The Friday Fist: My one-line mouthful of truth on this week's new releases.
No Country for Old Men: Joel, Ethan say Hello to Oscar.
Hitman: He bores you to death.
Enchanted: Walt is spinning in his freezer.
Stephen King's The Mist: The scariest thing will be the line of people asking for their money back.
August Rush: Please don't trample anyone in your desperate attempt to escape the movie theater.
If you want to be literary, read a book, don't go to the movies. And if you see this movie, it doesn't mean that you've read this classic piece of literature. It just means that you've watched a dead-eyed computer generated piece of crap with the same title as a story generations of people have loved. In fact, this goes for any film based on a book. The next person that tells me that the book is better than the film is going to get a Spoiler Alert right in the throat. No friggin' duh the book is better. The author created a 400 page story that takes you two weeks to read. The movie condenses that same story down to 90minutes. What the hell do you expect? Why the hell are you even comparing them? If someone wrote a song or created a painting based on a book would we say, "It's not as good as the book?" They are two different mediums. What I don't get is why Hollywood continually insists on making books into films with its already built in audience that will hate it. Is the entire industry so devoid of original talent and ideas that this all we can expect?
That being said, "Beowulf" sucks and not because it's not as good as the book. But rather because after 25 years of computer animation it still looks clunky, unlifelike, and generally unimpressive. The predictable 21st-centuryization of the the story, style, and dialogue snuffs out whatever resemblance this had to the original, difficult and charming text.
Predictions:
Percentage of people paying to see this film that have actually read the book: under 5
Percentage of "Beowulf" books with the "movie" cover that will actually be read: 0
Friday Fist: My weekly one-line sucker punch to the face of Hollywood's new releases.
Gone Baby Gone - Ben goes behind the camera. Let's hope he stays there.
Things We Lost in the Fire - You'll laugh, you'll cry.. no, wait, you'll just cry.
30 Days of Night - Stick it where the sun don't shine.
Rendition - Mellow Drama. Looked better on paper than on film.
The Comebacks - Jokes upon jokes and not a laugh in sight.
The Ten Commandments - Thou shalt not see crap films.
Ok, so I spend all this time telling you what crap not to see, and what do you do? You go and see the one film that I thought was such a no brainer that I didn't even bother wasting a Spoiler Alert on it. You took my advice and didn't see any of the craptacular films that I put the Spoiler Alert on, but you went and made Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? the number one box office film of the week?
Spoiler Alert to the Rescue
First, Tyler, don't put your friggin' name in the title like any of us outside the 37 people in your fan club know who you are or give a damn. I want you to recognize that your stupid little fairytale of affluent African-Americans doing the whitest thing in the world (skiing, wearing Abercrombie crap, and talking about relationships) is the number one film this week simply because I failed to warn everyone about it. But this is the official Spoiler Alert Mulligan.
I'm sorry to all my fans that endured this steaming pile of contrivance and target marketing. I'd return your ten bucks, but some lessons need to learned the hard way. Suck it up and walk it off. It won't hurt forever.
The real question about this movie is Why Did it Ever Get Greenlit? Obviously, some lily white studio exec was convinced that he could assuage his mounting guilt in perpetuating the ridiculous roles and portrayals of African-Americans in films by creating a Cosby-esque lifestyle image that would beat back the critics long enough for him to release his latest gangbanging, drug dealing summer blockbuster. Don't let them get away with it.
One dimensional characters of this magnitude haven't seen this much screen time since Con-Air. Alcoholic wife meet cheating husband meet wise, relationship counselor meet cop with a heart meet my breakfast, lunch and dinner.
In one of the funniest ideas of the year though, one of the Jacksons plays the level headed one with relationship advice for the group. That's good comedy. And even funnier is that they appear to play it straight. Either this Tyler Whatshisname is a comic genius or a complete idiot. Either way, laughter will ensue.
Geoff Berkshire over at Metromix says that "Perry's films are review proof and he knows it." I didn't find it so hard Geoff. Maybe not watching them makes them easier to review after all.
So again, I apologize to my Spoiler Alert Fans that were left to wander the multiplex only to be led into the feel-bad movie of the year. Don't worry, I won't let any more ego-maniacally titled films get by me this week.
Welcome to the Spoiler Alert Nano: Normal Spoiler Alert but reduced to one word for speed and efficiency.
With every product in the known world now coming out with a meaningless "Nano" line, I figure Spoiler Alert Nano makes as much sense as any of the rest of the nanocrap.
So here's my inaugural edition of Spoiler Alert Nano (beta):
The Brave One - Lost
Hairspray - Travolting
Into the Wild - Ramblin'
3:10 to Yuma - Timely
Halloween - Pointless
Transformers - Nerdapoloosa
Friday Fist: my knuckle sandwich one-liners to the teeth of this week's new releases.
Yummy Reuben on Rye:
Lars and the Real Girl - This year's Little Miss Sunshine, but actually good.
Spam and American on Wonder Bread:
We Own the Night - And your ten bucks and your two hours.
