Review of Cinema Psychic

Starring Charlie Baker, Cinema Psychic has been giving weekly updates on the latest movie releases since December 1, 2006. In these brief séances, Baker uses his uncanny psychic powers to preview movies before they appear on screens nationwide, using only his dry wit to either lead you towards two hours of entertainment or save two hours of your life. Cinema Psychic is part of Ovalworks Media, which also produces The Clipshow (which is edited, directed and written by Charlie and co-created by Jim Kirks and Charlie’s brother Chris), on which Baker showed off his telekinetic talents as the Cinema Psychic in this episode.

For those of us who are not tuned into the fine vibrations of Hollywood’s latest offerings, Baker’s gift for delving into the cosmic not-so-subtleties of the box office in three minutes or less is a nice sneak-peek. Anyone who identifies with his dry sensibility, know-it-all humor and noir-ish black and white set-up can probably take his recommendations to heart. Every Friday finds him channeling in front of a different cinema-themed, green-screened backdrop, giving us the inside scoop on which flicks to skip and which to bring the popcorn to, from Norbit and the Lives of Others

to Meet the Robinsons and Blades of Glory. Baker was born with a gift, a gift that he must share, a gift of separating good films from bad and telling, in not too many words, why they are that way, even if that reason is that the studio execs were smoking turtle crap or Marky Mark should have stuck with rapping. His humor is sharp but his delivery not always, which only proves that he is, indeed, the real thing and not some charlatan imposter. No, he’s just a cinema fan like the rest of us, but with psychic powers that can see the future of film. Plus he provides links to the movies on IMDb so you can read more about the films he mentions to draw your own empirically-driven conclusions.

Charlie’s breakdown of the Oscars is a good one, although he does hype box office bomb The Number 23. Nobody’s perfect.