REVIEW: The DUFF [2015]

“Can I have some peaches and pears?” CBS Films and Lionsgate are using an interesting approach to pitch The DUFF. Watching their first trailer made me check the calendar, wondering if I had somehow been transported back in time. Not only were they openly calling someone a Designated Ugly Fat Friend to her face as though it’s merely a fact worth noting, they were doing so to someone who isn’t close to being either pejorative. This atrocity set itself up to go the tired ugly duckling route, telling girls they…

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REVIEW: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day [2014]

“His pox is your gain” I’m a little disappointed I never read Judith Viorst‘s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day because it seems exactly the type of book I would have read as a child. If you’ve had the pleasure (it was published in 1972) and wonder how a feature length film could come from 32-pages that literally show nothing but their titular character having the worst luck ever on a very busy day, don’t be surprised when screenwriter Rob Lieber adds the tried and true…

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REVIEW: Blended [2014]

“And the mustache is rattled” When an overused gag showed up for the third of about five times during Blended‘s runtime, the twenty-something college dude chowing down on his mall food court dinner uttered to his buddy the telling phrase, “This movie’s off the hook”. Now while this is a stunning and apt commentary on the state of America’s appetite for easy physical humor, it turns from educational thesis into farce when I tell you it was this gentleman’s second time saying it. He pretty much epitomized the demographic Hollywood…

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