Miss Tex is back to talk about the best food at the State Fair of Texas this year.
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The Batman Pizza
Michael tries out the Batman pizza from Little Caesars. -
Drew Reviews: Bridge of Spies
Drew is back and with another review! This time, he takes on Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. Listen to the clip above or read his review below:Drew’s Rating: Ehhhhhh
Opened: 10/16
Box Office: $15M
Tomatometer: 92%
Rating: PG-13
Beginning / EndIt’s 1957 – NYPD agents acting on what was a “hot tip” bum rush the apartment of terminal bore and low caliber Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. Coincidentally, he happens to live at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, giving Spielberg an opportunity to showcase his second-rate symbolism and immediately try to legitimize the title for his film. Because it’s America and we wanted to create the illusion of a fair trial and fair representation, hotshot insurance attorney Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks) is on the case!
The film ends with an early AM prisoner exchange for downed U2 pilot Gary Powers on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, just as Rudolf Abel’s Wikipedia page will confirm as accurate. The film ends with a display of Spielberg’s paper thin attempt at 1960’s humor where Donovan’s family finds out on TV that dad wasn’t on a fishing trip in Scotland at all – he was a national hero! Boy had he put one over on them! As Dad is crashed out on the bed exhausted from his travels and international diplomacy, his wife looks on at him with quiet awe. That may be accurate for 1962 but we all know that this scene would have been more believable if she’d been calling him a lying SOB and threatening him with divorce. Ho hum.
Theater / Audience / 3D / Movie-Going Experience:
Sunday 10/18 3:30PM – AMC Northpark 15 – 2D
The film had a pretty good turnout and those strong people had the patience to hang around for one of Spielberg’s 2 hour and 15 minute snoozefests. The film tried to sprinkle in some humor to lighten the mood, and this crowd was desperate for a good laugh, but the best the film could provide was a light titter. If the humor in the film had been any more watered down, the actors would have been gargling their dialogue.Director:
Steven Spielberg – Where do I begin? Spielberg’s films are either long, terrible or long and terrible. Luckily, this is one that fell just into the long category. 25 years ago he made Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. When he realized that he’d made a legitimately great film, he swore that he would never make that mistake again. When he realized that Schindler’s List might end up being a great film, he remembered his pledge and made sure to absolutely tank the picture with sappy BS in the 11th hour. Bridge of Spies is just another stop on his seemingly never-ending train ride of abject mediocrity.
Plot / Story:
America’s most middle-of-the-road director sends Tom Hanks and a cadre of character actors to tell the tale of one of the not-that-interesting stories from the cold war. Lawyer meets client, lawyer defends client, lawyer manages to get client out of the death penalty, U2 spy plane crashes, Berlin Wall gets built, lawyer goes to Berlin in 1962 to negotiate prisoner exchange, lawyer works “twofer” deal to get another prisoner thrown in on Abel-for-Powers deal, lawyer and his dingbat wife celebrate over store-bought marmalade, THE END.
Script:The script varied wildly from character to character, with some exhibiting very pointed and intelligent dialogue and others spewing throwaway boilerplate tripe. There were enough well scripted roles, Hanks included, that they were almost able to save the film from perennial hack Spielberg.
Score:
Yes, this film has a score. And not one of those in-the-background scores that make sense for a long film of this nature. This is a score that has a penchant to relentlessly barge in – again and again through the course of the film. Will someone for the love of god please pull Spielberg aside and remind him that the golden age of film that he is merciless in his ongoing attempts to try to rip off is long over?
Cast / Acting:
Tom Hanks – James Donovan: Always watchable, and unquestionably one of the country’s finest and most beloved actors, Hanks delivered a solid B performance. Had he had further reach to mitigate the aspects of the film that Spielberg seemed dead set on watering down into oblivion, this review may be quite different. The story and performance, however, are nothing more than a completely defanged version of Charlie Wilson’s War.
Mark Rylance – Rudolf Abel: A character actor whom we have all seen before and who we’d be up all night trying to remember anything that he was in, Rylance was able to create a character that the moviegoer just barely cares about. He’s trying to play it stoic, the “strong, silent” type. In the end, he came off as dull as a lead butter knife. However, if Abel was in fact that much of a bore in real life, he killed it.
Scott Shepherd – Agent Hoffman: One of the brighter spots in the film, Shepherd delivered a solid and convincing performance as a CIA agent. While they were shooting on location, apparently he and Hanks had some time to duck out and get some rewrites into the script while Spielberg was busy getting fat on currywurst.
