Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Fall Movie Preview, Part III

quantum of salceHere are the rest of the Fall releases. Actually, that's not true. There are more but my head's about to explode.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE – Daniel Craig, the best James Bond since Woody Allen is back! Why he wants to continue saving the world when he can have Pussy Galore is beyond me.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK – Charlie Kaufman writes and (for the first time) directs. Should be weird, original, play to sellout crowds in LA and NY and one art house in Kansas.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED – On the other hand, here’s the 8,535,834th send-up of Hollywood. Robert De Niro as a producer making a movie and contending with (hold onto your hats) difficult actors, directors, and the studio. But it will be the first time the movie and the making-of-the-movie documentary will be the same.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE – Simon Pegg from HOT FUZZ pisses off everyone in New York. Not to be confused with the Isiah Thomas Story.

BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA – The events in Germany that led to the emergence of Adolph Hitler.

THE EXPRESS – The first African-American to win a Heisman Trophy. How did Spike Lee miss this one?
Kate Winslet
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD – Leo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet make love again without a thousand people drowning.

CITY OF EMBER – Bill Murray in a fantasy world. Science fiction adventure not a movie where Murray is the romantic lead.

PASSENGERS –Anne Hathaway as a grief counselor to plane-crash survivors. Sample dialogue: “Okay, let me get this straight. There’s a polar bear on the island? And a hatch? What hatch?”

FLASH OF GENIUS – Greg Kinnear invents the intermittent windshield wiper. Goes into severe depression when he loses Nobel Prize to the inventor of the artificial heart.

FOUR CHRISTMASES -- Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. MEET THE PARENTS times four. What's Christmas without a high concept lift from another franchise?

REPOL THE GENETIC OPERA – Sci Fi musical comedy starring Paris Hilton. Probably not as good as it sounds.

MARLEY & ME – Two of my favorite writers – Scott Frank & Don Roos, so I’ve got my fingers crossed. Based on the book about the lovable dog, it stars Owen Wilson.

DOUBT – John Patrick Shanley adapts and directs his riveting play about a Catholic School scandal. Beautifully written but possibly a tad goyish.
Twilight movie
TWILIGHT – All the kids who read Harry Potter are now older and reading the Twilight series. Teen love is tested when one is a vampire.

FROST/NIXON – The TV interview that became a play now becomes a movie and soon will become a thrill ride.

SEVEN POUNDS – Will Smith’s latest desperate bid for an Oscar. The title refers to the weight of the statuette.

YES MAN – Jim Carrey. No thank you.

18 comments :

clairlnz said...

Please tell me you made some of these up. I must be way out of the loop since the only one I've even heard of is Twilight.

Anonymous said...

"Why he wants to continue saving the world when he can have Pussy Galore is beyond me."

Have you seen Honor Blackman lately? She's 80. I checked. 80.

"Leo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet make love again without a thousand people drowning."

And without a dozen people showng up.

In 1974 I wrote the following line for Larry "Seymour" Vincent to deliver on his TV show FRIGHT NIGHT: "Next week's movie is INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE. But I must warn you; this movie is not as good as it sounds."

Looks like you found a film truely worthy of inspiring the same joke. Great minds, etc.

I think REPOL THE GENETIC OPERA has an additional distinction. it's a worse title than QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

Keith said...

"What Just Happened" - Didn't Barry Levinson already direct a send-up of the producer's plight in "Wag the Dog"? Maybe he can strike gold twice, but I'm wishing it had been "Wha' Happened", with Fred Willard, instead.

Anonymous said...

Anne Hathaway as a grief counselor to plane-crash survivors. Sample dialogue: “Okay, let me get this straight. There’s a polar bear on the island? And a hatch? What hatch?”

That may be the exact dialogue, but for Hathaway, expect an strong, affecting performance. At least that what I hope for from Rodrigo Garcia, one of my favorite directors, who made this one. He's incredible with actresses, and the evidence is in "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her" where he got something out of Calista Flockhart beyond Ally McBeal, and "Nine Lives," where each segment was 10 minutes each, without cutting. Dakota Fanning gave her best performance, possibly ever, in that one, and Amanda Seyfried (currently seen in "Mamma Mia!") was haunting.

Basically, if any actress wishes to strengthen her talent, she goes to Garcia. His father, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, had immense talent in his novels, and he has his talent with this.

*Fawning fanboy praise off*

Anonymous said...

BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA - The events in Germany that led to the emergence of Adolph Hitler.

So the producers renamed the Tom Cruise Nazi-film effort in a bid to finally get it released? It fits.

Anonymous said...

Is it too late to purchase a trademark for "NIXON"? This is some industry his life spawned, I guess next to Lincoln in references alone.

Anonymous said...

Is it too late to purchase a trademark for "NIXON"? This is some industry his life spawned, I guess next to Lincoln in references alone.

I'm just waiting for "Nixon Part XII: The Reckoning."

Anonymous said...

Nice round up ken (of the films I recognised anyway :D )

May I point out though that the original book of Yes Man has no Jim Carrey in, is incredibly funny, and has made me really want to see the film...

Tom Quigley said...

Ken, once again you've convinced me over these past three days that my money would best be spent going out and buying the DVDs of the stuff I'd rather watch (or watching ones I already have again), rather than waste my dollars on driving to a local multiplex (and putting up with all the accompanying annoyances), watching some of that crap, and then trying to justify to myself that it was worth making the effort -- which at one time I would have done... Of course, while I'm aware that you can learn as much from seeing a bad movie as you can from a good one, having a home theater projection set-up has made that decision a hell of a lot easier.

Anonymous said...

"DOUBT – ... a Catholic School scandal. Beautifully written but possibly a tad goyish."

almost did a spit take with my coffee!

Anonymous said...

Has anyone else noticed the comments page type has gotten smaller?

By Ken Levine said...

The type's the same on my computer. Are you reading from an iPhone because that would do it?

Tallulah Morehead said...

My type IS big!

It's the pictures that got smaller.

Anonymous said...

No, Ken...I'm on a regular computer. It's doing the same thing on other Blogspot comment pages.

Keith said...

paul, try holding CTRL and roll your mouse wheel up one notch. It's very easy to accidentally change the font size on pages which don't force a font size on you.

Stella Louise said...

"FOUR CHRISTMASES -- Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. MEET THE PARENTS times four. What's Christmas without a high concept lift from another franchise?"

Ken, it's called "re-gifting."

Anonymous said...

"Gnasche said...
paul, try holding CTRL and roll your mouse wheel up one notch."

THANKS! You just taught me how to make pages a LOT easier for my elderly eyes to read. I had no idea it would do that. I tried it and Wow!

Thanks, Really, thanks.

Gridlock said...

I thought SEVEN POUNDS referred to the weight Elvis lost when his soul left his body?