TAR 17 Cast Announced, Promptly Mocked

It’s no secret that we here at Movie Hawk have a love/hate relationship with The Amazing Race, i.e., we love the show and love hating its contestants. Normally, we wait until the show actually airs to form opinions on the teams, but since it’s a boring day and I haven’t written in a while, I thought it’d be fun to introduce the cast now, before they depart….on a racearoundtheworld.

Team: Andie and Jenna
Relationship: Birth Mother and Biological Daughter
Team Nickname: I’m thinking….Team Warbucks? Little Orphan Annie?

From what I can gather, Andie gave Jenna up when she was born, and they just recently reconnected. As with all teams that use the Race as a platform to get to know each other, I’m sure this will be a wildly successful venture. For those of you whose browsers don’t support <sarcasm> tags, I predict that they’ll either be booted in the first three legs or go deep but annoy the hell out of each other and us. Continue Reading >>

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Dating is hard. You have to deal with the awkward “getting to know you” moments, the missteps in judgements because you haven’t completed the “getting to know you moments,” and the anxiety that you’re not doing enough to impress your new love interest. If you successfully navigate the early-relationship waters, you still have to worry whether you measure up to all the boyfriends that have come before you. Imagine if you had to do all that…and said exes started attacking you in gamer-style fights. Such is the life of the titular hero in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which, while not necessarily one of the best movies of the summer, is without a doubt one of the most entertaining. Continue Reading >>

Review: The Other Guys

Will Ferrell’s career path has had an interesting trajectory. It seems that the more famous he has become, the less funny he has appeared to be. The ratio reached equilibrium in 2004, when Ferrell became a major star on the release of his best film appearance to date, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Since then, his old SNL clips have become YouTube currency, but his work as a leading man has been patchy at best. So, after the debacle that was last year’s Land of the Lost, it was a relief to see him teaming up with Adam McKay again for the action spoof The Other Guys. And while it isn’t a complete return to form for Ferrell, it’s at least a sign of a pulse left in his comedic veins. Continue Reading >>

Summer Slowdown

Ever since Jaws was released 35 years ago, summer has been a time for big-budget movies that deliver big entertainment. But as the years have passed, studios’ definition of “summer” has loosened significantly, to the point where some movies that would normally be considered summer blockbusters are released in April. This is great for people who want to see more movies sooner, but not so much for fans of air conditioned theaters on hundred-degree days. Fewer and fewer quality movies are being released in the summer. Luckily, this summer has given us two major exceptions to this trend. Continue Reading >>

Bloody Hell

This post contains spoilers for the second season of True Blood, so if you haven’t watched it…well, read ahead anyway, because I’m doing you a favor.

Last summer, I spent a not-insignificant portion of my week at the shore catching up on the HBO series True Blood. My sister and her friend were both captivated by the dark, edgy show and its portrayal of vampires, which seemed more honest to canon than the ubiquitous Twilight versions. I devoured the first season quickly and caught up on the second in time to watch it finish out in real time, spending the majority of it praying that Maryann, the godlike minotaur who co-opted Sookie’s house and brainwashed the entire town, would go away. With her killed, I thought the third season would prove more watchable. Continue Reading >>