Good "clever" comedic writing isn’t easy, but I’d be willing to wager that writing good l"ow-brow" comedy is even more difficult. Granted, I’m pretty lousy at gambling — I owe my roommate $10 for a lost bet that Blue October was to blame for the 1995 hit “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (turns out it was Deep Blue Something, another Texas band with the color blue in the name). But consider the fine line walked between a simple fart joke and a memorable one like Dumb and Dumber or Bridesmaids.

Or, consider the least known of Sacha Baron Cohen’s films, 2003’s Ali G Indahouse, the first scripted Ali G movie and one that is not particularly funny or what some people might call “good.” (Indahouse is the only other SBC film besides The Dictator to not be done in mockumentary style. It’s also 90 minutes of proof that waiting a few years to get Ali G in the States courtesy of HBO was worth it considering the U.S. version of Da Ali G Show was sans scripted skits.) 

There was a time when I could think of few people funnier than Mr. SBC; then he gave us Brüno.

Fortunately, The Dictator proves there are some signs of life for SBC in a post-Ali G world, which is a relief as Ali G and the two other quirky characters from his eponymous TV series, Borat and Brüno, have been retired. Dictator Admiral General Aladeen may be the weakest of SBC’s characters thus far but still provides a vessel for delivering outrageous material, the best of which comes thanks to some incredible wingman work from Jason Mantzoukas (Rafi from FX’s The League). When the two are going back and forth it makes for the film’s funniest moments. 

The laughs take a bit to get going, but once The Dictator hits its raucous high point (with a woman giving birth in a grocery store) there’s enough delightfully shocking, brilliantly stupid and oh-so-right offensive moments to keep the laughs coming.

Those not amused by SBC's hijinks from his Ali G days will have similar complaints here. "Is he drawing awareness to sensitive subjects or making light of them?" It's the type of heavy question that caused Dave Chappelle to leave his show and causes uptight critics to toss around words and phrases like "misogyny" or "too soon" instead of answering the only question that matters in comedy: Is it funny?

If you consider yourself sensitive, there's plenty in The Dictator that may offend or outrage, and for you, the answer to that simple question may very well be no. At it's worse, The Dictator feels reminiscent of a bad SNL movie with a handful of rape jokes added in. But, at times, it brings back fond memories of Sunday nights spent watching HBO — a simpler day when The Wire was still on the air and Entourage was just a bad idea bouncing around in Marky Mark's head.

While The Dictator appears to be about 99 percent scripted, there is at least one brief scene where SBC talks to an unwitting extra or two on the streets of New York. And, some of the exchanges between characters — particularly SBC and Mantzoukas — feel at least partially ad libbed. Though The Dictator is missing the kind of back and forth between comedian and oblivious interviewee that made Ali G so magical, a majority of what made that so memorable was SBC knowing how to ask the right questions. It’s clear that SBC still has a few tricks up his sleeve to delight and disgust, even if he’s not making celebrities look like fools while the audience squirms in their seats.

--Eric Pulsifer
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The way I feel about Tim Burton movies is not so unlike the way I feel about vanilla ice cream. It’s not bad, but I know what it’s going to taste like, and I feel like if I’m going to waste the waist space on frozen creamy goodness it should have some candy bars or molten chocolate or coffee beans or crazy jazz in it. Even when vanilla ice cream is really good — Mexican vanilla with little bits of vanilla bean in it — it’s still vanilla ice cream. In this way, Dark Shadows is a familiar thing. Not bad, but not particularly exciting. Not exactly funny, scary or dramatic. Slightly campy and a tad creepy. (I’ve moved on from talking about ice cream now.)

Dark Shadows is based on the ‘60s soap opera of the same name. Johnny Depp plays Barnabas, a wealthy playboy from the 1700s who crosses a witch, who in turn transforms him into a vampire and buries him alive, where he remains undisturbed for 200 years. He is inadvertently freed in 1972 and returns to his former estate to check up on his descendants and the town his family built.

Assuming that the words pouring into your eye holes right now are being consumed to help you decide whether or not to see this film, I’ve decided to introduce someone who sees Burton flicks as more of a chocolate ice cream. (Back to dessert again. I know — I’ve got a problem.) Hopefully this vanilla-chocolate swirl will help with your movie-going decision making. And with that, I humbly submit for your reader’s consideration this real post-viewing conversation.

Johnny Depp gets creepy, goth teenage girls, Andy Warhol, Downton Abbey and more after the jump!
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Hands down, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is the best movie to come out of a Marvel comic. It’s not brilliant, but it’s mighty entertaining. And, dammit if Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, Dr. Horrible) doesn’t make it hard to hate him. His fingerprints are all over this epic superhero tale with an ensemble cast of superheroes, and you’ll love him for it. As goofy as the action and actors on the screen should be, each character — even the crap ones like Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) — feel real, likable and relatable. The dialogue and the action is sharp and often funny bordering on hilarious.

