Login PDF Edition
Flip Edition
2010-03-04 digital edition
Get News Updates Account Settings
Shops & Services Dining & Entertainment Health Classifieds
Columns March 4, 2010  RSS feed

Current print subscribers get free access to this website. Please use our online form to create an account.


Should I See It

Film Criticism with You In Mind.
ShouldISeeIt.net is published by local Carnation resident Mike Ward.
www.shouldiseeit.net

In Theaters


Cop Out
Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracy
Morgan,Seann William Scott
Director: Kevin Smith
Rating: R
Running Time: 110 Mins
Release Date: February 26, 2010

A pretty major misfire, “Cop Out” finds Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan teaming with famed filmmaker Kevin Smith in a throwback of sorts to the 1980’s mismatched buddy cop picture. Morgan and Willis as 9-year partners in the NYPD is hard enough to believe, but the premise involving a mexican drug cartel and the recovery of Willis’ prize possession, a stolen baseball card, borders on the absurd. The film feels too big for Kevin Smith and never decides if it’s a comedy, an action movie, or a hybrid of the two. There are a handful of amusing moments between Willis and Morgan, and Seann William Scott steals the entire film in a hilarious turn as a Parkour-obsessed thief. In final form however, “Cop Out” is uninspired, redundant and quite forgettable.

on dvd


Where The Wild Things Are
Starring: Max Records, Catherine
Keener and Voices of: James
Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker
Director: Spike Jonze
Rating: PG
Running Time: 101 Mins.
DVD Release Date: Mar. 2, 2010

Rather mesmerizing and exhilarating, Spike Jonze’s “Where The Wild Things Are” is not a family film which constantly delivers adventure and excitement; or at least as we have come to expect from a Disney or DreamWorks production. While suitable for the whole family, this is a film kids can watch but is not necessarily made for them. Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers adapt the classic Maurice Sendak book and flesh out themes of abandonment, self-worth and identity, unconditional love, and for all of us, the realization that no matter how desperately we seek it, there is no such thing as a perfect place, a perfect person, or a perfect world. Far from conventional, “Where The Wild Things Are” is a much more emotionally affecting experience than I ever anticipated.