'Press Play With Madeleine Brand': Lamenting 'Smurfs,' Debating 'Eddington'

Katie Walsh and I were at the KCRW studios yesterday to talk about this weekend's major movie releases. My big takeaway? Lots of stinkers! 

You can hear our reviews of Eddington, Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer down below. (We also discuss an upcoming 70mm screening of 1984's Streets of Fire.)

'The Smurfs 2' Review

The Smurfs 2 is really bad, it's going to make a lot of money anyway, and there's nothing you can do about it. Well, you can read my Paste review -- but that still won't do anything.

'the smurfs' review

I really liked the Smurfs as a kid. My hometown barber had little plastic Smurfs all over his shop. (I'm not sure why he collected them. Maybe to give little kids something to play with?) So I was dreading the feature-length Smurfs movie, especially when the trailers looked horrible. Now that I've seen the movie ... well, it's not a good film, but it's better than I was expecting. That's not the same thing as a recommendation, though, which hopefully my Screen International review makes clear.