Wknd Box Office: Flight, The Sessions, The Bay, The Details

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 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: Flight, The Sessions, The Bay, The Details


By Debbie Schlussel



Two movies that were okay this weekend, two that were absolutely horrible. I did not see “Wreck-It Ralph,” as the critics’ screening was on the Jewish Sabbath, but I may see it later this weekend and post a review later.


* “Flight“: This movie was extremely depressing, though it has a very redemptive message at the end, so I had mixed feelings about it. I could have done without the gratuitous, unnecessary full-frontal nudity of an airline stewardess, er . . . flight attendant for several minutes at the beginning of the movie. Yup, you guessed it. This movie is a hard “R” for nudity, language, and drug usage. It ain’t for kids. Oh, and I didn’t care for the scene mocking religious Christians in a hospital room. Sadly, that is standard fare in Hollywood, as we know.



We’ve all seen movies about alcoholics and drug addicts and how they ruin everyone’s lives around them, plus their own. That isn’t new ground here, and the melodramatics and walking wreck of an addict are depressing. So, is the pilot’s co-dependent relationship with an addict who wants to get clean, ground which also isn’t novel. But this movie mixes that with action/adventure, as a faulty, defective airplane is in mid-air and the flight’s captain, who is hopped up on drugs and alcohol does what most sober ones could not and lands the plane. It’s also mixed with intrigue–will the pilot get caught, or will he get away with it.



Denzel Washington is a great actor no matter the role. And he’s superb here as the alcoholic, drug-addicted pilot. He lands his plane in an amazing feat by flying it upside down and pulling all kinds of moves out of his playbook when the plane is defective and essentially loses all of its important functions in mid-air during a storm. But as we know, they take blood samples from the pilots after crashes. And while he’s hailed in the media as a hero, he knows a different sort of infamy is impending, or is it?



The movie is entertaining and riveting. You won’t be bored by this fast-moving flick. But I’m not sure I’d enjoy myself, spending ten bucks and over two hours’ time watching such depressing stuff, even knowing that there is repentance and redemption and the messages the movie sends are good ones in the end. Remember, this isn’t a happy movie. It’s very sad.



Also stars John Goodman (who is funny, per usual), an aged Bruce Greenwood, and Don Cheadle. Don’t drink too much liquid before this movie. It’s nearly 2.5 hours long, though it flies by.



TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

* “The Sessions“: Watching this movie, I was reminded how uncreative the forces of Hollywood are these days. When they can’t come up with yet another remake or sequel, they, instead, look for the most deviant and uncomfortably odd stories that fall starkly in the TMI category and parade it as high brow. The mainstream liberal media movie critics are gushing over this disgusting, creepy waste of time. People who praise this weird porno flick are pretentious frauds.



In this movie allegedly based on a true story, John Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, who was paralyzed as a kid after he suffered from polio. He is paralyzed from the neck down and survives mostly in an iron lung. Living in Berkeley, California in 1998, O’Brien gets permission from his Catholic priest (William H. Macy) to hire a “sex therapist” (a hifalutin’ phrase for what she really is: hooker) so he can lose his virginity. The movie was filled with gross sex jokes and the absolutely unattractive full frontal nudity of Helen Hunt, who plays the married sex therapist (and does a horrible version of a Salem, Massachusetts accent . . . or something). Oh, and I love how Judaism is forced onto this icky story. Hunt, who is a lapsed Catholic (and attacks the religious Catholic upbringing of her new “customer,” O’Brien), is married to a Jewish man with tattoos, played by Adam Arkin. She discusses how she is converting to Judaism for her husband. But, in real life, it’s more likely that a man would be more concerned with his wife’s profession as a prostitute than with her converting to Judaism. Here’s a tip: her job ain’t permitted in my religion, nor are tattoos. So, I was sickened when they showed this homely skank bathing in the mikvah [Jewish ritual bath, where men and women go to be purified]. But the rest of the movie is even more sickening and bizarre.



I’m sure I’m the only movie critic who will have the guts and honesty to say so. The rest will only continue to drool over this warped flick as if it’s noble. It is not. I feel bad for those who are disabled, and I know I’m lucky I’m not in their shoes. But my sympathy and empathy for them doesn’t mean I must endure and applaud this distasteful, depraved movie in some sort of aberrant “celebration” of the disabled.



FOUR MARXES


* “The Bay“: You’ve seen plenty of this type of movie. A fictional documentary-style movie with shaky video, showing us how a mysterious virus and bug-like creatures invade the bodies of people living in and visiting a Maryland seaside town. There’s nothing new here, but it’s slightly entertaining, if very slow moving. It isn’t that scary, either, for a thriller of this genre. Director Barry Levinson made this, so I expected maybe a little bit better. They never really explain why the virus struck or the oversized bug-like organisms. It seems like merely an attack on corporate America, as the characters in the movie imply that the disaster has something to do with chicken plants dumping chicken parts and chicken fecal material in the water. I felt like I’d seen a million far superior versions of this movie. It’s a highly derivative, boring rehash.



