Movie Review: "Jackass 3D"

5. When I posted to my Facebook page that I was seeing "Jackass 3D" at the theater, an old friend replied "Why?,"and I offered the only appropriate response to an unspoken implication that we should all be above such a sickening display of idiocy: "Why not?"

4. Is the vast and inventive use of feces, both animal and human, by the likes of Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera really any more gag-inducing than the latest spate of hateful political commercials offered by power-hungry Democrats and Republicans?

3. Is dumping a plastic tub full of pythons on ophidiophobic Margera any more abusive than the donkey and elephant parties each drumming up fears of global Apocalypse should just one person from the other side ascend to elected office?

2. Is watching Jason "Wee Man" Acuna be glued to the hairy chest of a fat man and then be ripped off in wrenching fashion anymore painful than seeing a pair of insipid, dull and uninspiring gubernatorial candidates debate who is the greater liar?

1. The easy way out is to say "Jackass 3D" is the lowest of the lowbrow, but our allegedly high-minded political candidates find new and more creative ways to debase themselves and our electoral process on a biannual basis, so if you ask me why I'm at "Jackass 3D" instead of requesting an absentee ballot, I say, "If am I'm to spend my afternoon covered in drek, let it at least be amusing."

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"Jackass 3D"
Run time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Rated R‎‎
Genre: Comedy/Documentary/Action/Adventure‎
Director: Jeff Tremaine
Cast: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn and Jason Acuna
Finney's Flick's Grade: C+

Movie Review: "Red"

5. "Red" is basically "The Expendables" with a better cast.

4. I don't know if this new trend in action movies for the AARP crowd is disturbing or empowering.

3. On the one hand, it's nice to the senior set -- Morgan Freeman, 73, Helen Mirren, 55, John Malkovich, 56, and Bruce Willis, 55 -- get to blow stuff up and shoot bad guys with the reckless abandon not seen since the cocaine-fueled, inflation-endowed 1980s.

2. Yet "Red," just as "Expendibles," made me feel old because it meant we've been watching these people -- particularly Willis -- do basically the same thing again and again for more than two decades -- more than 57 percent of my life.

1. "Reds" is OK, not worth much more than an "eh," but it did leave me wondering if I needed to do something different with whatever percentage of movie-watching life I have left.

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"Red"
Run time: 1 hour, 51 minutes
Rated PG-13‎‎
Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy‎
Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Karl Urban
Finney's Flicks Grade: C

Movie Review: "The Social Network"

 
5. "The Social Network" really isn't about Facebook or the legal battles over it's creation or any hypertext information super highway gobbledygook; it's the oldest story in the world: It's about a nerdy boy, albeit one with an uncommonly powerful intellect, desperately trying to fit in and woo women.

4. Everything that's already been said about "The Social Network" is true: It's a terrific, well-written and directed modern drama that's masterfully acted with amazing performances by the three young leads Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Joseph Mazzello.

3. What isn't as obvious in the hype is that "The Social Network" serves as a kind of indictment of Facebook as a great connector and minter of friendships.

2. Facebook may be worth $25 billion, but all the website truly offers us is a very contrived illusion of access to others -- we only see what they want us to see in the definitions and terms they choose, a sort of clearinghouse for digital distortion not all that different the an old fashioned fun house mirror.

1. The most telling moment "The Social Network" comes in the brilliant, wonderful and sad scene final scene, which I won't spoil but to say no matter how many ways we have to "connect" via the Internet, our smart phones, it does not change that in our most solitary moments of darkness pierced only by the glow of a laptop screen, we still wonder if anybody really loves us.

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"The Social Network"
Run time: 2 hour
Rated PG-13‎‎
Genre: Drama‎
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Joseph Mazzello and Rooney Mara
Finney's Flicks Grades: A+