A handful of Marvel films over the past five years back have paved the way for The Avengers. Whether you’re just getting into the universe now or need a brief refresher, here’s a (mostly) spoiler-free recap of what came before.

Thor — The god of thunder lives with his dad/king Odin in a galaxy where science has become so advanced there is no discernible difference between technology and magic. (Plus, Stringer Bell is still alive.) Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the heir to the throne, gets exiled to Earth thanks to his jerk-hole adopted brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Thor bumps into and befriends a group of scientists (Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgård). Quickly learning the ways of our planet, Thor takes up the goal of every Earth male and attempts to bed Natalie Portman. Back in bizarro space world, Loki tries to do bad stuff and Thor stops him. Along the way we get our first peek at the definitely-not-a-real-super hero Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), an archer who plays a big role in The Avengers. Should you watch it? Sure, but is it necessary? Depends. It does lay the groundwork for The Avengers main nemesis Loki, but it’s nothing the uninitiated won’t be able to follow.

Captain America: The First Avenger — Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a scrawny, Small Town, USA, kid determined to serve his country in World War II. While he’s barely strong enough to hold up a rifle, his quick wits and ferocious loyalty make him the perfect candidate for a secret U.S. super soldier program. He gets strong, gets an indestructible shield from Iron Man’s pops, takes out some Nazis and steals their magical space cube, which is later recovered by the senior Stark. Things go down, and Rogers wakes up 70 years later, where Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)  tells him he has a job for him. Should you watch it? Do it. It’s good all-American fun and basically ends where The Avengers starts off.

Iron Man — Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is a smart-ass,, over-sexed billionaire genius — think a less emo Bruce Wayne/Batman — who creates a robot suit and becomes Iron Man. He has a magnet in his chest that keeps shrapnel in his blood stream from hitting his heart and killing him. Should you watch it? Hell yes. Iron Man is the stuff of summer blockbuster gold.

Iron Man 2 — We pick up where the first film left off: Tony Stark announcing to the world he’s Iron Man, but now, instead of being all fun and super-cool, he’s just a whiny prick who drinks too much. The Black Widow is an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who poses as Stark’s assistant. Stark cleans up his act and saves the day, but he hears from Nick Fury that he isn’t making the cut for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s superhero team. Should you watch it? Nope. Even RDJ’s charm, the addition of Don Cheadle and a bunch of shiny special effects can save this sorry excuse for a sequel.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — There’s a minor connection to The Avengers here with a bunch of the trippy space crap that Marvel did in the ‘60s: Silver Surfer and Galactus, who appears in this — the worst (or second worst if you want to pull the Ghost Rider card) of the worst Marvel comic book films — as a cloud. Should you watch it? Dear me, no. This is a connection that will probably remain unconnected in the Marvel film universe.

The Hulk — Ang Lee’s take on the not-so-jolly green giant was pretty much universally (probably more so than is deserved, really) hated. Should you watch it? Egh... And there’s no good reason to if you’re prepping for The Avengers. The only bits of Hulk backstory relevant to The Avengers are in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, which rebooted the character for the current Marvel film universe.

The Incredible Hulk — Just five years after Ang Lee’s take, we get an lighter reboot of the Hulk. Here, we learn the Hulk is born out of a military experiment to create a super solider. Living in hiding, Banner struggles to control the Hulk through meditation. Important note: When he turns all big and green, he’s not just strong — he has limitless physical strength. Should you watch it? If you like seeing Hulk smash shit, go for it. It’s big and dumb and there’s not much you need to know here for The Avengers unless you want to see how Norton stacks up to his Hulk replacement Mark Ruffalo. (Ruffalo is way better.)

Everything else Marvel-ous — While they could very easily be made to fit in the same world, there’s no explicit connections made to X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, or any of the other Marvel properties turned into films.

So there you have it. That’s everything you could possibly need to know. Now go see The Avengers. It’s as good as superhero movies get this side of The Dark Knight.

--Eric Pulsifer
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Look, I love an epic picture as much as the next person. Am I a sci fi geek? Nope. But can I enjoy a great action adventure flick? Sure. Maybe I turned my nose up a bit at Avatar, and of course the Star Wars prequels were not great for me. But I’m not a snob here. This is the same lady who can enjoy the Crank movies for what they are--fun and batshit crazy.

But for John Carter, whose pedigree is so grand with the likes of Andrew Stanton, one of the best Pixar director/contributor ever, and the author of the original Tarzan stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs, none of this adds up to much except a whole lotta bloat. I even love Taylor Kitsch’s Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. So, where did it all go wrong? I dunno. Somewhere...

