Opening Everywhere: A Good Day to Die Hard, Beautiful Creatures, Safe Haven
FilmDrunk Suggests: Vince and I don’t see eye-to-eye very much on movies like A Good Day to Die Hard, because he doesn’t love America like Bruce Willis and I do. So I thought that instead of trying to convince everyone to think one way or another this week, I’d channel Rex Reed in order to tell you what’s hitting theaters this weekend.
A Good Day to Die Hard
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 13% critics, 82% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“It’s all more than a little silly, but Willis’ presence at least provides undercurrents of easy jocularity.” – Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News
“This is the Magpie School of action filmmaking: Anytime things start to make so little sense that you might lose the audience, just throw something shiny up on screen to distract.” – Ian Buckwalter, NPR
Armchair Rex Reed Analysis: “In this latest installment of the once-honorable Die Hard franchise, Bruce Willis and his scrotal pattern baldness once again showcase an overwhelming inability to achieve erection. In fact, I haven’t seen a walking dildo so obviously impotent since Rex Hudson prayed for Doris Day to have a penis in Pillow Talk. I also found the action to be too far-fetched.”
Beautiful Creatures
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 47% critics, 77% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“This surprisingly beguiling attempt to blend fantasy, coming-of-age drama, melodrama, camp and social critique isn’t always successful – but it’s nearly always entertaining.” – Joel Arnold, NPR
“Beautiful Creatures rests entirely upon the shoulders of leads. And in that sense, it completely works.” – Laremy Legel, Film.com
Armchair Rex Reed Analysis: “Beautiful? I had to ask one of my rat-faced interns with a voice like Fran Drescher’s anus who Alice Englert was and I was shocked that he didn’t tell me she was part ferret. As for Emmy Rossum, she’s got chops but she could stand to stick a few fingers down her throat the next time she ‘auditions’ for a director. Semen = calories, ladies. As always, I found Jeremy Irons to be exhilarating.”
Safe Haven
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 13% critics, 70% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“The latest Nicholas Sparks-derived weepfest, Safe Haven, is being marketed as a Valentine’s Day special, but the plot line is closer to a stalker thriller. It’s sudsy-scary. It’s also not very good.” – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
“On its own merits, Safe Haven is about as satisfying and filling as a Valentine’s Day conversation heart, with far less to say.” – Kate Erbland, MSN Movies
Armchair Rex Reed Analysis: “I don’t know what Hitler youth camp Julianne Hough crawled out of, but it sure as dog sh*t didn’t have a drama department. Fortunately, she’s got cans like a young Audrey Hepburn, so that should buy her a few extra years before she ends up giving handies to stage directors in Reno dinner theater. Josh Duhamel, I’m told, is married to a woman who looks like Ty Cobb’s practice mitt after he beat his wife with it. This wasn’t the strongest Nicholas Sparks film.”