Opening Everywhere: Gravity, Runner Runner, Metallica Through the Never
Opening Somewhere: Parkland, A.C.O.D.
FilmDrunk Suggests: You can’t pay my claustrophobic ass enough to go see Gravity. I’ll gather my bros instead and we’ll watch Boiler Room before we go see Runner Runner and then get hammered on Fruit Loops vodka all night and play poker until we throw up.
Gravity
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 97% critics, 91% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Gravity, a weightless ballet and a cold-sweat nightmare, intimates mystery and profundity, with that mixture of beauty and terror that the Romantics called the sublime. – Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
Doctoral theses will be penned on the breath-catchingly realistic, gorgeously choreographed, entirely mesmerizing opening … – Bob Mondello, NPR (Sniff farts much?)
Armchair Analysis: Am I being unfair by saying that I won’t see a movie because I’m a huge pansy who is terrified of floating off into space, only to eventually run out of oxygen and explode like that alien at the end of whatever the most recent non-Prometheus Alien movie was? Absolutely not. That sh*t’s scary, son.
[Vince’s Note: Here’s my review, that Burnsy didn’t link because he’s a jerk.]
Runner Runner
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 10% critics, 35% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
He’s back! Behold, the second coming of . . . Badfleck. – Kyle Smith, New York Post
“Runner Runner” is less than mediocre, but it’s not repellent, which means that to watch it is to root for it – and to be disappointed. – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Armchair Analysis: When it was announced that Ben Affleck will play Batman next, a lot of us were apprehensive while others were downright hateful. Some people, though, pointed to The Town and Argo as examples of why we shouldn’t worry. I’m still the kind of guy who points to Gigli, Dogma, Reindeer Games, Paycheck and now this, among others. I guess “one for them” strikes again.
Parkland
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 47% critics, 55% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
For those who remember that dark day, it will inevitably have impact. But this was too much of a story for one film. – Tom Long, Detroit News
Parkland is history as existential despair. – Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
Armchair Analysis: How many more ways can we tell the story of JFK’s assassination? Soon, all that will be left will be Ashton Kutcher playing Lee Harvey Oswald in Patsy: The Man Who Just Said Duhhhh.
[Vince’s Note: Again, here’s my review. Those other reviews are giving this way too much credit. It’s not “too much,” it’s just a badly-made film with its focus in the wrong places.]
A.C.O.D.
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 52% critics, 74% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Mr. Zicherman needs a better crew, some time with the Criterion Collection and a fresher story, one perhaps not plucked from his own life. – Manohla Dargis, New York Times
A spotty comedy with a great cast and a catchy title that falls apart in the final third. – Claudia Puig, USA Today
Armchair Analysis: As an A.C.O.D. myself, no thanks. Probably on Netflix or VOD at some point, but it’ll have to be a lazy day.
(I already previewed Metallica Through the Never last week, so I’m not giving them the benefit of doing it again. Not after those last few albums.)