Alan Alda – Law Firm Partner Dude: Alda has had a truly amazing career. After playing the lead role and a character that everyone loved on MASH, he has managed to slog his way through Hollywood for the last 30 years playing turkey after turkey and delivering some of the industry’s most unmemorable performances. In an attempt to outdo himself once again, he delivers a performance that is so singularly unmemorable that you’re sure to forget it right up until you look at the cast list on the film’s IMDB page.
Amy Ryan – Mary Donovan: Not to be outdone by Alda, Amy Ryan racked ‘em up and knocked ‘em down, giving what may be one of the most wooden performances of a 50’s housewife since the films that were actually made in that era. She will leave you saying “Who Cares?” well into the parking lot and for most of the car ride home.
Stars / Final Verdict:
Buoyed by Hanks and some other very solid supporting performances, Bridge of Spies manages to transcend the fodder that has defined Spielberg over the past 15 years, landing at a respectable 2-1/2 stars (rounding up from 2-1/4). Do not bother going to see it in the theater unless you’re in search of a quiet place to take an afternoon map – wait until you’re stuck in a hotel room in BFE and have nothing else better to do – that is the proper forum for this cinematic experience.
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Drew Reviews: Pixels
Drew reviews the movie Pixels and spoils the ending so you don’t have to see it. Listen here:
Opened: 7/24
Box Office: $24M
Tomatometer: 18%
Rating: PG-13Beginning / End:
First disappointment of the film is the underwhelming flashback sequence of the 1982 video game championship to open the film, devoid of laughs. Sandler defeated by “Shorty” Peter Dinklage (best known for Game of Thrones) who is setup as the pseudo-villain or “bad boy” of the film because of his height, attire and flip attitude.
The “climax” of the film was the dramatic defeat of Donkey Kong, which was revealed at the end of the trailer for the film, so this is not much of a spoiler alert. The exclamation point on the film was the revelation that “Shorty” Dinklage had used cheats in order to win the ’82 championship, which presented itself as one of the great “Who Cares” moments for moviegoers this summer.
Theater / Audience / 3D / Movie-Going Experience:
Saturday 7/25 10:30PM – AMC Northpark 15 – 3D
Audience was bunch of stiffs with no sense of humor that brought the film down further. Pre-gaming it with booze and icing-on-the-cake beer from MacGuffins failed to help supply any additional laughs. Presumably, many of the attendees for the 10:30 show were still asleep in the theater from the 8 o’clock show.Plot / Story:
Sandler & Kevin James team up again to reprise the chemistry from Grown Ups 2. “Aliens” turn time capsule that was shot into space into weapon that threatens mankind and requires hotshot video game dweebs (“insiders”) from 1982 in order to employ patterns in order to defeat them. Roundabout premise that affords opportunities for B level actors to shoot light cannons at the sky.
Overall plot was paper thin, which makes it one step up from nonexistent.Script:
Lacking. Could have saved the film from its flimsy premise if it just had more laughs.Cast / Acting:
Adam Sandler – Typecast as playing himself. In this case, a plodding half-hungover version of himself.Kevin James – Watchable, but unable to carry the load of this film in any respect. Incidentally, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 came out 3 months ago, scoring a eye-popping 6% on the tomatometer and through the grace of god did $71M at the box office. Sure, no one is going to confuse him with a serious actor, but the man has apparently never met a script he didn’t like.
Michelle Monaghan – The token babe of the film playing the overdone role of hot FBI agent. She delivered a truly unmemorable performance, demonstrating zero chemistry with the other actors and failing to inject any substance into the film.
“Shorty” Peter Dinklage – 4’ 5” that is trotted in when they need to bring some credibility to a fantasy film or TV series – Game of Thrones, Prince Caspian Chronicles of Narnia. Was also able to fill both roles of child and adult version of himself in the film, presumably because of his height or perceived agelessness. Danny DeVito at 5 feet flat was apparently ruled out as too tall to play this role.
Josh Gad – Frankly it has been a week and I had completely forgotten he was in the film. That being said, with him being the 5th lead in the film, you can pretty much write off the rest of the cast from him down as effectively making no contribution.
Director:
Chris Columbus – director of classic comedies Home Alone 1 & 2 and Mrs. Doubtfire along with 2 of the Harry Potter films. Why did a man with such a reputable pedigree attach himself to this project (as producer also!)? I imagine the cash was guaranteed and he could rely on Sandler to take the fall when the project inevitably bombed.Stars / Final Verdict:
In saving my few compliments for the film for the end of the review, the film earns a solid 1-1/2 stars out of 4. The 3D was a plus, the film was easy to watch and fell short of being agonizingly awful. The laughs were sparse, but they were there. Sandler and James despite their mediocrity remain watchable. Final verdict – don’t see it in the theater unless you’re a 3D or Sandler nut. See it eventually, but wait for it to appear on Netflix and approach it with low expectations.
