People Tell Me I Look Like Han Solo.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Summer Movie Preview: Part 4
It’s time for the fourth and final part of my preview of the upcoming summer movies, this time looking at the films of August. As usual, I haven’t actually seen any of these movies yet, so keep that in mind that these are just my opinions of the big summer flicks.
A Perfect Getaway (Aug. 7)
This thriller follows a young married couple (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) backpacking through a remote part of Hawaii, where they meet up with two other couples and later learn that local authorities are looking for a pair of killers posing as a traveling couple. Appropriately enough, the men in each of the other couples is creepy as hell (Timothy Olyphant as a possibly-crazed military vet, and Chris Hemsworth, recently cast as Marvel's Thor, as just a big scary dude), and Zahn and Jovovich are soon fighting for their lives (at least this is what the trailer tells me). It was directed by David Twohy, who helmed the Riddick movies for Vin Diesel. The reason this has me sort of interested in A Perfect Getaway is that it’s a straight-up thriller, and Twohy proved in the first Riddick film, Pitch Black, that he can really do creepy atmospherics, and I like the "whodunnit" aspect of the story. It’s a bit of a strange movie to come out in summer, but every now and then a cool little piece of counterprogramming can hit the jackpot. I’m definitely intrigued.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Aug. 7)
I’m so torn about G.I. Joe. On the one hand, I’m almost positive the movie
will be bad – it was rushed into production to beat the writers’ strike, and it was directed by Stephen Sommers, whose last film was the cinematic travesty that was Van Helsing – but I was a devoted fan of the toys when I was a kid (and I occasionally wear a Cobra t-shirt as an “adult”), so I can’t pretend there isn’t a part of me that’s pretty excited to shell out money to see a movie where Snake Eyes fights Stormshadow and Destro blows things up. It’s similar to how I felt going into the first Transformers movie, but at least that had a director in Michael Bay who, if nothing else, is pretty good at making nice-looking movies in which things explode a lot. Either way, I’ll definitely be seeing G.I. Joe, and I plan on going in with as open a mind as possible. I mean, Destro melts the Eiffel Tower in the trailer. I dunno if that’s worth $12, but it’s gotta be worth something.
Julie & Julia (Aug. 7)
The requisite August chick-flick is actually a sort of ambitious idea, telling the parallel stories of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) as she goes to cooking school in France before she became famous, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a woman who, I guess, wrote a blog in which she tried to cook her way through all of Child’s cookbooks (forgive me if I’m not that keen on the details, or Powell's potential fame; I’ve only seen the trailer). Playing an icon like Julia Child seems right up Streep’s alley, and if she doesn’t get at least an Oscar nomination for it I’ll be surprised. While I couldn’t be less interested in the movie itself, Streep and Adams are both quality actresses, and Julie & Julia seems like just the type of movie that could sneak in and make a pile of money.
District 9 (Aug. 14)
I’ve raved about how stoked I am to see this unique-looking movie a couple of times already, and word out of the Comic-Con screening is that Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi flick delivers the goods. No movie this summer has had me this excited. (I got so worked up when I saw a bus-shelter poster the other day I flipped a car. True story.*) Will it live up to the hype I’ve created in my brain? I guess we’ll see in a few weeks.
*not a true story.
The Goods (Aug. 14)
I know very little about this apparently raunchy comedy about competing car salesmen starring Jeremy Piven and Ed Helms other than what I’ve seen in the trailers. And the trailers have made me laugh a couple of times, so unless I hear it’s unwatchably bad, I’ll probably check it out. Another odd summer release, but after the success of The Hangover, maybe Helms will drive some fans of that movie to this one.
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Aug. 14)
Another for the “really not my thing file,” this drama sees Rachel McAdams, one of the only living humans who has witnessed me dance (true story**), playing a woman who falls in love with a man (Eric Bana, whom I do not believe has seen me dance) she first met when she was a child and he informed her he would one day marry her. See, he says he’s a time traveler, and he therefore has seen their future together. I guess he bops around in time with no real control, and their eventual marriage (there’s a minor spoiler in the title, apparently) suffers for it. I imagine it would be sort of frustrating if your spouse spontaneously dissolved every few weeks/months/years. It’s based on a best-selling novel, and the minor sci-fi conceit does make The Time Traveler’s Wife seem more interesting than the average weepy romance, but that same ambition could also be the film’s undoing.
**That one actually is a true story.
Inglourious Basterds (Aug. 21)
I don’t know what it is ab
out this movie, but I’m surprisingly uninterested. I’m a Quentin Tarantino fan, I guess; I at least really like just about all his movies, particularly Kill Bill and True Romance (which he wrote), but I’ve never really been a freak for his stuff the way many self-styled “movie geeks” seem to. And for some reason, Tarantino’s long-gestating World War II movie is leaving me pretty cold so far. It could be that I’m not really into WWII movies. It could be that the idea was originally to cast a bunch of huge stars never panned out and instead we get a bunch of unknowns and TV actors (the guy from The Office? Seriously?). Or it could be the annoying grin Hostel director and QT pal Eli Roth’s character apparently wears in every goddamn scene he’s in. Whatever the reason, I’m just not really feeling this one. Don’t get me wrong, I will certainly see this movie, probably on the opening weekend. I’m just strangely unenthused about it. Maybe those inexplicably lowered expectations will help me enjoy it more.
Shorts (Aug. 21)
I seem to like Robert Rodriguez’s movies more than most people, but I don’t think he’s the second coming of anyone. He makes fun, violent movies that are right up my alley, and he apparently does it cheap. But his chidren’s movies (somewhat obviously) don’t interest me at all, and even for kiddie fare they seem sort of silly (this one’s about a kid who finds a rock that grants him wishes, or something). But he he’s been ahead of the curve for years (Sin City revolutionized the use of green screens, and he was making 3D movies back in 2003, years before they were all the rage), and who knows, this one may be a Spy Kids-level hit. God knows G-Force did a whole lot better than I expected it to.
Big Fan (Aug. 28)
I wrote about this film previously (it’s release on the 28th is limited to New York and Philadelphia, but it expands later), after seeing the trailer, and hoo boy, I can’t wait. This exploration of obsessive sports fandom is the directorial debut from the writer of The Wrestler, a movie I adored, and I trust Robert D. Siegel to strike the right balance between being funny, sad and sort of frightening. My only fear about Big Fan is I’m letting myself get too excited about it.
