Amph Preview of Coming Attractions: 21 Jump Street

It's good, without being genuinely robust filmmaking. It's camp and corny, and it knows it, but if you're not interested in that kind of stuff, you need not apply.

Although Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki is worth a look from everyone.

 

Great cast, except Hemsworth, in the trailer at least, doesn't seem to have much presence. Also, I like Branagh a lot as a director. But I still wasn't much in the mood for it. If it's getting positive reviews, that's a pleasant surprise and I might check it out sometime.

 

Super 8 (2011)

Cast: Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard, Noah Emmerich, Gabriel Basso, Joel Courtney, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Amanda Michalka

Director: J.J. Abrams

Writer: J.J. Abrams

Genre: SciFi/Fantasy

Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 112 min.

Advisory: for intense sequences of sci -fi action and violence, language and some drug use.

Synopsis: "In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super... 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local sheriff's deputy tries to uncover the truth -- something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined. On IMAX screens at select locations."

Trailer: Long.

Poster: Dull.

Pro: Abrams and Spielberg

Con: A review said it was closer to M. Night S. than Spielberg

Verdict: For those who liked "The Goonies"

 

Our Idiot Brother (2011)

Tomatometer: 86

Average Rating: 8.3/10
Reviews Counted: 7
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 1

No consensus yet.

Audience: 83

Movie Info

"Every family has one: the sibling who is always just a little bit behind the curve when it comes to getting his life together. For sisters Liz (Emily Mortimer), Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) and Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), that person is their perennially upbeat brother Ned (Paul Rudd), an erstwhile organic farmer whose willingness to rely on the honesty of mankind is a less-than-optimum strategy for a tidy, trouble-free existence. Ned may be utterly lacking in common sense, but he is their brother and so, after his girlfriend dumps him and boots him off the farm, his sisters once again come to his rescue. As Liz, Miranda and Natalie each take a turn at housing Ned, their brother's unfailing commitment to honesty creates more than a few messes in their comfortable routines. But as each of their lives begins to unravel, Ned's family comes to realize that maybe, in believing and trusting the people around him; Ned isn't such an idiot after all. -- (C) Weinstein"

R, 1 hr. 35 min.

Comedy

Directed By: Jesse Peretz

Written By: Evgenia Peretz, David Schisgall

Pro: the cast

Con: romcom

Verdict: I'd give it a chance

 

Good cast. I'm a huge fan of Rudd.

 

Great movie. I'm a huge Rudd fan as well, and he's never been better.

 

50/50 (2011)

Tomatometer: 91

Average Rating: 7.8/10
Reviews Counted: 106
Fresh: 97 | Rotten: 9

A good-hearted film about a difficult topic, 50/50 maneuvers between jokes and drama with surprising finesse.

Audience: 92

liked it
Average Rating: 4.3/5
User Ratings: 14,436

Movie Info

"Inspired by a true story, 50/50 is an original story about friendship, love, survival and finding humor in unlikely places. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen star as best friends whose lives are changed by a cancer diagnosis in this new comedy directed by Jonathan Levine from a script by Will Reiser. 50/50 is the story of a guy's transformative and, yes, sometimes funny journey to health - drawing its emotional core from Will Reiser's own experience with cancer and reminding us that friendship and love, no matter what bizarre turns they take, are the greatest healers. -- (C) Summit Entertainment"

R, 1 hr. 39 min.

Drama, Comedy

Directed By: Jonathan Levine

Written By: Will Reiser

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick

Trailer: Not seen

Poster: Uninspired

Pro: The cast

Con: Possible sentimentality

Verdict: Possibly

 

500 Days of Summer made me never want to see another Joseph Gordon-Levitt film, but everything Anna Kendrick does makes me want to see more Anna Kendrick, so I'm torn.

 

Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2011)

Tomatometer: 87

Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 79
Fresh: 69 | Rotten: 10

"Like the best horror/comedies, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil mines its central crazy joke for some incredible scares, laughs, and -- believe it or not -- heart."

