Wknd Box Office: White House Down, The Heat, Redemption (Hummingbird), Dirty Wars

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 about 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: White House Down, The Heat, Redemption (Hummingbird), Dirty Wars


By Debbie Schlussel



The new movie I liked best this week isn’t the one with a lot of hype. It’s a small Jason Statham film with release in fewer theaters. But all things are relative. Here’s what I thought of all the new releases, debuting in theaters this weekend:


* “White House Down“: I already saw this same movie in March. Then, it was called, “Olympus Has Fallen” (read my review). And although this retread of that plot is a little more fun, it’s also a lot more politically correct . . . annoyingly so.



In Olympus, there was a White, ideologically nondescript President. In this one, there is Barack Obama parading as Jamie Foxx parading as “President Sawyer.” But it’s definitely Obama. He’s pretentious, brings the troops home from Afghanistan, idiotically makes a deal to withdraw all U.S. troops from the entire Middle East, has a partially-read Nelson Mandela book sitting on his mantel in the White House residence, negotiates with Iran, and makes a peace treaty between Israel, France, Russia, the United States, and all Muslim nations, including Iran. Yup, we’re supposed to believe peace with Iran is possible if we only negotiate with them and pull all troops from the entire Middle East. Dumb. Oh, and we’re supposed to believe that the President sent investigators to Iran, and found “no nuclear weapons there,” as the movie tells us. Yeah, that’s the ticket. No Iranian nukes, no such aspirations. And if you believe that, I have some land in Tehran (or Hollywood) to sell ya.



Absolutely ridiculous is the plot point that the defense industry and “military-industrial complex” are behind the plot to take over the White House and kill the President because they don’t want the peace treaty to happen, as it will kill business for them. Riiiight. ‘Cuz that’s waaaaay more believable than terrorists being Muslims . . . which has never ever happened. The movie makes a point to tell you that the world and the media mistakenly believe it’s Arabs and Muslims, when it isn’t. ‘Cuz again, they would never ever be involved in terrorism. Never. Also, did I mention that the terrorists in the plot in this movie are “right-wing” domestic terrorists? They include a “right-wing sociopath,” a “Special Forces veteran of black ops,” and a man who shot up the Post Office because there are too many Blacks working there. The Speaker of the House, who is also in on it–and ends up being a major bad guy. He justifies his involvement in trying to kill the President by telling the President, “You’re selling this country out to the Arabs.” Yup, as if those of us who know that this current President (as did the one before him) is, in fact, doing that, would plot to bomb the White House and kill the Prez. Did Janet Napolitano (who went to the Washington screening of this movie) write this crap?



Among the plot similarities between “Olympus” and “Down”: both movies have a member of the President’s Secret Service personal protection detail who is in on the plot to bring the President down, kill him, blow up the White House, and get the President’s secret codes to launch nuclear weapons. Both movies have the White House getting horribly damaged through explosives and shootings and the President nearly dying when the Joint Chiefs are gonna blow up the White House, but the President avoids this at the last minute. Both movies have idiots at the Joint Chiefs of Staff war room doing the wrong thing. Both also have the preposterous plot holes of the bad guys getting to bring guns into the White House and virtually every single member of the Secret Service detail and uniformed Secret Service at the White House killed or otherwise incapacitated at the hands of only a few guys. Just not believable. Oh, and one surviving Secret Service agent–in this movie, a Secret Service agent wannabe–saves the day in Rambo/Die Hard-like fashion. In Olympus, it was Gerard Butler. In this, it’s Channing Tatum.



Please, Hollywood, come up with something new.



The plot: Channing Tatum is a ne’er-do-well who saved the nephew of the Speaker of the House when they were serving in Afghanistan. As a reward, he’s given a job guarding and protecting the Speaker. But he wants to become a Secret Service agent protecting the President, so he goes to the White House for an interview with the world’s ugliest and most annoying female Secret Service agent–America-hater Maggie Gyllenhaal (who said America deserved 9/11). Here’s a tip: when applying for the Secret Service, if accepted, your first stop is the Secret Service Academy for several months of training. After that, agents spend years in the field as Secret Service agents before they are considered for the President’s personal protection detail. It’s not a job you can interview for from outside the agency because you know someone. Just doesn’t happen.