John Carter starts off kinda confusing. So pay attention there. Eventually we’re taken to a flashback to just after the Civil War, where John Carter, an ex-Confederate Soldier, is looking for gold in the Arizona desert. Through some sort of scuffle involving Bryan Cranston, some Native Americans, and a weirdly dressed dude in a cave, John Carter is magically transported to Mars, or as the natives call it, Barsoom.

On Barsoom, John Carter (I don’t know why I’m ingrained to say his full name, just go with it) realizes he can jump really far. That’s about it. Oh, and he realizes that he inadvertently gets in the middle of some Barsoomian Civil War between the Heliumites and the Zodangans, whose leader (Dominic West) is destroying all he sees unless the Heliumite princess, Dejah Thoris (Lynne Collins), marries him. Amongst all the warring, weird Na’vi-like creatures, the Tharks try to stay out of all the human fighting and partake in their own weird rituals that end up involving John Carter.

I know Burroughs wrote the John Carter books in 1912, long before George Lucas and John Cameron created their sci fi opuses, but the movie Stanton has created can’t help but feel like a total rip-off of better movies. And while the action sequences are generally pretty well shot, all the CGI is just too MUCH. It feels way too fake that you kinda distance yourself from the film because you can’t feel THAT invested about it. Except, fine, I even liked Woola, the weird, alien, cat-dog thing. Because I’m a sucker...

The acting is fine and all if maybe perhaps a smidgen wooden by Kitsch, especially when he inexplicably falls in love with the princess, but John Carter just can’t measure up to more than some action scenes and overly fake CGI, unless you enjoy really slutty wedding gowns... And, in the end, much like my reaction to John Carter’s new jumping ability, you can’t help but say, “Is THAT all there is?”

-- Darcie Duttweiler
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Chances are you’ve already made up your mind about whether or not you’ll see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Like so many films framing fictional tales around real-life tragedies past, it could be argued a movie centered around the events of Sept. 11 is going to be at best a tacky melodrama and at worst an exploitative venture that cashes in on very real sorrow and the deaths of 3,000 innocent people. 

In this case, the movie is based off the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated), who, coincidentally, like director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, The Hours), has a previous work rooted in another sorrowful bit of history — the Holocaust.

ELIC is a tale (heavily) narrated by 10-year-old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), whose father (Tom Hanks) died on “the worst day.” (Though narration is the go-to easy-way out for working the best parts of a book into a film adaptation, it's hard to fault Daldry for the tactic when faced with a collection of words as potent as Foer's) Desperately attempting to make sense of his father’s death and coping with the expanding gulf of time separating him from the memory of his father, Oskar embarks on a nearly impossible quest to unlock the meaning of a key left behind by his father and a lost and mostly forgotten sixth borough of New York. 

Continued after the jump.
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_You remember the ‘90s when the Mission: Impossible movies were wildly popular? And then Tom Cruise went all nutso, but JJ Abrams decided to reboot the franchise anyway (and bring in Felicity herself), and it was actually really good? Well, The Incredibles director Brad Bird decided he was going to top all of those.

No, really.

Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol decided to go above and beyond any badass action sequences that any of the previous Mission: Impossible films have done before it. And do it in IMAX. I know I’m sounding hyperbolic here, and I went full in expecting to have a good time, but I really didn’t expect to be completely blown away by how over-the-top (in a good way) this film is. Some of the stuff they do is fucking bananas.

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP.
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__The first Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes installment didn’t really do it for me. I thought the plot was completely jumbled and too much for the likable cast to overcome. However, I could recognize that the film definitely had a lot of great things going for it: namely the chemistry between Holmes (Robert Downy Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) and the frenetic directing and fight choreography of Ritchie. I could buy that this Holmes was a martial arts master because of the slow-mo fight scenes where he deduces his opponent’s moves. But I couldn’t buy that awful plot.

For Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, I felt myself more willing to go along for the ride, especially due to the addition of Moriarity (Jared Harris), who gives Holmes a greater intellectual match. However, the sequel still cannot overcome its jumbled plot, but it still becomes a fun movie because of the sum of its parts.

A Game of Shadows follows Holmes as he tries to solve the cause for several bombings in Europe, which are being pinned on an extremist Anarchist group. He believes they are the product of mastermind Moriarty, but he cannot figure out what his evil nemesis is up to. Along for the ride is, of course, Watson, who is trying to embark on his honeymoon without getting killed, Holmes’ brother, Mycroft (Stephen Fry), and a mysterious gypsy (Noomi Rapace) who is trying to figure out how her brother is involved in all the bombings.

