Brave (trailer)
Directors: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
Personal Interest Factor: 8
I’m always eager for a new Pixar, but some warning signs on this one, starting with mostly middling reviews, and a general feeling on my part that the Pixar emphasis on character and story has been slipping lately. I guess we’ll see.
Metacritic: 68
Dark Horse (trailer)
Director: Todd Solondz (Happiness, Storytelling, Palindromes, Life During Wartime)
Personal Interest Factor: 4
Somehow, I’ve never seen a Todd Solondz film, although I remember when Welcome to the Dollhouse came out and I felt like I ought to see that one. This one’s about “a besieged man-child and his fractured family” … oh joy.
Metacritic: 66
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (trailer)
Director: Lorene Scafaria
Personal Interest Factor: 6
I dunno about this one. As I’ve said before, I like Steve Carell, but this one just seems too Carell-ish, and besides that, the trailer really emphasizes the sitcom-like aspects of an end-of-the-world plot (e.g., that policeman, or the manic TGI Friday’s-like restaurant that has been overparodied). I’m really on the fence with this.
Metacritic: 60
The Woman in the Fifth (trailer)
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love)
Personal Interest Factor: 6
Thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Kristen Scott Thomas, about an American professor involved in some kind of sleazy underworld hijinks in Paris.
Metacritic: 57
Also this week:
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (trailer) – somehow this DTV-caliber shlock gets a summer studio release
Bel Ami (trailer) – Robert Pattinson as 19th-century Parisian womanizer
The Color Wheel – “misanthropic comedy … of pettiness and failure”
Natural Selection (trailer) – indie comedy(?) about a woman trying to reunite her husband with his illegitimate son
Payback (trailer) – doc about the abstract concept of debt