The Final Destination (Aug. 28)
The Final Destination franchise is often cited by many movie fans as a guilty pleasure, but personally I’ve always just found the movies silly. Which I understand is part of the appeal, but it just doesn’t really do it for me. Still, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes than watching implausibly attractive young people die in increasingly elaborate accidents, and this one’s in 3D, which I imagine will add up to a pretty fun time at the movies if you’re into this kind of thing. I could see this being a surprise hit, assuming the audience overlap with the next film doesn’t do it in. But considering how divisive Rob Zombie’s first Halloween was with fans, I think The Final Destination could come out on top.
Halloween 2 (Aug. 28)
I seem to be in the minority when it comes to Rob Zombie’s Halloween movie by virtue of the fact that I quite liked it (check out my DVD review here). The sequel looks…bizarre to say the least. I certainly don’t mind the fact that Zombie’s departing from the plot of the original Halloween sequels (which I haven't seen and don't really care about), but this seems like he’s shoehorned a Rob Zombie movie about a masked killer dressed like a hobo haunted by visions of his dead mother (an idea more in keeping with Friday the 13th, but I digress) into the Halloween premise. But Zombie’s best film, The Devil’s Rejects, was itself a sequel to a by-the-numbers slasher flick (the fairly forgettable Texas Chainsaw riff House of 1,000 Corpses), and one of the things that makes Devil’s Rejects great is that it feels like Zombie’s freeing himself of the shackles of the first movie to make the movie he wants to make, and if the same holds true for Halloween 2, the result could be something pretty special. But it could also be a total mess.
Taking Woodstock (Aug. 28)
Few directors have careers as diverse as Ang Lee. His latest movie, his follow-up to the risqué Chinese spy thriller Lust, Caution, is a light-hearted comedy about the family on whose land the original Woodstock festival took place. I have no idea how accurate the premise is to real life (the trailer has the family basically lying about having a proper permit to put on a massive rock festival, which is just crazy enough to be true), but Lee’s assembled a pretty solid cast (Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch, Eugene Levy), with the one X-factor, for me at least, being comic Demitri Martin in the lead. I find I can take or leave Martin’s comedy (I used to really enjoy his occasional Daily Show bits a lot, but the more he did the more same-y and repetitive they started to seem, and what little I’ve seen of his own Comedy Central show, Important Things, is just lame), but I’m keeping an open mind about him as an actor, so he could very well do good work when saddled with a character to play and a talented director like Lee at the helm. And Lee doesn’t make bad movies, so him tackling this sort of material makes Taking Woodstock look more interesting than I would have otherwise thought.
A Perfect Getaway (Aug. 7)
This thriller follows a young married couple (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) backpacking through a remote part of Hawaii, where they meet up with two other couples and later learn that local authorities are looking for a pair of killers posing as a traveling couple. Appropriately enough, the men in each of the other couples is creepy as hell (Timothy Olyphant as a possibly-crazed military vet, and Chris Hemsworth, recently cast as Marvel's Thor, as just a big scary dude), and Zahn and Jovovich are soon fighting for their lives (at least this is what the trailer tells me). It was directed by David Twohy, who helmed the Riddick movies for Vin Diesel. The reason this has me sort of interested in A Perfect Getaway is that it’s a straight-up thriller, and Twohy proved in the first Riddick film, Pitch Black, that he can really do creepy atmospherics, and I like the "whodunnit" aspect of the story. It’s a bit of a strange movie to come out in summer, but every now and then a cool little piece of counterprogramming can hit the jackpot. I’m definitely intrigued.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Aug. 7)
I’m so torn about G.I. Joe. On the one hand, I’m almost positive the movie
will be bad – it was rushed into production to beat the writers’ strike, and it was directed by Stephen Sommers, whose last film was the cinematic travesty that was Van Helsing – but I was a devoted fan of the toys when I was a kid (and I occasionally wear a Cobra t-shirt as an “adult”), so I can’t pretend there isn’t a part of me that’s pretty excited to shell out money to see a movie where Snake Eyes fights Stormshadow and Destro blows things up. It’s similar to how I felt going into the first Transformers movie, but at least that had a director in Michael Bay who, if nothing else, is pretty good at making nice-looking movies in which things explode a lot. Either way, I’ll definitely be seeing G.I. Joe, and I plan on going in with as open a mind as possible. I mean, Destro melts the Eiffel Tower in the trailer. I dunno if that’s worth $12, but it’s gotta be worth something.Julie & Julia (Aug. 7)
The requisite August chick-flick is actually a sort of ambitious idea, telling the parallel stories of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) as she goes to cooking school in France before she became famous, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a woman who, I guess, wrote a blog in which she tried to cook her way through all of Child’s cookbooks (forgive me if I’m not that keen on the details, or Powell's potential fame; I’ve only seen the trailer). Playing an icon like Julia Child seems right up Streep’s alley, and if she doesn’t get at least an Oscar nomination for it I’ll be surprised. While I couldn’t be less interested in the movie itself, Streep and Adams are both quality actresses, and Julie & Julia seems like just the type of movie that could sneak in and make a pile of money.
District 9 (Aug. 14)
I’ve raved about how stoked I am to see this unique-looking movie a couple of times already, and word out of the Comic-Con screening is that Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi flick delivers the goods. No movie this summer has had me this excited. (I got so worked up when I saw a bus-shelter poster the other day I flipped a car. True story.*) Will it live up to the hype I’ve created in my brain? I guess we’ll see in a few weeks.
*not a true story.
The Goods (Aug. 14)
I know very little about this apparently raunchy comedy about competing car salesmen starring Jeremy Piven and Ed Helms other than what I’ve seen in the trailers. And the trailers have made me laugh a couple of times, so unless I hear it’s unwatchably bad, I’ll probably check it out. Another odd summer release, but after the success of The Hangover, maybe Helms will drive some fans of that movie to this one.
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Aug. 14)
Another for the “really not my thing file,” this drama sees Rachel McAdams, one of the only living humans who has witnessed me dance (true story**), playing a woman who falls in love with a man (Eric Bana, whom I do not believe has seen me dance) she first met when she was a child and he informed her he would one day marry her. See, he says he’s a time traveler, and he therefore has seen their future together. I guess he bops around in time with no real control, and their eventual marriage (there’s a minor spoiler in the title, apparently) suffers for it. I imagine it would be sort of frustrating if your spouse spontaneously dissolved every few weeks/months/years. It’s based on a best-selling novel, and the minor sci-fi conceit does make The Time Traveler’s Wife seem more interesting than the average weepy romance, but that same ambition could also be the film’s undoing.
