Last week I wrote about how the fall line up of movies every weekend from that point forward was stacked. I forgot to factor this weekend into the mix mainly because this weekend's releases are more than forgettable. With Halloween looming right around the corner, the mandatory Paranormal Activity sequel hits theaters this weekend. While the first film was extremely original, and a huge success, these films have continued to get less and less interesting by the second.
Unfortunately because the franchise has a solid following, and there is nothing else worth checking out opening weekend, Paranormal Activity 4 will likely win out the box office this weekend despite the fact that it's getting horrible reviews. I don't foresee them stopping the production on further films until they stop performing at the box office, considering they're extremely cheap to produce. If you really want to see this movie, just put in any of the previous 3 and it will have the same effect on you. Or just go to a Haunted House.
Sadly, the only other wide release movie that hits the theaters this weekend is Alex Cross, starring Tyler Perry. When I first saw the poster I thought to myself that it was going to be a farce, like Get Smart but the black version. Then I watched a commercial the other day and saw that this movie was an actual attempt at making an action movie. My jaw dropped as I watched the commercial and I saw former Lost guy, Matthew Fox, sporting a bald head and a sniper rifle. Matthew Fox is about as funny as having a venereal disease so I knew right then that the movie was actually serious. Just please if you're reading this for some reason and you feel like Alex Cross has potential to be something good, then you should consult someone about getting a lobotomy, because your brain isn't worth saving.
I will however recommend checking out The Sessions, which hits the theaters in limited release this weekend. Like last week's release Smashed, this film won critical acclaim at Sundance early this year and got pushed all the way to October to be in the running for Oscar Nominations. While I doubt the film will see a best picture nod, it's not out of question to think that John Hawkes gets his second Oscar nomination this year, as he plays a 38 year old man confined to his bed due to polio, who sets out a goal to lose his virginity. Helen Hunt plays his sex therapist and William H. Macy all in your facey plays John Hawks' confidant, and priest. The movie is lauded as a real crowd pleaser and has potential to at least nab some nominations so if you have the opportunity you should really check it out. It hits limited theaters this weekend, but look for it to hit more cities later in the fall should the oscar buzz be good.
That's really it for movies that are hitting theaters this weekend. I don't recommend that you see either PA4 or Alex Cross considering there are still plenty of good flicks out there. I took in Seven Psychopaths Thursday at midnight and that was a bloody good time. Martin McDonagh is probably the only director/writer in the world of film who knows how to make comedies that dark, and get away with it. Definitely not for all people, but I still recommend it highly. Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken all give fantastically hilarious performances. Also if you haven't seen Argo you really should go check it out. Great story, great script, great directing, great everything. Ben Affleck has all of a sudden become the best Director/Actor combo in Hollywood, and I don't foresee him falling by the wayside anytime soon. Just go check it out.
If you feel like staying in, or you've already seen all the movies out that I recommend, then I suggest you go out and buy, or rent Moonrise Kingdom. Wes Anderson has his own unique and quirky style, which makes him the subject of many love/hate debates, but if you truly love cinema, then you should see this movie. It's probably his most likable film all around, as it happens to be about young love which we can all relate to. If you haven't seen it yet then you're making a mistake. So far it's up there in the top 3 films I've seen this year, which are Moonrise, Looper, and The Master.
Here are some sweet new trailers you should check out if you like cool things. Note in the Gangster Squad trailer that they took out the sequence where a bunch of mobsters line up on the backside of a movie screen and shoot up the crowd. I wonder why they may have done that?
I spent the afternoon with one of my esteemed colleagues in Venice. After a jog, a few sausages, and a few beers I decided to head back to Burbank to write this post before the afternoon traffic really set in. I probably would've hit some of the traffic regardless but no matter what way you spell it out, my commute was more than adversely affected by the phantom October rain that hit us.
If you know anything about how people in Los Angeles react to rain, then you know know that when one drop of rain falls from the sky, all hell breaks loose. People pull over to the side of the highway and put on their hazards when it's barely even sprinkling by human standards. Accidents happen because all the people who are driving overly cautious piss off the people who just want to get the fuck home after a day of work. On every social networking site everyone is posting photos of a wet road, captioned "OMG it's raining," because they think it's such a big deal. It's chaos. If Roland Emmerich wanted to make a more realistic end of the world in Los Angeles, instead of a massive earthquake, it would've just rained.