Anyway, Tatum doesn’t get the Secret Service job, but he’s brought along his estranged young daughter in an effort to impress her because she’s into politics, the White House, and President Jamie Foxx Obama. While they are still at the White House, technicians working on the President’s personal movie theater are really terrorists with guns they unbelievably got into the White House. First, a janitor, who unbelievably got a gun and explosives into the U.S. Capitol building blows up the Rotunda. Then, the terrorists at the White House take over. Surprisingly, there are only about 30 people, including tourists, in the entire White House (in this absurd movie), and they are all herded into a single room, including an anti-President Foxx TV talk show host, who is conservative and obnoxious/annoying. He gets killed, and everyone laughs.



Meanwhile, Channing Tatum is separated from his daughter (she went to the bathroom) when the terrorists strike, and he spends the whole rest of the movie trying to find and save her and save the President.



Yes, there are funny lines (and scenes, including one with the Presidential limo) in this movie and it’s entertaining–much more so than “Olympus Has Fallen”–but mostly it’s just a giant absurdity and rehash of a movie I saw just months ago. And, above all, it’s a Tatum-produced effort to make himself into an action hero a la the 1980′s movies. But it’s a hard buy despite the hard sell. Tatum’s no Jason Statham. Not even close.



The one thing I did find believable: when President Jamie Foxx is on the run for his life and every second counts, he stops to change his shoes to his precious, prized Air Jordans, which he wants to save. Priorities. You can bet the Obamas have a lot of the same kind of priorities, which is why people like Jay-Z infect the White House and the Presidency.



HALF A MARX


* “The Heat“: Sandra Bullock plays an uptight, perfectionist, but highly achieving and ambitious, FBI agent. Melissa McCarthy is a let-it-all-hang-out, sloppy Boston cop. They initially hate each other, but are forced to work together to catch a drug lord. And after a long set of arguments and hijinks against each other, they become buddies as in a raunchy male cop buddy movie. Yay, feminism!



Yes, there are funny lines, and I laughed. But not as much as I expected to. The movie is mostly boring, stupid, and predictable. It’s not a good cop buddy movie, regardless of the gender of the lead roles. And Melissa McCarthy’s “Laugh at me ‘cuz I’m a fat slob, and therefore funny” act gets tired. And beyond five minutes, it isn’t funny. Just grotesque and slovenly.



Mostly, this movie was lame. But, hey, they got a big paycheck. Cha-ching. It may be called, “The Heat.” But there’s no truth in advertising here. There’s nothing hot about this predictable time-waster. In fact, it left me cold.



HALF A MARX PLUS FOUR BETTY FRIEDANS

* “Redemption” (Hummingbird): I liked this Jason Statham movie the best out of all the new releases, this weekend. But all things are relative. Originally called Hummingbird, it’s about Joey Jones (Statham) a veteran of some Middle East war (either Iraq or Afghanistan, apparently), who went nuts, fled from a court-martial, and is now just a homeless drunk on the streets of London.



Thugs beat him and a homeless girl he watches over and loves. When the thugs chase him, he escapes through the roof of a building into a penthouse apartment, which just happens to be unoccupied for the summer, as its occupant, Damon (apparently a gay, big name photographer), is spending the summer in New York. So Statham stays there and brings himself “back to life,” cleaning himself up, getting a job as an enforcer for a Chinese mob, and ultimately seeking revenge for the killing of the young homeless girl, who has been murdered by a john when she was forced to work as a prostitute. He is an “avenging” angel.



During all this time, Statham amasses money and gives a lot of it to the attractive Polish nun, who mans the soup kitchen where he ate when he was homeless. And he and the nun have a brief romantic flirtation in which they learn they have very similar mysterious pasts.



