The Campaign Reviews, Interviews & More

It’s a weak week for new films, though the topically released The Campaign is hitting just in time for the elections, but for those who love classics, between the Criterion release of Rosemary’s Baby and the Alfred Hitchcock collection, it’s a hard week on one’s wallet.

So it's Labor Day weekend, which is often one of the more sluggish box office weekends of the year. Give teens a horror movie, and it can work like catnip. And so we see The Possession dominate.

Sadly, the summer is almost over. Most kids have gone back to school and the weather is slowly cooling down for the fall season.  Many believe that this summer's movie season was one of the weakest in the past couple of years, but we think otherwise. It was chocked full of fascinating independent movies and stupidly fun popcorn flicks that hit our sweet spot. So let's reflect on some of the...

You wouldn't know it from the weather, or practically anything else, but summer is over. At least for movies, where we're getting second and third stringers in the theater. And that's why only one film cracked ten million this weekend, and that's why The Expendables 2 stays on top. It's a weak week.

With the last month of cinema dominated by the likes of Batman, Colin Ferrell, and Jeremy Renner, that may be enough to explain why The Expendables 2 opened a little soft. Here's where I should really make a Viagra joke. Okay, the film opened hard for four hours, but then had to call a doctor? That good?

Though The Bourne Legacy couldn't top the last two Bourne sequels, it did manage to win the weekend, and is the first new film to hit number one since The Dark Knight Rises opened. More than anything, it did the right thing by moving back a week, and if its big competition was...

Part of me still can't believe they didn't throw a pile of money at Matt Damon to do a scene in The Bourne Legacy. Oh well. The ads keep telling us there was never just one. Duh. The question is if audiences will return if/when they know it doesn't feature the character in the title.

    The Campaign unites Will Ferrell with Zach Galifianakis, and the way comedy works these days, it's a surprise they haven't work together sooner. They play opposing candidates in a local election that gets ramped up by petty rivalries and the influence of big money, and turns two reasonable guys into monsters. And it's funny. 

Anyone feel the need for a laugh? Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis star in The Campaign, which follows a bozo politican (Ferrell) who's run unopposed for years until now, when he has to face actual competition (Galifianakis) from someone equally unqualified for office. Now there's a new trailer. Check it out.

Chris Hardwick moderated the two-and-a-half hour Warner Bros/Legendary Films mega-panel at Comic-Con, which kicked off with Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim, a science-fiction film about giant robots who fight to save humanity from an onslaught of 25-story-tall monsters. The panel was a special treat for those in Hall H because del...

Jay Roach has had something of a dichotomous career as a filmmaker—early on, the director made a name for himself directing such comedies as the Austin Powers franchise, as well as the first two films in the Meet the Parents series, before course-correcting and becoming HBO’s main man when it comes to political films about presidential...