Week of 10/5

Hard to believe it's October already. Which means that award season is right around the corner. Luckily, this week we don't have anyone begging for Oscars. I'm sure it'll be coming shortly... just not this week.


The Heartbreak Kid
The frontrunner for this weekend reunites a team of people who all helped launch each other into fame. Bobby and Peter Farrelly helm The Heartbreak Kid, with Ben Stiller as their star for the first time since There’s Something About Mary. For the Farrelly’s this is a big landing, because have they never since achieved the same sort of popular success as Mary. For Stiller, it’s almost a reemergence. Not that he’s been gone, but, his output has decreased – aside from Night At the Museum, Stiller didn’t have any other starring vehicles last year, a poor follow-up to 2004-2005, when he was all over the place. I’m not a huge Still fan, but the funniest he’s ever been was in a Farrelly movie, so hopefully they can replicate that here. Honestly, if I end up seeing this one, it will be more for the beautiful and talented Michelle Monaghan, who’s popped up in a lot of projects I enjoyed (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Mission: Impossible 3, most recently), and will hopefully save what looks to be an unjustly lackluster adaptation of Gone Baby Gone later this year. She’s a pleasure to watch doing almost anything, so hopefully the Farrelly’s will let her stretch her comedic chops here, and not leave all the laughs to Malin Akerman. The screenwriters are an odd mix here – Scot Armstrong has a long and commercially strong comic resume, while Leslie Dixon has a much more varied and arguably less promising background. The Farrelly’s involvement is expected and more or less welcome, and who knows how much newcomer Kevin Barnett contributed? Overall, it’s a nice mix, but at first glance I begin to wonder if we might have too many cooks… The previews here are funny, every bit as indicative of bad taste á la Farrelly as anything else they have done, but they are starting to wear thin on me. It also looks like Monaghan’s role is unfortunately firmly supporting, with Akerman’s obnoxious tendencies making up the majority of the interactions. All that said… it’s the Farrellys. There will be some laughs, and people will know what to expect going in.

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising
I know nothing. I know it’s yet another adaptation of a young adult fantasy novel (RE: The Golden Compass, The Chronicles of Narnia, Eragon… god damn you, Harry Potter), and that makes me immediately cautious. I know nothing about the books they are based on. From an initial glance at the cast, I recognize only Christopher Eccleston, which tells me nothing, really. Director David Cunningham is unknown to me. The biggest plus this one has going for it is the presence of screenwriter John Hodge. Cause he adapted Trainspotting. And now he’s doing… a kid’s(ish) movie? I don’t get it either. This genre is the fad right now. It’s like zombie movies 12-18 months ago. When it rains, it pours. I probably won’t drop the money, so let me know how it is.

Once again, the best-looking option this weekend is a limited release, but this one is really limited…



Michael Clayton
I admit that this one doesn’t look like it’s anything too special, but if you let George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack all chew the same screen, you’re going to have my attention. It really does seem like a pretty straightforward legal thriller, but I’m holding out hope that something spectacular attracted those three talents and Tilda Swinton, other than a nice hefty paycheck. Writer-director Tony Gilroy is helming for the first time, but his screenplays are promising – all three Bourne movies… and we won’t hold Armageddon against him. This one opens in New York, L.A. and Toronto this weekend, but the rest of us should see it next week.

Next week, a sequel to a period piece, inspiration sports blah, blah, blah, Tyler Perry, and yet another depiction of New York’s underbelly dominate the wide releases. Major markets get some slightly varied options in limited release, including an interesting-looking remake and a quirky comedy about a blow-up doll.

Week of 9/28

Not a whole lot this week - mediocrity seems to be the order of the day.

Feast of Love
I really can't tell you a damn thing about this one. I think I've only seen one trailer for it, and it's one that I hunted down on Coming Soon myself. Simple idea - wax philosophic on all variations and incarnations of love. Harmless enough, if not done before. I guess the idea is to tie that sort of meandering to some intertwining stories and see how it goes. They put together a nice enough cast for it: Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Selma Blair, Fred Ward, amongst others; some of those people make my ears perk up when I hear them attached to something. Not so much with this one. I'm sure it will be sweet and heartfelt and nice, but I just don't care that much.

