Opening Everywhere: Warm Bodies, Bullet to the Head, Stand Up Guys
FilmDrunk Suggests: Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh. F*ck you, January. Whatever. I’m going to try to be less negative this week.
Warm Bodies
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 76% critics, 77% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“In doing a little genre bending of romantic schmaltz and horror cheese – some fundamental zombie mythology is turned on its head – the film breathes amusing new life into both.” – Betsy Sharkey, L.A. Times
“Warm Bodies pulls a nifty trick in the red-hot zombie genre: It lacks a brain, though it eats plenty of them.” – Scott Bowles, USA Today
Armchair Analysis: Whereas Vinnie just plain, old, flatout hates zombies movies, I still enjoy them in a guilty pleasure kind of way, despite the majority of them sucking. What I actually hate about zombie movies, though, is how they lead to so many unoriginal movie critic puns about bringing a dead genre back to life. Give it a break already, you repetitive dolts.
As for this film, I just keep wondering how John Malkovich got involved. It doesn’t necessarily look good, but those numbers ain’t lying. Cautious optimism is how I’ll treat this one when I’m bored on a Tuesday in a few weeks.
Bullet to the Head
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 48% critics, 75% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“All sorts of blockheaded action thrillers rolled into one, with occasional mentions of ‘flash drives’ so you know it’s not actually a script from 1986.” – Adam Graham, Detroit News
“In ‘Bullet to the Head’ violence is abrupt, shattering and consequential. It’s not for laughs. It’s graphic and unsettling, and it makes us feel uneasy, as we should, about the world the characters inhabit.” – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Armchair Analysis: You know what I just wrote about stupid, unoriginal zombie movie puns? That goes double for critics who make jokes like, “I wished the title was literal.” Stop it, schmucks.
As someone who loves The Expendables, I’m still not exactly begging for this resurgence of Stallone’s brainless violence flicks to become a regular thing. Then again, I’m also still pissed that we haven’t had a Tango and Cash sequel, so I’m a little biased. At least add Kurt Russell to The Expendables 3.
Stand Up Guys
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 33% critics, 54% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Is it fun? Sure, some of the time. Is it good? That’s a stretch. Does it tap the potential of these three actors? Fuggedaboutit.” – Tom Long, Detroit News (Shut up, dude.)
“The degree to which ‘Stand Up Guys’ succeeds at all is completely dependent on Walken, who elevates everything around him by seemingly doing nothing at all.” – Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
[the FilmDrunk review]
Armchair Analysis: I was watching The Recruit the other night on Showtime, and I started wondering if maybe the decline in quality that we’ve seen from guys like Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro over the past decade or so parallels the desperation of retired professional athletes.
Today’s actors are making a ton of money on awful movies, but you have to think that back in their primes, in their greatest roles, Pacino and DeNiro might not have been making very much money. So now, they’re like George Foreman, just slapping their names on anything that will pay them, so they have enough money to leave to their 35-year old girlfriends and however many children.
That has to be it, right? Because this quirky buddy comedy crap is depressing.