Volume 4: Kick Off Your Sunday Shoes… Again
Johnny English Reborn
Dir: Oliver Parker – Planned release date: October 7
Is Johnny English the greatest film of all time? That’s not for me to say, but to not include it in the discussion would be a great mistake on the part of the critical community. Few films have so greatly captured the world’s imagination and made us rethink what is possible within the medium of cinema. It is difficult to think of another film which can so aptly be described as a series of incredibly obvious physical gags, yet somehow it worked (for me) with flying colors. It is here I choose to disclose that I do, in fact, own Johnny English on DVD. And I have seen multiple times. On purpose.
Yet on the list of films that require a sequel, Johnny English lies somewhere between Schindler’s List and Kazaam. There’s only so long you can stretch the central joke of the character out, and by the end of this trailer alone it was starting to get old. However, don’t you even think for a moment I won’t be seeing this movie. Seeing Rowan Atkinson fumble around for 90 minutes is never a waste of time, no matter how thoroughly stupid it is.
Footloose
Dir: Craig Brewer – Planned release date: October 14
Every once in a while a remake is announced that seems particularly superfluous. Footloose is one such example. The tale of a city boy coming into a small town and saving them from a tyrannical dance ban seems like a story that should exist exclusively in the cheese-drenched land of ’80s cinema. But clearly the rousing success of the Fame remake (sarcasm alert) inspired a few Hollywood producers to transfer this dated (to put it kindly) story to the big screen once more.
And—lo and behold—the final product appears to be exactly what you’d expect from a remake of Footloose. Instead of defending a teenager’s right to dance innocently to Kenny Loggins, this latest film seems to be promoting promiscuous grinding to hip hop music. (Also, they fail to notice that dancing may have had less to do with the initial car accident than the freaking drunk driving.) I also fear I may be kinder on the existence of this film than others. Come October, Footloose may have lovers of ’80s nostalgia going for the jugular while children may be turned off. The good news is that the film didn’t cost all that much ($25 million), so it would take MacGruber-levels of failure for it to bomb outright. When all’s said and done, this will likely be seen as a misguided attempt to take the old and translate it to the new, “hip” world.
Anonymous
Dir: Roland Emmerich - Planned release date: October 28
If Anonymous is like other Roland Emmerich films, everyone else will hate it while I gently shrug my shoulders and admit that I kind of liked it. In a world with migraine-inducers like Michael Bay, a slightly grander director like Emmerich is something I tend to like—though I admit his movies are often (always) dumber than a bag of hammers. That said, Anonymous looks like a particularly special case of idiocy attempting to disguise itself as profundity. The central premise of “Shakespeare didn’t write any of his plays” is obviously a bunch of hooey, and the attempts to change it into some grand period epic seem… strange. This story might best be told in the form of small-budget Oscar bait, but Emmerich is not one to try such things. The closest he came was The Patriot, which is a film about as deep as the puddle in my driveway.
Abduction
Dir: John Singleton – Planned release date: September 23
I make fun of a lot of trailers in this feature, and while I admit most of them may not entirely deserve it, Abduction is an example of one that deserves to be dragged through the mud, tarred, feathered, and thrown into the nearest body of water. With its feet encased in cement. It’s hard to put into words just what is so, so terrible about this trailer, so I’m going to cop out and say “everything.” There’s the awful opening high school scenes, and then the inexplicable sequence where his (I’m assuming) girlfriend uses special software to determine that Taylor Launtner isn’t exactly living with his biological parents. And so begins the Bourne-esque chase scenes, and at some point they all decide to take in a Pittsburgh Pirates game.
John Singleton was once considered one of the most promising directors in Hollywood, and though we haven’t seen much of him lately—his last feature was 2005’s Four Brothers—this trailer looks like the most artless piece of anonymous, idiotic trash imaginable. Perhaps this is a case of a terrible trailer advertising a substantially better movie, but I don’t see how you can take these couple minutes of footage and extrapolate that to a quality film. If it’s true, Singleton is a much better director than I thought. I will admit this film has a great supporting cast, but that almost makes it all the more depressing.
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Dir: Sean Durkin – Planned release date: October 7
To end on an artsy-fartsy note, allow me to direct your attention to a film which has gotten quite a bit of acclaim in its screenings at this year's Sundance and Cannes film festivals. Martha Marcy May Marlene, the first feature-length film from writer/director Sean Durkin, tells the story of a girl named Martha who goes off to live with a cult and comes home all mentally disturbed. That’s all I know and—to be honest—that’s all I really want to know before I eventually see it. (Which, given my geographic location, likely won’t be for a while.) The titular character of Martha is played by Elizabeth Olsen, who is related to those twins you might have heard of.
Based on the early reaction—and the alleged greatness of Olsen’s performance—Martha Marcy May Marlene may be setting itself up to be this year’s Winter’s Bone. (Meaning it could sneak its way into the Oscars and grab a few nominations.) Of course, John Hawkes being in it may have a lot to do with that comparison, but if you’re looking for an indie sleeper going into the fall movie season, this is one of the more likely contenders.
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