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: X-Men: Apocalypse, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Lobster, Love & Friendship

By Debbie Schlussel

I’ve been away and out of posting commission because I’ve been working on a few things I’ll announce soon. But I’m back with these, my reviews of the new movies debuting in theaters today.







Sad to say, there’s nothing here I’d spend a penny on. But a lot I shoulda been paid to sit through. It’s a high-quality-Gitmo-torture-material weekend at the movies. Instead, I’d recommend you Netflix or otherwise find a way to watch Taking Chance (will post my review later this weekend), which is an excellent, very moving film to remember our fallen heroes on this Memorial Day Weekend. As for the rest of these, I wonder, did our military men really die for Hollywood’s right to make this crap? . . .
* X-Men: Apocalypse – PG-13: This is like the fifth or sixth installment (I lost count) of the X-Men movies, and it shows. It’s long, overstuffed, tired, and stodgy. The story is ridiculous and silly. And it seems like I’ve already seen it before in two other superhero movies in the last four months. Yes, it’s another “superheroes v. superheroes” civil war movie, which we already saw in “Captain America: Civil War” (read my review) and “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” (read my review). Enough, Hollywood. Come up with something new. Or at least, slightly different.
More problems with this movie: it has too many characters, so many that you may get confused. Plus, it has too many flashbacks and flash forwards. That’s bad enough, but the movie takes place in the late ’80s or early ’90s, so it’s hard to figure out and keep track of what’s what and when, since the whole movie is already a flashback of sorts, and then there are these flashbacks within that. I probably needed a map to follow things. On top of that, there are the allusions and references to things that happened in previous X-Men movies, and who can remember what happened in each of those, unless you’re a diehard fanboy and don’t see as many movies as I do. A good sequel is an independent movie without all of that, or at the very least, it has a brief rehash or reminder/explanation of what they are talking about. This didn’t have any of that. So, if you’re not familiar with the characters from previous X-Men movies, good luck.
This movie had a ton of special effects, action, fights, and computer generated images (CGI). But, while it was high on the effects and action, it was very light on story. The story: an ancient Egyptian villain who is mummified below a pyramid in Cairo (I thought the pyramids were elsewhere), is revived by some fellow Egyptians. He is the mutant X-men villain known as “Apocalypse.” Some of the renegade X-Men, such as Magneto, join his team to fight and try to destroy the “good” X-Men and to destroy the world. He begins by destroying some of the world’s major cities. The X-Men fight back and try to stop him, all with the leadership of Xavier, who heads the gifted school where they stay and develop their powers.
Posters for this bear the motto, “Only the Strong Will Survive.” And this is a weak movie, so it should die quickly. But because it’s a superhero movie with a lot of hype and a built-in fanbse, it will dominate at this weekend’s box office. I saw this movie about a month ago, and the studio said I could post my review immediately. Normally, I would do that. But I was so underwhelmed by this, and it’s so forgettable, that I waited until today, it’s debut. That’s how lackluster this is. These superheroes aren’t so super. Not even close. Which is why, I’m being incredibly generous when I give this a positive rating (because it’s neither political nor offensive and the good guys do win in the end) of . . .
HALF A REAGAN

Watch the trailer . . .

* Alice Through the Looking Glass – PG: Six years ago, I reviewed “Alice in Wonderland,” of which this is supposed to be a sequel. As you may recall, I hated it. In that version, Alice isn’t the Lewis Carroll Alice. She’s the Gloria Steinem Alice–a feminist action hero who bears little resemblance to the story you remember from your childhood. This is more of the same. Only worse.
I mean, how many female ship captains do you think there actually were in 1875 and 1876, when this movie takes place? It’s a sure bet the number was zero. But in this, a grown Alice is a ship captain who has just returned from a three-year voyage in the dangerous high seas. The movie is something of a feminist fight by Alice (Mia Wasikowska) to continue to sail ships instead of giving in to the stock Hollywood evil White male capitalist who wants to stop her and make her a clerk. That man is someone who proposed to Alice, but she turned him down in order to be an independent swashbuckling ship captain, and so he’s now a man scorned trying to take away her widowed mother’s home and her deceased father’s company and ship. Ultimately, Alice, of course, prevails, cuts her long locks short in a lesbionic butch cut, and wears pants. Talk about heavy-handed.
And amidst that as the back story, adult Alice also travels back to Wonderland (this time through a mirror in the aforementioned evil rich guy’s mansion) to save the ever annoying and weird Johnny Depp’s depressed and dying Mad Hatter. He’s very sad and has given up on life because he believes that his parents, siblings, wife, and kids are dead and that he’s the indirect cause. But then there is a glimmer of hope that they may all be alive, and Alice travels through Wonderland to try to find and save them so her dear old friend, the Mad Hatter, will come back to life and vitality. She does this by stealing an orb from Time (a man played by Sacha Baron Cohen), which helps her to time travel throughout Wonderland. Time’s minions are chasing her to get it back, and Time’s girlfriend, the evil Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter) is back and trying to help him get Alice.
The movie has great special effects. I saw this in 3D (but you’ll lose nothing except $10 if you don’t), and the colorful, whimsical sets, costumes, and effects are wonderful eye candy. The movie is very high on style. But, sadly, it’s also equally low on story and anything else of interest.
Mostly, I thought this was a bore and a propaganda film cross-dressing as a childhood fairy tale. Unfortunately, the audience of free ticket holders with whom I saw it, just didn’t get that. They applauded at the end, being the American sheeple without critical thinking skills that they are. If that sounds snobby, in this case snobbery is vastly underrated. Betty Friedan would be proud.
TWO BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS A MARX

