Tuesday, April 24, 2012
This scarefest has a lot of charm.
I was prepared to despise The Cabin the Woods based on its previews, and until the last minute, I debated going to see Chimpanzee instead. I am so glad I took a pass on the primates and opted for the horror instead. There’s nothing subtle about Cabin (and subtlety is overrated anyway), but there’s enough humor and tongue-in-cheek (more like tongue-on-the-floor-after-it’s-been-chopped-off) pop culture references in this one to keep even the most desperate-for-amusement moviegoers intrigued. The premise seems like one we’ve all heard before: Attractive college-aged kids decide to escape for a weekend to a remote destination, enjoying their time “off the grid” and entertaining nature-based possibilities like swimming, off-road motorcycling …
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Dave found the over-the-top "Project X" to be a pleasant surprise.
For the third time since I began reviewing films, the Cinemark at Louis Joliet Mall was packed with high-school aged people, odd since Project X is rated R and should therefore be off-limits to people under the age of 18. A crowd of five or six loud, baseball-hat sporting guys (and the crowd was mostly young men) who didn’t look a day over 15 plopped down in the same row. “Are you guys 18?” I asked somewhat authoritatively (and jokingly). “What is with you people?” one shot right back. Silenced and humbled after the exchange with my fellow viewers, I nonetheless grew to enjoy their energy and humorous asides throughout the filmgoing experience last Friday evening. More of their contributions are at the end of this article. As the movie …
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Dave doesn’t mind the gross-out humor in this one.
In Wanderlust, art imitates life, in that Paul Rudd (George) and Jennifer Aniston (Linda) feel the aftereffects of a still-smoldering recession. It’s a fun movie that tends to plod, but overall it’s an enjoyable picture — if you don’t mind the f-bombs and sexually loose themes (it’s rated R). The couple buys a tiny New York City apartment (jokingly referred to as a “microloft”), but are soon sent packing to the suburbs of Atlanta when George’s office is busted by the FBI and he loses his job. They stumble into a commune one night on the way to Atlanta, and they return semipermanently after a failed attempt to cohabitate with George’s brother in Georgia. The commune is loosely led by a Mansonian Seth (Justin Theroux) and the patriarch-ish …
Dave Wilson
9:37 am on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
It was pretty corny, Freddie, but enjoyable nonetheless. more ›