**That one actually is a true story.
Inglourious Basterds (Aug. 21)
I don’t know what it is ab
out this movie, but I’m surprisingly uninterested. I’m a Quentin Tarantino fan, I guess; I at least really like just about all his movies, particularly Kill Bill and True Romance (which he wrote), but I’ve never really been a freak for his stuff the way many self-styled “movie geeks” seem to. And for some reason, Tarantino’s long-gestating World War II movie is leaving me pretty cold so far. It could be that I’m not really into WWII movies. It could be that the idea was originally to cast a bunch of huge stars never panned out and instead we get a bunch of unknowns and TV actors (the guy from The Office? Seriously?). Or it could be the annoying grin Hostel director and QT pal Eli Roth’s character apparently wears in every goddamn scene he’s in. Whatever the reason, I’m just not really feeling this one. Don’t get me wrong, I will certainly see this movie, probably on the opening weekend. I’m just strangely unenthused about it. Maybe those inexplicably lowered expectations will help me enjoy it more.Shorts (Aug. 21)
I seem to like Robert Rodriguez’s movies more than most people, but I don’t think he’s the second coming of anyone. He makes fun, violent movies that are right up my alley, and he apparently does it cheap. But his chidren’s movies (somewhat obviously) don’t interest me at all, and even for kiddie fare they seem sort of silly (this one’s about a kid who finds a rock that grants him wishes, or something). But he he’s been ahead of the curve for years (Sin City revolutionized the use of green screens, and he was making 3D movies back in 2003, years before they were all the rage), and who knows, this one may be a Spy Kids-level hit. God knows G-Force did a whole lot better than I expected it to.
Big Fan (Aug. 28)
I wrote about this film previously (it’s release on the 28th is limited to New York and Philadelphia, but it expands later), after seeing the trailer, and hoo boy, I can’t wait. This exploration of obsessive sports fandom is the directorial debut from the writer of The Wrestler, a movie I adored, and I trust Robert D. Siegel to strike the right balance between being funny, sad and sort of frightening. My only fear about Big Fan is I’m letting myself get too excited about it.
The Final Destination (Aug. 28)
The Final Destination franchise is often cited by many movie fans as a guilty pleasure, but personally I’ve always just found the movies silly. Which I understand is part of the appeal, but it just doesn’t really do it for me. Still, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes than watching implausibly attractive young people die in increasingly elaborate accidents, and this one’s in 3D, which I imagine will add up to a pretty fun time at the movies if you’re into this kind of thing. I could see this being a surprise hit, assuming the audience overlap with the next film doesn’t do it in. But considering how divisive Rob Zombie’s first Halloween was with fans, I think The Final Destination could come out on top.
Halloween 2 (Aug. 28)
I seem to be in the minority when it comes to Rob Zombie’s Halloween movie by virtue of the fact that I quite liked it (check out my DVD review here). The sequel looks…bizarre to say the least. I certainly don’t mind the fact that Zombie’s departing from the plot of the original Halloween sequels (which I haven't seen and don't really care about), but this seems like he’s shoehorned a Rob Zombie movie about a masked killer dressed like a hobo haunted by visions of his dead mother (an idea more in keeping with Friday the 13th, but I digress) into the Halloween premise. But Zombie’s best film, The Devil’s Rejects, was itself a sequel to a by-the-numbers slasher flick (the fairly forgettable Texas Chainsaw riff House of 1,000 Corpses), and one of the things that makes Devil’s Rejects great is that it feels like Zombie’s freeing himself of the shackles of the first movie to make the movie he wants to make, and if the same holds true for Halloween 2, the result could be something pretty special. But it could also be a total mess.
Taking Woodstock (Aug. 28)
Few directors have careers as diverse as Ang Lee. His latest movie, his follow-up to the risqué Chinese spy thriller Lust, Caution, is a light-hearted comedy about the family on whose land the original Woodstock festival took place. I have no idea how accurate the premise is to real life (the trailer has the family basically lying about having a proper permit to put on a massive rock festival, which is just crazy enough to be true), but Lee’s assembled a pretty solid cast (Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch, Eugene Levy), with the one X-factor, for me at least, being comic Demitri Martin in the lead. I find I can take or leave Martin’s comedy (I used to really enjoy his occasional Daily Show bits a lot, but the more he did the more same-y and repetitive they started to seem, and what little I’ve seen of his own Comedy Central show, Important Things, is just lame), but I’m keeping an open mind about him as an actor, so he could very well do good work when saddled with a character to play and a talented director like Lee at the helm. And Lee doesn’t make bad movies, so him tackling this sort of material makes Taking Woodstock look more interesting than I would have otherwise thought.
Labels: movie previews
¶ 9:00 AM 0 Comments
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Summer Movie Preview: Part 3
It’s time for the third (and slightly belated) part of my preview of the upcoming summer movies, this time looking at the big July releases. As usual, I haven’t actually seen any of these movies yet, so keep that in mind that these are just my opinions of the big summer blockbusters.
Public Enemies (July 1)
So for the second straight month, my list is topped by films already out. Holidays have a funny way of messing up the be
st-laid plans. But I assume you all enjoy barbecues more than reading my thoughts on movies (if only by the slimmest of margins), so I figure you can forgive me. Anyway, Michael Mann’s film about the last days of legendary outlaw John Dillinger has been getting fairly middling reviews, but I’m still very much looking forward to checking it out myself. Mann’s one of my favorite filmmakers, and this cast looks pretty spectacular (Depp, Bale, Crudup), and it all adds up to make Public Enemies one of the movies I’ve been looking forward to the most this summer. I’ll check back in with my thoughts in the coming days.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (July 1)
This third installment in the animated franchise tied Transformers atop the box office last weekend, which is unsurprising considering how big the first two were. As usual, despite my love of animation, talking-animal kiddie flicks make my stomach turn, but evidently the kids dig this franchise. I still haven’t seen Up yet, but my understanding is that, quality wise, Pixar’s floating-house flick still is the cream of the animated crop this summer.