The Game Plan
I admit it. I enjoy the Rock. I'm a pro wrestling fan from way back, and it's cool to see someone jump from dominating in that entertainment arena to earning mainstream fans and credibility in Hollywood. No one has done it as well as Duane Johnson. You could argue for Hulk Hogan, but I think more people recognize him than legitimately like him. Besides, barring that godawful reality show, almost all of his accomplishments were confined to the ring. And then there was Suburban Commando. Oh dear...
I think the Rock got a lot of points for being the only consistently funny thing in that mess called Be Cool. He was funny and likable and good, which was more than could be said for many of his more experienced costars. Unfortunately, since making the leap to leading roles, he hasn't had anything to blow people out of the water yet. I contend that this is due to Richard Kelly's Southland Tales being buried somewhere - Richard... please, for the love of god, finish that thing so we can enjoy it. This is a step in the right direction - comedy, where The Rock needs to dwell for a while before anyone will want to see him in anything more challenging - but gads, haven't we seen this enough?

• Successful guy has everything he wants.
• In comes unexpected cute kid to muck everything up.
• Guy doesn't know how to be a dad, hilarity ensues.
• Father and kid bond and learn to make it work.
• Hallmark moment.
• Everyone gets a paycheck and goes home.

It's a tried-and-true process, and I'm sure it will be nice enough, but it's just not something I care to see him in. Plus, every time I see the trailer, I like it a little less. I don't really know why... I think it's just wearing on me. It probably doesn't help that it's been shown in front of everything in the Boston area, because most of the football scenes were shot at Gillette Stadium. Ah well. I'm sure it will find an audience, as these types always do, and hopefully it'll let the Rock jump to something a bit more interesting soon.

The Kingdom
The most promising of the wide releases this week, and that's not terribly encouraging. I feel like this one has been shuffled around quite a bit, because the material is awfully volatile. A US team is sent to Saudi Arabia to investigate a bombing at a softball game. Worse: The field was on a US base, and there were casualties. A really quality cast was put together to pull this one off - Chris Cooper and Jamie Foxx up front, Jennifer Garner as the girl, and Jason Bateman wondering how the hell he squeezed this in between "Arrested Development" and that Zach Braff thing. Director Peter Borg has a very interesting pedigree, mostly in comedy, but Friday Night Lights (both the feature and the TV series pilot) probably got him this job. I'm a little underwhelmed by the trailer, but I will probably hit it to see Chris Cooper chew some scenery and be awesome, and just to see if Bateman is going to be able to shake off Michael Bluth and complete his career resurgence.

As for the limited runs, there's this:

Se, jie (Lust, Caution)
Ang Lee's spy thriller has been making waves since its first screenings for some pretty explicit content. Getting slapped with an NC-17 over here isn't going to help. Lee's one of the best visual storytellers in the game, so any explicit scenes are at least going to be beautiful. Beyond that, I know very little about it. I'm still undecided on this one. The story is intriguing enough, but I don't know... it's not something that has piqued my interested for any reason other than the controversy.


Next week, October comes in with two comedies and another blatant sodomy of young adult fantasy. Harry Potter, what have you done to the world?

Guster!

Saw a pretty kickass show on Saturday night - Guster at the Bank of America Pavilion. There were other people there, but do they really matter? Really?

I say that, but I didn't see any of the first opener, and I only saw the last two or three songs of the second one. The second wasn't bad. Name's Bleu, and their defining quality, as far as I can tell, is that their lead singer really, really wanted to be a rock star. Not the most talented guy in the world, musically, but he's got enough heart and energy to blow pretty much anyone else off the stage. I've never seen anyone so thoroughly enjoy themselves as a rocker, and so completely wallow in their fifteen minutes and gleefully wield the power it allows them. He was fun to watch, even if only for a few moments.

