Say this for “Notorious,” the biopic on the life of rapper Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace: when the credits roll, there are victims but no heroes. Of course, for there to be any heroes in this group would have required either unparalleled revisionist history or a time machine, so is it right to give the filmmakers credit for merely telling it like is? Biggie’s death may have been tragic, but his life, as it is presented, is not what one would call extraordinary. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a biopic where the subject learns fewer life lessons than…
Author: David Medsker
Movies like “Hotel for Dogs” are a critic’s worst nightmare. Point out its flaws – and there are several – and you’re the Grinch that stole Christmas. Give it a pass because it’s just a kid’s movie, and you get slagged by your peers for not doing your job. In other words, “Hotel for Dogs” is basically bulletproof. Nothing we say can hurt it, even though the movie sure as hell hurt us at times. Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin are Andi and Bruce, two orphaned kids who live with foster parents they hate (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon).…
Leave it to an unassuming documentary about classic arcade games to become the most entertaining, suspenseful movie of the summer. “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” is both hilarious and depressing in that it has a fantastic underdog story that gives way to political intrigue of Macbeth proportions. I had heard the hype, but even I was surprised at the goods this movie delivers. The movie begins in 2005 in the garage of Steve Wiebe, a recently unemployed father of two from Redmond, Washington who channels all of his frustrations into…his Donkey Kong machine. Steve, a naturally gifted individual…
Every animated movie headed for the multiplexes this year looks like it will be tricked out with the latest in 3-D technology (“Monsters vs. Aliens,” “Up,” “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”), and “Coraline,” the latest stop-motion adventure from director Henry Selick – he’s the mastermind behind “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach” – is no exception. But the real question with “Coraline” is not whether to see it in 3-D (the added depth was cute, but nonessential); it’s whether to bring your kids. Yes, Focus is spending nearly all of its TV ad budget on…
Here are your choices at the googoplex this holiday season (warning: potential spoilers to follow): a failed Nazi insurrection (“Valkyrie”), a family movie that ends with a dead dog (“Marley & Me”), a man plotting his own death to atone for his sins (“Seven Pounds”), a love story involving a man that ages in reverse (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), a laughably bad graphic novel adaptation (“The Spirit”), and “Revolutionary Road,” a mid-‘50s period piece about miserable suburbanites. Merry, fucking, Christmas. But here’s the thing about “Revolutionary Road”: it’s remarkably well done. It’s suffocating and frustrating as all hell,…
When the door closes on 2008, director Adam Shankman can pat himself on the back for his work on…”Prop 8: The Musical,” the hilarious mini-play he staged with composer Marc Shaiman and a cast of Hollywood’s finest. “Bedtime Stories,” on the other hand, is a big step backward from “Enchanted,” Disney’s live-action breakthrough from last year. Both movies share a certain fractured-fairy tale sensibility, but the similarities end there. Where “Enchanted” is self-aware, “Bedtime Stories” is self-absorbed. Adam Sandler is Skeeter Bronson, a repairman for the hotel that was built on the lot that once sported a hotel that was…
This is the movie that I’ve been waiting for David Fincher to make since “Fight Club.” “Zodiac” has its supporters, but I was not one of them, which means it’s been almost a decade since Fincher delivered something I considered to be on par with his abilities, and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is it. Beautiful, wildly ambitious and a technical marvel, it’s what going to the movies is all about. Fans of Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” should get in line right now. The movie begins at the story’s end, with an elderly Daisy (Cate Blanchett) dying in a…
Bryan Singer is not a “meh” filmmaker. His movies swing for the fence beyond the fence beyond the stadium wall, and while he doesn’t always succeed (I will admit to overpraising “Superman Returns” upon its release), you can always tell that he’s trying to deliver something extraordinary. So what is it that he saw in the source material for “Valkyrie” that made him think this would make for a killer Bryan Singer movie? It is light on action and mistakes furious politicking for suspense; in other words, it’s meh. Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a disgruntled Nazi…
Anyone with a cynical bone in their body is going to have a field day with a movie like “Seven Pounds,” and with good reason. There is a spirit of selflessness and atonement desperately trying to break through the source material…so why does it feel self-absorbed instead? Blame the non-linear nature of the script, which tries to show us nothing but tells us everything. Will Smith is Ben Thomas, an auditor for the IRS who examines his clients rather closely. Ben is a strong believer in karma, and he will exact swift and merciless punishment on anyone he believes to…
One minute you’re a struggling comic paying your dues at the Comedy Store. Next thing you know, you and three of your comic friends are on a bus with Vince Vaughn, playing 30 cities in 30 days. Oh, and a camera crew is going to tape the whole thing. Now go be funny, no pressure! Welcome to the world of John Caparulo, who’s more than ready for his close-up after shooting the resulting movie, “Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights – Hollywood to the Heartland” two and a half years ago. Bullz-Eye caught up with Caparulo to…