Blood: The Last Vampire (July 10, limited)
Speaking of animation, I’m a kinda-sorta anime fan, in that the stuff I like I really like, but as with anything, 90% of anime is unwatchable crap (I had to become something of an expert on the subject while at my old job, so I’ve seen quite a bit of it), but this action flick is a live-action adaptation of an anime I really like (with the same title). The plot follows a young Japanese girl in a school girl outfit (a fairly well-worn tradition in Japanese pop culture) who cuts up bat-looking vampires with a sword. Turns out she’s actually a vampire herself, and is much older than she appears. The anime is under an hour long, and barely spends any time on character development or even plot, really – vampires attack a U.S. military base in Japan in the ‘70s is about the extent of it – focusing instead on mood and some of the genuinely creepiest images I’ve ever seen in animation, and truly scary-looking vampire designs. The big question is whether this will hold up in a full-length movie. Seems sort of doubtful, but Blood is far enough up my alley on paper (swords, monsters, Japan) that I’ll definitely check it out.
Brüno (July 10)
I don’t typically let single reviews sway my opinion of movies going in, but I caught an early review of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest last week that got my attention specifically because it said the film falls into exactly the trap I was afraid it would, which is that the character of Brüno, compared to Borat, is far more one-note, and this film is little more than Baron Cohen trying to shock bystanders with his gayness. If that’s true – which it very well may not be, as I think he really is something close to a proper genius – it’s pretty disappointing. I know many Americans are automatically uncomfortable with homosexuality, and while I’m sure there’s fodder for some decent comedy there, an entire movie built on that (or worse, the inherent ridiculousness of the fashion industry) will get old pretty quick. We’ll see though; I thought Borat was pretty amazing, and I’m still eager to see Brüno for myself.
I Love You, Beth Cooper (July 10)
Teen comedies, rather unsurprisingly, are not my thing, but this one looks worse than most. My thing with this movie, directed by Home Alone’s Chris Columbus and based on a novel by a former Simpsons writer (the film rights were sold before it was published; that’s not usually a great sign) is based on the fact that I’ve seen the trailer a couple of times and I still don’t know what it’s about. The premise is that some nerd, in his valedictorian speech, confesses his love for the hottest girl in school, and she later shows up at his house to take him out for a wild night on the town. The thing is, the trailer makes the titular Beth Cooper (played by Heroes starlet Hayden Panettiere) look sort of like a sociopath. So whether this movie is about the nerdy hero realizing that elevating someone you don’t even know onto an untouchable pedestal is actually a bad idea or whether she’ll turn out to just be “lovably crazy” (a form of crazy that only exists in the movies, I’ve found), I have no idea. I don’t want to see this movie, at all, but I’m pretty interested to find out what it’s actually about. The trailer’s so bad at conveying anything other than a collection of well-trodden high school jokes and crude sight gags that, as a guy who watches a lot of movie trailers, I’m sort of fascinated by it.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 15)
I don’t care about Harry Potter. But this thing will make tons of money, and I hear this is one of the best Potter movies yet. Enjoy.
(500) Days of Summer (July 17)
This indie romantic comedy has been getting some attention, but the trailer (which I admit is the sum total of my knowledge of this movie) looks sort of bland. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to get girl back….maybe I’m just old, but I feel like I’ve seen this movie before – a lot – and (500) Days of Summer doesn’t look like it’s doing anything different. I love the actors involved though – Joseph Gordon-Levitt has transformed into probably my favorite young actor working today, and like any good movie geek I have a serious crush on Zooey Deschanel – but unless I hear that this is some kind of once-in-a-generation insight into human relationships, it seems like just another cute-and-sappy indie romance. And I didn’t like Garden State enough to find that to be an exciting proposition.
G-Force (July 24)
A family comedy about a team of gerbil secret agents. In 3D. If I was 6 years old I’d probably be bugging my parents to take me to this. But I’m not, so I’m just going to go back to pretending this doesn’t exist. If you have kids, however, enjoy all the fart jokes and dated movie parodies.
The Ugly Truth (July 24)
Another summer romantic comedy. I doubt this stunningly generic-looking rom-com, about a stuffy TV producer (Katherine Heigl) who is (presumably eventually) charmed by a roguish ladies-man author/speaker (Gerard Butler, playing a really, really watered-down version of Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia). I hate movies like this with a fiery passion, but many people dig them, which I can understand. But we already had one paint-by-numbers romantic comedy turn into a surprise hit this summer in The Proposal, and I doubt there’s room for two.
Orphan (July 24)
I guess it’s because I don’t have kids, but I’ve never fully grasped the appeal of the “creepy kids” subgenre of horror. And those movies don’t tend to do all that well, at least they haven’t lately, so I’m a bit puzzled by this one, about a young couple that adopts a young girl after they lose their own unborn child. Turns out she’s either a psycho killer or a psycho killer with powers (the trailer is unclear; personally I like the powers idea), and all sorts of craziness ensues. The actors in this one are pretty solid though, with Vera Farmiga (the psychiatrist in The Departed) and Peter Sarsgaard as the couple, so at least the performances will presumably be decent. This also doesn’t really feel like a summer movie, but sometimes that kind of counter-programming works (see the success of The Proposal). Orphan seems pretty stock to me, but I’m just a jackass who writes about movies on the Internet.
Funny People (July 31)
I’ve really enjoyed Judd Apatow’s previous two directorial efforts, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, although I find them to be a bit overrated (which doesn’t mean they’re bad, I just think people seem to praise them more than they deserve), but I find his tendency towards the more saccharine aspects of romantic comedies and comedies in general to be his least appealing quality as a filmmaker. (The part where the plot kicks in and Things Get Serious is precisely the point where I lose interest in the vast majority of big-budget studio comedies.) The word I’ve heard on this film, about a comic-turned-Hollywood superstar’s cancer scare, set against the backdrop of the comedy scene, is that it’s really a sappy drama masquerading as a comedy, and all the funny bits are in the trailer. While, if true, that certainly doesn’t mean Funny People will be bad, it does mean I will probably wait for DVD for this one. I like the Anchorman-producing Judd Apatow, not the Judd Apatow who tries to make me cry via Adam Sandler dealing with cancer. I expect a big first weekend based on Apatow’s previous hits, but it’s a toss-up as to where things go from there. Who knows, maybe Apatow doing drama will be well-received. Stranger things have happened.