Guster actually played the best show I've seen in awhile from them. I was disappointed that they made no special entrance, something that has become an odd tradition at their Pavilion shows, but they made up for it by blasting through five songs from four different albums in rapid succession to open the show. When they finally slowed down, Ryan couldn't hide how funny it was that one of their shows was being sponsored by Budweiser. Or that the event was called "Disorientation." Greatly amusing.

A good long set, quite a bit of variety mixed in there, too. Almost everything off of Ganging Up On The Sun, but that's sort of a given. I'm happy to see "Happier" taking up a spot as Regular Encore Song, cause it means that people love it as much as I do.

A couple of drinks with some friends at a little bar on the waterfront after the show, and then home to bed. A good night. Good times had by all. Yay Guster.

Week of 9/21

Things looking a little better this week, with one solid wide release surrounded by a variety of standard fare. First up:

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Competing for title of new kickass western of the year, Brad Pitt plays the legendary outlaw in the twilight of his career, while Casey Affleck plays the young member of James's gang who eventually turns a pistol on his leader. While I'm sure there will be scenes reminiscent of harder westerns, including 3:10 to Yuma, the previews show this one as more contemplative. Pitt's style from the past few years comes out strong, looking like he's going to give some quality depth, thoughtfulness and personality to an infamous criminal. I'm not completely high on Affleck - I have high hopes for Gone Baby Gone in a few weeks - so I'm hoping he'll show something off here. Being set up as a coward in the title of your film doesn't seem terribly promising for your character, but hopefully he'll be able to show some depth to equal James. The trailers have a bit of a stylized feel, which isn't at all a bad thing... I'm just worried that this has a chance of going the way of The New World, which I heard from all accounts was beautifully done, amazing in the visuals, but pretty much devoid of anything else.

Good Luck Chuck
As a general rule, I hate Dane Cook. It's one of those rules that I live by, really. Nothing against the guy - I don't find his stand-up all that funny, but I can certainly see why people might. Just not my style. The fact that he's somehow jumped from that into being a major star kind of makes me angry. But good for him, I guess. All that being said... I might see this movie. It actually looks somewhat funny. The premise is pretty standard - Chuck is cursed, because every woman he sleeps with will meet their true love in the next man they date. This is all well and good if Chuck is just looking to get laid, but when he meets the girl of his dreams, he becomes seriously concerned that his "gift" may very well backfire and steal her away. The trailers actually have me laughing pretty consistently, mostly because they're giving Jessica Alba this accident-prone angle that's letting her have more fun and more personality than she usually gets. Director Mark Helfrich makes his debut here, mostly serving as Brett Ratner's editor, but we can't judge one director by the people he associates with. Let's just hope he didn't pick up too many pointers from Ratner. The writer has worked mostly on small TV shows, with one or two episodes per, so whether or not this is funny is a complete crapshoot. Here's hoping.

Into the Wild
Another one that I'm relatively torn about. One one side, I have an extreme aversion to Sean Penn. To me, he is the poster child for self-important blowhards. In addition, I have no real love for the book. Krakauer's novel is interesting, to be sure, but it never quite reached legendary status with me that it did with others. On the other hand, I really like Emile Hirsch, and some of the other casting choices (Vince Vaughn, William Hurt, Zach Galifianakis and Catherine Keener) got my attention. The trailers look good, but they may almost be a little too put together, a little too clean, for the type of story Penn is trying to tell. I'm hoping that Penn found a good story and will focus more on telling that as opposed to trying to bring out the "meaning" of it. Powerful stories - including that of Chris McCandless - will develop meanings on their own, so hopefully Penn won't get too heavy handed with it. Considering the tepid response to his last pet project (All the King's Men), I'm hoping he handles this one a bit more gently.

Sydney White
I admit to knowing absolutely nothing about this movie. Kind of proud of that, actually. Synopses tell me that it's something about hot nerd princess Sydney White leads a nerd revolution at her school. Basically, if you like Amanda Bynes, you're already going to see this. If you don't, then you're probably not. Can't fault someone for knowing their audience, I guess.

