Slow Roll Blog

Madea Goes to Jail (2009)

2009-03-07T15:24:00.001-08:00

For this entry, I'd simply like to post the exact notes I took in the theater while we witnessed this horrifying display of closeted homosexuality and bad writing:

HERE IS WHAT HAPPENS IN MADEA GOES TO JAIL, THE MOVIE:

A crack ho is violently beaten and gang raped. She wakes up with a pimp's dick inside her, and he tells her, "You're my slave now, and slaves have to buy their freedom." So the sobbing bloody crack ho escapes through the window and flees down the street, totally naked except for a towel.

So basically, all this disturbing shit happens and then Tyler Perry shows up dressed up as a big fat woman and sprays machine gun fire in a crowded party while people scream and run away, and it's supposed to be funny.

Also, HERE IS WHAT HAPPENS IN "MADEA GOES TO JAIL," THE PLAY (because we've studied it extensively as well):

Madea and Miss Ella are babysitting for Vanessa. Sonny and Nathaniel are prison wardens. Sonny married Vanessa, but Cheryl Pepsii comes along and makes him realize that Vanessa is a conniving businesswoman who drowns their baby. Meanwhile, another lady gets out of jail and sings at her daughter that she wants to be a good mother now.

Now, I'm pretty confused right now, but I'm POSITIVE that NONE of this is happening in this movie. So why is it called "Madea Goes to Jail" when it isn't Madea Goes to Jail.

In fact, we've seen an embarrassing number of Tyler Perry plays and movies and the movie versions are NEVER, EVER even remotely similar to the plays. So Tyler Perry's writing is so generic that even he can't tell any of this crap apart. On the other hand, let me also say that this movie is not nearly as bad as Madea's Family Reunion or The Family That Preys.

Actually, as Tyler Perry becomes more and more obsessed with being in drag all the time (including Photoshopped pictures of Tyler Perry as a nude showgirl, blechh), Madea herself is the least terrible part of the movie, until you remember that Tyler Perry actually thinks he's different than RuPaul. Oh wait, Tyler Perry is nothing like RuPaul because RuPaul is AWESOME.

And if you've never seen anything by Tyler Perry and you can't believe how much we know about his work, just do a bunch of shots and go see Madea Goes to Jail because you won't believe your fucking eyes.

A Good Year (2006)

2009-02-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

You may or may not be a Russell Crowe fan (I'm mostly not), but here is something interesting to learn -- although he has mastered an American accent with no problem, he absolutely CANNOT do an English accent. Isn't that strange?

In A Good Year, let's just face it and say that Crowe plays Hugh Grant, as a stuffy businessman who finds himself spending a year (a good year) at a charming, photogenically sun-dappled vineyard in the French countryside, for some reason or another. The point is, he's there to learn about himself, try to grow grapes, and fall in love with a small-town French babe (Marion Cotillard) who, I don't know, teaches him more stuff about himself. I promise I finished this movie.

I can appreciate what Crowe and Ridley Scott were trying to do here. They were trying to take a tired old formula and make it all smartsy to prove that light entertainment can still be quality entertainment. And how can you go wrong with a bunch of Oscar nominees, and an attractive location anyone would want to spend a year (a good year) in?

Well, you can start with Crowe's performance. He is a lot of things, but he is not charming. And he's DEFINITELY not funny. Again, why does his English accent suck so much? Shouldn't it be really easy for him because he's Australian? Just kidding. But he should still be better at it because he's supposed to be a good actor.

And I can't really think of anything else to say except, don't bother.

Big Momma's House 2 (2006)

2009-02-20T13:37:00.000-08:00

I have a few things to say about Big Momma's House 2.

1) Forgive me for not bothering to see the original Big Momma's House first. I'm sure that wasn't fair to Martin Lawrence's artistic vision for the "Big Momma's House" series.

2) I will gladly give Martin Lawrence credit for one thing: while he is one of THREE (!) black comics who has resorted to dressing up as a morbidly obsese grandma to sustain his film career, AT LEAST he is playing a man undercover as a woman, and not playing an actual female -- as Eddie Murphy and Tyler Perry are so fond of doing themselves. Believe me, I have nothing against drag, but at least Big Momma's House 2 didn't make me feel like I was watching the creepy home movies of a schizophrenic closet transgender case who, on top of all that, IS NOT FUNNY.

3) No, Martin Lawrence isn't very funny either, but still.

4) Big Momma spends a lot of time in mid-air in this movie. Curious!

5) I will probably never see the original Big Momma's House. But I kind of recommend slow rolling the sequel.

Untraceable (2008)

2009-02-20T13:05:00.001-08:00

About six years too late to scare anyone, the latest movie about a killer website stars Diane Lane as an FBI agent investigating a site where people log on to watch someone die, and the more people log on, the faster they die. So, you know, this is totally a statement about the dangers of voyeurism in the Internet Age. Or it would be, if this wasn't the stupidest idea for a movie since 88 Minutes.

You can tell this movie means business because it kills a kitten in an opening scene. Then you know it means business because Diane Lane and Colin Hanks sit around talking about "computar" and "intarnets" for a while, so you trust that if this killer website WAS traceable, they could find it. BUT THEY CAN'T BECAUSE IT'S UNTRACEABLE.

However, the single funniest thing about this movie is the rising visitor count on the killer website: it's, like, in the millions. And it quickly skyrockets into the TENS of millions. How quickly? Like, in a few minutes. AND it's restricted to American users only, so just think about what a huge chunk of the population that is. If that many people are SOOOOO into watching internet murder, we have a whole different problem on our hands than one murderer. If this website's hit counter gets more hits than CNN.com, this country needs to be nuked off the face of the planet. Our remains need to be UNTRACEABLE.

But if any of this sounds like Untraceable is effective as a statement about the decaying morals of our society in the Internet Age, well, it doesn't work because the actual issue of the people visiting the website is never addressed. We never meet an actual user of the killer website, so the only suspense is meant to come from the endless extreme closeups of a digital counter. SCAAARY! SO MANY INTARNET HITS OMG!

If you're particularly into bad thrillers like I am, check this one out. For the rest of you, it might be a little boring. Recommended.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2008)

2009-02-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

Can anyone believe Uwe Boll is still allowed to make movies anymore? AND that he gets semi-famous performers like Ray Liotta, Jason Statham, Ron Perlman, Matthew Lillard, Burt Reynolds, Claire Forlani, John Rhys-Davies, and LEELEE SOBIESKI to be in them? With such a bizarre cast, In the Name of the King plays like an embarrassing dress-up edition of The Surreal Life. But Matthew Lillard is the best of all, overacting with such zeal that Burt Reynolds looks visibly weirded out. And you know they only got one take, so they had to use it.

88 Minutes (2008)

2009-02-20T12:54:00.001-08:00

I've seen a lot of bad thrillers, and I've loved a lot of bad thrillers... but I have never loved a bad thriller as much as I love 88 Minutes (although Twisted comes close). It's hilarious from start to finish, from the moment Al Pacino's raggedy wig is introduced, to the moment Leelee Sobieski tries acting like a "bad girl." And believe me, that last one was doomed from the word "acting."

This movie really serves it up Slow Roll-style by setting its opening scene in 1997 -- and hammering this home by (a) including extreme close ups of a newspaper covering Princess Diana's death in 1997, (b) having two Japanese lesbian sisters briefly discuss Princess Diana's death in 1997, and (c) blasting Backstreet Boys music from 1997. BECAUSE IT'S 1997.

Then there is a weird courtroom scene that, if anything is to be gathered from the editing, takes place on a sea-plane and lasts nine whole years. Then there is Al Pacino waking up in bed with a naked college girl lifting her leg over her head and looking at her vagina in the mirror. What on earth is going on? you may ask yourself at this point. And the answer would be, ONE OF THE GREATEST BAD MOVIES OF ALL TIME.

Without going into too much more detail, the plot is as follows: Al Pacino gets a mysterious phone call saying he has 88 minutes to live. He spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, which is kind what the audience does as well. There's Amy Brenneman, whose sole character trait is being a huge lesbian. And of course, there is Leelee Sobieski reminding us that she still alive but not shedding any light on why she pronounces words as if English is her second language.

