March 2013
1 post
March Netflix Recommendations!
Documentary
The Imposter is a surprisingly suspenseful documentary with a deadly twist! This film depicts how a French con man pulled off one of the most notorious impersonations in history, and somehow lived to tell about it. A must see for all fans of well-made documentaries and mind-exploding stories.
Television: Comedy
Bob’s Burgers is the cartoon comedy brain-child of Loren...
December 2012
1 post
This Is 40 (2012)
This is 40 is Judd Apatow’s fourth directed film (after The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Funny People) and is the “sort-of sequel” to Knocked Up. Well, actually, it’s more of a spin off that takes place years later since the main characters of Knocked Up are only just mentioned in the film and now it is their supporting characters Pete and Debbie (Paul Rudd,...
November 2012
4 posts
Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
From Walt Disney Animation Studios comes an animated comedy that’s fun for the whole family! Wreck-It Ralph takes place in an arcade game universe where video game characters roam free amongst Game Central Station after-hours. When Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) from the game Fix-It Felix, Jr. gets fed up with being the bad guy, he “goes Turbo” and jumps games in order to...
Argo (2012)
Ben Affleck returns to the directors chair for his third directed film Argo, following Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010), only this time there are no Boston accents. Argo, a thriller based on a 1980 covert operation in which former CIA agent Tony Mendez attempts to rescue six endangered Americans from Iran via Hollywood, stars Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and John Goodman. The...
Samsara (2011)
Director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson, who collaborated on 1992’s Baraka, bring their next documentary of a similar ilk, Samsara, to the big screen. The film was in production for five years, showcasing footage and images from 25 different countries, sending the reader on a narration-less journey to explore the advancements and flaws in human civilization. Without dialogue,...
The Comedy (2012)
Directed and co-written by Rick Alverson, The Comedy is a comedy-drama about a 35-year-old Brooklyn hipster named Swanson (Tim Heidecker) and his lack of concern for the wealth he will soon inherit from his fathers passing and his struggle with basic human interaction. Also featured in the film: Heidecker’s comedy partner Eric Wareheim, former LCD Soundsystem front-man James Murphy, and...
October 2012
7 posts
Halloween (1978)
EMP Note: To all Eric’s Movie Party readers, thank you for your continued support and movie nerd-dom. We couldn’t have done it without ya! For our 100th review, and in lieu of it being the spookiest day of the year <werewolf howling> I have decided to revisit an all-time favorite of mine, the original Halloween! Enjoy!
Halloween is an independent slasher/horror film...
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost return to the directors chair for the forth installment of the Paranormal Activity franchise: Paranormal Activity 4. Written by Zack Estrin, the film picks up several years after Paranormal Activity 2 and focuses on a family of four in Nevada who take it upon themselves to babysit a creepy neighborhood kid named Robbie (Brady Allen) when his mom has an unexplained...
Frankenweenie (2012)
Frankenweenie is a black and white 3D stop motion Frankenstein spoof directed by Tim Burton. The film is a remake of Burton’s 1984 short film with the same name about a young scientist named Victor Frankenstein who uses electricity to revive his dead dog Sparky. The comedy-horror was released by Walt Disney Pictures on October 5th.
Yes, it’s another Tim Burton remake, but luckily...
V/H/S (2012)
V/H/S is an anthology horror film composed of six found footage stories, each with a different director. The film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in January and can now be found on demand on iTunes and in a limited number of theaters around the country. Conceptually this is a clever anthology horror. The found footage style is no doubt overused these days but it does seem to be...
Winter's Bone (2010)
Winter’s Bone is an independent drama written and directed by Debra Granik and adapted from the 2006 novel with the same name by Daniel Woodrell. Set in the Ozarks, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence as seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly whose father’s absence has left her no choice but to take care of her two younger siblings and mentally ill mother by herself. When her meth-cooking...
Insidious (2012)
Insidious is an independent horror film written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan of the Saw franchise fame. The film focuses on a family of five who moves into a spooky old house. When Renai and Josh Lambert’s (Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson) son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) goes into an inexplicable coma, supernatural events begin to take place. Insidious was released on April 1, 2011.
...
The Master (2012)
Directed, written, and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood) The Master is a drama about Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), an alcoholic World War II vet suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and his drunken discovery of a religious movement known as The Cause led by Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Despite Dodd’s belief that he can help...
