Prom Night: Want to see a truly scary movie? Prom Night is the perfect choice. Want to piss your underwear/diaper in terror? There’s dialogue so terrible and wooden it’s spooky!

“You guys look soooooOOOooOO pretty! Haha!”

Ahhhhh! It’s scary. Do old people freak you out? Prom Night has high schoolers that make the old-timers from Beverly Hills 90210 blush.

Once the main character insists that she’ll request some Justin Timberlake to the DJ so everyone can relax, things REALLY get terrifying.

Prom Night will be forever talked about, by me at least, as the number one example of a piece of shit being made for the sole purpose of not making a good film but instead so 12 year old chicks with braces and newly acquired periods can pay money to see it. The people involved didn’t even try in the least bit to make a good film. But, instead every single predictable Hollywood horror cliché was thrown in just so a full movie could be completed. A new game should be played, where you gather all your friends around in a room and watch this. You each guess what is going to happen next. Your friend that gets the most things wrong will be taken out back and shot. Not in the leg or arm or whatever. But, shot in the head. You can tell your other friends that he’s “on vacation”.

Grade: F

The Ruins: Once the movie got past the typical horror movie bullshit (as in the first 30 minutes being a very slow and boring build up for the main characters to get to whatever place it is where they will be killed), I thought things might actually get good. I was happy that there wasn’t a killer at the Ruins, but instead it was the Ruins itself kicking everyone’s ass. But, the movie soon becomes the average and predictable horror film. This girl has a good heart…let her survive. This girl is being a bitch…she’s soooo dead. This guy is German and talks weird…fuck ‘em. He’s dead! But, let’s give him a broken back first. It’s still a more enjoyable experience than Prom Night, but it’s still a far cry from a good movie or even a good horror film.

Grade: C

88 Minutes: “I’m Al Pacino. I’m yelling! This movie sucks!” seems to be a quote, that I just made up by the way, that can describe any Al Pacino movie in recent memory. 88 Minutes might not be any better than his shit-films of the last few years, but it’s at least more entertaining.

I went into 88 Minutes without reading a single review, but after the movie was done I was convinced that mostly every critic in the world probably took a dump all over it, wiped, and then realized they had to shit some more. I was right, too. Words like “laughable” and “absolutely terrible” come into mind while remembering the reviews. At no point during this movie did I ever feel like it was so bad I had to walk out or anything. I’ve only walked out of one movie ever and that was Jackie Chan’s The Medallion. It wasn’t so bad it was good. Instead, it was so bad I almost got cancer just from sitting in the seat. We tried to get a refund but they said it’s not policy to give a refund just because a movie, “really sucks.” Whatever. Anyway, back to the movie at hand.

Let me explain why this movie was worth watching. There are some parts I actually thought were done quite well…as in the suspense. Even if the situation in general was ridiculous and stupid, the suspense seemed to never let up. Even if what was going to happen was sometimes predictable, it was still fun to watch what was going on. There were some dreadful parts of the movie of course and the flashbacks come to mind. The flashbacks were done in the classic mid-90’s straight to video fashion. Choppy editing, slow motion; these flashbacks had it all. But, even though it looked like shit, it was still fun to watch for the sheer entertainment factor. Good or bad, the movie never bored me. If it was on the verge of actually becoming a decent movie, then that was good. If it had sunk to being a crappy thriller with terrible plot twists, then that’s great too. Unlike Superhero Movie, 88 Minutes is a movie that is so bad at times it’s good. So, I hereby give this movie a B. I’m not grading it the same way I’d grade The Godfather for instance, but instead on how entertained I was.
Grade: B

Superhero Movie: You know a movie sucks when it’s a spoof comedy and the films they are poking fun at, are in fact, much funnier. You know the movie really sucks when the movie’s they are spoofing aren’t even comedies. You know a movie REALLY sucks when they cast that guy who played Shooter Mcgavin as the bad guy and the movie title doesn‘t include the words Happy or Gilmore. Not much is worthwhile or the least bit good with Superhero Movie and the way they make fun of the Spiderman trilogy. I’ll take the alternate emo/goth personality of Peter Parker any day over any of the “jokes” that were in this movie.