I could go on for 88 minutes about how much I love this movie, but you should really rent it for yourself. 88 times. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Lady in the Water (2006)

2009-02-06T16:08:00.001-08:00

Every writer finds themselves dreaming they can change the world with their pen, but 99% of the time, you've failed the second you try. Something changes. Your subject, your approach, your execution, and your attitude all become inescapably stupid. What could be worse than that? When you know you should know better, so you obscure your intentions a little bit, not enough to fog up your message, but enough to show people you're a little humble. Gosh! Look at you. You can be simple, just like the crowd!

This movie is about a landlord named Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) who is visited by a lady from the pool named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard). Story comes from the Blue World, which is in jeopardy or something, probably because the Blue World is Shyamalan's surrogate for his own creativity, or maybe it isn't really in jeopardy at all... it's hard to tell, but creatures want to kill Story and we're upset because she's the story. Story has come to inspire someone from our reality to write the next great work of art that will inspire someone else to become president and change the world, and together with a building full of archetypes, it's up to Cleveland to protect her until she succeeds.

Will she survive? Do you care? With its endlessly petulant self-reference (monsters want to kill the story!), the single movie with which Lady in the Water has the most in common is I Really Hate My Job. Worse, the single filmmaker with which this version of M. Night Shyamalan has most in common is Tyler Perry. They both fancy themselves knowing better than you, and so structure their bad films around lessons, so that not only are they teaching you to be a better person, you should also be grateful the medicine goes down easy. It's such a nauseating abuse of power, it's no wonder that anyone with a brain immediately hates it.

There are useless fantasy creatures that are introduced ("narfs," "scrunts," "tartutics"), useless sources for its own mythology (a dotty old Korean woman, via a Korean giantess), and useless right-angle turns in the narrative, including a fakeout as to who will change the world, and a fakeout as to who the great writer is (hint: it's Shyamalan). It's no surprise that the pieces never come together: the pieces are made of bullshit.

Shyamalan is a filmmaker acutely aware that he is gifted, but here, incredibly mistaken as to what those gifts are. He is an expert at summoning feeling out of the creepy, and when you're in Shyamalan's world, this might as well cover the entire spectrum of the human condition. His films are so rich, it is evident that he can tackle many genres besides the few he gives himself. But he is mistaken to think audiences want to look at any old thing bouncing around in his head. They don't.

Here's the problem: Story, Cleveland, and everyone else are too idiosyncratic to Shyamalan to be useful to anyone else. They're momentary fizzles every writer has all the time.

When you want to change the world, it helps to bring people onto your side of the pen.

Legacy (2008)

2009-02-06T16:07:00.001-08:00

Is it fair to criticize a movie so scrappy, it's an accomplishment that it attains feature-length status at all? Sometimes a movie can't help betraying its low-budget roots, but every once in a while a movie shows up to the party already wasted just to cuss everybody out. It's just so awkward and nasty, you can't help but wonder how many inches away it is from doing porn.

Haylie Duff stars in this movie that looks and sounds just like porn without the sex. Well, most of the sex. There's a really disturbing scene where Haylie and her stoner boyfriend have sex, and the stoner guy videotapes it to show all his friends. Upon seeing it, the other guys cheer and applaud even though this footage is just the guy, shoulders up, pumping away. What you take from this is up to you. You can bet it was unintentional.

Which is so weird, because the tone this movie strikes requires such a careful modulation of details like that. It's supposed to be a nasty, "Jawbreaker"-esque murder satire with just enough taboo sexy meanness from hot young girls to make every frame just so, incredibly, delicious. And yet... hard.. Like... a Jawbreaker. You see, Haylie Duff runs the strictest bubblegum sorority to ever occupy a porn set in the San Fernando Valley, and she's not about to let a fat pledge ruin it even if she's the daughter of a former sorority mom. Mom will flex her money to make sure her fat daughter stays, and surprise surprise, the first party they throw sees the fat girl dead from a mysterious beating. Uh--oh! Cue the plinky strings on the soundtrack. Delicious.

First, this movie acts like it's a closely observed real-time dissection of What Went Wrong That Night. Then, it decides to do a Rashomon (link to "Basic" page) with all the girls stammering in separate interrogation rooms (allowing for all manner of delicious intercutting) while Haylie Duff vamps it up like a bad 40. Then, they go home and the killer chases them around with a knife. It's hard to say how it ends, but with such an explosive payoff to such an expert buildup, it would be a lie to say the whole diabolical confection wasn't completely... delicious.

Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

2009-01-25T13:24:00.000-08:00

It was adapted from a story originally told on NPR's This American Life. It was directed by the creator of Freaks and Geeks, who has also directed episodes of zeitgeisty TV shows including "Arrested Development," "30 Rock," "Mad Men," and "Weeds." And since said director, the great Paul Feig, is also a co-executive producer of "The Office," Unaccompanied Minors features cameos from Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak, along with "Arrested Development" alum Jessica Walter and, like, half the cast of "The Daily Show."

But for all its pedigree, Unaccompanied Minors is made even worse by the amount of talent wasted on it. In fact, if I didn't know who Paul Feig was, I would think Unaccompanied Minors was just another lame, lazy, soulless, depressing movie about the holidays. Lewis Black, the actual worst thing that has even happened to "The Daily Show" (yes, this includes Dan Bakkedahl) stars as the head of an airport where a group of unsupervised children are trapped on Christmas. This is one of those movies where the adults are unnecessarily mean because they're adults and the kids are unnecessarily rowdy because they're kids. Horrible hijinks ensue.

Spanglish (2004)

2009-01-25T13:23:00.001-08:00

Do you want to see a movie that's just going to make you mad? Then give a second glance to Spanglish, in which Tea Leoni gives a loud, shrill performance as a woman consumed by white liberal guilt. Said guilt causes her to befriend her maid and get her maid's daughter a scholarship to an expensive private school against said maid's wishes, and we are asked to invest in The Problems Of Rich White People for a staggering 131 minutes.

Three-time Oscar winner James L. Brooks may be a gifted writer and producer, but his five career directing credits require further scrutiny. All three of his Academy Awards came from his directorial debut Terms of Endearment, and he also helmed 1987's amazingly awesome Broadcast News. But then he presided over I'll Do Anything, followed by the film that supposedly cemented him as a visionary director: the execrable As Good as it Gets. And detractors of that movie already know what's wrong with Spanglish: that is, its characters are overblown caricatures who inhabit a world even more annoying than our own. Stop screaming, Tea Leoni. And I haven't even started talking about Adam Sandler.

Righteous Kill (2008)

2009-01-25T13:22:00.001-08:00

At some point, director Jon Avnet must have thought that 2008 was going to be his year. He had worked with Al Pacino twice, and one of those times ol' Bobby DeNiro even showed up to lend a hand as well. After what was to be the triumph of 88 Minutes, his follow-up film, Righteous Kill, would cement Avnet as a serious director who knows how to handle great talent. Cinema buffs would celebrate the thrilling reunion between two actors who hadn't collaborated since 1995.

But instead of Heat 2: Even Hotter, Avnet's Righteous Kill turned out more like 89 Minutes: Not Another Minute. The only good thing one can find to say about this muddy cop thriller is that it wasn't Jon Avnet's worst movie starring Al Pacino, because 88 Minutes is much, much worse. And exponentially more hilarious.

Mission to Mars (2000)

2009-01-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

This movie makes the origin of life on Earth boring. Like, so boring it has to spice up the journey with geriatric ballroom dancing in space. Wait, that makes it sound exciting. How about a meteorite assault and the subsequent deep-space abandonment of the ship, all shot with the intensity of a turtle knitting on valium? Sorry, now I'm making it sound too intense.

It's about a group of astronauts that takes the first human steps on Mars, and the rescue mission to uncover how it was all ruined by a bloodthirsty towering sand tornado penis. Now, that's already too many layers for this story. Shouldn't the discovery of a sand penis be more amazing than anything humanity has ever discovered before? Why do we need a rescue mission to waste precious time with twice as many characters as we need? What does the titular mission to Mars have to do with the mystery of the giant sand penis at all, even on the broadest, most intuitive level? That sand penis should be all anyone talks about!

Tim Robbins is in this, looking exactly as male as actress Connie Nielsen. They are precisely as male and female as each other. It is very weird. They play the happy astronaut couple that causes widower Gary Sinise to steal away to his space bunk all the time to watch home videos of his dead wife that look like they were shot on a $50 million budget.