I found this movie very entertaining, but it’s extremely violent and its message–if there is one–is quite muddled. While Statham tries to avenge the young girl, he’s just as violent and mean to others as a Chinese Mob enforcer, a point the nun makes to him. And while the movie is built on an interesting idea–a homeless man who finds himself in a luxury apartment for a few months, with access to funds and the good life–some of it was a little too coincidental, such as the fact that the man whose apartment it is just happens to wear the same size clothing as Jason Statham, in addition to happening to be out of the country when Statham lands there.



Still, if you like Jason Statham (I’m a fan), you’ll probably like this movie. It’s full of action, and has an interesting story line.



ONE REAGAN


* “Dirty Wars“: This anti-American, apologist “documentary” by the far-left “journalist” Jeremy Scahill (of “The Nation”) was boring and absurd, but, hey, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, and other flip-flopping partisans who’ve attacked Obama for killing “U.S. citizen” Anwar Al-Awlaki, will love it.



Scahill acts as if this movie is uncovering some sort of mystery or new information. Nope. It’s simply a love letter to Islamic terrorists and a polemic against America’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for combating Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and so on. Scahill is upset that we are actually combating this problem, that we used drones to kill Awlaki and his son, and that some other “innocents” (whose side he automatically believes because it’s against America) were killed. Um, that’s what happens in war. What about the innocent Americans Muslims killed? Scahill can’t be bothered with that.



In fact, he actually says that he’s upset that JSOC killed Osama Bin Laden. Go to hell with him, Jeremy Scahill. Oh, and did I mention that Michael Moore helped make this film possible and is thanked at the end? But, hey, it takes the same view on Awlaki and others as Limbaugh, Hannity, and Paul, so it must be great, right?



FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR BIN LADENS

Wknd Box Office: Magic Mike, Ted, People Like Us, Your Sister’s Sister, Safety Not Guaranteed, Where Do We Go Now?

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: Magic Mike, Ted, People Like Us, Your Sister’s Sister, Safety Not Guaranteed, Where Do We Go Now?

By Debbie Schlussel



Apologies for the late movie reviews, but I wasn’t feeling well Friday afternoon and don’t post on the Jewish Sabbath. Better late than never. None of the new movies is anything I can recommend. A couple of them were depressing, a couple of them gratuitously filthy, and three of them inexplicably feature the very unattractive, nerdy actor Mark Duplass as some sort of hot stud. Please stop lying to us, Hollywood.


* “Magic Mike“: Absolutely awful. It’s basically “Showgirls” with men. And that’s an insult to “Showgirls,” which at least had a tad better plot. In addition, the story in this movie was depressing. And the movie had a huge gay vibe to it. I saw enough close-ups of Channing Tatum’s and Matthew McConaughey’s naked asses to last me five Liberace/Tom Cruise/John Travolta lifetimes. Ick. And the scene of McConaughey writhing his body against another guys in a mock sexual act was not something real heterosexuals wanna watch. Ugh. This is one of those movies that makes me ask myself if maybe I’m getting too old or that it’s weird and unstylish to have class and dignity and not get excited at this gross display. I’m not turned on by seeing a bunch of oiled up, completely waxed guys romp around naked in very gay thongs. And the women who are, well, there is something weird about them, not me. But the female mega-squealing and cheering at this movie is more evidence that in our 50 Shades of Grey/Magic Mike era, the real pigs and chauvinists are women, not men. But women can get away with it. When men react this way, they are “perverts.” Aside from that, the movie is predictable, stupid, and just plain Razzie Award-worthy bad. Since when did the crass and the crude become hot commodities? And why on earth is any woman turned on by some stranger in a thong writhing his junk on her face?