Resident Evil: Extinction
I find it really hard to believe that RE: Apocalypse made enough to justify a third movie, but I suppose there are enough zombie-philes out there that will hit all of these movies. It's the new sheep genre, I think. I guess the post-apoc Vegas set they made looks sort of interesting. At least they picked a city that wasn't New York to mess with. And I guess Milla Jovovich needs to work somewhere.

Next up, a couple things that have been pushed back repeatedly, and a limited release of Ang Lee's new NC-17 flick that got banned in China. Hulk 2? I doubt it.

Week of 9/14

Yes, I set up a new blog because I found the film-centric on too restrictive. Yes, my first posts are a preview for a ten-week film season. I get the hypocrisy here. Moving on...

The second week of fall feels a lot like the summer - lacking. After two promising films we got today, next week is looking pretty weak, at least for wide releases. We have:
(Picture clicks head to IMDb for all the info you could ever want)

The Brave One
To be honest, I really can't bring myself to care about this one. The racial overtones seem so heavy handed, it feels like this one is shooting to be this year's Crash, but without the ill-advised awards. On style and plot alone, I have a hard time differentiating this one from that Kevin Bacon revenge flick - something awful happens, main character flips out and seeks revenge. Apparently a really bad, unfortunate-looking makeover is a major part of exacting your revenge after the death of a loved on. Coulda fooled me. A definite pass for me - what happened to Jodie Foster, by the way? OK in Inside Man, I'll admit that, but before that, Panic Room is the only thing I remember, let alone the only thing that even remotely piqued my interest.

Mr. Woodcock
Aside from Billy Bob Thornton as the title character with an obvious name gag, can you give me one good reason to see this movie? Sean William Scott doesn't count. Funny guy, I admit. This is a pairing that could, with the right motives, be very funny. But frankly, Billy Bob hasn't had the right motives for a couple of years now. The last time I remember enjoying him was either Love, Actually or Bad Santa, maybe the two most varied Christmas movies to feature the same actor in FOREVER. Again, pass. Somehow, I ended up owning School for Scoundrels. Guess where that is? That's right. Still in the plastic.

So that's kind of depressing. Fortunately, if you're in a major market, you have a saving grace in limited release next week. However, even limited offers a mixed bag:

Across the Universe
I think this wins the award the trailer I am happiest to get rid of this year, narrowly beating out The Simpsons. Julie Taymor's Vietnam pseudo-protest film, which will inevitably draw connections to Iraq, has been pretty heavily pushed in front of major releases for most of the last six months. I get it. It's a nice, La Boheme-esque tale that shows artistic expression at its best, making a clear statement about one's priorities and involvement in the world around them in the process. Think Moulin Rouge, but without the shred of subtletly that Baz Luhrman was able to unearth. Hell, they even cast Jim Sturgess, a nearly perfect Ewan McGregor look-alike, in the male lead. AND they named him Jude. I wonder what late 60s tie-in they can make here. Taymor seems to be stretching to make this one relevant and original by drawing on one of the more accidentally original movies of the last couple of years, and I can't see this doing anything but falling flat on its face. If you like musical films, I'm sure you're already there, but honestly, what is here that you can't get from the aforementioned Luhrman film for the stylistic touches, or, for the contest, from the vastly more interesting-looking Forrest Gump? (Yeah, I never thought I'd write that sentence either.

Luckily, to counterbalance all of this, those of us in major markets get:

Eastern Promises
Here, we get arguably three of the best performers of the last ten years (Viggo Mortensen post-LotR, Naomi Watts, and international favorite Vincent Cassel) under the direction of David Cronenberg, who delivered my favorite surprise of the last few years (2005's amazing and disturbing A History of Violence). The plot puts Mortensen in a similar situation - a hidden identity violently and unexpectedly being revealed, with Watts doing the revealing. Frankly, I have no idea what Cassel is doing in the movie, but he is one of the few people in Hollywood who can really do no wrong. All three have proven many times that they are willing to go wherever a script or director needs them to go, and make things as ugly and gritty as necessary, and this darkness is the area when Cronenberg really thrives. Cassel's Hollywood roles have not yet allowed him to show the complexity of which he is capable, but I think this is where he will be able to break out. Cronenberg seems to have found a suitable battery mate in Mortensen, each one helping the other break away from their more genre-defined and driven pasts. The trailers look like a nice twist on the usual gangster story, and if A History of Violence is any indication, every other element will be well worth the price of admission as well.

