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   July 30
   Get Low

In 1930s Tennessee, backwoods hermit Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) decides to throw his own funeral ... while he's still alive. With Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black.

PC: Holy shit 3 in a row with Get Low joining Beezus and Schmucks as 3 I'd want to see. Lucas Black plays a footloose and fancy free moonshine runnin' driver with a penchant for fucking Natalie Kelly in Tokyo. The plot sounds cool, Bill Murray can be great when not doing shit ass cameos in overrated zombie flix and I dig the title.

EP: Couldn't find a trailer. But provided no new information emerges, so far this sounds potentially good. Incidentally, my funeral is going to have an open bar.

JC: I'm sold on that funeral Pfriender, in the unlikely event that I outlive you. Just make sure it's not like my sister's wedding where I was promised they'd have Jameson and then Jameson was not provided. I had to drink Dewar's with a bunch of people wearing kilts, it was horrible.

That said, Chris and I saw this one in Toronto and while the premise and the presence of the great Lucas Black might seem enticing, the movie itself is somewhere between excruciating-to-sit-through and all-out-forgettable. There's nothing really wrong with it: they got Sissy Spacek in there, Bill Murray plays a likable character for the first time since Rushmore and Lucas Black, the one actor I would personally champion more than anyone else running around Hollywood holding a headshot, is predictably delectable. Ooh, put Lucas Black on Justified as Olyphant's younger brother! You can have that one, television - I'm giving it to you.

CF: Another one I've got to abstain from because I've already seen it. I'll take a moment to reaffirm my commitment to Lucas Black: Mr. Black, I was more excited that you were in this movie than Bill Murray and Robert Duvall combined. Robert Duvall sure is a grizzled old man. And he totally let that lady die in a fire. Or her husband? I can't remember. Don't worry, this movie can't be spoiled

The verdict: I've buried too many friends to make new ones.

Tally: 2-0

     The Adjustment Boureau

A rising politician (Matt Damon) falls for a ballerina (Emily Blunt), only to be stymied by mysterious forces keeping the would-be lovers apart. Loosely based on a story by Philip K Dick.

JC: The title makes me think of a service that will personally manuever your boxer shorts for you in order to make your penis more comfortable. Can I get that number?

At this point the name "Philip K Dick" is just a Hollywood euphemism for "broad science fiction concept we're trying to class up and make seem deeper than it is by attaching the name of a noted representative of the medium." Dick's recurring themes have nothing to do with the flashy set pieces of Impostor, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next...and nobody remembers most of those movies anyway. The interviews with this director make him sound like he understands Dick a little more than those other guys, but it seems more likely he doesn't know Dick.

In fact this sounds like less a Philip K Dick adaptation and more like an attempt to do a more successful version of It's All About Love, with a ballerina standing in for a figure skater. If there's a scene with six Emily Blunts that theory will be proven. I'll be blunt with you, Emily Blunt - I thought you were funny in The Devil Wears Prada but at no point did I think, Man I'd like to see more of this chick.

EP: Again, no trailer. So it remains to be seen if this is going to be a Phil Dick adaptation where they just take the idea and make an action movie, like Total Recall, or a Phil Dick adaptation where they try to remain faithful to the source, like A Scanner Darkly. Either way, I will remain hopeful until given evidence that I shouldn't.

CF: Hmm... on the one hand, I like Philip K. Dick and Matty Too Hotty from Southie. On the other hand, Hollywood is great at entirely missing the point with K. Dick and Emily Blunt is an actress I really would prefer not to be in this movie. Or any movie, really. I don't hate her, she's just a waste of cinematic space. I'm familiar with this particular story (Adjustment Team), but the description sounds vague enough that they could have just abandoned the original story altogether and just gone with some typical nonsensical Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. At least Damon doesn't play a reverse engineer in love with slow-motion doves. Stills from the film make it look like one of those movies where they can't figure out how to make the plot exciting so they just have the characters run everywhere as a substitute. The director/writer wrote Ocean's 12 (bad), The Sentinel (worse) and Timeline (night arrows), so he clearly should be piledriven through the Mexican announcer's table by Chris Jericho.

The verdict: Someone should go ahead and try Hollywood for future crimes involving Philip K. Dick.

PC: Somebody in post production adjust that title! Jeez louise who are the marketing wizards who came up with that dud? "Umm two for the umm adjut...ummm fuck it ...two for the cartoon movie please."

This one has the potential to be awesome or to disappoint like a ripped condom...Matty Too Hotty from Southie is fantastic, of course, but Emily Blunt? To put it bluntly she leaves my dick soft.

The Bourne movies were great...except for the last one!

I like the idea of Matty Too Hotty banging a ballerina...but as a politician? Gross.

I can only hope that there is a significant subplot involving geishas, J.Lo, and a lovable organ grinder's monkey who finds J. Lo's lost shoes in comical fashion.

Tally: 1-3, 4-0 against Emily Blunt appearing in movies

     I Love You Phillip Morris

On his second go-round behind bars, scam artist Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) commits the ultimate con in order to break out and win back the heart of Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), with whom he fell in love during his first prison sentence.

PC: Jim Carrey? Can we make Canada take him back? Tweeting against that Swedish chick Tiger cheated on a couple dozen times with various unattractive skanks. I mean the cheating I can understand but have you no taste man? At long last have you no sense of taste? Not all white girls are good looking Tiger...and Carrey hasn't made a movie I wanted to watch since Dumb and Dumber.

