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?