Editorials > The Good, The Bad and What Pete Hammond Said for Nov. 30

It's time once again for new releases and you to learn what is good, bad and if Maxim's Pete Hammond can be counted on for a pull quote. This week's a bit slow but we've got the "indie" dark comedy The Savages and Anakin Skywalker learns to love (a sweet, glorious paycheck) in Awake. 

The Savages

Metacritic Average: 86

Rotten Tomatoes: 92 percent

The Good: "A brutal encounter with mortality told with uncommon humanity, wit and humor."

-The Los Angeles Times, Carina Chocano

The Bad: "That the humor is mostly callous is mitigated by the fact that it's generally secondary to turgid drama, so that, for example, gags about Wendy and Jon screening The Jazz Singer while black nurses watch in disgust are less crucial than the sight of her protagonists grieving over a lousy father not worth caring about."

-Slant, Nick Schager 

And What Pete Hammond Said: "Deceptively simple, yet quite complex on the inside, this Sundance hit will have a lot of audience members seeing themselves in the heart of an all-too-familiar family story."

-Maxim, Pete Hammond 

Awake

Metacritic average: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes: N/A

The Good: " As a medical thriller, "Awake" is only slightly more effective than "E.R.", but the interesting things Harold does with the premise and the mindf*ck twists shows promise for future endeavors."

-Shocktillyoudrop.com, Edward Douglas 

An ironic excerpt from a Jessica Alba junket interview that is funny if you consider her talking about the overall film: "But the whole time you can't say anything. You can't talk, and you can't move or cry out. You can't do anything. You just have to suffer through it until it wears off."

-Long Island Press, Prairie Miller 

And What Pete Hammond Said: "The statistics say about one in 700 people suffer from "anesthetic awareness" and will wake up during surgery. Using this information, the filmmakers of Awake have crafted a domestic thriller that just may end up putting you asleep."

-Maxim, Pete Hammond 

*Note: Awake wasn't given a press screening and will not have published reviews until Saturday. This is generally seen as an awful, horrible sign of things to come. But then again, they did the same thing with Ghost Rider and that managed to make bank.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Metacritic average:92

Rotten Tomatoes: 90 percent

The Good: "Schnabel’s movie, based on the calm and exquisite little book that Bauby wrote in the hospital, is a gloriously unlocked experience, with some of the freest and most creative uses of the camera and some of the most daring, cruel, and heartbreaking emotional explorations that have appeared in recent movies."

-The New Yorker, David Denby 

The Bad: "Schnabel's depiction of Bauby's situation is filtered with excessive, over-the-top directorial gestures, lending the proceedings a superficiality that doesn't dissipate even after the opening act's visual straightjacketing is discarded in favor of a more conventional third-person perspective."

-Slant, Nick Schager 

And What Pete Hammond Said: "This movie is a remarkable achievement in every way, perhaps the most inspiring film in many years. It's an amazing story of human courage and commitment, told with dazzling style (by director Julian Schnabel) and cinematic imagination to burn. Tough to watch? Sure. Worth it? Absolutely."

-Maxim, Pete Hammond