Bleech! First look X-Men: First Class

Best critic dis ever?

Good critic disses come from many sources (and include famous one-liners by the likes of George Bernard Shaw) but this one is my current favorite. Who wrote it? Who knows -- just another anonymous sad sack halfway down a long comment thread on The Onion AV Club, following one of their "Staff Inventory" features, in which the Club Staff all answer the same question. The anonymous commenter does not like AV Club staff critic Tasha Robertson, prompting this wonderful Howard Beale moment:

Tasha, I don't know how you manage it. It seems like every week there's some article in which all the AVCers are invited to whine and whinge about something, and your entry nearly ALWAYS manages to be the most soul-crushingly clueless in them. I'm baffled as to why you went into pop culture criticism in the first place. You have the keen eye of a tax attorney, the perceptive ear of a dental hygienist, the jolly sense of humor of an insurance adjuster, and the soul of a prison warden. Your writing suggests that you have willfully embraced drabness, dreariness and literal-minded stubbornness. Lots of critics have an even lower batting average than you -- I'd say you're somewhere in the .198 range -- but few manage to be as maddeningly BLANK as you are, week in and week out. When you participate in podcasts, even your voice suggests a kind of flatness or emotional deadness. What puzzle me is that you seem BORN to the life of a professional bureaucrat, some mid-level government functionary toiling joylessly in some nondescript office somewhere. And yet, here you are... reviewing actual CREATIVE works which serve no immediate practical purpose and, therefore, make no sense to you. It's mind-bending. You don't even seem to have a paradigm for what this "comedy" thing actually is, and yet you're actually PAID to give your opinions about comedy. It's incredible.

Please, Tasha, I say this in all sincerity: switch jobs. You should be proofreading long, dull technical manuals somewhere. Creativity, humor, art, poetry -- these things are not in your data bank. No wonder they don't compute.

Other commenters joined in, on either side of the question of Robertson's critical skills. Anyway the above was music to my ears, because I've often had the same set of questions about other critics (Like, Why are they even doing this if they have so much trouble finding something they can dig?).

http://www.avclub.com/articles/fascinating-premise-bland-results,50035/

I'm Officially an Idiot

So I posted our Wednesday activity on Tuesday, yeah I forgot what day it was. Go ahead laugh.

Hilarious! Pee-Wee Herman and Anderson Cooper guest on SNL’s digital short

Box Office

From ew, With data now in for half of the four-day holiday weekend, it appears that The Green Hornet will finish the frame slightly stronger than initially expected. According to studio estimates, the Seth Rogen superhero movie won the three-day weekend with $34 million. That’s the third-highest January debut ever, following 2008′s Cloverfield and the 1997 re-release of Star Wars. The $110 million action film is on pace for an estimated four-day harvest of $40.5 million, which would rank as the second-best Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend opening (also after Cloverfield). The Sony release predictably skewed male, with 61 percent of the audience sporting a Y chromosome, and 3-D screens accounted for 69 percent of the film’s business.

Read more here

Alien prequel becomes something else

From filmstalker, Surprise and relief at the same time is how I would describe my feelings this morning as I found out after a weekend off that the Alien prequel (which definitely was once prequels) has been scrapped.

Thankfully those behind it have seen sense and there's not going to be a need to revisit the Alien franchise, instead the project has become something different and while they are all going to be working on a new science fiction film, it isn't going to be an Alien prequel.

Read full article here

Yawn; 2nd Scream 4 trailer underwhelms

Believers

(2007) ***1/2

Two emergency paramedics respond to a call from a young girl and are dispatched to a deserted area. Shortly after arriving at the scene they are kidnapped and locked in a secluded building. A cult that believes the world is about to come to an end tries to persuade them into joining them in a mass suicide. They're pretty convincing too.

What I really liked about this film was the subtly dark mood that loomed over it entirely. The music played throughout was spellbinding adding to the ominous aura and surreptitious tone. The script is smart and thought-provoking. The tension mounts as the film progresses conveying the dire urgency for the paramedics to resolve their predicament before it's too late. The cult is persuasive and controlling yet it's members are deceptively kind. One has to question if their kindness is genuine or feigned. An obscure and refreshing find, it's rare to find a film of this type where the cult members are portrayed as sane rational-minded intelligent beings rather than whacked out religious nutcases. Or are they?

Horsemen

(2009) ***

Detective Aidan Breslin is resentful and bitter after the death of his wife. He has withdrawn from his two sons and is miserable to his coworkers. While investigating a series of extremely violent and disturbing murders, he uncovers a connection between himself and the suspects. The murders follow the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

As brutally gory detective films go this one is a mediocre addition. The characters are a bit intense and self absorbed with their own issues. The premise for the murders is a good one but when you have some crazy religious kooks doing crazy religious stuff it's always good. Dennis Quaid's performance is the highlight virtually carrying the film through it's disappointingly weak script. Still, for me it was a welcomed break from all the ghouls and slashers as Horrorthon was winding to a close.

Haunted Forest

(2007) *1/2

A group of friends wander into an Indian forest to find a mysterious cursed tree and a secret burial ground. Their goal to release the tortured Indian spirit of Satinka who was trapped in the tree a long time ago. First mistake, there's a reason someone trapped her in a tree so just leave well enough alone and go live your life. Nope! One by one the friends get picked off by the angry tree spirit.

I realize that I rated this film brutally low but the entire thing is a blatant ripoff of J-horror. Take the coolest looking ghosts from The Ring & The Grudge and serve them up with a huge helping of American cheese and you'll have Haunted Forest. I just got more and more pissed off as I watched it. What a shame to see such lack of originality.

Cool! Captain America, first look

[From EW]