Here's more of what'll be playing and you might be seeing...CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT – The only vampire movie being released that week. Stars John C. Reilly and features Salma Jayek as a bearded lady. When she’s not looking, he replaces her vibrator with a Lady Norelco.
AMELIA – the Amelia Earhart story starring Hilary Swank. Famous woman aviator who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937. We see her negotiate polar bears, smoke monsters, and being captured by “the Others”. Based on the true story.
LOVE HAPPENS – Aaron Eckhart is a widower who falls in love with Jennifer Aniston. In case that doesn’t remind you enough of SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, it’s even set in Seattle.
THE BOYS ARE BACK – Clive Owens becomes a single parent who must raise two boys. Wow, widowers are this year’s vampires!
NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU – The NY version of PARIS, JE T’AIME, an anthology of short stories by different writers and directors all woven together. Shot in only a few days. Cast features every New York actor who didn’t have a gig on LAW & ORDER that week.
WHIP IT – Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut. She calls it a “love story between a mother and daughter which, emotionally, tears your heart apart”. How could it not? It’s set in the world of roller derby.
THIS IS IT – Michael Jackson posthumous concert film. Let him be remembered for slammed together rehearsal footage that was never meant to be shown. R.I.P. – Rest in Profit.
ZOMBIELAND – Amusement park for Sean Hannity followers.
SAW VI – Jigsaw takes a job at Home Depot.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL – Dick Cheney invites you all in for a visit.
NINE – movie based on the musical based on a movie. Directed by Rob Marshall who made magic with CHICAGO. Stars Penelope Cruz who is a nine (plus two). Also stars Nicole Kidman whose boxoffice losing streak is fast approaching ’88 Baltimore Orioles territory.
BROKEN EMBRACES – Another Penelope Cruz movie, this one for Pedro Almodovar. Young hot actress obsessed with a film director. Coincidentally written by the director.
FANTASTIC MR. FOX – Stop-motion animated version of Roald Dahl’s children book given the Wes Anderson treatment. So adults should find it fascinating while kids will be completely baffled. Meryl Streep does a voice so the Motion Picture Academy will add a new category of Best Voice-Over Work By An Actress so she can win that Oscar too.
PLANET 51 – Animated movie about an earthling who lands on another planet and see, HE’S the alien. To further complicate matters, Dwayne Johnson (the Rock), a real alien does the voice of the human.
THE BOX – Cameron Diaz needs money. She’s offered a million dollars to just push a button on a wooden box. The catch: if she does a stranger will die. Uh, didn’t they do this exact bit in one of the Batman movies? And wasn’t that lifted from one of the SAW movies?
The final part tomorrow.
Playing it straight: THE BOX is (I'm pretty sure) from a Richard Matheson story "The Button", which was made into a memorable 10-minute piece for the mid-80s Twilight Zone.
ReplyDeleteFantastic Mr Fox will be awesome.
ReplyDeleteI have already creamed my pants multiple times over Zombieland and will continue to do so until this masterpiece opens.
Yes, THE BOX is Matheson's THE BUTTON, a story (which starred Mare Winningham) that was a thoroughly told in a few minutes. I dread to think what they have done to it to inflate it to feature length.
ReplyDeleteI suupose it's Karma, given that it was Matheson who had to inflate Poe's HOUSE OF USHER, PIT AND THE PENDULUM, and THE RAVEN into feature length for Roger Corman and Vincent Price,back in the early 60s.
"AMELIA – Famous woman aviator who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937. We see her negotiate polar bears, smoke monsters, and being captured by 'the Others'."
Should we give away the ending, when she travels back in time and turns out to be her own mother? No? Okay.
NINE, a musical, must not be confused with 9, an animated movie. All we need is NIEN, a German movie.
Shouldn't PLANET 51 be PLANET 9?
I have already creamed my pants multiple times over Zombieland and will continue to do so until this masterpiece opens.
ReplyDeleteLame joke time!: I'd hate to see the state of that laundry.
*loud groans*
Yes, yes. I roll like that. ;)
I wanted to see The Box until I discovered it was a movie about an actual box, and not Cameron Diaz's.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the trailer, all I could think about was that Twilight Zone episode, and how on earth could they stretch that out to 2 hours and still make it good. Apparently there are aliens or something involved, so it looks like they didn't,
I don't get out to too many movies, and judging from this list, I won't be getting out to many in the near future (maybe the Ricky Gervais flick, but not much interest elsewhere). But I did break down and take the wife to "500 Days of Summer" last week. The theater showed a trailer for "Love Happens," which appears to be such a generic romcom, they even gave it a generic title. "Love Happens" is the movie equivalent of a white can of beer with the word "BEER" written on it in black Times Roman font.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, in that brief trailer, they showed the entire plot of the movie: set-up, characters meeting, relationship problems, revelations of hidden secrets, break-up, epiphany, heartwarming reunion. I'm amazed they didn't toss in the end credits and be done with it. It gave away absolutely every plot point, and probably the only two good jokes in the script. I walked into the theater never having heard of that movie, and 5 minutes later, I had no reason to bother to see it. Good job, Hollywood promo geniuses!
VW: "pecot" - The cot at camp you do NOT want to get.
