In most years, March is the first month where actually good movies with actual staying power open. This year, we’ve already had In Bruges (spoiler: if it’s not on my Top 10 next January, then 2008 will have been the best movie year in a long time). Which is not to say that there’s not good stuff coming, because there certainly is; am I wrong in thinking that the first quarter has been unusually solid this year? Probably I am, given that-
7.3.2008
-the director of Independence Day has made a caveman movie.
For real. The director. Of Independence Day. Has made. A caveman movie. And to judge from the trailer, it has extremely shoddy visual effects.
So we’re talking, best-case, a $100 million remake of One Million Years B.C. and worst-case, a $100 million remake of Caveman and in a case so bad that there isn’t a comparative for it, a $100 million dollar remake of Yor, Hunter from the Future.
The title is 10,000 B.C., just so you know what not to buy a ticket for.
Other movies this weekend, not that there need to be: College Road Trip, the latest Disney comedy for bland young people; Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, some sort of comedy of manners starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams, and the possessor of a truly godawful title; a British heist thriller starring Jason Statham (who I love for no discernible reason), The Bank Job; and Stephen Chow’s rather unexpected retreat into family comedy, CJ7.
Allegedly, the new David Gordon Green film Snow Angels begins its very delayed crawl across the country, but I’ll believe that when I leave the theater after having seen it.
14.3.2008
So, not that long ago, I saw a trailer for a film that looked to steal, in no uncertain terms, the entire concept behind 28 Weeks Later. “A ripoff!” says I. Then the trailer moved on, to become an unabashed pastiche of the crazy people from The Road Warrior. “Derivative!” I says. Then there’s a shot with a vehicle looking exactly like Dead Reckoning from Land of the Dead. “What a strange thing to steal!” I huff. “But if it’s so shameless, why have the ever-marvelous Bob Hoskins and the sometimes-worthy Malcolm McDowell attached themselves?” Then the answer came: “From the director of The Descent.” Oh. Well, Neil Marshall is at a most satisfying two-for-two right now, with that and Dog Soldiers, which is why I shall go with an open mind into his terribly non-original looking Doomsday. Kudos on yet another “D” title.
Speaking of bizarre retreads, why has Michael Haneke seen fit to remake his own modern classic of audience abuse, Funny Games, apparently shot-by-shot? Yes, I know “why.” To make it more approachable for English speakers. But you know who’s not going to see this film for any reason? People who don’t like art films. It just seems asinine to me, but I guess that’s why I’m not an internationally loved and hated director.
Other than mentioning that it exists, I would like to have nothing to do with the animated Horton Hears a Who! starring the voice of Jim Carrey.
21.3.2008
The Judd Apatow Project releases its newest effort, Drillbit Taylor: in which Owen Wilson plays a goofy but lovable mercenary hired to defend some high schoolers against a bully. It will need to be better and more successful than Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story in order to keep that newly burnished Apatowgloss from losing all of its luster. The trailers do not suggest that it will.
In the “art” corner is the Weinstein Company pimping the holy hell out of Under the Same Moon, comparing it to Cinema Paradiso. This is sort of like comparing a movie to rubbing packets of sugar into your eyes until you’re bleeding from your tear ducts. Maybe that’s just me.
Other than mentioning that it exists, I would like to have nothing to do with Meet the Browns, the newest entry in the Complete Works of Tyler Perry.
28.3.2008
What’s sexier than Vegas? Gorgeous young white people running amok in Vegas! Or so the ad campaign for 21 – based on the adventures of a clutch of Asian-American MIT students – tells me. On the other hand, I am happy to see where Jim Sturgess’s career will go now that Across the Universe put him on the map. Elsewhere David Schwimmer makes his feature directorial debut with Run, Fatboy, Run, which is scary, and the plot (fat man tries to lose weight for love) seems iffy, but it is Simon Pegg’s first major starring role in a film that is not a genre parody by Edgar Wright. So maybe. Maybe.
At any rate, it’s not Superhero Movie, and I mean Jesus Christ aren’t they done making those goddamn fucking things yet?
To end the month well: the long, long, long-awaited second film directed by Kimberly Peirce, a sublimely-cast Iraq drama (one of them has to make money eventually, right?) titled Stop Loss.