re: The Cabin in the Woods. TulaneLSU's 2011-12 movie review thread

Bad Teacher I believe I once wrote that Cameron Diaz has passed her sell by date. And that was months ago. Here were are in the summer of 2011 and the date is long passed and all we're left with is mold. Is this woman on drugs? Her face looks it. The premise of this movie is a teacher cheats and steals her way to make money to get fake breasts. The drug/sex humor that some think is "adult humor" creates uncomfortable laughs in the theater because I believe people feel obligated or under some sort of social contract to laugh at such dross. It isn't clever; the story is dumb; the actors crap. 1/10

Beautiful Boy Might be the most predictable, depressing movie I've ever seen. It's so sad, looking back on it makes me sad even today. The father in the movie does an amazing job. 5/10

Biutiful Spaniards are weird people. Every person from Spain I've ever known was a bit odd and it seems their movie makers are even weirder. Biutiful is a 150 minute movie in English subtitles about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions. The movie focuses on a man who sees himself as a Messiah, a very humble one, who sees the lost and feels like he must save them. Yet every time he tries to help someone, it seems that only misery comes from it. And like all messiahs, he carries the burdens of a corrupt world and will be crucified for his good will. The characters are complex and real; they move the movie progressively forward, but the movie is aimless and the director gets lost in his way trying to be profound. Reading the reviews by professional critics shows how poor film criticism has become. They don't understand this movie at all. 4/10

Burlesque One of the all-time terrible stories. The writing of this movie is horrific. Christina is attractive and has a few good parts, but overall, she is not a good actress. Cher should be in a nursing home. It is pathetic how much surgery she has had. Movie was too long. 3/10

Captain America Like another poster recently said, the trope of Nazis as the embodiment of all evil is growing old. Half the arguments on the internet end up at Nazism. A quarter of the blockbusters today use Nazism as the antagonist or symbol of evil. It on affirms what religion has always known: when telling a story for the masses, you need to have a bad guy and a form of evil, thus Satan. But surely Hollywood can find a new, more relevant villain.

The actor who plays Captain America is terrible. The woman he loves is beautiful and probably the most compelling of the characters. The dialogue certainly is telling of the movie's comic book origin. I groaned several times at Tommy Jones' script. The story is absurd. Either make the movie sci-fi or make it historical. Don't mix the two, at least not like C.A. does. As a summer popcorn flick, it still fails. There's no drama. We know, because of the opening scene, that the bombs headed to America fail. At least give us some tension. Trying to shift the time frames in this movie was a terrible fail. Despite a couple of quotes that are pro-justice instead of pro-war, this movie is very pro-war, and as a result, I would highly recommend you don't see it.2/10

The Change-Up Audre Lorde once famously penned, "There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt." Before you say to yourself, "Oh here's another of TulaneLSU's rambling reviews. I bet this will be a comparison and contrasting of The Change-Up to movies like Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son, 18 Again, Freaky Friday and Big." As usual, you're wrong.

Whether the writers intended to or not, and I doubt they did, they simply made a movie, a bad one at that, about Matthew 7:5: "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." Once you get around all the unnecessary nudity, infinite F-bombs, and drug use, what you find as the center of this movie are two characters who can see all the faults of their friends' lives but none of the faults of their own lives. The movie isn't about "grass is greener" mentality or learning not to take certain things for granted, as some uneducated critics have stated. Yes, the grass is greener switch is necessary in the movie, but it is only used as a device to point to the movie's core: the inability to see what is wrong in your own life. Only when we step outside of ourselves are we then able to see our faults as they are.

Thus the movie makes a claim about human nature: to be human is to be deluded. And isn't that true. Think about hoow easily we deceive ourselves into thinking we're something we're not. More often than not we build ourselves into perfect beings, smarter, more athletic, better looking, and better leaders than we actually are. But the beauty in humanity is that we also have the capability to step outside of ourselves, to look in the mirror, so to speak. Do we need to literally have an outer body experience to see the log in our own eye? No, but it sure helps. If only the director had left out all the obscenity and used Olivia Wilde as an actress rather than a Megan Fox Transformers sub. There was great potential missed in this film. 3/10

Chronicles of Narnia A fun movie that can stand alone. I have never seen the other Narnia movies, but thought this one did a fine job of combining adventure with interesting CGI and a positive morality. The kids are a bit annoying, but the movie builds to a triumphant crescendo. 7/10

The Company Men If you want to see Ben Affleck's pro-unionist, pro-socialist views, this is your movie. Set in the backdrop of the 2008 financial crash, the movie is a manifesto against corporate greed and a warning to people who invest their lives in their work. As a Christian, I am against both, but I do not understand why Affleck thinks he's for the average man. He's a celebrity who spends his time and money with celebrities. He knows as much about an honest day's work as I know about my Beloved's ancillary regions.

The movie hums at the pace of a mass transit bus. This movie is more a movie about what could have been. It could have been a great movie if the director bothered to make the characters lovable. It could have been a great story had the writer not allowed Affleck's unionist propaganda to infiltrate at every possible turn. At one point we hear that the CEO makes 700 times what the avg. employee makes in the company. Funny considering Affleck makes $37,000,000 a year and the median American salary is $32,000. For those not good at math, Affleck makes about 1,200 times the average American salary. Chris Cooper gives the strongest performance, and his role is most credible while the others are rather empty.

The writing is at its worse and most confused at the very end. After 90 minutes of pounding in the message that hard work with your hands that produces something palpable is good, we end in "triumph." Not the triumph of hard work, but of returning to the office to do exactly what it was they were all doing before. Wholly unsatisfying and it shows the shoddy craftsmanship of a splintered mind and life - one that does not practice what he preaches - and ruins the possibility of this being a good movie. 5/10

I cant take you seriously when you give Drive a 5 and the Descendants a 3 GFYS