Opening Everywhere: Man of Steel, This is the End, The Bling Ring
FilmDrunk Suggests: Vince has reviewed all three of these films – Man of Steel here, This is the End here, The Bling Ring here – because he’s cool and gets to go to previews and whatever. Meanwhile, there are people out there who have already been able to preview World War Z and White House Down, two films that I have been overly passionate about, and what do I get? A figurative kick to the nuts by not getting private screenings of both films. I don’t ask for much, big Hollywood studios.
Oh, and go see This is the End because it looks very funny.
Man of Steel
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 57% critics, 82% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“The movie delivers on the promise of its title and then some.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, Chicago Sun-Times
“The chief problem here is one of rhythm and balance in the storytelling and directing. The movie swings between destructive overstatement and flat-footed homilies.” – Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
Armchair Analysis: Just the other day, I wrote that the reviews were mostly good for Man of Steel and like clockwork I saw like 15 bad reviews in a row. So I stopped looking at reviews and tried to ignore anything about this movie – including the 80-f*cking-billion ad tie-ins – until I see it this weekend. That way I’ll be able to hate it without interference. Just kidding. Adam Sandler isn’t in it.
This is the End
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 84% critics, 89% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Though This Is the End drags slightly here and there, the filmmakers keep it interesting by making the personal relationships dynamic, and the movie redeems all that is self-referential and self-congratulatory about it with a warmth of spirit.” – Mick LaSalle, Hearst Newspapers
“Their big joke is to literalize the Book of Revelations, but snaking around this is a biting contempt for the entertainment business, their own bad movies, and the social privilege these confer.” – J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Armchair Analysis: The only comedy I’m more excited about this summer is The World’s End. Vince may hate the apocalypse as a movie setting, but I’m a sucker for it.
The Bling Ring
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 61% critics, 56% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“The young actors, including Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, and a very un-Harry Potter-ish Emma Watson, are engagingly blank, and Coppola films their exploits with a smooth and slowly accumulating creepiness.” – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
“She neither explains nor excuses nor extols nor excoriates these kids, which would be fine, but she doesn’t really examine them either.” – Alonso Duralde, The Wrap
Armchair Analysis: I’m a celebrity gossip whore. I hate it, but god damnit do I love reading about self-indulged a-holes. So I’m pretty familiar with the story behind The Bling Ring. That said, two thoughts on this film – 1) I think this subject, while topical and interesting, is very difficult to deal with. The people that inspired this movie are not heroes, nor are they antiheroes. They are scumbags and criminals. We may dislike the people that they stole from and violated, but that doesn’t make them cool, brave or otherwise noteworthy. However, if this is an examination of the desire of America’s youth to become famous for nothing – something that could definitely be examined, given their targeting of certain reality TV stars – then it could be infinitely more interesting, as far as a character study, and less of a cult-like worship of some f*cked up losers. From what I’ve read, this film doesn’t necessarily celebrate these criminals and their behavior, but it doesn’t seem to do much of anything else. And 2) I’m not paying a dime pulled from my dog’s butt to see anything that features Paris Hilton.
Have a great weekend, everybody!