Here’s the rundown of what’s opening this weekend:
HOP: Just a week before the release of his remake of Arthur, Russell Brand voices a super-cool Easter Bunny. Can America ever get enough of this goblin-faced mongoloid? I say no. Oh, and the new Easter Bunny is super cool because he plays drums, listens to ipods, wears different layers of shirts, and hangs out with black guys, in case you were wondering.
RottenTomatoes Score: 24%
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“It’s Alvin and the Chipmunks with only one chipmunk, and (if possible) even less fun.” -Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly.
“Presented with the opportunity to do the first-ever big-budget Easter bunny flick mixing live action and animation, “Hop” gives us . . . a bunny who poops jelly beans.” -Kyle Smith, New York Post.
“The movie imagines a world of Easter-time joy from which even the slightest trace of Christianity is absent. At one point the Easter bunny patriarch worries about the decline of a “4,000-year tradition” of jelly-bean and basket delivery, which is either a startling mathematical lapse or a stunning revisionist assertion. Apparently, in the worldview of “Hop,” pagan rabbit candy rites predated by nearly two millenniums the events in Roman-occupied Jerusalem that they have long been supposed to commemorate.” -AO Scott, NY Times
Armchair Assessment: THE CGI BUNNY ATE ZOMBIE JESUS AND POOPED SOME JELLY BEANS!! But seriously, you’d sooner poop jelly beans than get me to see this.
SOURCE CODE: Jake Gyllenhaal has 8 minutes to travel back in time, take over your body, and bang your girlfriend. I WANT YOU INSIDE ME, JAKE GYLLENHAAL, AND MY GIRLFRIEND DOES TOO!
RottenTomatoes Score: 87%
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“None of this makes any sense if you think about it, but the idea is so much fun that thinking about it may be your last impulse.” -Chicago Reader
“Here’s a movie where you forgive the preposterous because it takes you to the perplexing.” -Roger Ebert
“I’m still not sure what “source code” means here. I suspect the actors, the director, and the screenwriter haven’t a clue either. But the thing keeps you watching.” -Ty Burr, Boston Globe
Armchair Assessment: With Duncan Jones from Moon directing, it sounds like it could be fun. The consensus seems to be “fun if you don’t think about it too much.” Which is fine. But the next person who defends a terrible movie on the grounds of “BUT YER NOT ‘POSTA THINK ABOUT IT!” is getting stabbed, for real.
INSIDIOUS: Our child is possessed! My God, it’s the most original horror plot of all time!
RottenTomatoes: 58%
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Insidious isn’t scary. It’s laughable. And kind of sad.” -Detroit News
“It turns out to be a moderately effective suburban-family creep show, majorly in debt to “Poltergeist” and “The Exorcist” and capturing at least a little of their spirit.” Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.
“Director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell admire all sorts of fright, from the blatant to the insidiously subtle. This one lies at an effective halfway point between those extremes.” -Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Armchair Assessment: I feel like I’ve heard barely anything about this picture. For all I know, it’s about people looking concerned.
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LIMITED RELEASE:
SUPER: James Gunn’s low-budget Kick-Ass with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page. I saw and reviewed it, so we don’t have to bother with the other crap. Long story short, it made me feel dirty, but mostly in a good way.
TRUST: My favorite part of this film was this headline:
Other than that, the movie, starring Clive Owen in a tale of child predatorship torn for the headlines, looks like a bad episode of Law and Order, or a good Brinks home security commercial. I won’t be seeing it, but I will continue to make more of these: