LOW BROW17 Again

I didn’t expect much from the new comedy starring the deliciously tanned and toned Ken doll of our generation, Zac Efron. The film was entertaining but predictable, with a shiny and kempt cast and chuckle-inducing one liners. The plot follows Mike O’Donnell, a former high school basketball star who, thanks to an impending divorce and estrangement from his two teenage children, is crashing at his geeky best friend’s pad, which resembles a Trekkie’s (or Hobbit’s) wet dream. The plot is convenient, but the end result is a feel-good comedy and 102 minutes of staring deep into Efron’s gorgeous eyes.

-Coco Keevan

MID BROWCrank 2: High Voltage

Screw you, Chelios. Jason Statham reprises his role as horny, indestructible hit man Chev Chelios and this time he’s got to electrocute himself or his artificial heart will stop pumping. All right, sign me up for 90 minutes of that. But this time around the film’s action is bizarrely homoerotic and bigoted. The result is a confused and idiotic sequel so unlike the first Crank film, which was surprisingly effortless in its hilarious riffs off of our over-caffeinated and over-stimulated culture, that I left the theater feeling embarassed for the film’s cast.

-Andrew Sheivachman

HIGH BROWSt. Vincent

There is sense that St. Vincent (Annie Clark) is recreating these private moments as if on an intimate, handcrafted stage, with a dream-like landscape of orchestrations and even a little tinkering of bells. Her lyrics support the endeavor, as in the beautiful “Just the Same But Brand New” as she sing-sighs in the chorus, “I do my best impression of weightlessness.” Strangely, the title track, “Actor of Out of Work,” is the weakest of the lot, with obvious lyrics and a pop-rock sensibility that makes it awkward in what is otherwise a dreamy world upon St. Vincent’s stage.

-Ali Pechman