BAD MOMS [2016]

Every now and then Hollywood's dime-a-dozen lazily written raunchy comedies actually manage to belt out a few good laughs.  Jon Lucas & Scott Moore's Bad Moms is one of them...sort of.
It's about three overly stressed-out mothers that decide to brush-off their long list of duties in retaliation against the group of stick-up their asses mothers that rule the PTAs.
There really isn't anything I can say about these type of films that hasn't been said before.  You either take it for the lowbrow flick that it is with it's cheap laughs and calculated heart-warming schmatlz only to brush it off with ease.  Or leave it because clearly there's a list of thousands of better things you could be doing with your life.  I for one enjoyed it for what it was, although I'm obviously not the target audience (even if weird juices are squirting out of my nipples at the moment) but I won't be rushing out to see this ever again.

2½ foreskin hoodies out of 5

MOVIE 43 [2013]

Producer Charlie Wessler gathers together a band of embarrassed directors, including Peter Farrelly, James Gunn, Griffin Dunne, Brett Ratner and many more for his sketch comedy anthology Movie 43.  Depending on what country you're in will depend on what plot you'll get threading all the sketches together...for once, the U.S. cut is the best one.
It's basically a gaggle of juvenile humored sketches that constantly try to outdo each other in jokes about bodily fluids, sex, periods, incest and various forms of racism and sexism.  It's amazingly disgusting, vile and void of any sort of class.  With that being said, it's quite often just as funny as it is ridiculously stupid.  It's notoriously known as one of the worst films of all time but I wouldn't go that far.  I figure more was expected of it considering the huge cast of well-known actors involved, many of whom tried to unsuccessfully back out.

2 shitty car accidents out of 5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Yet another raunchy Apatow production, this time written by and starring Freaks and Geeks alumnus Jason Segel. Drawn from personal bad break-up experience, his story follows Peter (Segel) as he attempts to escape his split with the beautiful Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), only to end up at the same Hawaiian resort as her and the new boyfriend (Russell Brand). In his directorial debut, former Undeclared writer Nicholas Stoller doesn't stray too far from the Apatow formula with copious amounts of improvisation and maddeningly awkward moments. The editing starts off promising with cuts happening concisely at the climax of each scene, but it quickly degrades into lingering shots of drawn-out ad-libs. While completely entertaining with many quirky characters and imaginative set-ups, it never really produced a particularly unexpected or side-splitting laugh in me.

3 rock operas about Dracula out of 5

Veronica Mars (2014)

Born of a Kickstarter campaign, Veronica Mars is the titular character in a popular series of the same name about a teenage pariah P.I. who lives in the celebrity wastelands of Neptune, California. Just like I attempted to do there, the film begins with a recap of the series' events for newcomers but this film was handcrafted for the fans. A mountain of in-jokes and references encompass the script leaving the average viewer in the dark. As an all-grown-up Veronica (Kristen Bell) makes a return to help out a past love, every supporting character from the show pops up for nostalgic purpose. Creator/director Rob Thomas brings back such staples as ADR inner monologues, technology savvy P.I. work and plenty of Veronica's sharp-witted tongue. The plot fits right in with the show but for a big movie return it falls flat. As a VM devotee I was pleased with the fan service but anyone else will find this one lacking.

3 set-ups for a sequel out of 5

FROZEN [2013]

Disney loosely adapts Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen for it's 53rd animated film, Frozen.
It goes without saying that it's visually astounding, the voice acting is energetically entertaining and several of the songs are very likeable.
However it lacks in a well-fleshed out story, that makes it very apparent that Disney tried to bury many of the darker undertones and conflicts of the characters underneath a heavy helping of animated glee.  The lack of a memorable villain hurts the impact of the tale as well and in that makes for a boring finale that leaves much to be desired when all is said and done.
Criticism aside, it's a perfectly fine film for the kids and I would gladly watch it again in the company of my niece and nephew.

3 trading posts...and saunas out of 5

FANBOYS [2009]

It's the year 1998 and a group of Star Wars nerds decide to steal a workprint of The Phantom Menace for their terminally ill friend.  

Kyle Newman's Fanboys had potential to be stupidly funny but instead the studio interfered, hacked it up, failed and then tried to put it back together again resulting in something resembling Womp Rat crap.  Signs of life shine through the mess but never enough to produce anything wonderful.  Star Wars fans will get a few chuckles out of the in-jokes and gaggle of cameos from Star Wars alumni & celebrity fans but the rest is just simply not funny.  A real waste of a funny premise.

2 two-timing Shatners out of 5

SCRE4M [2011]

After getting over the initial disappointment of not living up to the first Scream, like the cast & crew interviews kept on promising it would, I found the fourth installment of the popular Wes Craven slasher flick franchise to be an entertaining ride upon a second viewing.
While not meeting it's full potential, it is light years better than the third one and just trailing in behind the first two films. It never makes full use of the killer using the updated technology to his advantage, like he would have in the original films or really acknowledging the huge change in horror cinema since the last one came out over 10 years ago. There are a few moments of using blogs, webcams, phone apps and poking fun at remakes, reboots and torture porn but not as much as it could have been and that was a little disappointing. The new cast was a hoot to watch, although some were painfully underused or killed off too early. With the hugest body count so far in the series, slasher flick fans and gorehounds won't be disappointed.
It's still fun and I hope the next two patch up the mistakes this one made.

3 Robert Rodriguez "cameos" out of 5