This has been an odd winter so far: enormous hits that weren't supposed to be, movies that looked like they were going to be terrible turning out pretty decent (e.g. Kingsman, which I finally saw and will be reviewing sometime today). So it's probably smart to admit that you never can tell, and even though there's not a single wide-release film that I'm looking forward to in March, I'll bet at least one of them turns out to surprise me.
6.3.2015
I'll also bet that it's not Chappie, which finds Neil Blomkamp (whose career, ever since the last third of District 9, has been an experiment in the art of diminishing returns) cross-cutting Short Circuit with a dour post-Nolan action movie. I lack the imaginative capacity to envision this turning out well, though it's never the wrong choice to put Sigourney Weaver in your genre film. So that's at least one thing to look forward to.
Even so, it's at least the most ambitious-looking film of a rough lot, that also finds Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco, and for some inscrutable reason Tom Wilkinson drugging and cursing and sexing their way across Europe in Unfinished Business. I am not much of a Vaughn fan in the best circumstances, and this is plainly not. Also, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is here to remind us that grandmas like to see movies too, and I need to finally stop dragging my heels on catching up with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Perhaps I will do them as a blog double feature. Because if I suffer, I will make damn sure you suffer with me.
13.3.2015
The first time Disney made a live-action version of one of their animated classics, they had Glenn Close play iconic villain Cruella De Vil. The second time, they had Angelina Jolie play iconic villain Maleficent. And now, they're having Cate Blanchett play rather less iconic villain Lady Tremaine in their new Cinderella, which is where the logic totally loses me. It's like, literally, just a re-skinning of Disney's 1950 animated feature in live-action, without songs with one of our greatest actors playing the wicked stepmother. And, I am sure, doing a kickass job of it; but why bother? Money, obviously, but why really bother? But then, Cinderella is my least favorite of all Disney's princess films, so I clearly don't fit into the target audience.
I am, though, in the target audience for a film in which Badass Liam Neeson and Badass Ed Harris square off, and yet Run All Night looks intensely boring and formulaic in every aspect that isn't those two men being in the same action movie. Especially with Joel Kinnaman in there, all mediocring the place up.
Lastly, I don't usually mention limited releases in these previews, but if you're going to be in a place to see It Follows, you should do so.
20.3.2015
Franchises that feel obligated to messily include their series name in the official title have given us the plainness of The Hunger Games: Whatever and the relative elegance of The Twilight Saga: Whatever Else. But there's something especially charming about the crass functionality of The Divergent Series: Insurgent. Given how fucking useless Divergent was, I expect it to be the solitary element of the film that I shall ever describe as "charming". Fingers crossed for more decent Chicago location porn.
Doggedly attempting to serve as counter-programming, we find this kind of action message movie thing called The Gunman, with Sean Penn as a military contractor. I don't even know. The trailer already practically put me to sleep. Also Do You Believe? is, tragically, not a biopic of late-period Cher, but one of those bleak movies that panders to Evangelical Christian audiences, rubbing their noses in how they're not allowed to enjoy actual movies with actual production value.
27.3.2015
I find myself in the peculiar position of hoping that Home, a ghastly-looking animated sci-fi comedy, manages to become a big hit, because it's sort of the case that the entire future of DreamWorks Animation rests on it turning a profit. And while DreamWorks and I have had our differences - we have, in fact, had virtually nothing but, save for the movies with the words "Dragon" or "Panda" in their title - the landscape of Hollywood studio animation is more vital with DWA alive and kicking than with them dead.
Oh, and Get Hard, your title is an erection joke. Good for you.
03 March 2015
24 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
Hey Tim, I am also hoping the best for "Home" for the same reasons as you are, but may I add that I think you are agreeable toward Dreamworks with regard to anything with "Dragon," "Panda," and "Egypt" in the title!
ReplyDeleteyeah, please tell you've seen and enjoy the highly underrated "Prince of Egypt", Tim.
ReplyDeleteAs for this March wide-release schedule, "no". Just "no". Good time for me to go through my backlog
To the tune of a 7/10, even.
ReplyDelete(Don't ask me how long it took to find that number, Rotten Tomatoes is a terribly-organized beast.)
We've already had a live-action Cinderella with a much wickeder stepmother and a self-rescuing princess heroine besides, so I kind of expect Cinderella to be a remake of Ever After with a less affirming message and puffier dresses. Nevertheless, my little girl is already apoplectic with excitement over this, so I guess we'll be going. My opinion on the film will be her opinion, plus or minus how much damage control I'll have to do afterwards.
ReplyDelete"movies that looked like they were going to be terrible turning out pretty decent (e.g. Kingsman[)]"
ReplyDeleteEvery time I think I've got a bead on you, Tim, you zig instead of zag. Cool.
I guess I'm sort of excited about Chappie and Home, because I think there's still good in Neil Blomkamp and because I like cartoons, respectively. It Follows I'd not even heard of, but evidently I should have?