Public Enemies (July 1)
So for the second straight month, my list is topped by films already out. Holidays have a funny way of messing up the be
st-laid plans. But I assume you all enjoy barbecues more than reading my thoughts on movies (if only by the slimmest of margins), so I figure you can forgive me. Anyway, Michael Mann’s film about the last days of legendary outlaw John Dillinger has been getting fairly middling reviews, but I’m still very much looking forward to checking it out myself. Mann’s one of my favorite filmmakers, and this cast looks pretty spectacular (Depp, Bale, Crudup), and it all adds up to make Public Enemies one of the movies I’ve been looking forward to the most this summer. I’ll check back in with my thoughts in the coming days.Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (July 1)
This third installment in the animated franchise tied Transformers atop the box office last weekend, which is unsurprising considering how big the first two were. As usual, despite my love of animation, talking-animal kiddie flicks make my stomach turn, but evidently the kids dig this franchise. I still haven’t seen Up yet, but my understanding is that, quality wise, Pixar’s floating-house flick still is the cream of the animated crop this summer.
Blood: The Last Vampire (July 10, limited)
Speaking of animation, I’m a kinda-sorta anime fan, in that the stuff I like I really like, but as with anything, 90% of anime is unwatchable crap (I had to become something of an expert on the subject while at my old job, so I’ve seen quite a bit of it), but this action flick is a live-action adaptation of an anime I really like (with the same title). The plot follows a young Japanese girl in a school girl outfit (a fairly well-worn tradition in Japanese pop culture) who cuts up bat-looking vampires with a sword. Turns out she’s actually a vampire herself, and is much older than she appears. The anime is under an hour long, and barely spends any time on character development or even plot, really – vampires attack a U.S. military base in Japan in the ‘70s is about the extent of it – focusing instead on mood and some of the genuinely creepiest images I’ve ever seen in animation, and truly scary-looking vampire designs. The big question is whether this will hold up in a full-length movie. Seems sort of doubtful, but Blood is far enough up my alley on paper (swords, monsters, Japan) that I’ll definitely check it out.
Brüno (July 10)
I don’t typically let single reviews sway my opinion of movies going in, but I caught an early review of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest last week that got my attention specifically because it said the film falls into exactly the trap I was afraid it would, which is that the character of Brüno, compared to Borat, is far more one-note, and this film is little more than Baron Cohen trying to shock bystanders with his gayness. If that’s true – which it very well may not be, as I think he really is something close to a proper genius – it’s pretty disappointing. I know many Americans are automatically uncomfortable with homosexuality, and while I’m sure there’s fodder for some decent comedy there, an entire movie built on that (or worse, the inherent ridiculousness of the fashion industry) will get old pretty quick. We’ll see though; I thought Borat was pretty amazing, and I’m still eager to see Brüno for myself.
I Love You, Beth Cooper (July 10)
Teen comedies, rather unsurprisingly, are not my thing, but this one looks worse than most. My thing with this movie, directed by Home Alone’s Chris Columbus and based on a novel by a former Simpsons writer (the film rights were sold before it was published; that’s not usually a great sign) is based on the fact that I’ve seen the trailer a couple of times and I still don’t know what it’s about. The premise is that some nerd, in his valedictorian speech, confesses his love for the hottest girl in school, and she later shows up at his house to take him out for a wild night on the town. The thing is, the trailer makes the titular Beth Cooper (played by Heroes starlet Hayden Panettiere) look sort of like a sociopath. So whether this movie is about the nerdy hero realizing that elevating someone you don’t even know onto an untouchable pedestal is actually a bad idea or whether she’ll turn out to just be “lovably crazy” (a form of crazy that only exists in the movies, I’ve found), I have no idea. I don’t want to see this movie, at all, but I’m pretty interested to find out what it’s actually about. The trailer’s so bad at conveying anything other than a collection of well-trodden high school jokes and crude sight gags that, as a guy who watches a lot of movie trailers, I’m sort of fascinated by it.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 15)
I don’t care about Harry Potter. But this thing will make tons of money, and I hear this is one of the best Potter movies yet. Enjoy.
(500) Days of Summer (July 17)
This indie romantic comedy has been getting some attention, but the trailer (which I admit is the sum total of my knowledge of this movie) looks sort of bland. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to get girl back….maybe I’m just old, but I feel like I’ve seen this movie before – a lot – and (500) Days of Summer doesn’t look like it’s doing anything different. I love the actors involved though – Joseph Gordon-Levitt has transformed into probably my favorite young actor working today, and like any good movie geek I have a serious crush on Zooey Deschanel – but unless I hear that this is some kind of once-in-a-generation insight into human relationships, it seems like just another cute-and-sappy indie romance. And I didn’t like Garden State enough to find that to be an exciting proposition.
G-Force (July 24)
A family comedy about a team of gerbil secret agents. In 3D. If I was 6 years old I’d probably be bugging my parents to take me to this. But I’m not, so I’m just going to go back to pretending this doesn’t exist. If you have kids, however, enjoy all the fart jokes and dated movie parodies.
The Ugly Truth (July 24)
Another summer romantic comedy. I doubt this stunningly generic-looking rom-com, about a stuffy TV producer (Katherine Heigl) who is (presumably eventually) charmed by a roguish ladies-man author/speaker (Gerard Butler, playing a really, really watered-down version of Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia). I hate movies like this with a fiery passion, but many people dig them, which I can understand. But we already had one paint-by-numbers romantic comedy turn into a surprise hit this summer in The Proposal, and I doubt there’s room for two.
Orphan (July 24)
I guess it’s because I don’t have kids, but I’ve never fully grasped the appeal of the “creepy kids” subgenre of horror. And those movies don’t tend to do all that well, at least they haven’t lately, so I’m a bit puzzled by this one, about a young couple that adopts a young girl after they lose their own unborn child. Turns out she’s either a psycho killer or a psycho killer with powers (the trailer is unclear; personally I like the powers idea), and all sorts of craziness ensues. The actors in this one are pretty solid though, with Vera Farmiga (the psychiatrist in The Departed) and Peter Sarsgaard as the couple, so at least the performances will presumably be decent. This also doesn’t really feel like a summer movie, but sometimes that kind of counter-programming works (see the success of The Proposal). Orphan seems pretty stock to me, but I’m just a jackass who writes about movies on the Internet.
Funny People (July 31)
I’ve really enjoyed Judd Apatow’s previous two directorial efforts, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, although I find them to be a bit overrated (which doesn’t mean they’re bad, I just think people seem to praise them more than they deserve), but I find his tendency towards the more saccharine aspects of romantic comedies and comedies in general to be his least appealing quality as a filmmaker. (The part where the plot kicks in and Things Get Serious is precisely the point where I lose interest in the vast majority of big-budget studio comedies.) The word I’ve heard on this film, about a comic-turned-Hollywood superstar’s cancer scare, set against the backdrop of the comedy scene, is that it’s really a sappy drama masquerading as a comedy, and all the funny bits are in the trailer. While, if true, that certainly doesn’t mean Funny People will be bad, it does mean I will probably wait for DVD for this one. I like the Anchorman-producing Judd Apatow, not the Judd Apatow who tries to make me cry via Adam Sandler dealing with cancer. I expect a big first weekend based on Apatow’s previous hits, but it’s a toss-up as to where things go from there. Who knows, maybe Apatow doing drama will be well-received. Stranger things have happened.
