SCREEN > REVIEWS

By Sean Burns

"Project X" Is a Far-Less-Superior Remake of "Superbad"

It’s gawky Thomas Kud’s 17th birthday, and rather conveniently his parents are headed out of town, leaving him alone for the weekend in their sprawling Pasadena McMansion. Played by Thomas Mann, he’s an un-endearingly awkward young fellow who seems to be missing a few crucial personality traits. Thomas is always trailed by his pervert sidekicks, Costa (Oliver Cooper) and J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown.) The latter is too vaguely defined to make much of an impression, while the former stakes an early claim as one of this year’s most insufferable movie characters.

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Posted Feb. 29, 2012 | Comments: 7

SCREEN > REVIEWS

By Sean Burns

Woody Harrelson Is Brilliant As a Bigoted Cop in "Rampart"

Harrelson’s back with a vengeance in this movie, which starts strong, quickly drifts into terrible and only works on the rare occasions when Harrelson’s searing performance is allowed to shine. Harrelson plays Dave “Date Rape” Brown, a piggish patrolman caught in the late-1990’s Rampart division scandal. Starved down to sinew and raw attitude, Dave seems to subsist on cigarettes, martinis and xenophobic bluster. The running joke in the movie is that he doesn’t even eat.

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Posted Feb. 22, 2012 | Comments: 0
RELATED: PW Sits Down With "Rampart" Director Oren Moverman

SCREEN > REVIEWS

By Sean Burns

"This Means War" Is the Worst Romantic Comedy in Years

In this gleaming, shitty bauble populated by expensive gadgets and sociopaths (in that order) Reese Witherspoon plays some sort of kitchenware product-testing expert, hyperactively married to her lame career in one of those horrible, only-in-the-movies Type A cliches that require us to stupidly believe somebody who looks like Reese Witherspoon can’t find a date.

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Posted Feb. 15, 2012 | Comments: 4

SCREEN > REVIEWS

By Sean Burns

There's No Eye in Madonna's "W.E."

A marvelous 10-car pileup of ostentatious art direction and dated fashion shows in search of reason for being, the sophomore effort from writer-director-hyphenate Madonna is a fascinatingly bad collision of good intentions and decent craftsmanship. By virtue of her near-indestructible pop icon status, everything Madge does automatically becomes a semiotics exercise, and so we’re left to ponder W.E. —a heartfelt, deeply personal and wildly self-indulgent vision issued from within an ivory tower. It’s like a costume drama hijacked by a Freudian confessional.

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Posted Feb. 8, 2012 | Comments: 0

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