Author: Jeff Milner

Posted on

The Bad Review Revue

Grown Ups 2: “Adam Sandler scrapes the bottom of the barrel” and then he pukes into it with Grown Ups 2, a lazily cribbed-together swamp of pointless and unfunny sketches that makes 2010;s Grown Ups look like Citizen Kane.” — Linda Barnard, Toronto Star

Pawn Shop Chronicles: “By the time it winds to a conclusion, the film seems to have tired itself out, like a toddler who screeches nonsensically for hours, then falls asleep in a fetal ball in the corner.” — Nathan Rabin, The Disolve

The Lone Ranger: “Somewhere, around the hour-and-a-half mark, The Lone Ranger makes the fateful decision not to end. Worse, the movie keeps not-ending for another full hour.” — Christopher Orr, The Atlantic

White House Down: “It follows the Emmerich template: a spectacle-tinged, compelling setup; a dumb, disappointing midsection; and a cheese-topped denouement that veers so close to self-parody that one is tempted to call it funny.” — James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Man of Steel: “For all its ambition, Man Of Steel fails to soar, instead crash landing in a humourless, melodramatic mess of explosions.” — Matt Neal, The Standard

Posted on

The Bad Review Revue

The Great Gatsby: “Why didn’t the maestro didn’t just go the whole hog and rename it ‘Jazz Hands: A Love Story’? A bottle of your best champagne says he thought about it.” — Ed Whitfield, The Ooh Tray

After Earth: “The only value in watching it is to see an expensive disaster slowly unfold.” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Now You See Me: “It takes a certain dark magic to make the talent of a top cast disappear right before your eyes. Now You See Me does just that.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone Magazine

The Hangover Part III: “If only what happened in Vegas had stayed in Vegas.” — Tom Charity, CNN.com

Oblivion: “Was Cruise trying to beat out fellow Scientologist John Travolta for the honor of starring in the dumbest sci-fi epic ever?” — David Edelstein, Vulture

Posted on

Duping Delight

Q “And after you held me down, I asked you, ‘Why did you do that?’ And then, what did you say?”
A “I did not hold you down and I believe I apologized if I might have because, if I did, which I firmly believe I did not, it was completely unintentional.”

Posted on

Aaron Swartz is Dead

I rolled over this morning stressed out about Gabrielle and the situation as is typical these days. I pulled up Google+ on my iPhone to distract myself. I read some very sad news — Aaron Swartz had completed suicide.

I want to write about how this news has affected me. Words fail though — I’m not, after all, a master at words the way Aaron was. He inspired me. I always wished I could be him, and I always suspected that eventually our paths would cross and we would become fast friends. His death has really affected me deeply.

I am not nearly as smart or eloquent and I suppose I am glad not to have been in his situation but I will miss reading his brilliant writing.

It might seem strange to be sad about the passing of someone you’ve never met. People don’t understand why you care. The friendship was actually just an asynchronous following of his RSS feed, but his writing was one of small selection that were on my highest priority list. If he wrote something, I made a point of reading it. It’s so sad to think there won’t ever be any new posts from Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought.