Love Kills Laughs in Invention of Lying

British comedian promises same 'tone' as last year

(NEWSER) - Ricky Gervais, who will you skewer tonight? The third-time Golden Globes host won't say but does promise that "the tone is going to be the same" as last year, when he insulted everyone from Charlie Sheen to Angelina Jolie, the Huffington Pos t reports. "Let's get this in perspective: They're the wealthiest, most privileged people in the world," Gervais told Esquire . "Imagine if I had gone out there and said, 'We're all in the same gang. Aren't we brilliant? Us millionaires together.'" More»

Movie may be Sandler's worst ever, prompts call for his retirement

(NEWSER) - Adam Sandler’s latest comedy, in which he plays his own twin sister, is mind-numbingly bad, reviewers say—so poor, in fact, that it languished at a remarkable 0% on Rotten Tomatoes , which calls it “impossible to recommend on any level whatsoever," for most of the morning:

• “More than 24 hours has passed since I watched the new Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill and I am still dead inside,” writes Mary Pols in Time . “It made me feel as if comedy itself were a dirty thing, mainly practiced by people eager to express ugly feelings toward everyone from homely women to Mexican immigrants.”

Steve Carell, Julianne Moore star in winning romantic comedy

(NEWSER) - Critics largely enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love—and some have fallen head over heels for the romantic comedy with an all-star cast.

• In the Los Angeles Times , Betsy Sharkey gushes that the film “may well restore your faith in the very possibility of love, to say nothing of romantic comedies.” The “grand romantic gesture about grand romantic gestures conjures up the bittersweet magic of first loves, lasting loves, lost loves and all the loves in between.”
• "It’s the mild exception that makes, if not for a great movie, then at least for a pleasant surprise," writes Rick Groen in the Globe and Mail .

You know where it's going, but you probably don't care

(NEWSER) - Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis may not break any new ground in Friends With Benefits, but critics are largely giving the sex-filled rom-com the thumbs up:

• "The jokes don't all work and the topical references can be irritably hipper-than-thou," writes Andrea Gronvall of the Chicago Reader . "But at least director and cowriter Will Gluck (Easy A) aims high."

Steve Carell's schmuck praised in remake of French farce

(NEWSER) - Dinner for Schmucks has a great premise and two top comic stars in Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, say critics, though opinions split widely on whether it's actually funny.

• The remake of a French farce in which heartless execs compete to bring the biggest loser to dinner "is lumbering, inconsistent, and about 20 minutes too long, but it's funny," decides Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco Chronicle . "It's funny from the beginning, and it stays funny, even as it beats scenes to death and overstays its welcome."