Opening Everywhere: Premium Rush, The Apparition
Opening Somewhere: Sleepwalk With Me, Thunderstruck
Opened Wednesday: Hit & Run
FilmDrunk Suggests: I strongly recommend The Expendables 2 if you haven’t seen it yet. In fact, here is the review that I submitted to Fandango after seeing it last weekend:
Premium Rush
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 74% critics, 78% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Premium Rush earns its place as end-of-the-summer escapism, but I can’t say that it’s more than a well-done formula flick.” – Owen Gleiberman, EW
“Undeniably, the word ‘action’ does apply, but only as it falls between ‘class’ and ‘suit.” – Rick Groen, Globe and Mail (HEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! SUCK ON THAT, MOVIE!)
Armchair Analysis: On one hand, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is red hot. 50/50, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Hesher, and I think Looper looks awesome. (Also, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra never happened.) That said, I get the feeling this is one of those, “Okay, Joe, we let you make your mopey cancer film and your 500 Days, now you owe us.” And he’s like, “A deal’s a deal” and the studio execs are like, “Good boy, now make that bicycle delivery guy movie” and he’s like, “Come on, really?” and they’re like, “Well, it’s that or we get your Cobra Commander mask out of storage” and he was like, “Sh*t, okay.” I don’t know, maybe Premium Rush is exciting, and I’ll decide that when I watch it on DVD.
The Apparition
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 0% critics (DING! DING! DING!), 80% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“If you listen closely enough while things go bump in the night during The Apparition, you might also hear the scraping of barrel bottoms.” – Joe Leydon, Variety
“Wafts out of the ether like the ghosts of bad movies past, the very picture of the cinema’s dog days of August.” – Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Armchair Analysis: No way in hell I’m going to see this unoriginal creative felch, so let’s discuss an idea I had the other day instead. Most of us will probably agree that Kristen Stewart is just an awful actress – except that one troll who runs a fan site – and since she’s also apparently an adulterer, let’s black list her and give all of her good roles to Ashley Greene, who is pretty much my favorite actress in the world now that Mila Kunis took a swim in the deep end of the douche pool.
Sleepwalk With Me
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 86% critics, 88% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“A thoughtful adaptation of Birbiglia’s hit one-man, off-Broadway show.” – Sara Stewart, New York Post (Or a stand-up act, but whatever sounds fancier, I guess.)
“Matt’s learning curve is probably supposed to be entertaining, or endearing, or something, but mostly it just sends the movie lurching into inertia.” – Stephanie Zacharek, NPR (I’m curious to know what she thinks is funny.)
Armchair Analysis: I love Mike Birbiglia and his stand-up routine that this is based on, so I’m excited to see it because of that. I am not, however, excited about the idea that he could be one of those comedians who makes a critically acclaimed film and gets all serious on us. Keep up with the haha, Mike. I need more Joey Bags stories.
Thunderstruck
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 17% critics, 68% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Sells itself on durable messages about strong work ethic, the importance of community relations and playing to one’s individual potential.” – Sean O’Connell, Washington Post (*cough, KISS ASS, cough*)
“What should have otherwise been an easy layup of a film bounces off the backboard and rim, and misses its shot at being something special.” – Jim Judy, Screen It! (HURRRRRRRR, PUNS.)
Armchair Analysis: I don’t know why Kevin Durant agreed to do this crap – you know, aside from the money, of which he has plenty already – but the NBA should suspend him for the entire season because of it.
Hit & Run
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 47% critics, 62% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“It feels like writer, co-director and star Dax Shepard has unleashed some kind of freakish Franken-film on movie-goers.” – Stephanie Merry, Washington Post
“Hit and Run lures you in with its jackalope rhythms. There’s nothing else like it on the current landscape.” – Stephanie Zacharek, NPR (See? This lady is the worst.)
Armchair Analysis: I have seen the commercial for this movie well over 100 times and they keep saying that it’s funnier than The Hangover and Bridesmaids combined, but I haven’t seen anything funny in the commercials. Like, is Bradley Cooper’s wig supposed to be funny? Because blond dreads make me want to throw bricks at children. I know, it’s a strange reaction. But I feel like everything that I’ve seen regarding this movie is just propaganda to get us to accept Dax Sheppard and Kristen Bell as an A-list couple. Seriously, almost every still of this film I could find is them. I get it, you’re married, Dax doesn’t want people asking, “For real?” every time you show up to red carpet events anymore. I guess I’ll have to see it to “get it”.