I sure won't be going to see Love Happens as sadly I have a bad case of emetophobia.
ReplyDelete(This is going to be very inside for all the radio types, and maybe make a couple of you smile)
ReplyDeleteNine! Omigod, they finally made the ultimate movie! Nine? Nine! Nine!
Much as I despise MJ personally, I would be interested in seeing "This is It," except I know it won't be the movie I want. It'll be a carefully edited propaganda homage to a shining star taken from us far too soon, rather than an fly on the wall documentary.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for "The Boat That Rocked" to come out here in the States. A friend of mine saw it in the UK and enjoyed it; another friend said the music was better than the story. I'd like to see it anyway. I thought it was supposed to be released over here in August.
ReplyDeleteWV paind: Not being able the find the information I want.
"AMELIA" - Um, Hilary Swank? Tell you what... I'd like to replace the Swank with an Amy Adams. (Maybe less leather jacket this time.)
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, I'd just like a take out order of Amy Adams please. Hold the fries.
wv: ememicss - THESE melt in your hand. Don't ask what they do in your mouth.
Re: AMELIA – I'm wondering if the film ends with a voice announcing over an airport P.A. system "Attention, Amelia Earhart -- your luggage has arrived..."
ReplyDeletewv: spotisiv: How a dyslexic pronounces "positive"
Spoiler alert. Despite the recent cautionary advisory, I'll give away the ending of another film. Swank needs the leather jacket. Amelia Earhart wasn’t lost over the Pacific, she hid as a boy in Nebraska named Aaron Eckhart – that is after spending a few months in a west coast trailer park.
ReplyDeleteOK Mr. L, we’ll give you one more of these, then you definitely need to be in the theater shouting out this stuff.
The Box is being cast as a moral dilemma? $1M in return for being the one who throws the switch to ice someone they don't know?
ReplyDeleteLike half of planet Earth wouldn't pound that button like they were banging out the Konami code on a Nintendo.
It would sound better if they got $1M every press, but the deaths got less and less random, less and less anonymous, and eventually it was her mom or dad, then her kid, and in the strain of what they'd done the couple become enemies in the same house and are seriously tempted to off the other one.
A sort of Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets the deus ex machina.
Saw previews for the kids movies at PONYO last week, and they all looked good, but especially MR. FOX. I have fond, if distant, childhood memories of that book.
ReplyDeleteWV: horaido. A house of ill repute in Laredo.
Just had another thought about AMELIA... Wouldn't it be a hoot if she turned up in the finale of LOST?...
ReplyDeletePlanet 51 sounds like a Hurricane Hippo cartoon I once saw. He and So-So land on an alien planet where they're filming "The Monster From Planet Earth"
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this new movie has better special effects.
Forget the million dollars, I know plenty of people who would push the button for free.
ReplyDelete"-suitepotato- said...
ReplyDeleteThe Box is being cast as a moral dilemma? $1M in return for being the one who throws the switch to ice someone they don't know?
Like half of planet Earth wouldn't pound that button like they were banging out the Konami code on a Nintendo."
"Chris L said...
Forget the million dollars, I know plenty of people who would push the button for free."
SPOILER ALERT
Well I have no idea what happens in the movie, but in the Twilight Zone episode, Mare is given the box with the button and told if she pushes it she'll get a million dollars, and someone she never met or heard of will die.
After she pushes the button and gets her money, the person who gave her the box takes it away again. She asks what he's going to do with it, and he replies:
"Offer it to someone Who's never met you, nor ever heard of you."
Are you so certain everyone wants to leap to pushing that button now? Mare looked severely weirded out, knowing she had at best a few days to spend that money. It's a major case of "what goes around, comes around."
If BROKEN EMBRACES were truly Pedro Almodovar's sex fantasy, Antonio Bandaras would be lusting after said director. Antonio the way he looked about 20 years ago . . .
ReplyDelete"Matt Patton said...
ReplyDeleteAntonio the way he looked about 20 years ago . . ."
Well he's not exactly a troll even now. I'd take him in (ALL the way in), although steam-blasting might be required to get every last trace of Melanie Griffith of of him.
That should read "every last trace of Melanie Griffith off of him."
ReplyDeleteSadly, something stronger than steam would be required to remove every trace of Melanie Griffith--has anyone considered amonium nitrate and gasoline?
ReplyDeleteAnd true, Antonio does not look like a troll by any means. But Almodovar is a movie director--according to the strict by-laws of the Movie Director's Fraternal Association, no director is allowed to sleep with an actor or actress in their films that is less than 25 years their junior . . .
"Matt Patton said...
ReplyDeleteaccording to the strict by-laws of the Movie Director's Fraternal Association, no director is allowed to sleep with an actor or actress in their films that is less than 25 years their junior . ."
You have a strong point. In fact, I believe the older the director is, the younger the performer must be.
Which means Morgan Freeman will be taking up direction sometime soon.
-suitepotato-, they kind of made a movie like that in Thailand called '13'.
ReplyDeletewv: lawles - the present tense of 'lawled'.
I believe the older the director is, the younger the performer must be. Which means Morgan Freeman will be taking up direction sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteIf that's the case, that means Morgan will end up boinking an embryo.