To make a long story short, from about 330 to 530 I was right in the thick of all the dumb assholes that like John Cusack, don't understand how rain works.
What is this falling substance?
Not to be an optimist ever, but when I wasn't nodding off behind the wheel, texting, jiving to Duran Duran, or posting photos to instagram, I was mapping out the post I was going to make when I got home because I decided to make the best of my time. For a guy who won "Class Pessimist" in high School that's a pretty strange thought, but maybe I'm more motivated than usual.
Or maybe it's the fact that I'm really excited about the movies this fall. This weekend is the first of the fall that it truly STACKED with quality releases. After a summer that was pretty lackluster in my opinion, it has been a pretty kick ass fall so far. In a month that is typically filled with end of the summer, not fully there drivel, September saw the releases of Looper, Dredd 3D and The Master. I typically just hope there's something decent enough to draw me into the multiplex at least once, but this year I was interested in a movie just about every weekend, and it's only going to get a lot better all starting with this weekend.
Now typically I divide these posts into genres so that you can evaluate what movie you want to see based on what you're in the mood for. I decided to go a different route this time because there are so many worthwhile options. I decided that the best way to write this weeks post would be to rate it in order of which movies I'm most excited for, to which films I'm least excited for. Just because I rate things low on the scale of movies I'm excited for this weekend doesn't mean I'm not excited about them. It just means that there are other movies that I'd rather see first.
1. Seven Psychopaths
A movie with Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Colin Farrell and fucking Tom Waits... That's titled Seven Psychopaths.... Sign me up. I've had several conversations with friends about how you could not fuck up a movie with a cast like that, but it happens all the time in Hollywood. But I'm not worried about this movie at all because it's written and directed by Martin McDonagh who's last movie, In Bruges remains one of my favorite films of the last decade.
The one thing I am worried about are the crowd this film will draw in. Martin McDonagh isn't afraid to paint his films as black as night, and I will not be surprised if this movie is very dark. They advertise it to be a comical romp, but I think it might be a lot darker than it lets on. I'm afraid that if it is a lot darker than it lets on the audience won't like it as much. People don't tend to like it when a movie is better than they expected because it was something they didn't expect. Everyone wants movies to be spoonfed to them before the opening credits start to roll. It's frustrating, but people are stupid. Also, don't be surprised if this film is filled with gore and extreme violence. That's another thing McDonagh's not afraid of.
Right now the critics have been giving it great reviews and as I sit here typing these words it sits at 85% on the Tomatometer. I think this movie will be a hell of a bloody-good time and if you're not afraid of some violence, and like Tarantino-like dialogue, then this is your movie.
2. Argo
It was very difficult for me to choose between Psychopaths and Ben Affleck's most recent flick Argo, because both films look like insanely good movies. For a long while Argo had the upper hand because it's already being talked about in early conversations about the Oscars, and Affleck's first two times up to bat he hit it out of the park. But I'm a big time midnight release guy even after the bullshit in Aurora went down, so what it came down to was, what movie would be more fun to see in a theater full of people at Midnight? Sadly Argo fell by the wayside, but nevertheless, it's one of my most highly anticipated films of the fall and I plan on seeing it as soon as humanly possible during this weekend.
Argo is a period piece set in the 1970's, about an operation to free six American citizens seeking refuge in the house of the Canadian Ambassador in Iran. Ben Affleck plays the exfiltration specialist who sets out to save the citizens and he concocts a plan to save them by flying in and pretending that they are his film crew for a science fiction film named "Argo." It's supposed to be extremely intense, and feel very real to the period.
It received critical acclaim at the Toronto Film Festival last month and has the potential to be an Oscar contender. As I sit here typing it sits at a hefty 92% on the Tomatometer which is also very good.
Hollywood thinks very highly of itself so they should be extremely pleased with a film about Hollywood actually saving peoples lives. It has a great cast headed by none other than Ben Affleck himself. Other notables are Heisenberg, or Bryan Cranston to you simple folk who don't catch the reference, and John Goodman.
