Like a scathing satire of the Soviet Union or a mockumentary musical on grunge, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone sets its eyes on an expired target of cultural derision nobody gives a fuzzy rabbit about anymore.
Warm is the ultimate ’tweener temperature. It’s not “hot” or “cold”; it rejects extreme or definitive categorization. It’s the thermometer equivalent of “meh.” So, it’s fitting that writer/director Jonathon Levine’s film sports the noncommittal word as the lead in its title. Warm Bodies is completely OK. It is resplendently fine. It is immeasurably pretty good. Sadly, it really hoped to be great.
A damning statistic, familiar to those with even a minor interest in the drug boondoggle, comes early in The House I Live In: “Since 1971, the War on Drugs has cost over $1 trillion and resulted in more than 45 million arrests. During that time, illegal drug use has remained unchanged.”
Like Frankenstein’s monster or fans of Two Broke Girls, this film shouldn’t exist and definitely shouldn’t work. And yet, it does. Boy howdy, does it ever.
A virtuoso on the kit, Baker was an absolute mess of a man, running through and neglecting multiple wives and children as he compulsively tore through life.
Nothing brings back memories of Sean Penn’s history as a serial domestic abuser like watching him revel in a man being drawn-and-quartered by automobiles. What a weird choice to take a cheesy, scene-chewing, 1940s mob-boss role at this point in his career.
On some level, Allison Orr is either an idealist or a masochist. She has the audacity to believe that art can transform lives by allowing individuals to show their true selves to complete strangers by communicating through the common language of art.