As is the case with nearly every film he’s made since he stopped giving a fuck about his integrity, your capacity to sit through the madcappish holiday extravaganza of Fred Claus can likely be extrapolated from your answer to the following question: Are you totally sick Vince Vaughn yet? It’s no big secret that for […]
Zac Pennington
Posted inMovies & TV
The Senior Discount
Dan in Real Life Waters it Down
Exactly how much goodwill does Steve Carell think he’s floating on? Following up a small series of unlikely successes (The Office, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine) with the disastrous succession of Evan Almighty and this modest, middle-of-the-road trip called Dan in Real Life, Carell (and, presumably, his overzealous agent) seems to have all too […]
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Reality Bites
Ethan Hawke Gets Real in The Hottest State
So this is what Ethan Hawke’s brain looks like. Diving deeper than anyone would ever dare to go before, The Hottest State provides what is sure to be the clearest window we’re ever been offered into ol’ Slackass’ dreamy psyche—a film based on Hawke’s semi-autobiographical debut novel of the same name, adapted for the screen […]
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I’m Staying Home
Renaissance Douche
Ethan Hawke. As much as his name already produces eye rolls and heavy sighs, I think it might be a valuable exercise to briefly reaffirm just what it is about Ethan Hawke that we all know and hate—those familiar qualities that so powerfully personify his innate douchebag-dom. And what better time to reflect than with […]
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Please Don’t Hate Me!
I Really Tried To Like Balls Of Fury
Six or so months ago, the Mercury published a brief tirade of mine—timed to correspond with the then-impending release of Reno 911!: Miami—entitled “The Lennon/Garant Walk of Shame.” Its contents recounted an array of terrible films (Herbie: Fully Loaded, Night At The Museum, etc.) whose final drafts had been quietly credited to the writing team […]
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A Cozy Time
Lars von Trier Apologizes, Jokes Around
It’s with an almost blushing apology that writer/director Lars von Trier voices the introductory narrative to his latest film, The Boss of it All: “Trust me, this film won’t be worth a moment’s reflection. It’s a comedy, and harmless as such. No preaching or swaying of opinion. Just a cozy time.” You read that right—having taken […]
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Wain’s 7 1/2
Not Exactly The Ten
First, the good news: For those fans among you who, like me, have been fully dreading the shit-acular movie its trailer portends, this is your cue to exhale—The Ten is actually pretty good. Keeping his record largely clean of the faux pas that have recently marred the good names of his regular collaborators (see: Reno […]
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Cooler Than Hong Kong Phooey
Why Even Bother with Underdog?
Can you believe that they actually made a Silver Surfer movie? Sure, they had to gift-wrap the dude as part of the already frail Fantastic Four franchise, but still—can you think of a less marketable superhero? I mean, fuck Aquaman—the Silver Surfer is certifiably the lamest superhero to ever tarnish cheap pulp pages. Which just […]
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Lindsay Gets Punk’d
Or, I Know What Killed My Career
As one of the names populating the very lowliest depths of the Mercury‘s critical roll call, it goes without saying that I’ve been forced to sit through my fair share of terrible cinema. With this in mind, it is only with great reluctance and deliberation that I venture to speak in definitive extremes like “this […]
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Artfully Untidy
The Ghosts of Jindabyne
Ghosts haunt nearly every scene of Australian director Ray Lawrence’s Jindabyne. I suppose that it’s to be expected from a film with a fair amount of death (death addressed directly and death merely alluded to), a lot of talk of spirits and celestial rest, and even the naked corpse of a young woman floating face […]
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I’m Staying Home
The Goateed Career of Simon Pegg
Though not entirely his fault, it’s people like Simon Pegg that help to make life so deeply unbearable for the rest of us. Britain’s less self-satisfied (and decade-late) response to Kevin Smith, the goateed, impossibly dorky Pegg offers just the sort of gleaming encouragement that self-satisfied, goateed, and impossibly dorky douchebags around the globe don’t […]
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I’m Staying Home
Ice, Cubed
The potential career avenues that stand before the aging rap star are unquestionably bleak. When faced with the notion of an endlessly improbable comeback album or a gig in reality television, it makes sense for an emcee to volley that golden charisma into a career on the silver screen—and none have traversed the extreme peaks […]