Criticker.com - Film Recommendations and Community
currently at ...
the Forum → The state of sci-fi
the Blog → Server Upgrade
login | register
0 films ranked
You Explore Interact Resources
Search
Profile All Your Rankings Starred Reviews Your Best TCIs PSIs Kumpels Wishlist
Random Film

Archive for November, 2008

Merchandise: Spongebob Game of Life – Superman Cufflinks – Stitch Humidifier

Published by
vincente
at November 27, 2008 in Fun, Merchandise and Shopping. 5 Comments

Stitch Humidifier

stitch-humidifier

Kiss dry air goodbye with the Stitch air humidifier. Right now it’s only available in Japan and will cost over $100.

More info: Stitch humidifier

[via: boingboing]

Star Wars™ Film Cels A New Hope

star wars film cel

Luke Skywalker and allies Han Solo, Chewbacca, Ben Kenobi, C-3PO and R2D2 attempt to rescue rebel leader Princess Leia from the clutches of the Empire. This framed collectible contains 8 clips of film, a poster portraying the movie and a stunning descriptive plaque. All are double mounted and encased in a beautiful black wood frame.

From a limited edition of 1000. Note: film cels will vary from piece to piece, as they are hand selected to include the best possible scenes from the film.

More info: Star Wars Film Cels

Game of Life – SpongeBob SquarePants Edition

spongebob-game-of-life

The life choices you make in this classic board game may make you rich, or you may get soaked! The classic game of Life takes a zany turn as SpongeBob and the crew take you on their own adventures. Experience life SpongeBob SquarePants style, become a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, adopt a giant clam as a pet, or get stung by a jellyfish! The one with the most clams at the end of the game, wins!

More info: Game of Life – SpongeBob SquarePants Edition

Superman Cufflinks

superman cufflinks

You might look a bit silly dressed in a big blue lycra suit at your desk, so instead go for a bit of office style with this set of Superman Cufflinks! Although we can’t guarantee you’ll gain super powers from this special clothing accessory, you are sure to gain a sense of super style! Depicting the classic superhero icon, the Superman logo, this set of cufflinks is even housed in it’s own super gift box.

More info: Superman Cufflinks

WALL-E Bake a Cake

WALL-Cake-Form

Meet the newest star from Disney/Pixar. It’s Wall-E, an industrial robot from the future who brings the excitement and fun of hit movie to your party. Wilton Disney Pixar WALL-E icing decorations cake pan. Fun shaped pan is programmed to make a kids birthday unforgettable.

More info: WALL-E Bake a Cake

Forum Watch: Directors You Hate

Published by
mpowell
at November 26, 2008 in Forum Watch. 1 Comment

Ahh… hating. It’s an excellent pastime, and even more fun when done in a group, as part of a Frothing Mob. Unsurprisingly, many of the most active topics in the Criticker Forums are those dedicated to hate, and one of the best is Directors You Hate, started in August by jeb.

So who are the directors that Criticker’s raging mob has singled out for scorn? Here’s a little gallery of the most frequently-cited offenders:

Hate! Scorn! Disgust! Revulsion!

Recognize them all? If you have other terrible directors to add to their ranks, waste no more time in getting to the forum, and unleashing your vitriol!

For the record, my most hated director of all time is Lars von Trier — an admission I suppose might bring hatred down on me! I don’t care, I hate that guy and his awful, awful movies.

- Murder Mystery Game Collection

DVD Report – November 25th

Published by
mpowell
at November 25, 2008 in DVD. 0 Comments

Ehh… ugh. Condolences to all you starry-eyed film fanatics who desperately await each Tuesday’s slate of new releases to DVD. This is a terrible week, most notable for the fact that there’s actually a film which scores worse than Eddie Murphy‘s latest ridiculous ego-fest Meet Dave. That film? Space Monkeys. That’s right — an animated adventure about a “fun-loving chimp” in space. Sigh… All of a sudden, Hancock isn’t looking so bad. Probably the pick of the bunch.

Hancock – 560 Rankings – Average Tier 4.40
A hard-living superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public enters into a questionable relationship with the wife of the public relations professional who’s trying to repair his image. (imdb) Hancock @ Amazon

Meet Dave – 44 Rankings – Average Tier 2.50
Dave Ming Chang (Eddie Murphy), newly arrived in New York City, may be the ultimate fish out of water. There’s something about him that’s not quite right for starters, he seems remarkably out of place and uncomfortable in his own body. And for good reason: “Dave” is not a man at all, but a ship made in the image of its miniature-sized captain. It’s Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy in “Meet Dave”. Meet Dave @ Amazon

Fred Claus – 31 Rankings – Average Tier 3.55
Fred Claus, Santa’s bitter older brother, is forced to move to the North Pole. (imdb) Fred Claus @ Amazon

Space Chimps – 10 Rankings – Average Tier 2.00
Ham III, the grandson of the first chimp astronaut, is blasted off into space by an opportunity-seeking senator. Soon, the fun-loving chimp has to get serious about the mission at hand: Rid a far-away planet of their nefarious leader. Fortunately for Ham III, two of his simian peers are along for the ride. Space Chimps @ Amazon

River Queen – 4 Rankings – Average Tier 4.50
An intimate story set during the 1860s in which a young Irish woman Sarah and her family find themselves on both sides of the turbulent wars between British and Maori during the British colonisation of New Zealand. (imdb) River Queen @ Amazon

Heroes of Contentiousness #15 – The Butterfly Effect

Published by
mpowell
at November 24, 2008 in Heroes of Contentiousness. 3 Comments

I remember seeing a preview for this film, back in 2004. A very serious Ashton Kutcher was to be taken very seriously as an actor, in some derivative sci-fi film. I yawned and forgot about it entirely, secure in the knowledge that The Butterfly Effect would be a terrible movie that everyone soon forgot.

