Debbie Schlussel: Weekend Box Office: Dumb as Hell "Be Kind Rewind," Great "Vantage Point," Bloody & Pointless "The Signal"
The only movie I recommend this weekend is "Vantage Point," a pleasant surprise. The others annoyed and/or sickened the hell out of me:
* "Vantage Point": Read my complete review. Wow, finally a movie from Hollywood in which the terrorists are Islamic and unsympathetic. The signs that they are Islamic are subtle but definite. It's heart-pounding and thrilling once the move abandons its "Groundhog Day" replay of the same events and gets going. Dennis Quaid is always a charmer, especially when he's one of the good guys and the hero of the story. Fifty-something never looked so good. Again, read my complete review.
* "Be Kind Rewind": This is probably the dumbest movie of the year, perhaps the decade. Plus, I needed an interpreter to understand the Mumblish spoken by annoying Black Muslim rapper Mos Def. Gee whiz. Def plays a clerk at Danny Glover's inner city video store. The store doesn't rent DVDs, just videos.
An annoying nutjob, played by Jack Black, hangs out at the store. He's so nuts that when he tries to destroy an electric power generator plant, he's electrocuted. Suddenly, every videotape in the store is blank because of his electromagnetic properties. Def and Black decide to shoot amateur versions of major films along with a clerk at the local dry cleaners. Suddenly, the whole city is lined up to buy and view these stupid videos.
I'm making it sound way, way, way better than it actually is. Even my 8-year-old nephew would have written something more entertaining and complex. Looks like a nursery school kid wrote it, including the dialogue. And it was extremely boring. I fell asleep like three times and still didn't miss a thing.
A complete waste of time, money, and brain cells. Be kind to yourself and skip this idiocy.
* "The Signal": A mysterious signal that interrupts TV, phone, and radio broadcasts is turning people mad all across a major city. They are killing others. A young, working-class woman's husband kills a number of people, as she tries to find her extra-marital lover, the man of her dreams, amidst the chaos.
At first, this looked like a cool horror thriller with no-name actors. But it soon degraded into a pointless, bloody, sick, macabre mess on the order of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." After an hour, I walked out on this piece of trash. Blecch. Skip at all cost.
Posted by Debbie on February 22, 2008 04:53 PM to Debbie Schlussel