Scott Weinberg
Philadelphia - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author-452/
So single-mindedly addicted to movies that he's always afraid of an intervention breaking out. Especially horror movies.
'The Thing' Remake Casts Joel Edgerton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Universal, Remakes and Sequels
Some call it a remake, some call it a prequel, I call it a really slippery slope: Universal is planning another film in the (sorta) series that began in 1951 with The Thing (from Another World) and continued in 1982 with John Carpenter's The Thing. JC's remake was not exactly adored upon its theatrical release, but it has since gone on to become a true classic of the genre ... for those who have the guts to make it through the exceedingly intense and icky film. (Me, I freaking love it.) As noted by Heat Vision, our source for this story, all of the films were based on a 1938 John Campbell short story called Who Goes There? (I haven't read it.)We already know that first-timer Matthijs Van Heijningen Jr. will be directing the new version of The Thing, and that Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street '10) and Ronald D. Moore (lots of Star Trek, but even more Battlestar Galactica) are providing the adaptation ... but who will star? HV says it will be Joel Edgerton (King Arthur, Smokin' Aces) as a blue-collar (and no doubt heroic) helicopter pilot (that sounds familiar) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Live Free or Die Hard, Death Proof) as "a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice." Aha. So it is a prequel.
Production begins next month in Toronto.
So What's Worth Seeing in February 2010?
Filed under: New Releases
Last month I did a little piece lamenting the general lack of quality films in January. And now I'm back, only this time we're looking at February ... and not much has changed. Today we get a weepy romance called Dear John and an outlandish action flick called From Paris With Love. (Warning: Travolta alert!) If you happen to get the chilly new thriller Frozen in your market this weekend, I'd recommend that one.So that's two broad demographics covered in week one, but what does the rest of the month have in store for us? Meh. Seems we're still meant to be catching up on the Oscar-nominated fare, because February is mostly quickie flicks and genre films. Next weekend's wide releases are another rom-com (this one called, cleverly enough, Valentine's Day), the long-awaited (and R-rated) remake of The Wolfman (bring it on!), and the wackily-titled franchise hopeful known as Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Those who adore the Jackson source material seem pretty psyched, so maybe the movie version won't suck eggs.
The week after that, Martin Scorsese's very fine Shutter Island gets the weekend all to itself (which is weird but cool), and then the month of wide releases closes out with Kevin Smith's Cop Out (Bruce Willis + Tracy Morgan = me laughing) and the months-delayed but hopefully cool remake of George Romero's The Crazies.
If you wander the arthouses or enjoy picking through your On Demand options, you might want to look at the District B13 sequel, which is fun, or the Red Riding crime trilogy from IFC, or (at the end of the month), Sony's release of the festival-adored A Prophet. Or go watch District 9 again.
Free Flick of the Day: The Three Stooges in Orbit
Filed under: Comedy
Like most boys, I love The Three Stooges. (I certainly know a few women who enjoy the antics of Moe, Larry, and Curly, but I don't think it's sexist to assert that the Stooges appeal mainly to childish men.) Just a few nights ago I flipped on to AMC and there they were! The original Stooges as Pony Express riders or some such nonsense. Just the konk-bonk-boink sound effects were enough to bring me back to childhood afternoons filled with Three Stooges shorts.But today's Free Flick of the Day, courtesy of the SlashControl folks, is the 1962 feature The Three Stooges in Orbit, which came out in 1962 (right after The Three Stooges Meet Hercules and right before The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze). OK, so it's not exactly their old-school like Soup to Nuts (1930) or Time Out for Rhythm (1941), but it's still Moe, Larry, and (ugh) Curly-Joe -- who had some skills, absolutely, but is not the true Curly.
You can enjoy the silly farce right here, and then feel free to devour a bunch of the classic Stooges shorts over at this rather impressive resource.
Sundance Review: Lucky
Filed under: Documentary, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
Ever wonder what happens to a lottery winner after he or she wins $2, $20, or (gasp) $200 million? You can be sure that filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound) has considered the question, because his latest documentary is all about that. Entitled Lucky, it's a slick and simple "human interest" sort of documentary (not unlike Spellbound) that may not shock you or change your world view -- but hell, it's pretty interesting to see what happens after a middle-class family wins $314 million.
Unfortunately, Lucky doesn't have the built-in charm that the young spelling bee contestants brought to Spellbound. The jackpot winners we meet are: a cranky old man who blew through his millions depressingly quick, a family of four, a Vietnamese immigrant who hit the numbers with seven co-workers, a grimy sadsac, and a mathematician. We also visit with a woman who happily drops $70 per day on lottery tickets ... but Lucky seems a bit more interested in the happy endings than the dour ones.
Sundance Review: HIGH School
Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
You know how when you like a person, you're often able to overlook their faults? That happens with movies sometimes, too. The pot comedy HIGH School, for example, takes off at a rapid clip, tossing funny quips and amusing ideas at the screen, introduces us to a bunch of colorfully diverting characters, and then ... well, it sort of runs out of steam a little bit. But the flick spends a lot of time building up some good will in its first half, so it's like I said: I kinda like the flick, so I'm willing to overlook a few slow spots, stupid jokes, and clunky plot holes.
The premise alone makes me chuckle, and I suppose that's where the good will begins: Our hero is a high school senior who is just about to graduate as valedictorian before heading off to MIT. But during a nostalgic visit with his old buddy Travis (Sean Marquette), Henry Burke (the very likable Matt Bush) decides to take his very first toke off of a joint. Whoops. That's some really bad timing on Henry's part, because his officious stooge of a high school principal (Michael Chiklis) is planning a school-wide drug test for the next day. When Henry and Travis learn this horrific news, they set out to get the entire school wasted -- by lacing the bake sale brownies with concentrated THC crystals.