3. Smashed
This is the second movie this weekend coming out with a famous methamphetamine cook, except this time it's Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) who makes his way onto the screen. Aaron Paul, who just won an Emmy for his work in season 4 of 'Breaking Bad', has to take a seat to his co-star, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who's been getting rave reviews for her role in this film about coping with alcohol addiction.
We've seen MWE in several roles over the past bunch of years playing everything from Ramona Flowersin Scott Pilgrim and Lucy McClane, John McClane's daughter in Live Free or Die Hard. While I've enjoyed looking at her all this time, to this point she really hasn't had a role that could showcase her talents. Smashed looks like her gateway into the more mature, serious film acting and could even land her an Oscar nomination.
The film centers around MWE and Aaron Paul's relationship and how their dependency on alcohol has sent their lives and marriage into a spiraling chaos. MWE decides to take action and seek help with AA while Aaron Paul keeps on partying.
The film won the hearts of it's audiences at Sundance back in January, but they shelved the film for quite some time to release it to the masses a little closer to Oscar season. It's a small, independent film so it won't be widely released, at least not right away. It looks to be a interesting portrayal of struggle and addiction, and if you're into indie dramas with new young talent, this might be your movie. Right now the film has an 82% on the Tomatometer.
4. Sinister
I like scary movies, and horror films but it's rare for one to come around that looks even remotely appealing to me. Maybe it's the fact that they typically recycle a hot young actress through each role and regenerate painfully boring and miserable plot lines. However, Sinister does look like a scary movie that shows some promise. I couldn't tell you much about the movie really other than the fact that it's about a house, that may be haunted, and there's some creepy image of something coming out of a box at the end of the trailer. It stars, Ethan Hawke who I've always liked, and looks like something that might actually work for a change. Right now it hovers at 61% just above the rotten level, but critics tend to dispel most scary movies before they even see them, so that's actually pretty decent. I'm not flocking to the theater to see it, but at the same time I am pretty curious to find out what comes out of that box.
That right there is it for new releases this weekend. If you still haven't seen Looper then you're not doing yourself any favors because it's amazing, and as more great releases hit the theaters this fall it's going to fall by the wayside. Don't make the mistake of waiting too long, because it will probably be out of theaters before you even know it.
But if you haven't found something that you want to watch between, Looper and the other four films I wrote about, then you should probably see Here Comes the Boom because you're obviously an asshole.
As you know if you are a consistent reader of this that I have been making this posts most weeks trying to help you make your decision of what to see each weekend so that you aren't wasting your money on bad movies. As we dip further into the fall we will continue to see better releases and this will become more complicated because there will be a number of directions you can go in accordance with what you're feeling. This week I'm breaking down my advice into two categories, Action and Family.
Action: Looper or Taken 2
This weekend we have a highly anticipated sequel to the much loved Liam Neeson action film Taken, which isn't so surprisingly named Taken 2, hitting the multiplexes. In the film Brian Mills, the ex secret agent killing machine has been hired as security in Istambul, and his beloved daughter and ex-wife fly there to make a surprise visit. This time the entire Mills family is targeted by the parents of all the people Liam Neeson killed in the sex trafficking network that kidnapped his daughter Kim in the first film. At the beginning the ex-wife is cozy-ing up with Liam Neeson a little bit more
because her new husband probably doesn't have nearly the same size penis
as the Oscar Shindler's. This is supposed to make you care about her when she gets kidnapped at the beginning while Liam Neeson once again talks tries to talk his daughter out of another possible abduction. After that I don't really know the rest of that goes on, but I'm sure Liam Neeson takes down an entire organization of criminals and hugs his ex-wife and daughter at the end as they walk off into the sunset, not detailing any repercussions after killing upwards of 50 people and causing thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage throughout which ever cities he goes through. That made it sound like I really hated the first movie, but it was the exact opposite really.
The problem I already have with the sequel is that it seemed extremely forced. While I was excited to hear they were making another one I was deathly afraid that they were just doing it because they could make a pretty cheap shoot em up movie, and receive tons of dividends even if it was lackluster.
