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Archive for the 'News' Category Page 2 of 5

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Not Everyone Loves The Road

Published by
mpowell
at December 2, 2009 in Bizarre, News and Reviews. 0 Comments

The Road has been one of the season’s most anticipated and critically acclaimed films. But not everyone is on board… especially a gentleman by the name of Fiore Mastracci, a critic recently featured by The Guardian in an article titled “Why I love the world’s worst film critic”.

And, indeed, Mastracci’s review truly is bad. He uses the most amateur similes imaginable (“excrement on celluloid”), makes fun of children (“McPhee is an irritating dirty faced boy”) and employs the most groaningly obvious, timeworn references (the Energizer bunny? Seriously?). It’s no help that his English is piss-poor.

But somehow, he’s “made it”, in at least some sense of the phrase. He has 204 god-awful reviews published on Rotten Tomatoes and is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association. It’s almost enough to make you weep… if you weren’t laughing so hard. Mastracci makes it a point to hate every movie which is critically lauded, and his reviews are laced with scatological references, racism and homophobia. The Guardian’s Stuart McGurk notes that “In a pièce de résistance, he gave Transamerica 0/10 solely for being about a transsexual.”

Still, scrolling through his reviews at least makes for a great way to waste some time… I especially love the outraged comments at the end of each. So keep at it, Mr. Mastracci! I get the sense that you feed on hate.

- Gift Guide 2009

The Insane Defense of Roman Polanski

Published by
mpowell
at October 2, 2009 in Hollywood, News and Rated R. 4 Comments

We love Roman Polanski’s work as much as the next guy, but didn’t realize that being a great filmmaker morally exonerates your having drugged and raped a 13 year-old. And then plead guilty to it. And then fled the country because you were afraid of jail.

But people are falling out of the woodworks to claim just that. Hollywood types like Whoopi Goldberg, who argues that drugging and sodomizing a child wasn’t exactly, like, “rape-rape”. Even the usually sober scholar Anne Applebaum calls Polanski’s arrest “outrageous“.

But the best defense of Polanski we’ve read is at the (humor) site HolyTaco.com. Money Quote:

Anyway, while they were taking pictures, he fed the girl champagne, quaaludes, and some kind of sedative, because that’s the kind of guy he is; he’s a gentleman. He’s gonna get you nice and numb before he rapes and sodomizes you against your will. Good move, Romie. The girl was apparently telling Roman things like “No” and “Stop” the whole time, but because she was so shitfaced from being force-fed drugs and alcohol, it probably came out more like “Numflkdggh” and “Stlmpfghh”, so it’s really not Roman’s fault for not picking up on the cues.

Hmm. True. That’s almost enough to make us reconsider!

I may not be a great filmmaker… but I do help run a decently popular website! So while child-rape is probably out of the question, I wonder what Whoopie would let me get away with? I’ll start with spitting on a 6 year-old and see how that goes.

- Ideas for Halloween 2009

Patrick Swayze’s Five Best Films

Published by
mpowell
at September 15, 2009 in News. 5 Comments

Actor Patrick Swayze passed away this morning, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. His performances in Dirty Dancing and Ghost made him famous, and an eternal heartthrob to a generation of girls. Swayze had a turbulent career in Hollywood, with as many ups as downs.

We’ve compiled his top 5 films according to Criticker users, and the results are pretty interesting. Most occur in the later stages of his career, suggesting he was not losing his touch. And besides the undeniably entertaining Point Break, the apex of his popularity, the late 80s to early 90s, is ignored. It also begs mentioning that these tend to be films in which Mr. Swayze has supporting roles. Perhaps not his most iconic movies, but they’re quality and he shines in each.

1. Donnie Darko (2001)


A genre-busting fable that blasts the American suburban drama into a wildly imaginative realm of time travel, alternative universes and the manipulation of one’s fate.

2. 11:14 (2003)


11:14 tells the seemingly random yet vitally connected story of a set of incidents that all converge one evening at 11:14pm. It’s a sort of musical chairs with a corpse, with the structurally intriguing storytelling style of “Memento” and “Run Lola Run.”

3. The Outsiders (1983)


When two poor greasers, Johnny, and Ponyboy are assaulted by a vicious gang, the socs, and Johnny kills one of the attackers, tension begins to mount between the two rival gangs, setting off a turbulent chain of events

4. Keeping Mum (2005)


Walter Goodfellow (Atkinson) is the well-meaning vicar of the parish of Little Wallop. So obsessed with writing the perfect sermon, he’s oblivious to his wife Gloria’s (Thomas) dalliance with her brash golf instructor Lance (Swayze), has trouble keeping track of his daughter Holly’s parade of new boyfriends, and neglects his young son Petey. Enter the charming and discreet new housekeeper Grace (Smith), the answer to the family’s prayers. Problems solved only lead to more problems created in this story of good intentions run amok.

5. Point Break (1991)


An FBI agent goes undercover to catch a gang of bank robbers who may be surfers.

And the worst? That would be his 1986 hockey epic Youngblood

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News from Venice – Soderbergh, Romero, Herzog

Published by
mpowell
at September 10, 2009 in Awards, Coming Up and News. 4 Comments

The world’s oldest film festival, Venice is set to wrap up on Saturday. As usual, a number of important films made their premieres there, and we’ll summarize the reaction for a few of the most highly anticipated.

