Jack Black

Tropic Thunder

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Tropic Thunder
  • IMDB: link

“I don’t read the script.  The script reads me.”

In an attempt to teach their spoiled stars a lesson the director (Steve Coogan) and author (Nick Nolte) of the new war film send the actors into the jungle where they encounter real danger and are forced to fight for their lives.

The platoon is led by action star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) whose career is on a downhill spiral.  His choices for roles outside his chosen genre (with his insane amount of sequels), such as a mentally-impaired farm hand called Simple Jack, have earned him scorn and tanked at the box office.

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Walk Hard

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
  • IMDb: link

“It ain’t easy to walk to the top of a mountain.  It’s a long hard walk, but I will walk hard.”

The collaboration between Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow is a perfect parody of recent overly serious and sentimental music biopics like Walk the Line and Ray which examine the entire life of an artist with all the skill and depth of a Behind the Music special.  The film follows Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly, who plays the character from the age of 14 to 71) who faces the tragic death of his brother to an unfortunate machete accident, the disapproval of his father (Raymond J. Barry), drugs, booze, and women, to become a legend.

Although it helps if you’ve seen the films this one parodies it’s not a necessity to get most of the jokes (though you will miss some of more subtle moments including specific shots and camera work).  Reilly is terrific in a role that let’s him prove just what a great dumbass he can play.  And, as he proved in A Prairie Home Companion (read that review), he can sing.  It’s a combination of the music and sharp unrelenting wit that transforms this film from the regular mass produced parodies like the Scary Movie franchises, and moves into the elite company with This Is Spinal Tap and Airplane.

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Why I Hate Weddings

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Margot at the Wedding
  • IMDb: link

You know I can handle a chick flick, but Margot at the Wedding is a chick flick on speed, (and not that good of one).

The film is centered on Margot (Nicole Kidman) an overbearing and smothering loudmouth who drags her child (Zane Pais) to her sister Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding, not to celebrate to to break it up and find some time cheat on her husband (John Turturro) to bone an old school chum (Ciarán Hinds).

Subplots of the film include the averageness of Pauline’s fiancé Malcolm (Jack Black), the cute and seductive neighborhood girl (Halley Feiffer), suggestions of child abuse and incest, and the increasingly odd and crazy argument with the neighbors over the fate of the family’s favorite tree.

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Balls of Fury Sure, but Where’s the Heart?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Balls of Fury
  • IMDb: link

“Ping-pong isn’t played for trophies; it’s played in dark alleys for hard cash and ugly women.”
 

Balls of Fury

Years ago Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) blew his chance at the 1988 Olympic Games.  Not a washed-up has-been and punchline Fogler is offered a chance by FBI Agent Ernie Rodriquez (George Lopez) to return to glory and avenge the death of his father (Robert Patrick) by entering a secret underground tournament held by the man responsible, the crime lord Feng (Christoper Walken).

The film is filled with predictable dumb and gross-out humor and cheesy cliched training scenes involving a blind ping-pong master (James Hong) and his sexy niece (Maggie Q).  And you know it’s not a comedy without a suppository joke and male sex slaves!  *Sigh*

The acting is okay, at times, and Fogler comes off as a poor man’s Jack Black.  Walken is back to his silly over-the-top performance he gives in films like these, and Maggie Q looks good in short-shorts and Aisha Tyler spends the movie in a leather dominatrix outfit.  Yes, pre-teen males are obviously the target audience here.

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Balls of Fury Sure, but Where’s the Heart? Read More »

Nacho Dynamite

/ / Movie Reviews

With Napolean Dynamite, director Joshua Hess did more than lift a name from Elvis Costello;  he made a cultural typhoon of catch phrases, t-shirts, and schwag.  With Nacho Libre, Hess dumbs down dumb to a near catatonic stupor that not even Jack Black can uplift.  Playing the titular Nacho, Black’s an unfocused whirlwind of smarm and energy, but his sad-sack character has nothing going for him, nor is there any reason to root for his orphaned friar-turned-luchador.  The secondary characters are just a collection of ‘look how weird they are’ cut-outs, and the laughs are few and far between. 

It’s a sad day when a film doesn’t even live up to the expectations set by the Nickolodeon Films logo, but that day has come.

Nacho Libre
1 Star

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