CF: Sounds like Thank You for Smoking. Bad Santa is another "totally outrageous, we don't care whose delicate sensibilities we offend!" shitfest and I enjoyed Cats and Dogs as far as that sort of thing goes. "That sort of thing" being CGI spectacles about heavily-armed, anthropomorphized feline and canine assassins in a deeply sad war of attrition. I like in that description how that they give Jim Carrey's character's name, like anyone ever anywhere would give a fuck that he's named Steven Russell - but they have to, you see, because there's a convention that says you either name all the characters mentioned (or none) in a blurb and they really need to get in there that Ewan McGregor's character is named Philip Morris, otherwise the title is confusing and makes everyone think of a terrible Aaron Eckhart movie (without Neil LaBute involved, is there any other kind?) that really no one wants to think of.

The verdict: Thank You for Smoking is, was and will forever be terrible.

JC: What Chris said.

EP: Um... does this look good? It certainly looks weird. I can’t tell if its a comedy. I heard its release got delayed indefinitely due to the fact that America hates gay people. I support this movie coming out.

Tally: 1-3

   Beastly

Manhattanite Kyle Kingson (Alex Pettyfer) is young, wealthy, beautiful, and cruel, but he picks the wrong classmate to prank when Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen) casts a spell that turns him into everything he despises. Banished to Brooklyn and informed that the only way to break the curse is to find someone who will love him as he is, a fateful encounter with Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens), looks to literally and figuratively change his life.

EP: Clearly, some of these movies just aren't for me. I guess this looks like a competent reworking of the Beauty and the Beast story. Although I should point out that there are plenty of people who spend a great deal of time and money trying to make themselves look like what this guy was "cursed" to look like. To each his own.

JC: "Banished to Brooklyn" does sound pretty horrible, all those goddamn hipsters and their goddamn noodles. Is this the kind of movie my daughter will be interested in seeing in ten years? Seems like it's chasing after some of that sweet sweet Twilight money. Well, it better not chase it into any theater I'll be taking my kid to, we're trying to watch the Miyazaki retrospective!

CF: I like when they do teenage remakes of classic fairy tales. Really I do, I even saw that Amanda Bynes movie with David Cross that was based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs only the dwarfs were replaced with - get this! - seven nerds! And she played soccer! There was also one I saw in the 5th Grade courtesy of the forebodingly named Tennessee matron Mrs. Tombs that I enjoyed called Cindy Eller. Her beater turned into a stretch limo and she rocked the prom in her shiny sneakers! What the hell is wrong with school that they wasted our time showing us something like that? Mrs. Tombs never once tried to show us the Cocteau's original Beauty and the Beast or even Blood of a Poet. Which is some world-class bullshit, but I guess I should've expected as much from a Nashville suburb. More to the point, you have to respect the Hudge, who had no compunction about sexting, back before it was even a word. And can I get some clarification on whether or not Mary Kate is playing a high school student?

The verdict: I give it two squeaks because it's the cheesiest one!

PC: What the shit? First a Culkin and now an Olsen twin? What do we have to do to get rid of these drug-addled waifs anyway? What does she play in this shitbomb, a swizzle stick in a shit tasting drink come to life? Shit. Poor Vanessa Hudgens...from High School Musical to third string in this mess...let's all say a prayer with a pedophile priest that the Tis and Brenda Song avoid similar sad fates.

Tally: 1-3

    Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

The ongoing war between the canine and feline species is put on hold when they join forces to thwart a rogue cat spy with her own sinister plans for conquest.

CF: That son of a bitch, the cat is going Benedict Arnold on us?! And I mean that: Benedict Arnold only sought to get West Point into the hands of the British because the American Revolutionaries teamed with the fucking French. Being a self-respecting human being (one who had just spent years duking it out with the Frenchies on the battlefield) he couldn't in good conscience abide any such Gallic-buddy-buddying. And it seems like this rogue cat we have here probably got wind of the cat/dog team-up and decided to do the right thing and take them both down: for you see, they're the traitors, not the rogue cat. The rogue cat believes in something called ethics and isn't going to compromise them just because of an endless, go-nowhere quagmire of a war feline/canine conflict. Mr. Obama, please take note.

The verdict: Undoubtedly this summer's most trenchant and thought-provoking statement on foreign policy.

JC: I had assumed that the conflict was resolved in Part 1, but I guess this is an Israel-type situation and the hornet's nest has only been shaken up. Dr. Peter Venkman's prediction of cats and dogs one day living together is still just a beautiful dream.

Scanning the cast list, I don't see Mr. Brendan Fraser appearing in this film. And I only like my anthropomorphic animals dancing and making pop cultural references movies when Mr. Fraser is involved, as he was in the great Furry Vengeance. But am I curious as to why the cats got pigeonholed as the villains in these flicks. Cats are like the Germans - ambitious and misunderstood. You never hear of a rabid cat mauling a child to death down in Florida. Is it just Hollywood's base hatred of intellectualism?

PC: I love it. Are they putting a euphemism for pussy in a mainstream cartoon? That's one Oscar category all sewn up. Villanch get your hairy gay ass in gear and pen some jokes for that fucker!

EP: Oh, Chris O'Donnell, what a weird and sad career you've had. Is it just me, or do the CGI versions of the animals in this movie look simultaneously unrealistic and horrifying? I will not be seeing this, mostly because I am scared.

Tally: 0-4

Join us for the grand finale as we pick apart the August releases in our 2010 Summer Movie Preview Part III.

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