Welcome to Rotten Week’s first addition to 2013. It’s going to be a strong year for movies and more importantly, predictions of Tomatometer scores. I can feel it. This week we’ve got gangster squads and haunted houses.
Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.
Gangster Squad
When examining mob movies, especially ones sprinkled with bits of history I’m fairly fickle guy. Does it need to be, to-the-letter, accurate? Nah. Just give me some historical context, get the names right and leave the fact checking at the door. Everything is more entertaining that way. Did the streets of 1940s Los Angeles turn into a battle zone for tommy gun shootouts and dramatically well-timed explosions? No. Did there exist, ever, at any point a squad of cops who combined the masculine, scowling, crime-fighter bravado with the boyish wit and charm as a group led by Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling? My money is on no. (They diversify exponentially beyond that with Michael Pena, Anthony Mackie and grizzled veteran Robert Patrick. The squad’s a cornucopia.) Did gangster Mickey Cohen have the tight-faced, weathered, almost video game appearance that Sean Penn brings to the big screen? Not according to old pics of the dude.
But none of that really matters for a film like Gangster Squad, a film so unapologetic in its historical discrepancies that it doesn’t even throw a “Based on true [anything]” in the trailer. And while it maybe shouldn’t matter, it might for critics. When a movie looks like extracted more context from a video game (L.A. Noire maybe) than reality, we may be left with a flick that actually just is a video game reel put up on the big screen with a bunch of famous faces. This might not bode well for director Ruben Fleischer.
Much like he tweaked the post-apocalyptic horror script in Zombieland (90%), Fleischer appears hell bent on bringing a new wave feel to the old timey gangster model, putting everyone in the right single-breasted-suit-with-matching-fedora uniform while pushing every other reality of the time to the breaking point. I think with critics, this kind of movie making will come with diminishing returns as the movie might not transport the viewer back to the forties as much as just beat you over the head with the time period. It looks like almost too much.
No doubt the cast is strong, and Fleischer has had success (though he stumbled with 30 Minutes or Less-45%), but I think his latest fails to meet expectations. It’ll fall victim to its own standoff-ish attitude to history. The Rotten Watch for Gangster Squad is 51%
Ah, the spoof movie, a genre so rich with history and so bleak in its current form that I find the prospect of these pieces of garbage almost exhausting. Gone are the days, the heyday of the spoof, the Eighties when we were treated to the Airplane’s, Top Secret’s, Naked Gun’s and Mel Brooks’ movies of the world. Those films, penned by actual comedic talents who dissected the ridiculous nature of movie plot points and character archetypes. These parodies (and there are others, I just highlighted a few) have staying power because they picked apart Hollywood and the zeitgeist both subtly and overtly while displaying the patently ridiculous and razor thin line movies often walk.
But that’s all gone now. Sure we’ll get a Hot Fuzz (91%) or Kung Fu Hustle (90%) here and there. But more often these parody flicks are made just to have a not-really-funny title, a play on a popular genre like Vampires Suck (4%) or Not Another Teen Movie (28%). Or the movie makers didn’t even bother with a shred of creativity and just named it Disaster Movie (2%) or Superhero Movie (16%).
In fact, the spoof movie culture has gone even deeper down the rabbit hole, not content with just making fun of entire genres, but drilling down to sub groups. In A Haunted House, Marlon Wayans (Scary Movie 2-15%, Dance Flick-18%) and company have set their comedic-less laser beam on the fixed-camera/ Paranormal Activity/ things that go bump in the night movie to decidedly horrific results. In spite of myself, I actually kept waiting to laugh, feeling as if there existed, somewhere a good joke or two about these films. But instead it was your standard “farts are funny” or “ghosts smoking pot are funny” gags and it obviously looks terrible. Funny people are off doing other things. The Rotten Watch for A Haunted House is 8%
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Recapping last week:
Starting off 2013 on a strong note with Texas Chainsaw 3D (Predicted: 14% Actual: 23%). It’s nice to get that first win under the old post-holiday belt. This flick was predictably bad, though honestly I was a little scared as the score sat near thirty percent much of the week. It dropped enough in the last few days to net me a solid prediction. Mack helped with his review, and the feeling the movie just missed on being an actual, decent watch. Esquire’s Stephen Marche also had an interesting take on the disconnect of movies like Texas Chainsaw and other horror films in our modern day and age. Good read.
Next time around Wahlberg breaks the city, Arnie takes a stand and we make some mama jokes. It’s going to be a Rotten Week!
