If you didn’t come away from last night’s episode of “American Idol” feeling like this field has no clear-cut winner, you weren’t paying attention. I truly can’t remember a more talented group of finalists, about half of who have a shot to win it all. Of course, I didn’t agree with all of the judges’ comments last night, but I do appreciate the field of talent that they have given us. Here is our recap of the episode of the contestants singing songs from the year they were born in:
For two movies about essentially the same thing (in this case, a haunting), Ti West’s “The Innkeepers” and James Wan’s “Insidious” have received vastly different reactions from SXSW attendees, with many liking one but not the other, and vice versa. Those who read my review of “Insidious” already know where my allegiance lies, because while “The Innkeepers” may fancy itself a horror film, there’s nothing particularly scary about it. Sara Paxton and Pat Healy star as the last remaining workers at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, a fledgling hotel that has relied on stories of being one of New England’s most haunted locations to fill its rooms. But as the Inn’s final days draw near, the pair goes searching for proof that it’s actually haunted in one last effort to save the hotel from closing its doors for good.
Unfortunately, you have to sit through a fairly uneventful 100 minutes to find out the answer, and it’s not really worth the wait. Though West teases the audience with brief moments of suspense that continue to build as the story unfolds, there’s very little payoff, to the point that when the horror elements finally do kick in, they’re not as terrifying as you would hope. Instead, the movie spends a lot of time camped out at the front desk where the two leads shoot the shit and play tricks on one another. It’s witty and amusing at times, but never quite enough to hold your interest, despite the fact that Paxton and Healy actually have pretty good chemistry. If there’s one redeeming quality, it’s the fantastic score by Jeff Grace, which at the very least makes it watchable. That doesn’t change the fact that the film is still a mediocre film, and the only one that Ti West has to blame is himself, because while “The Innkeepers” certainly had the potential to reinvigorate the horror genre in the same way as “Insidious,” it falls short.
We’re still trying to wrap our heads around this one. A “Super Groupon” appeared in our inbox this afternoon, offering tickets to Matthew McConaughey’s upcoming legal thriller “The Lincoln Lawyer” (which is not being screened for the majority of critics) for six bucks. The fine print: the ticket must be purchased through Fandango. This is a nifty way to promote a movie, but it also raises some questions.
“How much did you pay to see my movie? HOW MUCH, damn it?”
Groupon recently ran into trouble when they ran a deal with FTD Flowers, and FTD turned right around and raised their prices for Groupon customers only. Groupon eventually made good on FTD’s bait-and-switch – and surely bitch slapped FTD back to the Stone Age for their truculent ways – but what is Fandango going to charge for “processing” these orders? A buck? two bucks? Not really much of a deal once you factor in surcharges.
That’s the lesser of our concerns, though, by far.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Groupon sells one million tickets to “The Lincoln Lawyer” through this promotion. Groupon has a 50/50 sharing policy with their clients, which means that Lionsgate would net $3 million from the deal. However, those are a million potential full-price tickets that they just sold, meaning that, with the national average at $8.00 per ticket, they could report that those tickets were the equivalent of $8 million in receipts, giving them a much better than expected opening weekend, which as we all know is the true worth of a movie these days. Later, when the movie has run its course in the theaters, they can cook the books, if necessary – after all, they might actually make that money back once that bloated opening weekend total hits the wire – when the movie ships to DVD and VOD. Call us suspicious, but it looks as though Groupon just inadvertently created an elaborate shell game that will allow every studio to goose the profits of any movie tracking below expectations.
Why do we get the sense that there is nothing about this Groupon that is meant to benefit the consumer?
Now that was refreshing. Last night on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” the episode began with host Alison Sweeney revealing that this week, there would be no red team or black team, but that everyone would be wearing a blue shirt. That meant that it was one for all, all for one. And if, as a group, they lost more than 64 pounds (their combined weight loss last week), everyone would have immunity this week. If not, two of them would fall below the yellow line and the entire team would vote as one.
Well, this was a nice change of pace. There would be no gameplay or catty nonsense, only one team working toward a common goal. They then had a pop challenge in which celebrity chefs Curtis Stone and Lorena Garcia were on hand to judge their cooking ability. They broke into teams of two, with one former black team and one former red team member pairing off. The winner would get a year’s worth of The Biggest Loser meal plan meals. The two favorites were Jen and Kaylee’s turkey tostadas, and Olivia and Moses’ baked cod with asparagus. And Olivia and Moses won, with a dish that came in a whopping 170 calories, but according to Curtis and Lorena, had great flavor as well.
It’s going to have an awfully hard time finding an audience in the U.S. (or any territory outside of the U.K., for that matter), but Joe Cornish’s directorial debut, “Attack the Block,” is one of the most purely entertaining movies you’ll see all year. A genre hybrid film with influences ranging from “The Warriors” to “Gremlins,” Cornish has created a lean, mean sci-fi action thriller that excels in getting in and out without wasting a single minute. This is economic filmmaking at its very best, because while “Attack the Block” may not be particularly stylish or boast any big names, when your movie is as much fun to watch as this, none of that other stuff matters.
The film takes place in South London, where we’re introduced to a group of inner city kids mugging a young nurse named Sam (Jodie Whittaker) on her way home from work. When a meteor crashes down from the sky and Sam gets away, the kids – led by the steely Moses (John Boyega) – investigate the wreckage, only to be attacked by an alien creature that they eventually chase down and kill. But after the kids head back to their apartment complex to celebrate, they notice several more meteors landing in the city and decide to go on the hunt, only to discover that these aliens are much bigger and more ferocious than the first one: black, wolf-like beasts with fluorescent teeth and the ability to sniff out their prey. Unable to hide from the creatures, the kids go on the offensive in an attempt to protect the block and, in a strange twist of fate, the woman they terrorized hours before.
When the heroes of your movie are no-good criminals, you have to cook up an even bigger, nastier villain for the audience to root them on, which is why pitting inner city kids against a horde of vicious aliens is such a brilliant idea. Cornish has created an instantly iconic monster that is innovative yet simple in design, with the juxtaposition of the creature’s pitch-black fur and its incandescent teeth resulting in some really cool reveal shots and a few good scares. You can’t even tell how much of the creature is a practical effect and how much is CG, because they look so incredible in a natural environment that you’d swear they were real. Even the reasoning behind the whole alien invasion seems pretty plausible, and though the film doesn’t have time to get caught up in exposition, the little bit there is never interrupts the rapid pace of the story.
That’s especially important for “Attack the Block,” because a major part of the film’s success is its relentless, almost infectious energy. The movie rarely stops to catch its breath (when the kids aren’t busy fending off aliens, they’re hiding from drug dealers and cops), and you can’t help but get caught up in the excitement. The kids also deliver some really good performances for a bunch of fresh-faced newcomers who were literally plucked from the streets (particularly Boyega and the very funny Alex Esmail), because it could have easily blown up in Cornish’s face. Instead, it only makes “Attack the Block” that much more impressive – a fun slice of nostalgic geek cinema that effortlessly blends action, comedy, horror and sci-fi to create an instant genre classic.
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