Entering into a robust fraternity of cinematic triumphs that includes such highlights as Gotti and Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s new comedy Holmes & Watson has joined the storied pantheon of movies rocking a 0 percent “rotten” score on film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. For those unfamiliar with the site’s system, that means that not a single one of the 15 critics currently being polled for the film’s merits have said it’s even marginally worth the 89 minutes of your life it would take to watch, making this a real anti-Paddington 2 situation.
Now, it’s obviously early critical days for the Etan Cohen-directed Arthur Conan Doyle “homage,” especially since Sony Pictures—for some reason—declined to do early screenings of the film for press. So there might be some professional reviewer, somewhere, who’s out there gestating slowly on their “Actually, it’s very good!” take, although the movie’s almost equally dismal showing on the usually-more-forgiving “Audience Score” metric doesn’t give us much hope.
In case you missed it, you can check out Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s righteous “F” pan of the movie for us here. Here’s a brief excerpt to wet the old whistle:
“At least it’s in focus” is the lowest form of damnably faint praise one can give a movie. But Holmes & Watson doesn’t even earn that distinction. One might call it a failure on almost every level—that is, if the movie ever gave the impression that it was trying to succeed.
182 Comments
Will this finally be Ferrell’s, “Love Guru” and put his already moribund career deservedly out of its misery?
We can only be so lucky.
But we should be so lucky.
He’ll be taking cues from Bill Murray any day now – “surprise” bartending somewhere random, crashing weddings (when he’s in town for nothing more than to crash weddings for publicity), etc… He might even get to feeling up the young girls just like Murray does.
what, you don’t like the 100-odd dinner table scenes where he says shocking things?
The Love Guru was supposed to be Mike Meyer’s comeback after having been away for a bunch of years. The fact that it was so bad, and the fact that comedy had changed so much in just those few years, is what killed his career for good.While the entire “frat pack” has been out of favor for a while now, Ferrell’s movies still mostly make money. He’s not going anywhere.
The cyclic nature of male comedy stars is fascinating. It goes back to Belushi and Chase, who have a string of hits until their schitck gets old and they try and go serious, then they try and return and flop and then settle into mediocrity. Carrey, Myers, Sandler, Murphy…there’s so many. Jokes get stale, humor changes…the next thing comes along. Bill Murray doesn’t quite fit because I don’t know if he ever had a megaflop – did he? Also, he dodged the bullet of not having to star in a new Ghostbusters – but he did have a wildly unfunny cameo in the reboot.
bill murray was on the path with crap like ‘larger than life’ and ‘the man who knew too little’ was definitely a flop, but wes anderson kind of saved him just before his career went bad.it also goes back to way before belushi and chase.
Lost in Translation as well
What about The Razor’s Edge?
Then there is the surprisingly large subset of comedy stars who successfully cross over into successful dramatic roles after making their name in comedy. Tom Hanks is the gold standard, but Bill Murray, Steve Carrell, Will Smith, Jamie Fox, and Jim Carey fit into that category.
I always found Mike Meyers’ brand of comedy hacky. I think Will Ferrell just exhibits…bad taste in scripts?
Will Ferrell gets a lifetime pass for Elf.
I love you, Modus, but this ain’t no Ron Burgundy, here.
He really could have been a beloved children’s entertainer, if such things were allowed to exist any more.
which is weird because that movie is shit. Ferrell has had 3 good roles (Stranger Than Fiction, The Producers, The Lego Movie), and I don’t think any of them give you a lifetime pass.
I think Elf is very overrated, but Anchorman, Blades of Glory, Talladega Nights, and Old School are great comedies. And you (and I) at least have to admit that Elf is widely loved by lots of people.
it’s definitely beloved, but I think it’s tripe. Doesn’t help that I’m a total scrooge.
Well hello, Modus – I’m more used to seeing you over at Patheos. FWIW, I’ve always thought Will Ferrell was over-promoted and under-talented.
But Elf is terrible.
I see you’re running low on Christmas spirit.
Which is a sad thing in and of itself.
Well, that and The Other Guys. That movie should not have worked, but it did. Though Michael Keaton was in it, so there is that.
