swing vote

August Blahs Hit Hard as Scummy ‘Mummy’ Threatens Bat-Superiority

2:05AM STV | Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to new hits, misses and dead ends this weekend at the movies — and considering our sudden passage into the August filmgoing doldrums, we could use all the guidance we can get. Still, Batman’s dark shadow stretches into its second week while another, stinkier franchise will do all it can to vanquish The Dark Knight at the box office. Meanwhile, we fear for Kevin Costner, have a film-festival darling in mind for this week’s Underdog pick, and have a bleary-eyed glance at the latest DVD releases as well. As usual, our opinions are our own, but they’re also essentially failsafe, so read them and weep! Literally!

Kevin Costner Reduced to Stealing Mediocrity From the Dead

10:35AM STV | A disturbing revelation has come to light today about Swing Vote, Kevin Costner’s election-year opus about the alcoholic schlub on whose shoulders the entirety of presidential politics rests via some fluke of electoral nature. It’s about as disappointing as its midsummer dumping implies, writes NY Post critic Lou Lumenick, but that hardly seems as unexpected as his observation that the whole film rips off is an “uncredited remake” of a 1939 John Barrymore film called The Great Man Votes: More »