Smart People
Widescreen Edition
Directed by Noam Murro
Starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Release date: August 12, 2008

I will preface this review with an admission of guilt that I am more than happy to announce as loud as it will take for anyone to hear it: I can’t stand Ellen Page. In my humble opinion Juno was just alright and my distaste for the movie rests solely on the shoulders of its star. I found myself defending my position during the film’s release more than I felt necessary and the singular argument that came from the other camp was that if I like her in Hard Candy (I did) and hated her in Juno, then I must have disliked the character Juno more than the person acting as her. That wouldn’t be a bad argument if it weren’t completely wrong. On the timeline of this longstanding debate, Smart People may have dealt the death blow for the opposing side. But let me back up just a touch.

As a film critic, I would like to think I am subjective enough not to let a singular performance ruin an otherwise decent movie. It hasn’t always held true (see: Juno), but I was bound and determined not to let it happen here. In other words, I went into it with an open mind. I am proud to say that I did not find Smart People to be a bad movie because of Ellen Page. No, this time it was a group effort.

Tropic Thunder
Written & directed by Ben Stiller
Starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel
Rated R
Release date: August 13, 2008

This country loves its parody, doesn’t it? The National Lampoon brand made a career out of it, Saturday Night Live is in its 34th season, and late night talk shows — a staple of which is poking fun at current events — have been around for over half a century. As much as people would sometimes like to turn their nose up and scoff at the audacity of the envelope being pushed, the market has been thriving almost as long as the medium has existed. So it always baffles me when these rights activists get their draws in a bunch over something that, even in the wildest stretches of imagination, was never meant to be taken seriously.

Tropic Thunder is a Hollywood movie making fun of Hollywood making movies. On the set of “the most expensive war movie ever made,” first-time director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) can’t pull his lead actors from their pools of self-absorption, costs are spiraling out of control, and the studio threatens to shut down production for good. He decides that he will set the actors loose in the jungles of Southeast Asia (and into the path of some real local mercenaries) to find their way back, all while the actors think they are still filming their Vietnam movie. The story itself isn’t terribly original or complicated — it tastes almost exactly like a dish I had years ago called The Three Amigos — but the point of the movie isn’t in the premise, which only exists to drive the story, it is in the parody.

Wall-E
Written & Directed by Andrew Stanton
Starring (voice) Benjamin Burtt, Jeff Garlin, Elissa Knight, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger
Rated G
Release date: June 27, 2008

I have always said that the computer age is ruining the way people communicate with each other. Not that long ago when people wanted to interact they had conversations, either in person or over the phone, and if geography dictated, people even hand wrote letters to one another. Crazy. Now everything is email, text messages, instant messages, picture messages, MySpace comments, Twitter updates, and so on. For all of the “advances” in communication that have been made in the last 20 years, the very syntax of our language has deteriorated so much that people that grew up at any point without the internet or cell phones will potentially have a hard time keeping up. And it’s only gonna get worse.

Wall-E takes place in the year 2815. Earth, as we know it, no longer exists. It has been cannibalized unrecognizably and covered in trash. With nowhere else to turn, humanity has abandoned the planet while thousands of WALL-E units (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) were left to convert the garbage into disposable form. Sponsoring the Earth’s exodus is the Buy n Large Corporation, a global company that essentially controls Earth, in the form of space station resorts called Axiom, where people are waited on hand and foot. And when I say every comfort is afforded, I mean every comfort. Unlimited food and drink. An endless supply of anything one could ever dream of, everyone has gorged themselves worthless. Even that pesky nuisance of walking has been eliminated as everyone hovers around on devices designed to eliminate the need to do so. The plan was to get everyone off Earth for five years, allow the WALL-E units to clean up, and then return when living conditions had improved. That was 700 years ago. Over time, all of the units were deactivated. Except one.

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Written by Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow, Robert Smigel
Starring Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, John Turturro
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 6, 2008

My appreciation of the career of Adam Sandler has been a tumultuous affair. It started with Billy Madison. With every bone in my critic and non-critic being, I know it to be an atrocity of a movie. But I still like it. Happy Gilmore paid it forward and then Bulletproof came along. I didn’t like it, but I appreciated the departure from his brand of stupid comedy. Then he went back to his stupid brand of comedy for a few films, then Punch-Drunk Love came out and blew everybody away. Then he went back to the well, then Spanglish. The well. Reign Over Me. The well. And so on. Whether it works or not, every time he tries something different he follows it up with a few old standbys. You almost have to admire his tenacity. Almost.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is Sandler swimming to the bottom of the well. For that he makes no apology. From the time the movie starts, there is no mistake that this will be a huge dish of Sandler pie with all the fixins. The title alone is ridiculous and the premise is nothing short of insanely stupid.

Serial Mom
Collector’s Edition
Directed by John Waters
Starring Kathleen Turner, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard, Sam Waterston
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release Date: May 6, 2008

“Wow, I haven’t seen that movie in years.”

Yeah, that’s what I said, too. I remember seeing and liking it when it came out but hadn’t thought about Serial Mom in years until I was given the opportunity to review the newly released Collector’s Edition.

In case you don’t remember the story, Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) is a suburban housewife who seems to have everything. Her house is always immaculate, she makes a killer meatloaf, and she loves her family dearly: her obliviously nerdy husband Eugene (Sam Waterston), their constantly lovesick daughter, Misty (Ricki Lake), and their horror-film loving son, Chip (Matthew Lillard). Together they are the portrait of the perfect all-American family except for the nagging little detail that behind closed doors Beverly is a raging sociopath who dispatches her victims with little reason.