Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s a Gutter Ballroom Dancer. He’s the…

Vidiot

Week of January 13, 2012

Strikes are way cooler in bowling. First up…

Moneyball

The sex/baseball analogy doesn’t end with bases and home-runs.

In fact, both activities also employ stats, performance-enhancing drugs and the capacity to bore women easily.

Regrettably, this drama has nary a female to corroborate with that last comparison.

When 3 of his star players jump ship, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), is left with a void to fill.

Unable to attract any of the high paid players, Beane, instead, hires a young economist (Jonah Hill) to identify the sport’s most undervalued players so that he can add them to his roster.

While the unorthodox strategy attracts the ire of the A’s manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman), all suspicions are quelled once the theory comes to fruition.

Though it’s a savvy deconstruction of baseball’s financial divide, this true story can at times become tedious.

Besides, blue-collar baseball fans will always prefer to drunkenly harass rich athletes. 0

What’s Your Number?

The problem with assigning people numbers is that everyone will want to be #69.

Unfortunately, due to her promiscuity, the female in this romantic-comedy is more akin to #666.

After another one-night stand, Ally (Anna Faris) is left feeling used. Even worse, she loses her job.

Reading a magazine, she stumbles on an article asking for the number of men that she has slept with. Ashamed of her 19 lovers, she vows abstinence until engaged.

Unfortunately, that promise is broken after sleeping with her ex-boss (Joel McHale). 

Finally determined to find Mr. Right, Ally then employs her neighbour (Chris Evans) to track down her past conquests.

With a skewed perception of comedy and a squalid approach to romance, What’s Your Number is not only humorless but harmful.

Besides, women don’t need multiple lovers to be happy; they just need a bad boy and a good boy to fight over them. 0

Paranormal Activity 3

The upside to having a ghost as your best friend is that it guarantees you acceptance amongst the Goths at your school.

Unfortunately, the pals of the poltergeist in this horror movie are years away from cliques.

Found video footage from 1988 documents the eerie events that Katie (Chloe Csengery), her sister (Jessica Tyler), their mother (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) experienced after moving into their new home.

Among the activities captured is that of an invisible creature that lives in the crawlspace of the girls’ bedroom.

A videographer by trade, Dennis rigs the home with cameras and, overtime, obtains some truly terrorizing images.

The second sequel to the franchise, Paranormal Activity 3 increases the scares and expands the story, but at the cost of becoming contrived.

Incidentally, not all bumps in the night are ghosts. Sometimes they’re just the strung-out junkies living in your attic. 0

Killer Elite

Planning an assassin’s surprise retirement party is not that different than planning any surprise party, except that instead of yelling surprise when they arrive, guests’ just open fire.

Fortunately, the killer in this action movie is only semi-retired.

Bryce (Jason Statham), a highly trained mercenary, is called out of retirement when his old teammate (Robert DeNiro) botches a mission for an Oman king.

Tasked with tracking down and taping the confessions of the British agents that killed the king’s sons during an incursion, Bryce calls on his old teammates (Dominic Purcell, Aden Young) for backup.

Meanwhile, an operative (Clive Owen) employed to safeguard those former agents gets wind of Bryce’s activities and hones in on him.

With below average action scenes, questionable acting and a pitiable plotline, Killer Elite is a shade above generic.

Besides, everyone already knows that assassins have the same retirement success rate as Hip-Hop icons and star athletes.  0

***Ump Pyre***

Damn Yankees 

Due to all of the skulls that they’ve crushed, baseball bats probably have a special place in Hell.

So, it’s no wonder the Devil’s willing to assist the die-hard fan in this musical.

When Joe (Tab Hunter), a Senators fan, proclaims he’d sell his soul for his club to beat the Yankees, the Devil appears in the form of a man, Applegate (Ray Walston).

Offering to go Joe one better, Applegate promises to make Joe the star player. The only hitch: he must hand over his soul at the end of the season.

Agreeing, the next day Joe begins his career and leads the Senators to the pennant, playing right into Applegate and his assistant Lola’s (Gwen Verdon) hands.

The film version of the musical based on the story of Faust, Damn Yankees has a devilishly good story to accompany its unforgettable songs.

However, isn’t Hell’s representative in baseball already Pete Rose?

He has Athlete's Foot in his Mouth. He's the...

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