I liked Kingsman a lot, but I'm honestly surprised you did. It didn't strike me as all that far removed from what Vaughn was doing the last time he took on a Mark Millar comic book, and as I recall you weren't exactly fond of Kick-Ass.
ReplyDeleteI liked Kingsmen too, but I also liked Kick-Ass and Wanted, so maybe I'm a sucker for Mark Millar adaptations that remove some of their mean-spiritedness. Its like the art doesn't hate me now!
ReplyDeleteMake me one more who enjoyed Kingsman, although admittedly, I've yet to see a Matthew Vaughn film I haven't enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm alone in having absolutely fucking hated Kingsman, then. I thought it was every loathsome thing about both Millar and Vaughn rolled into one immensely hateful package.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Antz and Puss in Boots? You liked those too. Also Shrek 2 was good. We don't know what you thought of that.
ReplyDeleteAlso Cinderella isn't your least fave princess film. Pochahontas exists, continuing to question grinning Bobcats.
Chris D: Care to elaborate? I thought Kingsman was a fun film with good action sequences which really had something to say about the 99% vs the 1%.
Is Pocahontas really a princess film?
ReplyDeleteYeah, you never see her posing with Cinderella, Ariel and the others Disney Princesses on posters, t-shirts etc. Could Disney be ashamed of her simple deer-skin clothing?
DeleteDisney officially considers Pocahontas a princess film, but in my head, I've never felt all that comfortable counting it. See also: Mulan (which I like a great deal).
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on Kingsman are going to be up in the next couple of hours, but the preview: on the one hand, flawless technique - on the other, nauseating politics. One must find the balance between them. And you'll note I said "pretty decent", not "oh my God, I loved it so much".
Lastly, I'm shocked I only gave Prince of Egypt a 7. I have very strong 8 memories of it. And of course I do like Puss in Boots, and Madagascar 3, and certain elements of Road to El Dorado, The Croods, and even Rise of the Guardians. Dragon and Panda are the ones I openly love.
However, I dislike Shrek 2 very much. So I have that going for me.
I don't have much of an opinion on Home. I haven't read the book it was based on, but "The True Meaning of Smekday" is such an infinitely better title that I can't help worrying that they've sanded the rest of the edges off too.
ReplyDeleteI hear you Matt. Reminds me of The Bear and the Bow becoming Brave, and the edge sanding that ensued.
ReplyDeleteMy google image search for "Disney Princess" has her show up more often than not, although she's in less than even say Tiana.
ReplyDeleteI was afraid my wife, being quite a fan of Cinderella, would require me to see the new one with her. But upon seeing the poster, the first thing she said was "Ugh, her dress looks so damn cheap. Pass."
ReplyDeleteI hated Kingsman too.
ReplyDeleteHopefully by now everyone who reads these comments regularly knows how incapable I am of being impartial about films with gender issues; but my biggest problem was that I hate the protagonist, and he switches over to being our main character partway through the film, and then a bunch of things happen around him that, for my money, were not funny but stupid. Then there's an even worse joke about anal sex with a /literal/ imprisoned princess acting as a sex prize which, just, no.
And if you are amused by the voice Samuel L. Jackson is doing throughout this movie, I'm sorry, but we differ /extremely/ on that point. It falls upon my ears like a cheese grater on a sore testicle.
I want to watch the action sequence that heralds that main character switchover on a loop, because that three to five minutes was incredible; but everything else about this movie can fuck right off and die.
Any thoughts on Spirit and Sinbad. The other 2D dreamworks films. They were good. Traditional Animation ftw!
ReplyDeleteAnd let's not forget Antz. That was the critically superior film in the "Vermin War of 98".
ReplyDeleteMaybe Cinderella will take the tack of: Lady Tremaine - she's not evil, just misunderstood!
ReplyDeleteThe animated feature might be a tad weak by Disney standards, but when Lady Tremaine finally gets her comeuppance it's a great moment. It's odd for it to feel so triumphant but she is such a bitch that it feels more "real" if you will. Which is odd with a movie featuring talking mice, fairies and 2 people falling in love in under 30 seconds....
I'm not too keen on Spirit - I'd much prefer it without the Damon voiceover, but of course that's too much to expect - but I do enjoy Sinbad for what it is. It's definitely the runner-up to El Dorado for me on any number of fronts (weaker humor, gives in to clichés rather than reorienting them, less inspired voice acting).
ReplyDeleteAntz, I find, has not aged well at all. I never had a chance to see it and A Bug's Life in close quarters, but golly, is ABL ever the more attractive and enjoyable of them to me now.
*cough* still waiting for your A Bug's Life review, as it's the only Pixar film you haven't done yet, but I understand you're busy and am simply throwing it out there because I have an excuse *cough*
ReplyDeleteWell the A Bug's Life review is just about the most inevitable thing on this blog short of a Star Wars retrospective.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion Prince of Egypt is an 8. It might be a little mirthless by the standards of the aesthetic it's tapping into, but it's far from a slog. I will admit that my fondness for the songs is mostly indefensible though.