Horrible Bosses, Last Mountain, Terri, City of Life and Death, Thor (the Bore)

I've been gone on vacation for three of the last four weeks, so the film-going has been sparse, but now that vacation is over, it's back to the movies for me. Here's what's new for this week.

THE LAST MOUNTAIN is one of the strongest documentaries of the year. It tells of the pillage of the mountains of Appalachia by the coal industry, which has had dire, deadly results to the people who live in the area, as well as nearly every citizen in the US--poisoned water supplies, lung clogging pollution, cancer cases that are shockingly alarming, and gross, costly corruption of our national government. This is a shocker. GRADE-------- A

A disturbing film that lightly fictionalizes the Rape of Nanking in 1937, when the Japanese Imperial Army captures the capital of China, and then proceeds to literally massacre nearly every citizen in sight, this unpleasant film is painful to watch, even though CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH is very well made. I was exhausted and sickened by the end (think of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN's first 20 minutes, stretched into over 2 hours.) The story feels hopeless, bombastic and depressing. See this only if you are interested. GRADE------B-


Not a promising title, but HORRIBLE BOSSES manages to be a bit funny and clever in that new vulgar comedy category that includes films like WEDDING CRASHERS, BRIDESMAIDS, KNOCKED-UP, THE HANGOVER, GET HIM TO THE GREEK and several others. The cast is quite game, and includes Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Anniston, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jamie Foxx and Donald Sutherland and a nearly unrecognizable Colin Farrell. If you can stomach the crude language and sexual preposterousness, then there are some laugh out loud moments and I was not bored. GRADE------B-

We've seen troubled kids struggling in high school before, and this variation doesn't add much to the mix. The main character, TERRI, is a large fat boy, who wears his pajamas to class (I guess because they are more comfortable, but not much is made of this point, except that he gets a lot more dirty looks...) who is counseled by a sympathetic vice principal (John C. Riley) and ends up befriending several other "odd- ball" students, who all have issues with authority, sex, confidence, drugs, etc. Some weird scenes and unpleasant sexuality issues still do not lift this out of the "seen it before" category. GRADE-------C+

It's taken me a while to catch up with THOR (at the bargain theatres now), and $3 is definitely all that it's worth. I found myself wanting to nod off a couple of times. There is a lot of mumbo jumbo that takes place on another planet between Thor's race and some Ice creatures, that didn't make much sense, and that is cut into the subplot of Thor being banished to Earth by his wise father/king Anthony Hopkins, because of his bad attitude, and sort of falling for smarty scientist Nathalie Portman. There is one fight scene on earth between Thor and what looks like a TRANSFORMER--otherwise most of the best (but minimal) action happens on the other planets, in the near dark. Not so hot. GRADE--------C