Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - May 2012

Summer movie season is upon us, ladies and gentlemen. Let's take a look at some of the big blockbusters on the horizon (along with some of the smaller movies which will be quietly pleading for your attention).

May 4th
 

Actor Tom Wilkinson, seconds before snapping into a violent rage after a nosy photographer interrupted his afternoon prayers.

Summer kicks off in grand fashion with Joss Whedon's The Avengers. Most of the Marvel movies have essentially been feature-length trailers for this star-studded spectacle, so expectations are understandably high. Happily, early buzz is quite strong and many are suggesting that Whedon has managed to keep his own distinctive voice intact. I'm looking forward to it, even if we're now on our third big-screen Bruce Banner of the 21st Century. A smart piece of counter-programming is being offered in the form of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a romantic comedy for viewers of a certain age who would much rather watch Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith wander around India than witness Iron Man and Thor punching each other. Seriously, it does look like a nice movie. And for the people who no interest in either of those, there's a movie called LOL which stars Miley Cyrus as a heartbroken teen named Lola. And the sequel will probably be called LOLA, and the trailer guy will say, "Get ready to Laugh Out Loud Again!" And I will sigh heavily.

May 11th

Because nothing says "deadly psychopath" like a pony sweater.

Tim Burton returns with Dark Shadows, a goofy updating of the moody vampire-themed soap opera. I can't exactly say that I'm excited about it, but it at least looks like a step up from Alice in Wonderland. The Danny Elfman score is enjoyable and the cast is talented. We'll see. Not much of note competing in wide release, though in limited release we'll see the lightweight Eva Mendes vehicle Girl in Progress and the hotly-debated-even-though-most-people-haven't-seen-it-yet comedy God Bless America, in which a middle-aged man and a teenage girl wander across the country murdering people who annoy them. In other words, it looks a bit like the movie an internet message board might make if internet message boards were people who made movies.

May 18th

A scene from the forthcoming epic Battleship: The Musical 

The world has already decided that Peter Berg's Battleship will not be good, and early reviews have drawn unfavorable comparisons to Michael Bay's recent work. Eeesh. Then again, Michael Bay's recent work has done quite well at the box office, so maybe Berg and John Carter star Taylor Kitsch shouldn't start crying into their beer just yet. What to Expect When You're Expecting looks terrible in an entirely different way, though that's not really a surprise: no one other than Woody Allen should be permitted to make movies based on self-help books. Sacha Baron Cohen returns to theaters with The Dictator, which is his first traditional feature. Cohen's a talented guy, though his material does a lot less for me than it does for many critics (I found Borat overrated and pretty much hated Bruno). He's subtler and funnier in his more reserved turns in Hugo and Sweeney Todd. Finally, we have the period comedy Hysteria, which stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and documents the invention of the vibrator. Expect many scenes in which elderly British actors (hey, Jonathan Pryce!) raise their eyebrows in astonishment.

May 25th
 

Because nothing says "terrifying cinema" like the letter R printed backwards.

Hey, here's Men in Black III! This probably would have been a huge hit in 2005 (y'know, instead of a full decade after the last Men in Black movie), but now? I dunno. This should be a valuable indicator of whether Smith is still an unstoppable force at the box office (some people said that Seven Pounds proved otherwise, but c'mon, no actor on planet earth could have turned Seven Pounds into a megahit). The trailer doesn't exactly look promising, but I must admit that casting Josh Brolin as young Tommy Lee Jones was a smart move. Also: where else are you going to find Michael Stuhlbarg and Lady Gaga in the same movie? Chernobyl Diaries looks like straight-to-DVD material to me, but one can rarely predict what audiences will go for when it comes to horror (remember how The Devil Inside made a killing at the box office earlier this year?). In limited release, we have Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which I can't wait to see. Anderson's twee, formal style is easy to mock, but the sheer soulfulness of his movies is often overlooked. He's an enormously gifted director who seems to grow just a little bit more with each new effort, and this one looks like another winner.

Picks of the Month

3. Men in Black III/Dark Shadows (Because one of these has to be decent, right?)

Actor Will Smith, revisiting Men in Black II for the first time in years and realizing that it really wasn't his finest hour.

   

Actor Johnny Depp explains how he used Roseanne Barr, Count Basie, Andy Warhol and a beetle he found behind the sofa as models for his latest performance.

2. The Avengers
 

A forgotten classic returns to theatres in 3-D!