Labels: movie previews
¶ 10:20 AM 0 Comments
Friday, May 29, 2009
Summer Movie Preview: Part 2
It’s time for the second part of my preview of the upcoming summer movies, this time looking at the big June releases. As usual, I haven’t actually seen any of these movies yet, so keep that in mind that these are just my opinions of the big summer blockbusters.
Up (May 29)
This is sort of cheating, as this movie comes out today, which is obviously technically still May, but I forgot to include this in my May column, and it’s probably going to be one of the biggest movies this summer. Pixar has a pretty much spotless track record for quality family films that rake in tons of cash, and as much as Up is ostensibly risky compared to their previous movies – there’s apparently concern about the limited merchandising appeal of a cartoon in which a crotchety old man is the protagonist – I doubt that will make much difference.
Land of the Lost (June 5)
This big-screen version of the beloved classic kids show comes with the requisite upgrade in special effects, as well as a newly comic spin thanks to stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride. The original series was before my time, but I love Ferrell and McBride, and this one looks like it could be a lot of fun, especially if it manages to work as an adventure movie as well as a comedy. Nobody plays a clueless, in-over-his-head buffoon like Ferrell does, and when you throw in dinosaurs and ape-boys and lizard men, it sounds like the recipe for a good time at the movies.
The Hangover (June 5)
I admit the first time I saw the trailer for this comedy, about the aftermath of a crazy Las Vegas bachelor party that none of the participants can remember (and now the groom-to-be is missing), I laughed my ass off. It’s a solid premise, but I’m sort of afraid it’ll be ruined by an eventual explanation. It’s also sort of odd that director Todd Phillips’ attempt to get another Old School-level hit is opening against the latest vehicle for Will Ferrell, the breakout star of that film, but Land of the Lost is obviously aimed more at families than this R-rated comedy. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s quite a bit of overlap between the potential audiences for The Hangover and Land of the Lost, and I guess we’ll see who wins. Whatever movie makes more money, I’m expecting co-star Zach Galifianakis to steal this movie; I’ve seen a bit of his comedy online, and while it’s pretty out-there, it’s also very funny. If it's a hit, The Hangover could do for Galifianakis what Old School did for Ferrell.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (June 12)
D
irector Tony Scott’s remake of the 1974 thriller about a New York City subway train taken hostage stars John Travolta as the terrorist mastermind and Denzel Washington as a transit worker who reluctantly finds himself thrust into the role of hero. I’m a big fan of Tony Scott’s movies – I even dug the much-maligned Domino and his last collaboration with Washington, the sci-fi thriller Déjà Vu – and the concept is certainly intriguing. Travolta leaves me cold these days, but Washington, obviously, is one of the best actors out there today, and if Travolta rises to the occasion, this could be a sweet acting face off (no pun intended. Oof.) While The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 may get lost in the churn of summer blockbusters in terms of box office success – it feels more to me like a movie that should be coming out in the spring or fall – if comes even close to being as awesome as my favourite Scott/Washington collaboration, 2004’s revenge flick Man On Fire, I will be satisfied.
Imagine That (June 12)
Eddie Murphy’s latest family comedy sees him playing a workaholic executive who learns valuable life lessons with the help of his young daughter’s blanket. (I didn’t really understand it either, but that’s the story the trailer lays out.) These sorts of movies are complete toss-ups; this could come and go with barely a box-office whimper, or it could be a Nutty Professor-size hit (though Murphy thankfully doesn’t appear in any fat suits in this one). Either way, this couldn’t be any less up my alley, but I’m sure lots of parents will take their kids to this one.
The Proposal (June 19)
Sandra Bullock, the reigning queen of romantic comedies, returns to the genre as a pushy boss who forces her handsome young assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her so that she can avoid being deported back to Canada. Leaving aside the irony of Bullock playing a Canadian and Reynolds (who is actually Canadian) playing an American, this sounds like pretty standard rom-com blockbuster counter-programming stuff. Again, not my thing at all, but the I guess the idea is that women will drag their boyfriends or husbands to this as revenge for dragging them to Terminator (or, pre-emptively, Transformers).
Year One (June 19)
Jack Black and Michael Cera, two comic actors often slammed for their respective one-note shticks (Black for being an obnoxious loudmouth, Cera for being awkward and meek), star in this comedy set in the year 1 A.D. I assume the movie plays relatively fast and loose with reality – Black and Cera apparently go from being cavemen to soldiers in the Roman army, somehow – but it’s a goofy comedy, and if it’s funny then that’s really all that counts. But any movie that stars David Cross and Paul Rudd as Cain and Abel automatically has my interest.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (June 24)
Quite possibly this summer’s most anticipated blockbuster sees Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox’s abs (and some CGI robots) all returning to the big screen. The first Transformers was one of the most fun popcorn movies in years, and I can only hope Revenge of the Fallen will up the ante the way Bad Boys II makes the original Bad Boys look like a talky drama. I don’t know much about the plot, but really, when giant transforming robots from space are wrecking cities and duking it out among the Egyptian pyramids, who cares? I’ll be there on opening day, as will millions and millions of others.
Up (May 29)
This is sort of cheating, as this movie comes out today, which is obviously technically still May, but I forgot to include this in my May column, and it’s probably going to be one of the biggest movies this summer. Pixar has a pretty much spotless track record for quality family films that rake in tons of cash, and as much as Up is ostensibly risky compared to their previous movies – there’s apparently concern about the limited merchandising appeal of a cartoon in which a crotchety old man is the protagonist – I doubt that will make much difference.
Land of the Lost (June 5)
This big-screen version of the beloved classic kids show comes with the requisite upgrade in special effects, as well as a newly comic spin thanks to stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride. The original series was before my time, but I love Ferrell and McBride, and this one looks like it could be a lot of fun, especially if it manages to work as an adventure movie as well as a comedy. Nobody plays a clueless, in-over-his-head buffoon like Ferrell does, and when you throw in dinosaurs and ape-boys and lizard men, it sounds like the recipe for a good time at the movies.
