Movies as crushingly misguided and poorly-executed as Downsizing make me want to paraphrase Roger Ebert’s legendary review of 1994’s North. “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it.” “I have no idea why [Alexander Payne], or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a… Continue reading
Fifty Shades of Grey may be the first film in history made specifically for the purposes of hate-watching. Adapted from E.L. James’s unbelievably popular novel (at its height it sold two copies every second), it can be said in absolute terms that whatever lusting and fantasizing readers of the book… Continue reading
The Other Woman plays like a movie that was made by people that actively hate the script. It is a grotesque, shrill, never-ending effort that always finds a way to sink a little lower just when you’re positive there’s no way it can. Not only is it wholly damaging in its… Continue reading
Tammy is exactly what happens when the duo responsible for a breakout performance are given carte blanche control over a vanity project. It’s a sad, angry excuse for a comedy that contains exactly one chuckle and infinitely more cringing. That it couldn’t even rise above the basement-low bar set by… Continue reading
You know a movie is in big trouble when the sight of copious bare breasts becomes boring. Such is the case in Spring Breakers, a thoroughly detestable piece of gutter trash masquerading as some kind of abstract piece of pop art. Defenders point to its supposed satirizing of a material… Continue reading
“I’ve had a real shitty morning and your face looks like a dog’s asshole.” Free of charge, I have supplied you with the funniest piece of dialogue from Identity Thief. It should be mentioned that this is a throwaway line from Robert Patrick that would probably otherwise go unnoticed, but… Continue reading
The Bounty Hunter is an abominable waste of time. Here we have a film with two stars that have no chemistry, no laughs, no romance, and boring “action” sequences. Coming up with justification for its existence is nearly impossible. The premise would seem to offer up some promising black comedy… Continue reading
Dane Cook plays a dentist in Good Luck Chuck, but the movie plays that part straight. Having had braces, three tooth extractions, three bone graphs, and three dental implants, I can say with relative ease that none of that was as painful as watching this pathetic waste of celluloid. The… Continue reading
“Reworking,” “reimagining,” and “reinventing” are popular words these days as studio heads and directors alike struggle to defend their choices in projects. Even occasional moviegoers have to have picked up on the creative bankruptcy that has plagued Hollywood for the past, oh, ten years or so. Plenty of egregious horror… Continue reading
Movies like Because I Said So make even the most hardened film critics question what they are doing with their lives. I had that thought roll through my head at least a half dozen times as I witnessed this disaster. Not since Domino have I out-and-out detested a film this… Continue reading