Romero’s Survival of the Dead – Thumbs Up!

George Romero’s latest political diatribe, disguised as a zombie flick, won praise from critics and audiences alike. Extremely gory, it focuses on two feuding Irish families, who have differing ideas on whether to kill or imprison zombies. Survival of the Dead hasn’t yet received its stateside release date.

Soderbergh’s The Informant! – Thumbs Mostly Up!

With The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh returns to the true-story formula which won him a ton of awards with Erin Brokovich. Matt Damon, who gained 30 pounds for the roll of whistleblower Mark Whitacre, had audiences at Venice laughing, though critics’ reviews were mixed — some for, some against.

Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant – Thumbs Down!

We love Werner Herzog, but when this project — a re-imagining of Abel Ferrara’s cult 1992 hit — was announced, we were skeptical. Xzibit and Nicholas Cage aren’t necessarily at the top of our “favorite actors” list. And then it turns out Herzog has never even seen the original (something which rightly irritated Ferrara). Audiences were turned off by Cage’s hysterical overacting, and most reviews have been pretty poor.

Romero > Soderbergh > Herzog? Life is full of surprises.

- Wanker Shirt

The Best of John Hughes

Published by
mpowell
at August 7, 2009 in News. 1 Comment

John Hughes, who defined the 80s teen movie and helped shape the lives of a generation, died of a heart attack at the age of 59. Let’s take a look at his top 5 films (by average tier) at Criticker, and highlight the most popular mini-review for each one.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Average Tier 6.80
ozymandius10 – One of the best movie characters that I’ve seen. He’s the kind of guy I would’ve hated had I known him. But you can’t help wishing you were Ferris. You really feel for Cameron (Alan Ruck) after a while. But all in all this is an amazing movie, and fun every time.Ferris Bueller’s Day Off @ Amazon

Breakfast Club, The – Average Tier 6.55
AgentSnipe – Classic 80′s teen movie. Every teen movie that comes out these days just aches to be the “modern day Breakfast Club.” The Breakfast Club @ Amazon

Planes, Trains and Automobiles – Average Tier 6.28
Adrianics – As close to perfect as a comedy can get – A fantastic double act, wonderful cameos, frantic pace, terrific writing and one of the funniest set pieces in movie history. And that ending… If you don’t get choked up, you deserve a beating.Planes, Trains and Automobiles @ Amazon

Sixteen Candles – Average Tier 5.71
Piglet – With her off-beat looks, for a Hollywood star that is, she was maybe THE girl in the 80s. This is one of her best. Sixteen Candles @ Amazon

Weird Science – Average Tier 4.95
Stain – I can’t believe I used to love this movie when I was a kid. This is fucking dreadful Weird Science @ Amazon

-Movie Watching Platforms

Now, There Will Be 10 Best Picture Nominees

Published by
mpowell
at June 25, 2009 in Awards, Hollywood and News. 6 Comments

The Academy just announced that there will now be 10 nominees up for the Best Picture Oscar.

Sounds to me like a naked bid to increase attendance in the cinemas — how many people go to see a film just because it’s nominated for the best picture? I can say without hesitation that it was the only reason we watched The Reader.

From CNN.com:

The problem “came to a head with ‘The Dark Knight,’ ” which sold more than $1 billion in tickets worldwide, but was snubbed by the academy in the best picture category last year, he said.

The Batman sequel won best movie at the MTV Movie Awards and was chosen favorite movie by the People’s Choice Awards. It also made many critics’ top 10 lists.

If the nomination field had been expanded last year, the film might have made the best picture list, “which clearly would have been some kind of bump in the ratings,” Pond said.

This would also counter the impression among TV viewers that the awards show is “for movie snobs who don’t like the movies I like,” he said.


Tonight you’re all gonna be part of a social experiment.

Which of course is just another way of saying, “We’ll still be snobs, but now we’ll pretend as though Batman has a chance, in order to appease you idiots and take your money”.

Do you know a single person under 65 who thought The Reader was better than The Dark Knight? Oh well… at least this gives us more to talk about when award season comes around.

- Join the discussion in the forums


The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Published by
mpowell
at June 1, 2009 in Coming Up, News and Press/Media. 0 Comments

Being an American in Europe, one of my particular pet peeves has always been the awful translation of film titles. A title as simple as Billy Elliot becomes “Billy Elliot – I Want to Dance!” in German. Last Chance Harvey becomes “It’s Never too Late to Fall in Love” in Spanish.

But, we anglophiles are guilty of it too. A new Swedish film named Män som hatar kvinnor literally means “Men Who Hate Women”. But in English, we’ve renamed it to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Why?! I mean, what can possibly be the point? The original name is leagues more intriguing and provocative.

The film has already been released in most of Europe, and has gotten excellent reviews so far on Criticker. The book from which it’s adapted is the first in a trilogy titled “Millennium”, by the deceased author Stieg Larsson. The crime series has been an absolute smash hit in Scandinavia and around the world; in fact Larsson was the 2008′s second best-selling author world-wide, despite relative obscurity in the States.

Sadly, he would never know about his own success. Larsson died of a massive heart attack before his Millenium books were published.

There’s no word of an American release date for the film but in Europe, you almost can’t avoid it. Posters everywhere.

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