Movie Reviews

We’re a hotheaded group of individuals. We crave a pull quote like anyone else, but it’s not about that. It’s only about you the reader. We love you. We want to take you home and cuddle with you. The following reviews are the opinions of the editors of CHUD.com and are by most accounts bang on.

REVIEW: OCEAN’S 13 (RUSS’ TAKE)

What do you want from a movie featuring Danny Ocean and friends? Are you looking for a clockwork heist, or a light glimpse into the cult of personality that surrounds Clooney, Pitt, et al? Stung by the dismissal of Ocean’s Twelve, Soderbergh and company have gone light on the self-referential jokes (though they’re still here, … Continue reading

REVIEW: HOSTEL PART II

The second half of this review is loaded with spoilers. Please avoid scrolling to the end if you haven’t seen the movie. The final grade for this film is an 8. Eli Roth faced a dilemma when making Hostel Part II: we were in on it already. What made the first film work was how … Continue reading

REVIEW: OCEAN’S 13 (DEVIN’S TAKE)

The original Ocean’s 11 featured a bunch of entertainers trying to be actors. The new Ocean’s series has featured a bunch of actors trying to be entertainers, and it took them until the third one to get it right. Ocean’s 13 isn’t worried about the heist or the story, it’s interested in taking these actors … Continue reading

IN PRAISE OF RIP TORN AND ‘PAYDAY’

If there is any justice on this whirling glob of dirt and water, there will be a major rediscovery of Daryl Dukes’s Payday, in which world-class hellraiser Rip Torn gives the performance of his career as country-and-western warbler Maury Dann. Currently unavailable on DVD, and written by a now deceased novelist, Don Carpenter, whose entire … Continue reading

BOOK REVIEW: REQUIEM FOR AN ASSASSIN

PUBLISHER: Putnam Adult PAGES: 356 BUY IT FROM AMAZON: CLICK HERE! AUTHOR’S WEBSITE: www.BarryEisler.com (Be sure to read his fantastic political blog, THE HEART OF THE MATTER while you’re there) In the first several pages, something magical happens in Requiem for an Assassin: all the exposition you’ll need on the world of this series and … Continue reading

BOOK REVIEW: I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER

PUBLISHER: EccoPAGES: 272BUY IT FROM AMAZON: CLICK HERE!AUTHOR’S WEBSITE: Larry Doyle, Writer-American I love teen movies*. I really do. I remember Molly Ringwald as being an early crush when I was a little boy and I thought it was the coolest thing ever that a guy named Cameron got to hang out with Ferris Bueller … Continue reading

REVIEW: GRACIE

Sports films might be the most formulaic genre there is, and they end one of two ways: the big win or the close loss that teaches the value of trying, good sportsmanship, teamwork, etc. That’s it – unless you count Alive as a sports film, in which case it ends with ‘white meat or dark?’ … Continue reading

REVIEW: KNOCKED UP (JEREMY’S TAKE)

Somewhere in an immaculate kitchen in an immaculate house situated in an immaculate neighborhood somewhere in Bel Air, Nora Ephron is toasting her troubles away*, wondering how in the hell a common vulgarian like Judd Apatow could reinvent the romantic comedy for modern audiences. And somewhere, perhaps a few blocks away or maybe in an … Continue reading