The Twilight Saga: New Moon

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2012 Movie Review

In the high stakes HollywoodHollywood reviews blockbuster poker game, Roland Emmerich is going all in with “2012.” A disaster movie to end all disaster movies, “2012” is an enormous moviegoing event guaranteed to make eyes bleed and ears burst with its sheer scale and thundering execution. To bend the dictionary a little, it’s positively ginormous. “2012” is also disturbingly repetitive, obnoxiously noisy, and almost pornographic in length. Instead of providing a comforting bowl of melted apocalyptic cheese, Emmerich wants to beat the living hell out of his audience instead, staging doom after doom, death after death, until it reaches a nauseating spin of sensorial overload. It’s cinematic waterboarding and there was more than one occasion during the film when I was convinced it was never going to end. Read more

Saw VI Review

I walked out of a screening of “Saw” in 2004 absolutely appalled with the movie. Not for the sadomasochistic violence the film would soon popularize, but for the cruddy production value and the laughably abysmal performances — Cary Elwes should be gifted a national holiday for his whimpering, career-smothering work, effectively neutering the repulsion of the ultraviolence. I loathed the film, yet watched with some degree of surprise as the franchise developed a defensive mainstream following; kindly folk who cheerfully hurdled generous filmmaking clichés and further acting decimation to bathe in the warm pools of blood, sucking up the suffering with a bendy straw as if the nightmare were Cherry Coke. Read more

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant Review

The projectionist could’ve run this film backwards, and I don’t think I would’ve noticed. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is a HollywoodHollywood reviews attempt to massage author Darren Shan’s 12-part saga of vampires and teenagers into a viable, cash-cow franchise. Spanning the first three novels, Assistant doesn’t tell a story as much as it hurls everything that isn’t nailed down against the wall to see what sticks. Labored and often tedious, the picture is a friendly stab at Burtonesque macabre antics, but director Paul Weitz is in way over his head trying to juggle huge portions of the grotesque and the epic. 16-year-old Darren (Chris Massoglia) is an average teen with good grades and a love for spiders. Finding a flyer for the Cirque du Freak sideshow, Darren decides to attend with impulsive best friend Steve (the limited Josh Hutcherson), finding Read more

Review Of The Stepfather

What would the world be like without horror remakes? Probably a happier place. The StepfatherThe Stepfather reviews was a 1987 genre classic, constructing a tremendously suspenseful chiller out of a fine collection of untested actors and mere pennies for a budget. Take out a few synth stings and fogged lighting techniques, and it still holds up damn well today, elevated by Terry O’Quinn’s masterful take on demented Robert Young envy. The new Stepfather is 100 minutes of dopey behavior and filmmaking inanity wrapped up tight in a bland, gutless PG-13 wooby, taking a proven premise and watering it down to a parade of nonsense created only to tickle gullible teen audiences. We’ve danced this dance a hundred times before, but it never ceases to kill a few brain cells and leave behind deep scratches of impatience on the armrest. Read more

Review: Antichrist – Not For The Faint Of Heart

Grief, death, and rusty scissors collide in Lars von Trier’s AntichristAntichrist reviews. A metaphysical sojourn with cinema’s loudest spoilsport, the picture stuns and sickens, almost daring viewers to keep watching as it articulates the ravages of the unwound mind, filling the frame with demented acts of unspeakable violence and deeply considered thematic stimulation. For fans of Trier, Antichrist is a return to his once irresistible provocative appetites, shamelessly exploiting suffering and misogyny to generate the outrage that fuels his daydreams (and bank accounts). It’s a pitch-black torrential downpour of pain, and should only be approached by those willing to allow Trier 100 precious minutes to play his madcap mind games. Read more

Review: Whiteout – Run-Of-The-Mill And Forgettable

Many films register as forgettable. WhiteoutWhiteout reviews is practically the definition of the word, not actually requiring a viewing to sense a distinct worthlessness to this cinematic endeavor. Purportedly based on a beloved 1998 graphic novel, this AntarcticAntarctic reviews thriller is a dreadful sleeping pill, marching into production with the best intentions in the world, but coming out the other side a jumbled, incompetent, ludicrously underlined whodunit. Stationed on a remote base on Antarctica, U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale, failing to hide her embarrassment) is looking forward to her last days patrolling a frozen wasteland. Riding out her final moments of duty with friends (Ton Skerritt, Columbus Short), dreaming of a warmer future, CarrieCarrie reviews is instead pulled into a last-minute murder investigation when a body is discovered out in the middle of nowhere. Read more

Review: World’s Greatest Dad

Spending his directorial career in search of the proper script with the proper oddity to fit his established sense of humor, Bobcat Goldthwait has finally captured the secret formula with World’s Greatest Dad. A pitch-perfect black comedy, Dad drips with the sort of acidic smile that Goldthwait has built a career upon, bravely marching forward as not only one of the most uproarious films of the year, but perhaps the most accurate depiction of teen bile ever to grace the screen. It’s a double miracle: a stupendous comedy and a great argument for mass sterilization. Read more

Review: A Perfect Getaway – A Tiresome Movie

Off on a honeymoon in Hawaii, screenwriter Cliff (Steve Zahn) and babyfevered Cydney (Milla Jovovich) are looking for adventure, seeking out a special trail to a secret beach for excitement. Hitting the mountainside, the couple runs into outdoorsy superman Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and his girlfriend Gina (Kiele Sanchez). Striking up a tentative friendship, Nick wins over the gang with his wild stories of near-death experiences and military history. Learning of the presence of a killer on the island, Cliff’s paranoia kicks into overdrive, leading him to suspect Nick and Gina of wrongdoing; but another couple (Marley Shelton and Chris Hemsworth) nearby fits the profile, leaving Cliff and Cydney eager to leave the beach before they become the next two victims. Read more