Many of you responded to our pathetic plea a few weeks ago for donations to help cover the site’s hosting fees, and we appreciate your generosity. My webmaster/brother Jeff tells me we have enough to cover a year of hosting on a new, supposedly reliable server!

We are making the change this weekend. You shouldn’t notice any downtime in the site as we transfer stuff over. However, we will have to disable the comments while we move. If you want to post a comment somewhere and see that it’s not an option, that means the transition isn’t complete yet. If it is an option — i.e., if everything looks normal — that means your computer has successfully found us on the new server, and all is well. The amount of time it takes for that to happen can vary from one ISP to another, but it’s usually 24-48 hours.

Thanks again for your support, and here’s hoping the new server will actually deliver on its promise of near-100-percent uptime!

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” one of the biggest hits at this year’s South By Southwest Film Festival, opens today in wide release. It should be another victory for the Judd Apatow team, and it really is very funny. There’s a part where the guy is working on a musical about Dracula, and he favors us with a number, and — oh man. When that scene played at SXSW, my friend sitting next to me laughed so I hard I thought he was going to wet my pants.

Over at Film.com, my review this week is of “The Forbidden Kingdom,” a goofy but mostly likable martial-arts fantasy epic. If nothing else, it has Jet Li and Jackie Chan fighting each other, which has never happened before (or at least not in a movie).

Al Pacino’s “88 Minutes” is pretty bad, and it’s not even in real time. I like things that are in real time, like “24.” Not that being in real time would have saved “88 Minutes,” but at least then it would have had a hook.

“Expelled,” a documentary about the bias against Intelligent Design proponents by those mean old evolution-believers, opens on about 1,000 screens today — enough to be considered wide release — without benefit of screening. In fact, when they have shown it to preview audiences (mostly church groups and such), they’ve required viewers to sign nondisclosure agreements. The film was made by an independent studio, but they’re already following Hollywood studio tactics: Spend lots of money on advertising and promotions in order to boost your opening box office — but whatever you do, don’t let anyone actually see the movie in time to spread negative word of mouth.

Finally, in limited release are “Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?” (good) and “Chapter 27″ (bad).

Oh, more finally: links to the surveys! This one is for all visitors to EricDSnider.com (that means you!); this one is for “In the Dark” subscribers; and this one is for “In the Dark” podcast listeners, whether they subscribe via iTunes or just listen to it here on the site every Friday. One more week and then you won’t have to see me mention them anymore.

Sign up for the “In the Dark” e-zine here.
Listen to this week’s podcast version here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed with this URL.

This week’s edition of Eric’s Bad Movies at Film.com recalls a shameful period in our nation’s history: the time when for some reason a lot of people liked the Spice Girls. Want to read my assessment of “Spice World”? Oh, yes you do.

It’s common enough for the majority of critics to have the same general opinion of a movie. But what about when they use the exact same words to express that opinion? That’s what we call a freaky coincidence. And readers have alerted me to three examples where my description of a film was echoed by other reviewers (or, if you prefer, where other reviewers’ descriptions were echoed by me).

“Daddy Day Camp”:

I neglected to make a note of who brought this to my attention (sorry!), but I wrote:

“The screenplay is attributed to three writers. That means if the film’s funny parts were divided evenly among them, they each wrote zero.”

Kyle Smith of the New York Post wrote:

“The movie has five writers, so the number of funny jokes they each came up with, on average, is exactly … let’s see if I can do the division in my head … oh yeah, zero.”

Continue reading…

I watched two movies on April 1, “Nim’s Island” and “Super Mario Bros.” They are very different films, yet I just noticed they have two major things in common. One, they both feature characters who are germphobic (Jodie Foster in one, Dennis Hopper in the other). Two, they were both directed by husband-and-wife teams. Isn’t it a bizarre coincidence that I should happen to watch them on the same day?!!?!!!?!???!??!

The vast majority of comments that people post on EricDSnider.com are relevant, reasonable, and useful. But a small minority are dumb. I have cataloged some recent ones here for your enjoyment. My favorite parts are in bold type.

DUMB COMMENTS POSTED ON ERICDSNIDER.COM

“27 Dresses”:
I have no idea what your talking about 27 dresses IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!! IF YOU THINK ITS STUPID THAT PROBABLY BECAUSE YOU NEVER WATCHED A GOOD MOVIE~~~ IT IS WORTH WATCHING DON’T LISTEN TO ALL THOUGHT FREAKS!

[You make good points, and you make them very well.]