Sure, seeing this movie was free so I didn’t actually mind watching it. But. I should have known something was going to go terribly wrong when once again they were marketing it as “from 46 of the 90 writers of Scary Movie!”. This movie isn’t in the least bit funny or enjoyable. It succeeds in absolutely nothing it set out to do. Therefore, it fails. But, I won’t give it an F. Unlike Prom Night, it still attempted to be funny.
Grade D

Son of Rambow: Cheeky British kids who idolize Stallone filming their own Rambo movie during the 80s…is there anything more you can ask for from a movie? Well, yeah. But, Son of Rambow contained the perfect amount of humor and heart, which made it a breath of fresh air from most of the movies I’ve seen lately. Half the fun was watching the kids film their ridiculous Son of Rambow movie, but the real strength of the film was the relationship between the two main characters. Even though they are just kids, their comic delivery and acting chops are a whole lot better than most adults these days (see Superhero Movie review).

Grade: B+

Street Kings: Let’s see what we got here…a movie where Academy Award winner, Forest Whitaker, is a blabbering idiot who is somehow out-acted by professional robot Keanu Reeves. Is this possible? I guess so. Whitaker struts around the screen, chewing up every scene he’s in. Him and his weird eye attempt to take over every frame of film by yelling and saying stupid shit. But, once you get past his annoying character, the movie ends up being somewhat enjoyable but completely uneven.

A lot like 88 Minutes, it’s a pretty poor movie if you look at it from one angle. Filled with stupid plot twists, rappers acting, predictable race issues, and over the top action scenes, one could say this movie is about as smart as softcore porn. But, if you look at it like 88 Minutes, it can also be viewed as a fun movie. The movie is worth the price of admission alone just for Keanu’s facial expressions/reactions when he’s supposed to be surprised in certain scenes.

It’s not quite as entertaining as 88 Minutes overall, and it’s sense of importance, despite being pretty much a piece of shit, gives it a lower grade than Mr.Pacino’s flick. But, it’s still worth seeing if you want to switch your brain off, ignore the preaching/stupid themes, and just be entertained.
Grade: C+

Baby Mama: This movie gets major props for the kind of movie it ended up becoming. Penned by a former SNL writer, it easily could have been the typical post-Saturday Night Live movie…something that is about 90 minutes too long and would have been better just being a single skit on the show. But, the characters in the film let it become a lot more than that. They make you forget the plot (and love story sub plots) become more and more predictable as the movie goes on. Instead, it makes you think about how good Saturday Night Live used to be: full of skits with simple premises yet executed to perfection (or at least satisfaction in this case) because of the people involved.

Grade: B-

Smart People: No, I’m not one of the hipster rebels who decided I hated Juno after a while. I still think it’s a great movie. I, also, still think that Ellen Page is awesome. It’s no wonder her and Thomas Haden Curch, in only supporting roles, steal the movie from the leads. But, don’t get me wrong. I’ve heard a lot of talk about the leads being mis-cast, but I think Dennis Quaid did a fine job as the main character. For once, he’s not a fake/drunk Harrison Ford action star but instead his own character. Bravo, my man. Sarah Jessica Parker, as the love interest, also does a good job with her character. Smart People isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s a romantic comedy/drama like February’s Definitely, Maybe that takes typical clichés and makes them work.

Grade: B

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Unlike a lot of the movies in the past few months, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a movie that came with not much hype except from the fan boys of the whole Apatow camp, and became the biggest surprise…for me, at least. Although I loved Freaks & Geeks and the other Apatow movies, there was no telling how well Jason Segel could write let alone carry a whole movie. But, much like Judd Apatow, he blends the perfect combination of humor with touching moments while putting a new spin on stories we’ve seen a million times. When it’s all said and done, Forgetting Sarah Marshall ended up not only being the most satisfying comedy I’ve seen in a while, but also my favorite film of 2008, so far.

Grade: A-

 

All past reviews can be found on www.andrewrubin.org

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.