Across the Universe - And you thought you'd never get tired of the Beatles.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Queer Eye for Historical Fiction
The Final Season - Whitest Movie Ever
Spoiler Alert Spank Down: No Non-Sequel Character Reviving.
Y'know, like Tommie Lee Jones dragging out his tough, guy cop dude from The Fugitive like twelve times in the last decade in a parade of films that more resemble an SNL skit than anything we'd actually want to see. Mr. Woodcock is a two-fer-one special with Billy Bob Thornton and Sean William Scott (and their six first names, wtf?) bringing their retread characters along, but leaving the writers, directors, and jokes behind. It's Bad Santa meats Stiffler's Mom in a ridiculous attempt to cash in on the residual laughter from a couple of hilarious films without all the hassle of actually writing jokes.
Mr. Woodcock from the title to the end credits has about as much nuance and subtlety as the porn title suggests. Can you really expect to see a movie called Woodcock and not feel like you just took it in the Exit Only door for 90 minutes?
Susan Sarandon is the lipstick on this pig of a film. I guess the original Stiffler's Mom had enough sense to see this wood cock coming and ran.
If you decide to see this film just remember the immortal words of Bad Santa who warned, "you ain't gonna shit right for a week."
Spoiler Alert Wet Dream: Reviewing a film I haven't seen that is remake of a film I haven't seen. The Heartbreak Kid is a forced attempt by both Ben Stiller and the Farrelly Bros to rekindle some small amount of past hilarity by squeezing out more pus-filled jokes per minute than the last American Pie epic. And it all comes wrapped in a misogynistic fantasy of Ben's playboy life. Ben, stick to awkward and funny rather than cocky and manic. We'll laugh more and hate you less.
Welcome to The Farrelly Bros. vs The Apatow Gang in a ten round fight to the death with the winner getting our ten bucks admission and our belly laughs and the loser getting nothing but empty promises from studios that once optioned their script on name alone. The Farrelly Bros. got off some big rights early, but the last 4 rounds have gone easily to the Apatow Gang. If the Farrellys don't start getting to the punch line soon, this fight will be over in no time with Kingpin being nothing but a fading memory. The Heartbreak Kid is a weak jab blocked easily by Superbad.
And what's up with this "Kid" business? Ben Stiller's face is starting to look a lot more Permanent Midnight than Reality Bites. Yes, skinny looks better on film, but anorexic on film looks, well, anorexic. And the salt-n-pepper hair rinse? When you grey-up a head that big and swing it around on screen, you risk a Pokemon-like incident with people having epileptic seizures from coast to coast. Luckily, anyone coming to see this film will already be wearing a safety helmet.
Heed the warning to the right and Do Not Enter because the biggest heartbreak of all will be as you weep over the hard earned cash you wasted.
Welcome back to the Friday Fist: my sucker punch blurb to the adam's apple of Hollywood's new releases.
Right Glove of Love:
Michael Clayton - Welcome to the Oscar 500. In pole position: George Clooney
Left Claw of Hate:
The Heartbreak Kid - There's Something about Ben. Mangled gonads not as funny as the first time.
The Jane Austen Book Club - A movie based on a book about reading. Bring a pillow.
The Seeker - The Bile is Rising. Harry Potter - JK Rowling = The Seeker
Feel the Noise - You hear that? "a spicy blend of hip hop, reggae and Latin beats?" No, the pin dropping in theaters across the country.
The Good Night - A movie that proves its plot: you'll get more out of it asleep than awake.
To all the gamers that are here looking at this post because you punched "Halo 3 + spoiler" into Google, welcome to Spoiler Alert. Since you've managed to release your frozen grip on the controller long enough to find us here, you might as well take a few minutes to look around.
Understand, I've never played Halo 3 and couldn't care less about it. Here's a demonstration of what I do here at Spoiler Alert using your little game as the subject matter:
First, Halo 3 sucks.
Enter your argument here.
Conclusion, it still sucks and you are a loser.
"But," you say, "Halo 3 made $170 million in the first day of release." Yes, that's a lot of money for you guys to shell out. Good job keeping overhead low with that ingenious plan of living in your mom's basement forever. But the real prize in making that much money in one day is:
Ding Ding Ding, Congratulations Halo you've just been greenlit for a major Hollywood production. No plot: check; One dimensional characters: check; Army of special effects artists and C-list actors: check. In the proud tradition of games-to-movies everywhere, you are the latest entrant, and instant front runner, in the contest for Worst Film of All Time.
Yes, just what the world has been waiting for: a movie about a Microsoft product. It just makes me all warm thinking about it, or wait, maybe I just pissed myself. Like all Microsoft products this one too is guaranteed to
disappoint, frustrate, complicate, under service, over promise, prosecute,
execute and fool every person on the face of the earth. You may as well just let Bill Gates drag his ball sack across your face for 90 minutes, an experience you can share with your friends on your Zune.
But don't worry, you won't be sleeping alone outside the theater on opening day. You'll have the Mac dorks to keep you company while they wait for "iPhone: The Movie" (tm).
