4/9's new releases

[Guest Kevin Sullivan Booked My Divorce]

I only saw one of them this week and it was...

 

*Spy Game - Redford is boring, and 80% of the movie is him talking.  Other than that, the movie is good.  B-

 

Everything else:

 

*As She Wishes

*High Heels and Low Lifes

*Mulholland Drive

*Serendipity

*Shiri

*Skulls 2, The

[Guest TUS_02]

I liked Spy Game... until that ending.  It like comes directly from a sitcom.  

 

Officers- "Oh that Robert Redford got us again!  What a sneaky devil!"

 

But I'm also a huge Brad Pitt fan.

 

And I am in shock that they made The Skulls 2. hahahahha

[Guest Kevin Sullivan Booked My Divorce]

Yeah the ending was lame.

 

And I never saw the first Skulls movie, but I can only imagine its quite bad.  However, a customer came in the other day and told me it was "dark and disturbing."  Uhh yeah.

[Guest J*ingus]

Skulls 2?  (shudder)

 

Mulholland Drive is okay for fans of art movies or David Lynch, but mainstream viewers should stay faaaaaaar away.

[Guest]

You only listed recent theatrical movies that are coming to DVD this week. Some older titles are also being released, such as Desperate Hours and two great films, The Accused and Fatal Attraction.

[Guest]

Oops, my bad. Those titles are being released on 4/16. I forget that I get a lot of titles a week or two early.

[Guest Kevin Sullivan Booked My Divorce]

I don't mention older stuff being released on DVD anyway.  Unless it is something awesome, like UHF will be in 2 months.

[Guest]

You should mention the older stuff, cuz it's usually better. Most of the new theatrical stuff sucks.

[Guest areacode212]

I agree, mention the older stuff.

 

They actually made The Skulls 2? Please tell me this was direct-to-video. The first one was so bad that I was actually compelled to review it on imdb (which I rarely do). Here it is, if anyone wants to read it:

 

The only thing enjoyable about watching terrible movies like "The Skulls" is coming to IMDb and reading all the hilarious ways like-minded people rip them to shreds. I wonder if director Rob Cohen and screenwriter John Pogue have ever cried themselves to sleep from reading this stuff.

 

Anyway, a friend of mine borrowed this DVD from the library and let me see it before he returned it, which was cool since I had figured it would make a nice addition to my little Labor Day Weekend movie-watching marathon. Well, as much as I appreciate the gesture, he shouldn't have bothered, because this is easily the worst movie I've seen in quite a while (and I did watch it with extremely low expectations, and it was worse than I expected).

 

The acting sucked...Joshua Jackson's entire range seems to consist of a) looking glum (most of the movie) and b) looking really happy in a dorky way(when he's dancing with the woman at the reception). The writing was equally bad with lots of cliched dialogue that we've heard lots of times. I wish I could remember some of the lines so I can provide examples, but I guess the less I remember of this film, the better. Cohen even gives us two (2) instances of that clever "trick" where our hero is about to get blown away, then the camera cuts to a close-up of the gun firing...but it turns out that the shots came from behind the bad guy, killing (or disabling) him!

 

Both the car chase and "I love you" scenes seem like they were shoehorned in, no matter how illogical or inappropriate they are. I guess all thrillers must have a silly car chase scene, and what would a teenage heartthrob flick be without a (lame) makeout scene in a shower? Speaking of heartthrobs, why is tubby Joshua Jackson considered one? Maybe I should have gone into acting instead of computer science.

 

We're never given any definitive reason as to why the Skulls are interested in Luke in the first place. His only skill seems to be a proficiency at rowing. He certainly doesn't have a lot of brains (maybe you should make a copy of the only hard evidence of your friend's murder). Hill Harper's character was unbelievably annoying (he's supposedly a bright young reporter who's being courted by major newspapers, and he throws an "I'm jealous of your new friends!" tantrum?!?) , and I was pretty happy to see him get killed off.

 

I gave this movie a 3 out of 10, and I'm starting to think that was a bit high. Does it really deserve two whole spots above "Batman & Robin"?? Well, I suppose it was fun to see Christopher McDonald (the mean husband from "Thelma & Louise") as the Evil University Provost. Plus, the movie actually contains a scene where someone screams "Noooooooooooooo!", which is always good for a laugh.