Because I'll basically watch anything

I have spent the last week in front of the heatless glow of an eight-inch screen, catching up on movies I missed earlier in the year. Many of these movies, which I must stipulate I chose to watch, are terrible; this is because I really have no taste. For your mockery, and in no particular order:

• Kung Fu Panda: After the bilious Madagascar, I thought Dreamworks was a lost cause; but I'd heard this described as "surprisingly good." It was fine; not up with Pixar's best, but certainly par with Cars. Interesting cast, though, and Ian McShane turns out to be a great voice actor, like we couldn't have guessed, but still really great.
• Sukiyaki Western Django: Came out last year and I've only now seen it. Strange and interesting; enjoyable. Stagey. Japanese actors speaking phonetic English in A Fistful of Dollars/Henry VI hybrid. Get off the goddamn screen, Quentin. Not sure I get everything about it. Weirdest thing I've watched in weeks.
• The Mummy 3 or maybe 4: Oh balls, now Jet Li is a Chinese mummy: So this franchise has split, I guess? With one line being all about oiled-up bodybuilders and cheap CGI, and the other for Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz Maria Bello being all Nick and Nora but with more roundhouses and firepower? Okay, it doesn't work, but that's actually what I'd probably recommend if I were Fraser's agent, so, um, carry on then.
• Lower Learning: Screw you, I watch shitty comedies. Over the top enough to generate a few laughs. Eva Longoria huffing paint. HA! Seriously, though, this is terrible.
• Step Brothers: At first it's another one for the shitty comedy pile, but it ends up being pretty solid for the Ferrell oeuvre. I think John C. Reilly helps focus Ferrell: They both mine the same flailing idiot man-child material, but JCR seems to have a control that complements Ferrell's inventiveness. Funny premise; ludicrous (but necessary story-wise) third act.
• Hitman: Timothy Olyphant once again plays an emotionally tortured badass killer, but this time with a shaven head and a bar code tattoo. (Question: Is this the most inconspicuous look for a secret group of international assassins?) It's better than a video game movie has a right to be, which only means it's not Uwe Boll-terrible. It takes an odd detour into rom-com territory(!), then mostly comes to its senses. When you see the Russian kids playing the Hitman video game, point out "hey, meta!", because that will be the high point of the movie for you.
• The X Files: I Want to Believe: Better than the first movie, this reads like an early-season episode: lots of heavy-handed religious posturing, some sick fucking Russians, and just enough supernatural to tie it together. People who squee at Scully and Mulder getting together probably squeed like banshees; I did not squee. Some pretty ugly homophobia throughout.
• Son of Rambow: Precious and manipulative, but quite good despite that. The boys' relationship and the social criticism of their environments felt unforced. The metafilmic conceit (basically the only thing that carried Be Kind Rewind and The Amateurs) is here a more integral part of the emotional story: the boys' film is an act of will, by which they shape and remedy the world around them. The French kid is funny.
• Wanted: Killer weavers and panic attacks? Freeman is unctuous; McEvoy is a cipher; would anyone be surprised if Jolie turned out to be from Cygnus B? But the action is unflagging, and there are a couple of witty bullet-time shots. Ignore the mess; grab the popcorn.
• Man on Wire: This is a very good movie about a truly extraordinary act, and I'm not sure it's possible to critique the film without the overwhelming power of the act interfering. The film is (deliberately and explicitly) set up as a heist movie; this is smart, as we immerse ourselves in the criminality of the event before having to confront the guerilla performance art of the sublime. The film cannot capture Petit's act, and I don't think it tries to; it falls most flat during recreations, and it succeeds best for me when witnesses try to come to terms with what they have seen (the arresting policeman at the press conference being my favorite example).
• Burn After Reading: Why no love for the Coens? This got pretty much panned last summer, but I think those critics were spoiled by the perfect delicate grit of No Country... and were not receptive to a comedy of pain. This might be more Fargo-like than Fargo, whose shining moral center of Marge Gunderson has been excised and replaced with malevolent stupidity; it's a choice that works beautifully. Also, most actors playing a raging dick too often seem to miss either the rage or the dickishness. Malkovich, by contrast, brings a tankful of both.
• Eagle Eye: This is unredeemably silly. Around the halfway point in every movie every moviegoer is ready for a Big Plot Twist to carry the action forward; this time, however, that plot twist has been telegraphed so thoroughly that, when the co-stars stand shocked with mouths agape, I can only say How is this a surprise? How is the audience not supposed to know this? How are the characters? Shut your stupid agape mouths already! Michelle Monaghan (had to look her up) is uncompelling, and Shia LeBoeuf is, as in everything else, just unlikable (seriously who decided that this guy got to grab the Hollywood brass ring?). Wrap it all up with some giant plot holes (that computer looks pretty fragile, guys, bet one of you could take it out around the 30-minute mark...) and you've got a recipe for summer action fun!
• The House Bunny: It whitewashes Hef, but so obviously as to be a wink at reality. In fact it whitewashes everything sexual, only occasionally breaking that code for some funny yet PG jokes. I have not seen such a great expected-sexiness to actual-sexiness ratio since Lars and the Real Girl. Anna Faris, as always, is a treasure with a gift for physical comedy, often broad, sometimes balletic. The story--misfit girls learn to look trampy then learn to dial it back--ends up being a subtle, positive, feminist message.
• Hancock: "Okay, this doesn't seem so bad. Smith is coasting on his charm, but not too much. Bateman's been given a ridiculous character, but he's a professional, it'll be all right. Wait, is this what everyone hated? Hancock macking on Charlize WAIT A MINUTE WTF THIS MAKES NO SENSE. And now it's getting goopy and EVEN STUPIDER. Well I've watched this much so I might as well OH YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME THE ENDING IS THE WORST OF ALL."
• Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Maybe I've seen and read too much about HST already, but this left me cold. The interviewees were interesting, and it was good to hear from/about the collaborators that helped shape his art (Steadman, Acosta, Wenner). But a lot of it was just facile (and the music cues were deadly: really, "Sympathy for the Devil"? "You Sexy Thing"?). There often comes a point with an artist like Thompson where he himself becomes the work of art, one that is dangerous and unpleasant and commodified. I appreciate this effort to reclaim HST's reputation, but I'm afraid it relies on the same commodification, the same naughty glimpse at the public private man.
  

If I actually went to the movies instead of waiting for video, I might have been able to come up with something that hadn't been said far better many months ago.