Pay Full Price
Moon: Even if it wasn’t for the criminally under-rated Sam Rockwell getting raves for this, a sci-fi drama that isn’t just an action film or a horror film in space, or one that places more emphasis on special effects looking cool being more important than story or character, is rare enough that it deserves support.
Sherlock Holmes: I’m more shocked that Guy Ritchie, by going out of his comfort zone, has apparently managed to make his first interesting looking film since Snatch. I don’t care what the haters say, this looks brilliant, and a disreputable Holmes isn’t as far out of the canon as some people like to pretend.
Taking Woodstock: Ang Lee always seems to be at his best when tackling either gay subject matter or historicals. He’s got both here, so I’m optimistic.
Armored: Ah, the old “robbing ourselves” gimmick. It’s a heist film classic move. And we’ve got a pretty impeccable cast here, too, which, let’s be honest, is the best reason to see a heist film.
Where The Wild Things Are: It looks simply beautiful, and true to the mood and feeling of the original.
Rentable
The Hurt Locker: Kathryn Bigelow has more than earned the benefit of the doubt over her career, but there’s just enough slow-motion and clumsy attempts at “guy dialogue” to make me skeptical that I want to go near this.
The Princess And The Frog: Points for effort, as I find it hard to believe that by the end of the year there won’t be a hate explosion on the internet over this film by people looking for things to be offended by. The most cringe-inducing thing I’ve seen has been the Cajun insects, and they’re not even in this trailer. I’m just incredibly over the whole Princess thing. Would it kill Disney to come up with a female lead who isn’t defined by how pretty she is?
$9.99: A little too “heart-warming” for me, and for some reason I’m getting a distinct The Secret vibe off of it. On the other hand, it’s a stop-motion film that has nothing to do in any way, shape or form with Tim Burton. So, there’s that.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Is Harry Potter even still a thing? It feels like everyone has moved on.
District 9: Not a fan of the faux-documentary style, and that looks like the only thing that differentiates this from Alien Nation.
The Proposal: Oh, Ryan Reynolds. Only you could make me think of seeing a Sandra Bullock movie.
Surrogates: My rule of thumb has been “Bruce Willis bald, think about seeing it. Bruce Willis in a toupee, avoid”. I’ve got both going on here, so I’m torn.
Akin to the Ludovico Technique
Orphan: The last good “evil child” movie was The Bad Seed, and this not only looks horribly derivative of both that and Poison Ivy of all things, they so badly telegraph the “twist” in the plot I would be more surprised if Esther doesn’t turn out to be an adult who looks like a kid.
Bruno: What’s the difference between this and a minstrel show?
No, seriously, I can’t tell the difference.
The Last International Playboy: Oh my God, you guys, privileged people have such a hard life!
Gamer: Looks like The Running Man for people afraid to let their kids play XBox.
Aliens In The Attic: There is nothing about this that looks remotely good. No, not even the Ghoulies reference.
Baby On Board: So, fart jokes and a “sassy” gay friend for the career woman in another film about pretty white people with problems that would be solved if anyone actually just asked a direct question.
Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: A Michael Douglas evil lawyer movie? Whoo. And his love interest in this will probably be young enough to be his grand-daughter.
The Ugly Truth: The unholy union of a chick flick and raunchy “guy’s guy” movie. The sixth seal has been broken.
H2: Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Humpday: Straight guys have sex! With each other! On a dare! Oh, the hilarity!
Dead Snow: Nazi zombies is a little too high concept for me.
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I am very curious about Moon. Sam Rockwell has been one of my favorite actors since Galaxy Quest, of all things. Plus, can the spawn of David Bowie direct?
Sherlock Holmes actually makes me want to go back and re-read the original books, which is never a bad thing.
Holy hell, Where The Wild Things Are has just won my butt in its seat. I’ll second the Ryan Reynolds thing as well.
I have a feeling that The Princess and the Frog will be quite capable of offending people all by itself, though.
The wank over The Princess and the Frog has already begun, actually.
I didn’t even know what H2 was ’til I clicked on the link. Oh good golly.