The female lead in this movie is someone I never heard of: dull, one-note actress Cody Horn. But then I looked up her bio, and it explained everything about why she was cast as a star in this Warner Brothers movie: “Cody Horn is the daughter of Warner Bros. President and COO, Alan F. Horn.” I’m sure that had nothing to do with her getting the job, right? (He’s now Chairman of Disney and gone from Warner Brothers, but he ran Warner Brothers when his daughter was cast in this movie. Her mother is Cindy Harrell-Horn, a has-been B-television actress who starred in the “Ghostbusters” music video.) There was probably a quid pro quo: then less-known Tatum was allowed to get his movie made if he agreed to cast the studio chief’s daughter as the female lead. That’s how stuff gets done in Tinseltown. Also, I wonder what the ghost of Elvis thinks about his granddaughter, Riley Keough, playing a druggie slut in this low-class movie.



The story: Channing Tatum is a “Magic Mike,” a stripper (as he was in real life prior to becoming an actor). He longs to become an industrial-style furniture designer and is only stripping so he can make enough money to finance his career. He also works a number of odd jobs, including construction, where he meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer). Adam, like the real-life Tatum, dropped out of a small college where he attended on a football scholarship. And like the real-life Tatum, he’s living in Tampa on his sister’s couch. Mike takes Adam under his wing, showing him how to become a stripper, party, and pick up women. The strip club is owned and run by Matthew McConaughey. Soon Adam is partying too much, doing drugs and selling them. And he gets jammed up. Also, McConaughey and Tatum get into a fight. During all of this, Tatum is trying to pick up Adam’s sister (Cody “my Dad headed Warner Bros.” Horn), a healthcare worker who doesn’t like the whole male stripper lifestyle. And he’s also sleeping around with a woman (Olivia Munn) who wants nothing to do with him beyond sex. Shocker.



If any of this sounds new to you, you haven’t been to the movies in ages, and probably shouldn’t make your return with this low-class, low-budget-looking tripe. It stank. The plot and the acting were sub-par. The naked male butts in my face were unwelcome. This flick is great fodder for “Beavis & Butthead” or “Mystery Theater 3000″ commentary. Nothing more. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a big chunk of the audience is the gay crowd, to whom the studio has been heavily marketing this trash.



I felt like I got STDs just watching this. It’s a rancid taste of lowlifery I’d rather not digest. I definitely wasted two hours of my life I’ll never get back, watching “Frankie Goes to Hollywood,” the 2-hour extended remix. The ghost of Betty Friedan and the rest of the ugly feminist crowd got their wish: the men here are the new women–scantily clad bimbos acting like idiots. Great Gitmo torture material here.



FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS TWO VILLAGE PEOPLES



* “Ted“: Mark Wahlberg–attempted murderer who took out a Vietnamese immigrant’s eye out with a meathook–plays a guy who is in arrested development and can’t grow up. The reason: his boyhood toy bear, Ted. When Wahlberg was a kid, he had no friends, and he wished that his boyhood favorite toy, a teddy bear, would become real. His wish is granted, and Ted becomes a filthy, low-life jerk, 30 years later, when Wahlberg is supposed to be an adult. Instead, Wahlberg is constantly late to work because he’s too busy smoking pot with Ted, and he otherwise goofs off. He’s dating Mila Kunis. He’s been dating her for four years, and when she thinks he’s going to propose, he gives her a pair of cheap earrings from a mall kiosk. She gives him an ultimatum: either he breaks up with Ted and kicks Ted out of the apartment, or she wants nothing to do with him.



While there are some really funny lines and moments in this movie (there is a running “Flash Gordon” movie gag running through it, complete with aged actor Sam Jones), it’s mostly just vile and disgusting. And that’s aside from the fact that the plot is stupid and predictable. If your idea of funny is topless women floating around, gratuitous sex (with a teddy bear, no less), and just vulgar language and imagery (including human feces on an apartment rug), then this movie is for you. For decent Americans, skip this piece of tripe. Gross.



FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO BIN LADENS


* “People Like Us“: This movie was just way too much melodrama for me (or anyone paying to see it). People go to the movies to escape, not to see people whining and yelling and screaming like this. Who needs it? None of the characters in this movie were likable.



