New Movies This Week profile,
Teen comedy, crime drama, intense horror, romance, and an animated kid’s film. I think I just heard Keanu say “Whoa!” The Studios are offering up a veritable potpourri of cinema this weekend. It feels like an oddity to me to see such degree of diversity at the box office, but I know it’s probably not. It’s just been a while and we’re not used to it.
This has been M. Night Shyamalan week at Doom HQ as we prepare for our Flix of Doom review of Devil, along with a discussion of Shyamalan’s body of work. So that’s where my geeky ass is going to be planted at the theater this weekend.
I wanna know what movie YOU are planning to see this weekend?
Check out your choices here below.
The Town: So, two guys are into this chick. This chick is a bank teller. One of the dudes is a cop. One is a robber. Robber dude recently robbed the chick’s bank. Cop dude is the guy trying to find robber dude. Jon Hamm is the cop. Ben Affleck is the robber. Rebecca Hall is the chick. AND, Ben Affleck also happens to be the film’s director. I don’t know about you, but I’m in 100%. Say what you want about Affleck, but the dude can fucking make a good movie. You know I’m right. If Devil wasn’t coming out this week too, this is where I’d be.
Pluses: Directed by and starring Ben Affleck. Jon Hamm.
Minuses: Plot seems thin
Director: Ben Affleck
Stars: Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall
Never Let Me Go: I started reading the book for this movie last week because it was the only other thing in my Kindle reader beside Let The Right One In. I’m not done yet, but it’s shaping up to be a very engrossing affair. Complex in all the right ways and simple when it needs to be. I honestly can’t see it being a very compelling movie, but I guess that’s because I haven’t gotten to the part with the Giant Robots who shoot flames. That’s probably the part I’m looking forward to the most. Wait… what? No flame shooting robots? Duped again…
Pluses: Adapted from a Kazuo Ishiguro novel; Dystopian Sci-fi-tinged ‘Future-now’ backdrop.
Minuses: Blatantly chick-flicky.
Director: Mark Romanek
Stars: Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan
Easy A: A teenager makes discoveries in the novel The Scarlet Letter that remind her of her own situation, and somehow finds a way to use themes from the book to boost her reputation. Concept sound appealing? I was pretty sure The Scarlet Letter wasn’t a feelgood tween-comedy, but rather about a woman’s harsh life of mistreatment after being outed for Adultery. It could be a fun movie but it smacks of one that I’d usually discover on basic cable a few years after its initial release.
Pluses: Emits a 10 Things I Hate About You/Mean Girls vibe
Minuses: Target audience=Tweenagers
Director: Will Gluck
Stars: Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes
Devil: This movie looks and sounds scary as hell. The concept is great: A group of people get stuck in an elevator and we come to find out that one of them is secretly THE MOTHERFUCKING DEVIL. I don’t see any reason why this movie won’t be awesome. The story the movie is based on was written by M. Night Shyamalan. As far as I’m concerned seeing the tagline ‘From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan’ should make people start passing out and shit, but yeah, I’ve seen everyone giggle instead. All right. Hold on now. Stay with me here. Don’t go M. Night hating on me. The man knows thriller. The man knows scary. Everyone has a bad day at work. His just happened to be a billion dollar 3D mess, which I’ll remind you, he didn’t write. This is the movie I’ll be seeing this weekend, because I love getting scared.
Pluses: From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan. NOT directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Minuses: NOT directed by M. Night Shyamalan (Shut up! he’s a good director!)
Director: John Erick Dowdle
Stars: Chris Messina, Bokeem Woodbine, Caroline Dhavernas
Alpha and Omega: Two CGI-animated wolves find themselves transplanted from their Canadian home to some State park in Idaho and spend the rest of the movie on a perilous journey back home. They also seem to be pushing the ‘social order’ subtext with a clear ‘She’s a princess, he’s a peon’ motif. I’m not sure I have any opinion one way or another about this one. Animated children’s movies is uncharted territory for the movie studio that brings you another SAW film every October. Who knows? It could be a heartwarming tale of adventure that will eventually join the pantheon of CGI toons we all know and love. Or it could be a 90-minute advertisement for the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt.
Pluses: Seemingly benign kids movie.
Minuses: Iffy Lionsgate Cartoon Movie is Iffy.
Director: Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck
Stars: Hayden Panettiere, Christina Ricci, Justin Long (Full Cast)
(source:sofdoom.com)