“Would it kill Disney to come up with a female lead who isn’t defined by how pretty she is?”
Probably. So let’s try it and see.
Humpday and Hurt Locker both deserve a chance. Jeremy Renner is fucking amazing in the latter, and the former (as a straight male speaking here) is pretty damn funny, and feels like an honest exploration of hetero friendship and its limitations.
As for H2, until I clicked the link, I thought somebody had made a hilariously misguided movie about a petrol-snorting luxury personnel carrier.
I dunno. That Moon clip looked so derivative of 2001 I seriously thought it was somehow going to parody it or otherwise cut audience expectations. But no.
Make that “undercut audience expectations”.
Bruno actually looks more like a minstrel show than a lot of things that get called “minstrel shows,” because minstrel shows were originally white guys in blackface, and Bruno is a straight guy in gay face. So to speak.
Disney survived Mulan, didn’t it?
Now, ask them to come up with a heroine who isn’t either from or destined to marry into the aristocracy, and then we’ll have something…
As a big fan of Sherlock Holmes stories, I’m really excited for the upcoming movie.
“…a disreputable Holmes isn’t as far out of the canon as some people like to pretend.”
My thoughts exactly. In fact, I don’t remember the name of the story, but I remember one story where Watson was investigating an opium den, and just happened to run into Holmes, who was there to getting high.
Ashe: Hey, hey, Holmes was in the opium den investigating a case. Holmes never got high on opium. Holmes got cranked out of his gourd on COCAINE. There is a difference.
I agree with you on Bruno. Is this going to be the Sacha Baron Cohen backlash movie? Because I always felt he was his weakest character. Borat was a funny concept but what is the point of Bruno?
My reaction is exactly the same as Mike’s. Which I find frightening.
“Bruce Willis bald, think about seeing it. Bruce Willis in a toupee, avoid”.
To be fair, the trailer shows that the toupee’d version is Willis’s android/puppet duplicate, so I think that kind of excuses it; in fact the artificiality the toupee adds almost enhances the effect.
Moments ago, my mother was deeply offended by the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes trailer.
I was upset by the trailer at first, too. It’s not a disreputable Holmes that bothers me. that’s very on. The guy was a drug addict, for crying out loud! It’s the concern that they’re going to make him sexual. I’ve seen too many film adaptations where they change that part of his character for dramatic tension.
I still might see it, but I don’t think I’ll pay full price.
Honey… I love you.
We will be seeing Surrogate… (sci fi and Bruce? no contest!) and I’m intrigued by Humpday, though I think it’s rental quality…(not sure I want to see that without being able to stop it and laugh or talk!)
:-)
Moon seems like it could be good, but I’m wondering why all “intelligent” sci-fi movies that manage to get made have to be so dreary and monochromatic. Children of Men got away with it because it was genius and not quite as grim as you’d think, but can we get a different aesthetic up in here?
I’ll have to wait for the reviews on Surrogates. It COULD be really smart and insightful and suspenseful, or it could just end up being totally stupid. I’ve not read the graphic novel.
The trailer for Orphan is just epically horrible. “Say, this could be a really interesting horror- oh, wait, never mind.”
“Now, ask them to come up with a heroine who isn’t either from or destined to marry into the aristocracy, and then we’ll have something…”
Lilo? Her sister was poor and had no signs of marrying up. That was also Disney’s best movie of this decade…
Bruce Willis – sorry, I can only tolerate him in the Die Hard movies.
Surrogates – I’m happy for Top Shelf that those comics were made into a movie. Even if I probably won’t go see it.
Disney – I have never heard anything back about Lilo and Stich (sp?) and yet Disney has never made anything else like it. But, oh well, what do I know? The last Disney movie I saw in a theater was Jungle Book.
Sherlock Holmes – I seem to recall Holmes was in the opium den because he was following a guy who was impersonating a beggar. It’s been a while. Jeremy Brett was my favorite Holmes and there’s a novel called Seven Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer about the cocaine thing. I suppose mainlining more than 7% cocaine in saline would kill a person, but I wouldn’t really know.