A Quickie: Our Family Wedding

Our Family Wedding

Release: 03.12.10
DVD Release: 07.13.10
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 30 minutes


Group Rental

Lucia (America Ferrera, Lords of Dogtown) and her fiancé Marcus (Lance Gross, Meet the Browns) are headed home from college; it will be the first time either has met the other's family. It won't be the first time their parents have met. Lance's dad, Brad Boyd (Forest Whitaker, Vantage Point), is a radio DJ who recently had an unforgettable run-in with tow truck driver, Miguel Ramirez (Carlos Mensa, TV: The Mind of Mencia). Miguel, of course, is Lucia's papa. When the two fathers learn they are to be in-laws, the wedding plans become a pissing contest that dampens the couple's affections.

Ugh, just trying to recollect this movie is painful, but let's start with the good. America Ferrera is lovely and talented as always. As Brad's best friend Angela, Regina King (Ray) doesn't have much to do, but she is looking fit. She'll be giving Angela Bassett a run for her money in the toned arms department. Let's see...oh, yeah, there's a goat (GAG Represent!). That's about it.

Carlos Mencia has never been funny. Wedding proves he'll never be an actor, either. The initial conflict between fathers is trivial and whenever they make peace, another nonsensical fuss manifests. The reception just won't end! That's not a spoiler, by the way; the movie has wedding in the title. The run-time must have been too short, so director Rick Famuyiwa (Brown Sugar) just used all the footage he had left.

Our Family Wedding is tedious and trite. It'd require a lot of patience to sit through this for the few laughs and touching sentiments the film produces. America Ferrera and many (not all) of the others deserve so much better than this.

.

A Quickie: The Crazies

The Crazies


Release: 02.26.10
DVD Release: 06.29.10
Rated R
1 hour, 41 minutes


Group Rental

It's another sunny, peaceful day in the tiny Iowa town of Ogden Marsh. The townsfolk have all gathered for the big baseball game. All's fine and dandy until Rory, acting peculiar, pulls his shotgun on Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant, A Perfect Getaway) in the outfield and has to be put down. Thinking he'd simply fallen off the wagon, Dutton dismisses the strange event until other folk start acting crazy. As Dutton begins to connect the dots, masked soldiers attempt to corral the entire town for decontamination processing.

Timothy Olyphant has a mild Eastwood-esque swagger that I enjoy more with every role, so I expected to be pleased by his turn as a small town sheriff. He did not disappoint, but boy, did everything else suck! Let's back up; the way the military swooped into town in the dead of night to contain this deadly contagion was executed with precision and cranked the film's tension to eleven. The Marsh'uns were at the mercy of this highly skilled unit. A unit so skilled that, later, a few locals with rifles can roll up in a pick-up and totally clusterfuck their finely oiled operation. Really?

Without their intervention, obviously the story would have ground to a dull halt. The problem with The Crazies is, every time the story writes David, his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell, Silent Hill), and his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson, The Ruins) into an impossible situation, yet another ludicrous contrivance allows them to limp onward...even if it contradicts the previously established confines of the plot.

As much as I'd like to lambaste director Breck Eisner (Sahara) and writers Scott Kosar (Machinist) and Ray Wright (Pulse) for every inane liberty they exercised to sloppily extrude a full-length film from an otherwise decent premise, why bother? I shrugged off the loss of my $1.50, thankful I could wash away the bad taste with another quality episode of Olyphant's FX show, Jusitified.

The Jizt! Paul Blart: Mall Cop

In this fast-paced world of blogging, tweeting and fly-by-night film voyeurism, sometimes one doesn't have the time to give a film proper treatment. More importantly, others do not always have the time to read it. Sometimes you just have to take it around back and squeeze one out in three quick strokes. Think of The Jizt as the wham, bam, thank you ma'am of reviews.


Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Release: 01.16.09
DVD Release: 05.19.09

Rated PG
1 hour, 31 minutes

Group Rental



Cast: Kevin James (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry), Keir O'Donnell (The Break-Up) Jayma Mays (Smiley Face)


The Build-up: Mall Cop spins the Die Hard premise so that Reggie Vel Johnson, not Bruce Willis, is trapped with terrorists, and he's going to need a whole lot of Twinkies to stave off the villains AND his hypoglycemia!

The Blurt-out: When is Anna Faris going to let Jayma Mays share a little more of her adorably-cute-and-funny-girl spotlight?

The Jizt: Had Paul Blart been a Twinkie-eating Reggie Vel Johnson, I might not have forgotten seeing the film by the end of the credits.



...I'll go get you a towel.

The Jizt: Knowing

Come one, come all (no pun intended)! Reel Whore is unveiling a new series. Most days I try to please my audience with full-length reviews, but there are times when I only have time to squeeze in A Quickie. What I've discovered is that in this fast-paced world of blogging, tweeting and fly-by-night film voyeurism, sometimes one doesn't even have the time to give a film proper treatment. More importantly, others do not always have the time to read it. To remedy this situation, I've created The Jizt. Like Mr. Owl, The Jizt can knock out a film review in three licks:

A One...
The Build-up: A one-sentence synopsis of the film.

A Two...
The Blurt-out: A random statement one might say as if in the throes of passion.

A Three!..
The Jizt! A one-sentence opinion of the film.

As always, the film's basic information will be provided. I will also list three of its actors. With The Jizt explained, who better to help me demonstrate this new feature than Nicholas Cage with his film which coincidentally releases on DVD today, Knowing.

