Chernobyl Diaries (trailer)
Director: Brad Parker
Personal Interest Factor: 1
Normally I’d throw this into the “Also this week” section, except that this one seems unusually crude. I don’t know why it’s gotten so under my skin, except that the Chernobyl disaster was one of the worst things to happen in my lifetime, and I’m not really keen on some dumb exploitational zombie movie made about it. I realize that this is a distinctly fogeyish attitude to take, and I also realize that I could be wrong about the movie and it’s actually more than the dumb run-of-the-mill horror junk it’s being advertised. But I also think it’s fair of me to wonder just what the appeal here is supposed to be.
Metacritic: no score yet
Hysteria (trailer)
Director: Tanya Wexler (Finding North)
Personal Interest Factor: 4
Story about the invention of the vibrator, which looks a little like the female arthouse equivalent of Love and Other Drugs. In other words, pretty much tedious. On the other hand, it appears to also exist as a means for modern audiences to laugh at how stupid people were back in the day, as if future audiences won’t be laughing at what morons we are now.
Metacritic: 53
Men in Black III (trailer)
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld (Wild Wild West, Big Trouble, Men in Black II, RV)
Personal Interest Factor: 5
Um, I’ve been more skeptical of this than just about any other summer movie this year. And now I find myself kinda thinking about checking it out just to see Josh Brolin do his Tommy Lee Jones impression. How’d that happen? The movie doesn’t even look any good.
Metacritic: 59
Polisse (trailer)
Director: Maïwenn
Personal Interest Factor: 5
French drama about a division of the Paris police assigned to child services. The trailer indicates that I will strongly hate it for pretending to be about the filmmakers’ self-congratulatory concern for the welfare of children but in actuality being about the trivial romantic drama of the officers. But I could be wrong. So it’s a dilemma for me, because I might go and like it, but if I don’t like it, I might really hate it. I’m leaning towards ‘no’.
Metacritic: 76
Also this week:
Hick (trailer) – Chloë Grace Moretz does the Jodie-Foster-in-Taxi-Driver thing
Wallander: The Revenge (trailer) – first episode of the Swedish TV series
