Short version: If you’re in the mood for an absurd film that alternates between boring and comedy, this is the movie for you.

I thought The Sixth Sense was awesome. I loved Unbreakable. I thought Signs was OK, except for the premise of aliens allergic to water invading a planet 2/3 covered by it. I didn’t hate The Village, but I thought Lady in the Water was terrible.

Are you seeing a trend there? Well guess what, it hasn’t been broken.

I don’t know how reviews for M. Night Shyamalans’s The Happening are going to roll, but this one isn’t going to be pretty.

Going in, I was hopeful that this might actually turn out to be decent, despite what I had heard regarding the ultimate plot of the film. I even hoped that maybe that was a new twist by Shyamalan - misdirection outside the confines of the movie itself… but sadly this was not the case. It is indeed as absurd as I had feared.

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Short version: There are a few laugh out loud moments, but you have to sit through a whole lot of stupid stuff to get to those few gems.

I apologize for the unsavory image to the left, but there’s a reason for it. You see you’re looking at the star of You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. No, not Adam Sandler - the star of Zohan is Adam Sandler’s crotch.

I have an axiom that has, with few exception, stood the test of time for me: If a book or movie is terrible in the first 10 minutes of reading or viewing, it’s pretty certain that the entire thing will be awful. Once again it has served me well.

In this case however, it didn’t take 10 minutes or even 5… I knew what I was in for literally in the first 5 seconds of the film, when after the studio logo the first frame of the film filled the screen with a close up of Adam Sandler’s groin area. From there, it zoomed out to show him frolicking on the beach and performing superhuman stunts, but his crotch was clearly the focus.

Of the entire movie.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A bleak and starkly shot film that left me feeling like I needed a shower after watching it.

Downloading Nancy premiered here at Sundance 2008 and is the story of Nancy (played by Maria Bello), a severely emotionally damaged woman married to and emotionally cold man (Rufus Sewell as Albert) who turns to the internet for companionship.

The film opens with Nancy discussing her thoughts on what happens after you die with another woman. At this point it sounds like she is optimistic about the afterlife while her friend is very negative and keeps bringing up counterpoints to make it sound like she could be somehow trapped in some way after death. As it turns out, the friend turns out to be a therapist who is trying to convince Nancy that death is not an escape or freedom.

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie drives an already silly premise straight into the ground, primarily with a weak script and uneven direction.

I have been a big fan of Jim Carrey ever since the premiere of my all-time favorite TV show, In Living Color. I mean, what could be better than his Fire Marshal Bill skits? The original Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber are movies that I am proud to count among my all-time favorite comedies. Jim Carrey is one of the finest comedic actors I have seen on the big or small screen, but I really don’t know what on earth could have interested him in The Number 23. Maybe I don’t want to know… He’s not going for comedy in this movie; he’s going for a dramatic performance. That’s understandable to some degree; he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed into doing only physical comedy. He has certainly shown that he has some range; The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are two examples that come to mind. But the two aforementioned examples are good movies, and The Number 23 is not.

Joel Schumacher’s movies have always been hit-or-miss for me. I really liked Falling Down, but Batman and Robin was a stinkbomb. Veronica Guerin was well-made (albeit morbid), but Phone Booth was underwhelming. His directing style in this movie is uneven; some parts are hokey and overblown, while others seem to be just right. Overall, the problem is that the weak script (written by Fernley Phillips) just doesn’t give him much to work with. There is plenty of talent and technical competence on display here; it’s just utilized in the wrong way.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: An interesting idea poorly executed.

In order to make it to the showing of Weapons at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival I had to leave the post-movie Q&A for Black Snake Moan early. The only reason I’m not totally annoyed with myself for doing that is that the short film preceding the main feature, A Nick in Time by Be’ Garrett was outstanding.

When I read the description for director/screenwriter Adam Bhala Lough’s Weapons, I had a feeling it might not be up my alley but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway. In the end I should have passed on it, and many people I spoke to after the showing had the same, if not stronger opinions to the negative as well. It’s never a good sign when people start leaving in droves before the Director Q&A session…

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: Unlikable characters, pretentious writing and misguided direction make this movie a total mess from start to finish.

