The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (trailer)
Director: Troy Duffy (The Boondock Saints)
Personal Interest Factor: 1
Never saw the original, although I vaguely remembering it being released. Didn’t realize it has a big enough following to justify a sequel a decade later.
Metacritic: 26
Gentlemen Broncos (trailer)
Director: Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre)
Personal Interest Factor: 3
I understand that I should see one of Hess’s movies one day before bashing him, and I won’t insult anyone by defending my behavior in this regard. But there’s something about his movies that instantly and thoroughly repel me, and the thought of sitting through one is anathema to me. So my sincere apologies to Hess for the unjustified dismissal but I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.
Metacritic: 28
The House of the Devil (trailer)
Director: Ti West (The Roost)
Personal Interest Factor: 4
Allegedly decent little horror film. Woman on the run from psychos, etc. Not a fan of horror in general, and when I get sucked into one I usually regret it (e.g., The Descent), so I’ll probably leave the enjoyment of this to others.
Metacritic: 74
Pirate Radio (trailer)
Director: Richard Curtis (Love Actually)
Personal Interest Factor: 5
A few weeks ago I praised Ang Lee for not using super-obvious song choices in Taking Woodstock. It appears that Curtis has done exactly that for this movie – the trailer advertises music by The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, etc. Maybe Curtis has used obscure and/or counterintuitive selections by those bands, a la Wes Anderson, but I doubt it. This looks like the kind of movie that pats Boomers on the back for being alive when “My Generation” was new.
Metacritic: 56
Skin
Director: Anthony Fabian
Personal Interest Factor: 7
Interesting-sounding movie out of South Africa, about a black child born to white parents apparently unaware of their own black ancestry. Starring Sophie Okonedo and Sam Neill.
Metacritic: 65
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon (trailer)
Director: Mary Mazzio
Personal Interest Factor: 2
Documentary about inner-city teens competing in an “annual business plan competition.”
Metacritic: 47
2012 (trailer)
Director: Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC)
Personal Interest Factor: 4
I was working as a projectionist when Independence Day came out, and I remember a co-worker of mine, Geoff, had dismissed the movie beforehand as trash. He grudgingly joined the rest of us for a screening, and changed his tune after the alien attack. “OK, I was wrong!” he said, unprompted, as that scene ended. I think we all felt the same way. Point is, that kind of all-out disaster mayhem was a real kick back in the day. But 13 years and a million disaster movies (half of them by Emmerich himself) later, do I really need to see that same scene stretched out to feature length? I doubt it. Been there, done that.
Metacritic: 50
I’m going to make it my mission to never see 2012. Not only is it reinforcing the idiocy of the notion that the world is going to end then (which is compelling some people to actually commit suicide) but I just don’t get the appeal of contemplating the end of the world like it was a thrill ride. Just watching the commercial bums me out, thinking of the masses of people that would be dying if it were true (but John Cusack and his adorable children, they’re alive!)
And I hated Independence Day.
I hate Independence Day now, too. But when I was 18 years old there was still some novelty to be squeezed out of the summer blockbuster.
The massive campaign running for Pirate Radio is truly baffling. I almost feel like I’ve hallucinated the whole thing as it seems so inconceivable that a studio would spend so much on a film destined to make under 15 million dollars.
I guess it’s basically continuing the tradition of all those Irwin Allen disaster films of the 1970s. It reminds me a bit of what George Carlin used to say in his later standup routines about how when we watch natural disasters, in the back of our minds we sort of get a kick out of seeing them unfold.
It’s heading for around $3 million this weekend, so it might not even make 10 mil.
The thing I got from the promos for the film (which was released here several months ago) was an overall air of smugness. And that’s not surprising as from what I’ve seen of Richard Curtis’ work in recent years, the films always come across as very self-satisfied.