September 2012
10 posts
Submarine (2010)
British Comedy-drama Submarine is the directorial debut of Richard Ayoade. The film, also written by Ayoade who adapted it from the novel with the same name by Joe Dunthorne, is set in 1986 and stars Craig Robers as fifteen-year-old Oliver Tate and follows him as he attempts to rekindle his parents (Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor) relationship and lose his virginity before he turns sixteen. Oliver...
3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom (2012)
Directed by Jordan Roberts and starring Lizzy Caplan, Chris O’Dowd, and Charlie Hunnam, 3, 2, 1… Frankie Go Boom is a comedy about Frank Bartlett, a loner who has been ridiculed on film by his wannabe-director brother Bruce his whole life. When Bruce finally gets off of drugs and starts to turn his life around, he makes a sex tape of Frank and the daughter of a dangerous movie star...
Sleepwalk With Me (2012)
Based on his one-man off-Broadway show, Sleepwalk With Me was written by, directed by, and stars comedian Mike Birbiglia. The film is part autobiographical and part fictional and follows Birbiglia as he struggles to establish himself as a professional stand-up comedian while also dealing with family and relationship issues and the ignorance of his sleepwalking disorder which becomes...
Adaptation (2002)
Director Spike Jonze and screen writer Charlie Kaufman, who collaborated on Being John Malkovich, pair up a second time for the comedy-drama Adaptation, which stars Nicolas Cage as both Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald. In the film Kaufman struggles with his love life, the unexpected and unwanted arrival of his twin brother, and his obsession with finishing his new script, an...
Brick (2005)
Okay, you got me… I have a secret man-crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which is what prompted me to check out Rian Johnson’s directorial debut, a hard-boiled detective thriller titled Brick, which stars Gordon-Levitt as Brendan Frye, a California high school student who takes it upon himself to investigate the murder of his former girlfriend Emilie (Emily Kostich). The film’s...
The Possession (2012)
Boy, they really do slap “based on a true story” onto everything these days. And it’s so much more believable at the beginning of an exorcism movie… But I guess they had to do something to set The Possession apart from the bajillion other exorcism movies that all seem the same besides making the evil spirit Jewish and casting Hebrew reggae musician Matisyahu.
In this...
Saving Silverman (2001)
Directed by Dennis Dugan (Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy) Saving Silverman is a 2001 comedy starring Jason Biggs as Darren Silverman, whose controlling psychiatrist girlfriend Judith (Amanda Peet) has banned him from seeing his childhood friends Wayne and J.D. (Steve Zahn, Jack Black) with whom he has a Neil Diamond cover band called “Diamonds in the Rough” in which all three members play...
Lawless (2012)
Directed by John Hillcoat and adapted by Australian musician Nick Cave from the Matt Bondurant novel The Wettest County In The World, Lawless is a prohibition-era gangster film set in Virginia. Based on a true story, the film follows notorious bootleggers the Bondurant Brothers, whose operation and lives are threatened by the sudden arrival of Special Agent Charlie Rakes from Chicago. Lawless...
Bachelorette (2012)
Bachelorette is an independent comedy directed by Leslye Headland and produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, and Lizzy Caplan as three long-time friends who are shocked to find out that the friend they ridiculed and called “Pig-face” in high school (Rebel Wilson) is getting married. When the three bridesmaids travel to New York City...
Meatballs (1979)
Meatballs is a screwball comedy starring Bill Murray as Tripper, the head counselor at Camp Northstar, a low-end summer camp in Ontario. The film follows Tripper and his attempt to start a romance with female head counselor Roxanne (Kate Lynch), as well as his friendship with Rudy (Chris Makepeace), an 11-year-old camper with no other friends. The story builds up to the annual Olympiad between...
August 2012
11 posts
Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012)
On February 5th, 2011, not even a year after the release of LCD Soundsystem’s most successful record yet, “This Is Happening,” an announcement was made that they would be breaking up after one last show at Madison Square Garden on April 2nd, 2011. The result was one epic, four-hour, sold out show in the famous NYC arena. Shut Up and Play the Hits, a documentary film directed...
Premium Rush (2012)
Bicycle messenger Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) spends his days zipping around the busy streets of New York City on a single-gear bike with no breaks, however when he is assigned to carry an envelope, the contents of which crooked cop Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon) will do anything to get his hands on, Wilee has no choice but to “ride like hell.” Premium Rush is an action movie...
