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Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
Reviews
Sydney White
An obvious, labored fairy tale
By
BRETT MICHEL
|
September 19, 2007
SYDNEY WHITE
" alt="photo of 'SYDNEY WHITE'">
1.0
Stars
SYDNEY WHITE: Spend your dollars elsewhere.
Once upon a time, Joe Nussbaum (last seen directing the straight-to-video
American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile
) decided to set his ambitious sights on updating the beloved
Snow White
. Just as he did with his breakthrough short, “George Lucas in Love,” he’s created a genre mash-up, grafting on the plot of
Revenge of the Nerds
and . . . the climax of
Spartacus
? The resulting “Sydney White and the Seven Dorks” is an obvious, labored fairy tale where the only ones lucky enough to live happily ever after are the audiences spending their dollars elsewhere. Amanda Bynes (
Hairspray
) plays Sydney, a Southern Atlantic University freshman dreaming of continuing her late mother’s legacy at a sorority lorded over by evil Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton). Banished to live with the social misfits on Greek Row, Sydney draws the attention of Tyler Prince (Matt Long), a charming metrosexual who offers to be her “Greek guide.” Now
that
would have been a movie.
Related
:
Sith happens
,
Review: House
,
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
,
More
Sith happens
Many people regard anything produced in the past 15 years or so bearing the Star Wars brand as total garbage, and rightly so.
Review: House
Just imagine, after viewing Nobuhiko Obayashi’s bona fide genre find, how a generation of moviegoers’ tastes might have deviated in wonderfully odd directions had they sampled the Japanese visionary’s comic-horror hybrid back in 1977.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
It is Star Wars , but it's also an ad for an upcoming video game and an animated TV series debuting in October.
The girls of summer
It’s summer, so no one’s surprised at the onslaught of sequels, adaptations, or even movies based on toys. But films with Oscar-caliber women’s roles?
Labyrinth
Of course I imagined I was Jennifer Connelly.
Aquamarine
Daryl Hannah can breathe easy — this mermaid tale based on Alice Hoffman’s book will do little to erase memories of Ron Howard’s Splash .
Numb Skull
You can’t say they don’t warn you.
Off with their heads
The signs are getting bleak for the man in the White House and the party in power.
Potter-schmotter!
No reading required.
Golden anniversary
Happy 50th anniversary to the San Francisco Film Festival.
Art in America
The legend of the Old West's cowboys and Indians, flinty pioneers and buffalo killers, sheriffs and gunslingers started with the tall tales that cowboys themselves told of their glorious exploits.
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:
Reviews
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,
George Lucas
,
Matt Long
,
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,
Amanda Bynes
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,
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,
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,
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[
02/18
]
20th Annual Cajun & Zydeco Mardi Gras Ball
@ Rhodes-On-the-Pawtuxet
[
02/18
]
"Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings
@ Bert Gallery
[
02/18
]
A screening of Andy Warhol's Sleep
@ RK Projects + Magic Lantern Cinema
ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL
REVIEW: THIS MEANS WAR
| February 16, 2012
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.
REVIEW: THE VIRAL FACTOR
| January 17, 2012
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.
REVIEW: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
| January 17, 2012
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."
REVIEW: THE DIVIDE
| January 10, 2012
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."
REVIEW: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL
| December 20, 2011
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.
See all articles by:
BRETT MICHEL
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