Volume 35:
In Your Head, In Your Head…
Hey, remember
me? In case you didn’t guess, the last couple weeks have been a tad chaotic for
me. Exams, papers and Thanksgiving holidays have all been a bit of a bother.
Starting in December I should get back into a somewhat normal schedule, and
then next semester (my last as a student!) should be a lot less chaotic than
this last one. At least, it seems like it will be. Either way, thank you for
sticking through all this. Here’s a Trailer Trash to begin the comeback, and I
will have thoughts up on two good movies (Holy
Motors and Life of Pi) as soon as
possible. And I’ll be seeing Killing Them
Softly tomorrow, so there’s that.
World War Z
Dir: Marc Forster – Planned release date:
June 21, 2013
Let’s get this
out of the way first: I have a hard time buying Brad Pitt as any character
named “Gerry.” Okay, now that that’s settled, let’s talk about how dreadfully
uninteresting this movie looks. World War
Z is based on the hit novel by Max “Son of Mel” Brooks, but based on
everything I’ve heard this adaptation has done away with most of what was
interesting about that book. What we’re left with is a typical “father protects
his family in a post-apocalyptic hellscape” blockbuster that’s been plagued by
production problems from the beginning. Director Marc Forster (who did Quantum of Solace) has been under
scrutiny from the beginning, and the filmmakers brought in Damon Lindelof and
Drew Goddard to overhaul the ending at the last minute. Did I mention this
movie may have cost as much as $200 million? So yeah, this thing’s in good
shape. At least the zombies should be slightly scary… oh, wait. They’re just a
bunch of weightless CGI speedsters that move in packs of a gazillion? Very
well.
Now You See Me
Dir: Louis Leterrier – Planned release
date: June 7, 2013
Golly, that is
an insanely awesome cast. Also, it looks like an insanely silly movie. Imagine The Prestige put through the Brett
Ratner washing machine, and the end result may look something like this. Not a
ton is revealed here, of course, but from what I can tell this movie seems to
be about a team of Las Vegas magicians led by Jesse Eisenberg (of course) who
also happen to be an Ocean’s Eleven-esque
crew out to steal from the rich and give to their audiences. Or something.
Also, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine talk to each other in a separate
location for some reason. I could certainly see this movie winning me over once
showtime starts, but there seems to be a lot here that I’ll have to buy into
before it can truly work its magic on me. See what I did there? Because… magic.
Zero Dark Thirty
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow – Planned release
date: December 19 (Limited)
This awesome
second trailer for Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero
Dark Thirty was released a little while back, but I thought I’d throw it in
here because the positive buzz is really starting to heat up. Early reviews are
popping up around the World Wide Web, and I’ve yet to read a single negative
opinion. That will inevitably change, of course—so long as there is Internet,
there will always be backlash—but I just wanted to toss this in here because I
could not be more excited for this one. Zero
Dark Thirty also seems like it could be a fine cinematic companion piece to
the television series Homeland; a
portrait of a struggling Central Intelligence Agency that is never quite able
to get a grasp on the enemy they’re chasing. The difference is that Bigelow’s
film will end with something of a happy ending, unless we've all been misled.
Parental Guidance
Dir: Andy Fickman – Planned release date:
December 25
From the
visionary director of You Again comes
Parental Guidance, the latest film to
follow a long tradition of broad all-star holiday comedies that look like they
were shot on a Motorola flip phone. Not only does this movie look like death,
but it is also responsible for one of the most horrific
Photoshop jobs in poster history. (And as you may know, there is no
industry that screws up Photoshop more regularly than the movie poster
business.) Let’s face it: the only reason Parental
Guidance exists is to fill the Focker-sized hole left in the middle of the
Christmas movie season. It certainly seems to have risen to that challenge. Two
potential positives to come out of this movie: 1) I’ll get to watch as Billy
Crystal pretends
to care about this project on Twitter and elsewhere. 2) The world may end four
days before its release anyway.
The Host
Dir: Andrew Niccol – Planned release
date: March 29, 2013
All ye who
thought you’d be free of Stephenie Meyer’s grasp now that The Twilight Saga has come to an end, have I got some news for you!
The Host is intended to be the start
of a whole new franchise, and once again she has been able to take a
sci-fi/fantasy story and turn it into a teen romance about two people who can
never be together because one of them just happened to jump out a window. That
is rarely a good idea. After this fall just about kills her, her body is
inhabited by an alien race or something. But not even an alien virus can defeat
the power of true love! Despite being based on Meyer’s book, The Host was written and directed by
Andrew Niccol, who has shown plenty of promise in the past. Unfortunately, his last
movie was the horrid In Time, but let’s
not hold grudges. Meyer’s name will probably be enough to sell a lot of tickets
but it also has the potential to turn a lot of non-Twihards off. We’ll just
have to wait and see.
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