items tagged with Chi McBride

THE BUCKET LIST

I can't begin to describe how much I was looking forward to making fun of The Bucket List. A Rob Reiner-directed dramedy about two squabbling terminal-cancer patients -Jack Nicholson, cackling and flexing his eyebrows, and Morgan Freeman, providing soothing, pithy bromides and the inevitable voice-over narration - who gradually become friends and live out their final days skydiving and race-car driving and scaling the pyramids ... . Was there any way this wouldn't be a syrupy disaster of epic proportions?

I, ROBOT

I, Robot is perfectly titled, because it’s about as mechanical and impersonal as Hollywood entertainment gets. That’s not to say it’s completely unenjoyable – Alex Proyas’ sci-fi work, inspired by a series of Isaac Asimov stories, features some nifty set pieces, including an exciting mid-film sequence involving a hundred ’bots doing considerable damage on an underground freeway – but the film progresses with so little inventiveness that you’ll have better luck tallying up the film’s numerous influences (Blade Runner, A. I., Minority Report ... ) than finding an original idea.

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

In the first 20 minutes of the romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, there’s a scene so simple it feels revelatory. Our heroine, Toula (Nia Vardalos), is a 30-year-old waitress in a diner owned by her Greek-with-a-vengeance parents, and has always been, as she describes herself, “a frump” – plain, bespectacled, overweight, and sadly single.

GONE IN 60 SECONDS

When, exactly, did Nicolas Cage sell his soul to Jerry Bruckheimer? And is it at all possible for him to get it back?