Friday, March 26, 2010

Weekend Box-Office Report

Readers, Hot Tub Time Machine opens today and Chip hasn't been this excited about a movie since Jackass II. Reviews so far are...better than one has any right to expect.

The AV Club, while awarding the film a so-so C+, nonetheless champions the "undercurrent of wistful melancholy" inherent to all time-travel films and even to one "as scatological and silly as Hot Tub Time Machine." Ultimately, however, AV Club says the film's "authentically ’80s-style casual sexism, gay panic, and frat-comedy clichés" prove less than satisfying.

Chip: "I think it will be nice to see a bit of old-fashioned 'casual sexism' and 'gay panic' instead of a modern bromance where I'm constantly nervous that the male leads may actually end up fucking each other."

The NY-Times offers a much more positive take on the film:

"Hot Tub Time Machine” is the poignant story of three men, adrift in their 40s, who try to recapture the lost joys and squandered possibilities of their youth. I’m not entirely joking, though the movie itself is a nonstop barrage — somewhere between a riot and an orgy — of crude, obnoxious gags and riffs...The cultural detritus piled up everywhere, to be recycled, cherished, mocked and travestied, provides small — but nonetheless real — compensation for the spiritual deficits of modern life."

Richard: "I'm going to pretend that that last sentence was from an NY-Times review of this blog."

3 comments:

Capt. Chanute said...

It we rearrange the words from today's blog, we might encounter the combination: scatological detritus. Which is layman's terms means poop fragments. Nice.

word jumble said...

New band name: Scatological Detritus.

First album: Shit Sandwich (and, yes, that's a Spinal Tap reference, kids!).

Capt. Chanute said...

Second album and first single off of said album: Diarrhea Milkshake.

(I'll buy a beer for anyone that can place that reference...)