Movie Scum

Note to filmmakers: If you want me to almost instantly hate your movie, go ahead and begin with the Spin Doctors‘ ubiquitous song Two Princes from over a decade ago. Yes, Love and Other Drugs is a “period piece” set in the late 1990s in the background as the direct-to-consumer pharmaceuitical business starts booming with the development of wonderdrugs to treat everything from depression to male … specific problems. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jamie Randall, a smooth-talking salesman who is likely to talk his way into your pants while buying a stereo (well, not my pants but still). In an effort to prove his worth to his medical-oriented family, Jamie takes a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep for Pfizer. In his travels shadowing Dr. Stan Knight ( Hank Azaria ), Jamie meets Maggie Murdock ( Anne Hathaway ), a young woman who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Maggie is your typical romantic comedy outcast with her art and proclivity for casual sex. However Jamie is further a

It is hard to have a decent expectation of what is to come before watching Due Date . Sure, it seems to be very similar to the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains & Automobiles but that quickly fades aside from the mismatched traveling buddies angle. You might also think it would feature some wacky hijinks similar to director Todd Phillips ' The Hangover but where that film was fun just for the hell of it, it feels like there is a point trying to come out of this movie. Robert Downey Jr. plays Peter, a serious and sometimes pretentious architect who crosses paths with Zach Galifianakis ' Ethan on a cross-country flight to Los Angeles. After Peter is grounded due in part to Ethan's obnoxious behavior without money or an ID, the two join forces to drive the distance so Peter can make it to the birth of his first child. From the start, both actors have a good, yet almost combative, chemistry as Galifianakis plays Ethan like a long-lost twin to his Hangover charac

After starting the movie with little information going into it other than a recommendation by PBF, I thought that the opening scene had a very zany, almost Naked Gun -feel to it. Imagine my surprise when I learned in the credits that Top Secret was written and directed by none other than the once great, now not-so-much trio of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker , or ZAZ for the motivationally challenged typists. Having been a big fan of Airplane ! and The Naked Gun ! in my younger years it was a shock to learn of another movie in the vain of those aforementioned that I had only fleeting knowledge of its existence. That would be the equivalent to finding out George Romero had another zombie film in the 1970s, you know before he started sucking. Skirting along on the daintiest of plots, Val Kilmer is very pretty here as Nick Rivers, an American pop singer who is summoned to perform in East Germany and goes on a haphazard journey before aligning with French revolutionaries who seek the cou

Written by: PBF I can quote the entire film, and yet every time I watch it, I laugh as if I have never heard any of the lines before. It’s kind of like Police Academy . Only there’s no academy. Also, it’s funny. The plot is simple enough for any drunk or high viewer to grasp. In fact it may enhance the experience to be inebriated. Enhance. Enhance. Seriously though, Super Troopers is probably quite funny when viewed under the influence but it is not necessary. We have a chapter of Vermont State Police that prefer to engage in buffoonery and chicanery rather than take their jobs seriously. This behavior has finally caught up to them as they face being shut down due to budget cuts. The local police department would benefit from this by getting more money. In addition to that the two squads are rivals and the local cops would love it if the highway cops were jobless. Soon a dead woman is found and a truck filled with marijuana is pulled over and each group of cops try to break the

Black comedies can be a hard combo to pull off, especially with the events that transpire in Very Bad Things . Comparatively to potty humor, black comedies (at least the good ones) tend to have an actual plot with real characters because that is really the only way that such a movie could work without an over reliance on bodily fluids. The danger comes from the delicate need to straddle the line between laughable and horrible that a black comedy must attempt. Writer and director Peter Berg is a talented guy and fortunately he is able to meld the two elements well, most of the time at least. As Kyle and his friends escape sunny California for Las Vegas for a bachelor’s party (that sounds vaguely familiar), things start normal enough with some standard bickering in the car, especially from brothers Michael and Adam, Kyle getting shit for his soon-to-be wife’s controlling nature, as well as lots and lots of drugs and alcohol. When Michael (played by Jeremy Piven just like every other