The first movie worked so well because it prided itself on it's no-nonsense attitude. In the last movie the criminals only real motivation is money, and to say alive which made it seem possible for a man to come in and completely destroy everything they had been doing for years and kill them all. Whereas now we have a bunch of distraught Albanians who are pissed that this man killed their kids even though they fathered a gaggle of complete shitheads.
The first movie it was about one man trying to rekindle the love he had with his daughter, and he earned it by killing tons of people who kidnapped her and basically showed her why he couldn't always be there for her while she was a child. Now the motivations are all messy, and the annoying ex-wife who you wanted dead in the first one is now one of the people he's fighting to save. Please, if I ever have an ex-wife and she gets kidnapped, I would pump my fists and say "you didn't want to be married to me, so why would you want me to save you? Bitch." The movie just seems very forced and the critics aren't receiving it as well as the first as it currently holds an ugly 18% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.
Last weekend I strongly urged you to go see Looper if you wanted to see a film that is both inventive, and badass. This weekend I strongly suggest that you do the same thing. For it being the best action movie I've seen in awhile it only earned a tepid 20 million last weekend and didn't even make half of Hotel Transylvania which is just disappointing to say the least. If you have even the slightest bit of curiosity in the film then you'd probably really enjoy it. If you just haven't gotten around to it yet I suggest you see it sooner rather than later because next weekend boasts a lot of fun across the board with new films Seven Psychopaths and early Oscar contender Argo hitting screens near you. So go check it out. See a movie that deserves an audience.
As for Taken 2, I'll still probably see it at some point because I adore Liam Neeson. He's exactly 60 years older than my nephew Finn and he always carves out a good performance no matter how shitty the movie is. Plus Liam Neeson says "shit" on Sportscenter and loves celebrating athleticism.
Still,I'd probably see Looper a few more times before checking it out, and I've already seen Looper twice.
Side Note: The teaser trailer of A Good Day to Die Hard (Die Hard 5) has just hit the internet and you must watch.
Family: Frankenweenie
Over the past decade or so it's been pretty difficult to endorse Tim Burton films, but he returns to his roots with Frankenweenie, a 3D stop animation Disney flick that follows the current trend of making a children's farce out of classic Hollywood horror and monster films (ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania and Frankenweenie are all in theaters as we speak). While Burton's most recent attempts at filmmaking have been lackluster to say the least Frankenweenie brings him back to his early days before he started directing features and he focused on animation and specifically stop animation.
This new Frankenweenie film is a feature length adaption of a short he made back in the 80's by the same name. In the film a boy can't come to terms with his recent dog's death so he vows to try and revive it by getting it struck by lightning like Frankenstein. All said and done this is Burton's love letter to all his favorite classic horror movies and he gets to showcase the talents that made him such a unique and popular director during the past few decades.
Frankenweenie currently sits fresh, with a very high score of 85% on the tomatometer and has been garnered lots of great critical acclaim. It remains to be seen what kind of numbers it will bring at the box office as stop animation tends to draw a lower crowd these days, but Burton is one of the best at creating a strange a beautiful world with his animation and it could be a hit.
The question though is can Burton return to the upper echelons as an elite director as he once was considered. Shortly after he produced several of his big time animations in the 80's he began his feature career and between the years of 1988-94 he released probably his most beloved films to date (Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scizzorhands, Batman Returns, A Nightmare Before Christmas and Ed Wood). He was a director who managed to attain critical appeal as well as commercial appeal while making films that were wildly different in tone than most directors. After that he's managed to pull out a few solid movies but since then his largest criticism has been that his films ooze with style, but lack substance. His characters are often flat, and lack any motivation that can make the audience relate. He paints a pretty picture every time but that pretty picture is of a sewer drain or something of similar or less personality. At least his recent track record seems to indicate that. You'd have to go back all the way to Corpse Bride or Big Fish if you wanted to see something vaguely original that worked. Other than that it's just been regurgitating the same stories we've seen a million times before but his Burton-take on them (Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Planet of the Apes, Dark Shadows).
