Entry tags:

walruss

the return of the curse of the sticky floor

GREAT SUCCESS FOR BLOGGINGS

Opening 10/27

Saw III: With a new movie every year, the Saw franchise is beginning to look like the John Madden series of video games; each year brings new rosters, slightly new features, and a sense of the expected. The Saw series has always been “Home Alone for sadists,” with swinging blades and dismemberments replacing the heated doorknobs and swinging paint cans of slapstick comedy; this third installment is no different. Jigsaw, the evil mastermind behind the first two movies, is on the brink of death. And in a sadistic twist on the Make a Wish Foundation, he has one final request: to build another torture hut. Two victims, one made to keep Jisgaw alive and one trying to survive his deadly games, must work together or be torn apart- maybe even literally. Fans of the franchise should eat Saw III up, and horror enthusiasts will enjoy the cruel contraptions that would give Rube Goldberg nightmares. I’m just happy the tagline for this series is no longer “see Saw,” which ranks second in stupidity to Star Wars: Episode II’s “Who da man? Yoda man.”

Opening 11/03

The Santa Clause III: The Escape Clause: The Santa Clause III: The Escape Clause begs the question, “Must everything be a trilogy?” Even in epic adventures like Lord of the Rings, three movies seem to be a little too much; and most of you would agree with me after watching Return of the King’s 19 consecutive endings. But apparently, more of the Santa Clause saga needs to be told- or maybe Tim Allen just needs to recover from this summer’s Zoom, A.K.A “Tim Allen Presents: Pluto Nash 2: The Search for Curly’s Gold.” In this (hopefully) final installment of the series, Tim Allen faces a new challenge while playing the role of Santa Claus: Jack Frost, played by Martin Short. It seems that Jack Frost wants to take over Christmas for some reason, possibly because of a little thing screenwriters like to call “shoehorning unfunny old comics into kids’ movies.” How is Martin Short still allowed to be captured on film? He forced his Jiminy Glick character on America for five years – which we politely refused – then proceeded to make a Jiminy Glick movie that even projectionists refused to see. I think I have made my point about The Santa Clause III: I have to lie down.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: This film, which I will now refer to as Borat: The Movie, is the brainchild of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, whose Ali G character received his own movie back in 2002. But – in case you didn’t know - the joke surrounding Sacha’s characters is that bystanders have no idea that Sacha is playing a character. And Cohen uses this strategy to inflict Borat, a bizarre, sexist and anti-Semitic (Cohen himself is Jewish) man from a very foreign culture, upon the American public. The premise behind Borat: The Movie is that the titular character is filming a documentary about America for his homeland of Kazakhstan. But this is all just an excuse to push Borat into hilarious situations that make they concept of “fish out of water” seem considerably less hackneyed. Borat isn’t just a buffoon to laugh at, though. In a way (and I’m trying not to sound heavy-handed here), Borat holds a mirror up to Americans, revealing our prejudices and just how much we’re willing tolerate. Don’t worry about Borat: The Movie being anything like Crash, though; I promise you won’t walk out of the theater with a heavy heart and guilt over not knowing any black people.

Flushed Away: Flushed Away is slightly more distinguishable from the 50 other CGI movies in theaters now because it’s made by Aardman, the same people who brought us Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. There’s no mistaking that they have a good track record, but Flushed Away is the studio’s first move away from the slighty-more-meticulous world of sculpted Plasticine into the realm of computer graphics. The same distinct Aardman character design and British charm seems to inhabit Flushed Away, but will it be as good as their older films? It’s a possibility. The movie tells the story of a high-society rat (Hugh Jackman) who finds himself in a whole new lower-class world after an encounter with a sewer rat (Shane Richie) and must adapt to survive. I have no doubt that Aardman can make this concept charming, but recently there has been a glut of “things that shouldn’t talk but do” animated features. Unfairly, Flushed Away may just get lost in the void of mindless children’s entertainment. Animation studios could avoid this problem by making films with subject matter unique to animated movies - like 2004’s The Incredibles - but that would be crazy.