HALF A REAGAN



* “The Details“: Oy vey. I can’t believe I sat through this crappy movie. Toby Maguire and Elizabeth Banks are a shallow upper middle class couple who illegally remodel their house, after the city refuses to issue them a permit. Maguire also cheats on his wife with his married friend (Kerry Washington). Because of these two things, Maguire’s life is turned upside down, after he is blackmailed and seduced by his wacky next-door neighbor (Laura Linney) and loses $70,000, after being blackmailed by the husband (Ray Liotta) of the wife with whom he cheated. Believe me, I’m making this absolute piece of excrement sound far better than it is. It’s excruciatingly awful. A horrible movie that tries very hard to be cutesy and offbeat, but not hard at all at being a good movie, having a good story, or any semblance of a plot. Also stars Dennis Haysbert. And the point of this movie is . . . ? Nothing, other than taking ten bucks and 1.5 hours of your life you’ll never get back. High-quality Gitmo torture material.



Skip this.



FOUR MARXES

Wknd Box Office: Hanna, Your Highness, Soul Surfer, Of Gods and Men

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: Hanna, Your Highness, Soul Surfer, Of Gods and Men

By Debbie Schlussel



The absolute worst new movie this weekend is the one where the main character wears a severed penis around his neck for the last third of the movie. But, then, I didn’t see the “Arthur” remake, so I can’t say that it’s the absolute worst with absolute certainty. I hated the original Dudley Moore “Arthur,” so when I didn’t feel well, I didn’t feel bad about missing the Osama Bin Laden-admirer Russell Brand version. I also did not see “Born to Be Wild.”






* “Hanna“: Normally I don’t like movies with ass-kicking girls who weigh less than 100 pounds beating up every brutish tough guy on the planet. It’s just not believable. But this one is different. It’s cool, campy, weird, and funny. Plus the ending explains why the tiny girl tough girl act is possible (sort of). And, despite the PG-13 rating, it’s not for kids, as it’s quite violent, bloody, and has some kidding around about lesbianism, not to mention a very brief sort of suggestive lesbian kids kiss, which was troubling, disgusting, and unnecessary.





Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a sixteen-year-old girl trained in the Arctic wilderness by her father (Eric Bana) to be a violent assassin for her ultimate mission in the U.S. The mission is to find CIA agent Cate Blanchett and kill her or be killed by her. Her mission not only takes her to CIA headquarters in Langley, where she outsmarts every agent and interrogator, but also to Morocco, Germany, and assorted other locales, as she tries to escape a number of CIA agents and freelance assassins. How she outsmarts and gets by on little or no money is interesting and fun.



I mostly enjoyed this movie, even if there are holes in it, and Blanchett does a very bad, fake-sounding Southern accent. It’s not a great movie, but it’s fun and escapist as a night out at the movies is supposed to be. It’s non-stop action, and I never got bored. It’s clever, visually stunning, and just so bizarre, you’ll enjoy it. I love the way it’s shot and the brilliant colors and stark contrasts.



If I had one reservation, it’s the usual, stale storyline at the end about who Hanna is and why she’s on her mission. But, like I said, it does explain the completely unbelievable stunts throughout.



ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS




* “Your Highness“: This is the movie in which the main character wears a severed penis pendant suspended from his neck for the latter portion of the movie. If that doesn’t tell you what absolute garbage this failed parody is, well, I’ll just tell you: it’s absolutely awful, filthy, and just not funny. I wanted to walk out on this movie soooo badly, but the rules are that I cannot review a movie if I don’t stay for the whole screening. You don’t need to be a prude to know that this movie completely sucks.



I barely laughed and mostly struggled to stay awake amidst my boredom. So many f-words and c-words (the one that rhymes with “rock”), and so little of anything else. Like I said, it’s meant to be a parody of all the medieval “damsel in distress rescued by royal prince on horseback” movies. But that’s no excuse for this utter piece of trash pretending to be a movie. Danny McBride is the latest talentless hack to arise from the gutter into Hollywood stardom in writing, directing, acting, and filmmaking, all because idiotic slacker frat boys flock to his celluloid crap.



McBride plays the younger prince in a royal family. His far more attractive valiant prince brother (James Franco) will become king, and is a handsome, heroic warrior. McBride, on the other hand, is a fat, ugly loser, who just wants to get stoned, drink, and have sex. But he also wants to prove himself. So, he helps his brother rescue his virgin fiancee who was kidnapped by an evil wizard character who threatens to have sex with the virgin first and thereby destroy the world. I feel silly just even repeating this, um, “story” if you can call it that. The movie, which is supposed to be a comedy, simply isn’t worth your laugh or your bucks and time. A gay child molester wizard, princes performing oral and manual sex on the wizard, and “jokes” about a soup bowl haircut making a guy look like his head is a penis–that’s supposed to be funny?



Fifty years ago, McBride and Franco would have been run out of town and become lifelong pariahs for making this utter dung. One hundred years ago, if we’re lucky, they’d have been beheaded. Now, they are the toast of Hollywood. Ditto for Natalie Portman, who also stars in this disgusting waste of time. Would she want her soon-to-be-born kid to see this movie? If no, then why did she make it? If yes, then she has no business giving birth and should probably get an abortion (yes, I’m making a needed exception to my pro-life stance in her case, given this movie; people associated with the movie shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce).



