Daily Archives: September 23, 2011

Abduction

Taylor Lautner makes a bid for junior action hero status with Abduction, a wildly implausible money-grab for teen film-going dollars that seems outright allergic to exploring the most interesting thing about its concept, and instead beholden to lame notions of air-quote thrills. A highly recognizable adult supporting cast (including Alfred Molina, Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs) indicates the behind-the-scenes mechanisms being deployed to try to ensure Lautner’s viability as a 21st century leading man, but this dreary, unexciting misfire shouldn’t be the vehicle to do it. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Lionsgate, PG-13, 106 minutes)

Morgan Freeman Says Tea Party Powered By Racism

Morgan Freeman, in an interview with Piers Morgan set to air this evening on CNN, has tabbed the stirred-up anti-Obama passions of the Tea Party as having an element of racism. He’s not incorrect, but it’s also interesting to ponder how these long-simmering resentments would have gone sideways if, say, Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2008. Because that would have certainly happened as well, make no mistake. It’s no coincidence that so many of these folks, ahem, found Jesus during a Democratic administration. That’s the decades-long social conditioning of the right-wing media machine coming home to roost. So there’s a shrugging admission that maybe President Bush was a bit of a dissatisfaction (unnecessary war = whoops!), but everything else is still Obama’s fault. Fiscal facts (an unfunded prescription drug bill dwarfing any Obama administration stimulus spending) are, you know, just more opinionated science in sheep’s clothing.

ShockYa DVD Column, September 22

In my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at what is undeniably one of the year’s best comedies, the Blu-ray bow of Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill, Julie Taymor’s sex-changed version of The Tempest, football documentary 4th & Goal, a French film you can use to shock and/or unnerve your significant other, and more. For the full, fun read, over at ShockYa and inclusive of pretty pictures, click here.