(Don’t miss the 1000th post bash – it’s just a scroll-down away!)
The summer season begins as early as it ever, ever has, largely by the accident that a Friday falls on the 2nd this year. As always, my hopes are low; and yet there are more than a couple films opening in the next four months that I’m completely stoked about, and a couple more that I’m worried about but looking forward to.
NB: May is going to be a relentlessly busy month for me, and blogging will be light; possibly just the E-ticket blockbusters and Sunday Classics some weeks. Your insufficiently rigorous film review needs will have to be filled elsewhere, I’m afraid.
(After the preview, I shall go ahead and make a fool of myself completely: summer box-office predictions!)
2.5.2008
At the multiplex I frequent, in order to get to the screens you have to go up an escalator. At the top of this escalator is the theater’s display of promotional stand-ees, and for many months the first thing you would see was a seven-foot tall poster for the Patrick Dempsey vehicle Made of Honor, with a hole cut out where the female lead’s head should be, so you can take your picture as a bride with “Patrick Dempsey.” Every single time I saw this display, on at least a couple of dozen different occasions, I had the same exact first thought: “Patrick Dempsy or no, a film called Made of Honor really ought to be in some way about the Marines. Possibly about a lady Marine who feels the need to prove herself to the supercute drill sergeant played by Patrick Dempsey. I assume the lady is played by, I dunno, Kate Hudson. Or maybe Meg Ryan, seeing as this concept is from 1994.” And thus do I go happily to whatever godawful horror film I just spent $9.50 to see.
The little films! David Mamet’s first movie as a born-again nonliberal, Redbelt, and I do look forward to hearing all those speeches about military interventionism and privatizing education written with his characteristically vulgar flair, or whatever it is exactly that Mamet means by not being a liberal. Or how about Son of Rambow, in which the deeply stale British genre of movies about quirky individuals becoming the center of a tight little community unit tries to shoot itself with some uppers by making said quirky individuals filmmaking children? I say, the genre peaked a decade ago, now just let it die in piece.
There’s also something with Robert Downey, Jr, called Iron Man, which I guess is a documentary about metalworkers, or something… I don’t think I’ve heard anything about this movie at all.
9.5.2008
The Wachowskis work their particular brand of magic on updating Speed Racer, the beloved old anime show from those good old days when all the anime that got imported to America completely sucked. The trailer really does make my eyes burn with all that candy-colored excess; a whole movie of it will probably send me into seizures.
Elswhere: What Happens in Vegas, a romantic comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, directed by a veteran of HBO dramas. Man oh man, I can hardly wait to preorder my opening night ticket. In all honesty, something about the concept (two strangers get married in Vegas while drunk, win $3 million, try to force the other into instigating a divorce so the money doesn’t have to be split) sounds like it might actually have been really good if it were made by someone who knew his comedic timing, and starred appealingly wicked comic stars. Basically, I wish this was a Lubitsch film from the 1930s.
16.5.2008
Drumroll… It’s 2008’s first big-budget sequel! The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which I’m somehow looking forward even though it boasts the same creative team as the generic and lukewarm The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I hope that my incredibly predictable disappointment amuses all of you. By the way, if anyone out there could help me with something: it’s no secret that C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnia books as a series of Christian apologetics, and in most of the books it’s easy to figure out what the secret meaning is. But I’ve never had any idea what element of Prince Caspian is particularly theological; anybody?
Nothing else opens in wide release this weekend. Summer may not be great for movie-watching, but it’s awesome for movie-previewing.
22.5.2008
Hokey smokes. After only 19 years in the making, the world has a film that we maybe didn’t need. Probably didn’t need. Either way, I’ve never been so anxious and so completely nervous about a movie since I was a very small person – even the ballyhoo surrounding the Star Wars prequels didn’t get me as hyped up as I am for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’ll have more to say about it as the time gets closer.
23.5.2008
It’s good to know that even if Indiana Jones and the KOCS crashes and burns (and let’s be honest, there’s no possibility that it will be as good as the most ardent fanboys – like myself – want it to be; Citizen Kane isn’t that good), at least one film this weekend has virtually no chance of disappointing. I’m referring of course to Uwe Boll’s Postal, a video game adaptation that is also a satire on the Global War on Terror. Directed by the creator of House of the Dead. Political satire. That Boll has a greater sense of humor than anyone alive is I think proven by his insistence that his film should premiere the same weekend as Indy 4. Frankly, if they were actually opening the same day, I’m not certain which one I’d go to first.
30.5.2008
So, I don’t ever specifically plan on not seeing a movie. The Blog is Life, and so forth. But I am specifically planning on not seeing Sex in the City, the feature-length epilogue to the much-adored HBO series of which I have seen and hated two episodes (from the first or second season; I can’t really be arsed to remember), finding the program’s lie-filled idea of American femaledom and New York City (and I don’t even like New York) to be offensive on an almost moral level. Also, and much more importantly, I didn’t find it even remotely funny; it was like an eight-years-later retread of Seinfeld. Literally.
The good news? This weekend also sees the release of The Strangers, a low-concept horror film with absolutely the scariest trailer released during my lifetime. Seriously, there’s hardly a shock cut to be found, and the moment that always makes someone in the audience scream is a long shot that lasts for about seven seconds. Which is an eternity in a trailer.
Scattered throughout, of course, are many little limited releases that will be in who-knows-which city on who-knows-which date, and most of which I’ll probably not be able to see anyway. I’ll do what I can.
And now…
Box Office Predictions
Biggest Opening: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Fairly a no-brainer, given that its official opening day before the ubiquitous midnight screenings is a Thursday. Even so, I have a feeling that EVERYbody is going to see this opening weekend, followed by a sharp drop-off unless word of mouth is incredible.
Top 10:
The Dark Knight $310 million
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $300 million
Iron Man $285 million
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian $260 million
Hancock $230 million
Wall-E $200 million
Mamma Mia! $170 million
Kung Fu Panda $160 million
Speed Racer $140 million
The Incredible Hulk $130 million
(It should be noted: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is going to out-gross a lot of these films no matter what come November).