I hate admitting I’m not the infallible creature many of you take me for, but the truth is, I don’t get to see every movie. Such was the case with The Internship. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s latest two-guys-doing-something-they’re-too-old-for-and-being-awesome-at-it comedy opens today, with a script co-written by Vaughn himself and direction from master of comedy, Shawn Levy, director of such films as Real Steel and Date Night. But while I couldn’t make it to a screening, I’d like to think I made up for it by spending even more time reading every review, piecing together the plot bit by bit, and I’m convinced I came away knowing everything there is to know about The Internship. And now I share this knowledge with you.

Spoilers alert, in case that wasn’t obvious.

Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) sell pricey wristwatches. -USA Today

They tell prospective clients that “you can’t control time, but you can manage it.” -Screencrush

They learn that the company they work for has gone out of business from a client they’re wining and dining, -USA Today

…because “no one wears watches anymore, they just look at their phones.” -NY Daily News

As if hearing such important news secondhand wasn’t bad enough, Billy finds himself sitting in an empty house after his girlfriend walks out on him, and Nick resorts to selling mattresses for his demented brother-in-law. But just when it seems like they’ve hit rock bottom, -TV Guide

Vaughn’s character performs a Google search using the words “jobs for people with few skills.” -VillageVoice

Rather than looking for new sales jobs, Billy decides they should take unpaid internships in a field they know nothing about. -USA Today

And then Nick and Billy video-conference their way into a summer internship at the world’s greatest company. -Chicago Trib

Though they clearly lied on their résumés, know nothing about tech and are old enough to remember when AOL was a hot stock, the company hires them alongside the 21-year-olds, anyway. -NY Post

How do two grown men without even a passing understanding of the Internet score internships at the world’s leading web company? Basically, by telling a sob story during their interview and positioning themselves as victims of the financial collapse. After all, Google isn’t made of stone! -AV Club

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M. Night Shyamalan’s Smith family picture After Earth hits theaters today, and because it’s an M. Night Shyamalan movie, or, I suspect, because it’s not very good, the reviews have been quite negative. Actually, for every 10 reviews, there’s about seven negative, and three devil’s advocate, here’s-why-it’s-not-as-bad-as-everyone-else-says reviews. I tend to believe our friend Laremy’s succinct statement on the matter, because out of all the critics, he’s the cutest (sorry, Kyle Smith):

“After Earth is f*cking terrible, Jaden Smith is not an actor, Will Smith is not a father, and the whole thing is this extended chase scene in which you want the kid to die horribly because all he does is cry like a little bitch about everything. At one point the person next to me said, “C’mon kid, just sack up”. Now if they’d called the film that, I’d have been in.”

It’d be easy to just compile some mean quotes about Jaden’s acting, but it’s too easy. It’s no fun piling on. Instead, I thought we’d use the negative reviews to do what we’ve done a few times before: cobble together the plot and let you decide for yourself. So here it is, everything I learned about After Earth, using nothing but review quotes.

A thousand years ago, we learn, humans fled the Earth after rendering what was once a paradise uninhabitable. They now reside on “Nova Prime…” (Vulture)

…where they wear a lot of white and decorate their homes with flowing sailcloths. (NY Times)

…where all garments and surfaces are dominated by a curious honeycomb pattern, and where we eat our meals with implements that resemble three Lucite chopsticks joined at one end. (Slate)

“After Earth” opens with a teenager, Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith), washing out from some kind of ranger academy. It’s a bummer because all he wants to do is please his father, Cypher (Will Smith). (NY Times)

(Nova Prime) wasn’t a hospitable place at first, as they were hunted by ferocious predators, blind but able to smell fear. Only a great soldier who’d learned to control that emotion was able to help vanquish them. -NJ.com

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“Hi, I’m Kardashian. You may remember me from my fake marriage and sex tape. I’m here to deliver an important morality tale.”

If you’re not familiar with our Plot Recreated with Reviews feature, it works like this: we take a movie we haven’t seen and try to recreate the entire story using summaries from the reviews. The idea is to use only summary quotes (no analysis!), so that the only editorializing comes by way of delicious passive-aggression. We haven’t done one in a while, because it requires a movie with a plot that’s sort of funny in its own right. Juicy melodrama tends to work the best. And I do believe Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (yes, that is the full title) fits that bill. Here’s the IMDB synopsis:

An ambitious married woman’s temptation by a handsome billionaire leads to betrayal, recklessness, and forever alters the course of her life.

I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for any description that includes the phrase “handsome billionaire.” Okay, let’s do this. And remember, this film didn’t screen for critics, so you have to assume that most of these critics saw it on their own dime.

—

The story is framed by a tale that a couples therapist imparts to a cheating wife. It concerns Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Brice (Lance Gross), childhood friends in a small, golden-sepia Southern town who are destined for matrimony**, flirting against the wishes of Judith’s scripture-quoting battle-ax mother (Ella Joyce).*

Brice is happy being a humble pharmacist*, while Judith wants to be a marriage counselor and ends up becoming the in-house therapist at a high-class, millionaire matchmaking service***, a high-end operation that Judith can’t stand, despite only working there for less than a month****.

