Opening Everywhere: Just The Devil Inside, so expect the box office to depend on the blockbusters of the past few weeks to hold it up this week.
Opening Somewhere: Beneath the Darkness, Roadie, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
FilmDrunk Suggests: I get to watch the documentary Worst in Show this weekend because I’m a sucker for ugly dogs, but I’m going to try to see Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol at some point because I’ve heard good things and I’d like to be informed when telling people they’re wrong.
The Devil Inside
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 8% critics, 58% audience (*splashes monitor with holy water*)
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Horror fans hungry for a demonic possession fix could initially take the bait, but subsequent word-of-mouth should mean that Paramount’s Insurge genre label won’t have a new Paranormal Activity on its hands.” – Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter
“Moodily lensed on Italian and Romanian locations by Gonzalo Amat, ‘The Devil Inside’ benefits from persuasive performances by its lead players (Quarterman and Helmuth are particularly impressive) and special effects that all the more striking for being used so sparingly.” – Joe Leydon, Variety
Armchair Analysis: This is the kind of movie that I would typically be eager to see. I love scary films, especially if they involve devil and religious stuff. But for the love of all things unholy, can we please cut it out with the documentary style schtick already? Let’s at least give it a break for a few years before we dig it up and molest its corpse again. If Apollo 18 was the nail in the coffin, this should be the shovel patting down the dirt.
However, I offer this rare objective reason to see this – Danny Trejo and B-Real? You have to at least be slightly interested. Also, after seeing the movie’s poster I had to make this terrible photoshop.
Yes, I’m 12 years old.
Beneath the Darkness
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 0% critic (only 12 reviews in, it could be a grower, not a shower), 67% audience (still not a good sign)
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“… that deeply strange and agitated performance by Quaid is the only thing that makes the film remotely bearable, as when he is left to deliver a jokey line about ‘two tickets to the gun show’ before pulling out a gun.” – Marc Olsen, L.A. Times
“There is not an original thought in this story, written by Bruce Wilkinson, or in the way it is directed by Martin Guigui. That makes for few genuine scares and, by the end, some unintended laughter as the proceedings grow too silly to bear.” – Neil Genzlinger, N.Y. Times
Armchair Analysis: Beneath the Darkness is about a guy who is the big fish in a small town, and he is also the town’s mortician. And that’s where the film loses me, because a guy can be a high school football star and marry the prom queen, but the second he hands me a business card that has “Mortician” on it, my mind shifts to: “He bangs dead people.” Sorry, but that’s just how my head works.
Roadie
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 68% critics, 39% audience (a very odd difference, which usually translates to indie fartsniffer)
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“From soundtrack to setting, every detail feels real — Good Rats fans, your time has come — as if Cuesta and his brother and co-writer, Gerald, have known these characters all their lives.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, N.Y. Daily News
“Movies about people who return to their hometowns in times of crisis are not in short supply. Neither are movies about people who realize their lives have no direction. It is likely that every writer who has reconnected with old friends while visiting the town he grew up in has thought, ‘Hey, these wistful feelings I’m experiencing would probably make for a good movie!’” – Eric Snider, Film.com
Armchair Analysis: Part of me is eager to see this movie because I love movies that are based around the wild stories of bands and the people that interact with their arrogance and craziness. But I also included that second review because part of me is also tired of the washed up schmuck who tucks tail and runs home to a mundane life and cast of miserable characters, only to be taught a lesson. But at least it has “that guy from Sleepers” and the mayor from Ghostbusters in it, as well as FilmDrunk Hollywood Cougar Hall of Fame inductee, Jill Hennessey.
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: N/A critics (although it has 3 positive reviews and 1 negative), 71% audience (293 audience reviews have been registered but only 4 critics have seen it, which makes me think I wasn’t invited to the one or two Tegan & Sara themed viewing parties)
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“A clever subplot involving the odd-couple relationship of two government agents — as well as actual news footage of a 2010 U.F.O. scare in Chelsea — cements the lighthearted tone, and toilet-flushing noises exemplify the sophistication of the special effects. Ed Wood would have been proud.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
“More satisfyingly incongruous—and slyly subversive—exchanges take place between two black-suited agents, played by Dennis Davis and Alex Karpovsky, as they track the intergalactic sapphists’ movements. The film’s best joke, an absurd question Karpovsky asks Davis after he smugly describes his happy marriage, qualifies as its own queer invasion from outer space.” – Melissa Anderson, Village Voice
Armchair Analysis: Based on the brief synopsis and the favorable reviews, this seems like less of a late-night Cinemax movie (frownies) and more of a metaphor for the irony of gay-hunting politicians that often end up on the wrong side of the truck stop bathroom. Either way, I included it because it has a fun title but it seems like it could be a fun 100 minutes.