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 choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: Finding Dory, Central Intelligence, Genius

By Debbie Schlussel

Yes, I’m late with these written/posted movie reviews, though yet again nothing much to rave about. Remember, you can always hear my movie reviews live, first thing every Friday morning on “The Pat Campbell Show” on KFAQ 1170 AM Tulsa at 7:35 a.m. Eastern, and on “The James Show,” on KWTX 1230 AM at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, on “The Larry The Cable Guy Show” (sometimes on Thursdays) between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Eastern on SiriusXM’s Jeff and Larry’s Comedy Roundup Channel 97, and on “The Mike Church Show” on the Veritas Radio Network/CRUSADE. I do my movie reviews on all four shows, as well as some discussion of current political issues and pop culture topics.







* Finding Dory – PG: I never saw “Finding Nemo,” the 2003 hit movie to which this is a sequel. I understand, though, that this is pretty much the same story as that one, except that “Dory,” a character from that movie, is the lead character, instead of Nemo. Although the completely unreliable site, Breitfart, claims that this movie shows two lesbian moms and has a trans stingray character, it’s not true. At least, I didn’t see it, and I was completely awake and alert throughout this entertaining, funny, cute movie. I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing the stingray claim he got a sex change or cut off any parts, as was claimed. The movie is animated in the usual high-quality Disney Pixar style. I saw it in 3D, but you need not spring for that and will have a fine viewing experience in 2D. Also, like most Pixar movies, this has a cute animated short prior to the main event.
Ellen DeGeneres voices the Dory character for most of the movie. The story: Dory, as a young fish, has short-term memory loss, and her parents are very worried about her. How will she find her way around? How will she be able to cope and take care of herself? Will anyone want to be friends with her? I was kind of surprised that such an adult set of concerns was the subject of a kids movie. But I think the movie handled it well. And while I’m not politically correct and don’t like PC movies, I liked this movie especially because I think it teaches kids to have compassion for those with mental disabilities. That’s laudable, though it is probably over the heads of the target audience. Dory, because of her inability to remember, gets lost from her parents while she is very young, and spends most of the rest of the movie trying to find them. Through that process, she meets a number of familiar characters (including Nemo and his father, Marlin, the latter of whom is voice by Albert Brooks) and a number of new ones. All of them, in their own way, help Dory make her way in her conscientious search to find her folks.
Like most Pixar movies, this has the usual colorful array of characters, sets and backgrounds, and other eye candy stuff. And like most Pixar movies, there are funny and quirky characters. Although the movie is kind of scary and serous for kids (at least, the kids when I was growing up–today, I know it’s a different story), there is a predictable and unlikely happy ending.
I enjoyed it. And it’s perfect to take your kids and whole family to see.
ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

Watch the trailer . . .

* Central Intelligence – PG-13: When a movie has posters that proclaim, “Saving the World Takes a Little Hart and a Big Johnson,” you already know what to expect: not much. And I didn’t expect anything from this. That said, I laughed a lot for the first third of the movie. It was very funny for about that much of the film. After that, it falls flat and fizzles. Plus saying it’s kinda stupid overall is the understatement of the year. The story is okay. It’s the execution that’s just dumb. And, again, I didn’t expect better, so I was pleasantly surprised if only ever so briefly . . . and then I was returned to the reality of most movies starring Kevin Hart and many movies starring Duane “The Rock” Johnson.
The story: Johnson is a fat, nerdy, poor kid in high school. He has no friends and is constantly mocked by the popular crowd, made up of mostly jocks. One day, they grab him while he’s naked in the locker room shower and throw him onto the gym floor during a school assembly. The only decent person, played by Hart, is the high school’s star athlete, who is also voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by their high school class. Hart covers up the naked Johnson with his varsity jacket and tries to shield him from further embarrassment. This kindness is something Johnson never forgets.
Fast forward 20 years later, and things are reversed. Sort of. Johnson is now a big, tall, buff guy who turns out to be a CIA operative of sorts. And Hart is an accountant who can’t get any respect at work and is bored with his life. He’s disappointed with how his life has turned out, and his wife–his high school sweetheart–wants the two of them to see a marriage counselor. It’s also the week of their 20th high school reunion. Hart, because he sees his life as so unexciting, doesn’t want to attend the reunion, while his wife does.
Soon, Johnson is back in Hart’s life, and Hart becomes entangled in a CIA plot regarding dangerous weapons and an evil villain. And that’s when it becomes stupid and mindless. Not that anyone should have expected anything different. After all, this is The Rock and Kevin Hart. Not exactly the working ensemble of masterpiece theater. As you’ll note, this only rates a PG-13, and not an R. It’s not as raunchy as what you’d typically expect for a bromance involving these two. But, again, it is as silly as what you’d expect.
HALF A MARX

Watch the trailer . . .

