So I'm trying really hard not to mention a certain movie that is opening this weekend, because any little part I can play to not get more horrible abstinent sparkly vampire movies made is pretty much the greatest contribution to mankind that anyone has ever given. And I'm totally counting the guy who invented roofies.
When my wife and I discovered that our in-production kid #2 was, in fact, going to be kids #2 and #3... a lot changed quickly. Our house suddenly became too small. Our car suddenly became inadequate to the task of hauling around our unnatural number of children. Our plans for a neat and orderly future suddenly went up in flames. And - perhaps most important, surpassing even the knowledge that "the twins" was no longer going to be an acceptable metaphor for breasts - every movie we'd ever seen about twins suddenly became a training ground for the years to come.
Oh Man. I was all set. When it comes to writing about bad movies, the release of a Roland Emmerich film is like Christmas and Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July (Or Independence Day...chuckle) all rolled up in one. This weekend 2012 opened nationwide and I was so happy because movies that look this bad only come once a year. And unlike your stupid parents who totally don't even know what a "He-man Castle Greyskull Action Playset" even IS, so they buy you a Lite-Brite© instead, 2012 looked like it was totally going to come through for me.
Kick-Ass is the title of a gritty, independent, comic book series by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. and I think the name pretty much speaks for itself. You can't go around calling something "Kick Ass" if it is about ponies and bunny rabbits or something. That would be like calling a Holocaust documentary "Fairy World" or a Keanu Reeves movie "good". (Zing!) Any way, they're making a movie out of it and there's posters out and it's Friday so I'm too burned out to write about anything I've actually seen. Huzzah.
This is a post about the kids of The Twilight Saga and their prettiness. Please to enjoy.
I went to see The Men Who Stare At Goats this weekend because I
thought it looked awesome and there are goats right there in the title.
I'm such a sucker for a good title. If you called a recording of an
insurance seminar 'Boobies! Machete! Pirates!" I would be all over that
thing even if the previews featured eye surgery. I don't know if there
are ever any eye surgeries at insurance seminars, but Ew! Gross! I'd
still watch. I wish The Men Who Stare At Goats had been that
interesting actually.
If I really had to pick my favorite genre of film it would be horror-comedy even though there aren't that many of them and the good ones are rare. That's why I'm a little bit Richard-Pryor-in-Brewster's Millions-when-he-finds-out-he-has-inherited-all-that-money-but-before-he-realizes-the-catch about Tucker & Dale vs. Evil which just released a trailer and looks like it might be the most amazing thing ever since hyperbole was invented. Or at least pretty good.
It seems many of Hollywood's recent movie hits are remakes and/or ripped from our childhoods, which I know is nothing new, but I kinda want them to back off my beloved memories a wee bit, yanno?
Confession: I wish Where The Wild Things Are had remained a classic book. (Which yes, it still is, but the movie is so scary I won't take my 5 year old son to see it. It really should have remained a book where a child could fill in the blanks with his imagination. I never imagined any chicken's arm getting ripped off, did you?)
Now I'm hearing rumblings about bring the beloved Berenstain Bears to the big screen. My Berenstain Bears. *sob*
Maybe you think I like torture porn movies like Saw because...well, let's be honest...it says "porn" right there in the name... it's not like it's that huge a leap.I really don't though because that nice Cary Elwes was Wesley in The Princess Bride and that's just cognitively dissonant. What I do like though is The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon.
As an extension of MamaPop's ongoing effort to bring you the best in wholesome, family-friendly fun, we'd like to offer you the following list of some of our favorite murderous psychopaths. Some you may know, some you may not... but all of them deserve a very dark, twisted and frightening part of your life.
By Michael Roe
54 years ago, today, Rebel Without a Cause was released, a film since deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. It was James Dean’s second film (and his second-to-last), and the movie that made the young man an icon.
Here's some input I didn't really need: Steve Carr, the d-bag responsible for Paul Blart: Mall Cop, has been signed by Dimension Films to direct a remake of Short Circuit, the 1986 sci-fi-lite flick in which a robot out-acted Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy, which is almost an impressive feat.
I just got around to seeing Year One, because I saw the previews and used my superpower of knowing when things are going to be suckish ahead of time and just didn't, but then it's Sunday night and I have to write about something for Mama Pop, so it was this or The Proposal or stapling my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and I couldn't really write about the stapling thing because that's not really pop culture-related. And all the copies of The Proposal were out. And I hate my eyes and my ears and my intellect.
I don't usually write about actors but I guess thugs marks the exception to the rule, because guess what?, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm pretty much a lone wolf. But in this case I'm a lone wolf against my own rules and that makes me extra Lone Wolfish. The actor? Why... Ken Jeong, of course! And why am I writing about him? Mind your own business.
Sometimes, as a movie reviewer, you have to make difficult choices. There are only so many films you can watch and only so many eyes you can watch them with and only so many dollars you might be willing to shake down kids at your son's elementary school for, because no matter how talented and brilliant you are, no one at The New York Times will return your phone calls.
MAMAPOP IS SMART POP CULTURE ANALYSIS, COMMENTARY, MERCILESS FUN-MAKING AND OTHER SUNDRY AWESOME, DISHED UP DAILY BY PARENTS, FOR PARENTS, AND ANYONE ELSE WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT PLAYTIME IS BETTER WITH VODKA. PLEASE TO ENJOY. READ MORE...
