Archives: A
- E F - N O
- Z Posters Message
Boards
Who
We Are and Why We Do What We Do
BLU-RAY DVDs:
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
Fifth Element
Incredible HULK
Independence Day
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
Terminator
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
Wonder Woman
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine
BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Harry Potter years 1-5
Ice Age/Alvin + chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wall-E SE
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in Release:
American Violet
An American Affair
Brothers Bloom
Cadillac Records
Cheri
The Cake Eaters
Coraline
Dance Flick
Drag Me to Hell
Easy Virtue
Fast & Furious
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Hannah Montana
The Hangover
Inkheart
The International
I Love You, Man
Is Anybody There?
The Last House on the Left
Lymelife
Management
New in Town
Night at the Museum
The Proposal
Star Trek
Sunshine Cleaning
The Uninvited
Taken
Two Lovers
Up
Watchmen
Whatever Works
X-Men Wolverine
Year One
DVDs on Sale:
An American in Paris
Batman
Begins
Blade
Runner
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
Alfred Hitchcock set
Incredible Hulk SE
Indiana
Jones trilogy
Iron Man SE
Lord
of Rings 12 discs
Mamma Mia! SE
Marx Bros set
Ultimate
Matrix set
Milk
Monty
Python - Holy Grail
Role Models
Sin City
South
Park Movie
Twilight
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Watchmen
Watchmen: Black Freighter
Wonder Woman
X-Men Trilogy
Yes Man
Zack & Miri make a Porno
DisneyPixar & family DVDs Looney
Toons
Alice
in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry
Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry
Potter Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The
Lion King
Mary
Poppins 40th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star
Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wall-E SE
Golden Age DVD
Volume
1
Volume
2
Volume
3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season
1
Season
2
Season
3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1 1933 - 1938
v.2 1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.
 Click for full size poster |
SuperstarRated
[PG-13], 95 minutes |
IN SHORT: It's official. Hell has frozen over.
Cranky admits to being way past his frat boy days and far enough beyond Superstar's teens and twentysomethings target audience that he should have double-timed it into the New Jersey swamps when the phone rang with an offer to put Molly Shannon in the CrankyCritic® StarTalk Inquisition docket. Time was short. Cranky grimly sunk deep down into the overstuffed comfy chairs of Paramount Pictures' screening room, as a throbbing generic Go-Go's song opened the film. Half a dozen twentysomethings sat behind me, all laughing hysterically, while I counted the jokes that made me twitter on the six fingers of my left hand. Luckily, Cranky learned his lesson from the Austin Powers debacle and did what is promised in the rules of this site. He watched it again.
If you don't watch Saturday Night Live, Superstar is the story of Mary Katherine Gallagher (Molly Shannon), a Catholic High schoolgirl with thick rimmed glasses and an extraordinary fantasy life. Her job, rewinding tapes at Kip's Video Store in middle American town of Besamee Heights gives her ample opportunity to immerse herself in, and memorize vast portions of, every movie ever made. From her earliest kidlethood, she has dreamed of the perfect kiss with the perfect man. Someone like Arthur Fonzarelli or John Travolta as The Boy in the Plastic Bubble . . . or the real life coolest boy in school, Sky Corrigan (Will Ferrell). Sky is also the best dancer in St. Monica's ("he's the Swayze-est" says Mary Katherine's best friend) but he's severely liplocked with the most beautiful girl in school, Evian (Elaine Hendrix), who looks damned fine in pink underwear . . .
We should point out that all the leads are easily in their thirties, which just adds to the absurdity of it all . . .
Mary Katherine decided early on that the only way to get that perfect kiss was to become a Superstar!, a decision condemned by her wheelchair bound grandmother (Glynis Johns) who has raised Mary Katherine since the accidental death of her parents. Spectral visits from Jesus Christ himself (Will Ferrell) will point Mary Katherine to the path that will determine her ultimate destiny -- the Catholic Teenagers Against Venereal Disease Talent Show at St. Monica High. The prize? A trip to Hollywood and an appearance in a movie with Positive Moral Values. Simply? A chance to become a Superstar!