They are all part of a rescue mission to save Don Cheadle from the giant sand penis on Mars, but what they don't know is that the sand penis was hiding a giant face. And inside the face is the secret to the origin of our species.

The secret? Tyra Banks shot her Martian DNA into Earth's oceans and we showed up by complete coincidence.

THE END.

I told you we should have spent more time with the penis.

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006)

2009-01-19T10:39:00.001-08:00

You don't expect a movie like this to be any good, but sometimes they surprise you by being even worse. Nobody asked for a sequel to "Garfield: The Movie." Nobody even asked for "Garfield: The Movie." Nobody asked for homosexual jealousy between man and beast. And nobody, I mean NOBODY, asked for Jon and Liz to get together! I mean they were sooo much better when Liz was being a giant bitch. It's like: Jon, you'll win her over, we promise!

Bill Murray returns as the voice of Garfield, as well as Garfield's doppelganger from the United Kingdom, who get switched for some reason involving Liz's international veterinarian conference. It's not that important. It also most likely inconveniences a bunch of people who have important jobs to do, like go to vet conferences on the other side of the world, and it's a mark of today's movies for kids that we even have to discuss important vet conferences that nobody cares about just to get to the dumb cat hijinks. Shouldn't you build a story around something at least a little bit more interesting to kids? That's nothing to say about Jon traveling to Europe to propose to Liz and SNOOOOOOOOZE. God, this movie sucks.

Anyways, Garfield calls Jon a "queen" to Odie, sabotages his proposal to Liz, and dances all sexy for him. This is not even subtext, it is the actual text -- Garfield is in love with Jon. There's some barn-animal activism as well, and at one point the British Garfield gets soaked in poop from a sewer. Then it is implied that a blood-splattered Garfield has just eaten a pie with a human inside it. Oh, and Garfield eats 10,000 plates of non-cartoon food in a scene that gives one actual vertigo for all the laws of nature it shatters. Just try to imagine what kind of biology it would require to consume 10,000 plates of food at once, leaving only bones.

We paused it when Garfield gets stuck in the front door of a miniature castle and farts from all the pressure. It is a good point to stop and reassess your life. If you have nothing to live for, please enjoy the second half of this film.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

2009-01-19T10:38:00.001-08:00

What can you even say about this movie? It's just really bad. The worst part is that it so wants to be better than your typical C-grade monster (C-monster?) movie, but its more pretentious ambitions damn it even more. You see, the fourth (!) entry in the Jaws series has real family issues in it. You know, jealousy issues between mother and son, acceptance issues for mom's new boyfriend, forgetting to take out the trash issues leading to explosive fight issues between young husband and wife issues... I mean, so many issues. So it tends to break the already weak tension when the shark -- there's a shark! -- attacks all these people with their incredibly annoying issues, because obviously he's watching this movie too and wants it to stop.

So, is Jaws: The Revenge a closely-observed drama that explores family intimacy with a precision that turns the mundane into something riveting? Or, is it a monster movie starring a shark made out of a matchbox? It's hard to say, because it is neither. The family issues have zero to do with the shark attacks, which are executed like shit, so it isn't exactly a monster movie. What is there left to watch?

If you answered "a parade of crunk faces to draw (such as Jared Leto and Michelle Williams B.C.)," then you are absolutely right. Buy this film now.

Ransom of Red Chief (1998)

2009-01-19T10:35:00.001-08:00

Before the world embraced him in Pay it Forward and then rejected him in everything else, Haley Joel Osment starred in this TV western about, I guess, an ugly nine year-old boy. That's what I got out of the ten minutes I watched.

Shakes the Clown (1991)

2009-01-19T10:34:00.003-08:00

One would think that the words "Bobcat Goldthwait" and "clown" in one movie would insure hilarity. No, wait. One would assume it would insure attempted hilarity. But not Shakes the Clown, in which Goldthwait plays an alcoholic clown. It actually shows its viewers the tears of a clown. When I figured out it wasn't really a comedy, I became terrified and turned it off immediately.

Rollerball (2002)

2009-01-19T10:34:00.001-08:00

Outside of Chris Klein uttering perhaps the dumbest line of dialogue in history, I don't remember a single thing about this movie. Anyway, here's the line:

"Look at all these baubles!"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

You now know enough never to have to sit through Rollerball.