1. Moonrise Kingdom

Actor Bruce Willis, using glasses as a way of denoting that he is actually making an effort to act.

What are you looking forward to?

Back at ya later

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?

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - March 2012

Let's take a look at what March has to offer...

March 2nd

The Lorax: Now with 100% more Danny DeVito!

The month gets off to a rather underwhelming start with the one-two punch of The Lorax and Project X. The former looks like a painful reworking of the beloved Dr. Seuss book, transforming the title character into a lovable crank and adding new characters for the purposes of getting Zac Efron and Taylor Swift into the mix. Meanwhile, the latter appears to be a fairly unbearable use of the found footage format, offering a feature-length version of the sort of party I would do my best to avoid in real life. Still, to each their own. I've never been able to warm up to the fratboy antics of Todd Phillips, but others seem to get quite a kick out of his stuff.

March 9th

"What? You thought I was in the middle of a comeback?"

Truthfully, the more footage I see from John Carter, the more excited I am about it. It could be a massive flop, but I've got to take a chance on a new movie from the guy who gave us Finding Nemo and Wall-e. Perpetually uninteresting director Lasse Hallstrom returns with a new movie called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which sounds like a Simpsons joke, but is somehow a real thing. Ewan McGregor is in it, continuing his role as the patron saint of films which exist somewhere between the mainstream and obscurity. I don't know too much about the comedy Friends with Kids, but it certainly has a gifted cast: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, Chris O'Dowd... wait, is this Bridesmaids 2? Anyway, early buzz seems positive. Right about now, Eddie Murphy ought to be coasting on the high of the box-office smash Tower Heist and a successful Oscar-hosting gig. Alas, Tower Heist tanked and he skipped the Oscars. To make matters worse, now he has to witness the release of the long-delayed A Thousand Words, his latest collaboration with the director of Norbit and Meet Dave. Eeesh. I'm somewhat intrigued by the horror thriller Silent House, as it offers another role to Martha Marcy May Marlene star Elizabeth Olsen and has taken the unusual approach of presenting the entire film in one lengthy take (though odds are they've taken the Rope approach and snuck a few subtle cuts in there).

March 16th

Que?

The big-screen update of 21 Jump Street looks pretty limp, but it is directed by the guys who gave us the surprisingly entertaining animated flick Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Perhaps they'll deliver another unlikely success here? The month's biggest oddity is the comedy Casa de mi Padre, which looks like a typically unhinged Will Ferrell comedy save for the fact that the whole thing is in Spanish. Props to the man for trying something new, I suppose. The trailer is one of those experiences which gives you a strong indication of the film's flavor without really telling you whether or not it's going to be a waste of time.

March 23rd

"Try opening your movie on the 23rd. Make my day."

The Hunger Games, hungry for attention, consumes the multiplex. That's it in terms of wide releases, so one can only hope that it's a worthwhile endeavor. The cast is strong and the premise is compelling, but director Gary Ross didn't really bring anything special to his two previous respectable-but-somewhat-overrated turns behind the camera (Seabiscuit and Pleasantville). Still, I'm there, as I've been assured by many that the source material is solid.

March 30th

"You will watch my antics and you will enjoy them." 

For some reason, we're getting Wrath of the Titans. The trailer makes it look a little more interesting than its bland predecessor, but it's made by the director who gave us Darkness Falls, Battle: Los Angeles and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Blah. It also looks like they're still pretending Liam Neeson's Zeus is Ingrid Bergman circa 1940 with all of those glowing, soft-focus close-ups. Still, the movie looks better than Mirror, Mirror, which appears to represent the talented Tarsem Singh officially hitting rock bottom. I'm not much of a Sean William Scott fan, so I'm not exactly excited about the hockey comedy Goon, but early buzz is mostly positive. Likewise, I've heard pretty good things about the Clive Owen-starring horror film Intruders. It's directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous film was the excellent 28 Weeks Later (which I've kind of grown to like better than Danny Boyle's more well-regarded 28 Days Later).

Picks of the month:

3. Intruders

Father and daughter, watching The Eagles perform on PBS. 

2. The Hunger Games

Severus Snape's hippie brother. 

1. John Carter

McNulty: Now with 100% more furry armor. 

Another fairly unexciting month, honestly. What are you looking forward to?

