Ten Films I’m Excited to See In 2010

The payoff for sitting through a dozen craptacular releases is that one movie where you actually say, “Damn, that was worth the $11.50 and the kidney I spent to see it.”  As a modern moviegoer, you must be an eternal optimist.  You must hope against hope that the trailer you liked didn’t contain every single good scene and funny joke in the movie, and that the reviewer who raved isn’t covering up some pinko agenda that’ll make you choke out on your Goobers. 

You have to believe that out there somewhere is an action movie director who knows what a tripod is.  That there is a young lead actor who has never starred in a CW television series about beautiful but sensitive teenage male models with supernatural powers.  That there is a comedy screenwriter who can imagine a “funny” situation not involving a bodily fluid.  That Michael Cera will one day play a different character.

In that spirit, a spirit of Pollyannaish hope in the face of overwhelming evidence indicating that Hollywood’s product will almost certainly continue to demonstrate that evolution is a two-way street, I present ten movies that are coming within the next six months that might actually be good – or at least not make me throw things at the screen and slap around the ushers. (more…)

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Tags: anthony hopkins, Ben Shapiro, ben stiller, benecio del toro, bruce willis
Posted Feb 14th 2010 at 6:58 am in Featured Story, Film, News | 304386139 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2010/02/14/ten-films-im-excited-to-see-in-2010/Ten+Films+I%E2%80%99m+Excited+to+See+In+20102010-02-14+14%3A58%3A28Kurt+Schlichter

REVIEW: Spirit of John Hughes Returns With ‘Youth In Revolt’

Some actors get famous for playing one unique type of character – Sylvester Stallone will always be   the monosyllabic tough guy, while Hugh Grant is the highly sensitive yet adorable British twit. And Michael Cera has made a name for himself as the ultimate high school nerd, awkwardly mumbling his way through one teen movie after another. 

If there was ever a need for a young actor to reinvent his image, it’s Cera – for the persona he’s been stuck in is so passive his characters barely seem to exist. He takes a big, bold and highly entertaining step in that direction with the new comedy “Youth in Revolt,” based on a novel by a writer named C.D. Payne that’s become a cult sensation since its publication in 1993 and has confounded filmmakers ever since.  

The reason why the novel has been so hard to adapt is two-fold: the book is a gigantic, 500-page tome written in the form of a journal composed by a fictional high-school student named Nick Twisp, and it’s packed with his randy sexual fantasies and frustrations. But screenwriter Gustin Nash and director Miguel Arteta (“The Good Girl”) have solved the problem in astute fashion: cutting down the frequency of the sexual material resulting in a 90-minute confection that’s still risque enough to be rated-R without being overly offensive. “Youth in Revolt” stands up well against the classic canon of the late great John Hughes’ ’80s teen films.  (more…)

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Tags: Gustin Nash, Hugh Grant, John Hughes, michael cera, Miguel Arteta
Posted Jan 12th 2010 at 7:07 am in Film, Reviews | 29095447 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ckozlowski/2010/01/12/review-ghost-of-john-hughes-returns-with-youth-in-revolt/REVIEW%3A+Spirit+of+John+Hughes+Returns+With+%27Youth+In+Revolt%272010-01-12+15%3A07%3A01Carl+Kozlowski

REVIEW: ‘Youth in Revolt’ Disappoints With Uneven Story and More Hollywood Christian Bashing

“Youth in Revolt” is a movie with a good premise but a lackluster plot that revolves around a witty, intellectual teenager experiencing the isolation of adolescence while living with his mother (played by Jean Smart) and her boyfriend.  Played by the likable Michael Cera, the lead character, Nick Twisp, spends a lot of the movie trying to attract the attention of a girl he desires. Unfortunately, the movie frequently becomes unnecessarily crass and stereotypical, detracting from an intriguing premise.

At the beginning, in order to protect his mother’s boyfriend from a fight with some sailors he sold a malfunctioning car to, the mother takes her son and boyfriend for a brief vacation. On that vacation, Nick meets a girl he’s immediately attracted to but she’s dating someone else. However, Nick still thinks he has a chance. In order to make himself more attractive to her he develops an alternate and “dangerous” personality named Francois, who has a mustache and enjoys causing trouble and destruction. (more…)

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Tags: christian, Jean Smart, justin long, michael cera, stereotype
Posted Jan 11th 2010 at 12:19 pm in Culture, Film, Reviews | 29141430 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jhanlon/2010/01/11/review-youth-in-revolt-disappoints/REVIEW%3A+%27Youth+in+Revolt%27+Disappoints+With+Uneven+Story+and+More+Hollywood+Christian+Bashing2010-01-11+20%3A19%3A21John+P.+Hanlon

Despite Ugly Facade, ‘Year One’ Has Positive Message About Religion

The new film Year One is definitely taking a beating from the critics, especially conservative ones.

