Guilty pleasure: RT blurbs on "Killers"

Cafe Society
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The new Ashton Kutcher-Katherine Heigl opened Friday. It wasn’t prescreened for critics and so the reviews started popping up on Rotten Tomatoes only yesterday. As of this post, it’s at 6% with 2 “fresh” and 33 rotten. Aong top critics it’s 0-12.

So okay, it’s a crappy movie that they tried to sneak by the critics, etc. They even tried to lay on a line about spreading word of mouth via Facebook and Twitter instead of the traditional methods. But they forgot: “Thou shall not tick off critics.” and they are paying dearly for it. RT is doing its part by picking the best quotes to highlight. E.g.,

“Whatever germ of an idea there is, it’s quickly killed by witless writing and migraine-inducing direction.”

“Is it some monstrosity of awfulness, as its lack of advance screening suggested? No, that would imply at least a spark of some kind. This is just an empty summer hodgepodge of stale romantic comedy exchanges, witlessness and lackluster action.”

(My bolding.)

“Don’t tell me I’m making too much out of nothing, because the steady drip-drip-drip of nothings like this are killing us all.”

“It’s so ineffectual and unfocused that after it’s over, you’re not even sure you watched a movie.”

And the Grand Prize is:

“It’s the summer movie equivalent of Cheetos – totally unnatural, bad for you, possibly cancerous, but a guilty pleasure to indulge in with your girlfriends, possibly while drunk.”

That last one is one of the two “fresh” reviews. Which is why I use quotes.

Ms. Heigl has another movie coming out in October (not a good release date): “Life as We Know It”. The trailer is bad. Really bad. As in she has pooh on her face bad. (And that’s a green band trailer. The MPAA of course doesn’t have any double standards.) A clearly trite movie that will be compared unfavorably to “Baby Boom”.

I’m not normally one to resort to <insert German word for enjoying the failures of others>, but I think Karma is having a good time here.

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This is all I need to know about this turkey. Gigli, move over.

I might turn around to see Kutcher on fire, but Heigl and her Grey’s Anatomy drama turned me off to her.

May this die quickly so the jokes don’t cause me to want to see what’s it all about.

I just keep telling myself, “You don’t have to see this.”

3

It’s karmic payback for keeping her bra on throughout Knocked Up. You don’t want to do a nude scene? Don’t do a sex comedy.

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I didn’t know Heigl was this disliked; I think she’s rather charming, although I haven’t seen her in much and the previews for “Killers” are so bad they make me a bit giggly. It appears to be the type of movie I will watch, intoxicated, at 4 in the morning on the sofa, b/c it’s that or infomercials and I’m too tired to get up and go to bed…

5

I don’t dislike her. I enjoyed her in Knocked Up. But her insistence on remaining clothed in a scene where her character was not just cuddling after sex (where the L-shaped sheet might be forgivable) but while actually having sex took me out of the movie. I thought it was bullshit. She has some cockamamie theory that it is impossible for an actress to get laughs while naked. Bullshit. Julianne Moore in The Big Lebowski got great laughs while stark naked, as did Amanda Peet in The Whole Nine Yards.

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I went to see it Thursday night with a friend who had won tickets for a sneak peek.

It wasn’t great, that’s for sure. But it was no where near as bad as Gigli. There were a bunch of plot holes and you saw everything coming a mile away.

I did find myself laughing…but it was mostly at parts that weren’t supposed to be funny.

Meh, it was free.

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Ms. Heigl has violated several of the Hollywood Commandments and is now paying for it. E.g.,

  1. “Thou shall not slam your projects.” She regularly beefed about story issues and such on Grey’s Anatomy, the vehicle that earned her fame. It particular, after winning an Emmy, she withdrew herself from consideration in Season 5 because she felt her storyline wasn’t very good. This really ticked off a lot of the GA staff. Because of this and other such acts, the GA staff are openly talking about her diva behavior of the show. Sure, a lot of people are jerks at times, but you don’t cross the line so that people start writing blogs listing your jerkish behavior.

The other famous slam is she put down Knocked Up, her most successful movie. Stupid enough as it is, but making Judd Apatow unhappy is triply stupid. And given how awful the movies she’s made since are, what is going thru her mind?

  1. “Thou shall honor thy contract.” She went on maternity leave from GA when she adopted her kid. The week she was supposed to come back to the set she just didn’t. She let the GA producers know that she was done with GA. This is bad. If you get a rep for not showing up when you are contractually obligated, it hurts your career big time. This one thing alone has turned a lot of her fans into haters.

(Sure, the show is going into the toilet big time and most of the actors want out. But they know they have a contract and will walk thru it.)

  1. “Thou shall not make your mother your agent.” 'Nuff said.

A couple more “fresh” reviews are now up on RT. Here’s one blurb:

“…an acceptable time-waster that just barely gets the job done.”

Damning with faint praise indeed.