I have a confession to make. It’s not easy, but I need to get this off my chest. Okay, here goes: Sometimes I miss the mid-80’s. There, I’ve said it. Seriously, most (not all) of the music in the mid-80’s was at least decent, if not exceptional. Gangsta rap was at least a few years away, and country music was only played on the country stations. And the movies… some real classics came out in the mid-80’s. Splash, The Goonies, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Back to the Future… the list goes on. So when I rented Body Double, I thought I was in for a good movie. After all, it was produced, directed and co-written by Brian DePalma. Aside from having an awesome first name (and spelled the right way), DePalma has been behind the camera on some of my favorite movies. If there is a better adaptation of a Stephen King horror movie than Carrie, I haven’t seen it. A long time ago, Kevin Costner used to star in good movies, and The Untouchables ranks high on that list. And who wouldn’t want to say hello to my little friend, Scarface? Okay, so maybe Scarface was a little over-the-top, but I enjoyed it. To me, it will always be a classic. So how did Body Double compare to those movies? Let’s put it this way: After watching it, I was reminded that DePalma has also been involved in a number of genuine stinkbombs. To that list, I (not so) proudly add Body Double.

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie had some impressive imagery at times, but overall it was downright awful.

Eek! Please, mommy, make the bad movie stop!

Okay, now that my inner child has said what it wanted to say, let me start out by talking about the director of this cinematic train wreck, Tarsem Singh. According to IMDB, he hasn’t had much of a feature film career since directing The Cell, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has seen it. I’m sure Singh did a great job with the commercials and music videos that defined his early career, but as a feature film director, he created a real mess. I must admit, the imagery in The Cell is very impressive, but that’s only one of many components required for a movie to truly hit it out of the park. I have always found Jennifer Lopez underwhelming as an actress, but here she seems nearly comatose. Vince Vaughn did such a great job in Swingers, but you wouldn’t know it by watching this movie. He’s positively slumming it here. I was absolutely floored when I read that Roger Ebert thought this was one of the best movies of 2000. Did he see another movie called The Cell that I didn’t hear about?

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Clerks II can only possibly be enjoyed by hardcore fans of the original. It was like digging through a huge pile of cow dung to get to a very small pearl at the bottom.

Since I don’t generally write objective reviews, here’s what you need to know before you read this:

1. When the original Clerks first came out, I kind of enjoyed it in a looking-at-bugs-in-a-jar kind of way.
2. I was raised in New Jersey.
3. I am more than 10 years older than the main characters in the movie.

Got all that? Good. For the most part, Clerks II was excruciatingly vile. I almost got up and walked out more than once, but made myself stay seated because first, I can’t write a review of a film I haven’t seen all the way through, and also due to morbid curiosity of where it would end up.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Oh my God, this movie actually made a profit?

Ok, so I’m late to the party reviewing Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. I certainly wasn’t going to pay good money to see it, and I didn’t even want it to soil my Netflix queue, but when I stumbled across it in upcoming movies on my satellite box, I figured I’d Tivo it for when I was particularly bored.

So where do I begin? Perhaps with a call to my lawyer so that I can sue for emotional damage incurred by having sat through the entire movie.

This wasn’t just bad, it was B-A-D. Actually it was bad enough to cross over into the hallowed ground of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you want to see this movie, buy a case of beer, invite a bunch of buddies over, send the wives out for the evening and let the exclamations of amazement begin.

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie took an intriguing idea and ran it straight into the ground with a weak script and lousy direction. The clichés are so pervasive that it’s sometimes hard to believe this movie was meant to be taken seriously. The heroic efforts of our firefighters deserve a much better showcase than this crapfest.

After seeing this movie, I decided to go back and look at the filmography of Joaquin Phoenix. I wanted to pinpoint the last time I thought he played a role effectively in a movie. As it turned out, the movie was To Die For, released in 1995. Granted, I haven’t seen every movie in which he has starred since 1995, but it seems to me that his best performances are smaller roles that have top-notch directors presiding over them. As his Hollywood star grows ever bigger and his roles increase in size, I don’t find the quality of his performances growing with them. If anything, it’s the opposite. After seeing The Village last year, I thought he had hit a new low, but sadly, his performance in Ladder 49 was even worse.

Even though John Travolta is featured prominently in most of the poster and TV ads for the movie, the vast majority of it focuses on Jack Morrison (played by Joaquin Phoenix). Set in present-day Baltimore, Maryland, the movie starts out with Jack trying to rescue a victim from a burning building, when the floor collapses under him and he falls into the building. The rest of the movie consists of flashbacks of Jack’s life throughout the past 10 years, interspersed with some scenes in the present time where Jack’s colleagues are trying to find him and get him out of the building. At first, I liked the idea of doing flashbacks because it could help the audience really learn who the characters are. The problem is that director Jay Russell does a lousy job of tying those scenes into the overall story. It seemed like most of the flashback scenes were meant to emphasize the bond between the firefighters rather than develop characters, but even those scenes weren’t done very well. How many scenes do we need to see with the firefighters getting drunk in a pub or playing pranks on each other? Okay, they’re bestest buddy pals; we get it. It’s hard to believe this movie was written by Lewis Colick, the same guy who wrote the screenplay for the excellent October Sky.