Negative speculation and prognostication has been brewing for months for Disney's sci-fi actioner John Carter thanks to dismal tracking and rumors of bloated budgets, but Disney's finally released their review embargo for the March 9 would-be blockbuster. So what's the early buzz from the first critiques of Andrew Stanton's take on the Edgar Rice Burroughs saga, about a Civil War veteran named John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) who lands in the middle of a civil war on Mars?
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The reviews are in for the Todd Phillips-produced uber-party comedy Project X, and three out of four critics agree: It is the douchiest, most mean-spirited debauch of the year. (To date, anyway; we'll see what kind of revisionist zest Steven Spielberg and co. bring to Lincoln.) Hop aboard Movieline's scorched-earth golf cart and let's go for a spin...
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This was, oh, five years in coming, but the long-time Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman has been let go from the paper. Fun fact: Hoberman's 34-year relationship with the Voice commenced with a high-low glimpse at David Lynch's experimental blast Eraserhead ("Eraserhead's not a movie I'd drop acid for, although I would consider it a revolutionary act if someone dropped a reel of it into the middle of Star Wars") and concluded this week with a high-low glimpse at Ken Jacobs's experimental blast Seeking the Monkey King ("This homemade slingshot has the capacity to resist and pulverize the idiotic visual aggression of a commercial behemoth like Transformers. It's a '60s vision happening today—beautiful, terrifying, and determined to storm the doors of perception"). Anyway, don't sweat it, he'll be back. [Capital New York]
Technically speaking, Nicolas Cage's ridiculous medieval actioner Season of the Witch has earned the worst reviews of the year thus far, currently simmering at a robust 4 percent over at Rotten Tomatoes. But there's a difference between a cheesy period B-movie that's simply silly and a wannabe heartwarming film whose protagonist actively inspires revulsion, alarm, and twee murder fantasies among the critical mass. World, meet Waiting for Forever: the most despised movie of 2011!
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Here at Movieline HQ we like to keep our fingers on the pulse of the film world, so we'll be polling film critics and bloggers in Park City on a variety of topics throughout the week. Check in each day to hear what our panel of experts have to say about the hot films, deals, and stories coming out of Sundance '11... starting with Day 1's Big Question: Which three films do you refuse to leave Park City without having seen?
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