Wild Child (2008)

Wild Child

This movie fails when it takes itself too seriously too often, as it could have become the new satirical teen movie like so many have been successful as before.

Emma Roberts has talent, and some of her friends are well cast as well. It's still a textbook repetition of movies we've seen before, with soft humor and unbearable predictability.

It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010)

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Have you ever noticed how people starts their story with the line "It's Kind of a Funny Story", and then it's usually not funny at all. Well. That's sadly also the case with the movie titled that way. This movie falls between all the stereotypical mines it aims to make fun of itself not getting trapped in.

It's not funny enough, it's nowhere near good drama and it's predictable enough all the way. Keir Gilchrist lacks the energy and charisma to carry the story, and Roberts and Galifianakis joins a lot of other more or less seriously stereotypical characters without hopes of keeping it afloat around the lead.

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines (2006)(TV)

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines

Sonya Walger is gone from the original, and substituted by Gabrielle Anwar in this movie. It doesn't work at all. Anwar and Wyle have no chemistry whatsoever, and it's not even unintentionally funny to watch them together.

Add the lack of charisma and personality in the bad guys, and it's incredibly enough a step down from the original.

Heartbreaker (2010)

L'arnacoeur

Alex make a living of ruining relationships, but only if they aren't really happy. Not a very decent way of living, and not such a great setting for the genre either. The rest is pretty much standard Rom-Com stuff, except it's just not funny or romantic. The Monte Carlo location is beautiful, and that's something I guess.

Demolition Man (1993)

Demolition Man

Cryo-prisons and a peaceful futuristic San Angeles doesn't exactly match up into the action feast it was intended. If you add lame 20th century jokes and a dumb-ed down Bullock character to follow Stallone you got squat, or diddely-squat even.

The action is ruined by so few characters able to be violent, and makes a perfect catch-22 of it all. The viewers are the only ones suffering, and to make matters worse this was made in the action-peak of Hollywood around the time we got the Die Hard franchise, The Terminator sequel and Arnold, Sylvester and Bruce shared the movie rental shelves with Van Damme, Lundgren, Seagal and so on and so forth.

The Tourist (2010)

The Tourist

A remake of Anthony Zimmer, and I truly hope they had more to work with. Even starring Jolie and Depp, there's no doubt Venice was the best part of the movie. Hard to believe this crap comes from the director of the amazing Das Leben der Anderen.

No chemistry, awful dialogues and a plot to forget even before the movie's ended.

Airplane! (1980)

Airplane!

This wasn't at all my kind of humor. Cheap lowbrow sketch jokes on top of each other. A few laughs even for me, but this just isn't smart enough to entertain. In fact its repetitiveness annoys, making it counter its purpose. Even for the genre and this kind of humor, I've seen it a lot better.

Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Dinner for Schmucks

It's way too long, and there's just too few laughs to be had. While the dead mice are kind of awesome, the rest kind of sucks.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Where the Wild Things Are

Boring. The fantasy world could probably have been done equally well 20 years ago, the story sucks in its morality preaching ways and the lead was a horribly wrong cast.

Jumper (2008)

Director: Doug Liman
Writer: Novel: Steven Gould Screenplay: David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls, Simon Kinberg
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, Michael Rooker
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Thriller

Jumper starts out with half an idea, and quickly turns into a hopeless mess. Add the fact Hayden Christensen now stars among the likes of Aaron Eckhart, Gerard Butler and Ashton Kutcher on my disliked actors list, Jumper is very quickly gaining ground as one of the worst movie I've recently seen.

The pace is more annoying than refreshing for the story, the Sci-Fi elements are not well enough put together and the ancient fight between the Jumpers and their hunters are less than satisfyingly deep. Movies like these might gain some entertaining level on their action sequences, but in this case they are equally weak as the rest.

Group Sex (2010)(V)

Director: Lawrence Trilling
Writer: Lawrence Trilling, Greg Grunberg
Cast: Josh Cooke, Greg Grunberg, Odette Yustman, Rob Benedict, Greg Germann, Tom Arnold
Genre: Comedy

Group Sex was released directly to video, and that's really not hard to believe. Trilling and Grunberg have missed on most accounts, despite the premise not being that far from something they could have worked into a hilarious movie. As it's now, they rarely get the laughs they aim at and Yustman can't really save much of the story.