Sundance Review: 12th & Delaware
Filed under: Documentary, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
Whether you're a hardcore pro-lifer or you call yourself uncompromisingly pro-choice (or, of course, if you fall somewhere in the middle), the fantastic new documentary 12th & Delaware represents your side of the argument remarkably well. But think about that for a second: Am I actually asserting that one little 80-minute documentary is able to capture both sides of this monumentally difficult subject? And with taste, class, and artistic craftsmanship, no less? Absolutely. What co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, also great) have built here may just be the finest documentary film ever made about the abortion issue. (I certainly haven't seen them all, but this one's pretty damn remarkable.)
With no narration, only a small handful of on-screen facts, and a complete lack of talking-head windbag interviews, 12th & Delaware simply drops us right into the middle of one particular intersection in Fort Pierce, Florida. On one side of 12th street is an abortion clinic. Directly across 12th is a pregnancy care center -- the kind that actively tries to prevent women from having abortions. With picketers on patrol virtually 24/7 and with doctors forced to leave the facility beneath coats and blankets -- let's just say 12th & Delaware is not exactly a friendly intersection.
Sundance Review: Four Lions
Filed under: Comedy, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
Wow. Truly, wow. I'm not exactly speechless (that's a bad thing for a film critic to be), but I don't think I've ever seen a film quite like Chris Morris' Four Lions. It's a comedy. That much I know for sure. A political comedy, in a way, but more specifically I suppose, it's a terrorism comedy. And, needless to say at this point, it's a pitch-black satire the likes of which we rarely see. I'm certainly not making the comparison, but Four Lions has the balls of a Network, a Dr. Strangelove, and a M*A*S*H. Possibly all three films combined. Adjectives like provocative, incendiary, audacious, and shocking come immediately to mind.
Is the world (OK, is America) ready for a broad and witheringly trenchant farce about Al Qaeda aspirants who scheme and bumble their way into blowing up a London "fun run" marathon? A comedy that satirizes young terrorists like Police Academy lampooned stupid policemen? A slapstick farce in which suicide bombers are (for lack of a better word) the heroes?? I cannot offer an opinion on that, but I can say that I'm grateful to attend film festivals, which is sometimes the only place to find movies this outrageously "edgy" ... yet powerfully intelligent. If Four Lions is not the best film I see at Sundance this year, then that's good news for me: that means I'll be seeing something awesome in the next three days.
Sundance Review: Casino Jack and the United States of Money
Filed under: Documentary, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
At first I thought I was the wrong person to cover this film. You can deride me for keeping my head buried in the sand on some issues, but I wouldn't know a Jack Abramoff from a Beef Stroganoff. Prior to sitting down with Alex Gibney's colorfully-titled documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money, all I knew of Abramoff was A) he was once a powerful Republican politician who B) stole a ton of money from a wide variety of people and C) got sent off to jail for his nefarious activities.
Maybe it's because finance and politics bore me like nobody's business, or perhaps it's just that I like movies a little bit more than I do the daily newspaper -- but hey, it's a good thing there are filmmakers like Alex Gibney out there. Because after sitting through the long-but-fascinating Casino Jack, I feel like marching on something! How dare these bastards rape and exploit and ... yeah, my outrage is a few years late, I know. But at least we have a solid new flick that will stand for the record.
Sundance Review: Waiting for Superman
Filed under: Documentary, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim has given us smaller Hollywood flicks like Gossip and Gracie. He has also helmed fantastic episodes of Deadwood and 24, and recently gave us widely different documentaries in The Inconvenient Truth and It Might Get Loud -- but one thing you may notice while scanning across his filmography is that he's pretty fascinated by the American education system. His 2001 documentary The First Day is a passionate and fascinating look at some of L.A.'s most difficult schools, and his latest film, Waiting for Superman, takes an even wider look at how we in America educate our children.
Or, more specifically, how we've generally failed to educate our children.
Equal parts sickening, fascinating, and inspiring, Waiting for Superman (the title refers to a child's dream of being rescued) takes firm aim at our national education system and asks a few simple but angry questions. Like, for example, how can one of the richest and most privileged countries in the world fail so resoundingly at educating its youngest generations? How long must our system fracture before someone comes up with a plan that actually works? Why do so many politicians promise education reforms ... but practically never follow through? And, perhaps most importantly, what can a dedicated parent actually DO to help ensure their kids a legitimate and high-quality education?
Sundance Review: Armless
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports
We all have a few deep, dark secrets that we're just sure are the peak of all things humiliating. Maybe you're a married man who is convinced that, deep down, you may be gay. Or perhaps you're a father of three ... who one day realizes he doesn't like children all that much. You stole, you cheated, you lied ... or, if you're the very unhappy lead character in Habib Azar's odd, dry comedy Armless, you simply want to have your arms removed.
Insane, you say? Borderline lunacy? Absolutely. That's probably what the bulimic teenager thinks about her problems: shameful, insane, and uniquely repulsive. And that's what is most interesting about Armless: we're offered a passive little sad-sack as a protagonist, one who has a deep-seated and rather disturbing wish, and he can't even get any true "help" because he's simply too ashamed of the issue.(And yes, this film is a comedy.)
Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams Reunite for 'Mission Impossible 4'
'Big Top Pee-Wee': The Original Benicio Del Toro Wolfman
Spin-ematical: New on DVD and Blu-ray for 2/9
Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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