That is why I think Frankenweenie is very important to Burton's future. I'd like to think that maybe he's done a 360 and is right back at where he established his roots so he can go forward from this moment and continue to make interesting films that we actually feel like watching. I've always enjoyed his style and his zany sense of humor. I even have a poster of a sketch he drew as a child on my wall from when I went to the traveling Tim Burton art show a few years ago. I'm rooting for Frankenweenie to do well because not enough time is spent making stop animation features and if this one can get commercial success maybe Disney wouldn't be complete pussies about putting more money into future stop animation projects. But Disney keeps dumping 250 million dollars into movies like this...
If that's not true then why did Hotel Transylvania beat out what in my opinion is the best movie of the year in Looper? Not only did it beat it out but it actually more than doubled the amount that Looper took in. The JGL and Bruce Willis co-headlined flick took in 21.2 million this week, while Transylvania made a hefty 43 million.
Hotel Transylvania is what looks like a poor attempt at a kids Halloween film. ParaNorman the stop animation kids flick that came out earlier this year earned a measly 53 million in it's entire stint in theaters and general consensus is that movie is end over end better, yet Transylvania almost already matched it. Either parents are shitty at choosing what their kid should see, or kids are stupid. It's definitely a lot of both, but nevertheless, Transylvania looked about as charming as AIDS and I can't believe it took in north of 40 million dollars this weekend.
If you're reading this and you haven't gone to see Looper then this is all your fault. This year I've lost a grip of what people find entertaining and what people seem to want to spend their money on. I thought I had a good understanding of what the general public would like but I'm beginning to become a lot more cynical when good movies aren't getting the respect they deserve by fans yet people are willing to go see The Avengers for a fifth and sixth fucking time.
First off, The Avengers was a good movie. Witty dialogue, fun action, and Scarlett Johansson in tight leather one pieces... That's about it. The Avengers is eons from a terrific movie, and yet it still has pulled in well over 600 million dollars domestically. I'm willing to bet that all the 17+ year old fans that saw Avengers, and are allowed to break mama's curfew to go out and see a rated-R movie would absolutely love Looper. Instead of seeing it this past weekend they probably just spent all their monthly allowance on the Blu-Ray + DVD combo of The Avengers that they can always have with them in case one of their friends "hasn't seen it." I've got news for you assholes, your friends already saw it, stop wasting your money, spend it on Looper.
In a time where we're more likely to see fifteen sequels in the top twenty yearly box office, Looper is a refreshingly original story that fucking blows your mind. Add that to the pedigree of performers in the film, and you have what is bar-none this years best action film. It's almost like people only go to the theaters to see what they already know is going to happen, and originality is feigned. Of course that's not always the case seeing that Inception did so well in 2010, but 90% of the movies coughed up by studio's every year are the same movie we've already seen before or are just sequels to movies we've already seen before.
While Avengers isn't a "officially" a sequel, it is a movie filled with characters and actors we're already familiar with so it's essentially a sequel to all their franchises. It's easy for me to prove my point when The Amazing Spider-Man came out this year and literally was a reboot of a three part franchise that started just a decade ago. I'm sure there are Batman reboots that are being tossed around at Warner Brothers right now as we speak even though Nolan's Dark Knight franchise will never be surpassed. Then we have Man Of Steel coming out next year, which is a reboot of the Superman franchise. I don't even need to give you more examples of sequels or reboots because you already know that they seemingly make up 80% of the big budget films that are released every year.
While it sounds like I don't enjoy sequels and reboots as much as the next guy there are certain ones that I look forward to every year so I can't say that I hate them all. I just love it when a movie completely surpasses my expectations and keeps me guessing. I love original stories, that I can wrap my mind around and think about for days after. That's what Looper is. An insight to original and intelligent film-making that we don't get very often this day in age. This should be applauded, and deserves more respect than The Avengers and even The Dark Knight Rises for that matter.
Looper makes you think like Inception, but packs a punch like Terminator. Original science fiction movies like this don't come around very often so get off your ass and see it. If you have seen it, then get off your ass and tell someone else to see it. It's worth your time, money, and piece of mind.
If you read this whole thing and Looper still doesn't feel like your kind of movie, well Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 tickets just went on sale today so you can reserve your seats for an opening night girls out. All I have to say about that is James Holmes picked the wrong movie fan base to shoot assault rifles at.