My Own Love Song (2010)

Director: Olivier Dahan
Writer: Olivier Dahan
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, Madeline Sima
Genre: Drama, Comedy

My Own Love Song is a forgettable experience at best. For me it was even worse as I'm not likely to forget wasting my time. For those who enjoy Bob Dylan, it's worth noting there's a lot of Dylan music mixed into the movie. For me it didn't help all that much, but I imagine Zellweger and Whitaker will have to take the blame. I really didn't connect with either of their characters, and then there's not a lot of hope for a drama.

Outcasts in a road movie, with different goals. Not exactly original, but worse is the lack of chemistry, credibility and basic progress. Sure wasn't my cup of tea.

DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)

Director: Corey Yuen
Writer: Story: J.F. Lawton Screenplay: J.F. Lawton, Adam Gross, Seth Gross
Cast: Jaime Pressly, Devon Aoki, Hollay Valance, Sarah Carter, Natassia Malthe, Eric Roberts
Genre: Action, Adventure

DOA: Dead or Alive is based on a video game and in several of the scenes they don't only embrace it, but almost pays homage towards it. For actors and actresses not among the best to begin with, several scenes seems rushed as I've seen these actresses do better when given the chance.

Still. This is a movie you only watch for popcorn purpose, so the lame story and the weak acting can be forgiven as long as it entertains. Sadly there's a major lack in that department as well, and DOA goes into eternity as just another video game made into a crappy movie.

Fool's Gold (2008)

Director: Andy Tennant
Writer: Story: John Claflin, Daniel Zelman Screenplay: John Claflin, Daniel Zelman, Andy Tennant
Cast: Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Donald Sutherland, Alexis Dziena
Genre: Adventure, Rom-Com, Fantasy

I like the genre, but Fool's Gold was boring. All the searching for lost treasure at sea-angle is so much worse than than even Into the Blue, and the romance-angle is killed by McConaughey's lack of credibility and acting ability. If I ever see another movie with him, I'm perfectly happy about it. Dazed and Confused was one of his first roles, and he's never been close to deliver like that since. Kate Hudson is no Jessica Alba, to keep the comparison towards Into the Blue alive, but Hudson got charisma on her own. Sadly there's no sparks with her leading partner, and then this movie are coming close to running on fumes.

Sutherland's part is more a grandfather figure than anything else, and Dziena keeps delivering bimbo-parts with quite the conviction. Their father-daughter issues doesn't elevate the movie, but at least it helps cutting into McConaughey's time on the screen. At least that's positive.

The Last American Virgin (1982)

Director: Boaz Davidson
Writer: Boaz Davidson
Cast: Lawrence Monoson, Diane Franklin, Steven Antin, Joe Rubbo
Genre: Teen, Comedy, Romance, Drama

I don't know much about writer and director of The Last American Virgin, Boaz Davidson, but he's been involved in a lot of movies. The only successful ones of those he's been limited to executive producer at best. Those directing or writing haven't made much fuzz. I also know he was in his early 40's when this movie was made, so that's more disturbing to me than anything else.

Why? Because this is a wannabe comedy, coming of as a directors attempt to get as much female nudity on screen as possible while being adolescent about it. I'm at least as much in favor of female nudity as the next guy, but at least don't pretend you're doing something you're not. Sex-comedy is, or at least was back then, a genre on his own, somewhere between porn and teen-comedy. This is neither as far as I'm concerned.

There's several scenes in this where it seems the director have been sleeping. Not surprising most of them are with dressed females. Sleeping how? Because actors/actresses, otherwise able to get their lines out like they meant it, suddenly appears like they are reading directly from the script, and the scenes are still not re-shot.

The reasons it doesn't get flushed down with a one-rating is the obvious; nudity, along with two factors that really salvages it; a good soundtrack and a couple of really good scenes actually managing to remember the dramatic parts of the story. However few and far apart, they show there's something home in the brain of Mr. Boaz Davidson. I'm pretty sure he could have made a good movie based on those scenes alone, but somewhere along the way I suspect he remembered his lonely geek years as a virgin and the result was projecting his fantasies from back then into the movie.