* Genius – PG-13: You know Hollywood is running out of ideas, when it puts out a movie about the editing of books. Yes, this is literally about that. I know–the only thing less exciting is a movie about watching paint dry. And that’ll probably be next. You literally see endless scenes of Israel-hater Colin Firth editing pages, crossing out words, and writing in the margins, as he portrays Max Perkins, the editor at Charles Scribner and Sons publishing house in New York in 1929. Yaaawn.
Apparently, Perkins was the editor of several famous, successful authors at the time, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom make appearances in this movie (played by actors, of course). But that notoriety doesn’t make this movie any more watchable or interesting. Instead, it feels like a boorish bore you were forced to eat dinner with drops a couple names during an insufferable conversation you wish you could walk out on. No, there’s nothing “genius” about Genius.
The movie focuses on Perkins’ two editing pursuits of books by a then-up-and-coming novelist Thomas Wolfe, not to be confused with the more contemporary Tom Wolfe, author of “The Right Stuff” and “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” The Thomas Wolfe of this book is a drunken, carousing, overwrought Southerner desperate to become a star and funded by his rich paramour (Nicole Kidman), a married woman who is jealous of his impending success and budding friendship with editor Perkins. In this onscreen bore, Wolfe is played–in fact, overplayed–by Jude Law. Wolfe is very wordy and writes thousands of pages for his two books, all of which must be whittled down and distilled by Perkins, who spends months rewriting the drivel and turning Wolfe into a star. Since he’s forever at work editing Wolfe, Perkins neglects his family and skips a vacation. He’s barely in his kids’ lives, yet still aware of what is going on with them.
While this movie, as with most period pieces with a decent budget, has charming clothing, cars, decor, and other accoutrements of the time, that’s where the charm ends. An irrelevant scene of editor and writer, Perkins and Wolfe, at a Black jazz club feels like filler, made to waste valuable minutes of the nearly two hours of my life I’ll never get back that this long, slow movie comprised. And I wasn’t sure what the point or purpose of this movie was, other than to enable an ensemble of filmmakers and actors to collect yet another paycheck for a job boringly done.
This movie is the cure for insomnia . . . and for the ten bucks plus and nearly two hours of your life you were dying to throw away.
TWO MARXES PLUS THREE NODOZ

Watch the trailer . . .

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 choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: And So It Goes, Lucy, Hercules, A Most Wanted Man

By Debbie Schlussel
I am not surprised that this has been the worst summer in terms of tickets sold and money made at the movies. The movies this summer have been the most underwhelming that I can remember, and this weekend is par for the course. I only really liked one new movie debuting at theaters this weekend.


* “And So It Goes“: This is the relative best of the bunch among the new releases this weekend. And it appears to be aimed primarily at older adults and senior citizens, though I think adults of any age above 25 will like it (and the story is timeless and ageless). Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton star in this senior citizen chick flick that is very funny and which even guys will like and find entertaining. It’s cute, light, and airy–the kind of escapist movie I and many others enjoy going to the movies to see.

Douglas is an egomaniacal, rude, insensitive real estate agent who owns a set of duplex apartments in which he lives along with other tenants. He has developed a love-hate relationship with one of his tenant’s, Keaton, a nightclub singer who shares too much gloomy personal information with her audience. Douglas is trying to help clean up her act (with not so subtle constructive criticism) and also attempting to get her a higher paying gig. In the midst of all this, Douglas’ estranged son is sent to prison for nine months and the young granddaughter he never knew is dropped on him to take care of. He then pawns off the granddaughter on Keaton, who develops a loving relationship with Keaton. Eventually, they all become like a family, while Douglas and Keaton develop a romance.
As I said, this is very funny. I laughed a lot. I could have done without a scene of a dog having sex with a stuff animal (it was gross in the first of a gazillion movies I’ve seen this cheap shot in–now it’s beyond rotten). But everything else was hilarious and fun to watch. The best actor or actress in this movie is Frances Sternhagen, who cracks many of the jokes and smart alecky lines perfectly, as if she were 24 instead of 84 years old. (Eighty-year-old Frankie Valli makes a cameo in this, too.) But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this is directed by uber-lefty Rob Reiner. The movie moves along at a fast clip and, at just over 1.5 hours, it’s the perfect length, too.
Enjoyable and with a happy, if predictable, ending. (This is one of the few movies that is actually far better than its trailer.)
THREE REAGANS