The Hangover (June 5)
I admit the first time I saw the trailer for this comedy, about the aftermath of a crazy Las Vegas bachelor party that none of the participants can remember (and now the groom-to-be is missing), I laughed my ass off. It’s a solid premise, but I’m sort of afraid it’ll be ruined by an eventual explanation. It’s also sort of odd that director Todd Phillips’ attempt to get another Old School-level hit is opening against the latest vehicle for Will Ferrell, the breakout star of that film, but Land of the Lost is obviously aimed more at families than this R-rated comedy. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s quite a bit of overlap between the potential audiences for The Hangover and Land of the Lost, and I guess we’ll see who wins. Whatever movie makes more money, I’m expecting co-star Zach Galifianakis to steal this movie; I’ve seen a bit of his comedy online, and while it’s pretty out-there, it’s also very funny. If it's a hit, The Hangover could do for Galifianakis what Old School did for Ferrell.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (June 12)
D
irector Tony Scott’s remake of the 1974 thriller about a New York City subway train taken hostage stars John Travolta as the terrorist mastermind and Denzel Washington as a transit worker who reluctantly finds himself thrust into the role of hero. I’m a big fan of Tony Scott’s movies – I even dug the much-maligned Domino and his last collaboration with Washington, the sci-fi thriller Déjà Vu – and the concept is certainly intriguing. Travolta leaves me cold these days, but Washington, obviously, is one of the best actors out there today, and if Travolta rises to the occasion, this could be a sweet acting face off (no pun intended. Oof.) While The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 may get lost in the churn of summer blockbusters in terms of box office success – it feels more to me like a movie that should be coming out in the spring or fall – if comes even close to being as awesome as my favourite Scott/Washington collaboration, 2004’s revenge flick Man On Fire, I will be satisfied.Imagine That (June 12)
Eddie Murphy’s latest family comedy sees him playing a workaholic executive who learns valuable life lessons with the help of his young daughter’s blanket. (I didn’t really understand it either, but that’s the story the trailer lays out.) These sorts of movies are complete toss-ups; this could come and go with barely a box-office whimper, or it could be a Nutty Professor-size hit (though Murphy thankfully doesn’t appear in any fat suits in this one). Either way, this couldn’t be any less up my alley, but I’m sure lots of parents will take their kids to this one.
The Proposal (June 19)
Sandra Bullock, the reigning queen of romantic comedies, returns to the genre as a pushy boss who forces her handsome young assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her so that she can avoid being deported back to Canada. Leaving aside the irony of Bullock playing a Canadian and Reynolds (who is actually Canadian) playing an American, this sounds like pretty standard rom-com blockbuster counter-programming stuff. Again, not my thing at all, but the I guess the idea is that women will drag their boyfriends or husbands to this as revenge for dragging them to Terminator (or, pre-emptively, Transformers).
Year One (June 19)
Jack Black and Michael Cera, two comic actors often slammed for their respective one-note shticks (Black for being an obnoxious loudmouth, Cera for being awkward and meek), star in this comedy set in the year 1 A.D. I assume the movie plays relatively fast and loose with reality – Black and Cera apparently go from being cavemen to soldiers in the Roman army, somehow – but it’s a goofy comedy, and if it’s funny then that’s really all that counts. But any movie that stars David Cross and Paul Rudd as Cain and Abel automatically has my interest.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (June 24)
Quite possibly this summer’s most anticipated blockbuster sees Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox’s abs (and some CGI robots) all returning to the big screen. The first Transformers was one of the most fun popcorn movies in years, and I can only hope Revenge of the Fallen will up the ante the way Bad Boys II makes the original Bad Boys look like a talky drama. I don’t know much about the plot, but really, when giant transforming robots from space are wrecking cities and duking it out among the Egyptian pyramids, who cares? I’ll be there on opening day, as will millions and millions of others.
Labels: movie previews
¶ 11:31 AM 0 Comments
Friday, May 1, 2009
Summer Movie Preview: Part 1
X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens today, which officially kicks off the summer blockbuster season. At the beginning of each month from now through August, I’ll be going over that month’s big releases, weighing in with my (admittedly uninformed, as I will not have seen them yet) opinions on each. Some of these movies really aren’t my thing – I’ve never really seen any of the Harry Potter movies, and I don’t plan to start with the newest one – so take my words with the requisite amount of salt (something longtime readers probably already do).
Okay, let’s do this thing.
MAY
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1)
I mentioned a few weeks ago here that I thought X-Men Origins: Wolv
erine looked kind of weak. (And I say that as a comic geek who really loves the X-Men.) Reviews I’ve read today suggest I was right, but I know I’ll be going to see it anyway. Bryan Singer’s X2: X-Men United remains easily the best movie in the franchise by a country mile, and I personally still consider it one of the best comic book adaptations ever made. (Maybe it’s just the X-Men fan in me, but I’ll take X2 over any of the Spider-Man flicks any day of the week.) Still, Wolverine is the first big summer release, so people will flock to it just out of excitement that the summer movie season is now underway. I really like Hugh Jackman though, and Liev Schreiber (who plays the villain who may or may not become Sabertooth, who’s played by a different actor in the first X-Men movie) is a great actor, so at the very least I’m sure they’ll do good work. And Jackman’s never been more famous than he is right now, so this thing will make tons of money, Internet piracy or no.
Star Trek (May 8)
Star Trek and Star Wars are sort of like the Beatles and Rolling Stones of sci-fi geekdom; people tend to really like one and can usually take or leave the other. Me, I’m a Star Wars guy (though I did enjoy Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was a kid). But I have no nostalgic connection to the original ‘60s series, and, apparently, neither did director J.J. Abrams, who’s gone on record as preferring Star Wars as well (at least he was going into this project). And that seems to makes sense, as the trailers for his new Star Trek movie – which apparently reboots the franchise with some sort of time-travel/alternate universe chicanery – are all filled with laser-shooting spaceships and explosions and all the swashbuckling adventure that made me fall in love with Star Wars, as opposed to the clinical, more scientific and philosophical approach the Star Trek franchise took on after the original show. Will it work? I have no idea what hardcore Trekkers will make of this movie, but it looks like a good old fashioned popcorn blockbuster. All I'm looking for out of Star Trek is a good time at the movies, and it looks like it may deliver precisely that.
