Yes, but if I wanted to see people having fun being crazy, I can go down to the local park and see it for free.

"Worse things happen at sea…" I now can't help think of it as "That whale story that ties Babe, the Gallant Pig to T. H. White by way of Labyrinth"!

Ever After did it well, but for some reason all the wannabes ignore what it did right, and wonder why nobody likes them…

You pretty much can't escape Moby Dick if you engage with the outside world — either it's taught in school, or it shows up as a textual and meta-textual reference in other works of film and fiction. So yes, I think "well-known folk tale" does about cover it, since people have been making "Call me Ishmael" jokes for…

The bad fanfic writers are all working for Hollywood these days…they think that scraping the model numbers off and painting over the spot welding will fool audiences into thinking it's "original stories" they're selling.

Don't forget the hilarious meta of the Broadway hit, "Arsenic and Old Lace" which may have inspired the later character of Igor — and which if not for contract restrictions when immediately adapted to film, would have had Boris Karloff reprising his stage role playing the character of the criminal mastermind changed…

Modern novel-wise, possibly Frankenstein itself — Shelley named it "The Modern Prometheus" after all, but the rebel Titan who stole fire to help humans survive on ourown was a hero who paid the price for it, not an irresponsible narcissistic hobbyist.

Except who cares? "I filed the VIN numbers off of Bourne Identity and Pineapple Express and Adventureland and soldered them together like some sort of Frankenstein's Tin Lizzie, but it's TECHNICALLY an Original Story!" impresses nobody outside of a college debate club.

Max Landis is rapidly proving himself to be a classic instance of old-fashioned Hollywood nepotism rather than a Young Genius. Wonder who and what he'll blame for this mess tanking like American Ultra?

Worse yet, her name is easily confused with Sienna Guillory…

It's like they watched the old classics like Rebecca or The Magnificent Ambersons and don't comprehend what made them work, just copy the surfaces like a journeyman art forger.

That's what almost every other review is saying.

Recalls story of shortly-pre-flameout chef at trendy-but-uneven restaurant trying to pay his liquor and advertising bills with lobsters and gift certificates…I won't name the town, but it can't be the only time or place!

Haven't you heard? He's Mortdecai's American cousin.

There is a subplot that his former dealers are trying to get revenge because he won't pay them back, if that helps.

This is Hollywood not even pretending to hide their contempt for us audiences any longer — a hackish derivative lazy teen boy grossout comedy that would have been all those things even in the Eighties, filled with retro sexist "humour" and homophobic "jokes" by a gay director/screenwriter, it's the antithesis of…

It's very much about the Gilded Age, the decline of the British Empire and the moving of America into that global role as seen through the semi-aware experiences of pre-Titanic, pre-Great War popular culture: Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Edith Wharton, Aubrey Beardsley, Lord Dunsany, Lady Gregory, the Aesthetes and…

I don't know why we can't just have a series set IN A CIRCUS that is ABOUT CIRCUSES. There's more than enough interesting stuff going on that you could have a lot of fun on screen besides personal drama, and circus movies USED to be a thing, in the old days. Now everyone's got to be all arty and emo and symbolist,…

"Children, when you go online, you must never, EVER chat with the spambots!"

Exactly how MUCH bigger are we talking about here?