One gets the sense that Joel and Ethan Coen tried as hard as they could to steer clear of writing or adapting anything that had the faintest whiff of “Fargo” to it, and that’s understandable. After all, we are a here-today-gone-yesterday society when it comes to entertainment, and despite the Coens’ near-immaculate track record before the breakout success of “Fargo,” had they done another similarly-themed project shortly afterward, they would risk getting moved to the One Trick Pony column. Again, the facts clearly state that they are anything but a one-trick pony, but ask any agent and they’ll tell you:…
Author: David Medsker
He saved the best for last. With “Kill Bill: Vol. Two,” Quentin Tarantino has made a movie that goes toe to toe with the ubiquitous specter of “Pulp Fiction” and brings it to its knees. This is not to say that “Kill Bill” is better than “Pulp Fiction,” per se, but as breakthrough movies go, “Pulp Fiction” was a celluloid striptease, where the audience found themselves titillated in ways they never knew existed, and instantly wanted more. Tarantino, however, knew better than to put out right away. In fact, he made the audience wait 10 years for the payoff. “Kill…
You can see why the actors were attracted to the material in “Traitor.” It’s “Deep Cover” crossed with “The Fugitive,” and explores the subject of Islamic radicalism. Touchy stuff, to be sure, and there are moments in the movie that sent chills through the crowd. The problem is that, as the “‘Deep Cover’ meets ‘The Fugitive’” bit suggests, you’ve already seen this movie many times before. The only difference between “Traitor” and its predecessors is that the other movies spent more time in focus. They also didn’t spend so much time trying to ramp up the tension during scenes where…
When “Hamlet 2” is on, it’s as funny and outrageous as any movie you’ll see this year. The problem is that the movie loses its rhythm almost as soon as it finds one, and just when you’re expecting one more joke that will induce gut-busting fits of laughter, the movie gives the equivalent of a glass of water to the face. At which point, you wait quietly for the next great laugh. The laughs are there; they’re just more intermittent than they should be. Steve Coogan is Dana Marschz, a failed actor and even worse drama instructor. Only two students…
Even before they lost their director, lead actress, and seven years of their lives, the people behind “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” had to know that they were fighting an uphill battle. Stephen Sommers’ first two installments of the classic monster reboot have not aged well – even star Brendan Fraser commented on the poor use of CGI in “The Mummy Returns” at this year’s Comic-Con panel – and oh, by the way, Indiana Jones, that other swashbuckling archaeologist, dusted off his fedora for a fourth movie, and beat “Dragon Emperor” to the street by two months. How…
“Step Brothers” is juvenile, ridiculous, crass and completely batshit crazy…and it is easily the funniest movie Adam McKay has made to date. It has the same ‘throw it against the wall and see if it sticks’ mentality as McKay’s other two movies, “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” but where those movies got by on their stellar supporting casts, “Step Brothers” lives and dies squarely on the shoulders of stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. And both of them step up in a big, big way. Ferrell is Brennan Huff, an…
For a show that got its kicks out of asking question after question about what be believe to be true, “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” inspires a few questions of its own, but of a much simpler nature. For starters, why does this movie even exist? It has been ten years since Mulder and Scully made their debut on the big screen, and six years since the show went off the air. Was anyone really asking for a sequel? It feels as in-demand and noteworthy as a movie starring the cast of “The O.C.” or “Malcolm in the Middle.”…
Say this for “Mamma Mia!”: it is one brilliant piece of counter-programming. Not only did no other movie want to open on the same weekend as “The Dark Knight,” no one even wanted to open on either side of the same weekend as “The Dark Knight.” (“Hellboy” and “Step Brothers” may have their fans, but “Iron Man,” they ain’t.) This is great news for Universal, since it means the movie has no real competition. And it is a very good thing that the movie has no natural predators at the box office, because the movie is already its own worst…
Movies like “Journey to the Center of the Earth” have a clearly visible ceiling on them. The combination of the subject matter, MPAA rating and 3-D goodness tell you that this is going to be a light, brisk, FX-heavy piece of fluff, and that is exactly what it is. Fortunately, it’s clean – not a single bathroom joke in sight, thank goodness – and relatively snappy fluff, which helps forgive a lot of flaws, namely the performance of its lead actor. Brendan Fraser is Trevor Anderson, a scientist who’s doing research on an as-yet-unproven volcanic theory to honor the work…
Here is all you need to know about “Meet Dave,” the latest Eddie Murphy my-ego-is-so-big-I-must- play-multiple-characters-and-be-onscreen- as-much-as-possible comedy: he skipped its premiere, claiming that he was busy working on his next project. Odd, then, that the director of “Meet Dave,” Brian Robbins, is also the director of Murphy’s next project, yet he found a way to attend the premiere. In other words, Murphy shoots this hyper-vanity project, then abandons the movie when the studio and his co-stars need him the most. Stay classy, Eddie. Murphy is both the miniature Captain of a ship and the ship itself. Their planet is…