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Parodying 1980s teen comedies, Wet Hot American Summer is the first feature film directed by David Wain and co-written by Wain and Michael Showalter of MTV’s The State fame. The film has an impressive ensemble cast of comedic actors including Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Showalter, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Marguerite Moreau, Molly Shannon, Amy Poehler, A.D. Miles, Bradley...
Hit & Run (2012)
Dax Shepard and David Palmer return to the director’s chair for the Shepard-written car-chase comedy Hit & Run which stars Shepard as Charlie, an x-criminal getaway driver in the Witness Protection Program who chooses to leave the program and risk his life in order to get his girlfriend Annie (Kristen Bell) to LA for a potentially life-changing job interview. However when the two are...
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006)
Based on the original Showcase series Trailer Park Boys, a Canadian comedy about three criminals who reside in Sunnyvale Trailer Park in Nova Scotia, Trailer Park Boys: The Movie a.k.a. The Big Dirty was directed by Mike Clattenburg and features the same cast from the TV show. Although the film was released after the 6th and before the 7th and final season, it is not consistent with the series...
The Expendables 2 (2012)
Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Norris, Van Damme, Willis, Schwarzenegger… These names and more make up the epic but laughable ensemble cast of the sequel to 2010’s action extravaganza The Expendables, The Expendables 2. Directed by the director of The Mechanic and Con Air, Simon West, this film continues the story of the infamous mercenary group known as the Expendables. When...
The Campaign (2012)
The Campaign is a Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Dinner for Schmucks) directed comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. After long-term corrupt congressman Cam Brady (Ferrell) is caught having an affair, two wealthy and crooked businessmen known as the Motch brothers convince Marty Huggins (Galifianakis), the naive and kind-hearted son of a wealthy Motch brothers associate who believes...
Bernie (2011)
The creator of films such as Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and the Bad News Bears remake, Richard Linklater, returns to the directors chair for this dark comedic adaptation of a Texas Monthly magazine article by Skip Hollandsworth about Bernie (Jack Black), a mortician and beloved member of the Carthage, Texas community, who becomes the personal assistant of a cynical and wealthy elderly...
Freak Dance (2012)
The Matt Besser written musical comedy Freak Dance was released on DVD on July 10 of this year. The film was co-directed by Besser and Neil Mahoney and is based on an Upright Citizens Brigade stage show. Featuring past and present UCB members, Freak Dance tells the tale of Cocolonia (Megan Heyn), a teenager who is destined to dance despite her mother’s (Amy Poehler) belief that...
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Directed by Colin Trevorrow and written by Derek Connolly, Safety Not Guaranteed is an indie Comedy film set in Washington that tells the tale of Darius (Aubrey Plaza), an intern at a Seattle magazine who is sent on an assignment to investigate the poster of a classified ad about looking for a partner to time travel with who turns out to be an eccentric grocery store clerk named Kenneth (Mark...
The Watch (2012)
The Watch is the second film directed by Akiva Schaffer, known by most as 1/3 of The Lonely Island and for his 2007 directorial debut Hot Rod. The film is a Sci-Fi Comedy starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade as four goofballs who form a neighborhood watch group in an effort to solve a recent murder in their suburban town which turns out to be linked to an alien...
July 2012
11 posts
Tropic Thunder (2008): Alphabet Review!
All-star cast
Ben Stiller wrote, directed, produced and starred in
Controversial portrayal of mentally handicapped boy by Stiller is chuckle-inducing
Danny McBride blows stuff up
explosions galore!
Fake trailers in the beginning are really funny
Grossed $180 million in theaters
Hilarious at times, immature at others
Inconsistent
Jack Black is addicted to heroine
Kauai: the Hawaiian...
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Eight years after the events in The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne finally blows the dust off the ol’ Batsuit and once again attempts to protect Gotham from total destruction. This time by a masked terrorist known as Bane. Nolan returns to both the director’s and producer’s chair for this highly anticipated cinematic spectacle and the third and final installment of his trilogy...
The Dark Knight (2008)
Christopher Nolan returns to co-write, direct, and produce the sequel to his 2005 super-hero film Batman Begins. The film, titled The Dark Knight, continues the story of Batman (Christian Bale), the DC Comics super-hero who was introduced in the first film, and his attempt to stop a psychotic criminal known as the Joker (Heath Ledger) from destroying Gotham City. Both critically and...