The Secret (2006)

2009-01-19T10:33:00.001-08:00

The concept of wish fulfillment is nothing new. Neither is the power of positive thinking. But when adapted for a modern audience and repackaged as a shortcut to material wealth and the acquisition of actual stuff, those hippie-dippy 70s notions suddenly start to seem pretty attractive to a modern audience.

The Secret argues that if you want something of material value all you have to do is visualize it hard enough and eventually the sky will rain money. In some parts of the world, the idea of trying to wish something into existence by sheer force of will is known as "prayer," but the religion practiced by followers of the secret prizes new cars over new insights, cash and prizes over a deeper understanding of self. But unlike religion, the secret is intended for personal gain only, and it is this transparent materialism that is both its best quality and its most egregious affront.

And it really needed to be turned into an entire documentary film? Those producers must really have been using the secret.

Polar Express (2004)

2009-01-19T10:32:00.001-08:00

In 2004, motion capture technology had not come as far along as Robert Zemeckis evidently thought. (Hell, it didn't even look that much better by the time Beowulf came out three years later.) Why else would the director have spent $170 million on a movie in which the world's most charming actor was processed through a thousand computers only to emerge with a charmless, dead-eyed gaze. Some of the best minds in the world couldn't figure out how to use this technology effectively, and it turned what could have been just another unremarkable children's movie into a chilling zombie classic.

The story is set on Christmas Eve, when a young boy is kidnapped by a mystery train filled with other zombie children being absconded to the North Pole. The children are frequently left alone, every once in a while receiving visits from a spooky conductor or a dance troupe of waiters flinging hot chocolate every which way on a moving train. They are then thrown into a series of meaningless adventures, one more terrifying than the next. I can't answer for sure whether the children make it to the North Pole and discover the true meaning of Christmas after all, because the 100 minute runtime proved to be about 30 more minutes of zombie train conductors than I could possibly handle.

Pinocchio (2002)

2009-01-19T10:31:00.002-08:00

When does a movie truly warrant a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? When is the consensus of a film so uniformly terrible that fifty-two people from all over the world are repulsed into agreement? When does a viewer finally have to sit back and admit, "This is quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen."

The answer to all three of those questions is Pinocchio, Roberto Benigni's directorial follow-up to his Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful. In his adaptation of the 19th Century children's classic, Benigni takes on the role of Pinocchio himself, though the actor playing the little boy was fifty years old at the time of the movie's release. Seeing Benigni frolic around in little boy's pajamas is downright ghoulish, particularly when juxtaposed against his bald spot. It's sad to watch a decrepit old man take on this role, and the entire affair is made even more horrifying is the English language dub in which Pinocchio is voiced by -- horrors -- Breckin Meyer.

Patch Adams (1998)

2009-01-19T10:31:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's as bad as you've heard. Probably the worst in the genre of Robin Williams Touches Your Heart films (which shares much in common with the genre of Robin Williams Has A Beard films), Patch Adams is a film in which Robin Williams is a medical student (NOT EVEN A DOCTOR) who gives comfort to terminally ill children by putting bedpans on his feet and dancing around a pediatric oncology ward. Lady, he inspires a frail old woman to eat by hurling her into a swimming pool filled with spaghetti (not to mention other hospital employees). Tear-jerking, indeed.

Pearl Harbor (2001)

2009-01-19T10:17:00.000-08:00

Though 2001's Pearl Harbor might not be Michael Bay at his most explode-iest (that distinction would probably go to at least six of his other movies), the explosions that do take place are the most meaningful in his oeuvre. That's because in Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay gets to blow up the country he loves.

Pearl Harborfeatures many stars who, though at the height of their fame when this movie was made, were mostly unmasked later as talentless frauds. Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, and Josh Hartnett all frolic around emoting about love and war, using World War II as background scenery. The bad guys, meanwhile, are depicted as slanty-eyed Bad Guys, Japanese "Others" who wish harm on the soft lighting of Kate Beckinsale's bounteous American bosom. And as a special bonus, with a runtime of 183 minutes, you get to watch the war unfold nearly in real time.

