horrific 3D experiment (“The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl”), it’s clear that Rodriguez’s passion for kiddie fare exceeds his natural talent for creating it. Nothing exemplifies this better than “Shorts,” which is an unholy mess of a movie. It is a literal assault on the…