Film Threat: Wackness Abounds
RECOMMENDED: There’s a lot of reasons we loved The Wackness so much that we’re actually going to go see it again this weekend and paying — whoah! — but the biggest one is this: There may be nothing more sublime than the loop-de-loops Ben Kingsley’s latter-day career has taken. We love it. We’re obsessed with it. We can’t get enough. I mean, look at that CV. In The Wackness, Kingsley plays a weed-smoking shrink in the midstream of a hella huge midlife crisis, who befriends Luke Shapiro, an Upper West Side weed dealer in the summer of 1994. Which, if you remember, was stupid fresh and hot as hell. Which brings us to the next point: This movie is also the funniest approximation of the mid-90s we’ve yet to see on film. And yet, in a really loving and sweet way. Shapiro is played with aplomb by Josh Peck, and without giving too much away, this is a loping, unlikely buddy movie that shares a pacing with both The Big Lebowski and the most blunted-out ‘94 mixtape that is still boxed up with your shit somewhere upstairs. Break that out, and roll one up after you see this. It may be the best time you have all summer. (Trailer at right.)
ALSO NEW IN THEATERS THIS WEEK: Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which is one of those movies your comic book friends think is either great or totally fucking sucks and everybody else who’s has sex just ignores completely; and Meet Dave which will show you just how sad Eddie Murphy’s career has gotten if you didn’t know already.
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