Weekend Peep Show: Feeling Hot, Hot...Cold

Warner Bros Entertainment

Yes, you’re supposed to have Buster Poindexter’s bar mitzvah classic “Hot Hot Hot” in your mind now. And you’re more than welcome! Hey, it’s time to celebrate. You can’t get much hotter than tuxedo hotties George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who bring it back to Vegas for Ocean's Thirteen. (Check out our Red Carpet coverage of the premiere.)  And you shouldn’t even try to imagine anything hotter than bad boy Eli Roth writing and directing a second Hostel. Yum, indeed. Naturally, our third movie, Surf’s Up, is a total cooling point with zero heat whatsoever. I don’t mean to be so hard on penguins, but really now. Enough already! Surprise me with an ice-skating squirrel or a rapping tabby cat and I’d get steamy, but penguins just make me groan at this point. Okay, weird sentence. Let’s move on.

Ocean's Thirteen
Steven Soderbergh was born to make the Ocean’s trilogy. Nobody knows how to play up reaction shots, quick ‘30s-style banter and long, adoring shots of pretty people and things like Stevie does. And word is that he is one of the greatest bosses in Hollywood: supportive, enthusiastic, etc. So, he brings out the best in his staff, which could be why his movies tend to have so much pop. This time around, audiences will rejoice because the gang is back in Vegas, plotting another job. They’ll have to contend with the scraggly casino owner (Al Pacino) and his bombshell babe (Ellen Barkin), and Matt Damon will have to wear a prosthetic nose. (Side note: Bless Matt for wearing his Red Sox jersey during his funfest wtih David Letterman.) And another reason to be optimistic about Thirteen is that the preview is just that—you won’t leave going, "So, I already saw the only good scenes in the trailer. Bummer." Quite the opposite, see: The script is chock-full of clever, good stuff. Sure, I hear the subplot with Casey Affleck is lame. But who cares? Soderbergh will know enough not to dedicate that much screen time to it. I have total faith in him.

Rico Torres / Lionsgate

Hostel: Part II
I can’t believe this. I mean, it’s been a rough week. I lost 200 bucks over bad bets in poker. The Red Sox lost two out of three to the Yankees. I saw 1408 and have decided I might never stay in a hotel again. Yet, I am still in a good mood, in large part because Eli Roth is yapping up a storm all over Hollywood. My favorite bon mot: Roth told Details magazine that he would like to torture Kate Hudson. Better yet, he said that watching Raising Helen is more torturous than any other experience. Oh Eli, you rule! Okay, okay. Hostel II. So, this time we get to see Bijou Phillips—who is forever golden in my book because of her brilliantly skanky work in Bully. Bijou and her hot, dumb American gal-pals venture to Slovakia, where they are sucked into a grotesque torture scheme. I will probably have my eyes closed for most of the movie. So, go and tell me what I missed!

2007 Sony Pictures Animation Inc

Surf’s Up
The mere concept of a surfing tournament for penguins makes my blood boil. I don’t care that Shia LaBeouf and Jeff Bridges and Zooey Deschanel are lending their voices. I mean, those actors have so much onscreen sizzle that I’d rather watch the three of them in live action than in animation. It’s another story in something like Shrek, where watching Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers share a movie would feel like sensory overload. Oh, Surf’s Up, you bother me, you do! In this weekend of tuxedo-clad Ocean's guys and knife-wielding lunatics, my heart just cannot get it up for soggy, tired surfing references spliced with penguin jokes. Oh, and if you hear journalizers gushing about how wonderful this movie is, you should take said gushfests with a tub of salt. As it happens, the studio offered free vacations to a top-tier resort in Hawaii where reporters enjoyed free surfing lessons, luau-type festivities and hobnobbing time with Shia. So, yes, a tidal wave of freebies can really put the kibosh on integrity. Hell, who am I to judge? I’d be down like Bodhi from Point Break for a cowa-freebie Hawaiian getaway...if the movie seemed anything but schlocky. I’m gonna quote Cineblend’s Joshua Tyler: “A movie for people who think dogs playing poker is funny.”  Ha.