Movies | ShowbizMonkeys.com

Review: Piranha 3D

Posted by Andrew Burns | Thursday, September 2, 2010 @ 9:27am

I know what you're thinking. This guy is giving a movie with man-eating fish as its main characters a 4 out of 5 star rating, and therefore must be an idiot and/or he doesn't know what he is talking about?

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Review: The Takers

Posted by Andrew Burns | Monday, August 30, 2010 @ 8:27pm

With a mediocre summer for movies almost over, I was looking for one last film with a good cast. Having a good cast can make a film better than its script, and it can also save a movie from poor material (ie. The Expendables). The Takers falls into the latter category, with a cast of mainly up-and-coming or younger actors. Personally, I'm a sucker for the heist genre, and having a stacked cast makes it easier to watch when I see holes in the story. Maybe it's because heist movies are so hard to pull off correctly and believably, that you just need a good team behind the premise to make it work.

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Review: The Switch

Posted by Andrew Burns | Tuesday, August 24, 2010 @ 12:48pm

Going into The Switch I was expecting a funny comedy with a few serious moments to keep the movie grounded. Instead, to my surprise, it was the other way around, being mostly a genuinely serious film. Being marketed as another summer comedy in all the trailers and TV spots, The Switch hopes to trick some moviegoers into buying a ticket. Having two former TV sitcom stars in Jennifer Aniston (Friends) and Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) as the leads does make promoting the movie that way an easy sell. Maybe it was my own fault setting up my own expectations higher for the movie by judging the trailer beforehand, but I think a lot of people may feel cheated, too.

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Review: The Expendables

Posted by Andrew Burns | Tuesday, August 17, 2010 @ 5:24pm

In need of a summer blockbuster that will put your brain on auto pilot for two hours, have some familiar faces, and put hair on your chest? Well then The Expendables will do the trick for you. This flick is jam-packed with past and present action superstars. I won't even go into their names or resumés because it will just take forever, so just watch the trailers or look at the poster if you've been living under a rock this summer. With testosterone being a key ingredient for any action movie, writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone invited only the manliest of men to be in his bloody action flick. Even the guys who were unable to be a main character, because of shooting schedules, still made time to squeeze in a cameo.

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Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Posted by Andrew Burns | Friday, August 13, 2010 @ 1:01pm

Get ready geeks, because this flick is bonkers! It’s utterly bonkers from start to finish, but in the best possible way. Going into this movie with no knowledge of the graphic novel series it’s based on, I had no expectations. Luckily, I did have a childhood filled with countless hours of Nintendo under my belt. What does that have to do with anything? It means this movie blew my mind and gave me the same feeling of satisfaction as when I saved my first princess with an overweight plumber. If you didn't get that reference or grow up in the 80s with a Nintendo, this film may not be for you. It’s geared towards today’s younger audience and those in their 20s still living with their folks.

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Review: The Other Guys

Posted by Andrew Burns | Sunday, August 8, 2010 @ 6:27pm

Going into yet another collaboration from Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay, I tried to keep an open mind about The Other Guys. Not being the biggest fan of either of their previous works, Step Brothers & Talladega Nights, I'll admit I was a bit skeptical this time around. However, I really liked it. Partly because of Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, but most of all because of Michael Keaton (maybe that's just me). So, if you aren't one of those die hard Will Ferrell fans, you still might enjoy this flick if you give it a chance.

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Review: Dinner for Schmucks

Posted by Andrew Burns | Thursday, July 29, 2010 @ 9:52pm

Since the name The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was taken, director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents) titled this summer’s hilarious comedy Dinner for Schmucks. It was inspired by a French film from the 90s called The Dinner Game. The film sets up like this: once a month, a company dinner is held where someone's 'plus one' is the dumbest person they can find, and they laugh at their expense. The one rule is the schmucks have to be told the dinner is for extraordinary people, not idiots. Sounds like a pretty hateful,depressing plot for a movie, eh? Actually, it’s quite the opposite. The film turns out to have enough heart, you don't even think about the plot in that way.

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Review: Cyrus

Posted by Elizabeth Hughes Belzil | Friday, July 2, 2010 @ 12:52pm

Despite a rough day at work and a line that stretched into the theater parking lot, I felt practically giddy as I waited to see Monday night’s screening of Cyrus. At last a break from the formulaic Hollywood drivel I normally review! For some time the indie scene has been abuzz with talk of the “mumblecore” movement and the Duplass Brothers in particular. Though I probably shouldn’t admit this, I’d never actually seen any of their other work. Unfortunately I’d missed Baghead at the Calgary International Film Festival a couple years back and hadn’t gotten around to renting either it or 2005’s, The Puffy Chair. Earlier this year I saw a preview of Cyrus, the brother’s first stab at more mainstream cinema, and had been eagerly awaiting it ever since. And so, with these high expectations, perhaps it was inevitable to leave the theater a trifle disappointed. There is a lot to like about the film--a great cast, some inspired writing, genuine characters--but nevertheless, I felt surprisingly under whelmed.

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Review: Sex And The City 2

Posted by Lawrence Lee | Sunday, June 27, 2010 @ 10:26pm

Back when Sex And The City was a series, it centered around relationships, and all the issues that could pertain to relationships. The point of view of relationships was seen through the perspective of four women, each one of them representing a specific archetype of the modern American middle-class woman. In the course of six years, these four women had to make important decisions, and ultimately had to make an effort to make their relationships work. When the series ended, the four main characters matured, and were able to bring their single lives to a closure, with what appeared to be permanent and positive relationships.

When the first movie was announced, it also meant that one or more of the characters had to somehow screw things up. With the second movie, predictably, something had to go wrong as well, to sabotage the characters' collective happiness. In the case of Sex And The City 2, to be fair, there were no extravagantly idiotic wound opening incidents such as backing out of a marriage at the last minute, or participating in an act of infidelity. Instead, the movie seems to avoid emphasizing relationships, and chooses to be more about a trip to the Middle East.

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Review: The Karate Kid

Posted by Elizabeth Hughes Belzil | Saturday, June 12, 2010 @ 1:15am

Some films are unnecessary to remake, others impossible. 1984’s The Karate Kid seems an apt example of the latter -- its charm largely attributable to nostalgic recollections of what, in the clarity of adulthood, is an irrefutably hokey premise. But somehow its legacy lives, partly due to our current love affair with kitsch. I still hear snippets of dialogue on street corners or crowded parties (“wax on, wax off” and “Daniel-san”) and I’ve seen at least a dozen hipsters sporting vintage style “Karate Kid” tees. Though I haven’t seen the original film in a good ten years, it never fully departed from my consciousness -- not because it is a good film, but because of its continuing resonance in pop-culture. Such a film -- a cult film in essence -- should not be tampered with by modern hands. Needless to say, my expectations for the remake, directed by the “auteur” behind last year’s cinema-cide, The Pink Panther 2, were abysmal at best.

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