Angels & Demons (May 15)
At the risk of invoking the ire of Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code fans, I couldn’t be less interested in the prequel/sequel/whatever to the 2006 box office smash. It looks as stupid to me as The Da Vinci Code (which I’ve never seen, and have zero interest in) looked three years ago. But clearly I’m in the minority. This will make disgusting amounts of money, and probably a lot of people will really like it. None of them will be me.
Terminator: Salvation (May 21)
The first two Terminat
or movies are awesome, albeit for fairly different reasons. I love the original because director James Cameron manages to tell a cool, scary little sci-fi story (that hints at a larger, more epic one thanks to the time-travel conceit), and, and Terminator 2 is, hands-down, one of the greatest action movies ever made. But I really didn’t like Terminator 3 for a bunch of reasons I won’t bother going into detail about here (liquid metal over a solid-metal skeleton would NOT allow the “T-X” to shape-shift like the T-1000 in T2; you don’t have to be a physicist to figure that out), but overall I just thought it was a retread of T2 with better computer effects but with a far, far crappier story. So why am I so exited about Terminator: Salvation? Because I’ve always been far more interested in the crazy futuristic war just barely glimpsed in Cameron’s films, and now we’re getting a full movie of that. And it’s my firm belief that the inclusion of giant robots makes just about any movie better.
Drag Me To Hell (May 29)
Director Sam Raimi is obviously most famous for his three Spider-Man movies, but any movie geek worth his or her salt knows he got his start with the Evil Dead trilogy, the latter two of which I love dearly. But the reason that the geek community is so excited about Raimi’s return to, as the trailer says, “true horror,” is also the reason I’m sort of lukewarm about Drag Me To Hell, the story of a young woman cursed by a gypsy (or something) to be haunted by a demon that will eventually, as the title suggests, drag her to hell; the reason I love Evil Dead 2 and its sequel, Army of Darkness, is that they’re funny as hell (the original Evil Dead plays things pretty straight, which is why I’m not a big fan). And Drag Me To Hell looks like it covers all the vintage Sam Raimi bases – crazy-looking monster makeup, portals spouting demons, creepy imagery – without the humour that makes Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness so brilliant. I’m sure I’ll end up seeing this, but there’s probably no movie blogger on the Internet as skeptical about Drag Me To Hell as I am. We’ll see.
Okay, let’s do this thing.
MAY
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1)
I mentioned a few weeks ago here that I thought X-Men Origins: Wolv
erine looked kind of weak. (And I say that as a comic geek who really loves the X-Men.) Reviews I’ve read today suggest I was right, but I know I’ll be going to see it anyway. Bryan Singer’s X2: X-Men United remains easily the best movie in the franchise by a country mile, and I personally still consider it one of the best comic book adaptations ever made. (Maybe it’s just the X-Men fan in me, but I’ll take X2 over any of the Spider-Man flicks any day of the week.) Still, Wolverine is the first big summer release, so people will flock to it just out of excitement that the summer movie season is now underway. I really like Hugh Jackman though, and Liev Schreiber (who plays the villain who may or may not become Sabertooth, who’s played by a different actor in the first X-Men movie) is a great actor, so at the very least I’m sure they’ll do good work. And Jackman’s never been more famous than he is right now, so this thing will make tons of money, Internet piracy or no.Star Trek (May 8)
Star Trek and Star Wars are sort of like the Beatles and Rolling Stones of sci-fi geekdom; people tend to really like one and can usually take or leave the other. Me, I’m a Star Wars guy (though I did enjoy Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was a kid). But I have no nostalgic connection to the original ‘60s series, and, apparently, neither did director J.J. Abrams, who’s gone on record as preferring Star Wars as well (at least he was going into this project). And that seems to makes sense, as the trailers for his new Star Trek movie – which apparently reboots the franchise with some sort of time-travel/alternate universe chicanery – are all filled with laser-shooting spaceships and explosions and all the swashbuckling adventure that made me fall in love with Star Wars, as opposed to the clinical, more scientific and philosophical approach the Star Trek franchise took on after the original show. Will it work? I have no idea what hardcore Trekkers will make of this movie, but it looks like a good old fashioned popcorn blockbuster. All I'm looking for out of Star Trek is a good time at the movies, and it looks like it may deliver precisely that.
Angels & Demons (May 15)
At the risk of invoking the ire of Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code fans, I couldn’t be less interested in the prequel/sequel/whatever to the 2006 box office smash. It looks as stupid to me as The Da Vinci Code (which I’ve never seen, and have zero interest in) looked three years ago. But clearly I’m in the minority. This will make disgusting amounts of money, and probably a lot of people will really like it. None of them will be me.
Terminator: Salvation (May 21)
The first two Terminat
or movies are awesome, albeit for fairly different reasons. I love the original because director James Cameron manages to tell a cool, scary little sci-fi story (that hints at a larger, more epic one thanks to the time-travel conceit), and, and Terminator 2 is, hands-down, one of the greatest action movies ever made. But I really didn’t like Terminator 3 for a bunch of reasons I won’t bother going into detail about here (liquid metal over a solid-metal skeleton would NOT allow the “T-X” to shape-shift like the T-1000 in T2; you don’t have to be a physicist to figure that out), but overall I just thought it was a retread of T2 with better computer effects but with a far, far crappier story. So why am I so exited about Terminator: Salvation? Because I’ve always been far more interested in the crazy futuristic war just barely glimpsed in Cameron’s films, and now we’re getting a full movie of that. And it’s my firm belief that the inclusion of giant robots makes just about any movie better.Drag Me To Hell (May 29)
Director Sam Raimi is obviously most famous for his three Spider-Man movies, but any movie geek worth his or her salt knows he got his start with the Evil Dead trilogy, the latter two of which I love dearly. But the reason that the geek community is so excited about Raimi’s return to, as the trailer says, “true horror,” is also the reason I’m sort of lukewarm about Drag Me To Hell, the story of a young woman cursed by a gypsy (or something) to be haunted by a demon that will eventually, as the title suggests, drag her to hell; the reason I love Evil Dead 2 and its sequel, Army of Darkness, is that they’re funny as hell (the original Evil Dead plays things pretty straight, which is why I’m not a big fan). And Drag Me To Hell looks like it covers all the vintage Sam Raimi bases – crazy-looking monster makeup, portals spouting demons, creepy imagery – without the humour that makes Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness so brilliant. I’m sure I’ll end up seeing this, but there’s probably no movie blogger on the Internet as skeptical about Drag Me To Hell as I am. We’ll see.
Labels: movie previews
¶ 12:05 PM 0 Comments
