2008 theatrical releases

Well, that’s how ya do it, I guess: you teleport right past all the boring stuff like character and background.

I should have walked out at the ‘comical’ dog-sex scene. Instead I endured until Martin Lawrence got skunked in the face — that should have made me happy, and yet I felt dirty all over, and had to escape.

And then there are movies, like *Fool’s Gold,* in which absolutely *everything* goes wrong. In which not one single element works… in which not one single element seems even calculated to have worked in the first place.

We forget that it’s a job. We go see people in movies or in concert or we stay at home and watch them on TV and they make us laugh or they make us cry or they make us dance and when they’re good they make it look so effortless… but it’s a job.

Sydney Wells sees dead people. I see a dead movie. I’m not sure which of us got the better deal.

The only explanation is this: They — the big Hollywood They who dominate our mass entertainment — are now actively making movies for the Stupid demographic.

I will confess upfront that I have never seen a *Rambo* movie before — yes, there are serious gaps in my film education. I’m sorry. But I was with this new incarnation for a goodly while…

The original working title of this flick was *Streaming Evil,* which has precisely the right amount of built-in schlock for the tedious bit of horror exploitation this is.