REVIEWS - 'Bad Words' & 'Walk Among The Tombstones'

A couple of dark movies this week.  Dark in vastly different ways, but still dark. 






















REDBOX
'Bad Words' (R) ***
Guy Trillby (Jason Bateman, who also directed) seeks revenge by exploiting a loophole in a spelling bee's rules that allows him, as an adult, to compete against children.  Along the way he ends up befriending a fellow competitor (Rohan Chand) in addition to angering parents, angering spelling bee officials, angering reporters, harassing other competitors, and ticking off almost everyone else he comes into contact with.  The cast also includes Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney, Ben Falcone, and Philip Baker Hall.  Think of 'Bad Teacher' and 'Bad Santa' but set in the world of competitive spelling.  Often quite funny with a very good against-type performance from Jason Bateman.  Although if you're not a fan of snarky, mean-spirited movies full of dry insult humor then you might want to stay away from this one.  



THEATER
'A Walk Among The Tombstones' (R) **1/2
Set in New York in 1999, 'A Walk Among The Tombstones' follows Matt Scudder (Liam Neeson), an alcoholic retired cop turned private investigator who is hired by a drug dealer named Kenny (Dan Stevens) to track down the men who kidnapped and brutally murdered his wife.  Based on a book that I've never read (or had even heard of).  It's incredibly dark, bleak and disturbing.  It's acted well and shot well, but I thought it was a bit inconsistent.  Some scenes were were tense and thrilling, others just kinda dragged along.  It does feature a rather good cover of Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun' over the closing credits.  


TRAILERS 
Look, I like trailers as much as the next person, but why so many?  Why can't there just be two or three trailers and than have the movie start?  Running seven trailers before a movie kinda gets me irritated before the movie even starts!  Some of these I actually want to see, but when I'm trying to watch a movie and the trailers seem to never end it kinda ruins my level of excitement for a particular movie.  Example:  I really do want to see 'Unbroken', but when it's the seventh trailer in front of a movie I get very irritated and I just want the trailers to end and the movie to start.  Anyway, rant over for now.

• Gone Girl - first time seeing a trailer for this in the theater and it's a different trailer than the one I had already watched online.  It looks pretty good. 

• Dracula Untold - first time seeing a full trailer for this outside of quick thirty-second TV commercials.  And boy does it look...stupid.

• The Judge - soon, very soon, I won't get another trailer for this movie.  It looks good, but I don't want to see the trailer again anytime soon. 

• Kill The Messenger - still looks to be all right. 

• Fury - Might be an awards contender.  We'll find out mid-October. 

• Into The Woods - Saw a videotaped production of the Broadway musical in my theater class in college.  That would be the main reason I would want to see this adaptation. 

• Unbroken - still looks really good.