Obligatory:https://entertainment.theonion.com/study-87-percent-of-movies-would-be-better-with-michae-1819572301
I just watched Elf yesterday for the first time. While I appreciate people who find it enjoyable for its child-like wonder, I wish James Caan would have shot the motherfucker and then toweled the blood from Mary Steenburgen.
Also for Kenny Powers, doing a hollywood comedy entirely in Spanish, and for starring in a Lifetime movie “A Deadly Adoption.”
Elf is like Christmas Vacation. It’s not really that good, but being a Christmas movie the whole extended family can stand to watch when the holiday get togethers start running way too long makes it a classic.
Counterpoint: Elf is a good Christmas movie in spite of Will Ferrell.
come on.. Daddys home, Anchorman, Blades of Glory, Lego Movie, Megamind and my personal (and underrated) favorite Stranger than Fiction
Probably not, because most of what I’ve seen suggests that Ferrell is well liked by those he has worked with. On the other hand, Meyers more or less made it his goal in life to emulate his idol, Peter Sellers. By most accounts he succeeded, insofar as like Sellers he tends to squander his talents on questionable projects, has an uncanny knack for alienating his closest friends and allies, and for being detested by virtually everyone else he works with.
Like many great comics, Will Ferrell has really shined in dramatic roles. ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ is far and away his best work, ‘Everything Must Go’ was solid, and his brief role in ‘The LEGO Movie’ was a highlight for me in a film with a ton of highlights. I keep waiting for Will Ferrell to finally take that plunge into drama, like Melissa McCarthy is hopefully doing with ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ Hell, his popular partner in John C. Reilly has the type of career that Ferrell should have by now. Ferrell can do whatever he wants. I hate seeing him go the Adam Sandler route instead of Robin Williams or Jim Carrey path.
Aw, I like Will. I just know that I have to be selective when watching his films. Today that means not seeing much, but still…
Literally everything Will Ferrell does sucks. This movie is no different.
We’re at a point where Ferrell is riding Reilly’s coat tails… and if Reilly isn’t careful, he’s gonna fuck up his career letting Ferrell stay attached.
Hey hey hey, let’s not mention dis shit in da same sentence as Gotti, da numba one fuckin movie of da fuckin year! Da scene where his son dies and Travolta, full of heart, utters the immortal line “He didn’t have a fuckin hair on his prick!” should be given da Oscah fuh best short film. John Gotti Junia …… INNOCENT!!!!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!!! FORGETABOUTIT!!!!!!!!!!!
Is Gotti bad enough to be good? I.e is it a Plan 9 From Outer Space or is it just unwatchable? A comedy that fails like this Sherlock movie has no place to go but if a drama fails badly enough it becomes a comedy.
It’s close. There are a few rather boring passages but so much of it falls into the laughable territory. Contract To Kill, the Steven Seagal vehicle from a couple years ago, remains the high watermark for the 2010s in so-bad-it’s-good entertainment.
No.
John Travolta’s next mob movie: Clampfellas. It’s gonna be
…there might be some professional reviewer, somewhere, who’s out there gestating slowly on their “Actually, it’s very good!” take…
* Armond White turns on his computer, sighs with pleasure as he cracks his knuckles, and begins pounding the keyboard furiously*
* Richard Brody emerges from the asshole hidden within his beard and proclaims Holmes & Watson “the new Mean Girls” *
Why is he still allowed to write?…https://www.rottentomatoes.com/critic/armond-white/moviesThere’s some doozies in there, too. Yes, Peppermint. No, Spider-Verse.
He’s such a miserable shitbag. I can’t imagine what he’s like in real life.
From his Wikipedia entry: “In January 2014, White was expelled from the New York Film Critics Circle for allegedly heckling director Steve McQueen at an event for the film ‘12 Years a Slave.’”
I have. He’s charming and good-natured and gets along well with his peers.
I emailed rotten tomatoes about armond white, asking why he was considered a legitimate reviewer instead of a troll. They agreed, but said that he fits the definition of reviewer they have and that to get rid of him they would need to make rules specifically targeting him.
Metacritic removed him at some point. I’ve seen him complain about it publicly before. I don’t believe they gave any reason for it though. I would think it was the obvious contrarian trolling though.
Armond White gives Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen a glowing write up even Michael Bay would not (Bay’s not satisfied with things they couldn’t adjust in that film because of the writer’s strike) and I do remember one film critic condemned to review Jack and Jill who thought it’d be (at least marginally) more interesting to watch White during the entire movie instead of the movie and said that White didn’t laugh even once at it (corollary, White’s review of Jack and Jill is a BIG FAT LIE).
Yeah, right… and then everyone in the classroom stood up and applauded the United States Marine who agreed with you and a bald eagle flew in the window and saluted
As much as I hate him, I have acknowledge his contributions to the evolution and history of trolling. The only reason we don’t hear so much about him anymore is that it is now so easy to find elaborate shit takes like his all over the internet.
“The temerity of retelling a Spider-Man tale by pandering to the nonwhite demographic (and those who flatter themselves for condescending to it) reveals how brazen the media have become.”
I clicked on the link and this is his Spider-Verse review.
Holy fucking shit. *_*
Check out his twitter right now. Roma is awful because… liberals? I guess? Spider-Verse is racist. Or reverse racist? I can’t tell really, but his proof is a link to an article he wrote for National Review.
Wait till you see his review of DC movies
Oh, yeah, he loves him some Snyder and despises anything Marvel. I was curious if he had anything to say about Black Panther, as it’s ripe for his style of trolling, and the article is a thing to behold. The movie, to him, is basically Democratic political manipulation. Time magazine putting Boseman on the cover makes it a “social-justice-warrior pamphlet.” Lee and Kirby are “pseudo-social scientists.” That’s just the first two paragraphs of many. Eventually he says, “Snyder turns moral conflicts into sensual kinetics.” Nobody else on the planet has ever said or thought that. I don’t think he’s gotten through a Marvel film review without some SJW warrior reference or claiming Snyder is better at everything since Man of Steel came out.
Holy shit, lol. This has made me look up more of White’s Marvel reviews. Civil War quickly has this gem: “The trivializing has grabbed such hold that when a genuine pop artist like Zack Snyder deepens comics lore into visionary, moral art (the profound Man of Steel and Batman v Superman), many fanboys, and critics, react with anger, resentment — and ignorance.”
Wow.
He loves all the DC films…except Wonder Woman! Because FEMINISTS.
And in case anyone doesn’t know, he’s black. So this is even more obvious than his usual troll jobs.
“And in case anyone doesn’t know, he’s black. So this is even more obvious than his usual troll jobs.”- He’s also gay, so his conservatism seems like.. I just don’t know. Some professional trauma in his past, where his career is, “I’ll show them” and doubling down to own the libs or something. I have to admit, I sometimes find him entertaining to read in a lol wtf way.
I don’t think hes gay, I cant find a article to confirm that, but I did read his about in Out Magazine and ohhhh boy He has written for Variety, The New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, Slate, and First Things, and he is currently writing for both National Review and OUT magazine. Although White has been described as the “world’s most contrarian film critic,” he states that he has never said anything about a movie out of meanness, and he simply compares movies to superior ones.
Well, from a fellow critic who knows him, in Entertainment Weekly: “I truly do believe that Armond White comes to the vast majority of his opinions honestly. He’s a gay African-American fundamentalist-Christian aesthete, and if that doesn’t make him an individual, I don’t know what would. But it seems to me that Armond, over the years, has become so invested in the idea of how different his gaze is from everyone else’s that he has turned individuality into a species of megalomania.”https://ew.com/article/2014/01/13/armond-white-kicked-out-of-ny-critics/It’s an interesting article, mostly admiring of Armond, but it’s titled “Why Armond White got kicked out of the New York Film Critics Circle” after he heckled Steve McQueen receiving an award for 12 Years A Slave. I had heard for years that he’s gay, not that it really matters, it just seems to highlight his contradictions and contrarianism. All good, I often enjoy reading people coming in with their own terrible hot takes, I like his bravado in it. Also, he wrote a scorcher about Sidney Lumet while the guy’s corpse was still warm and I just.. found a lot to agree with.
One more reason for the cracker-ass Democrat superhero nerds of this site to hate him, falling only slightly behind how they can’t follow a critic who doesn’t speak in terms of “epic for the win”
He is such a excellent troll
A no to Spider-Verse would equal a lifetime of stay the fuck off my property and I better not catch your ass in the same convenience store ‘cuz I might whoop your ass on sight.Literally this person has never written a single thing worth reading by that admission, alone.Armond White is the movie critic version of Mayor Bottom’s Mac and Cheese.
That’s some nice cross GMG property synergy there
They need help.
Some adults dont watch childrens movies. GASP, imagine that! Fuck thise people, right? Busy doing adult things and all that…
Boom, you’re a mac and cheese disaster as well.P.S. Yes, fuck thise people, too.
His Infinity War take:“Infinity War is not just trash, but it turns age-old questions of faith into trash — and does it for fun. Maybe the best word for that is: pathetic.”
Because agreeing with your uneducated ass is not a prerequisite for his career. Learn to cope with people who have opinions different from yours. I disagree with White much more than I agree with him, and I also have the guts to acknowledge he’s one of the smartest critics working today.
Would not be surprised if he turned out to be a mouth-frothing Trump supporter.
White is worse than that, even a mouth-frothing Trump supporter knows The Dark Knight is better than G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Jonah Hex. Not even the people who made those movies think they are any good.
Obviously, because Trump is on TV and thus defines the entire scope of your intellectual world.
God you’re a fucking asshole. Obviously fuck Trump, but fuck you even harder.
I haven’t read an Armond White review in years, since he was dropped from Metacritic, and, well, wow. He’s gone full on uber-conservative and now writes for National Review. All his reviews are laced with criticisms of liberals, Obama, Democrats, SJWs, etc. He’s gone from a contrarian to NR’s token black alt-right black writer.
I had to stop reading him when he was at the NYP. It was like being buried neck deep in someone’s malevolent, growing psychosis. In fact, he was a canary in that coal mine, because I realized how depressingly ideological the entire weekly had become.
He always came off as conservative, which is okay when it’s backed up with some rational argument, but I always saw it as more being his click-bait contrarianess. He’s fully off the deep end now though. Another comment pointed out his hatred of Marvel films and his absolute love of Snyder and, holy crap, they weren’t joking. I just looked up some Marvel reviews and he can barely get a paragraph before saying that Snyder is “profound” and every Marvel movie is apparently SJW propaganda. In fact, every popular or critically acclaimed movie seems to be some kind of liberal propaganda in his view. He takes a moment in his IW review to take jabs at Jackson’s LotR trilogy even, saying it turned “J. R. R. Tolkien’s allegory into trash.” Ostensibly because it somehow removed the “faith” based aspect of it? Which? What? Now I’m going to have find his reviews of that to even see what he’s talking about.
I’ve no issue discussing conservatism intellectually, but White is rigid, mean-spirited and an irrational thinker. What also bothered me about NYP was the feeling that there were subtle (not so subtle in White’s case) strains of bigotry in the content, enough to turn me off as opposed to engaging me.There is a faction on social media that gets triggered by anything they deem too feminist or politically correct and Snyder is one of their icons. They fail to see his severe shortcomings as a commercial filmmaker. Zack Snyder doesn’t understand that Watchmen is a critique and satire, not a celebration, of superheroes. Sucker Punch is incomprehensible. Man of Steel is a visually accomplished film, but Snyder failed to understand that audiences didn’t want a hero who was essentially selfish. For his fans (and White) however, Snyder’s work is not severely flawed, its misunderstood by SJWs who poison the fantasy well against him and anyone with a conservative voice. But Brad Bird’s work is as inherently conservative, even Randian, as Snyder’s: the difference is Bird is much better at tapping relatable emotions and motivations and tying them to a compelling storyline. Chris Nolan and Peter Jackson, while not tied tightly to ideology, create films that could be said to have a conservative bent. And one could make the argument that there are as many conservative ethos as liberal ones in characters like Iron Man and Black Panther. But White, and many of these fans, are devoted to the authoritarian power fantasy, elitism and christian elements in Snyder’s work, which is a bit scary.
I’ve never agreed with the Bird being Objectivist idea, not least because of his own words. Superheroes are Objectivist fodder they because there’s no less subtle stand in for the “exceptional” than them. Bird always falls on the side of his exceptional characters, in the end, finding selfishness as a fault. On the other hand Snyder finds his characters exceptionalism as something that’s a burden that shouldn’t be questioned in any real sense. His characters never grapple with those ideas at all. He also has no idea when his own source material is grappling with that all. 300 is a Frank Miller facist fantasy and Snyder pulled it off with aplomb. Watchmen is a 360 degree philosophical turn from that and Snyder didn’t understand any of it, as much as he tried to duplicate it. He basically then went ahead and made Superman into his completely misunderstood version of Dr. Manhattan. One thing that stuck out to me reading White’s reviews, which astoundingly stick Snyder shit in left and right, is his lauding of the scene when Superman gets revived and houses the whole JL. In White’s view that’s one of the best scenes in recent cinema because it shows, yes, Superman is way more exceptional than anyone and accepting that is akin to accepting a capital G God. As much as he loves to dissect the narrative of other films, he finds no issue with the fact that the scene narratively makes the rest of the team ancillary at best. Superman is an expression of faith. Which, you know, there’s a story to be explored there too. Justice League ain’t that fucking story. I mean, look at this from his review of Civil War. “This is the moral reduction that has happened to American youth culture in the wake of the generational dissents of the Vietnam War. Movies as violent as the Marvel flicks are not pacifist but are proof of anti-military sentiment — such as became evident in the confused Ferguson protestations about “militarized police,” a foolish, redundant term exploited by manipulative media outlets and politicians.”Try to make sense of that. Another bafffling one from the same review:“In a similar sense, Civil War exploits recent political trends such as Black Lives Matter. Black actress Alfre Woodard (whose portrayal of a comically psychotic wench was the only convincing characterization in 12 Years a Slave) appears as a grieving mother who blames Stark — standing in for the Military Industrial Complex — for the death of her child, a promising youth with a 3.6 grade-point average. Woodard’s “Who’s going to avenge my son?” shamelessly taps the illusion of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Tamir Rice as Boy Scouts and potential Rhodes scholars.”It’s hard to even the parse the depths of racism in that. I’m white. I don’t face the racism that black people do and as I much as I try to listen and understand, I would never presume to know. That said, where the fuck did White’s reading of that scene come from? How do you go from portrayal of a young black man needlessly dying to “the illusion of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Tamir Rice as Boy Scouts and potential Rhodes scholars?” So they weren’t, by White’s estimation, “Boy Scouts or Rhodes scholars,” meaning they weren’t “exceptional” so their lives and deaths were essentially meaningless? It’s crazy.
Thanks, that was a good read. I hadn’t thought that Snyder was explicitly making Superman his Dr. Manhattan, but it makes sense. I think a deep self-hatred is at the core of White’s dysfunctional mindset. He’s a lot like Pat Buchanan, defined by a paranoid aggressive hatred for anything other, a strong need for fascistic authority and order in both secular and religious life. Buchanan was always at war and so is White. Except (although I believe Buchanan was also massively insecure) White is at war with his own blackness. He treats it as a burden, not because racism, but because he doesn’t want to be in the same category as other black people at all. It is a crazy and disturbing thought process, which is why I could no longer read him.
Years ago I’d read him just for shits and giggles. It was entertaining to see the mental gymnastics of his pure contrarianism. I mean, this is a guy who considers Resident Evil Afterlife to be a masterpiece. Looking at all his NR reviews though? They’re just mean and desperate. They’re also repetitive and predictable because he shoehorns the same arguments into every review no matter the context.
Looks like David Edelstein decided to be the sole Fresh rating.
A very, very provisional Fresh rating, but Fresh nonetheless.
Holy shit, I just saw his blurb for Into the Spider-Verse. He hated it because they focused the movie on a black Spider-Man, as if Miles Morales didn’t already exist in comics and video games.Of COURSE he writes for the National Review.
One certain sign of the pseudo-intellectual is the belief that Armond White just writes against what everyone else is writing when a lot of the time he agrees with other critics
Another sign of the pseudo-intellectual is to create straw man arguments that have no basis in fact. If you are referring to my comments, at no point did I state that there are no critics who agree with White. In fact it was acknowledged in my conversation that he shares an admiration of Zach Snyder’s body of work with many people ( I was complimentary of Snyder’s visual style on Man of Steel, by the way). There are a ton of shitty critics in the world and White is one of them.
Another sign of the pseudo-intellectual is to create straw man arguments that have no basis in fact.Pretty much sums up every single one of Squamate’s comments. I’ve never seen anyone who’s head is so far up their own ass, you’ve got to wonder if they’re kidding. Fuck that troll.
I would love a reviewer to not only write the review that extols the virtues of Holmes & Watson, but also insists that to fully appreciate the experience you must watch it in the theater. Maybe even IMAX.
Did Ethan Cohen copyright his name or something?
“God dammit, I got another person yelling at me for the new Holmes and Watson flick today. I miss the days when we just got angry e-mails for The Ladykillers” Ethan Coen on being confused for Etan Cohen.
*throws a plush Garfield across the room, pegging Ethan* “Welcome to my world!”—Joel Coen
It’s all a part of the Coen/Cohen Cinematic universe. A universe in which quirky criminals hunt down franchises and kills them in equally quirky ways. That’s why Garfield has a hole in his brain from a cattle gun and Holmes and Watson are being fed through a wood chipper.
No surprise. It was one of the worst trailers I’ve seen.
My daughter and I saw the trailer a few weeks ago. I was reminded of Roger Ebert’s plaintive, “Why do they still make movies like this?” the whole time the trailer was on-screen.
I think the trailer I saw made it look pretty funny, so I’m glad I read this review. Particularly, Watson’s reaction to the child boxing is almost quotable. I forget the exact wording, but he gets into it.
Watson’s reaction to the child boxing is almost quotable. I forget the exact wording, but he gets into it.I guess that pretty well makes it “almost quotable.”
Opinion: John C. Reilly is a much better and seemingly underrated serious drama actor than a comedy one. That’s not to say he can’t be humourous but I’ve found his roles in Kong and Gangs of New York far more interesting than any of his “comedy” roles.
Seems you’re forgetting Walk Hard, the best movie of the 21st century.
*runs into the room* IT’S A REAL BAD CASE OF BEING CUT IN HALF WITH A MACHETE *scampers back out*
I enjoy his weird Dr. Steve Brule character on Adult Swim, but other than that… you’re right. Stay out of comedy films. More specifically the “Buddy” comedy type.
I love that he completely denies that he is Dr Brule.
Hard Eight or Magnolia would better illustrate your point IMO.
hes pretty solid in hoffa as well.
Walk Hard is the best parody movie of the 00s (not that there were many.)I’m barely sure the Steve Brule stuff is even a comedy at this point, it’s bordering on horror. But it sure burrows into your brain… It’s one of those things that’s way more funny when you remember it than when you actually watch it, somehow. I love it.Either way, John C Reilly is great. He’s the definition of “lifetime pass” and at least you can’t accuse him of doing the same thing over and over like Ferrell.
It’s no OSS 117. Now THAT’S a parody movie.
You are absolutely right. He was always the sidekick in the older Farrell movies, but he’s arguably the bigger star now.
“always the sidekick”? they made two movies together. Neither is a big star. both are famous and work steadily but neither are stars.
Making bad comedies pays better than making good dramas.
There are also probably more fun to make.
John C. Reilly is an amazing dramatic actor the dude is incredible in Boogie Nights and Chicago but is great at comedy too. Walk Hard might have bombed hard but it was a perfect parody of Rey and Walk the Line.
I basically refused to see “Bohemian Rhapsody” because “Walk Hard” ruined music biopics for me (also because Bryan Singer is a disgusting human being).
Even just what little I’ve heard about “Rhapsody” fits the template to a tee.
Huh? Hard is a parody and a comedy and Rhapsody is a biopic and a drama. They are not even close to the same types of movies. Plus, Hard sucks and Rhapsody is really good.
That’s exactly my point; “Walk Hard” pointed out so many music biopic cliches and played them so effectively for comedy that I basically couldn’t take any film that played them straight seriously after that.
He’s got some serious dramacred—he and Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in True West on Broadway, alternating roles on different nights–but someone along the way noted that he also looked kinda goofy.
The Siters Brothers is in my top 10 of 2018. Really underrated, and John C. Reilly it’s amazing in it.
His role in The Lobster gave me chills. Of course, that whole movie was creepy as F.
A lobster is an excellent choice.
I forgot he was in that. It was a brutal role.
Dude is a legend for his portrayal of Amos in Chicago. He’s one of my favorites, and he keeps doing this kind of tripe.
Wasn’t he mostly comic relief in Kong?
Check out The Sisters Brothers, I’d say.
pt anderson was definitely the first guy to realize john c reilly was funny.
My favorite John C. Reilly fact is that he was in both Talladega Nights and Days of Thunder.
I think I first saw him in Magnolia, and I loved him in The Lobster, but he was the dry, sad comic relief in both. I’m really fussy about comedy movies (there’s much better comedy on TV than in theaters these days) but Walk Hard is maybe one of the funniest mainstream comedies of the 21st century to me.John C. Reilly is just a more talented person the farther he’s away from Will Ferrell, much like Seth Rogen is far more talented the farther he’s away from James Franco.
Two words – “Mike Honcho”
“Magnolia”
I’ve forgotten about ‘Gangs of New York’, what a misfire that piece of crud was.
Eh, not really. Solid B
Reilly’s performance of “Mr. Cellophane” in Chicago, which was the first time I’d seen him, was riveting.
His subsequent career has been mostly a disappointment. The trailers for this new one look so bad I felt no temptation whatever to see it.
I personally found The Ballad of Ricky Bobby hilarious. I loved Walk Hard, and he was great in Guardians of the Galaxy. However, this looked like a turd as soon as I saw the first trailer on TV.
+1 Mr. Cellophane (from “Chicago). Also, he was the standout in “Boogie Nights.”
Damn good in “Chicago” too.
How does he make this garbage and The Sisters Brothers in the same year?!?
I am hearing raves for his Laurel & Hardy turn.
I enjoyed his part in Chicago
he was also great in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
ur mistaken, jcr is dull and annoying in all genres.
I liked his small role in Chicago.
At least it’ll sweep the Razzies.
“Wrong! You don’t get it at all! The movie is subverting expectations!” ~ starwarslastjedifan1138
Handy infographic explaining the grievances of people who are still angry about The Last Jedi an entire year later:
Props for pulling in the 1138 reference.
And somewhere on some distant plane of existence, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are high-fiving each other that they no longer have the credit for the worst Sherlock Holmes movie ever made.
That was on the this-TV schedule recently but they screwed up and it was actually the Hammer Baskerville. I was both irritated and somewhat relieved, but I have watched the Larry Hagman Sherlock TV movie so I kind of wanted to see it.
I actually like it, although, they didn’t really need to do the one-legged man auditioning for the role of Tarzan again. But the directer hoisted that idea upon them.
It’s 0% Fresh, not 0% Rotten.
You say tomato, I say…..
Too late. I saw 0% rotten and got excited that it was 100% fresh, so I went to see it.
We have medication for that now. *offers Thyasianman bottle of scotch*
I prefer Nurse MacCready’s Surgical Bruise lotion, myself.
And how was it?
But what we should really be asking is, why don’t the critics want us to see this movie?
Those damn elitist reviewers… Prancing around with their fancy A.A. degrees… having diner with Joan Van Ark… probably having their chauffeur drop them off so they can protest ‘God’s Not Dead’…
Jet fuel can’t melt celluloid! It was a false Flags Of Our Fathers operation!
I mean to be fair Bucky Larson’s not deserving of a 0%. It has scenes where Richard Gilmore and Sonny Crockett talks to each other so that’s deserving of at least a percent for that. Plus it’s at least trying to tell a plot so I still think it’s deserving of at least 10% if not 12%. I mean this is why I’d fail to be a film critic and all but I have seen worse films than Bucky Larson’s Born To Be A Star.Also something something Miss Sherlock.
Were these guys ever funny?
Yes.
David Manning loved it!
Im sorry, with such an amazing TV series of Holmes and Watson, it just wasnt the right time for a subpar comedy.
Is it ever the right time for a subpar comedy?
Sometime in the spring, I think.
Has Armond White chimed in yet, though? His whole schtick is pretty much doing whatever the opposite of everyone else does.
My girlfriend loved it. She’s in Canada. You don’t know her.
Just remember: Her name is Alberta, she lives in Vancouver. Try not to confuse the two this time.
Two towns over?
Whelp. Here it is. The one asshole who broke the 0% just so his byline could get the rageviews. Keep in mind David Edelstein is the same guy that made butter-rape jokes when Bernardo Burtolucci died and got booted from NPR as a result.
It’s not even a very positive review. But I thought this was funny:It has been consistently misdirected by its screenwriter, Etan Coen (no “h,” different guy)He then proceeds to refer to the man as ‘Coen’ throughout the piece. It’s kind of hysterical that a review that makes a point of calling out the spelling of the director’s name manages to get the spelling wrong.
It’s still better than that “Hereditary” rubbish.
0% no longer…https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/holmes-and-watson-review.html
Meanwhile, Adam Sandler’s “100% Fresh” is 88% fresh!
I absolutely do not believe that this movie can be that bad. I intend to see it. (I guess I had better move fast.)
Check back in after!
I saw it! And I am glad I did. It was a perfectly delightful comedy. John C. Reilly was magnificent; Will Ferrell was good, even if not up to his usual standard.The opening scene, with Holmes as a child, is excellent. Also superb is the Clouseau-like slapping scene between Holmes and Watson.The verbal interplay in the courtroom, when Holmes and Watson are trying to find euphemisms to explain the meaning of “onanist”, is worthy of Monty Python (“a saucier”), as is the absurd — and cake-filled — autopsy scene.Great sight gags include the spinning class in the gym that is given on velocipedes, the presence of Michael Buffer in the crowd at the fight in the hexagon, and the appearance on the Titanic of Billy Zane (called by his real name, yet!). And the throwaway line “don’t wank on us” gave me the biggest laugh of the day, surpassing even a clever line about Mrs. Hudson’s incomprehensible Scottish accent.There were a few surprises. Since you savages are unlikely to see the movie, I will reveal them here. First is a very nicely done silly song performed by Ferrell, Reilly, and the wonderful Lauren Lapkus (who gives a scene-stealing character performance for the ages, on the level of Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, with facial expressions are just brilliant). And there are also superb guest appearances by Hugh Laurie and Steve Coogan (the latter of whom stars with Reilly in Stan & Ollie, which will be the next movie I see).Another noteworthy thing about this movie is that it is beautiful. The costumes and sets are stunning. Also, the device of showing graphics on the screen to illustrate Holmes’s analytical reasoning (and, in one case, Watson’s inability to reason on that level) worked extremely well. The design of these graphics is impeccable.One could nitpick a few problems. First, the ADR is a bit clumsy in places. And at one point Holmes is shown playing the violin left-handed. (There is nothing I know of in the literature that reveals whether the character is either left-handed or right-handed. But the violin-playing is particularly odd because playing that instrument left-handed was not allowed until recently. What’s more, the child Holmes is shown in the film as being right-handed.)In sum, this film is a quality comedy, with great acting and gorgeous staging and direction. I would heartily recommend it.Incidentally, Holmes & Watson becomes the third film with universally bad reviews that I thoroughly enjoyed, the other two being The Happytime Murders and Mortdecai.
Today on the AV Club: a paragraph and a link to a review posted yesterday on the AV Club.
A friend of mine went to see it with his wife yesterday. I think they actually walked out of the film before its finish.
Well it’s now 4% so you can take this clickbait shit on a shitty movie paycheck article down now, right?
Hot take: Will Ferrell isn’t funny. Gone are the days of “you’re my boy blue!” comedy. I wasn’t amused by it then but laughed because I thought I was supposed to.
I don’t understand the hatred towards this. The trailer looked like I should wait until Netflix but it by no means ever struck me as the worst film ever made, as some of the reviews and articles are proclaiming. I get it, some people are getting tired of Ferrell, but I’m positive there are worse movies out there. I don’t give a shit about Rotten Tomatoes. Sometimes my opinion goes with critical consensus and sometimes it doesn’t. Treating that website like an infallible health code grade or credit score is silly. Suicide Squad should have a F grade and 0% fresh score, and the fact that it doesn’t is proof it’s all bullshit.
So there might be some professional reviewer, somewhere, who’s out there gestating slowly on their “Actually, it’s very good!” take, Depends on who’s holding in the A.V. Club office right now, I imagine