I've read a lot lately about movies (that are coming out soon or starting production soon) that look great. Starting with the earliest release date, which will be next Friday, the 29th, a sequel to one of the best movies I have ever seen is coming out. City of God was a movie about two boys growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil who take on different paths in life (one a photographer, one a drug dealer). It's subtitled, extremely violent, but also very powerful...I highly recommend watching it. It's sequel, City of Men, will be released next Friday, and I'm guessing (as most sequels go) it will not be as good as the first one, but I'm sure it will be worth seeing.
For fans of Judd Apatow (how can you not be right now?), one of his new films will be released around the beginning of this summer called Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It's about a guy getting dumped by his girlfriend and trying to get over it...except the vacation spot he chooses to get his mind off things happens to be where his ex and her new boyfriend are spending their vacation. Kind of a cheesy, romantic-comedy plot, but let's face it...Judd Apatow has made quite a name for himself with his comedies, so I'll definitely go see this one.
Speaking of directors having made names for themselves, M. Night Shamalabalaba (just kidding...Shyamalan) ["naga...naga...not gonna work here anymore"] is coming out with a new film a few weeks after Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I know a lot of people have been annoyed by some of Night's movies, but personally I think they're all great. Ok, so maybe some of them have some holes in them but he's still very creative and knows how to build suspense. His new flick is called The Happening, which is apparently about "a family on the run from a natural crisis." It comes out on Friday the 13th (oooo spooky) and it has Mark Wahlberg in it (and who doesn't like Marky Mark?)
Jumping ahead to summer of 2009...and you'll probably think I'm crazy for doing so. Ok, first of all it's a horror movie...second of all, it's a remake of an old horror movie about a summer lake resort that of course is accidentally infested by flesh-eating piranhas...and third of all, it will be in 3-D. If that doesn't make you want to sprint to the movie theater (literally...but next summer of course), I don't know what will. It caught my attention mostly though because it's going to be directed by Alexandre Aja. What? You don't know who that is? He directed a horror movie called Haute Tension, which was also released as High Tension, which was also released as Switchblade Romance, which was also released as The Wiggles Rock London (ok, I made that last one up). I caught this movie at a Halloween horror movie fest at the community theater in Fairfield, CT. A guy came out and prefaced the NC-17 movie by saying that it was probably illegal that he was showing it...which definitely tuned me in. It was easily one of the goriest movies (I'd say the goriest but I'd be leaving out Ichi The Killer and Audition) I've ever seen, but it had a suspenseful and very surprising plot too. Anyways, just look at the movie poster from the original movie (above left).
The last two movies that entered my radar won't be released for a while, but they're both going to be directed by Scorcese, so you know they'll be good. First, he'll be directing an adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel called Shutter Island (but apparently they're changing the name). Lehane is a very good writer, and this will be his third book-turned-movie, the first two being Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone (which I plan on watching after I finish the book, which I just started yesterday). I'm hoping the other movie he's directing will turn out great because it'll be a biopic on Bob Marley. This will not be released until Feb. 6th, 2010 (when Marley would have turned 65).
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7 comments:
Sounds like we've got some date nights coming up.
HOT.
How can you mention movies coming out in 2 years and not mention the most incredible looking movie of the year that comes out tomorrow - the seemingly brilliant "Be Kind, Rewind" by Michel Gondry???
Also, M Night Ramalamadingdong is terrible. I wish I could remember any of his movies, but I've only seen a couple of them once. After all, once you see the "big ending" that's his signature move, the rest of the movie becomes rubbish. I guess you could just watch the last 10 minutes over and over, but to me, it's kind of pointless.
"Be kind, Rewind" does look pretty awesome. The plot is hilarious in itself and Jack Black and Mos Def are in it, so it's gotta be good. But I haven't read much else about it.
How can you say M Night is terrible when you yourself mention that he has a "signature move." If you watch suspenseful movies only to want to know what happens in the end, what's the point of watching at all?
If you liked Haute Tension, check out these movies on the UK's "video nasty" list. they were banned in the UK for basically forever, but they've been trickling through uncut in the US recently. One of them deals with satanism, which will be one of my next blog topics. Not yet though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasty
Kdawg, kdawg, kdawg...
First of all, having a "signature move" doesn't automatically make you a brilliant writer. South Park always kills Kenny at the end, and I don't think we'd compare the writing in that to Ulysses.
The difference between M Night Ramalamadingdong, and - say - Hitchcock, was that even though there might be a surprise ending in many a Hitchcock movie, the rest of the movie wasn't just FILLER.
His movies are dead boring apart from the 10 minutes at the end.
Pyscho, on the other hand, despite the "surprise ending" is actually a good movie for the hour and a half leasing up to the ending.
Mike, Mike, Mike...
I never used the word "brilliant." I'm just making the point that M Night has established his own style of film, so I respect his creativity and consistency. And of course he's had influences, Hitchcock being one of them.
Comparing James Joyce to Trey Parker and Matt Stone? C'mon dude...that's a stretch. Ulysses is one of the greatest works of literature...and I've never read it. South Park is a screwball cartoon...and I watch it all the time.
I won't say you're wrong by saying that M Night's movies are "filler" until the end...that's your opinion. But you're comparing it to Psycho and they follow the same guidelines.
You're blind to what's actually happening the first time you watch it, and that's exciting. But when you watch it again, it's still exciting because you know what's going on and you're watching it with a different mindset...you notice more.
Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, Lady in the Water...ok, I'll accept that maybe you found them boring. I find it hard to believe that you found The Sixth Sense boring until the "10 minutes at the end" though.
But hey...I'll agree to disagree.
I've read Ulysses. I'll take South Park any day and twice on Sundays.
M. Night's tragedy is a familiar one: the huge first hit (Sixth Sense -p Metacritic 64)and then coming up far short thereafter.
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