Back at ya later

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - February 2012

January is coming to a close, so I thought now would be as good a time as any to take a peek at the movies coming up over the course of the next month. February is generally a weak month for the movies, but the same can also be said of January, which gave us a pair of exceptional thrillers in the form of "Haywire" and "The Grey". Let's take a look.

"You're just a big... well, a big miracle!"

Feb. 3rd: This is a particularly interesting week, as it spotlights a number of somewhat smaller films which are hoping to sell people on intriguing concepts and then survive via good word-of-mouth. The most prominent release is "The Woman in Black," which offers Daniel Radcliffe his first prominent post-Harry Potter role. Even so, the film's inventive promotional campaign has been selling the scares rather than its well-known young actor. We also have "Chronicle," which brings a new spin to "found footage" filmmaking by spotlighting a group of teens who have developed superpowers. Superhero flicks and found footage flicks are both getting wearisome, but a combination of the two is an interesting idea. We'll see whether the public responds. Additionally, Ti West follows up his well-regarded flick "The House of the Devil" with another horror outing, "The Innkeepers." If it generates a similar response, West will have established himself as one of the genre's most prominent voices. Given that all three of the aforementioned pictures are on the dark side, we're also getting the family-friendly and amusingly-titled "Big Miracle" (which stars Drew Barrymore and is directed by the man who gave us "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"), which is about friendly people saving friendly whales from unfriendly ice.

"Wait... they seriously made a sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth!?"

Feb. 10th: A handful of the month's more high-profile movies arrive on this date, kicking off with the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds thriller "Safe House" (which somehow isn't directed by Tony Scott). If there's one reliable fact in life, it's that Denzel Washington thrillers will always be reasonably entertaining, and a supporting cast which includes Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga, Robert Patrick, Liam Cunningham and Sam Shepard certainly doesn't hurt this one's chances. On the flip side of things, Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams star in the somehow-not-written-by-Nicolas-Sparks romance "The Vow", which is one of the year's most hotly anticipated films for people who like that sort of thing. For the younger viewers, there's "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island", which pretty much wins the award for year's worst title. Making a sequel to the middling "Journey of the Center of the Earth" was a bad idea, and making one without Brendan Fraser is even worse. Still, The Rock seems content to poke fun at his image (whatever may be left of it) and Michael Caine turns up to enliven the proceedings. I've heard mixed things about Oren Moverman's "Rampart", but great things about Woody Harrelson's "Bad Lieutenant"-style performance in it. Harrelson was the highlight of Moverman's tender "The Messenger" a couple of years ago; word is that they fought rather bitterly during the making of this one. Oh, and "The Phantom Menace" is getting re-released in 3-D, because of course it is.

"I have bills to pay. I have bills to pay. I have bills to pay." 

Feb. 17th: I doubt that "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" will be good. However, I do know that it will feature Nicolas Cage urinating fire, so it can't be all bad. I think Ghost Rider's a terrific character, but the first film messed up in almost every way. Cage was actually solid, though, so maybe things worked out this time. Again, I kind of doubt it. It certainly looks more appealing than "This Means War", a romantic comedy with a crummy premise which looks like a painfully unfunny waste of Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon. Finally, there's "The Secret World of Arietty", which is the latest Studio Ghibli offering (and is not directed by Mr. Miyazaki, sadly). I'm certainly going to check it out, but the trailer looks a little less flavorful than most outings from the studio.

"Look, all those dresses in my closet... honey, I can explain."

Feb. 24th: The director of "Role Models" offers up "Wanderlust", which stars Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in a film which is being described as, "enthusiastically ribald." Okay. Tyler Perry offers up an earnest, comedy-free outing in the form of "Good Deeds" (in which Tyler Perry learns that he is out touch because he doesn't know how much a gallon of milk costs), and Amanda Seyfried stars in the dreary-looking and blandly-titled thriller "Gone" (hey there, Wes Bentley!). The curiosity is "Act of Valor", a Navy SEAL-themed action flick which stars actual Navy SEALs. Expect awkward line readings and exceptional stunt work.

Picks of the Month:

3. Chronicle (I guess)

Brought to you by the color gray.

2. The Woman in Black (I guess)

"You're taking this seriously, right?"

1. Safe House (I mean, it could be good)

"Yeah, I saw Green Lantern. It was... I mean, the special effects were pretty good."

Not really feeling confident about anything heading into the next month, but there are certainly some items with potential.

Anything which strikes your fancy among the flicks listed here?

Back at ya later