Watch the trailer . . .

* The Lobster – R: I love science fiction. But this is the worst and most disturbing science fiction film I’ve ever seen, tied only with “The Skin I Live In” (read my review). It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. It’s barbaric. And it’s disgusting. What was an interesting premise and what could have been an even more interesting movie, is a big mess. And horrifying to boot. That is, unless women being deliberately blinded, and men having their hands put in hot toasters is your idea of fun. Not mine. But apparently it appeals to the sicko filmmakers behind this celluloid crap.
The story: it’s the dystopian future (as in far too many movie these days), and if you lose your romantic partner (either through death, divorce, or break-up), you must go to a hotel where you have 45 days to find a new love. If you do not, then at the end of the 45 days, you are transformed into the animal of your choice, until the animal is killed or dies. You can extend the 45 days if, during the nightly hunts, you kill other humans. Then your life before animalhood is extended by an extra day for each person you kill. Sounds like a really great movie, right? But, wait, it gets worse.
For the first full night and day in the hotel, you have to have one of your hands handcuffed to your pants, which are locked. They never explain why. But Colin Farrell, who stars in this, manages to squeeze the pants off, though, so he can relieve himself. Also, no masturbation is allowed, so John C. Reilly, who befriends Farrell, gets punished when he is caught doing that. The hotel managers force him to put his dominant hand in a toaster, which they turn on while holding his hand in the toaster to burn. Yup, Hollywood’s and ISIS’ warped minds have common barbaric fantasies, none of which make for pleasant or purposeful movie viewing. Oh, and did I mention that the maid comes into the men’s hotel rooms daily to do a “lap dance” on them to make sure they are still, um, sexually functional?
Farrell, when he first arrives at the hotel, identifies the lobster as the animal he’d want to be transformed into if he fails to fall in love. But he never turns into one of them, so the title is kind of pointless. Farrell arrives with a dog, who used to be his brother. Eventually, Farrell like some of the others he’s met at the hotel, fakes certain aspects of his personality in order to get a women to like and couple with him. The woman he couples up with is a heartless killer. Ultimately, he escapes into the forest and joins a group of partisans there. But he falls in love with one of them (Rachel Weisz) despite their leader’s express prohibitions against it. So, the leader takes Weisz into the city to get an operation which blinds her.
This brutal, sick, disgusting movie is what Hollywood and mainstream (a/k/a liberal) movie critics think is “art.” It’s torture. And it’s a bore. It went on forever and in a million different irrelevant tangents. Two hours of this felt like five.
FOUR MARXES

Watch the trailer . . .

