Review: Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Dinner for Schmucks does exactly what it's supposed to do and we get exactly what we should expect from it. It is an enjoyable Carell/Rudd vehicle that relies on the performance and likeability of its two leads to to get its laughs.

Tim (Paul Rudd) is an aspiring executive at a financial firm who, after initially being resistant to the higher-ups invitation for their "Dinner for Winners", finds the perfect candidate in Barry (Steve Carell). Hijinks ensue.

The film boasts a pretty strong cast. Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame steals scenes as the bizarre yet hilarious artist Kieran. Zach Galifianakis plays Barry's idiotic, asshole boss Therman. While Therman is essentially an even more ignorant version of Alan, Galifianakis still gives an entertaining performance. The rest of the cast is fleshed out with a couple Daily Show alums, Ron Livingston, and the always good Bruce Greenwood.

The film is most definitely not without weaknesses though. Like many comedies today (especially in the despicable Grown Ups), many emotional moments in the film are cancelled out by cheap one-liners. The whole bit at the actual dinner about "finding the clitoris" goes a couple jokes too long, and Rudd's stalker goes from funny to overly creepy very quick.

In the end, the real strength of the film is in Carell's performance and his chemistry with Rudd. Carell's turn as the loyal, loveable idiot Barry is truly hilarious. These two are now officially (if they already weren't) the kings of cringe comedy. Putting these two together as a comedic duo is always guaranteed to get not just laughs, but people shielding their eyes and ears because some scenes are just too painful to watch.

If you go to Dinner for Schmucks, expect an enjoyable Paul Rudd and Steve Carell comedy. Expecting anything more will have you leaving the theater disappointed.

6.5/10

Review: The Losers (2010)

Aptly titled The Losers, this comic book adaptation should have probably just stayed in print. A solid, witty performance from Chris Evans can't save this turd from sinking to the bottom of the bowl.

The Losers follows a group of Special Forces soldiers who are set up by an unknown man named Max (Jason Patric, who chews scenery in a very, very bad way). They fake their own deaths and go into hiding in Bolivia. Then, Aisha (Zoe Saldana) offers to smuggle these Losers back into the U.S. in exchange that they hunt down and kill Max. Now, for those who haven't seen the movie, some spoilers are coming up so if you plan on retaining the element of surprise you should skip to the final paragraph.

The film suffers from a formulaic plot, a comicly overacting Jason Patric, and some uninspired performances from these Losers. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who was fantastic as the ultimate anti-hero Comedian in Watchmen, feels as if he's forcing every line and emotion as team leader Clay. Idris Elba, who plays the traitorous Roque, shows glimpses of a good performance but ultimately falls flat. His betrayal to the team also comes completely out of left field, which is more due to the film's lack of a good script and character development than his performance. I personally love Elba as he played gangster Stringer Bell on my favorite television show of all time, The Wire. Hopefully he can overcome this and the soon-to-be flop Takers because he has a lot of potential. Saldana plays her boring, but sexy self, and Columbus Short tries to play a comedic Robin to Evans' Batman but just can't keep up.

The Losers joins an elite (and growing) list of forgettable to shitty comic book film adaptations: Ghost Rider, Punisher: War Zone, Jonah Hex, etc. Hopefully Hollywood will realize sooner rather than later that adaptations like The Dark Knight and Iron Man don't just happen. They had talented people working hard on them. It's too bad Christopher Nolan can't direct every comic book movie.

4/10

Review: Grown Ups (2010)

Where to begin with Grown Ups. I have never been so displeased with an Adam Sandler movie in my life, and we all know he's made plenty of disappointments. But Grown Ups is like the peanut on top of a shit sundae, the shit sundae being the last decade of Sandler's career. Even my father, who is still shocked that Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor and its sequel are not on the IMDb Top 250, thought this movie was one of the worst things he's ever seen.

The easiest way to begin is with the plot. It revolves around five old friends (Sandler, James, Rock, Spade, Schneider) who are brought together after a long time apart by the death of a grade school basketball coach. After the funeral they rent out an old cabin for the weekend. And that's about it. An easier way to describe the plot is five tired, aging comedians spouting off unfunny one-liners. Not to say the movie doesn't provide the occasional laugh, but unfortunately one snicker every 15 minutes does not constitute a comedy. Honestly, the funniest part of this movie is the laughable idea that Sandler and James wives are Salma Hayek and Maria Bello, respectively.

