02 May 2011

McCarthyism ... the Good Kind: "Win Win," "Fast Five," and "Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil"

By Mike Schulz

Paul Giamatti and Alex Shaffer in Win WinWIN WIN

When I say that writer/director Tom McCarthy's Win Win could easily serve as the inspiration for a long-running TV series, I don't mean it in any way insultingly, partly because our current small-screen options are, in general, vastly superior to our big-screen ones. Mostly, though, it's because this serious-minded comedy is so teeming with nuanced, empathetic characters and complicated yet wholly plausible situations and circumstances that you want to luxuriate in Win Win's universe for far longer than the movie's too-brief 100 minutes - like, for an hour a week over several seasons.

18 Apr 2011

A-Stabbin' the Dorks: "Scream 4," "The Conspirator," "Soul Surfer," and "Your Highness"

By Mike Schulz

Neve Campbell in Scream 4SCREAM 4

Directed, as all of the franchise's outings have been, by Wes Craven, and written by Kevin Williamson, Scream 4 is a sequel, a reboot, and a big middle finger to reboots, all in one bloody, meta, mostly tedious package. It opens beautifully and features a bunch of (mostly verbal) horror-comedy pleasures, yet its overall effect is wearying; Craven and Williamson are so focused on deconstructing the genre - the Scream series in particular - for a media-soaked, hipper-than-thou young audience that even its "surprises" are in quotation marks. Watching Scream 4 is like watching a movie with its commentary track running before you've had a chance to experience the film without it.

12 Jul 2009

Amüsing Enüf: "Brüno," "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," and "I Love You, Beth Cooper"

By Mike Schulz

Sacha Baron Cohen in BrünoBRÜNO

Returning with a comedy in a vein similar, re-e-e-eally similar, to that of their 2006 smash Borat, director Larry Charles and co-writer/star Sacha Baron Cohen now present us with Brüno, another mock-doc based on one of Cohen's famed Da Ali G Show characters. With a storyline that you can easily summarize in three words - Borat gone gay - it's the pair's latest attempt to shock the masses into spasms of outrage and gales of uncontrollable laughter, and I'll readily admit that the movie is pretty funny, and sometimes awfully funny.

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