Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - April 2012

April is generally an intriguing month, as studios push out products they actually have some faith in but which probably wouldn't survive against the heavy May/June/July competition. Let's take a look at what we're getting.

April 6th

"Did you ever think this series would be, like, our legacy?"

In recent years, the American Pie franchise has grown irrelevant. The former pop culture phenomenon has devolved into a series of increasingly miserable-looking straight-to-DVD affairs marketed towards easily-amused jocks without internet access. Still, that's not going to stop anyone from attempting to recapture the old magic (?) with American Reunion, which reunites the original cast and provides them with undoubtedly contrived reasons to behave badly. The only other wide release it will compete against is the re-release of Titanic (in 3D, natch), and I wouldn't be surprised if the latter ends up sinking* the former.

*I apologize.

April 13th

Curb your enthusiasm. Seriously.

I keep hearing good things about the horror/thriller Cabin in the Woods, and I keep being informed that the less you know, the better the film will be. I know very little about it, aside from the fact that it was penned by Joss Whedon and reportedly features a cabin in an area filled with trees. Speaking of horror, the Farrelly Brothers are bringing The Three Stooges back to life. The terrible trailers combined with Peter and Bobby's weak track record in recent years have thoroughly scared me away. Lockout looks like a decent slice of genre fun, though its producers can't seem to figure out whether it's "Taken in space!" or "Escape From New York in space!" Either way, it's definitely recycled material. In space. Finally, T.D. Jakes follows up his cinematic version of Woman, Thou Art Loosed with a sequel awkwardly entitled Woman, Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day. I hear it's a combination of Taken and Why Did I Get Married, but it's probably less fun than that description makes it sound.

April 20th

"Are you sure people are gonna believe that I drive a pickup truck filled with bags of fertilizer?"

The Lucky One is a Nicholas Sparks adaptation which stars Zac Efron. Odds are that sentence either fills you will unspeakable joy or makes you physically ill. We also get an adaptation of Steve Harvey's relationship book Think Like a Man (advice I've found helpful on multiple occasions), though it has a metatextual twist: it seems the male characters get upset because they've discovered that the female characters have been using the advice in Harvey's book against them. No word on whether Steve Harvey plays himself, but it seems that Ron Artest does. Remarkably, we also get two competing nature documentaries, both of which will undoubtedly remind us that A) animals are adorable, B) are just like us and C) do the darndest things. You can either check out Chimpanzee (narrated by Tim Allen) or To the Arctic 3D (narrated by Meryl Streep).

April 27th

"While I nodded, nearly napping/they placed me in these period trappings."

First up, we have the romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement. It's another collaboration between director Nicholas Stoller and actor Jason Segal, who made me laugh with both their surprisingly enjoyable Forgetting Sarah Marshall and their screenplay for The Muppets. On the more dramatic side of things, we have V for Vendetta helmer James McTeigue delivering the From Hell-on-Steroids thriller The Raven (which amusingly features the increasingly droopy-eyed John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe). The Pirates! Band of Misfits doesn't have a great trailer, but Aardman Animation has a strong track record. Whether it's good or bad, it will be absent one mildly amusing leprosy joke. Finally, Jason Statham's latest installment in his Film-of-the-Month club is Safe, which involve the Russian mafia, a kidnapped Chinese girl, corrupt New York mobsters and other elements which blatantly appeal to specific markets around the globe.

Honestly, another weak-looking month. I'm not one who regards blockbuster season as the highlight of my cinematic year, but summer 2012 can't get here quickly enough.

Picks of the month:

3. The Five Year Engagement

That moment when a roaster finally crosses the line and no one else notices.

2. Lockout

"But seriously, my favorite weapon is sarcasm."

1. Cabin in the Woods

A strong indication that the film will deliver what it promises.

 What say you, folks?