* Love & Friendship – PG: I’m normally a fan of Jane Austen and movies based on her work. But not this. This movie, based on an Austen novella, “Lady Susan,” is boring and mostly unfunny, especially for something that’s supposed to be a comedy.
Kate Beckinsale plays Lady Susan, a member of English nobility in the 1700s or 1800s (I can’t remember and don’t really care). She’s widowed and looking for a husband for herself and her daughter. And she’s looking for rich husbands for the two of them, in order to keep up the wealthy lifestyle to which she’s accustomed. To that end, she’s decided to stay at the estate of her wealthy relatives (her in-laws) and plots to find a suitable husband from among their friends and acquaintances.
The cast in this movie is far too large and hard to keep up with. But, essentially, Lady Susan plots to set herself up with a much younger man (I guess she was the original “cougar”) and her daughter with an idiot. The results change, and there is a hurt wife of a man along the way. There is also Lady Susan’s American friend (Chloe Sevigny), who plots along with her.
As with many of these bloated and lackluster period movies, I loved the costumes, sets, and Victorian accoutrements. This movie is high on style. But it’s also low on story and an interesting plot, which is nowhere to be seen here. Although Kate Beckinsale is lovely, she has little to work with here and to many cast members with which to share the stage. I also don’t think she’s very suited to comedy and find her performances are better in dramas and thrillers. The story/plot isn’t new, it’s not interesting, and I feel like I’ve seen this kind of thing–done far better–many times before. Also, Lady Susan just isn’t likable, nor is anyone else in this film. So, you just don’t care about her or the others or anything that happens here. Lady Susan is manipulative, scheming, spoiled, and entitled. Not to mention conceited and cocksure. Who wants that? Sadly, some men in the movie are pulled in. It’s also hard to believe that Lady Susan’s semi-sweet, pathetic, and meek daughter is really related to her nasty mom or that she continues to have anything to do with her.
This movie is only 92 minutes, which I’d normally praise. I like brevity. But, unfortunately, it felt like it was twice that long. And I struggled to get through it. I definitely wouldn’t pay ten bucks plus to see this. But if I did, I’d ask for my money back. There is neither love nor friendship anywhere in this movie. Or even close.
ONE-AND-A-HALF MARXES

Watch the trailer . . .

You might also like:

Wknd Box Office: Total Recall, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, Ruby Sparks

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 weekand 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: Total Recall, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, Ruby Sparks

By Debbie Schlussel



I didn’t hate any of the new movie releases, this weekend. And I really liked two of them. I’ll start with the one I liked least and in which I was most interested.



* “Total Recall“: Uggh! They took a perfectly campy, funny, cool 1990 movie and removed all of its campiness, fun, humor, and coolness–turning it into a long, slow bore overstuffed with excessive, non-stop vomit of action and special effects. What was interesting and unique in the original has been removed, and the movie has been turned into a dark, serious, paint-by-the-numbers, formulaic action film. Yuck. The storyline is very similar, but it feels more like a cheap knock-off of the original, far superior “Total Recall,” and it is. There was absolutely no reason to remake it, except to replace all the roles that used to be played by White men and women with Asians and Blacks and to get rid of the cool, smart-alecky Black cab driver from the original. Do yourself a favor and rent the original before you see this (even if you’ve already seen the original before). You’ll see how much of a disappointment this cubic zirconium version is, when the real thing is fresh in your mind.



There is no Mars in this one, there are no holographic cab drivers (or any cab drivers at all), and there’s no mutant Mars brothel with all kinds of strange-looking prostitutes, including the woman with the three breasts. Oh, sure, the tri-breasted woman is in this one, too, but merely injected to get hormonal teen and twenty-something guys to buy a ticket, without explanation, as an Asian prostitute. In the original, she was a Mars mutant, thus the deformity. Gone from this version are the best lines and the best scenes. There is no scene in which Quaid–then played by Arnold Schwarzenegger–shoots his fake wife, Sharon Stone, in the head and says, “Consider that a divorce.” (See the video clip of that, below.) The scene at Rekal (in the new movie it’s spelled with two Ls, as “Rekall”)–the fake-memory implantation company– is devoid of all of the quirky dialogue. In the original, Quaid picks his ideal fantasy woman, and is asked “Do you want her to be classy or sleazy?” (he picks sleazy) and whether he wants her breasts to be large or small (he picks large). There is no rebel leader named Kwato–the wise, talking baby protruding from the stomach of one of the rebels.



This Scene From the Original Is NOT in the “Total Recall” Remake . . .





Instead, the movie and the story have been sterilized of all oddities and strangeness (other than the tri-chesticles) that made the original movie different. And now that it officially stinks, the filmmakers are insisting it’s not a remake. Make no mistake–it’s definitely a remake. Just a very poor one.





As much as I loathe crotchwoman Sharon Stone, she was excellent in the original as Quaid’s double-agent wife, far better than Kate Beckinsale, whose hubby, Len Wiseman, directed this cheap replica and cast her in the role. Beckinsale quickly becomes tiresome (doing the same thing over and over again), while in the original, the wife was killed off early on–just the right time. Jessica Biel’s freedom fighter rebel is no match for Rachel Ticotin’s hooker-as-rebel-liaison, which was more edgy. And with all due respect to Colin Farrell, he just can’t fill the shoes of Arnold Schwarzenegger on this one, as much as I loathe the ex-Governator. The role was really written for him and his out of place Austrian accent and cyborg-like appearance. Farrell’s faux-American accent makes it dull.



In the original, scenes from Mars’ underworld and seedy nightlife were the frequent stand-by setting. It was creepy, and that’s where the rebels hid in plain sight. But in this movie, there are frequent cuts back to a cheap futuristic Chinatown set that looks ripped off from the set of “Blade Runner,” another movie based on a Philip K. Dick work. Let’s hope they don’t remake (and ruin) that movie, too.



