Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

Author: coolpapae

  • About Time: Most Charming and Clever

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    About Time – 2013 Written and Directed by Richard Curtis Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie, Lydia Wilson, Richard Cordery Meetings in romantic comedies are hard to do well.  So many of them giver the appearance of cleverness, but instead have been used so many times they have worn a path on the brain of the…

  • 2013 in review

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    The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 66,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people…

  • Cool Papa E’s Favorite Comedy Films of All Time

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    Live action comedy films are inexpensive to make but they are incredibly hard to master.  It’s a generally accepted axiom that there is no generally accepted axiom as to what is universally funny.  That said, most makers of comedy barely even try.  Whether it’s the rancid Scary Movie franchise, Tim Matheson’s  Animal House / Meatballs…

  • The Purge: If everything was just so…

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    The Purge – 2013 Written & Directed by James DeMonaco Starring Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield, Tony Oller, Arija Bareikis Dystopian stories are often made with some political point in mind.  The author generally feels that we have valued something in society that not only could cause our destruction, but will be overlooked to the point of…

  • Insidious, Chapter 2: I’m a boy…

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    Insidious Chapter 2 – 2013 Director James Wan Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Ty Simpkins, Barbara Hershey, Steve Coulter, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Danielle Bisutti, Tom Fitzpatrick Screenplay Whannell Insidious Chapter 2 is one of the rare sequels that makes the original better.  The thing about the first chapter is that there were so many questions at the end of…

  • White House Down: Because White House Up is too heavy

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    White House Down – 2013 Director Roland Emmerich Starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, James Woods, Joey King Screenplay James Vanderbilt Rule 604: Kids are convenient vehicles for jingoistic propaganda.  Make it look like they still believe. Rule 606: It also helps if the president looks at the capital scene with wide-eyed wonder. Rule 607: Throwing out snippets…

  • We’re The Millers: We’ve all seen a Dick

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    We’re The Millers – 2013 Director Rawson Marshall Thurber Starring Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Ed Helms, Luis Guzman, Molly Quinn Screenplay Bob Fisher, Steve Faber, Sean Anders, John Morris The iron of having a weed dealer go down to Mexico to pick up “…enough weed to kill Willie…Nelson…” and haul…

  • The Internship: …and we learned so much about ourselves going to the nudie bar

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    The Internship -2013 Director Shawn Levy Starring Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Max Minghella, Joanna Garcia, Josh Brener, John Goodman, Dylan O’Brien, Tiya Sircar, Jessica Szohr, Aasif Mandvi, Josh Gad Screenplay by Vaughn and Jared Stern The Internship plays like a mixture of the worst elements of every college film ever made.  This time the college is the coolest place to work in the world.…

  • Planes is straight arrow

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    Planes – 2013 Director Klay Hall Starring Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Priyanka Chopra, Brad Garrett, Cedric the Entertainer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Roger Craig Smith, John Cleese, Carlos Alazraqui, John Ratzenberger Screenplay Jeffrey M. Howard So Dusty Crophopper wants to be the fastest slug in the – er, wait.  That’s a different movie.  Not that much different, though.  Dane Cook gives us as generic performance as his…

  • Grown Ups 2: High Fiving White Guys…and Chris Rock

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    Grown Ups 2 – 2013 Director Denis Dugan Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello, Nick Swardson, Tim Meadows Screenplay Adam Sandler, Tim Herlihy, Fred Wolf It’s got Shaquille O’Neal, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Andy Samberg, Milo Ventimiglia, Taylor Lautner and Cheri Oteri.  It even has one of Schwarzenegger’s kids.  It even has Nick Swardson, doing what he does…