* “Lucy“: I expected better from this movie, and I’m usually a fan of Luc Besson. This isn’t a horrible movie, but it’s not a great one, either. It’s not tight and well-crafted, and below what I usually expect from Besson, who directed this. The first half of the movie is good, suspenseful, and action-packed. But the second half is a mess and bored me. The thing about science fiction movies of this ilk is that you can only suspend disbelief so much. My general rule of mental suspension of disbelief is this: only one thing can defy reality. Too many things, and I just don’t believe it or find it credible or enjoyable anymore. And that’s the case here: the one thing that would cause me to experience a credible suspension of disbelief is then topped by many others that simply aren’t credible or sensical.
In this movie, Scarlett Johansson is forcibly subjected to surgery in which a Korean mobster inserts a powerful, unusual drug into her body and then forces her to become a drug courier. But the pouch containing the drug leaks into her body, and the drug causes her to become supersmart and able to use up to 100% of her brain, which the movie tells us is far more then the proverbial 10-20% of the brain that some claim that we use (that, by the way, is a myth–we all already use 100% of our brains, according to brain surgeons and other medical professionals in the know). That Johansson becomes hypersmart and superstrong is something about which I could suspend my disbeliefs.
But, then, she starts controlling the internet, computers, phone lines, people and their guns, and all matter, and she’s able to go forward into the future, backward into the past, and able to stop time. At that point the movie becomes a silly mess I wasn’t buying. And that’s the point at which the movie begins borrowing heavily from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Transcendence” (read my review), which most other critics panned, but which I found semi-interesting and entertaining until it, too, became an all-controlling mess just like “Lucy” (and in which Morgan “Whites Are Racist” Freeman plays a similar role as in this–come on Hollywood, stop repeating yourself like a fart).
This movie is incredibly violent. But, as with most Besson movies, there is clear good and evil, and the violence is ultimately against the bad guys. Still, I just didn’t find the movie to be as good as I was expecting it to be. Moral of the story: don’t believe the hype. Johansson and this movie are getting a lot of that. But they don’t merit it here. Not so much, anyway.
The movie isn’t objectionable, but just isn’t up to snuff. At least not to my liking.
HALF A REAGAN



* “Hercules“: More like, “Not Hercules.” This silly “re-imagining” of the story about the Greek demigod really has nothing to do with anything. It’s like someone made a long, boring, silly flick so that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could be half naked for 1.5 hours and get paid, and then stuck the name “Hercules” on the movie. And it’s funny that all of the Greek kings and minions–and everybody else–in the movie have English accents, while only Johnson has an American accent, and it’s never explained why (other than that he was too lazy to try one or the movie was too stupid to try to make sense).
I note that the other “Hercules” movie, “The Legend of Hercules,” which debuted early this year was panned by critics (though not by me–read my review). This makes that version look like a masterpiece.
This long bore made the 1.5 hours seem more like 15 hours. And it’s quite violent, with men being shown burned alive, lots of beheadings and dismemberments, and so on (which I’d hate to see in 3D–I saw this in 2D, but you can shell out extra bucks for the charming thrill of seeing limbs fly in your face). Lots of fighting in this “300″-wannabe, but not much in the story department. Also, a guy sticks his finger into a month-old rotting dismembered head and then eats what he digs out. Yuck.
The “story”: Hercules is a man who may or may not be the son of a god and a mortal. He may or may not have special powers. But he’s never proven any of this. He and his band of fighters doubt it and think he’s just a mighty con artist thug who can fight, just like them. And he’s a mercenary who fights for the highest bidding kings, doing their dirty work. He’s sent out to fight legions of troops who are harassing a king and his kingdom. But soon, Hercules learns he’s been set up and must discover and prove whether or not he has the powers of a demigod to fight off the evil king.
Who cares? I certainly didn’t. I couldn’t wait for this movie to end, and that was just a minute after it started (or maybe 30 seconds). Snooze-fest extraordinaire.
ONE MARX