Audience: 85

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 7,823
My Rating
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"Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a hilariously gory, good-spirited horror comedy, doing for killer rednecks what Shaun of the Dead did for zombies. Tucker and Dale are two best friends on vacation at their dilapidated mountain house, who are mistaken for murderous backwoods hillbillies by a group of obnoxious, preppy college kids. When one of the students gets separated from her friends, the boys try to lend a hand, but as the misunderstanding grows, so does the body count. Tucker & Dale vs Evil has been a hit on the festival circuit, debuting at Sundance, and winning the Midnight Audience Award at SXSW, the Jury Prize for First Feature at Fantasia, the Best Director award at Fantaspoa, and the Best Motion Picture Award at Sitges. -- (C) Official Site"

R, 1 hr. 26 min.

Horror, Comedy

Directed By: Eli Craig

Written By: Eli Craig, Morgan Jurgenson

In Theaters: Sep 30, 2011 Limited

On DVD: Nov 29, 2011

Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

Cast: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk

Trailer: Not seen it

Poster: Ditto

Pro: the cast

Con: horror

Verdict: Maybe

 

Nathan Fillion tweeted a link to the trailer the other day, and the movie looked pretty funny. "It must be a suicide pact!"

 

Who Gets Away Clean from This Tower Heist?
by Ethan Alter November 4, 2011 6:00 AM

"If Tower Heist feels a lot like Ocean's Fourteen, that's not entirely accidental. After all, both this movie and the Ocean's pictures involve an all-star crew of crooks attempting to rip off a wealthy mark that has wronged them. Beyond that, the movies share a screenwriter (Ted Griffin, who wrote Ocean's Eleven, though not the sequels) and a co-star (Casey Affleck). But here's the way to tell them apart: the Ocean's adventures were directed by Steven Soderbergh, while Tower Heist is a Brett Ratner joint. That means that the jazzy, inventive visual palette that Soderbergh brought to his movies has been replaced by a workmanlike style that's professional without being particularly interesting. The heist at the center of Tower Heist also pales in comparison to the elaborate schemes that Danny Ocean and his accomplices pulled off. Their plans were ridiculous enough to be believable -- this one is just ridiculous. Still, thanks largely to the cast (some of them anyway), Tower Heist isn't the botch that Ratner's last comic thriller, After the Sunset, was. It's a serviceable bit of studio fluff that keeps your eyes, if not your brain, occupied for 100 minutes. (Too bad the studio didn't follow through on its initial plans to release the film on VOD three weeks into its theatrical run; the movie will likely play much better at home on your TV screen than in the theater.) Here's how the individual members of this crew rate:

The Brains: Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller):

As evidenced by his committed, go-for-broke turns in movies like Greenberg, Tropic Thunder and Zoolander, Stiller is a character actor trapped in the body of a mainstream movie star. Give him an offbeat character -- particularly one with a dark edge -- to play and he excels. Make him the straight man in a traditional star vehicle and he's often as generic as the movie itself. (The first Meet the Parents is an exception to this rule.) As the manager of a luxury Manhattan high-rise that decides to rob its richest tenant after he defrauds the staff of their pensions, Stiller may be the central star of Tower Heist (never mind those posters that give him and Murphy equal billing -- Stiller gets far more screentime) but he's its least interesting character. His performance is perhaps be summed by the inconsistent Queens accent he adopts for the role: sometimes he's there, but mostly he's not.

The Thief: Slide (Eddie Murphy):

In order to design and execute the perfect robbery, Josh enlists the services of his neighbor and not-so-master-criminal Slide, who is essentially what 48 Hrs.' Reggie Hammond would be like if his decibel level been permanently set to 11. (Never shy about stealing from... uh, excuse me, paying homage to other filmmakers, Ratner essentially re-stages Hammond's introduction from 48 Hrs. when we first encounter Slide in jail.) At this point in his career, Murphy can play this kind of role in his sleep, and he doesn't exactly strain himself to make Slide all that different from any of his past cinematic criminals. At the same time, he engenders so much audience goodwill -- even after movies like Norbit and Holy Man -- that all he had to do was pop up onscreen for the crowd I saw the film with to start cracking up. And in contrast to Stiller's sullen turn, Murphy has a live-wire energy that makes his material play much funnier than it actually is.

The Nerd: Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick):

If Murphy is basically doing a variation on Reggie Hammond, than Broderick's character -- a former Merrill Lynch employee that lost his 1% status and, subsequently, his family and luxury apartment -- resembles Ferris Bueller had Illinois' savviest high school skipper gone into the financial game and lost all his cool. Broderick is even introduced lounging around in a Bueller-like robe and the film's climactic set-piece finds him helping his accomplices to lower a cherry-red '60s Ferrari out the window of the high-rise, an epic drop looming below. Like his fellow '80s-era veteran, Broder

 

Totally agree with this. Stiller is both one of my favorite actors and least favorite actors.

