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
The bar for Saturday Night Live-inspired films is set appropriately low. After all, for every Blues Brothers or Wayne’s World (the diamonds of the genre), there’s a The Ladies Man, Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury, Coneheads, or many other failures. That MacGruber is as consistently funny and inspired as… Continue reading
Perhaps no other filmmaker understands the working class as much as Mike Judge. His 1999 home video hit, Office Space, has become virtually a documentary since its release ten years ago. Anyone who works from a cubicle farm understands why. In Extract, a noticeably less-focused effort with scattershot laughs, Judge… Continue reading