Instead of Mars, the setting for this is “the colony,” which is some sort of post-utopian version of America where workers are being replaced by synthetic soldiers and workers (robots) by the colonizing masters in the United Federation of Britain (UFB). As in the original, Quaid (Farrell) keeps dreaming that he’s elsewhere with a brunette woman whom he tries to save from falling to her death. He wakes up to another woman, who is his wife (Beckinsale). Also like the original, he is a working-class man who goes to Rekall, a memory implantation company, which implants false memories in your mind of vacations and adventures you want to experience but don’t have the opportunity to experience in real life. And like in the original, something goes wrong, Quaid discovers that his wife isn’t who he thinks she is and he’s not who he thinks he is. And as in the original, rebels are at war with the establishment government. And so on. If you haven’t seen the original, I don’t want to give too much more away than I already have. But it’s basically the same storyline. The original had sort of an Occupy Wall Street vibe to it. It’s been amped up in this one but meant to also resemble a post-futuristic Boston Tea Party.



Also, this version is only rated PG-13, despite the fact that every other word is the S-word and there’s the three-breasted nude woman. The original was rated R.



While this movie would be fine on its own (had it not been a cheap remake of a much better original that didn’t need remaking), as a remake 22 years later, it simply isn’t better or worth $10 to pay to see computer-generated images superimposed non-stop on what was fine as is, circa 1990.



It’s not that the movie is absolutely horrid. It’s okay. It’s just unnecessary and a tawdry shadow of something that was better. Who needs ground beef when you can have fine, dry-aged prime rib?



ONE REAGAN PLUS TWO O.J. SIMPSON FAKE ROLEX WATCHES (for Cheap Replica)




* “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days“: Absolutely hilarious, and terrific for kids and the whole family! This is the third “Wimpy Kid” cinematic installment, and I like this one the best (read my reviews of the first and second “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movies). And like the second one, it’s very funny, fast-paced, and entertaining. This is what a good kids’ movie is supposed to be like (even if it was a little gross–that’s what little boys like, and little girls will like this, too). And it ends up showing a positive father-son relationship in an intact nuclear family, something you hardly ever see anymore in any entertainment media. Kids might not get some of the jokes–such as a great one involving a Civil War re-enactment, but I suspect those jokes are in there for the adult parents who accompany their kids to the movie. I laughed a lot during this movie.



It’s the end of the school year, and the “Wimpy Kid,” Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon), still has his eyes on the pretty girl he met in the last installment. But you needn’t have seen any of the previous “Wimpy Kid” movies to know what’s going on here. Greg is invited to the country club by his best friend, Rowley, where he sees the girl. Because he wants to hang out with her and catch her eye, Greg lies to his parents and tells them he’s gotten a summer job at the club. And, then, whatever can go wrong ultimately does. It’s the same situation when Greg goes with Rowley and his family for a weekend at their house near the boardwalk. And during a camping trip in a Boy Scout-esque explorers group, in which Greg’s dad is an assistant troop master. Then, there is the fact that Greg’s family just got a new dog, that Greg’s dad feels competitive with their “perfect” neighbors, and Greg’s older brother, who is still terrorizing and extorting/blackmailing him.



The movie is clearly aimed at kids. If you have young kids, this is the movie to take them to see, especially if you want to be entertained, too.



THREE REAGANS



* “Ruby Sparks“: This is sort of a hipster/slacker, self-absorbed version of “The Twilight Zone.” I found it charming and entertaining to a point, even if I do not care for the whole hipster ethos. It’s written by and stars Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of famed Hollywood director, Elia Kazan. It also stars her real-life boyfriend, Paul Dano.



Dano plays a former child prodigy author, who is still living off of his hit “Catcher in the Rye”-esque novel, written about a decade or more ago, when he was in his late teens. Now a hipster slacker living in a fancy, modern Los Angeles-area condo, he continues to feel like a loser because he cannot write anything else and cannot live up to that first novel. But soon he begins writing about a woman he’s dreamed of, Ruby Sparks (Kazan). And he becomes obsessed with her, typing day and night on his typewriter (he does not use a computer). Before long, she suddenly comes to life in his apartment and they are lovers, just as in his book. While Dano is shocked, his brother (Chris Messina) is even more surprised. They take Ruby to meet their preppy-turned-hippie mother (Annette Benning) and her second husband (Antonio Banderas). Dano learns he can make Ruby do whatever he wishes, if he only types it that way. But manipulating people you love to do as you wish has its price.



TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS