Two Reviews

Yesterday I went to see CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER.  It’s a bit long at two and a quarter hours, but I found it pretty much engaging for the whole time – didn’t look at my watch once.  Most of the special effects were effective, and their making Chris Evans look like a scrawny little pipsqueak at the beginning of the movie was very convincing.  It’s pretty typical of a summer blockbuster – the pipsqueak hero wants to join the army but is too puny.  The movie is set duirng  WWII, and he wants to fight the Nazis (who have, somehow, 25th century weaponry).  However, a far advanced scientist (Stanley Tucci, one of my favorite actors) has a serum that turns him into an invulnerable superhero, Captain America.  For some reason he has a Brisith Colonel girlfirend who is with him constantly.   Coincidentally (??), the Nazis have the same serum and crreate The Red Skull, an equally strong and talented villain.  Their fight at the end is worth the price of admission.  The film starts pretty slowly, but once the action starts it gets much more exciting.  I’ve not read the comic books on which the movie is based, but the movie stands on its own.  It was fun and gets a socks up 7.  It emphasizes patriotism, which is pretty nice these days.
Then, the timing being right, I went in to see HORRIBLE BOSSES, one of the most horrible moives I’ve ever seen, despite having Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, and Jennifer Anniston in the cast. I checked my watch numerous times.  I should have known better just from what I’d read about it.  I rank it as the second most disgusting movie I’v ever seen (right after SOMETHING ABOUT MARY). Thinking back on it, it breaks every one of the ten commandments numerous times – all for laughs.  Sadly, the audience I saw it with was laughing their heads off.  I won’t spend much time on it, but it is filled with really foul and sexual language, a lot of illicit sex and adultery, and a lot of bathroom humor.  It has no redeeming qualities, and says rather loudly how sick and sad our society is.  Minus 15 is a generous ranking.