Quite an Oscar Night for “The Hurt Locker”, as the little movie that could shocked the world by becoming the lowest (relative) grossing movie ever to win Best Picture, with Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman ever to win Best Director.
My predictions were spot on for the acting and directing awards, but the anticipated split vote between “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar” that would have allowed “Inglourious Basterds” to sneak in didn’t happen. I also missed on both writing awards as “Up in the Air” was upset by “Precious”, and Tarantino lost out to “The Hurt Locker” writer Mark Boal.
I was 7 right and 4 wrong for the lesser categories…not that anyone (including me) cares.
On to this week. Forget the movies coming out today…there is only one release that has my attention this weekend, and that is the first episode of HBO’s “The Pacific”. Made by the same people who created what many (myself included) consider the Greatest Mini Series of All Time, “Band of Brothers”, Episode One debuts this Sunday at 9 PM. From everything I’ve seen, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have done it again, as it looks as if they have spared no expense in creating as magnificent of a story of the Pacific battles of WWII as was shown of the European Theater efforts in Band of Brothers.
If you don’t have HBO, you might want to consider getting it, even if only for the next 10 weeks.
“Shipping Out”, the first episode, takes place eight months after Pearl Harbor as the 1st Marine Division lands on Guadalcanal.
Something else on the small screen to look forward to this week is Tuesday’s premier of the new FX series “Justified” with “Deadwood’s” Timothy Olyphant once again in a cowboy hat with a gun. Olyphant will play a modern day U.S. Marshall with a 19th Century style of justice and law enforcement. I can’t wait.
Mini Review – Law Abiding Citizen
I really like Gerard Butler as an actor. I think he has incredible range, playing anything from a chiseled king in “300” to doing his own vocals playing the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s cheesy “Phantom of the Opera”. So given the actor, and the obvious comparisons one could make of “Law Abiding Citizen” to one of my Guilty Pleasures of 2009, “Taken”, I was looking forward to watching this on DVD.
What a mistake.
Not a good movie, one that in fact immediately goes into my Bottom Five for 2009, listed below such dreck as “Transformers 2”, “The Taking of Pelham 123”, and “Push”. The biggest problem with this film is that you start out rooting for Butler as the sympathetic Victim with Righteous Anger, but then later on it is twisted so you are expected turn on him, as he becomes just a little too obsessed with his blood lust.
Why do they need to make him the bad guy? It’s so that you can root for the other “star”, Jamie Foxx as the Good Guy as the career obsessed assistant District Attorney who originally cut a deal with one of the men who raped and killed Butler’s character’s wife and young daughter just to ensure that he conviction rate didn’t dip.
Some of the plot devices are interesting and inventive, and there are a couple of amusing twists that will surprise you, but in the end, you’re just disappointed once you realize that you’ve been manipulated to cheering for someone (Foxx) that just isn’t that damn likable…but you really have no choice as the script makes it so that you can’t really pull for Butler towards the end either.
I saw this movie on the flight back from San Francisco last week. What a waste of $6. Hopefully I can find a way to bury it on my expense report (just kidding).
My rating – Derek Anderson (1 Football). All hype and potential with horrible execution.
News and Rumors
~ Speaking of Tom Hanks, he’s set to next get back in front of the camera with his “Charlie Wilson’s War” co-star Julia Robers in “Larry Crowne”, a comedy drama about a middle aged man forced to find a new career. Wouldn’t it be great if they opened the movie by having George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham from “Up in the Air” firing him? OK…that’s just me doing some wishful thinking there.
~ Speaking of Steven Spielberg, he’s rumored to perhaps jump the HBO ship for Showtime and produce “Robopocalypse”, a sci-fi (really?) series about the human race’s attempt to survive an apocalyptic robot uprising. Uh…and the difference between this and Terminator is????
~ Yeah…another body swap movie. This will be “The Change-Up” and will see Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman swapping places with Reynolds’ wild and crazy bachelor swapping bodies with Bateman’s boringly settled family man. David Dobkin, the director of “The Wedding Crashers” will helm this film, which is a good sign.
~ More good casting news from the Coen Brothers’ remake of “True Grit”; Barry Pepper will join the cast as (amusingly), ‘Lucky’ Ned Pepper, the villain played by Robert Duvall in the original John Wayne film. The earlier rumors of Josh Brolin playing Rooster Cogburn weren’t true…Brolin is in the cast, but as Tom Chaney, not as Cogburn, whoh will actually be played by this year’s Oscar winner for Best Actor, Jeff Bridges. And Matt Damon will be playing the role of La Beouf, originated by Glen Campbell. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld will play the pivotal role of young Mattie Ross.
~ This one will make the “Avatar” haters cringe…hell, it’s making me cringe a bit. James Cameron is talking about re-releasing the movie this summer of fall with NEW footage added. Just what we need…stretching out a nearly four hour movie to nearly five hours just so it can make another $500 million.
~ Clint Eastwood is looking to direct a biography of J. Edgar Hoover, using a script from “Milk” writer Dustin Lance Black. Not sure of the audience for this, but Clint usually knows what he’s doing.
Stupid Remakes and Sequels
~ More Smurftastic voices added to the movie I’m already totally sick of! Quentin Tarantino is now rumored to be onboard, losing major Macho Points from me if it’s true.