That’s the plot boiled down to the simplest I can. There is a whole bunch of Victorian-era politics that predate World War I that I was trying to follow, but it’s mainly best to just sit back and watch Downey, Ritchie, and Holmes do what they do best, which is to make you laugh, show some badass fight scenes, and solve some mother effin’ crimes. But is is the addition of Moriarty (and Harris) that give the film any sense of weight. He is the true foe of Holmes, and he tones down all the adrenaline rush of the action sequences.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows isn’t the most spectacular of films, but it plays on the strengths of everyone involved, and it entertains despite a bogged down plot.

--Darcie Duttweiler
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_You may be scratching your head and wondering, “a family movie from Martin Scorsese? WTF? The dude who brought me Goodfellas and Taxi Driver? No way!” Well, Hugo isn’t necessarily a children’s movie in the same vein as The Muppets, which is also opening this weekend. It’s slower, more methodical, and definitely more beautifully-crafted. Sure, it’s about a boy in his quest to uncover a secret, but, more importantly, Hugo is a film that’s meant to be a work of art for those who love movies.

At one point, Hugo (Asa Butterfield) takes his new friend Isabelle (Chloe Moretz) to her first movie, and she turns to him and says, “Thank you for the movie. It was a gift.’’ Hugo is Martin Scorsese’s gift to cinephiles in that he lovingly recreates many of the very first films ever shown but gives them a 3D makeover. This is one instance where the latest technology really does add to the overall package of a film. Hugo is a film for dreamers, but more about that after the jump!
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_The very first song in The Muppets, Gary (Jason Segel) and his puppet brother Walter sing the lyric, “I can’t seem to wipe this smile off of my face.” If that’s not an allusion to how you’ll feel the whole movie, then I don’t know what is. I loooooooved the Muppets growing up, and it wasn’t until that opening number that I realized how much I really missed a great Muppet movie. (Yes, I’m discounted Muppets from Space.) Lifelong Muppet-lover Segel and his cohort, which includes Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords, have created a truly magical and fun Muppet movie that will hopefully relaunch the franchise. And it’s one of the best movies in a loooong time that’s perfect for the whole family.

The Muppets follows Walter, his brother Gary, and Gary’s gal-pal Mary (Amy Adams) on vacation in Los Angeles as they decide to visit the whole Muppets Studio. There, Walter discovers that evil oil tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) is going to buy the studio and bulldoze it to drill for oil unless the Muppets can scrounge together $10 million to buy it back. Walter persuades Kermit the Frog to rally the whole Muppet gang back together in order to hold a good ol’ fashioned telethon to raise the money. Trouble is everyone has gone their separate ways: Miss Piggy is in France working for Vogue, Animal is in anger management therapy, and Gonzo is a huge plumbing magnate. Plus, a TV exec (Rashida Jones) thinks that the Muppets are obsolete and not famous anymore. (How very meta.) So, can Kermit and Walter get the whole gang back together, and can they prove to the world how much everyone needs a little Muppets in their lives?

While this could very well sound like the sappiest, lamest movie ever, The Muppets is the perfect mix of sincerity, happiness, and humor. The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, and even offers up classic Muppets meta humor (“this is going to be the shortest movie ever”). Everything is lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, but nothing feels too grownup or cynical. Sure there are moments of weight, like when Kermit sings a song about how long it’s been since he’s seen his friends, and it’s downright sad and tear-inducing. But then there are absurd Flight of the Conchords-esque songs like “Am I a Man or a Muppet?” that are so pitch-perfect and ridiculous that they’re an amazing fit with the Muppets world.

By the time Kermit sings “Rainbow Connection” you’ll be downright giddy and delirious from smiling so damn much, whether you are a boy or a girl, a kid or an adult, a man or a Muppet. The Muppets might just be one of the best family movies I’ve seen in a long time because it made me feel all gooey and fuzzy in my heart. And this is coming from a cynic like me. Do yourself and your family a favor this Thanksgiving and head out to see The Muppets. 

--Darcie Duttweiler
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_Watching the opening wedding scene in Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is like being a guest at your friend’s friends’ wedding. You don’t belong there, and you frankly don’t give a shit about the copious amounts of toasts occurring. You just want to get to the free booze and maybe make out with a cute groomsmen on the dance floor. Is that too much to ask for? Yes, yes it is. Because instead of a beautiful film with nuance and complexities and fun, Breaking Dawn is a boring, slow film that is laughably awful at several parts. When will Hollywood understand that splitting a film into two parts is quite possibly the worst idea. It makes for the first half to feel completely unfinished and lacking, not the gripping cliffhanger they (or rather, their pockets) anticipate.

Read more after the jump!
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