Movies

The current cinema, "you guys are gonna kill me" edition

By April 6, 2011No Comments

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There’s no point in beat­ing around the bush about it: I did­n’t hate Your Highness and I did­n’t hate the remake of Arthur, either. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not crazy about either film—I give each one a rat­ing of two and a half stars out of five, which is about as mezzo-mezzo, lit­er­ally, as you can get—but frankly I don’t under­stand the raging hos­til­ity that the two pic­tures are eli­cit­ing in cer­tain circles. My rationales are avail­able in my reviews of the films for MSN Movies; Arthur is dis­cussed here, and Your Highness, from which the delight­ful above image of the 2011 Academy Award win­ner for Best Performance By An Actress in a Leading Role is derived, is con­sidered here.

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No Comments

  • Jake says:
    April 6, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    Sure loved com­ing across this page in front people star­ing at my monitor.

  • rotch says:
    April 6, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    I trust your taste in com­edy above oth­er genres, so your Your Highness review just killed my ‘high’ hopes.

  • Glenn Kenny says:
    April 6, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    Rotch, you might con­sider it worth it simply for the Wise Wizard sequence, which is jaw-droppingly creepy and dumb but which did make me lose my “shit.”

  • christian says:
    April 6, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    If any of the moments in the ARTHUR trail­er are actu­ally in the movie, it’s an epic fail.

  • Jeff McMahon says:
    April 7, 2011 at 4:39 am

    Obviously I haven’t seen either, but the hos­til­ity towards Your Highness seems oddly intense, espe­cially for a movie that’s clearly in the ‘goofy/slacker’ vari­ety and does­n’t fea­ture Adam Sandler, Kevin James, or any­one in a fat suit. In fact, this kind of unusu­al hos­til­ity makes me think I’m going to like the movie more.

  • Lex says:
    April 7, 2011 at 5:37 am

    LOOK AT HER.
    BONER.

  • norm depalma says:
    April 7, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    The reas­on for the almost uni­ver­sal hos­til­ity is prob­ably the Danny McBride ubi­quity issue: namely, audi­ences feel like they are being forcefed 3 or so movies a year cen­ter­ing around a mar­gin­ally tal­en­ted and unat­tract­ive man/child who’s sole shtick seems to be play­ing vari­ations of a dumb hick.

  • jbryant says:
    April 7, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    Norm, if that’s the case, it’s a shame. But I’m not so sure that “audi­ences” are find­ing him over­ex­posed (and since the film does­n’t even come out until tomor­row, I’m not sure how we can factor audi­ence opin­ion into the sup­posed hos­til­ity). For one thing, McBride has been at the “cen­ter” of only a couple of films: THE FOOT FIST WAY and YOUR HIGHNESS, and maybe we could count his large second banana role in LAND OF THE LOST. Everything else has been sup­port­ing (e.g., PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, UP IN THE AIR) or cameo (e.g., OBSERVE & REPORT, SUPERBAD) except of course for the star­ring role in his HBO series EASTBOUND & DOWN. I think the closest thing to a pop­u­lar hit there is PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, which grossed with­in shout­ing dis­tance of $90 mil­lion domest­ic, though I’m sure DVD, cable and oth­er ven­ues have exposed him more broadly.
    I will buy that many crit­ics find him over­ex­posed, espe­cially if they don’t like his style of humor. Maybe that’s what you meant when you said “audi­ences” anyway.
    At any rate, I’ve seen most of his stuff and think he’s great, espe­cially in his lead­ing roles (most of which he had a hand in writ­ing), so I’ll prob­ably give YH a chance.

  • Brian Dauth says:
    April 7, 2011 at 11:05 pm

    For those need­ing an altern­at­ive to YOUR HIGHNESS and ARTHUR, I sug­gest Joao Pedro Rodrigues’ TO DIE LIKE A MAN (at IFC in NYC and hope­fully oth­er ven­ues). One of the most sub­lime films I have seen in the last five years. Rodrigues’ films are capa­cious and emo­tion­al without being assault­ive or hostile.

  • That Fuzzy Bastard says:
    April 8, 2011 at 12:21 am

    That met­al thong… All I can think of is this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/12/3/

  • Oliver_C says:
    April 8, 2011 at 4:37 am

    Still, you have to admit that artist Frank Thorne, in the ‘Red Sonja’ com­ics, man­aged to sell her whole ‘chain­mail bikini’ thing pretty damn well.