This week's new movie releases:
Green Zone
Starring: Matt Damon, Jason Isaacs, Greg Kinnear
Plot: Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in an unstable region.
The BeerBuzz: This is blatantly (and shamelessly) being promoted as pretty much a Jason Bourne movie, given the star and Bourne director Paul Greengrass. Very mixed reviews coming out of the gate. Everyone seems to like Greengrass’s usual fast-take, jerky directorial style and tone, and Damon once again is getting credit for his job as an action hero. But the script is being criticized for being a little too bland and “safe”, as if they are worried of offending people on one side or the other of the Iraq War.
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She’s Out of My League
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve
Plot: A guy lets his insecurities pick away at his fledgling relationship with the perfect girl.
The BeerBuzz: Another Judd Apatow wannabee starring one of Judd’s bit players from another movie, directed by someone behind the camera for the first time on a motion picture. I smell a bomb.
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Remember Me
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Emilie de Ravin, Chris Cooper
Plot: A romantic drama centered on two new lovers: Tyler, whose parents have split in the wake of his brother's suicide, and Ally, who lives each day to the fullest since witnessing her mother's murder.
The BeerBuzz: I defy ANY guy who comes to this sports site on a regular basis to read the above description of the plot without gagging. A you freaking serious? This sounds awful even if it was released where it should be…directly to the Lifetime Channel. No matter, Hollywood is bound and determined to force the terminally boring Robert Pattinson down our throats. I’m most disappointed in the great Chris Cooper slumming it by taking a role in this crapfest.
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Our Family Wedding
Starring: America Ferrera, Forest Whitaker, Carlos Mencia
Plot: The weeks leading up to a young couple's wedding is comic and stressful, especially as their respective fathers try to lay to rest their long-standing feud.
The BeerBuzz: I was just talking about Chris Cooper slumming it in “Remember Me”, now we have another former Oscar winner going through the motions for a paycheck in Forest Whitaker. Did you see the trailer on this? A goat eats a bunch of Viagra pills and then goes after the Dad! Hilarious, right? Wrong. Just an excuse for offensive stereotypes about TWO minority groups.
March 16th DVD Releases:
The Princess and the Frog – Relatively harmless kids film from Disney, more in the line of “The Little Mermaid” and “Pocahontas” than “Beauty and the Beast” or the superior animations from Pixar. Still, the kids will love it, and you won’t feel the need to stab your eyes out with a spork if you are forced to watch it with them.
Ninja Assassin – Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting (huh!). If you want more than that in terms of plot…then this isn’t the movie for you.
Did You Hear About the Morgans? – Did you hear that once upon a time, Hugh Grant could actually draw people to the theater? Not anymore, especially not teamed with Human Stick Figure Sarah Jessica Parker as two bickering sophisticates stuck out in the sticks as part of the Witness Protection Plan.
The Fourth Kind – More like the Fourth Retread of a lame X-Files episode, with an ongoing mystery in Alaska, where one town has seen an extraordinary number of unexplained disappearances. Hungry Polar Bears?
Astro Boy – What a major, major bomb this was.
Armored – Heist movie with Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, and Matt Dillon. Fizzled at the box office, but when you look at what else is coming out this week, this would probably be my choice for a rental.
Calendar Watch
Next Week Repo Men, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Bounty Hunter
Upcoming Biggies (click on the hyperlink to view the available trailers).
Clash of the Titans – April 2 – Re-imaging of the campy Harry Hamlin sword-and-sandals film from the 80s. The trailer looks intriguing, at least
Nightmare on Elm Street – April 30 – Jack Earle Haley (“Watchmen”) takes over the Freddy Krueger role.
Iron Man 2 – May 7 – Downey Jr. is back, this time dealing with Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) and Black Widow (Scarlet Johannson).
Robin Hood – May 14 – Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe in what is supposed to be a more “historic” account of the legendary hero.
Shrek Forever After – May 21 – 3D entry into the series that is seemingly the only way Michael Myers or Eddie Murphy can make any money
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – May 28 – Might this finally be the first video game that translates to a huge hit at the box office? Depends on whether or not you can buy Jake Gyllenhaal as an action hero. Why not? It worked for Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey Jr.
The A-Team – June 11 – Based on the campy TV series…but the makers of this film are trying to sell it more as an action film with no camp. With Liam Neeson playing Hannibal Smith as their leader, they may have a chance.
Toy Story 3D – June 18 - It looks like a big year for 3D films in 2010. In this one, Buzz, Woody, and the rest of the toys are dumped into a day care after Andy grows up and goes to college.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – July 2 – More Wussy Vampires! I can’t wait! (sorry…sarcasmectomy isn’t scheduled for a few months yet).
Inception – July 16 – Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page in a Christopher Nolan sci-fi mind bender that looks to be in the mode of “Momento”
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – July 16 – Live action remake of the Disney classic short, starring Nicolas Cage.
Salt – July 23 – Angelina Jolie as a CIA operative accused of being a Russian spy.
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps – September 24 – Oliver Stone brings Michael Douglass back as Gordon Gecko, teaming him with Shia LaBeouf in a film that looks to be quite different in tone than the last one.
Tron Legacy – December 17 – Might be the most anticipated Holiday release of this year.