**********

Knowing

Release: 03.20.09
DVD Release: 07.07.09
Rated PG-13
2 hours, 1 minute

Group Rental




Cast: Nicholas Cage (Wicker Man), Chandler Canterbury (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Rose Byrne (Sunshine)


The Build-up: A widowed astronomy professor, Koestler, and his son come to possess a fifty-year-old piece of paper full of numbers that foretell humanity's imminent destruction.

The Blurt-out: As a fellow Ford owner, I was comforted knowing the roomy interior and tight turning radius of a mighty F-150 transported Koestler & Co. to the apocalypse with ease.

The Jizt: Knowing Nic Cage's track record, I knew enough to pay only $1.50 to see Knowing, but had I known Knowing was such a mess I'd have been better off blowing the cash at Wendy's, know what I'm saying?

***

A Quickie: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Seeing Moon Bloodgood work so hard in the subpar Terminator Salvation, I remembered how she worked equally hard alongside Kristin Kreuk earlier this year in an even worse flick.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Release: 02.27.09
DVD Release: 06.30.09
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 36 minutes

Group Rental

After a performance, accomplished concert pianist Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk, TV: Smallville) finds an ancient Chinese scroll left in her dressing room. The scroll's jist is that her hands weren't made for piano playing, they were made for ass-whooping. Chun-Li straps on her boots made for walking and hits the mean streets of Bangkok. A master named Gen teaches her to focus her anger into extreme whoopitude and lets her loose against the evil Shadaloo. Conveniently, Shadaloo is headquartered in Bangkok and led by Bison (Neal McDonough, Walking Tall), the soulless man who kidnapped her father years ago to use him towards sinister ends.

Much of that plot is spoon-fed to audiences twice-around; visually and through extensive voiceover by Chun-Li. Kreuk is exceptional; too bad everything else in Street Fighter isn't. She looks awesome in a blue throwback dress and gold ankle boots as the night club seductress, but the action sequence that follows is poorly shot. I blinked and totally missed her battle with Vega. The final confrontation is more brutal than expected, but that's a long time to wait for a quality fight.

In the meantime, you have to watch Kreuk tread water above the largely incoherent and implausible story. Moon Bloodgood (Terminator Salvation) plays Bangkok Detective Maya Sunee well while looking steamy hot in either tank tops or just her bra (winning her the nickname Boobgood). Conversely, as Charlie Nash, Chris Klein (American Dreamz) and his ham-fisted acting made me throw up in my mouth a little every time he spoke with his weird embellished manner.

I had high hopes Street Fighter would be a cleansing fire for Kristin Kreuk, burning away the years of bad writing Smallville doused upon her as Lana Lang. Through it all, she's managed to keep her head high, even when the stench becomes unbearable.

The Horrific Truth Behind this True Story

The Haunting in Connecticut


Release: 03.27.09
1 hour, 42 minutes
Rated PG-13


Group Rental




In the same way her son Matt (Kyle Gallner, TV: Veronica Mars) can barely stomach his cancer treatments, Sarah Campbell (Virginia Madsen, Number 23) cannot bear to watch him suffer on their long road trips back to suburban Connecticut. Sarah and husband Peter (Martin Donovan, The Quiet) decide to rent a house near the treatment facility to ease everyone's stress. Sarah finds the perfect house for cheap; perfect and cheap if you don't mind living in an old funeral home. No one minds, except for the wayward souls that keep lurking around the Campbell's dying son.

Haunting, based on true events, tries to strike a balance between Matt's battle with cancer and the recurring appearance of ghosts in his basement digs. At times, Matt sees through the eyes of a young spirit, Jonah, who appears to Matt as an extra crispy version of his former self. The KFC spectre mainly just stares at Matt and lurches over him while he sleeps. Startling moments of here-one-second, gone-the-next are the extent of the film's overused scare tactics. I was more frightened by how often mommie dearest inexplicably left her children alone for large spans of time.

The whole damn film is one huge exercise in tedium. Like most lame-ass, teen-friendly horror flicks, jittery flashbacks tease audiences with the house's dark side. Whenever the KFC spectre goes on break, Matt splits his time between entertaining his siblings and cousin Wendy (Amanda Crew, Sex Drive), and by calling fellow cancer patient, Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas, Zodiac), to talk death and ghosts. Judging by the Reverend's baggy attire, I assume John Goodman backed out of production and the budget didn't allow for a refitting for Koteas. Regardless, Koteas gives it his all.

Haunting cuts a lot of corners. Scenes are notably grainy. At first it seemed to set a mood, but when conversation sequences shift continually between poorly-shot and strikingly clear, it's friggin' annoying. The script works the same. When Matt's visits by the KFC spectre are confirmed, Encylopedia Wendy is on the case and in an afternoon uncovers the entire history of the hell house. The religious faith of Sarah and the Reverend are treated as taboo, almost as if the spirits themselves didn't allow more to be written into the story. I could stomach all these weaknesses if I wasn't being spoon-fed every other frivolous detail of the Campbells' life.

Dirty Undies
Gentle scares are mildly unnerving at best. The children seem to be in peril, but aside from treating Matt like an Etch-A-Sketch, the ghosts do very little besides stand around. Also, the shockingly horrific reveal doesn't make a lick of sense! A sure-fire indication a horror flick sucks is when the explanation creates more questions than it answers.

The Money Shot
The Haunting in Connecticut was so dull, I felt my brain shut off about ten minutes into it. As the climax approached and I snapped to attention, I realized I didn't know anything about Matt, his family, the KFC spectre or the other spirits I'd been watching for over an hour. The worst part? It didn't fucking matter. When it was all said and done, The Haunting in Connecticut amounted to nothing more than boredom in the theater.