The Final Destination

AN AWFUL WEEK IN MOVIES

In Theaters

• Big Fan: Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? No one knows for sure because even fewer people have seen it, but word is that it's great and former Onion editor-in-chief Robert D. Siegel (who also wrote The Wrestler) knows how to make an insightful sports comedy/drama/whatever the hell this is. Limited release.
• Halloween II gets mixed reviews from fans and bad reviews from critics. Slasher fans in Cinema Discusso admitted that Zombie can really shoot an action scene but felt the plot was lackluster and confused.
• Taking Woodstock digs deep into our cultural history to find that people did drugs and listened to music in the 1960s. Critics are not impressed. Ang Lee looks on with feigned bemusement. (See photo.)
  

On Video

• Adventureland digs deep into our cultural history to find that teens did drugs and listened to music in the 1980s. Critics are impressed. Audiences are more impressed. Someone wrote a longish missive about how it's a perfect allegory for class war. Even Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com likes it and he doesn't like anything unless it's Russian and boring. Miramax releases it in an unrated version, which surely means a couple more F-words and a half-second of titty.
• Duplicity is a "romantic comedy/thriller" in which Julia Roberts and Clive Owen clone themselves to escort the last baby on earth to safety or some such nonsense. Roberts is a prostitute, but Owen doesn't kill anyone with a carrot. No one was very impressed, but it was pleasant enough.
• Earf is a documentary about glaciers (they don't really move) and polar bears having sex (they don't really move), narrated by Darth Vader. Seriously, does anyone watch this shit?
• Fighting is the rare PG-13 kung fu movie that critics liked but audiences didn't...maybe because the acting's better than the choreography. Comes in unrated flavor, which is like turning off the no-blood option in Mortal Kombat. Speaking of which, where's our Mortal Kombat Blu-Ray?
• The Informers sucked. Everyone agreed it sucked because there's no vampire, and if there's a reason any of us watch adaptations of Bret Easton Ellis novels, it's for the hot, hot vampire action. No unrated release because the sex scenes are monumentally depressing anyway and, without vampires, there's no violence to speak of. Stay far, far away
• Rudo y Cursi comes to us from Spain, courtesy of Alfonso Cuarón's younger brother, Carlos. And, hey, it's supposed to be good! Good luck finding it at your local video store...they don't like them movies you have to read down there.
• Mexican thriller Sin Nombre (translation: Trains, Gangs and Initiations) is supposed to be The Wire of immigration sagas, but Americans wouldn't know because we don't read subtitles!
• State of Play is like Duplicity's darker, slightly loopier cousin...you know, the one who wears tinfoil and checks nightly for probes. Everyone thought this cousin was slightly sexier and definitely more intelligent even if he never takes off that stupid hoodie.
• For those of us who live in a town too small to screen Big Fan there's Sugar, another excellent sports drama. This one, however, stars Patton Oswalt as Dominican baseball star Miguel "Sugar" Santos. We at Something Awful are impressed by Oswalt's newfound diversity!
• Sunshine Cleaning wanted so badly to be Little Miss Sunshine. It has dark comedy, a fucked-up family and Alan Arkin. "What more could audiences want? A heart? A brain? The courage to do something different? Pffft, none of the above. Here's this year's standard-issue quirky comedy, emo kids; eat it like tofu." Shut up and give us another Juno.

That's it for this week. Check in next week, when we'll review Gamer and tell you what else is worth seeing! Seriously, stay away from The Informers.

– Ian "ProfessorClumsy" Maddison