Chris Pine plays a fast-talking, smooth-operating salesman for a bartering company in New York. When he learns that his father died, he tries to avoid going to Los Angeles for the funeral because he hated his father, and they weren’t close. But his girlfriend (Olivia Wilde) hamstrings him into going, and while he misses the funeral, he is staying in Los Angeles with his ice-cold mother, Michelle Pfeiffer. Soon, he discovers that he has an illegitimate sister (Elizabeth Banks) he never knew. His father leaves him $150,000 cash to give to the sister’s son. He wants to keep the money because he’s heavily in debt, but he goes to find his sister and insinuates himself into her life without telling her who he is. She falls in love with him.



Yes, that’s icky and sick. But the movie is also dumb. He has the same last name as his (and her father), and yet for weeks on end, she lets Pine hang out with her and take care of her son, without asking his last name or knowing anything about him. Would any normal person do that? No, but if she did, it would resolve the whole movie instantly. Also, in a stupid plot “twist,” Pine is instantly investigated and brought up on charges for a deal in which boxes of tomato soup exploded and leaked all over a train. Um, the government doesn’t work that fast, and the Federal Trade Commission couldn’t care less about leaking tomato soup. Whoever wrote this cockamamie script didn’t do the least amount of a reality check. Ditto for the scenes in which nebbishy actor Mark Duplass is some “hot” airline pilot with whom the beautiful Elizabeth Banks has an affair.



If there is anything useful in this movie, it’s what a mess people, who have no father in their life, turn out to be. But then we knew that, and didn’t need this movie to show us. While there is a touching scene at the end of the movie, it isn’t worth sitting through the rest of this dysfunction fest. The people in this movie are NOT like us. And we have zero reason to want to watch them annoy and aggravate us for two hours and ten dollars we’ll never retrieve.



TWO MARXES



* “Your Sister’s Sister“: Mark Duplass plays a loser whose brother just died. At the funeral, he delivers a eulogy which is an attack on his brother. His brother’s ex-girlfriend, Emily Blunt, is his best friend and tells him he’s a mess. She sends him to her father’s cabin in the woods for a respite to work out his issues. But when he gets there, he meets her lesbian half-sister (Rosemarie DeWitt), sleeps with her, and might have gotten her pregnant. But he’s in love with Blunt, who apparently has a thing for him. A silly, ridiculous love triangle and brooding is basically what this movie is about. And the ending is a rip-off. Skip-worthy to the max.



FOUR MARXES



* “Safety Not Guaranteed“: This movie could have been charming, but instead, it was an amateurish small-budget movie that was nothing more than a waste of time. A sleazy Seattle Magazine reporter (Jake M. Johnson) goes to a small town to find out the identity of the person who took out a strange newspaper ad for a companion on a time travel trip. He’s really using the trip to visit an ex-girlfriend from high school. And he takes two interns on the trip, whom he forces to do his work for him. The female intern (Aubrey Plaza) stakes out the geeky, nutty, paranoid man who took out the ad (Mark Duplass), and she falls in love with him. The reporter also corrupts the male intern, a geeky stereotypical Indian (Karan Soni). While the ending is somewhat charming, the rest of the movie isn’t. Don’t waste your time. I’ve seen film school class projects that are better. A lot of them.



THREE MARXES


* “Where Do We Go Now?“: Atrocious. This is basically “Hee Haw” for Arabs. And that’s an insult to “Hee Haw.” This movie, which takes place at some fictional city in the rural Lebanese countryside, is about the sudden rivalry and fighting between heretofore “peaceful” Muslim and Christian Arabs in a town. The men suddenly hate each other and are at war, but the women all get along and bake marijuana into the baked goods and spend their money to bring Ukrainian strippers to perform for their husbands, in order to make everything better like it once was. Sound stupid? Believe me, I’m making it sound better than it is. It’s far worse. This long, boring, pointless, horrible, never-ending movie tries to be a million things–comedy, musical, drama, romance, etc.–and fails miserably at each one. The “humor” is so backward and dated to several decades ago, it’s just annoying. Even the late Rodney King’s “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” BS is an improvement on this waste-of-time fraud of a movie. More proof that the Arab world is inept at film-making.



FOUR MARXES