MOVIE REVIEW: BAD TEACHER

BAD TEACHER



A booze-swilling, pot-smoking, hard-swearing seventh-grade teacher rallies to get out of the classroom for good by wrangling a rich substitute teacher into marriage in this comedy from director Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). Cynical teacher Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz) hates her job. She can't wait for the day she finds a man who makes enough cash to let her walk away from her life of middle-school misery, and when her fiancé cancels their wedding plans, her frantic search intensifies. Just when it starts to look like Elizabeth will have to muscle her way through another semester of skull-crushing hangovers, however, handsome substitute Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) shows up at school sporting a fancy wristwatch and the promise of a care-free future. But in order to earn her meal ticket, Elizabeth will have to out-cute perky fellow teacher Amy (Lucy Punch). And it won't be easy, because Scott is crushing on Amy hard. Now, if Elizabeth can just motivate her students to study so that she can win a state contest to earn enough cash for some new breast implants, perhaps she can finally find a means of diverting Scott's gaze. Meanwhile, much to Elizabeth's chagrin, wisecracking, self-effacing gym teacher Russell (Jason Segel) refuses to admit defeat despite being turned down for a date by his gold-digging colleague time and again. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins

Release Date: Jun 24, 2011

Rated R for some drug use, nudity, sexual content and language

Genres: Comedy

Review:

Bad Teacher is supposed to be crass, rude and outlandish. While it’s hardly kid friendly the biggest shock is how incredibly unfunny the entire way through. Cameron Diaz is game throughout so it’s hard to lay the blame on her. She plays the superficial gold digging teacher with great gusto but she’s limited by a script that’s peppered with cartoon characters. A prime example of this is Lucy Punch’s character whose like so sort of freakazoid valleygirl which supposed to serve as a foil to Diaz. It never works and it provides some of the biggest dead spots in the film, it doesn’t help that Punch looks like some sort of Lady Gaga mannequin come to life. Justin Timberlake is handicapped in similar fashion. Jason Segel is the only supporting player that allowed to shine. Various others talented comedians pepper the film but it almost feels like window shopping since their never allowed to actually be funny. Jake Kasdan directs it all with incredibly broad strokes and he never finds a good rhythm for it. As a result the movie feels like it goes on forever, aimlessly without any narrative force and even worse no laughs.

D

[Trailer] Captain America: The First Avenger

New more action packed trailer has come out and it appears this film maybe decent but I still have serious reservations.

I’ve been wrong about Thor and X-Men First Class so far but those at least had excellent directors at the helm, personally I don’t have much faith in Joe Johnston.

Still it looks like it can be a fun period comic book piece.

Screen Captures, Scene & promo from the Failed Wonder Woman pilot

Well it’s been a little over a month since NBC passed on David E Kelly’s Wonder Woman pilot.

Personally I can’t remember an unshot and ultimately unaired pilot get so much attention, mostly bad.

It’s a strange thing to say the least. I had a hefty dose of interest because I grew up with Lynda Carter series.

With the pilot’s failure it’s unlikely any studio is going to touch the property for a long long while, it’d already taken over 10 years to get a pilot actually shot and countless writers and scripts.

A crafty online blogger from Ifanboy.com got his hands on the pilot and reviewed it ( http://www.ifanboy.com/content/articles/REVIEW__Wonder_Woman_Pilot ) pointing out some big differences from the script that was online before shooting started and brought on a lot of the negative criticism.

In addition he took a handful of screen captures showing off Adrianne Palicki in a much more traditional WW outfit which is a lot closer to the Lynda Carter original.

It’s a post mortem but still interesting to see for anyone who had interest in it in the first place, it’s a shame because both Adrianne Palicki and Wonder Woman deserved better…









Super quick promo....

Quick pre effects fight scene from the pilot.... Credits from pilot...

[International Trailer] RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

A new International trailer for Rise of the Planets of Apes is out and I’m kind of biased but I think it looks amazing.

It shows a lot more story than the US trailer. I’m getting a good vibe about this prequel and hope it doesn’t let me down.

[Trailer] A Dangerous Method

David Cronenberg directs Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen & Keira Knightley in a story of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and a woman that came between them.

This trailer is incredibly impressive and is totally something that right up my alley, personally I can’t wait!

MOVIE REVIEW: GREEN LANTERN

IN THEATERS

GREEN LANTERN



A test pilot embraces his destiny as a cosmic superhero in Casino Ropyale director Martin Campbell's adaptation of the popular DC Comics series. Ever since he saw his fearless father perish in a tragic aviation mishap, all Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) could think about was flying -- it was the only thing the brash, cocky, and irresponsible test pilot ever truly excelled at. Little did he realize he was destined for something much bigger. Somewhere out in space, a powerful force of evil known as Parallax is spreading fear and destruction; the only hope for defeating Parallax is the Green Lantern Corps, a group of intergalactic warriors powered by the force of will. When legendary Green Lantern Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) is sent hurtling toward planet Earth after a deadly encounter with Parallax, his ring chooses Hal to continue the fight. The ring spirits our hero away to the Green Lantern’s home planet of Oa for training. The first human ever to receive the honor of becoming a Green Lantern, Hal is viewed with scorn by the league’s leader, Sinestro (Mark Strong), who trains him alongside the hulking Kilowog (voice of Michael Clarke Duncan). Later, on planet Earth, frail scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) becomes infected with Parallax’s evil while performing an autopsy on Abin Sur, and uses his newfound powers to stake claim on Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), Hal’s lifelong friend and fellow test pilot. When Hal learns that Parallax plans to consume all life on Earth to gain the energy needed to conquer Oa, he begins looking inward for the courage to defeat the malevolent force and embrace his destiny as a super-powered peacekeeper. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Martin Campbell

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins, Jay O. Sanders

Release Date: Jun 17, 2011

Rated Pg-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence

Runtime: 1 hr. 45 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure

Review:

Green Lantern is a film that feels bloated from the start. A fool’s errand gone wild, the budget was reported to have ballooned to 300 million dollars +, like blob like the primary villain in the film. Martin Campbell tries his best to steer the ship in an enjoy fashion but is left with just the most basic of comic book movie tropes and clichés. As a result, everything feels incredibly familiar and unexciting. It’s an inert film that rarely thrills or excites. Ryan Reynolds tries his best to give life to a character that’s so poorly written that he’s an enigma throughout. Reynolds does deliver his usual charm and wit when the script allows him to actually breathe which is incredibly rare. He never gets a good footing and the character kind of just movies along because he has to but not out of a natural sense of evolution. Blake Lively carries all the emotional weight of an invisible barbell. Her lines are delivered in the same wooden fashion throughout, not that there’s much she could do with a terribly underwritten and archaic female character. Peter Sarsgaard fairs no better as he’s handed an incredibly underwhelming role which serves no purpose in the long run other than run a tired dual daddy issues subplot into the ground. Mark Strong’s Sinestro is far and away the most fascinating and intriguing character, sadly he’s in the film for a criminally shortly amount of time. Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett suffer through some of the most embarrassing paycheck roles in recent memory. Their casting is a perfect example of how mishandled the entire enterprise is. The film stumbles and drags as it reaches its climax which feels more like an afterthought. Green Lantern works best when it’s in space, the FX are impressive and the characters there are far more interesting than their human counterparts, sadly most of the film takes place on generic comic book Earth.

D+

Bluray quality; Video is surprisingly poor for a film this new; Sound is excellent but hardly makes up for the poor qualities of the visuals.

I was hand-selected to be a member of Blu-ray Elite, a beta program from Warner Home Video which has graciously sent me this free Blu-ray disc.