Due Date is hilarious, plain and simple. It is what it is: a mismatched buddy road trip film. Scenario improbable? Yes. Does it matter? Absolutely not.

Phillip's comedies always have that element of travel and "the road." I.e. Road Trip and The Hangover. Like Hangover, this film plays to the dark side of Americana. In Hangover, its the seedier side of Vegas. In Due Date, a broader stroke that paints an unidealized portrait of the exits, the western unions and rest stops off the interstate.

Its dark. Its grimy. The characters don't ask for sympathy. They are who they are. Downey punches a kid. Comic genius.

I bought into Downey's character growth arc. He's an asshole but he's working on it. Galifinakis' character forces him to do so.

A lot of comments and reviews saying that this movie has been done already via Planes Trains and Automobiles. I've got news for those people: It was a great film but that was thirty years ago. Thirty F'in years ago! Get off your snobby yearning for the past omg they just don't make good movies anymore high horse and accept that someone else can take a swipe and still make people laugh. I know its tough to get that through your aging skulls but thirty years ago is a generation ago and a different filmmaking era (albeit a great one). The road trip / buddy movie is genre unto itself and Due Date does it justice.

I paid to laugh. And laugh I did. Looking forward to Hangover 2.

Side note: Someone's phone rang during the movie. Hey, not a big deal. It happens, right? We're human. We forget. We make it right. What blew my mind was the a-hole actually answered with a non-chalant "hello?" Who does that!!! Seriously wtf! That's a sign of the apocalypse.

I call BS. People call Argento a master. I remember watching Suspiria in horror film class ten years ago. At the time, I remembered thinking, really? Its corny, bad effects, and bad music. Wasn't scary. Anyways, just a rant. It seems like every critic has to call Suspiria a classic because it would heresy if not.

It has been called the film of the decade and I agree.

Writing, directing, acting all in top form.

Caps off one of the best filmography in any director's career.

Trent Reznor's score made me salivate.

I agree with the parallels to Citizen Kane.

A glimpse into Harvard society.
An illustration of Silicon Valley excess.

We don't need the Google movie.

Well over the top, but nice to see Danny Trejo play the character well and hold his own with stars like DeNiro and Seagal. Seagal himself is reason to see it. How many times to you get to witness him play the bad guy? The film succeeds because it maintains the same ridiculous sense of "over-the-top" throughout. Machete is the best best thing to come out of the Grindhouse experiment of a few years ago.

Thoughts on Inception and What is Missing from Christopher Nolan?s Body of Work
(tons of spoilers)

Ok. So, I?ve seen Inception and it is awesome. One of the best films of the last ten years in terms of originality and execution. But after pondering Inception?s mysteries and reflecting on Christoper Nolan?s body of work in general, I have come to a conclusion: I agree with the emerging sentiment that Nolan is the Hitchcock or Kubrick of our time but there is one thing missing: true, unadulterated, visual fantasy. I wonder what happens when Nolan pulls a Spellbound and takes us beyond what we expect from his traditional palate. We have yet to experience Nolan's equivalent of the last fifteen minutes of 2001.

Although I love Inception, I want to see the results when Nolan just ?lets go" and doesn't let his abstain for CGI limit his imagination. Instead of angular dreamscapes, I want to see the barriers eliminated; no limits on the visual possibilities. In Inception, rules of the plot dictate the visual style. I.e. Things can?t get too bizarre or the constructs will turn on the architect and invaders. I would love to have witnessed, even if it was just for a few minutes, Nolan toy with the idea of the architect letting loose (beyond city flipping) and shower us with previously unfathomable experiences.

Nolan is capable of launching viewers on a massively visual trip in addition to his now established mental mind ****s. I think Inception is the most visually arresting so far, but I believe he can go much further.

Interesting that James Cameron's Avatar is the exact opposite of Inception. Incredible visuals but basically Dances with Wolves with blue people in regards to the plot. Can Cameron and Nolan somehow fuse their DNA and create a super director?

Nolan and his brother are masters of the twist; the mental exercise that leaves you feelings like a spinning top. In Momento - the story is told backwards and we eventually discover that this Sammy guy who killed is wife is actually the protagonist. Mind Blown! In the Prestige, it is revealed the protagonist has a twin and the whole Enrico Fermi thing is bulll****. Mind Blown! Again!

Insomnia, though based on a Norwegian film, has the twist that they are so far north, the sun never sets and it drives Al Pacino crazy. (Mind not so blown but it was a good adaptation... and Pacino and Robbin Williams. Mork as the bad guy? Actually, kind of mind blowing in that sense).

Even Batman Begins, when point of view shots demonstrate the effects of the hallucinogenic toxin, it is staid and sterile. Sure, the shots impart a sense of chaos, but maybe if it was turned up a notch (maybe some little CGI demons or hobgoblins) maybe it would come across as even more insane.

Nolan's deepest dive into madness and nihilism surfaced in the character of the Joker.
Maybe a future film could combine the plots of Inception and The Dark Knight. Dom Cobb performs extraction (or inception) on the Joker. Now that is something people would pay to see! What kind of **** are we going to find up there?

It is known that Nolan prefers to keep the CGI to a minimum. Which is completely respectable. Personally, I can?t stand useless CGI. However, it is a valuable tool and it would be cool to see what would happen if Nolan embraced it a bit more. I?m just sayin...Go beyond the bare minimum required and go a little hog-wild. The studios will let him if he wanted. He is so golden right now, he could bomb three times in a row and they would still probably give him a budget for the next one.

And Inception itself. Sure, cities rolling on top of themselves are pretty cool, but kinda been there done that. Even the anti-gravity fight scene. Completely in a class of its own but still chock full of right angles and rigidity.

What I really think Nolan needs to do next, after the third Batman film, is do something as off the wall as Inception, but change up the visual style. Go nuts. Embrace CGI for once. If he doesn?t like it he can go back. Something beyond right angles and rigid cityscapes would continue to melt our minds and leave us salivating even more for the next Nolan original.