Next week (9/21), five wide releases compete for box office bucks, headed up by another western (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and a long-overdue novel adaptation (Into the Wild). That should be posted tomorrow... stay tuned.

Fall Movie Preview

I've tried to do season previews before, and I've never quite gotten them decent enough to post. No more of that. This one is getting done. As it is, I'm already a week behind - this weekend offers 3:10 to Yuma and Shoot 'Em Up, two of the higher films on my must-see list for the fall.

3:10 to Yuma
Yuma looks like someone is dumping money into a quality western, working with people who want to make a quality western and tell a good story. The trailers have been solid from the beginning, and Christian Bale is one of those guys who will get me into just about anything. I'm more hit or miss with Russell Crowe - he gets points in this one because I very much liked the last western he did (Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead). I still haven't managed to get Walk the Line into my DVD player, but I hear nothing but good things, so director James Mangold behind the wheel on this one is tentatively ok by me. The way I see it, westerns are one of the most fun genres to watch, because you're playing in a world where there are inherently no rules. In every other genre, there are societal rules, and your film stands out primarily by how you break those rules in order to present an original story or idea. To me, a good western feels like something that started with a blank canvas. Just like everything else, the genre fell prey to idea sniping, piggybacking and copycats, but Yuma looks like something I haven't seen in awhile. Yes, I understand the hypocrisy in hoping for fresh ideas and originality from a remake, but that's the vibe I'm getting off of this one. I think I'm going to preface that cinema trip with The Proposition, an Aussie western from 2005 that I've heard great things about. It's sitting on my coffee table via Netflix right now.

Shoot 'Em Up
Changing gears more or less completely, Shoot 'Em Up looks stupid. Real stupid. But stupid in the best possible way. I can appreciate when a film completely identifies the audience it is gunning for, and makes no concessions for other groups. This one is clearly going after the action video game crowd, and what it looks like they've come up with is a no-strings-attached actioner: competent star that I can easily believe as a badass, a beautiful girl, a truly evil, scene-chewing villain, and a shoestring plot that puts them in the same room with guns in their hands. As far as I'm concerned, this is the stuff that Clive Owen was built to do. The guy's not the most charming or convincing guy out there (I need something else at the level of Children of Men in order to be convinced otherwise), but tell him he needs to be the uncompromising badass, and you'll get exactly what you need. I've never been a huge Paul Giamatti fan - there are more downs than ups in my mind when it comes to him - but his over-the-top crazy guy looks to fit perfectly here. And I'm all for Monica Bellucci in roles where she's just supposed to be sexy. In an interview I skimmed at one point with writer-director Michael Davis, he started describing one of his sequences (the helicopter thing, I think), and the interviewer stopped him and asked if maybe it wasn't a bit over the top. Davis absolutely agreed that it was, but said he did it because "he'd want to watch it." Directors approaching movies as fans can be a very dangerous thing - I'm pretty sure that's how we got Michael Bay - but in the right hands, this can come off beautifully. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are, I think, the perfect example of that. So long as Shoot 'Em Up commits to its concept without taking itself remotely seriously, we should be good. Everything I've seen indicates that none of this should be a problem.

I'll be back with a by-the-week preview as soon as I can be. I imagine at least next week will be up today. Until then...

Lookee, a new blog...

I was starting to find my movie-centric blog (moviematt.blogspot.com) a little too restrictive, and I think I might be more inclined to keep this one updated a bit more regularly.

And I'll do that... soon. I swear.