Merit Badgers
He’s Just Not That Into You
She’ll Be Into It, You Just Won’t Not
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
There’s a wildly popular book that we haven’t read called He’s Just Not That Into You (which is based off of a line of dialog from a wildly popular show that we didn’t watch called Sex & The City) that explains to women the most obvious truths about men and their actions and how they don’t want to bang you. The fact that a tonz of ladies out there couldn’t figure that out on their own, from the fact that they weren’t being banged, and had to be told thru a book makes us want to cry (and bang some women, but not necessarily those particular ladies cause we’re not that into you). Anywho, for those who never took on this reading assignment (most men, women who get banged, people who can’t read, people who hate people), here comes a dumb downed motion picture version that’s basically 19 generic romantic comedies rolled into one giant generic romantic drama (or were they aiming for comedy? hard to tell since it wasn’t funny or very dramatic). Anywho, it appears that director Ken Kwapis has access to an amazing casting director and has some sorta of vendetta against paying audiences cause all he wants to do is hand in films with scripts that were written in urine, in the snow, and everyone knows that urine in snow tell the worstest stories!! First Kwapis tortured us with License to Wed (aka I Now Pronounce You One Giant Piece of Sh$t) and now he’s back, but at least he had the good sense to leave Robin Williams on the sidelines this poo around. We’ll give Kwapie a minor pass in general since he’s produced episodes of The Office, one of if not the best show goings on the telly
The movie focuses on straight white ladies and the straight white men they either want to bang, are banging, or aren’t banging enuff. What, gay, Asian, black and purple womensz don’t have love problems like straight white womenz have? And who cares about straight white ladies’ problems hispecially since straight white people be more out than the Bull Moose party. Letttuce meet our lovebirds and how they’re all loosely related and loosely developed, shall we? There’s poor lil Ginnifer Goodwin, who’s more clueless than a person who once owned the board game Clue, lost it, and is now Clue-less. She can’t score with Kevin Connolly cause maybe he only dates ducks cause he talks like a duck. Anywho, Kevin’s trying to bang Scarlett Johansson, cause she looks like a lion and has an enormous rack, but she’s totally sweating Bradley Cooper (who kinda looks like a porn star), a married man married to Jennifer Connelly, who isn’t a man, but she works with Ginnifer and Jennifer Aniston and like twenty other ‘innfers. Aniston has been with Ben Affleck for ages but he’s not the marrying kind cause his old lady was J-Lo and after she took up with that ghoul Marc Anthony his pride was hurt and he knows that Aniston in real life will never end up marrying anyone so he juss strings her along cause he’s just not that into marrying her. Anywho, Justin Long is a wise bar owner who sells Apple products at a discount price. He also avoids banging his hostess Busy Philipps cause he’s a bit too busy AND philipps. Long takes Ginnifer under his wing and helps her learn to fly. They’re perfect for each other, but the characters won’t realize this until the end credits begin to roll, which doesn’t happen until the 1283819 false endings finally become true endings. Drew Barrymore is in the movie for no real reason other than the fact that she’s got a killer smile and she’s a producer of the film and that she totally wasn’t into that dude who wanted to have a date with her cause no one is into that guy. Kris Kristofferson and that gay dude from My So Called Life pop their heads in from time to time and we’re happy to see them working, but we’d rather see a movie where the two of them are lovers and own a glass blowing factory. Stuff happens in this movie, yet nothing really happens, bonds are made and hearts are broken, and white people are white people, so why should this movie be? Sorry, but it weren’t juss that weren’t into it just not, although czech out a ladies opinion on the film from our gal pal over at the bestest Bachelor Bloggg
Nodds & Bends: lil Morgan Lily > Eli Lilly + The Morgan Library, extra Chihiro Fujii apparently does some NSFW extracurricular activities, and Jocelin Donahue definitely earned the role of ‘Cute Girl’
Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges
Fanboys
The Force Is Not Strong With This One
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
Remember seeing Spaceballs back in the ’87 and thinking it was the mos genius spoof of the Star Wars galaxy, but later in life came to realize it really wasn’t all that funny and was hactually (gasp) purty darn lame (look, we love ‘we aint found shit‘ as much as the next guy, but
the movie aint nearly as good as you remember it)? The same won’t be said of Fanboys cause we don’t need the passage of time to figure out how purty darn lame this Star Wars-fused comedy is. The events in the film take place in the year leading up to The Phantom Menace‘s release as our freaks and geeks (the new Jimmy Olsen, that skinny kid, the voice of Gossip Girl, one of those kids from The Girl Next Door, and Dan Fogler, a huge comic talent waiting to explode… if only someone could get him a decent script) will stop at nothing short of breaking into Skywalker Ranch to catch a sneak peek at it (and their motivation to do so is cause one of the characters is dying, yet they treat that fact so lightly that we thought it was a joke). Their excitement of the first new Star Wars film in 16 years is certainly understandable, since we all felt the same way, and had this movie been made in 1998/9, maybe this mild mannered Lucas love affair woulda worked, but as we all know the new Star Wars episodes ended up sucking and who really wants to celebrate a movie that celebrates the release of a movie that shouldn’t have been released. That aside, the film never takes full advantage of its golden opportunity to riff on Star Wars fan culture. Sure, there’s some yucks (and by some, we’d say a total of 4 laffs) to be found when referencing the old films, but it’s no mountain that hasn’t been climbed before, like with Family Guy‘s overrated ‘Blue Harvest’ episode or Robot Chicken’s roast. As for the Billy Dee Williams, Carrie Fisher and William Shatner cameos? They woulda been better off starring in a Cash 4 Gold commerical with MC Hammer and Ed McMahon than wasting their time with Fanboys. You shouldn’t either and instead juss gaze at its hammazin (Apatowish) poster. Then again, what are we to expect from a movie that has Seth Rogen playing two different roles? One Seth Rogen is enuff, but two? That’s way too much Seth Rogen for anyone to handle
Dex’s Diner: never forget Jedi Chefs!
Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges
Coraline
Dread Buttons
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
The stop motion magic from the dude who gave us The Nightmare Before Christmas is back, and after working with the zany creations by such loony bins like Roald Dahl and Tim Burton, he’s returning to weirdo alley again by tackling a Neil Gaiman book, but this time the stakes are higher, cause this baby’s in 3-D (it’s like watching that Scarecrow GE commercial thru a View-Master)!!! Lil Coraline (not ‘Caroline’, but juss as sweet as the one in Neil Diamond’s song, who looks like a claymated Punky Brewster and is voiced with perfect pitch by Dakota Fanning), and her family just moved to cloudy Oregon, where her days are filled with loneliness and boredom. Mom (Teri Hatcher, actually better heard here than seen anywhere) and pop (the PC guy… wonder who’s gonna win the battle of MAC vs PC at the box office this weekend?) won’t give her the time of day, let alone cook her something decent to eat. Then one day Coraline finds a portal to an alternate world that’s just like her own, yet in this new one she’s the center of her parents attention, and the home cooked meals can’t be beat (plus she gets to listen to the voices of Ian McShane and Keith David). Everything’s perfect in this idealized place, but maybe a little too perfect (and what’s with everyone having buttons for eyes?). Cracks begin to show and Coraline becomes caught between two worlds. The proceedings are a lil too strange, cold and creepy for most tykes to fully enjoy, and while some parents may feel the same way, it’s hard to pass up a gloriously vivid color paletted 3-D adventure that will make you wish you were ‘shrooming your balls off
Giants of Industry: originally They Might Be Giants were to create numerous songs for the film’s soundtrack, but only one teeny 28 second song made the final cut
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers
Not That Into You and Coraline open thighs wide, while Fanboys hits up limited theaters today
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…