By Debbie Schlussel
There’s not much good at the box office, this weekend. In fact, I recommend you stay home and rent something.
* “The Hangover“: This movie is as dreck-ish as they come. Absolute complete garbage. What was supposed to be a funny guy bachelor party movie, got about three laughs from me. And that’s being generous.
You don’t have to be a prude to know that this movie is trash. Perhaps the multiple shots–in the closing credits–of one of the characters getting oral sex (you can see the guy’s penis and the woman mouth on it–why didn’t this get an X or NC-17 rating?), along with other stuff usually reserved for the Playboy and SPICE Channels, should be a hint that it’s trash.

The “plot”: A guy is getting married, and he, his weird future brother-in-law, and two friends take a road trip to Vegas. They start out the night drinking shots on the roof of Caesar’s Palace, where they’ve rented a gaudy villa, and wake up the next morning with the place a complete mess. They can’t remember what happened, and the groom is missing. The rest of this waste-of-time flick shows them trying to piece it all together and find the groom. So what? Who cares?
I like a good, funny guys road trip or bachelor party movie. “Animal House,” “Class,” and others like it set the pace, and I liked those. This is just pointless.
A weird guys’ butt in a jock strap in close-up. Haha funny. And old man’s droopy butt in a hospital scene. Frickin’ hilarious. Mike Tyson singing a Genesis song out of tune and then punching someone out. Oh, gosh, I’m in stitches. A stripper (Heather Graham) pulling out a breast to nurse a baby, complete with nipple shot. Laugh attack. Sorry, not funny. The movie isn’t funny at all. And the F-words and other obscenities in every other line don’t make it any more so.
Just stupid.
But, hey, the audience filled with teens and twenty-somethings I saw this with thought it was completely hilarious. They laughed at one stupid line after another and gave applause at the end of the movie. Given that, I’m convinced the vast majority of America’s generation Y and younger are mostly morons and simpletons with zero idea of humor, not to mention class or intelligence. But what can you expect with a generation raised on Paris Hilton, the spoiled morons of “The Hills,” and “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” It’s no longer C-students who run the world. Porn and idiocy rule. As do the vile and vulgar.
As bad as a hangover feels, you’d be better off getting one than wasting your time and ten bucks on this total time-bandit flick, which steals almost two hours of your life you’ll never get back.
FOUR MARXES

* “Land of the Lost“: I normally like Will Ferrell and find him somewhat funny. But this movie was just stupid. And mostly not funny. Moreover, while the sets and special effects are cool, the movie sounded like a three-year-old wrote it. (With all due apologies to three-year-olds.)
Though the movie is based on the ’70s kids TV series of the same name, the f-bombs, s-bombs, and multiple sexual references make it unsuitable for kids. Not to mention the brain-addled story. The movie also trys way too hard to be artsy and cool. It doesn’t work, but it’s interesting and colorful to look it.
Ferrell plays a marginal scientist who is the laughing stock of the world because of his theories of parallel and alternative universes in time and space . . . and a bad interview he did with Matt Lauer on “The Today Show.”
But Ferrell proves them all wrong when he, his attractive British student assistant, and a hickish tour guide find themselves in a parallel universe, where dinosaurs and enemy lizard men,
“sleestaks,” rule. They meet and take on as a companion a sex-obsessed pre-human being who is like half-man, half monkey, named Chaka.
I laughed a few times, but not much and certainly not as much as I do in a typical Will Ferrell offering. It was mildly entertaining due to the eye-candy of the colorful sets, effects, and sci-fi nature of it all.
Don’t waste your time or your money on this.
HALF-MARX


* “My Life in Ruins“: I don’t think I’ve seen a more corny, cheesy, stupid love story movie ever. And why is it that Greek people–like star and producer Nia Vardalos–get away with making awful anti-Greek minstrel shows like this painful-to-watch utter waste?
Vardalos plays an American with a Ph.D. who is working as a tour guide for a shlocky company in Greece, while she waits to get a professorship at an American university. A cast of annoying tourists–some of them “ugly Americans,” others are stupid stereotypes of other Western locales (but don’t worry no Muslim stereotypes, couldn’t do that)–join a hairy Greek bus driver by the name of Poopy Kakas, with a nephew named Doody Kakas (either of which should have been the name of this movie). ‘Nuff said.
Soon, Vardalos finds herself falling for the bus driver. Who cares? I didn’t. I just couldn’t wait for the credits to roll. Among the credits is Richard Dreyfus. Annoying leftist America-hating actor apparently needed a paycheck . . . badly.
Skip this no matter what. Gives even chick flicks a bad name.
TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES

* “The Summer Hours“: Ironically, this slow-moving, non-action art house flick is the best of the bunch at the theaters, this weekend. But that’s all relative.
It’s a French movie with English subtitles, which moves very slowly and is mildly entertaining, though enjoyable. But it’s not for everyone. There’s no suspense or much of a plot.
An aging French woman knows that eventually, like all of us, she will die. She has a very valuable art collection, much of which is the work of her famous artist uncle. The work is contained in her charming, valuable French country house.
The woman dies and her three kids need to figure out how to dispose of her estate. A son wants to keep the artwork and the house in the family. Meanwhile, the other son and the daughter want to sell it all, as they both live and have their lives abroad and no longer have much of a connection to France.
ONE REAGAN