Only a vengeful Evian, dumped by Sky halfway through the flick, stands in her way. On her side are the other "special" students of St. Monica's: Slater (Harland Williams), a leather jacketed, motorcycle riding scarey-dude who never speaks and is believed to have chopped up his parents into teeny weeny pieces; the braces-bound basketball star Helen (Emmy Laybourne), and the school's only Jewish student, Howard Feinstein (Jason Blicker) who's got the hots for Mary and almost everyone else in the school with a working human heart.
Overseeing the kidlets and the nuns is the harried Chief Priest, Father Ritley (Mark McKinney who, as he did in director Bruce McCulloch's soon to be forgotten Dog Park, takes what could have been a forgettable supporting character and makes him incredibly funny). Superstar is McCulloch's second flick to hit the screens this month and it, unlike the floundering romantic comedy Dog Park, Superstar is . . . dare we say the "f" word???
Superstar is funny. There. I said it and I meant it. Unlike A Night at the Roxbury, which felt like 8 SNL skits stapled together, Superstar has a solid story, strong supporting characters and a Farrelly Brothers quality dog joke carefully inserted into the story, as are tributes to movies like Carrie and Armageddon. Parents worried about gratuitous sex jokes shouldn't worry. There's one girls locker room scene and only one use of the real "f" word but other than that, Superstar is a remarkably entertaining flick.
Of course, it would help if you like the skits on Saturday Night Live, which I don't particularly do. If you're young enough to remember the glory days of SNL, as Cranky is, set yourself in the middle of a crowd with the Godzilla size popcorn and soda combo. Cranky got a good hunk of guffaws out of the film, and felt a big smile on his puss for the rest of the flick.
A smiling Cranky is not a pretty site. Thank God the lights were down...
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Superstar, he would have paid...
$5.50
It's definitely a date flick for those kidlets so inclined. Not painful for those of us to remember all 25 years of Saturday Night Live, though it would be a rental grab for us. As for those old flicks, even with it's rock 'n' roll themes and the lovely Tia Carrere, Wayne's World would've only nailed a "recommended" $6.00 rating. A Night at the Roxbury tanked at $2.50.
 |
Click to buy films by Bruce McCulloch |
| Click to buy films by Saturday Night Live stars | |
| Click to buy films starring Harland Williams |
|
|
BUY THE LATEST DVDs |
|
 Star Wars Trilogy (Widescreen) DVD (Full Screen) |
 Lord of the Rings Trilogy DVD |
 Marx Bros collection |
 Alfred Hitchcock Collection |
|
|
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in
Release:
The Band's Visit
Definitely Maybe
Hottie and the Nottie
In Bruges
Iron Man
Be Kind Rewind
Rambo
Cloverfield
Mad Money
U2 3D
28 Weeks Later
Black
Book
Bourne Ultimatum
Brooklyn
Rules
Death at a Funeral
Evening
The
Ex
Fido
Georgia Rule
Grindhouse
Hairspray
Harry Potter - Phoenix
The Hoax
Hot Rod
I Know Who Killed Me
La Vie en Rose
License to Wed
Live
Free or Die Hard
Mr. Brooks
Next
No Reservatons
Ocean's Thirteen
Perfect Stranger
Pirates of Caribbean
Ratatouille
Rescue Dawn
Rush Hour 3
Severance
Sicko
Simpsons Movie
Slow Burn
Snow Cake
Spider-Man 3
Stardust
DVDs
on Sale:
300
Alice
in Wonderland
Batman
Begins
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Blade
Runner
Bridge to Terabithia
Charlie
+ Chocolate Factory
Cinderella
E.T.
Fantastic
Four
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
Harry
Potter yrs 1-3 set
Harry
Potter Azkaban
The
Incredibles
Indiana
Jones trilogy
The
Lion King
Lord
of Rings 12 discs
Mary
Poppins 40th LE
Ultimate
Matrix set
Miss Potter
Monty
Python - Grail
Napoleon
Dynamite
Pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Shrek
Shrek
2
Sin
City
Sleeping
Beauty
South
Park Movie
Spider-Man
Spider-Man
2
Star
Wars Ep. 1
Star
Wars Ep. 2
Star
Wars 3 Full Screen
Star
Wars 3 l'box
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
The
Island
War
of the Worlds
X-Men
X-Men
2