What was that about?
5.5.2006
A horror movie with a simply goofy trailer, An American Haunting has a good cast that it looks to waste entirely. Why, Donald Sutherland? Why, Sissy Spacek? Also up is the newest Carl Hiaasen adaption (from one of his kids’ books), Hoot – never read it, but I think I’d rather, especially given Hiaasen’s adaptation track record. A new film from Chen Kaige, The Promise, which I just saw the trailer for a couple days back; it looks production-designed within an inch of its life, and kind of silly, but I’ll blame the American ad campaign for the latter. And Art School Confidential, seeing Ghost World collaborators Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes together again, in what will hopefully be a decent comedy thriller. Hard to tell from the trailer.
Yeah…and Mission: Impossible III. Here’s the deal: I hated the first two, I don’t trust J.J. Abrams to direct a feature, and…there doesn’t need to be an “and.” but then, I recall that Philip Seymour Hoffman has somehow managed to find himself in the cast, and that does pique my interest. And I feel bad skipping the First Summer Film of 2006. I don’t know. Don’t be surprised if there’s an M:I:III (God, is that ugly) review on 8 May, and don’t be surprised if it’s angry.
12.5.2006
Wolfgang Petersen returns to the big blue with Poseidon, this year’s big disaster movie (thank God that’s a genre on the decline). The original was Technicolor horsehit, but the some of the main reasons for that (Shelley Winters, Gene Hackman, “The Morning After”) won’t be coming back – hopefully Richard Dreyfuss, making his first film in about thirty years, will do some scenery-chewing. I imagine it will be “dull” more than “bad,” but if I could pay money for The Island, I can pay money for this.
The only other big release is the grim looking Lindsay Lohan vehicle Just My Luck. Remember a couple years ago, it looked like she might actually have an interesting career? No? Just me? Oh well.
Small films: Goal!, another goddamn inspiring sports movie, and Keeping Up with the Steins, an excuse for Garry Marshall’s son to join the family busines of stone-facedly unenjoyable schmaltzy “comedies.”
19.5.2006
The Literary Adaptation of the Summer, The Da Vinci Code, which for a reason I still can’t fathom is being directed by Ron Howard. What in A Beautiful Mind or EdTV recommended him for this, exactly? Nothing in his CV suggests he has the ability to do something like this project. Besides, all but one of his films are shit. Still, Audrey Tautou…lovely, lovely Audrey. Yes, she will get me to see this misbegotten tragedy.
DreamWorks’ latest CGI-o-Rama, Over the Hedge, opens as well, and if they haven’t gotten one right yet, why expect them to start now? Keep up the hack work, boys! Also, cutely, there’s an actual teen horror film opening this weekend, See No Evil. Silly…May, June and July are just about the only months a low-budget scary movie is just about guaranteed to shrivel and die.
26.5.2006
Only two major releases, but damn! are they good-looking: the “conclusion” of the X-Men trilogy (I’ll believe it when I see it), which is not as much a slam dunk as it should be; the first two worked in no small part because Bryan Singer was as a god in directing them. Brett Ratner is a hackaliciously hacktastic hack. The rant: why couldn’t Hacky McHack have stayed with Superman Returns (a film that gets less interesting with every new plot leak), and let Singer complete what he started? Fingers crossed it doesn’t end up sucking.
The other one, honestly the big film of the month for me, is Al Gore’s agitprop documentary An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming. Anyone else see last week’s South Park? Did anyone else think it should have either been meaner to Gore, or proved him right? Because, “Al Gore is a sad man without friends” is just stupid and unfunny.