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September 29, 2006
School for Scoundrels
(out of four)
First came Bad Santa, then Bad News Bears, now this, School for Scoundrels, another Billy Bob Thornton comedy in which the grizzly old coot demonstrates precisely how not to behave in polite society. To keep the "bad" theme going, they might have called the movie Bad Education if (a) Pedro Almodóvar hadn't snagged that title first or (b) they didn't want to let on that it was a remake.
This School for Scoundrels update, in which Thornton plays a guru who teaches spineless young men (including Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder) how to go after what they want, has been in development since 1993. In post-Wedding Crashers Hollywood, the entire exercise feels dated (just as the comedy's PG-13 rating — this in spite of a recurring anal rape joke — makes it feel neutered).
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
Open Season
(out of four)
Finally, after all these years, generations of kids who wept when the hunter shot Bambi's mother can get their revenge with Open Season, in which a pack of resourceful forest animals turns the tables on the humans. Armed with brassieres, marshmallows and other unlikely weapons of resistance, these chatty critters organize a rebellion to save their skins and reclaim the hunting ground for themselves.
I wonder if Hollywood has ever considered making a computer-animated movie in which the animals don't talk. Instead of rounding up a crowd of recognizable actors to crack jokes in silly accents, they might rely on body language and other tricks to let the audience in to the emotional world of these creatures. How daring might that be?
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2006
Poster Boy
(out of four)
Before getting into whether the film actually works, let's talk about the Poster Boy movie poster for a moment. It depicts a senator's son, shirtless and swathed in an American flag, mouth sealed with duct tape, a curious look in his eyes that says "come hither" more than "silence equals death."
Talk about mixed messages. On one hand, the image captures the politically charged spirit of this ambitious little melodrama. But at the same time, there's no question as to the photo's true intention: It's a tantalizing slice of beefcake designed to fool gay audiences into thinking the movie is sexier than it is.
Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2006
The Protector
(out of four)
"Forget the story forget the plot and sub-title," advises an eBay auction for the 140-minute version of The Protector. "Watching the action sequence itself is enough lots of cool & great Muay Thai actions."
"Plot and sub-title" aren't exactly the strong points of stuntman-turned-actor Tony Jaa's movies, so it's fair to guess that The Weinstein Company has actually done audiences a favor by releasing a radically abridged 84-minute cut of The Protector instead. The American version distills the movie to just the setpieces connected by minimal exposition. After Ong Bak, what audiences really want is more of Jaa's hyper-kinetic showmanship, and the movie delivers one jaw-dropping fight scene after another while minimizing everything else.
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)