Written by: PBF Coconut Pete is without a doubt, the best role Bill Paxton has ever played. Club Dread is the 3rd film by Broken Lizard, following Super Troopers . There is a resort called Coconut Pete’s Pleasure Island, in Costa Rica. It is your basic hedonistic paradise; lots of naked people, booze, drugs, etc. Coconut Pete is a former rock star in the vein of Jimmy Buffet who will be quick to remind you that his hit Pina Coladaburg was written 7 years before Margaritaville. On this island is the fun police, live Pac Man games (in which you might see the fruit from the game having sex with each other) and the legend of Machete Pete. Machete Pete supposedly killed a bunch of staff and castrated himself and ran off in to the woods never to be seen again. Soon after this story is told (around a campfire ala Friday the 13th Part 2) dead bodies start being found with cryptic clues carved in to them. With no way off the island, the staff must figure out which one of them is the kil

It is rather fitting that I am reviewing this film on the heels of the announcement that Mike Judge is trying to resurrect Beavis & Butthead , his breakout work. Part of Judge’s strength in previous endeavors is his ability to represent an accurate view of normal, everyday people albeit in an exaggerated fashion. In this vein, Extract is no different. The problem with Extract is that these everyday people are kind of scum (and not of the movie variety). Judge is certainly a genius to be able to wring a compelling, and funny, story out of the events going on with Joel as the owner of an manufacturing company in the business of extract who hates his job, dislikes his employees, is sexually frustrated in his marriage, and could be facing a lawsuit from one of his employees who was injured on the job. Sounds good so far, right? We’ll go down the character sheet now: Joel hates his employees and possibly his life in general. His wife Suzie is itching to have an affair. Cindy is a

Written by: PBF Beerfest is the fourth film by comedy troupe Broken Lizard . I watched the unrated version on DVD and found it to be more humorous than I remembered. I assume that this is because most (if not all) of any recent viewings before this were on Comedy Central or some other basic cable channel, thus it was edited in to being unfunny. Johann von Wolfhouse, grandfather to Jan and Todd Wolfhouse, dies, and the brothers are sent to Germany by their Gam Gam (great grandmother) with his ashes. It’s Oktoberfest, and the Wolfhouses accidentally destroy a drunken celebration under a tent. They are taken to Beerfest, which is a drinking competition run by Wolfgang von Wolfhausen. Like the Olympics, teams from many different countries compete, and (unlike the Olympics) the Germans are the best. The German team are also Wolfhausens and it is discovered that they are the cousins of the Wolfhouses. However, the Wolfhausens are less than hospitable, claiming that Johann was a stable

Written by: PBF Apparently, I just don't get Jody Hill films. Supposedly, they are extremely funny, and just go right over my head. This is my new favorite math equation: unfunny movie + me realizing it is unfunny = I'm stupid. Well, according to message boards, anyway. Which of course, is where most film geniuses spend their time. Jody Hill, who wrote and directed Observe and Report , directed and co wrote The Foot Fist Way . Neither film have a lot going on as far as plot, and they have little else going on either. Foot Fist is about Fred Simmons ( Danny McBride ), a Tae Kwon Do instructor with a hot wife and a Ferrari. He isn't quite as cool as he thinks he is but he means well, and his students (young kids to senior citizens) like him. After finding out his wife gave her boss a hand job, he loses it a bit, and takes a road trip to meet his hero, martial artist and movie star Chuck "the Truck" Wallace. Wallace agrees to come to Simmons's students'

Written by: PBF So, Jeff Anderson played Randal in Clerks and Clerks II . Now You Know is a movie he wrote and directed. I wish the memory of this movie would Randal out of my brain for me, much like his character did out the door for Dante. Now You Know is the story of Jeremy ( Jeremy Sisto ) and Kerri ( Rashida Jones ). The film opens after a (rather insulting to Anderson in my opinion) title card that reads "Kevin Smith Presents Now You Know" is presented to us. Jeremy is having a bachelor party and hints around that he has an announcement. Either to build suspense, or perhaps torment the viewer with the promise of something exciting only to let the viewer down, his friend talks him out of making this announcement so that everyone can continue to get drunk, bang the hooker and have a good time. Later, it is revealed that Kerri called off the wedding, but did not explain why. Rather than just asking why, a 102 minute film ensues in which we alternate back and forth

