WEEKEND MOVIE GUIDE: There’s your usual summer crap coming out today, like Paul Blart Zookeeper and Horrible Bosses (which may actually be not that bad…), but I’d recommend seeing Midnight in Paris if you haven’t yet. And stick around for HBO’s new summer documentary, Love Crimes of Kabul this Monday. Anyway, here’s your rundown.
PAUL BLART ZOOKEEPER: Paul Blart takes a fake gorilla voiced by Nick Nolte to its favorite restaurant, Fridays, where it orders 30 oranges. In the process, Blart finds love.
RottenTomatoes: 13%
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
As far as complete wastes of time go, “Zookeeper” is not especially offensive. -Mick LaSalle, SF Chron
There was no press screening of Kevin James’s new movie, Zookeeper, in time for print. So, instead, I interviewed this fart.
Hello, fart! Nice to meet you!
Brrrrrrrrrrrfffff.
Oh stop! Likewise. Really. No, please. Call me Lindy.
Frp. Frrrp.
No… I’m single. You’re really forward, aren’t you? But please, fart, I’m a professional! Really. We need to get down to business. You saw Zookeeper, correct? Are you a big Kevin James fan?
Sssssssssssssssssssss. -Lindy West, The StrangerA comedy whose cliché-embracing stupidity borders on the surrealistic. -Nick Schager, Village Voice
In accordance with the law that requires any movie made after 2007 to include Ken Jeong playing a weirdo, Ken Jeong plays a weirdo. -Eric Snider, Film.com
ARMCHAIR ASSESSMENT: I already wrote my review, so there’s no need to tell you again. Instead, I noticed in my colleague Eric Snider’s review that he seemed ignorant on the subject of Bas Rutten, who voices the zoo’s wolf. I’m taking this opportunity to educate you. No one should go through life not knowing who Bas Rutten is.
I just couldn’t sleep at night if I knew a reader of this site had missed a “DANG, KICK TO DA GROIN” reference. “OOOH LOOKY LOOKY WHAT WE HAVE HERE… DANG! BONG!” The man is a human Batman comic. Not know who Bas Rutten is!? For Christ’s sake, he re-invented onomatopoeia.
NEXT PAGE: HORRIBLE BOSSES
HORRIBLE BOSSES: Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, and Jason Batemen have horrible bosses, so they plot to kill them, and the first step is asking a black guy (Jamie Foxx). Colin Farrell has a combover.
RottenTomatoes: 77%
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
The laughter is mean but also oddly pure: it expels shame and leaves you feeling dizzy, a little embarrassed and also exhilarated, kind of like the cocaine that two of the main characters consume by accident.” -AO Scott, NY Times
Here’s a hit-and-miss farce that leaves you wishing it was funnier than it is. Why? Because it wussies out on a sharp premise. Because it wastes a killer cast that’s ready to rock it. -Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
It’s one of those revolting, raunch-fueled movies churned out in their sleep by the Farrelly brothers and Judd Apatow that I usually hate, but with real cleverness, off-center wit and edgy imagination. -Rex Reed, NY Observer
ARMCHAIR ASSESSMENT: The trailers looked pretty dumb, but it comes from King of Kong (…and Four Christmases) director Seth Gordon, and some people I trust have told me it’s actually good. But with that title, it’s just hard to know what it’s even about.
NEXT PAGE: This week’s HBO doc, Love Crimes of Kabul.
Here’s the rundown on the latest from HBO’s summer doc series (which is great, and you should be watching), Love Crimes of Kabul, which premieres this Monday at 6 pm ET.
Of the 125 prisoners at Badam Bagh Women’s Prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, approximately half are there for crimes like drug smuggling, murder and attempted suicide bombing. The others are imprisoned for “moral crimes” that include running away from home, adultery and premarital sex.
Granted unprecedented access to Badam Bagh Women’s Prison and Kabul Men’s Prison, as well as several Afghan courtrooms, Tanaz Eshaghian weathered dangerous and unpredictable prison conditions to craft intimate profiles of three subjects imprisoned and awaiting trial for alleged sexual transgressions, as well as their families and prison guards.
You had me at “Women’s Prison,” and just cemented it with “sexual transgressions.” I would argue most of my crimes have been love crimes. With a hate crime or two on occasion. Though sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. Some have been love-hate crimes, I would say.