| Critic |
Review |
Quote |
Analysis |
This Week's Verdict |
Marjorie Baumgarten,
Austin Chronicle |
Idiocracy |
"Ironically, Mike Judge's latest film, which has been shelved since its completion two years ago and now dumped by Twentieth Century Fox at the very end of the summer, with no advance word, is the recipient of the kind of asinine treatment that is commonplace in the dystopic future imagined in Idiocracy. Judge's future exists 500 years from now and postulates a dumbed-down world of mediocrity in which stupidity and sloth are the dominant human traits and anyone who uses sentences instead of monosyllabic grunts to communicate is considered 'faggy.'...Along the way, the film takes shots at a slew of products and brands, among them Fuddruckers, Starbucks, Carl's Jr., Costco, and Fox News (with a bold 'bite the hand that feeds 'em' swagger). Perhaps some of this helps explain the reasons for the film's denigrating release. It is certainly no less competent than any number of artless works we've seen in theatres of late . And it is certainly more conceptually inspired than most." |
In case you haven't noticed, we've got a serious jones for this movie, and a serious vendetta against the studio-employed replicants who are declining to give it a proper release. So for giving Idiocracy the time of day, the Austin Chronicle gets a gold star from us this week. |
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Armond White,
New York Press |
This Film Is Not Yet Rated |
"No one involved with This Film Is Not Yet Rated thinks intelligently. Director Kirby Dick challenges the practice of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board with angry, anti-Bush fervor (including thinly veiled administration attacks). But Dick's methods are alarmingly unscrupulous. He rounds-up liberal think-alikes—filmmakers, indie producers and ACLU shills—for on-screen interviews.[...]The fact is, Valenti's ratings system prevented dangerous government interference in filmmaking; it keeps the process apolitical." |
Armond is probably lucky the New York Press doesn't employ fact-checkers; otherwise someone might have pointed out that the film features interviews with noted-liberal-basher Matt Stone (Team America: World Police) and the makers of Right-wing-approved Gunner Palace. And given the fact that he calls the rating process "apolitical," the Press evidently doesn't employ copy editors either. |
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Manohla Dargis,
New York Times |
Hollywoodland |
"Before he became a cautionary tale about making it in the movies, Mr. Reeves was a smoothie with brilliantine hair as slick as his pickup lines. In the early 1950's he was hustling hard, hitting auditions while the sun was up and cruising the nightclub scene after dark. He was trying to build on his decent roles in forgettable films and negligible parts in memorable ones, including a bit as an eager young caller who worships at Scarlett O'Hara's feet in Gone With the Wind. Even now, if you didn't know Mr. Reeves from The Adventures of Superman you might not notice him next to Vivien Leigh and David O. Selznick's expensive sets, which of course was the problem." |
Hey, it worked for Ben Affleck, why can't it...Oh, wait. This week, Manohla's a bit harsh on one of the better films of the year. But we can forgive her, since she can still come up with great lines such as: "Adrien Brody fails to shape [Louis Simo] into a character of interest despite much aggressive eyebrow raising." |
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Justin Chang,
Variety |
Crank |
"Videogamers who've been itching for Grand Theft Auto: The Movie can tide themselves over in the meantime with Crank, a down-and-dirty actioner that follows a rugged antihero trying to outrun death by keeping his adrenaline flowing. Doing the same for viewers, however, proves a taller order, and pic's prescription of killings, car chases and indecent exposure Ñ held together by a chaotic editing scheme only a crackhead could love Ñ doesn't add up to much more than a few bloody chuckles." |
Chang then goes on to diss the hero's "nonstop rampage through the streets of Los Angeles" and the "trail of corpses, hijacked vehicles and thousands of dollars' worth of property damage" and the fact that he learns "that nothing gets the blood racing quite like public humiliation". Also, he mentions "the image of Chev riding a cop's motorcycle in a hospital gown" and "the rousingly funny scene where he takes his clueless girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) for a different sort of ride smack in the middle of Chinatown." They call this a bad review?? This movie sounds so awesome it's ridiculous. |
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Carina Chocano,
Los Angeles Times |
Sherrybaby |
"You'd have to do the math to know for sure, but casual analysis suggests that stories about drug addicts, especially recovering ones, make up a disproportionate number of stories told on the screen. American movies are fixated on the twin forces of degradation and redemption. Whether that's due to actual audience interest in the subject matter, or to the ease with which stories about addicts fit into the prescribed dramatic structure is hard to say. Or maybe it's not that hard. The trouble with movies about addicts is that, pathos notwithstanding, the addicts themselves tend to be boring and predictable, not to mention especially vulnerable to cheap psychoanalysis." |
Took the words right out of our mouths. Now please forget this review while we go pitch our searing drama featuring Winona Ryder in her comeback role as a junkie Vancouver prostitute trying to make amends with her gay brother and the Native American foster parents of her retarded biological child before she dies of cancer. (Giancarlo Esposito's in this one, too.) Park City, here we come! |
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