No Reservations (2007)

Director: Scott Hicks
Writer: Carol Fuchs, Sandra Nettelbeck
Cast: Cathrine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin
Genre: Drama, Rom-Com

No Reservations introduces a new segment at this site. Aaron Eckhart joins Gerard Butler (The Bounty Hunter) and Alex O'Laughlin (The Back-Up Plan) on my list of actors unable to even have chemistry with their leading ladies in Rom-Coms. Then your acting really need some work, and I guess I'll have to put up a List of Shame, or something along those lines, along my Wall of Talent. Obviously I'm not coming to that conclusion only based on his performance here, as he wasn't much fun or sparkling at Love Happens either.

Kate (Zeta-Jones) is a successful workaholic chef at a local restaurant in NY, but she's got trust-issues, she doesn't deal well with people and her life pretty much consist of work and food in general. On their way to visit Kate, her sister and niece (Breslin) are in a accident. The sister dies, the girl survives, and without her father in the picture Kate is suddenly finding herself raising a nine year old on her own.

Everything changes, including her boss taking in a new chef (Eckhart) at work while she's taking forced time off dealing with her sister's death and her nieces arrival. From a decent enough premise for the genre, the story goes rapidly tumbling downhill from there. Zeta-Jones and Breslin have a nice enough chemistry, but Eckhart only manages to keep chemistry with Breslin and the rest of the kitchen staff. Opposite Kate everything feels forced. Adding a therapist in Kate's life and the neighbor, the cliches are piling up like dead bodies in a zombie movie.

Jenny Wade ("The Good Guys") have a small support role, which was nice to notice for a huge fan of that new TV-show. Breslin does well as the girl, I've seen Zeta-Jones a lot better and I'm not going to start on my Eckhart-rant again.

Repo Men (2010)

Repo Men is set in the future where body organs is sold at down payments and repossessed, much like cars and houses today. We follow two repo men collecting organs from those unable to pay their debts, played by Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

This movie sucked, in my opinion. It missed all the marks it could, and I'm not gonna give it the time of day to explain why. The story was not only easy to see through, but it lacked nerve, chemistry, dramatic or thrilling feel or any of the other thousands of possibilities to make a movie interesting.

Movie makers are allowed to make movies unrealistic, but to make them annoyingly out of touch with its own premise is just plain wrong. There's one scene making this stay clear of the total slaughter a one-rated movie here at Motion Pictures on the fly are, but even that scene missed out on its own premise.

Oh. And Carice van Houten, known from both Paul Verhoeven's great 2006 WWII movie Black Book (Zwartboek) and the Tom Cruise-WWII 2008-movie Valkyrie, is here finally presented in an American movie on her own two acting feet without WWII or the language playing a role in casting her. Expect to see a lot more from her in the future, and if you haven't yet you should really check out her performance in the mentioned Black Book.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is written by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, the duo responsible for Anchorman together. Back then McKay also directed and Ferrell also starred, just like here. I haven't yet seen Anchorman, but I just pray its a lot better than this because this just wasn't my cup of tea.

It's not funny, at least not my kind of funny. It's predictable, lacking focus and there's way too little of Amy Adams in it. Well. Amy wasn't that good here either, but she really didn't have a lot to work with. Anyhoo. She was one of the few reasons this didn't score rock bottom.

Don McKay (2009)

Don McKay is Jake Goldberger's debut as both a writer and director, and he got a lot of the small town ideas right. Sadly all the other elements ruin the movie. You early realize what's wrong and what's supposed to be wrong, but its painfully obvious and annoying to wait for the director to get to the point. I rarely have to take that many sittings to get through a movie, but poor Don McKay's story is one left better untold. Thomas Haden Church, Elisabeth Shue and Melissa Leo does well as the leads, but the script they have to work with could bore most people to death faster than the thriller-elements used in the movie.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Where the first Charlie's Angels was entertaining, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle steps wrong on so many levels. The only good thing is the fact they've managed to keep their three Angels and Demi Moore stepping in, but losing out on Bill Murray for Bernie Mac as 'Bosley' was a huge disappointment. Disappointing was also the overdone action produced here. The first never claimed to be realistic, but at least it didn't become completely ridiculous like here. Also the minor bad guys are low on flair compared to those presented three years earlier. I fully understand why we've never seen a third installment after this piece of shit.