Amelia (trailer)
Director: Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair, The Namesake)
Personal Interest Factor: 4
Sounds like this one is a pretty huge misfire. Let’s be honest, though, there was never any reason to think that “Hey, let’s make a movie about Ameria Earhart’s love life!” would be a winner, either creatively or in terms of box office.
Metacritic: 41
Antichrist (trailer)
Director: Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville,Manderlay)
Personal Interest Factor: 8
Been steeling myself for this one since the disastrous screenings in Cannes. Thing is, von Trier’s films are always hard to watch in some sense or the other, and he always is tough on his female leads. And a lot of critics hated Dogville, also, but I thought that one was interesting (missed Manderlay, sadly). I guess what I’m saying is that I suspect the whole controversy is overblown, but I’ll see for myself.
Metacritic: 52
Astro Boy (trailer)
Director: David Bowers (Flushed Away [co-director])
Personal Interest Factor: 2
Looks harmless enough but still not anything I really feel the need to see.
Metacritic: 55
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (trailer)
Director: Paul Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy, In Good Company,The Golden Compass)
Personal Interest Factor: 2
Blah, blah, blah, vampires, blah, blah, blah.
Metacritic: 44
An Education (trailer)
Director: Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners)
Personal Interest Factor: 8
Strong reviews since it premiered earlier in the year at Cannes, and even the trailer is charming. Looking forward to it.
Metacritic: 84
Léon Morin, Priest
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville (Les enfants terribles, Bob le flambeur, Les doulos,Army of Shadows)
Personal Interest Factor: 10
Melville is one of my favorite directors, based on the four of his films that I’ve listed (and especially Army of Shadows), and every chance to see another one is exciting to me. The Gene Siskel Film Center is doing a weeklong run of this film as the centerpiece to their mini-retrospective of Jean-Paul Belmondo’s career, which will also include, among a few others, Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid and Godard’s Pierrot le fou.
Metacritic: not listed
Saw VI (trailer)
Director: Kevin Greutert
Personal Interest Factor: 1
I’ll let the Personal Interest Factor speak for itself, I guess.
Metacritic: no score yet
Walt & El Grupo (trailer)
Director: Theodore Thomas
Personal Interest Factor: 3
I’ve never heard of this; apparently it’s a documentary about Walt Disney and his crew of animators taking a trip to South America on a government-sponsored goodwill mission in the 1930s. I’ll leave any further comments to Joe, our resident Disneyologist.
Metacritic: 58
Given that Hillary Swank’s next two films are low budget genre features (including one from John Carpenter, no less) I’d say her days as a respectable feature film lead are over.
Next stop will be a well-paying television gig, I guess.
Hasn’t she been in some pretty non-respectable genre features in the near past?
The Astro-Boy trailers really look pretty good…
She was back to doing a TV movie within 5 years of her first Oscar win so I suppose it will be a case of history repeating itself if what James says comes to pass.
She might luck out and land another shot, but she’s got to stop taking every gig that passes her rigorous pre-screening criteria of “paying me”.
Thanks for the shout-out!
All I know about Walt & El Grupo I learned from IMDB, but the basic idea is that the government sent Disney and his animators to South America either to curry Latin favor or distract them…hoping the result would be that none of those countries would enter the war (at least against the US).
Many reviews say it’s too sunny a narrative or plays out like a whitewashed family home movie.
Can’t wait to see it!
And now I see there is a special screening tonight at the Walt Disney Family Museum with the filmmakers. I’m dying without a membership here…darn you recession!!!!