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A Bodybuilder Reviews Michael Bay’s ‘Pain & Gain’

By Jason Bailey on

For a Michael Bay movie, Pain & Gain is getting remarkably good reviews and positive buzz — even its negative notices are full of phrases like “the most charming Michael Bay movie in a long while.” The primary question that the film’s pro and con critics seem to be arguing over is whether Bay is satirizing the flashy excesses and over-the-top elements of the narrative or reveling in them; it’s a story about the quest for conspicuous consumption, from a filmmaker as obsessed with the idea as his characters. Complicating that question is Pain & Gain’s roots as a true story; it happened in Miami in 1994 and 1995, in the world of bodybuilding and fitness clubs. And how accurate is it to that world? I decided to find out by seeing the movie with a bodybuilder and personal trainer. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Apparently Michael Bay feels like Transformers already needs a reboot; the fourth film in the $2.6 billion franchise, which is set to be released on June 29, 2014, will provide “a new take” on the story. Before that, he’s working on Pain And Gain, a small budget action movie about “a group of bodybuilders… Read More

Film

The Weekend Box Office: Explain Yourself, America

By Jason Bailey on

The pre-Valentine’s Day weekend was an unexpectedly big one at the box office, with four new movies bringing in over $20 million in receipts — only the second time in history that such an event has occurred, and the first time, as some outlets are reporting, that it’s happened on a non-holiday weekend. (We’ll let you decide whether a few days before Valentine’s Day counts as a “holiday weekend” or not. I’ll refrain from comment, in the interest of not upsetting anyone on the eve of said maybe-holiday.) What’s even more remarkable about this considerable fiscal accomplishment is that it was achieved with four movies that no one here at Flavorpill can actually imagine going to see. Neat trick, Hollywood! … Read More

Film

Trailer Park: Cops, Corman, and Our Old Friend Eddie

By Jason Bailey on

Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. We’ve got six new trailers this week, including new vehicles for The Rock, Kristen Stewart, and Jonah Hill (and an old one for Eddie Murphy); check ‘em out after the jump. … Read More

Web

What’s on at Flavorpill: Links that Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Bethany Larson on

Today at Flavorpill we chortled over this brief history of cougars (the woman sort, not the feline sort). Did you realize that the trend goes back to the book of Genesis? We were confused, distressed, and amused by Siblings or Dating? We discovered Zanger Bob, the Dutch Mini Daddy, who was on a… Read More