Written by: PBF The Slammin’ Salmon is the most recent film that has been released by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. This one was directed by Kevin Heffernan , as opposed to Jay Chandrasekhar , who directed the troupe’s previous films. “Slammin” Cleon Salmon is a former boxer that owns a restaurant called the Slammin’ Salmon (this will be the last mention of the film’s title). He bets the head of the Japanese Yakuza $20,000 in a rousing game of Japanese Albino Hunting and loses. He needs the money by tomorrow so a challenge is placed to the staff of the restaurant to make $20,000. The prize is $10,000 to the top waiter (don’t worry; it’s part of the comedy, not a plot error) while the punishment for the lowest performing waiter is a broken rib sandwich. Cleon is played by Michael Clarke Duncan, so as you may imagine, that is a large and painful sandwich. Broken Lizard has a small collection of films including Super Troopers and Beerfest . It seems like the more movies they

Written by: PBF I had never actually seen the entirety of Team America: World Police until today. From the creators of South Park is an absolutely hilarious, offensive, politically themed action movie parody, complete with their song “Montage” in which the lyrics describe what a montage is during a montage. Also included is “America, Fuck Yeah!” and quotable lines like “Derka derka derka.” Also, the film includes perhaps one of the most disturbing sex scenes, ever. Did I mention that there are only voice actors, because everyone is a puppet? Completely over the top, but not without a valid message.

Written by: PBF In my attempt to escape the horror pattern I have been entrenched in, I selected Just One of the Guys as my next review. As it turns out, the director, Lisa Gottlieb , also directed an episode of Freddy's Nightmares (the Nightmare on Elm Street television series). The film's star, Joyce Hyser , appeared in that same episode. Terry Griffith (Hyser) is a high school student who has almost everything she wants. Her parents are rich, she has a car, she's beautiful, she goes out with a college dreamboat that is also rich. She dreams of becoming a journalist and the local paper is running a contest where students can submit articles for a chance to be published. The winning "reporter" will also get an awesome summer job at the paper. The article she submits does not get selected, and two male students' work does. This coupled with a comment from her journalism teacher convinces her that she was not selected because she is a hot girl that no

Written by: PBF Despicable Me is brought to us by Universal and Illumination Entertainment. Illumination has some seriously questionable projects going on. Like Where’s Waldo? and The Addams family directed by Tim Burton. Can we stop giving Burton films that can be easily transformed into a Bauhaus fan’s newest favorite picture? Gru ( Steve Carell ) is a villain. He hopes to be the worst, and thereby the best villain in the world. An unknown villain steals a pyramid in Egypt and the crime makes national news. Determined not to be outdone, Gru attempts to get a loan from the Bank of Evil. The loan is to fund the construction of a rocket. He plans to steal a shrink ray from a lab, take the rocket in to space, then shrink and steal the moon. The bank denies the loan, however, informs Gru that if he gets the ray, they will give him the money. They explain that he is old and that there are many younger, more capable villains that they would rather loan money to. One of these young

Back in February after the release of Cop Out was bombarded with negative reviews from many different critics, director Kevin Smith took to Twitter to explain how reviewers were out of touch with the general movie going populace. His main point (and this is from memory because I am damn sure not going back through all of Smith’s tweets to refresh) was that reviewers did not appreciate the movie for what it was intended to be: a light buddy-cop comedy with throwbacks to its 80s brethen. Less than twenty-four hours after watching a movie that did successfully replicate a lost 80s movie (that would be Piranha, review here ), I can safely say that may have been the intention here but a bad movie got in the way. Taking the old buddy-cop formula, Cop Out does absolutely nothing else with it. Here we have two partners who are loose cannons, destroy things in downtown New York City, get reprimanded and suspended by their captain, and yet continue to investigate a theft and a drug-smuggl