Hey, American “civilization,” Congrats! You’ve regressed a long way, baby. If you like this movie, you should automatically be deported.



FOUR MARXES PLUS AN OBAMA PLUS A BIN LADEN





* “Soul Surfer“: This is terrific for kids and entertaining enough to take the whole family. It’s also a decent sports comeback movie.



Originally, this movie based on the true life story of Bethany Hamilton had mild Christian themes, which were removed to please Hollywood. But the Hamilton family, devout Christians who produced the film, insisted that the spirituality be restored to the scenes. And I’m glad. I enjoyed this uplifting movie about the teen surfer, who lost her arm to a shark and got back into the game. While some parts of the movie were a little hokey, overall it’s very inspirational with fantastic messages for kids.



I’m also glad the movie didn’t show the one-armed girl (played by the beautiful AnnaSophia Robb) immediately making a comeback and winning the surfing championship. That’s not how real life works, though in time, the real-life Hamilton went on to win many national surfing competitions despite her disability.



Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt play the Hamilton parents, and Kevin Sorbo (TV’s “Hercules”) plays a family friend. Country singer Carrie Underwood does well in her first movie role as a teen church minister who takes Bethany on a mission to tsunami-afflicted Thailand to see that there are more unfortunate things in life than losing an arm and possibly not being able to surf again.



This is the kind of movie responsible parents pine for: chock full of good values, great role models, inspiration, and positive outlook on life and its obstacles.



TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS





* “Of Gods and Men [Des Hommes et Des Dieux]“: Muslim and Islamo-pandering filmmakers are becoming ever more clever. Ostensibly, this is a movie about kindly Trappist monks who sacrificed their lives to help the good Muslim people of an Algerian village (and were murdered by Islamic terrorists in 1996). But here’s what it really is: Muslim propaganda made by Muslims and pan-Muslims for Western non-Muslim consumption. I stayed at the end of this French- and Arabic-subtitled movie to watch the entire credits as they rolled. I wanted to learn who made the film and why. Many of the names were Muslim. And if that wasn’t enough of a hint, the production company rolled a quick audio watermark at the end, with a young kid shouting, “Bismillah” ["in the name of allah"].



The repeated refusals of Trappist monks to accept the protection of the “corrupt” Algerian government (because they’d rather get murdered by Islamic terrorists) smacks of every single media propaganda story we’ve been hearing on the news from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya to Bahrain about “corrupt” stable governments versus the “liberal democrat” on the streets, who are actually murderous Muslim mobs that openly worship Al-Qaeda and the Ayatollahs.



And while I appreciate that this “based on a true story” flick is ultimately stealth Muslim propaganda, I had mixed feelings. The monks see Islamic terrorists come to town and instantly slit the throats of all Christian construction workers, allowing the one Muslim to live. The monks know they will soon be next, and ultimately we see these kindly, elderly, saintlike monks being forced to march to their deaths in the freezing cold snow by their Islamic terrorist captors. Only two monks escaped because they hid in the monastery.



Though the film presents the falsity that the villagers of Algiers are just nice, peaceful Muslims who openly oppose Islamic terrorists and accept the generosity and charity of medical care, honey, and food from the monks, only a moron would believe that in light of the strong scenes of Islamic violence. In the real world, it’s well known in real life as an Islamic terrorist hotbed with the support of the people of these villages, where Bin Laden and similar savages generally dominate approval polls. And there are no scenes in this movie in which the “kindly” Muslim villagers rise up against the Islamic terrorists to protect the monks who’ve sacrificed to serve them. That simply doesn’t happen in real life and the movie would have seemed even more over the top had that fiction been presented.



At the end of the movie, despite the vocal pronouncements by one of the monks–in his diary or a letter to someone–that he understands that most Muslims are peaceful and they are different from the “Islamists” who murdered him, it comes off as the fictional distinction that it is. We all know there are only Muslims, not Islamists, a term created by those who choose to conveniently ignore the fatal problem posed by an entire world religion, until it swallows us all up.



Yes, there were touching scenes of the monks in this movie and they seem truly saintly. But their sacrifice seems stupid and all for nothing. It was beyond nauseating and over the top when a sickly murdered monk–who had provided free medical services for this entire village of Muslims who did nothing to save his life–tells us how “Islam is a body and a soul,” whatever that means, and then thanks his killers, the Islamic terrorists. Barf. In watching this movie, I’m so glad that turning the other cheek isn’t a recommended concept in my particular religion. Religions that do that, ultimately run out of cheeks, lives, and, most importantly, congregants. There’s a reason that Islam is on the rise worldwide, while the other religions–most of whom refuse to adequately defend themselves and their adherents–are dying out.



Again, this movie ends with the audio clip, “Bismillah.” It’s not in the name of the Trappist monk’s god or mine. It’s the god of Mohammed Atta and Faisal Shahzah and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Nidal Malik Hassan, as well as so many other like them and their nearly two billion moral supporters. Take the hint.



TWO BIN LADENS PLUS AN ARAFAT