Author: Jason Zingale

Going to see a film like “Accepted” is a lot like sticking your head in the microwave. You don’t know what to expect. Of course, the college comedy isn’t exactly a new venture. It’s been done countless times before, and in many cases, much better than director Steven Pink’s sophomoric debut. Due to a disappointing summer movie season filled with overbloated pirate epics and talking CGI animals, however, I was willing to forgo any obvious similarities to films like “Animal House” and “PCU” and give it a fair shot. Surprisingly enough, the film is actually one of the funniest comedies…

I’ve never been a big fan of the strategic hack-and-slash. In fact, spending only one hour with “Ninety-Nine Nights” was more than enough time to jolt my memory, but that doesn’t make the fantasy brawler a completely hopeless endeavor. While pushing the same two buttons over and over again should never be considered a good time, “N3” proves a mildly entertaining experience thanks to a beautiful array of visuals. The South Korean dream team over at Q Entertainment (led by producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and director Sang Youn Lee) has really taken advantage of the power inside the 360, and while…

The term disappointment only just begins to describe the experience of watching “The Aristocrats,” one of the most talked about documentaries of the year. Directed by comedian Paul Provenza and co-produced by magician comic Penn Jillette, “The Aristocrats” is an interesting essay on a 100-year-old joke with a punch line so bad that they’re not afraid to give it away in the title. The joke is well-known in the comic world as a sort of secret handshake among comedians; no one ever uses it in their act, but they’ll gladly practice on other comics backstage. The problem is, the joke…

With a major emphasis being placed on the production of direct-to-DVD titles these days, you’d think that Sony would no longer be forced to dump as much crap onto the market as they used to, but after sitting through the agonizingly bad “Zoom,” it seems that we were wrong to pass judgment so quickly. Not at all embarrassed that the whole superhero fad was so ten minutes ago, Sony has taken it upon themselves to produce their very own superhero movie. As is expected, their take on the kids-with-superpowers concept is flatter than a week-old can of soda. I know,…

“Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.” – Captain Benjamin L. Williard This notion can also be applied to the idea of reviewing “Apocalypse Now” 25 years after the original theatrical release. It’s a pointless endeavor, really, since the movie has already been deemed by nearly every critic as one of the greatest war films (if not the greatest war film) ever made. The critical success of “Apocalypse Now” is an even more impressive feat considering it was once believed impossible to make. Not even the illustrious Orson Wells…

A quick note to 9/11 supporters eagerly awaiting the release of Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center”: just because Hollywood has made an overglorified film about a tragic historical event doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good. To make matters worse, none of the major film critics seem willing to openly bash it, with the fear that they might receive a verbal lashing from the public in response. It doesn’t seem right, however, to conceal one glaring criticism: the movie sucks. Obviously still hurting from the poor reception of his period epic, “Alexander,” the veteran director has decided to play it safe…

One year. That’s exactly how long Capcom made gamers wait before finally unleashing their new zombie title, “Dead Rising,” onto the next-gen masses. And as a lover of all things undead (in the entertainment world, anyways), it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that this game has been sitting at the top of my wish list the entire time. Thankfully, it was worth every minute, because not only has “Dead Rising” satisfied all of my expectations – it’s gone above and beyond them. Complete with an enticing mix of horror and comedy, a fascinating plot raveled in mystery,…

Writer/director Woody Allen is a notoriously hit-and-miss filmmaker who has more recently suffered through an entire decade of letdowns (save for last year’s award-nominated “Match Point”). Of course, this makes his latest comedy caper, “Scoop,” less of a disappointment, but the film is still a disaster in more ways than one. Allen seems to have a real passion for writing comedies that feature old-school mystery scenarios , but we’ve seen it done too many times before, and they’ve never really been any good. “Scoop” doesn’t offer anything new, either, and though the picture opens strong with the help of a…

Be sure to leave your lime-colored sport jacket at home, because writer/director Michael Mann’s update of the trendsetting ‘80s television series, “Miami Vice,” trades in its pastel wardrobe and neon backdrop for 135 minutes of pure grit and grain. Actually, the film is about as far from a big screen update as you can get – except that it still takes place in Miami and features a multiracial duo of undercover cops – but the fact that it’s still no good only further proves how much of a dud the original series really was. Nevertheless, a respectable opening weekend is…

M. Night Shyamalan is sure to receive a flurry of bad marks for his latest thriller, “Lady in the Water,” especially since the writer/director (whose last film, “The Village,” didn’t score so well with critics) has decided to snap back by killing a wiseass movie reviewer in the film’s third act. As a critic myself, I found the whole thing quite entertaining, but something tells me that the more high-profile writers won’t be nearly as forgiving. Heck, many will probably think the guy is out of his fucking mind for writing such an off-the-wall script, but for the select few…