When did parody movies become synonymous with sexist, juvenile, pieces of fucking shit movies? I blame Scary Movie . At its time, Scary Movie was a decent spoof of Scream , I Know What You Did Last Summer , and the other dozens of teen-based horror movies of the late nineties. While it has been several years since I have last seen it, Scary Movie had some legitimately funny sequences in their own right and also as a parody of the referenced movies. So, why is Scary Movie the devil? Because of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In fact, we could go as far back as Spy Hard to blame the decline of the spoof but no one saw that movie anyways. Apparently after the relative success of Scary Movie , Friedberg and Seltzer decided to take any meager accomplishments they might have had being two of six writers of that film and create a legacy of cinema that represents the very reason that people who read books, plant gardens, or raise hamsters think that movies are crap. Why am I dedicat

Written by: PBF ***WARNING. THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*** Teeth has the potential to be very silly and outlandish, but is it remarkably restrained considering the subject matter. Dawn is a teen that gives presentations to other kids about “The Promise.” The promise is to remain abstinent. In fact, so pure is she, she wears a sweater with a unicorn on it. She meets Toby, who shares her vision and they instantly like each other. One day at the swimming hole,  Toby unfortunately tries to break this Promise with Dawn, to horrifying results. His dick gets bitten off by the teeth in Dawn’s vagina. As mentioned before, this premise may conjure images of poor quality special effects involving giant foam teeth or the like. However, we actually only ever see one tooth, extracted from one of Dawn’s victims. We do see a bit of emasculation aftermath, which is sure to induce phantom crotch pains to any male viewer, but, these scenes were quite realistically done (I can only speculat

Written by: PBF MacGruber , if you didn’t already know, is a Saturday Night Live sketch that parodies a little show called MacGyver, which ran from 1985-1992. It was beloved by Americans and Bouvier sisters alike. MacGyver never used guns, but rather he would fashion some sort of weapon out of every day items. This premise begat several phrases, such as “MacGyver it.” The SNL sketch usually lasts 30-90 seconds, and involves MacGruber and his partner Vicki St. Elmo trapped in a room trying to defuse a bomb. Hilarity ensues and the sketch ends with an explosion, as MacGruber is unsuccessful at his task. This is the latest addition to the sketch-turned-movie universe, which is quite a mixed bag of good and bad. The premise of the movie is fairly basic. Dieter Von Cunth steals a nuclear warhead and wants to destroy Washington D.C. Cunth killed MacGruber’s wife, so the task of stopping him becomes personal.

Now I can cross another classic teen 80s movie off my list. For this, The Breakfast Club , and others, it was not as though I was actively trying not to see them. My younger days normally reserved for mostly harmless fare like this was instead spent watching 70s and 80s horror and action movies instead. Yes, I saw the entire franchises of Nightmare on Elm Street , Friday the 13th , and even Maniac Cop before getting around to some of the more relatable films of my generation. So sue me. I now have seen it. I would imagine that everyone else has seen Better Off Dead so I will keep the synopsis short. Lane Meyer is for the most part a typical adolescent. He has really random daydreams, a crazy family, and a typical teen's awkwardness. After meeting Tina, err Beth, he seems to be on a straight path up the popularity ladder in high school. When she dumps him for a 23-year-old-looking-professional-skier-turned-high-school-student, Lane is downtrodden enough that he attempts to k

You would think I would like Let’s Go to Prison . Directed by Bob Odenkirk . Features Will Arnett , David Keochner , Chi McBride and Dylan Baker . Written by Thomas Lennon . But I don’t. Perhaps it’s because it is a comedy that I laughed at once. Maybe it’s because Dax Shepard is in the majority of it. Maybe because it is incredibly boring. Whatever it is, it sucks. Yet, Comedy Central insists on cramming it down my throat 4 times a day, like they do with Idiocracy (also featuring Dax Shepard).