So when an intelligent friend recommended it to me, I was incredulous. Quietly, I asked if he was joking… you’re all excited about that Ashton Kutcher flick, is that right? He seemed a little embarrassed, but stood by the recommendation. Since then, I’ve heard the same from a lot of people… and not just that The Butterfly Effect is kind of good, but that it’s really good. And now, here it is on our list of contentious films, with a high FCQ of 50.06 (that’s Film Contentiousness Quotient: details here). This means a ton of users loved it, and almost equal numbers hated it, without many in between.

So far, I’ve resisted watching this film. Apparently I trust my blind assumptions more than the effusive praise of my friends, and it precludes me from voting in this poll. So you guys have at it: The Butterfly Effect: Great or Terrible?

The Butterfly Effect

  • Great! (57%, 17 Votes)
  • Terrible! (43%, 13 Votes)

Total Voters: 30

Loading ... Loading ...

Here are a couple battling opinions from Criticker users.

btyler: “The only reason I ever gave Ashton Kutcher any credit for being an actor was for this movie. That 70′s Show and Punk’d made him look like a complete idiot all the time, but this movie redeemed him. With that said, this is one of my favorite movies of all time. Such an amazing plot and great twists.”

Gr8Googly: “Outlandish melodrama with a silly yet vile story. Turn down the intensity a bit and it might fly but ultimately it’s sunk by the ridiculous story.”

In the last vote, we put Rocky Horror Picture Show to the test, and … well, apparently the readers of the Criticker Blog are far more into transvestite vampires than the general Criticker community, because it was overwhelmingly deemed “great”.

 

And here’s our up-to-date list of the top 10 most contentious films at Criticker:

1. Eyes Wide Shut – FCQ 58.51 – Poll Result: GREAT!
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show – FCQ 54.98 – Poll Result: GREAT!
3. Dumb & Dumber – FCQ 51.14 – Poll Result: GREAT!
4. I Am Sam – FCQ 50.33 – Poll Result: TERRIBLE!
5. The Butterfly Effect – FCQ 50.08 – Poll Result: pending
6. King Kong – FCQ 49.87 – Poll Result: GREAT!
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – FCQ 49.33 – Poll Result: TERRIBLE!
8. Saw – FCQ 48.91 – Poll Result: TIE!
9. Stay – FCQ 47.72 – Poll Result: GREAT!
10. Contact – FCQ 47.27 – Poll Result: GREAT!

Tags Gone Wild: Roger Ebert: Your Movie Sucks

Published by
mpowell
at November 21, 2008 in Tagging. 1 Comment

Since we introduced the ability to tag films, users have been coming up with a huge amount of creative ways to tie films together. One of our favorite recent tags has to be Roger Ebert: Your Movie Sucks, created by Shmendrek.

He describes it as “taken from a collection of Roger Ebert’s one star reviews of terrible films. The bulk of the titles come from the last decade”. And it’s extremely fun to browse through the entries.

I’ve seen a lot of the films in this collection, which perhaps means I don’t listen much to Roger Ebert. But, largely I agree with him… there’s only one film here that I’ve given a good ranking to: Constantine.

What about everyone else? Where do you and Robert disagree, if at all?


Film Festival Watch: Savannah, Pusan, Sao Paolo

Published by
mpowell
at November 20, 2008 in Festival. 1 Comment

Today, we’re taking a look at winning films at three recently closed festivals from all around the world, starting in the historic jewel of the US South: Savannah, Georgia.

Savannah Film Festival
The Savannah College of Art and Design runs this annual week-long festival, highlighting movies from around the world. The small festival closed on November 1st, giving its top honors to War Eagle, Arkansas — a moving drama about a gifted baseball player and the special friendship he shares with a kid in a wheelchair.
http://www.scad.edu/filmfest/fest08/index.php

Pusan International Film Festival
Now in its 13th year, Pusan has grown into the largest festival in Asia. Over 300 films are screened in this city at the southern tip of South Korea, with a major focus on films from emerging and Third World markets. This year’s edition featured, for instance, a large number of films from Kazakhstan, but the main award went to the Korean film Land of Scarecrows — a strange, slow drama about a transgendered woman and the relationships she has in a small Korean town. The award was actually shared between this film and Japan’s “Naked of Defenses”.
http://www.piff.org/eng/index.asp

São Paolo Mostra Internacional de Cinema
The 32nd annual Mostra closed at the end of October in São Paolo. This popular festival prides itself on featuring a lot of Brazilian movies, but gave its top honor this year to a German film from Emily Atef: The Stranger in Me. This wrenching drama focuses on a seemingly perfect young couple, who’ve just witnessed the birth of their first son. The mother, however, falls into a deep depression and feels no emotional connection to the child she just bore. Sounds like a real laugher!
http://www.mostra.org/32/

Giallo – Truly Horrifying Trailer

Published by
mpowell
at November 14, 2008 in Coming Up. 2 Comments

A while back, we previewed Dario Argento’s Giallo, a new film starring Adrien Brody. It seemed strange for Argento — who made his name in the Italian sub-genre of horror known as giallo — to be making a film called Giallo, but we were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, the quality of his films has been rapidly diminishing, but perhaps this project would mark a return to form. At the very least, Brody is A-List talent…

Alas, it seems not to be. The trailer (via TwitchFilms) is truly awful. There’s not much to say, except to offer sincere condolences to everyone involved in this project, and hope for a quick and quiet release to DVD. Anyway, you can make your own mind up:

Why do so many filmmakers not know when to stop?

Source: TwitchFilm.net


« Previous Entries