Vince Vaughn, you’re officially on notice. Your let’s-make-mistakes, freestyle approach to filmmaking has, ironically, resulted in you making the same movie over and over…and that movie isn’t funny. Worse, you’re bringing legitimate actors (Paul Giamatti, Reese Witherspoon, even Jennifer Aniston) down with you in the process. After viewing the latest version of your one trick, “Four Christmases,” we’d like to formally suggest that you quit fucking around and stick to the script for a change. Who knows; you might discover that there’s a better writer out there – or at the very least a less selfish one – than you…
Author: David Medsker
“Australia” feels like three movies rolled into one…three drawn-out movies rolled into one. The first movie involves a WWII-era widowed English aristocrat who inherits a small cattle ranch in the middle of the northern Australian bush (my wife refers to this part as “Out of Australia”). The second part involves the against-the-odds transport of said cattle to the coast in order to thwart the efforts of an opportunistic cattle baron (“Fly Away Cows”?). The final act is what happens to the aristocrat, the rancher she loves, and the mixed-race child she unofficially adopts once the Japanese forces arrive on their…
“Marley & Me,” based on John Grogan’s best-seller about his loveably incorrigible dog, is every bit the shamelessly manipulative tear-jerker that you’d expect it to be. Luckily, the filmmakers did something incredibly smart in order to prevent the action from becoming too syrupy: they hired Scott Frank (“Out of Sight,” “Minority Report,” “The Lookout”) to write the screenplay, and his off-kilter humor saves the day. It’s not enough to save the movie as a whole, but it makes things a heck of a lot more tolerable. Owen Wilson plays Grogan, a writer who relocates from Michigan with his wife Jennifer…
If you can get past the wafer-thin premise that serves as the foundation for “Bolt,” you’ll find that it is a rather entertaining movie. An extremely predictable movie, yes, but not without its charms. At the very least, Disney gets bonus points for taking a cue from in-house partners Pixar by not stunt-casting the bejeezus out of it. Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) is a genetically enhanced dog that helps his “person” Mindy (Miley Cyrus) fight the nefarious Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell), who has captured Mindy’s scientist father. Now here’s the catch: Bolt is the star of a TV show,…
It would be an understatement to declare that “Twilight,” Stephenie Meyer’s chaste, estrogen-fueled tale of an awkward teen and the vampire who loves her, does not exactly speak to me. The book is overlong by 100 pages or more, and very little happens outside of Bella and Edward, the star-crossed lovers, talking for what seems like weeks. Bear in mind, I am about as big a fan of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as you’re likely to find. So I get vampires, teenagers and teenaged vampires; I just don’t get “Twilight.” But then a funny thing happened: the movie adaptation of…
It’s not often that a movie with so much bad luck can be filled with so much hope, but “Slumdog Millionaire” is such a movie. Fate is a cold, heartless bitch to the three leads, yet they never complain or feel cheated. They simply find another way to persevere and get what they want. Only a tenth of the events in this film would actually happen to any one person, of course, but that’s sort of the point; this is a fairy tale, one where a dirt-poor Indian “slumdog” could engineer the biggest cash grab in his country’s history. And…
You knew it was coming: the ‘R’-rated comedy has officially hit the saturation point. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the ‘R’-rated comedy is dead, or even that this week’s installment, “Role Models,” is a bad movie; in fact, the movie is quite funny, and there is a subtlety to the dialogue that its broader brethren (ahem, “Step Brothers”) lack. The problem is that the movie seems at odds with itself, armed with a brain but choosing to be vulgar because it feels obligated to do so. Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd are Wheeler and Danny, ad drones who go…
It’s the heartwarming tale of a boy who’s ostracized from the group for not being like the others, only to save the day, and earn his father’s respect, with his extraordinary dancing skills. His father, though, has other problems. There is a cunning beta male plotting to use the son as a tool to usurp the throne from the father. There is a saying that talent borrows but genius steals, and by that definition “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” would be the Brian Wilson of animated movies, since it is nothing but “The Lion King” and “Happy Feet” rolled into one.…
It is more than fair to say that there is very little range to Kevin Smith’s work, but when he releases something as entertaining as “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” it’s hard to complain about the results. Like his other movies, Smith still doesn’t have a feel for how – or when – to mix the sweet with the profane, but the fact that he manages to give the movie an ending that is both wholesome and suitable is not just impressive; it’s astounding. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are Zack and Miri, two dead-broke best friends who are…
For a movie that had such an emotional story at its core, “Milk” is rather bloodless. Its tale of a man’s metamorphosis from closeted worker drone to openly gay political activist, during an openly hostile, anti-gay period in this country’s history (and, truth be told, we haven’t come much farther), has no real peaks and valleys; it just sort of rambles on. This is the kind of movie that should kick the door the fuck in, not knock politely and ask for a cup of sugar. The movie begins at the story’s end, with Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), presciently, documenting…