Madea's Family Reunion (2006)

2009-01-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

This movie deserves very little text to explain its sheer awfulness. "Madea" is Tyler Perry's smug alter ego, the one who lets him spell out his backwards and sexist morals before taking a cheap shot at some invented persecution (sometimes with a handgun) for a knowing, hateful laugh. It's a cowardly way to have it both ways -- the lesson and the laugh -- and it's exactly how Tyler Perry operates from start to finish. He is shameful for painting the liberation of women as a bad thing. He is despicable for the way he speaks down to black people while pretending to be on their side. He focuses the anger of a community on straw men so he can claim himself to be their champion. His methods are simply too much like those of a dictator... or, even more chillingly, like the Cat in the Hat.

Oh yeah, Madea's Family Reunion is about old people making young people feel guilty for having goals and dreams besides believing in Christ. It also features Madea (a hulking man in a dress) violently beating a child.

These movies are all the same anyways. Actually, each one only gets worse.

Love in the Time of Cholera (2007)

2009-01-14T12:48:00.001-08:00

Well, this movie is just terrible. It's adapted from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, which is noted for its subtle but relentless tangents on love. It's the kind of book where you ought to think long and hard about why you're turning it into a movie, because when a book's essence is so rambling and delicate, a movie really ought to find a different way to persuade you of the same things.

The movie fails because it never relents, and it's never subtle. The direction is so blunt that Florentino (Javier Bardem) comes across as a portrait of dogged evil. It's a story about a man obsessed with a woman (Fermina, Giovanna Mezzogiorno) who won't have sex with him, so he becomes a sex addict to cope with his unrequited penis. Without ever knowing more than the pure visual fact of it, we watch Florentino have sex with everyone between endlessly stalking a very homely girl and ruining her entire life. Fermina's strikingly unremarkable qualities make Florentino's decades-long obsession with her even more frightening: this torture could be inflicted on anybody!

Shakira supplies the required ethnic wailing a couple of times, so you can feel free to go clubbing in your seat. Incidentally, Shakira was denied a role in the film by the producers because she wouldn't show her breasts... however, we think she dodged a bullet, considering the horrible aging makeup used to make everybody look like a raw biscuit.

It's all heading to an amazing scene in which 80-year-old Florentino and Fermina finally have their sex. Except, the two lovers are both younger actors wearing old person naked suits. What exactly is brave about this scene? Those aren't her boobs. Those fake old boobs might as well have been Carmen Miranda coconuts covering up a full-body cat suit. Talk about getting the notes but not the melody.

The point is, it's really amazing. You should check it out.

Lethal Justice (1995)

2009-01-14T12:47:00.001-08:00

This film is so weird. Every one of its ugly pieces seems to ooze out of horror films from anywhere between 1960 and 1980, anywhere besides 1995, when it was actually made. The film quality is terrible, first of all. The acting (with one exception) is barely human behavior. All the production values are so bad. AND THAT MUSIC.

It's about a teacher that gets raped by a student while her entire class lets him do it. That's a fine starting point for a dissection of modern youth along the lines of, What let this happen?, but then this movie really sucks. The rapist parades around to class for the rest of the day, no sweat. He even brags about it to his classmates, one of whom pats him on the back like they just won the big game.

That kind of bravado pretty hard to swallow, honestly. There's a rapist in the classroom, and ANYBODY is still learning math? Good heavens. Also, the rapist comes from a rich mom, so the police aren't going do anything about it, since we are meant to understand that the cops are in his mother's pocket. Nobody mentions the Mob, so she must actually be that filthy rich. This is dealt with in just one scene, where mom confronts the teacher who was just raped and assures her that her raping son is never going to be punished. Sheesh. The rape and its immediate aftermath are handled with such brutal honesty it seems like this might actually be some forgotten cinematic treasure, but then the mom announces with a grin, re: shutting up the rape victim: "I'm going to use ALL my guns." Does this woman even exist outside of Hell? It plays even weirder than it sounds.

Anyway, the victim's fellow teachers take LETHAL JUSTICE into their own hands. What follows is some pretty creative vigilante justice (turning back the clocks to create an alibi for a beatdown) and the kind of too-raw, go-for-broke acting that always shows up in movies like this. Why is that, anyway? Maybe it's because real actors have learned that audiences don't want to see that shit.

But that's just LETHAL JUSTICE.