Two reviews by my colleagues at Big Hollywood exemplify the complaints. Comedienne Victoria Jackson expresses immense disappointment with the film’s high proportion of obscenity and vulgarity (she reports that she left the film in tears of frustration and sadness), and John Nolte observes that it lacks a sensible story line, excessively indulges in its performers’ ad libs, manages to have scenes that are both overlong and end too abruptly, has a nonsensical timeline, and is just sloppy and poorly executed overall.

Both of these critics’ observations are quite accurate, but I think there’s more to this story. (more…)

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Tags: "Year One", Abraham, Bible. Sodom, Harold Ramis, Jack Black
Posted Jun 28th 2009 at 3:02 pm in Entertainment, Politics, Religion | 16740629 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/stkarnick/2009/06/28/despite-ugly-facade-year-one-has-positive-message-about-religion/Despite+Ugly+Facade%2C+%27Year+One%27+Has+Positive+Message+About+Religion2009-06-28+22%3A02%3A27S.T.+Karnick

Review: Year One

“Year One” is one of those rare movies that can’t possibly be as bad as the trailer makes it look … but is. Actually it’s kinda worse. Sex jokes, gay jokes, incest jokes, lesbian jokes, poop jokes, urine jokes, bestiality jokes, no story, an episodic plot, fewer laughs and dialogue that’s mostly ad-libbed, makes extra sure of that.

Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) play hunter-gatherer cavemen who don’t quite fit in with their small tribe. Both are clumsy, intensely disliked and in unrequited love with a couple of lovely cavewomen. After Zed breaks rule number one and tastes the forbidden fruit, he’s exiled. For some reason, Oh follows along and they set off on a series of tedious antics involving Biblical characters, the city of Sodom and whole lot of wondering as to what director Harold Ramis, the genius behind “Groundhog Day,” “Analyze This,” “Caddyshack” and “Vacation,” was thinking.

Judd Apatow is one of the producers, so that explains the overlong scenes full of unfunny, self-indulgent ad-libbing, but there’s practically no story. Like a foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the duo heads off on the Road to Interminable drifting from one “comedic” set up to the next riffing along the way in that annoying, hesitant-enhanced, post-modernspeak that passes for clever dialogue nowadays: “Yeah, I know, but … you know, if you were … because I could … and then we would – you know what, forget it.”

Beyond plodding, many of the individual scenes are also choppy. Scenes end abruptly as though what the makers had on film was so bad there was no other choice. The whole affair reeks of sloppy, laziness or plain old poor planning that couldn’t be salvaged in the editing room. (more…)

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Tags: "Caveman", "Year One", Barbara Bach, Harold Ramis, Jack Black
Posted Jun 19th 2009 at 4:31 pm in Reviews | 16531441 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/06/19/review-year-one/Review%3A+Year+One2009-06-19+23%3A31%3A53John+Nolte

Look to DVD for Best of 2008

Some of the biggest movies of any year aren’t in wide release until January, so some of us don’t see all them until much later. As of this week, I think I’ve seen what passes for “everything” from 2008. Herewith, my list of the Top Ten for the year just passed:

10. Sex Drive. Hilarious, under-seen, low-budget comedy starring the creative partner of the funny Michael Cera. Defeated at the box office because of its name, it features a few show-stopping scenes with Seth Green and a live-action pair of Beavis-and-Butthead types who steal the whole thing. This’ll do great on DVD. (more…)

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Tags: Appaloosa, burn after reading, Clark Duke, coen brothers, Dark Night
Posted Mar 2nd 2009 at 6:23 am in Entertainment, Reviews | 7001445 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mlong/2009/03/02/best-of-2008-a-little-late/Look+to+DVD+for+Best+of+20082009-03-02+14%3A23%3A12Mike+Long

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is the toast of the UK, winning 7 BAFTA Awards including Best Picture!

There was not a great deal of drama surrounding this year’s British Academy of Film & Television Arts Awards, commonly known as the BAFTA Awards. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is a movie with deep roots in the UK. Director Danny Boyle was born in Manchester, England, lead actor Dev Patel is the star of the popular British television series Skins, and the movie is a gigantic hit in the British Isles with an impressive $20.6M (US dollars) in box office for Pathe, since its release there on January 6.

BAFTA Winner Mickey Rourke

The two major uncertainties entering Sunday’s ceremony were whether Kate Winslet, twice-nominated for Best Actress, would split her own vote and miss out on her second BAFTA Award and who would prevail in the Sean Penn-Mickey Rourke battle for Best Actor. Aside from that, it seemed like a Slumdog sweep, and that’s exactly how it played out.

(more…)

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Tags: a.r. rahman, academy awards, alexandre desplat, andrew stanton, anthony dod mantle
Posted Feb 8th 2009 at 2:04 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, News, Steve Mason's Box Office | 4539010 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smason/2009/02/08/baftas/SLUMDOG+MILLIONAIRE+is+the+toast+of+the+UK%2C+winning+7+BAFTA+Awards+including+Best+Picture%212009-02-08+22%3A04%3A55Steve+Mason