Opening Everywhere: Finding Nemo 3D, Resident Evil: Retribution, The Master
Opening Somewhere: 10 Years
FilmDrunk Suggests: Dude, seriously? Go read my Fall Movie Guide if you need your hand held through every decision that you make. Time for you to grow up, move out of your parents’ house already and make something of your life. That GED is a free pass to a better life, friend. Don’t waste it.
Finding Nemo 3D
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 99% critics, 81% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“A genuinely funny and touching film that, in less than a decade, has established itself as a timeless classic.” – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
“In this seamless blending of technical brilliance and storytelling verve, the Pixar team has made something as marvelously soulful and innately, fluidly American as jazz.” – Lisa Schwarzbaum, EW
Armchair Analysis: To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this one. I’m sure it teaches a hell of a lesson, though. Like, if your studio can’t think of an original idea, just re-release a movie that already made a billion dollars, but do it in 3D so people are like, “Oh man, that’s different!” and give you more money.
Resident Evil: Retribution
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 20% critics, 87% audience, 100% actresses who sleep with all of their directors
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Endless video-game-style, violent mayhem is on display in this latest edition of the mind-numbing apocalypse series.” – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter (So it’s good?)
“It’s all the same blah-blah carnage as the first four flicks, with 3D effects hurling blood, blades and body parts into the audience amid a non-stop barrage of gunfire and explosions.” – Linda Barnard, Toronto Star (So it’s good.)
Armchair Analysis: “Mind-numbing.” You know that mind-numbing can be good right? It’s good to feel stupid while watching a movie every now and then. Especially when you’re just some dude who works 40 hours, comes home on Friday and wants to go see a movie with a bro or a babe and forget that in 48 hours or so you have to go back to work. Not that I’m defending these movies, but there’s a reason the first four have made a bajillion dollars.
The Master
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 86% critics, 87% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“It’s a film bristling with vivid moments and unbeatable acting, but its interest is not in tidy narrative satisfactions but rather the excesses and extremes of human behavior, the interplay of troubled souls desperate to find their footing.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
“Aiming for epic, it’s undeniably thought-provoking, but too ambiguous to fully satisfy.” – Claudia Puig, USA Today
Armchair Analysis: I have no interest in seeing this, but that’s because I’m trying to join Scientology so I can meet Erika Christensen. I watched Swimfan and Traffic the other day and she seems pretty easy.
10 Years
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 74% critics, 72% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Needless to say, everybody comes equipped with their very own overweight baggage; old grudges are revived, new ones are invented; and big personal revelations — most of which you can see coming a mile away — arrive on cue.” – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor (HATER)
“There’s a lot of been-there, done-that going on. That said, this very distant, slightly more youthful cousin to The Big Chill presents a convincing version of a 10-year high school reunion.” – Gary Goldstein, L.A. Times (Mad props.)
Armchair Analysis: I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this in the past or not, but I had a chance to be an extra on this film, but I couldn’t get away from work at the time to fly to Arizona for it. I still regret that to this day. Would’ve been best friends with C-Tates. Instead, he’s hanging out with George Clooney. Whatever, bro.