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Snide Remarks: “The Nayme Gaimme”:
I am a teacher and we come across lots of “unique” names. There are two sisters I had Royalty Knight and the little sister Ya’Hinnis Knight is in pre-school. I have had a Scipio, he was from down south ( I teach in MO) There is a Fuchsia!! I could go on as well but I want. It isjust interesting to me to each its own. As for the changing the spelling I am guilty myself with my own children. My daughters’ names are Kaprice and Kamryn i wanted to stick with the K’s

["Boy, have I ever seen some stupid names! There were two sisters, Royalty and Ya'Hinnis! Then there was a Scipio and a Fuchsia! And what about the idiot who named her daughters Kamryn and Kaprice -- which isn't even a name! Oh, wait, that was me. I am deeply ashamed. P.S. Even though I am a teacher, I write at a remedial level. That is why your children are so stupid."]

* * * * *

Continue reading…

“Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague,” the third installment in Brandon Mull’s excellent kid-lit fantasy series, is as delightful as the first two, full of the subtle wit and great storytelling that have made these books my favorite post-Harry-Potter magical series. Our heroes, 14-year-old Kendra and her little brother Seth, spend summers at their grandparents’ estate, which turns out to be a preserve for magical creatures. In “Grip of the Shadow Plague,” there is concern that the head of their good organization might be a traitor to the bad side; meanwhile, a mysterious darkness is overcoming Fablehaven. Mull’s style is to write fantasy for non-fantasy audiences, with kids who act like real modern-day kids. He continues to introduce new facets to the mythology (Kendra’s fairy powers, some Native American-inspired supernaturalism), and he sets up elements that will surely come into play in later books. (Two words: zombies. ZOMBIES!) The book comes out next week, but you can pre-order it now. If you haven’t picked up the series yet, do it! My brief reviews of the first two books are here and here.

Did you hear they’re having the Olympics this year? And that they’re in China? Well, then you have the background necessary to understand this week’s “Snide Remarks,” entitled “The China Monologues.”

And did you hear I’m conducting some surveys? Well I am! Many of you have responded already and have given some excellent feedback. There have been about a dozen times so far where I’ve read a comment and thought, “Wow, that’s a really good suggestion. Why didn’t I think of that before?” So thank you for your input.

If you haven’t done the surveys yet, won’t you? Please? This one is for all visitors to EricDSnider.com (that means you!); this one is for “In the Dark” subscribers; and this one is for “In the Dark” podcast listeners, whether they subscribe via iTunes or just listen to it here on the site every Friday. If all three surveys apply to you, feel free to take ‘em all. And hey, thanks!

This week’s “Snide Remarks,” including the audio version, is here.
The audio version (i.e., the podcast) is also here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed with this URL.

It’s another meh weekend for new releases as we drift through the doldrums before summer blockbuster season begins on the first day of summer (May 2).

The big ticket is “Prom Night,” which has the same title but no other connection to the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis slasher film, other than that they’re both slasher films. This was one of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets©™®, not screened for critics before it opened. In fact, there was a promotional screening last night at 7:00, and the studio reps who covered it were specifically told not to let any critics in. “Do not under any circumstances let a movie critic see this movie!” was basically the message. “Negative reviews on opening day might foil our smash-and-grab money-making approach!”

So here’s my review. Thank goodness for midnight screenings!

Then there’s Keanu Reeves in “Street Kings,” an average but not awful L.A. cop movie full of grit and swearing and corruption. My review of it is over at Film.com.

Your best bet is “Smart People,” a funny (if unremarkable) comedy starring Dennis Quaid as a self-absorbed college professor.

If you missed it yesterday, we’re conducting a few surveys of EricDSnider.com visitors. This one is for all visitors to the site (that means you!); this one is for “In the Dark” subscribers; and this one is for “In the Dark” podcast listeners. If you’d fill out any or all of the surveys that apply to you, we’d surely appreciate it.

Sign up for the “In the Dark” e-zine here.
Listen to this week’s podcast version here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed with this URL.

Here at EricDSnider.com, we’re able to measure site traffic and page views and stuff like that, but we want to know more. MORE! So I’ve devised a few surveys to help me gauge who you people are and what you’re doing here. This will give us a better idea of what we need to change about the site’s features and what we need to emphasize more.

There are three surveys, each with around 10-15 easy questions. It won’t take you more than a couple minutes, and it will give us very, very valuable input on the site. Please take a few moments and fill out whichever surveys apply to you — possibly all three — won’t you?

EricDSnider.com reader survey: This is for all people who visit the site. If you’re reading this, that means you visit the site. So please take the survey!

“In the Dark” newsletter subscriber survey: This is ONLY for people who subscribe to “In the Dark,” the weekly e-mail newsletter containing movie reviews. (If you don’t subscribe to “In the Dark,” well, why not? Actually, never mind, that’s one of the questions in the first survey.)

“In the Dark” podcast listener survey: This is ONLY for people who listen to the “In the Dark” podcast, whether by subscribing via iTunes (or some such) or by listening to it directly here on the site. In fact, one of the reasons we’re doing the survey is to figure out how many listeners there are. You would think iTunes would tell you how many subscribers you have, but you would be wrong. I honestly have no idea how many people listen to the podcast. By filling out the survey, you will be counted!