Reviews

If you poke around the corners of the various content-hungry streaming services, you are likely to stumble upon terrible, cheaply made documentaries like this one, cranked out by small-time production houses looking to cash in on the demand. This entry bears the usual hallmarks of these films: low production values, stock footage that is often laughably off-base, little or no information that you couldn't just read on Wikipedia, and droning narration that robs the subject matter of the interest you had in it. I found the narration of this one particularly bad, with mispronounced words and a distracting cadence. I've seen films like this before, and after maybe 15 minutes of this nonsense, I couldn't tolerate any more and had to give up. Just dreadful.

A bare-bones profile of "The Squad" that uses baffling, often unrelated stock footage and generic, relentlessly repetitive background music to illustrate its narration, a recitation of information that, while straightforward and factual, doesn't go any deeper than a Wikipedia article. The only voice heard in the entire film is that of the narrator--there are no clips of the Congresswomen or any commentators. Avoid this cheap, monotonous production.

A great number of talented people were involved with this film: writer/director Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day), co-writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (The Office), lead actors Jack Black and Michael Cera, supporting actors David Cross and Oliver Platt, and cameo actors Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, and Kyle Gass, just to name a few. And it was produced by Judd Apatow. And yet it goes so terribly wrong. How? You have to go to the source: the script, which is aimless, disjointed, and sadly puerile. If you enjoy unfunny penis jokes and find the digestion of human excrement absolutely hilarious, you might enjoy this movie. I found very few laughs here, and I can't believe the amount of talent squandered on this trainwreck.

A loosely structured chronological overview of the history of Columbia Pictures, upon the occasion of its 75th anniversary as a movie studio. Hosted by Glenn Close, this is on the fluffy side, but it's a decent piece of nostalgia.

Classic Warner Bros. cartoons directed by Friz Freleng are mercilessly cut and spliced into a "movie" format and mixed with framing sequences animated in 1980-81. The latter-day sequences are a too-obvious distraction from the classics, and the classics deserve to be seen in their entirety. The final sequence ("the Oswald Awards") makes the most sense, but overall this was just a bad idea. If you can, watch the complete shorts instead.

Yeah, baby! With Mini-Me, better repartee between Dr. Evil and Scott, and Fat Bastard's hilarious scene in Dr. Evil's lair, I liked this better than the first one. But maybe it's just 'cuz I'm Randy, baby.

A shy girl with strange telekinetic powers joins an unpopular sorority, where the house mother is a mysterious and manipulative Shelley Winters. Meanwhile, the girl's sister joins a popular sorority, where Morgan Fairchild is the queen snob. A sacrificial initiation has tragic consequences. Bad acting, poor production values, seventies threads -- in other words, cheesy fun.