Opening Everywhere: Riddick
Opening Somewhere or On Demand: Adore, Hell Baby, Salinger, Winnie Mandela
FilmDrunk Suggests: It’s a pretty cut and dry weekend. If you’re a Vin Diesel fan, go make sure that his other, lesser grossing franchise stays alive, or stay home and rent Adore to watch a couple hot moms trade their sons for sex. I know, that’s not exactly the plot, but I’m having a blood pressure issue today and if I see that “Queen my dishes” commercial one more time, I’m going to wind up on a two-week meth binge.
Riddick
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 59% critics, 76% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Riddick, an alternately kick-ass and clumsy piece of sci-fi claptrap that puts its empty head down and gets the job done. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Much of the film is over-the-top, but that won’t be a surprise to those who saw the previous two installments. Diesel is in fine form, growling his lines and being the most menacing person on screen even when he’s in chains. – James Berardinelli, ReelViews
Armchair Analysis: I do not get the appeal of these films, but people seem to love them nonetheless. I’ve watched both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick and I don’t hate either of them, but they’re just not… good. They just exist, I guess. But when you’re the star of an absurd car porn franchise that prints money, you can basically do whatever the hell you want. I’d like to volunteer to write the next one, as long as I can call it Riddick Goes to Vegas.
Adore
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 31% critics, 53% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Watts and Wright movingly convey their characters’ journeys: caught up in new, reckless love; frightened by the passage of years; determined to hide within an envelope of stolen time and a fantasy that can’t last. – Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
Astonishingly, Wright and Watts sell their characters – the yearning, the bond, the inevitable wrong ahead. But “Adore” remains too much of a stretch. – Tom Long, Detroit News
Armchair Analysis: Like I wrote in the streaming post that you probably didn’t read, this movie is just so creepy to me. Not that it wouldn’t be awesome if my friend’s mom looked like Naomi Watts, but nobody’s mom has ever looked like Naomi Watts.
Hell Baby
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 36% critics, 32% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
The film’s reliance on female nudity for edge seems approximately as ancient as the withered hag who keeps trying to get it on with Corddry. – Sara Stewart, New York Post
Its modest (if occasionally gross-out) stabs at genre parody rarely insult our intelligence and even allow for the kind of retro deadpan silliness Mel Brooks used to underline his louder punch lines. – Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
Armchair Analysis: Long have I shared my vitriolic opinions on today’s spoof film, and long have I loathed the laziness suffocating and murdering a once celebrated genre. Here we have a spoof written and directed by two men with a proven history of success in spoofs, and yet it’s being absolutely skewered by critics. Except for this dude who compared it to MADtv as a compliment, and that dude will never, ever be invited to one of my parties.
Salinger
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 29% critics, 38% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
By turns fascinating and infuriating. – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
It’s a good thing J.D. Salinger isn’t around to see Shane Salerno’s bio-documentary Salinger or he’d come after Salerno with a hatchet. He really would. – David Edelstein, Vulture
Armchair Analysis: Yeah, I’m gonna skip this one.
Winnie Mandela
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 8% critics, 64% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Winnie Mandela” really stumbles when it comes to depicting the couple’s painful separation, which the film suggests resulted more from politics than Winnie’s infidelity. – Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Like many a biopic before it, “Winnie Mandela” shoehorns an exceptional life into the standard template of a highlights reel, lurching from one Important Moment to the next. – Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times
Armchair Analysis: Ditto from the last one.