* “A Most Wanted Man“: The only thing you need to know about this long, boring, waste-of-time movie is that it’s based on a John Le Carre novel. As I’ve noted before on this site, the far left Le Carre a/k/a David Cornwell hates Israel and Jews and loves Muslims and Arabs, whom he sees as innocent victims of the West. Oh, and he also hates America and loves Communists to the point that he proudly declared how he nearly became a double agent for the Soviets while a member of British intelligence. Almost all of those sentiments are sharply on display here in this incredibly unthrilling “thriller.”
In his last movie, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman looks every day of his 66 years, except for the fact that he died at 46. His role in this movie shows us yet again, why he was no loss to acting or movies. It’s a mess, and so is he.
The story: a Chechen Muslim comes illegally immigrates to Germany, and a German intelligence group run by Hoffman (with a really bad German accent that he uses only about 60% of the time) is trying to use him to unwittingly frame another Muslim who is the father of another Muslim who is an informant to Hoffman. Got that? Yeah, it’s confusing, and really kinda stupid when you get to the conclusion of the movie in which nothing really happens (other than evil Americans messing everything up). On top of that, Rachel McAdams plays a German lawyer for illegal aliens who is trying to protect the Chechen Muslim and coaches him on what to say so he can get asylum (sound familiar? Texas border, anyone?). McAdams, by the way, went to the same Crappy German Accent University at which Hoffman matriculated. She is then forced by Hoffman into getting the Chechen Muslim to unwittingly frame the father of the other guy, the Muslim informant.
Throughout this, an evil American female CIA agent (Sean “Spicoli” Penn’s former wife, Robin Wright) is hovering over Hoffman, annoying him and threatening to mess up his operation with the American “exuberance” to actually catch and lock up Islamic terrorists. But, of course, the “evil,” “bigoted,” “headstrong,” “anti-Muslim” Americans don’t get that this Chechen Muslim is not a terrorist, but just a peaceful, good, innocent guy who is legitimately escaping torture he experienced at the hands of non-Muslims. I mean, isn’t that the case with all Muslim illegal aliens and immigrants to America?
Yeah, that’s the ticket. . . in John Le Carre’s warped mind. Which this movie reflects.
Alhamdulilah [praise allah] and Hollywood. And Mr. Al-Carre.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR BIN LADENS PLUS FOUR OBAMAS

Weekend Box Office: The Hangover Part III, Fast & Furious 6

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!

Weekend Box Office: The Hangover Part III, Fast & Furious 6


By Debbie Schlussel



Nothing but crappy sequels new at the theaters this weekend. Just ask youself, as we remember our military men who gave their lives, did they really die for this? Oy:


* “The Hangover Part III“: Absolute garbage, just like its two predecessors (read my reviews for “The Hangover” and “The Hangover Part II“) . And it’s the least funny of the three. I mean, a giraffe getting beheaded and a a guy with his face covered in dog feces–that’s funny how? It ain’t. Also, for those who are fans of Mike Tyson (not me), no he does not make an appearance in this one.



The “plot”: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Justin Bartha are on the road, taking Zach Galifianakis to therapy, after a family intervention. But they are kidnapped and captured by John Goodman, a mobster, and his crew. Goodman holds onto Bartha while he sends the other three to find Mr. Chow, who has stolen Goodman’s millions in gold bricks. The three go to Mexico, where they find Chow and help him pull off another gold heist, then they head for Vegas, when they realize Chow has stolen more gold and Goodman will kill Bartha if they don’t get the gold back.


It wasn’t that entertaining. Just stupid. It’s time for this trashy set of movies to end. Should have ended before it began.



FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS



* “Fast & Furious 6“:  I really liked the fifth installment of the Fast & Furious movies, “Fast Five” (read my review), so maybe I had unreasonable expectations for this movie. It stank. It was the typical Fast & Furious stuff and everything you expect: lots of hot, scantily clad women, lots of cool cars, the old cast of characters and relative newcomers, and lots of action and stunts. But it was the worst of the Fast & Furious movies, and the least believable. The plot and stunts were just ridiculous . . . ridiculously absurd. A lot of stuff didn’t make sense, but, then, this isn’t a deep movie for rocket scientists.



The story: Interpol is trying to find and stop a British special forces soldier gone rogue who is now a mercenary and has or is trying to acquire (I couldn’t figure out which) something dangerous to the world–a computer chip which controls nuclear weapons or something like that (they don’t quite explain it much). So the Diplomatic Security Services agent (Duane “The Rock” Johnson) rounds up the Fast & Furious gang to stop the bad guy and his crew in exchange for complete pardons. He convinces them to get involved because one of the crew, Letty, is with the bad guys.



Nothing objectionable here. Just silly and pointless. Like I said, crummy story, completely ridiculous stunts, completely nonsensical. If you want to put your brain on pause for two hours and watch lots of action, stunts, car chases, and martial arts-style fighting, this is your movie. Otherwise, skip it.



HALF A REAGAN