Bad Santa 2

By George M. Thomas

Billy Bob Thornton and Christina Hendricks in Bad Santa 2.

BAD SANTA, despite its vulgarity, savage nature, and basic cynicism was easy to like because once the audience scratched beneath the surface, a message revealed itself.

That film, produced and allegedly re-written by Joel and Ethan Coen, possessed a level of intelligence and brutally mocked what has become of the holiday season.  It, however, also possessed heart.

The Coen Brothers didn’t have much to do with  BAD SANTA 2.   It’s of little surprise, then, that while the film possesses all the skepticism, cynicism, racism  and every other negative ism that can be named, it has absolutely none of the charm or heart.

The Judge

Review by Joseph Anthony

Imagine the guy who directed FRED CLAUSE, SHANGHAI KNIGHTS, WEDDING CRASHERS and helped write R.I.P.D., David Dobkin, made a courtroom drama. Okay, imagine no longer. It’s happened and it’s called THE JUDGE.

To call THE JUDGE a courtroom drama isn’t totally fair though. Most of the drama revolves around a broken family, the Palmers. Son, Hank Palmer, played by Robert Downey Jr., is a big-city lawyer who thrives on defending society's most corrupt. His father, Judge Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall) has presided over a small town in Indiana for over four decades. Unlike his son, Judge Palmer is guided by principle. While both father and son have turned to the law in their professional lives, the bonds that tie them together as family had been severed for years. Hank calls his father “Judge” as lovingly as a military recruit calls his superiors “sir.”

Jayne Mansfield's Car (now on video)

[JAYNE MANSFIELD'S CAR is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
 

Wow, am I reading a strange book right now. The author, a West Coast freelance writer-author-insider in the "debauched and depraved" LA entertainment realm, claimed to have gone through toxic girlfriends, anger-management issues and a sojourn in Japan, whilst still covering local musicians for assorted journals. And, as a sideline, he took up lucid dreaming, setting down in longhand detail as many of his dreams and nightmares as he could. Many of them are of bizarre and violent aspect, often involving his own death or the murder of others at his bloodstained stands.

[Interesting to note that when Cleveland's eminent SCENE weekly downsized and let go of the movie-reviewing freelancers - myself included - they still determined to retain their music stringers. You really think that was a good idea, keeping the freelancers who dream of homicide all the time? Just saying...]