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| EFC STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
32758 |
| Total Ratings: |
249782 |
| Total Reviews: |
28833 |
![[202003229 Hits]](/cgi-bin/gd.cgi?202003229)
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| HOT WATER (2021) |
"Really (Not) Hot And Awfully (Not) Wet"
Erik Childress says... "Trying to recreate the moment in time when the creative minds behind the National Lampoon took their anti-establishment humor into the movies is a daunting task. The style of that humor has evolved, not to mention society which funnels every archaic joke through a modern perspective that can now register as problematic. The next thankless task is to just say screw it and try to mirror the kind of softcare Hardbodies genre that would gain play from horny teenagers on late night cable. Even if the message was still the same, behavior got dumber and clothing became more optional. Cinemax does not even run those sort of movies anymore so the only thing left for filmmakers is to either copy a bygone era or satirize it. Larry Rippenkroeger’s Hot Water has all of the ingredients to pick either of those lanes but somehow is asking its horned-up, summer-lovin’ beach body wanting audience to supposed to kinda sorta take it…seriously?" (more)
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| TRANSFERENCE: A LOVE STORY |
"The Heart Wants What The Heart(less) Wants?"
Erik Childress says... "Sex and love are so often confused in everyday courtship that any attempt to put a definition on them is usually the catalyst to neither existing in the future of a relationship. One can certainly turn into the other – from both directions – that the fantasy of such a happy ending through various definitions is what has us reaching for the simplicity of a movie romance. Raffaello Degruttola’s Transference starts off on the uneasy path between the two and does not make things much easier, but after a promising start also has trouble defining its two lovers in the high stakes world of emotional acceptance." (more)
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| THUNDER FORCE |
"The Blah Falcone"
Peter Sobczynski says... "My guess is that the pitch meeting for “Thunder Force” consisted entirely of writer-director Ben Falcone walking into Netflix headquarters, uttering the magic words “Melissa McCarthy is a superhero” and walked out with the requisite number of wheelbarrows filled with cash needed to bring it to fruition. As premises go, that one is not too bad but it quickly becomes apparent that nobody involved ever bothered to develop that premise in potentially interesting and funny ways, assuming that the sight of McCarthy and co-star Octavia Spencer wreaking comedic havoc with their powers to satisfy viewers. That works for a few minutes, to be charitable about it, but the whole thing just grows increasingly silly and tiresome as it goes on. To make matters even more frustrating, it does hit upon a potentially ingenious conceit—one that could have easily fueled an entire film on its own—but then kind of squanders it on only a couple of scenes (albeit the best ones) before retreating to the nonsense." (more)
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| VOYAGERS |
"Lord Of The Lasercats"
Peter Sobczynski says... "As “Voyagers” opens, it is the not-too-distant future and mankind has inevitably screwed the pooch, ecologically speaking, and extinction is imminent. Borrowing a page from the likes of “The Midnight Sky” and “Breach,” a plan is developed to send a group of people on a voyage to an inhabitable planet in deep space so that humanity can continue to live. Since the journey to the planet will take 86 years, the plan is to raise 30 genetically designed kids from birth in a lab setting and send them on a mission that will end up being completed by their grandchildren—the theory is that since they have never known what normal life is like, they are less likely to succumb to the loneliness and isolation of such a trip." (more)
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| FRENCH EXIT |
"Michelle Pfeiffer being acerbic is as spectacular as Kong vs. Godzilla."
Lybarger says... "There’s not much of a plotline in this new adaptation of Patrick DeWitt’s novel. You don’t need one if you have Michelle Pfeiffer expertly delivering the author’s verbal barbs." (more)
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| GODZILLA VS. KONG |
"Now Now, You Two—Use Your Indecipherable Grunts!"
Peter Sobczynski says... "When King Kong and Godzilla (I presume that no further introduction is required) first faced off in the 1962 film “King Kong vs. Godzilla,” the stakes were sufficiently low enough at the time—it only marked Godzilla’s first screen appearance since 1955’s “Godzilla Raids Again” and Kong had not been seen at all since his 1933 debut—that it didn’t really matter which one of the two creature features favorites triumphed since it was so obviously a one-off meeting with no discernible future. In fact, the actual outcome was of so little consequence to the film as a whole that the single most memorable thing about it beyond its title was the urban legend that sprang up around it that claimed that two different endings were filmed—U.S. audiences got the one where Kong triumphed while Japanese viewers saw their hometown hero victorious. (Although there were two different versions of the film—there was a version for the U.S. market with scenes featuring American actors cut into the proceedings a la the original “Godzilla” but both ended on the same note with Kong seemingly walking away victorious with the suggestion that Godzilla would rise again to fight another day.)" (more)
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| THIS IS NOT A WAR STORY |
"Getting Left Behind At Home"
Erik Childress says... "“I mean, it's not just the uniform. It's the stories that you tell. So much fun and imagination.” It’s great that a film like Stripes exists to add some laughter about an institution both hoisted and demonized throughout history. Though that film meant to take shots at the hierarchy and establishment, there are many men and women who put on that uniform who cannot bring themselves to tell their own story of service, let alone describe it to us as fun. The irony of those who choose to call it not a “war” but “an occupation” thickens when you consider the recruitment ads referring to it as not just a job, but an adventure. Since the dawn of the motion picture, filmmakers have been trying to capture the experience of combat and the shrapnel of once coordinated stability seemingly provided by their armed force once they make it back home. Few have done it with as much harrowing grace as Talia Lugacy does here." (more)
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| COMING 2 AMERICA |
"Return of the king."
Rob Gonsalves says... "'Coming 2 America' may as well be titled 'Coming 2 Zamunda,' since the movie spends most of its time in that fictional African country." (more)
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'THOSE RICH FUCKS! THIS WHOLE FUCKING THING... I DID NOT WATCH MY BUDDIES DIE FACE DOWN IN THE MUCK SO THAT THIS FUCKING STRUMPET--'
- Walter, The Big Lebowski
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