Saw the movie last night and it's surprisingly entertaining.

 

The Muppets Review Roundup: "Like Getting a Big, Warm Hug"
by Hallie Cantor | November 23, 2011

"After an ad campaign that entertained us for months, the reviews for The Muppets are finally in, and they're pretty uniformly positive. The movie has a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and those worries about Segel not "getting" the Muppets seem unfounded. "The Muppets treats its titular heroes with affection and respect, even as Fozzie Bear shows off his 'fart shoes' and toilet humor abounds," says the Philadelphia Inquirer's Stephen Rea.

The new movie upholds the feel-good tradition of the older Muppet movies. "At least half of my critical thinking went out of the window, overwhelmed by sheer nostalgia," notes Time Magazine's Mary Pols. It's "like getting a big, warm hug from friends who've been away far too long," writes Rebecca Murray of About.com. And the new Muppet, Walter, is "adorably insecure and a good addition to the house that Henson built," according to Betsey Sharkey of the LA Times.

Though Sharkey praised the film's "clever edginess," The Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips saw instead a "jaded streak reflecting its makers' nervousness about selling Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the gang" to new audiences. Pols argued that "Segel and director James Bobin...wade in and out of their new Muppet story almost apologetically" and that the music is "a schmaltzy blur, songs of reflection and loneliness without enough jazzy numbers to provide a counter weight to the angst."

But maybe schmaltz is okay! The movie "makes no attempt to match the wisecracking hipness of the Shrek movies," warns Stephen Holden of the New York Times. "If it doesn?t provoke belly laughs, it elicits many affectionate chuckles." Tom Long of The Detroit News sums it up well: "Is it perfect? No. Is it a lot of fun and does it successfully revive this inspired franchise? Absolutely and let's seriously hope so. A world without Kermit is just too hard to face."

The "Bella Swine" posters with Miss Piggy were hilarious.

 

Oh. My. God.

Coming next year:

Cloud Atlas, based on the novel by David Mitchell, co-directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis.

Starring Tom Hanks, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon and others, many of whom will play multiple characters. Berry, for instance, will play a 70s journalist, a woman from the far future, and an old Jewish woman. Others in the cast will cross gender barriers and play both men and women.

Will this be an amazing cinematic event, or unwatchable mush?

 

Unwatchable for sure.

 

21 Jump Street (2012)

tomatometer 87

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 147
Fresh: 128 | Rotten: 19

A smart, affectionate satire of '80s nostalgia and teen movie tropes, 21 Jump Street offers rowdy mainstream comedy with a surprisingly satisfying bite.

audience 85 per cent liked it
Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 17,846
My Rating

Movie Info

"In the action-comedy 21 Jump Street, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are more than ready to leave their adolescent problems behind. Joining the police force and the secret Jump Street unit, they use their youthful appearances to go undercover in a local high school. As they trade in their guns and badges for backpacks, Schmidt and Jenko risk their lives to investigate a violent and dangerous drug ring. But they find that high school is nothing like they left it just a few years ... "

R, 1 hr. 49 min.

Action & Adventure, Comedy

Directed By: Phil Lord , Chris Miller

Written By: Michael Bacall, Jonah Hill, Patrick Hasburgh, Stephen J. Cannell

In Theaters: Mar 16, 2012 Wide

Sony Pictures

Pro: Good reviews

Con: 159,000th buddy comedy

Verdict; Possibly

 

Judging by the redband trailer, it looks like a fun buddy cop movie, via the Lethal Weapon movies.

 

Reviews are good.

 

Reviews may be good, but I just can't stand Channing Tatum.

 

Why? Did he steal your girlfriend or something?

 

I'll rent this one. Perhaps light hearted comedic roles suit Tatum best, I know he was in a bunch of romantic ones, like The Notebook Prequel. Moneyball was one of the few movies I enjoyed Hill in, Grandma's Boy was a guilty pleasure one for me, and his character was just ok in Superbad (hated the movie in general but enjoyed Cera and the cops performance).

 

Great film. Absolutely hilarious. Gag bombardment, but with charm.

I was in tears during the "tripping" sequence. And the explosive chickens.