And maybe that's because half of the cast has never really been funny in the first place. Rob Schneider has coasted off of Sandler's success for years and, in Grown Ups, plays what I believe to be exactly who he is in real life: the friend that is kept around to get shit on by everyone else. David Spade hasn't been funny since Chris Farley passed away, and even then all he played was an annoying little prick (although he played it to a T). Kevin James is painfully unfunny in this movie (we get it: he's fat). Hopefully one day he will return to his Hitch form, but I don't see that in the near future. Lastly, there are Sandler and Rock: two guys who used to make me laugh, but for whatever reason have either lost it or just don't really care anymore.

But we have no one to blame but ourselves for the quality of this movie. Despite nearly universal panning and laughless trailers, Grown Ups made 40 million dollars on its opening weekend. Adam Sandler found a way to effortlessly make a shit movie and still make a sizeable profit. And for that, I congratulate him.

2/10

First Post

I am Nick's older brother Dom and I will also be contributing reviews to the site. I am 19 years old and play offensive line at Eastern Illinois University. I will, however, not be contributing lists as I have seen too many movies to narrow it down to any top 10's (I shit you not, the number is quite embarassing). I have always loved movies and, like my younger brother, hope to be a movie critic one day. But, seeing as that will be a pretty tough thing to do, we figure this is the best way to get our voices heard. My film tastes are also not quite as refined as I'd hope (I still hold a special place in my heart for the Nic Cage action trio of Face/Off, The Rock, and Con Air), but I hope through writing about and discussing movies with other people my tastes will grow. Lastly, like my little brother said, don't come around and troll and cut our opinions down. If you have an opinion post it and we will gladly discuss. But if you come to the site just to be a jerkoff, then you can kindly leave.

Oh and yah, Armond White can lick my taint

First Post

Hello folks. My name is Nick Pagliara, and I'm seventeen years old. I go to a Catholic high school, and I'm in the marching band. Don't believe I'm a total fool just because I'm in marching band, though. I'm of the belief I'm actually quite the thug, but you can make your assumptions for yourself. If you want, you can creep on my Facebook profile, but don't add me as a friend.

I made this blog for one reason and one reason alone: to review movies (and occasionally music). My tastes aren't fully developed yet so I might sound like a fool when reviewing movies that are considered classics. I mean I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years ago, and I was bored out of my damn mind. I understand the cultural relevance of a film like that and loved all of the parts with Hal, but most of it I was just sitting there scratching my head. A few of my favorite movies are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Requiem for a Dream, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and It's a Wonderful Life.

The man that set me off to finally start reviewing films for myself is named Armond White. If you are unfamiliar with Armond White, then open up a new tab and go to Rotten Tomatoes right now and look at the reviews for Toy Story 3. There are 235 reviews counted for Toy Story and there are only three negative reviews, one of which belongs to Armond White. Now, I'm not saying this is bad thing. People have their own opinions, and maybe he legitamitely didn't like Toy Story 3. You might think that, until you read his review. Now, I'm not going to spend my time bashing this guy's review (Cracked already did it for me) becasue he isn't worth my time. In short, his reviews fuckin' retarded. A short list of some other movies he disliked are Inception, The Kids Are Alright, The Wrestler, Up, Milk, Star Trek, and The (f'in) Dark Knight. Some he liked were Transporter 3, Grown Ups, G.I. Joe, and Transformers 2.

If someone like that is allowed to write for a New York tabloid then damnit I should be allowed to write too. My dream has always been to be a film critic. Next year I'm hopefully going to be going to Northwestern University to work on fulfilling that dream, but until then I'm going to get my ideas out there somewhere. I'm not going to use Blogspot like Twitter so I'll only post a review, list, or something else like once a week. The first thing I'll probably post is a list of my ten favorite movies of the decade (00-09) so be prepared for that. Tell me what you think of my posts, but don't be a troll. If you are I'll fuckin' find you.