Wknd Box Office: Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, Into the Abyss, Take Shelter, Tower Heist, Margin Call, Dream House

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: Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, Into the Abyss, Take Shelter, Tower Heist, Margin Call, Dream House

By Debbie Schlussel



I’m not into most of the new movies, this weekend. I also added my reviews of “Tower Heist” and “Dream House,” since I didn’t post those previously:




* “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1“: Ick. Ick, ick, ick. I hate these “Twilight” movies, which are always the same thing: two girliemen with sculpted abs–one, a vampire, and the other, a werewolf–fighting over the most sullen chick around, Bella. And they are always the same audience: some screaming, fawning teen and tween girls and way too many middle-aged cougar women wanting to play Jerry Sandusky to the teen- and twenty-something guys in the movie. Oy. Two years ago, I wrote about how these women creep me out and are as sick as middle-aged men fawning over young girls (and boys) are.  Read my column on that matter, as now–a few years later–the rest of the pop culture critiqueratti has caught on to (and repeated) my point.  Also, this morning, on my regular Friday Morning movie reviews on the SiriusXM Patriot Channel “Mike Church Show,” I told Mike that these women are the female Sanduskys, and he shortened it to Sandusky-ettes.  Spot on .



Then, there’s the issue of abuse of women. The story of this long, boring, cheesy, silver screen version of a “Lifetime” movie with vampires, is that the human girl, Bella, marries Edward, gets pregnant on their honeymoon, and the baby vampire is quickly growing inside and killing her. At the honeymoon, since her new hubby vampire gets violent when he has sex with humans and wants to bite them and drink their blood, he cannot restrain himself, and Bella wakes up with bruises all over her body from the sexual experiences. Yup, just what you want your teen and tween to dream about: waking up with bruises from her boyfriend or husband. Dreamy, isn’t it?



Oh, and then there’s the charming part in which Bella drinks human blood so she can keep from dying and feed the vampire baby growing inside of her. The blood comes in those pouches that they use to store the blood people donate. Yup, that’s why you should donate blood–so a wife of a vampire can drink it to keep her vampire fetus growing. YAY, let’s hear it for cannibalism! If it sounds like I hated this movie, BINGO!



Guys, if your girlfriend or wife wants to see this, stay home. Avoid at all cost. You’ll need to shower twice to get the cheesiness cleaned off.



FOUR MARXES


* “Into the Abyss“: Germany’s Werner Herzog, who is against the death penalty, comes to small town Texas to show us what hicks, vermin, and trash small town Americans are. Yup, the liberal Hollywood ethos has a German accent in this one. However, if Herzog really wanted to convince people against the death penalty, he picked the wrong bunch. I wanted to put everyone in this movie to death, including the narrator with the German SS guard accent (Herzog). Every single person in this movie, perpetrator AND victim, was unsympathetic and annoying. And all had a lot of family members either in jail or dead. I think he’s secretly for the death penalty, a topic on which I go back and forth, because this was the trashiest bunch in America.



And it just wasn’t interesting. He didn’t ask the questions viewers wonder about, like how the wife of one of the killers imprisoned for life happened to meet and fall in love with an imprisoned murderer. The woman was a total moron. But no worries, she managed to be inseminated with sperm she and her new hubby smuggled out of prison and is pregnant. So glad that the criminals and killers of America spread their seed to harm further generations.



Long and boring.



TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES

* “Take Shelter“: Although it was a little long and slow, I liked this arthouse thriller featuring a modern day Noah. He’s a working stiff who does construction, and begins to have visions of various disasters and harm done to his family. The man’s mother has a history of mental problems and his friends and wife think he’s going crazy, as he spends time building out a giant storm cellar, jeopardizing his job, finances, and even an operation for his deaf daughter to get a cochlear implant. Even he thinks he needs mental help and seeks a psychiatrist. But is he crazy, or a modern day prophet?



ONE-HALF REAGAN

* “Tower Heist“: This comedy about a Madoff-esque billionaire (Alan Alda), who rips off the staff of his luxury high-rise apartment building in New York, isn’t that funny. Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller both fail to pull off laughs in what is rather bland but mildly entertaining. After discovering that their entire pension fund was stolen by the Alda character, the staff of the building in which he lives plots their revenge. But first they must find out where Alda hid their cash, which the FBI can’t figure out. And then, when they find it, they must figure out how to get their money out of the building undetected. Wasn’t a great movie, but if you have two hours to kill, it’s okay. While it’s slightly anti-capitalist in an Occupy Wall Street way, it’s more stupid and silly than anything else.



ONE-HALF MARX

* “Margin Call“: This is an Occupy Wall Street fantasy, and it’s boring, even with a cast featuring Demi Moore and Kevin Spacey. It’s about a fund of some sort or a stock brokerage that made a major error in its investment model which could lead to huge losses. Many who were supposed to be secure lose their jobs. You need to pay ten bucks to go to a movie to see this? You can see it in the markets every single day in this Obamaconomy. And nothing really happens in this very slow-moving flick.



TWO MARXES




* “Dream House“: Daniel Craig is a book editor who retires to enjoy his family and their new suburban New York house, which they are fixing up. But, suddenly, he has weird visions and things aren’t as they seem. I’m tired of the “I see dead people” twist. But this was mildly–very mildly–entertaining, if kinda silly. Might not be bad for a rental, but I wouldn’t spend ten bucks on it.



ONE-HALF REAGAN