Batman Begins (2005)
Rebooting the Batman film series, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer sought to create a darker, more realistic film that explains the superhero’s origins, titled Batman Begins. The film stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and also features Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Cillian Murphy, and illustrates how Batman transitioned into an...
Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008)
Filmmaker and former pro skateboarder Stacy Peralta broke away from such familiar topics as surfing and skating for his third documentary titled Crips and Bloods: Made in America which gives the viewer an inside look at the formation of the two legendary gangs through interviews with former and present gang members, historical narration, and archive footage. The film focuses on the social,...
Savages (2012)
When it comes to a filmmaker with such a successful body of work as Oliver Stone, it is pretty safe to assume that almost any of his films are worth seeing. However, that is not to say that the man has not made a couple of duds (*cough cough* Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps *cough*), but his films always seem to offer something that you won’t find anywhere else. And Savages is no...
Bottle Rocket (1996)
Bottle Rocket is a 1996 comedy film co-written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. The film marks the directorial debut of Anderson as well as the film debut of Luke and Owen Wilson. The brothers costar in this movie; Luke playing Anthony Adams, who recently “escaped” from a voluntary mental hospital, and Owen as Dignan, a goofball with a 75-year plan that involves pulling off several...
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Step aside Tobey, there’s a new Peter Parker in town.
The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot of the franchise based on the famous Marvel comics character and was directed by Marc Webb. This is Webb’s second directed film after 500 Days of Summer, a 2009 rom-com, and the goal was to focus more on the development of Peter Parker as a boy in a more in-depth and emotional light than Sam...
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Said to be one of the best remakes of all time, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a science fiction film directed by Philip Kaufman. The original from 1956 was based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. This story takes place in San Francisco and stars Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams. When the two begin to notice an increasing number of people acting strangely, as well as...
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Cheesy 80s pop songs, Molly Ringwald, and a wacky Asian exchange student who loves to party!
What do these things have in common? Absolutely nothing! Just kidding, all three of these things can be found in Sixteen Candles, a teen comedy written and directed by John Hughes. The film stars Ringwald as Samantha Baker, a high school sophomore whose family forgets her sixteenth birthday on a...
Ted (2012)
I am not a comedy snob, I just genuinely don’t understand the appeal of Family Guy. Though I do admit that I loved the first season and there was a time when I could quote every line from every episode in said season, but that time for me was also 8th grade… I do not intend to bash Seth MacFarlane’s sense of humor, it is just not my cup of chai tea with cinnamon. It just got...
June 2012
13 posts
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
What would you do if you knew that the world and everyone on it would be destroyed to oblvion by an asteroid in 21 days? Well I know that I can think of a few things I might do: start looting, join an angry mob and help them tip over cop cars, free all of the chimps at the zoo, eat a Double Down from KFC for every meal, get a face tattoo of the lyrics to “Don’t Stop Believing”...
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Q. What do you get when five high school students: a princess, a jock, a criminal, a brain, and a basket case are forced to spend eight hours together on a Saturday in the library of their suburban Chicago high school?
A. Some great laughs, awkward moments, and maybe even a few tears (if you’re a sissy), and most importantly another John Hughes classic…
We all have movies that we...
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
The good news: There is finally a movie about Honest Abe beating the crap out of vampires with an axe.
The bad news: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter takes itself too seriously and tries to meet a common ground between an action/fantasy and a historical thriller but fails. When all anyone wanted out of this movie was a comical slaughterfest between the 16th President of the United States and...
That's My Boy (2012)
When I was a preteen lad with boogers hanging from my nose and a smelly pair of skate shoes on my feet, there was nothing I enjoyed more than quoting some of my favorite Adam Sandler films with my chums. Billy Madison, Big Daddy, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy… Sweet white-chocolate Jesus those were the days. But I admit that the last legitimately funny Happy Madison production was...
Raising Arizona (1987)
Raising Arizona is the second feature film directed by the Coen Brothers. It stars Nicolas Cage as “Hi,” a full-time criminal and frequent visitor of the local jail where he meets his soon-to-be wife Edwina, played by Holly Hunter, who works there. When Hi and Edwina find out that they are incapable of having children, they steel one of Nathan Arizona’s (Trey Wilson) newborn...
