There’s a moment in See No Evil, Hear No Evil where you realize you’re not watching a comedy so much as a series of sight gags duct-taped to a corpse. The corpse is the script. The duct tape is made of fart jokes, pratfalls, and the lingering hope that Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor might … Read More “See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989): Slapstick for the Sensory-Deprived” »
There’s a scene early in Where the Money Is where Paul Newman, playing a paralyzed ex-bank robber named Henry, gets wheeled around by a bored nurse played by Linda Fiorentino. It’s supposed to feel like slow-burn intrigue—cat and mouse with smirks and sexual tension. What it actually feels like is waiting in line at the … Read More “Where the Money Is (2000): Turns Out, It Ain’t in the Script” »
Somewhere in the cold, vast emptiness of the galaxy, there’s a planet inhabited solely by emotionless male clones trying to conquer Earth via sex. And from that same corner of the void came this movie, What Planet Are You From?—a limp, aimless sci-fi sex comedy that thinks it’s edgy but couldn’t get aroused at a … Read More “What Planet Are You From? (2000): The Planet is Dull, the Movie’s Worse” »
Ordinary Decent Criminal is one of those movies that thinks it’s cooler than a pint of Guinness in a leather jacket. It’s not. It’s more like if someone watched The Usual Suspects, got a C-minus in screenwriting class, and then said, “Let’s cast Kevin Spacey again, but make him Irish.” Spoiler: the accent’s not the … Read More “Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000): Neither Ordinary, Nor Decent, Just Criminally Boring” »
Ah, Dogma. Kevin Smith’s grand theological mic drop. His attempt at divine satire, spiritual commentary, and fart-joke philosophy all jammed into one bloated, robe-draped road movie. It’s like someone handed a theology textbook to a guy with a bag of weed and a Clerks DVD and said, “Here—make God funny.” And so he did. Sort … Read More “Dogma (1999): Heaven Help Us—This Movie’s a Holy Mess” »
Body Count (1998) is a heist movie that robs you of 85 minutes and any remaining faith you had in late-’90s crime thrillers. It’s the kind of film that makes you check the DVD case twice because you’re convinced there’s a second disc with the actual plot on it. Imagine a bunch of vaguely recognizable … Read More “Body Count (1998): So Bad It Should Be Charged With Manslaughter” »
Let’s get this out of the way: Men in Black is not a bad movie. It’s just an aggressively mid-tier amusement park ridedisguised as a sci-fi comedy classic. A movie so proud of its sunglasses and snark that it forgets to have an actual pulse. Critics and fans hailed it as stylish, clever, and endlessly … Read More “Men in Black (1997): The Galaxy’s Slickest Snoozefest” »
A Pair of Aspirin for the Trauma Some films surprise you. Others delight. Kicked in the Head just kicks you in the soul with a steel-toed boot full of try-hard whimsy and post-Tarantino hangover. It’s the kind of movie that thinks being “offbeat” means yelling non sequiturs, wearing a trench coat in July, and staring … Read More “Kicked in the Head (1997): A Quirky Indie Comedy That’ll Leave You Begging for a Coma” »
Every so often, Hollywood huffs a little too much glue and says, “You know what America needs? Bill Murray on a road trip… with an elephant.” Thus, Larger Than Life was born—a 1996 comedy that stumbles trunk-first into the kind of forced whimsy that makes even die-hard Murray fans stare blankly at the screen like … Read More “Larger Than Life (1996): A Man, an Elephant, and a Whole Lotta Regret” »
A Warning for Anyone Expecting a Good Western There are westerns, and then there are dusty little misfires like The Desperate Trail, a film so generic and confused it feels like it was shot on leftover sets from a better movie and written during a bar fight between clichés. It’s a made-for-HBO western that tries … Read More “The Desperate Trail (1994): The Only Thing Desperate Here Is the Script” »