She locks horns with a bitchy, materialistic co-worker (Kim Kardashian essentially playing Kim Kardashian) and her cartoonishly cougar-ish boss, Janice (Vanessa Williams, using a broad French accent)*. Kim Kardashian’s character exists mostly to criticize the wardrobe of Judith *****, uttering bon mots like, “That’s not make-up, that’s make-down.”******

Janice introduces Judith to Harley (Robbie Jones)**, a sort of black Thomas Crown******, a dapper social-media magnate Janice covets as an investor,** and the two begin working with each other on a computer program that matches romantic compatibility****.

Harley spends the first hour of the film gazing lustfully and soulfully at Judith while purring barely concealed come-ons that manage to convey, “I want to have sex with you despite your marriage and strong Christian virtues.”****** Judith, bored by the dutiful, spectacled Brice and feeling professionally stalled, is easy prey for Harley’s seductions.**

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Starring Kate Hudson, Gael Garcia Bernal, Madame Cat, and Special Needs Pig

Plot of Little Bit of Heaven, Recreated Using Quotes from Passive-Aggressive Reviews

I know the big story is that The Avengers opens today, and thus you may have missed this, but did you know that there’s also a rom-com coming out about Kate Hudson getting ass cancer, and it’s called “Little Bit of Heaven”? And that “Little Bit of Heaven” is also the name of a gay dwarf prostitute played by Peter Dinklage? And that Kate Hudson meets God, in the form of Whoopi Goldberg, who urges her to find love? These are things that I now know.

Again, if you’re not familiar with our “Plot Recreated with Passive Aggressive Reviews” feature, the way it works is, we try to piece together an entire terrible movie using only summary quotes written by put-upon critics. This one’s going to be fun.

As the picture opens, Marley rushes out of her criminally-cute apartment to dash off to her job — late again! — on her charmingly rusty vintage bicycle. She arrives at work just in time to give a killer presentation that lands her company a big new client, a condom manufacturer. (Movieline)

The sun doesn’t just shine but also bathes her in radiant, honeyed light. Life is just one long and lovely feminine hygiene commercial. (NYTimes)

One of the hottest female ad executives in the business, she’s married to her job. She’s also a bit of a commitment-phobe. (ReelViews)

A self-described slut, Marley also has a hookup book that she regularly dips into for recreational sex. (NYTimes)

Her buddies and family think her current friend with benefits, Rob, might make great husband material, but she’s not sold. She likes him, but doesn’t “like him like that.” (ReelViews)

She lives in an apartment with a colorful horse painted on the wall and a functional, frilly swing in the dining room (AV Club)

…has a gorgeous courtyard apartment in New Orleans, complete with sassy gay black neighbor (Romany Malco) and adorably mush-faced bulldog. (TheWrap)

Marley Corbett has a sunny irreverence and Teflon resistance to emotional attachment that leaves her happily impervious to just about everything, even when, one fine day, she’s diagnosed with colon cancer. (VillageVoice)

She is losing weight and has rectal bleeding. (SFChronicle)

Marley finally sees a doctor about her run-down state, and wouldn’t you know, that doc, Dr. Goldstein, EW

a “Jewish Mexican,” (ReelViews)

is single, cute, and played by moist-eyed Gael García Bernal. (EW)

Hudson flirts with Bernal as he preps her for a colonoscopy, followed by a fantasy sequence in which Hudson’s spirit travels to heaven and talks to God, who takes the form of Whoopi Goldberg, who informs her, sassily, that she’s dying. The Almighty grants her three wishes on the way out, however, though She knows—being omniscient and all—that what Hudson really wants is to find love before she dies. (AV Club)

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No women? I'm guessing they be shoppin.

There’s this game we like to play, where we take a movie we’re probably not going to see anyway (because it looks bad or it’s clearly not our demo or whatever), and try to experience it through others’ eyes, specifically, those of the embittered critics forced to paint us the picture. We don’t use their most scathing critiques or harsh analyses, no, because that would be too easy, and not as fun. Rather, we use the least analytical, most expository quotes we can find, just to soak up that faint air of passive-aggression. We already did one for the latest Zac Efron-starring Nicholas Sparks tale, but that ended up getting trounced at the box office by the schmaltzy infomercial for Steve Harvey’s new book, Think Like A Man. (Frankly I think Steve Harvey owes Kevin Hart a solid for that one).

Anyway, always wanted to know what Think Like a Man is about but were too apathetic to buy a ticket? READ ON!

The women in the movie, who all live in Los Angeles and have jobs that do not permit them to have money problems, treat Steve Harvey’s book like a bible. (Film.com)

There’s the Mama’s Boy (Terrence J) versus the Single Mom (Regina Hall); the Dreamer (Michael Ealy) versus the Woman Who Is Her Own Man (Taraji P. Henson),; and the Non-Committer (Jerry Ferrara) versus the Ring Girl (Gabrielle Union).
The film also pits the Player (Romany Malco) versus the 90-Day Girl (Meagan Good) — 90 days is how long she’s supposed to “keep the cookie in the cookie jar.” (NY Post)

…the too-easy woman has decided to start off all boyfriends with a probation period before they get their “benefits package.” (NewarkStar)

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