Wknd Box Office: The Help, 30 Mins or Less, Final Destination 5

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/  reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and  THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed!  This all  follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!




Wknd Box Office: The Help, 30 Mins or Less, Final Destination 5

By Debbie Schlussel



I’m torn by two of this weekend’s three new movies. I liked the stories in “30 Minutes or Less” and “Final Destination 5″ and was entertained by both. But in the case of the first, it was too unnecessarily raunchy for no reason. And in the case of the second, it was too unnecessarily graphic and grisly. So, I’m thinking maybe I need a new way of rating movies I liked, but whose filth/raunch and/or grisly violence were crap and which I could have done without. Maybe you have some ideas beyond my “null” symbol.




* “The Help“: If you’ve read my column on the real-life Black maid, Ablene Cooper, and her lawsuit against Kathryn Stockett–the author of the best-selling novel on which this movie is based–then, you know what I think of this movie. It’s a lie.



Yes, there was racism in the South in the ’60s, and I’m sure Black maids experienced it. No one is saying it didn’t happen. It did. But it’s truly hypocritical of a White liberal chick to lecture us about it, when in 2008, she ripped off her and her brother’s black maid, Ms. Cooper, and in 2011, still won’t give her a dime. The real racist, today, is the multi-millionairess, White limousine liberal hypocrite, Ms. Stockett, who continues to treat this maid like garbage, ripping off her name and story.



The movie is about Skeeter, a White tomboyish girl from a privileged family. She was raised by her family’s Black maid who was suddenly fired. She sees the racism of her friends and how they treat their Black maids poorly, and she convinces the maids to talk to her for a book, which she believes will make her career. As I’ve already noted, in the movie (and the book upon which it is based), Skeeter splits her advance up among the maids. In real life, Stockett stiffed the maid, Ablene Cooper, giving her bupkus. Zip. Nada.



On top of that and many other lies, the characters in this movie are so blatant, stark, and caricaturish, they simply aren’t to be believed, especially Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, Hilly, who is so black-and-white, she’s not to be believed. The movie isn’t just over the top, with its “Stepford Wife” type of women. It’s simply more caroon and comedy than real life. Oh, and its racist and manipulative, not to mention cloying and maudlin.



So much for the lie of a “post-racial” world in the Obama era. It’s just more rubbing our noses in it and lording it over us in an Oprah kinda way. No thanks. I’ve seen many of these movies, but they’re irrelevant. Today, Whites bend over backward for everyone, lest the racism card be played, and it’s played anyway. And we’ve endured affirmative action, minority set-asides, and any number of other government- and corporate-imposed preferences that constitute reverse racism.



And today, the most racist group of Americans is not White America, it’s Black America. But don’t look for a movie on that. Instead, we’re served up yet another movie for which audiences are supposed to laugh and laugh and applaud and applaud over the running story of a maid serving up her chocolate pie–baked from batter into which she defecated–to her former boss. As I noted in my column on the real life “The Help” story, I don’t applaud those who get their racist culinary skills from Jesse Jackson (who bragged about spitting in White people’s salads as a waiter).



“The Help,” while it’s well told, tells a story the reverse of which goes on far too much today. And we never see movies with that narrative. Not even close.



There are only two things I liked about this movie: the clothes . . . and the cars. And, for that, I can see a whole lot better stuff on “Mad Men.”



FOUR AL SHARPTONS PLUS FOUR JESSE JACKSONS




* “3o Minutes or Less“: The basic story of this movie is slightly shoplifted from real life. A pizza delivery man has a bomb put around his neck and is told that if he does not rob a bank and bring his assailants the money, the bomb’s timer will go off and he will explode. That much happened in real life, though the FBI said the Pennsylvania pizza man was in on it. And in the real story, he is mentally disabled. Plus the bomb does go off, and he dies.



This movie has a far happier story and ending, and it was better than I expected. Despite being extremely juvenile, it was very funny and entertaining. Jesse Eisenberg, as the pizza guy, does his usual great acting, too. That said, I’m very hard-pressed to recommend it because it’s been Judd Apatow-ized. It’s very raunchy and the language is constantly littered with four-letter words and other verbal filth. I’m no prude, and I enjoyed the movie. But it didn’t need this kind of crap, which took it into the gutter.



So, I’m torn about recommending it, and given my reservations, I cannot give it anything better than . . .



ZERO REAGANS OR MARXES – A WASH




* “Final Destination 5“: I really liked the very first “Final Destination,” but I haven’t seen numbers 2-4, so I was unaware of how escalatingly grisly and graphic the movies got. This is not for the faint of heart. Bodies are gratuitously sawed in half and otherwise dismembered in your face. It’s especially in your face, given that the movie is 3D.



Still, I like a good science fiction/supernatural thriller. And this delivers on that. It’s just a shame that the movie was ruined by disgusting blood, guts, and gore. There’s a ton of it.



You don’t have to have seen any of the “Final Destination” incarnations to see this. New story, different characters, same deal: one guy, in a group of several people traveling, has a vision of all of them dying and insists they get off, in order to save themselves. In the original movie, it involved getting off of a plane that was going to crash. In this one–at least at the beginning–it is a bus on a bridge. Death is upset it was cheated, and it ultimately gets its prey. Those who were supposed to die will meet death in freak accidents later on, unless they kill someone else who takes their place. It’s the same story in this movie.



Like I said, it’s entertaining and keeps you rapt. It’s not a bad movie and is kind of funny, too (if, at times, unintentionally). But it’s just so disgusting and bloody to watch, it wasn’t necessary. I saw two parents with their 8- and 10-year-old kids, and I asked them on the way out why they brought their kids to such a graphic movie. They looked at me like I was from Mars. And maybe, today, I am. Because this isn’t good for America, with this pointless, gratuitous gore and violence. It merely desensitizes us to the real thing.



And that’s why I can’t give this movie anything better than . . . .



ZERO REAGANS OR MARXES – A WASH