Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Grown Up vs. Blown Up

I'm getting tired of big-budget blockbusters.  Don't get me wrong, I like quarter-billion dollar CGI explosionfests as much as the next person, but it is getting tiring when another one comes out every week.  I know, you think it's just because I'm getting old.  Well I'm sure most teens can't keep track of whether the giant robots are attacking the White House or Metropolis, or just blowing up London again.

It wouldn't be so bad if these movies ran the half-assed cliched comedies out of the theatres.  But somehow, Grown Ups 2 is finding a few thousand screens this summer.  You'd think that no-effort movies from stars on the downside of their careers would have been pushed back to February releases to make way for the films the studios spent big money on, but no, they found room for both kinds.  So now our summer movie choices are just the latest in special effects, or comedians from twenty years ago.  Or to put it another way, it's either movies that try too hard, or movies that don't try at all.

Now what's the deal with new stars getting caught up in these comedies?  You can understand Sandra Bullock being in a cookie-cutter flick: she's done the blockbusters, won the Oscar, now she's moved to that point in a celeb's life where they're just paying for whatever expensive hobbies, children, ex-spouses, or addictions they've acquired in their career.  But her co-star Melissa McCarthy is supposed to be a rising commodity.  Surely she has something better to do while waiting for Kristen Wiig to finish writing Bridesmaids 2.

And Andy Samburg taking a bit part in Grown Ups 2 is really disappointing.  He looks like he's skipping straight from promising SNL grad to career decline without any stardom in between.  I thought he'd be the next Will Farrell, but apparently he's the next Jon Lovitz.  Lovitz, by the way, is also in Grown Ups 2; take note, Andy.

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