Off The Couch And Into The Theater: June 2010

I once again only saw one film this month. I am pathetic. Or I have a demanding work and social life. However you wanna slice it, I hate it. No Iron Man 2 yet. Totally missed the boat on Kick-Ass. I'm almost positive I will not get anyone to see Robin Hood with me. Oh well. I did see Date Night, which while predictably slack in the plot department (I know that's not its primary purpose, but still), was pretty pitch perfect in the comedy department. Fey and Carrell clearly were not phoning it in and had some improv gems, but the real stars were the supporting players. Leon from Curb Your Enthusiasm played my favorite bit part, and brief appearances from Mark Wahlberg, Kristen Wiig, Mark Ruffalo, and James Franco were all aces as well. It was a brief glimpse at what my life could be if I actually got my ass off the couch and went to the movies more often, which I hope to do this month, as I always insist. But this time I'm not even going to try to adjust the percentages accordingly, which have kinda morphed over time from "Will I See It?" notations to "Do I Wanna See It?" indications, so let's leave it at that and check out this month's new releases!

June 4th: The Kutch and The Heig are the most obnoxious couple ever in Killers (10%), which I think is as close to Mr. & Mrs. Smith plot-wise as the studio could get without getting into legal trouble. Despite my frustration over Jonah Hill playing a different role than the one he played in Forgetting Sarah Marshall while Russell Brand plays the same role (my head hurts!), I still wanna see Get Him to the Greek (74%), because I am an Apatow fanboy, even though I am aware the man no longer produces great movies, and arguably never did. Owen Wilson as the voice of Marmaduke (6%) also slobbers his way into the theater this weekend, and while I know there is no connection between the asinine comic and Marley & Me, it still confuses me that Wilson, who played a human in Marley, is now playing a dog in this one. Maybe I'm just getting stupider. Splice (86%) features my relative (not really) Sarah Polley, along with Adrien Brody, as scientists who make some kinda weird creepy creature. It's Cronenberg getting back to his roots, which I wasn't a fan of the first place, but I'm hoping his new deft directing skills from A History of Violence and Eastern Promises and injects it into his new monster flick. The classic silent Fritz Lang film Metropolis (51%) is getting a re-release at the arthouse and while I've always meant to see it, I think it's also on Nerdflix Watch Now. Sorry, local theater owners. And No One Knows About Persian Cats (63%) sounds like a nifty little foreign documentary in which an Iranian musicians tries desperately to gather members for a band whose booked a potentially dangerous local gig.

June 11th: I never watched The A-Team (74%) and I abhor Bradley Cooper, but the trailer shows Cooper shooting bad guys in a tank...that's parachuting IN THE SKY. So I'm in. I want to say I have little to no interest in The Karate Kid (43%), but the truth is that I did think that Will Smith's son was incredibly adorable in The Pursuit of Happyness, so even though he's now at that awkward age, I think my non-annoyance of him and my love for the original movies might get me to eventually see it. Micmacs (65%) is the new Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of Amelie, Alien Resurrection) flick that I had no idea existed until typing this very sentence, and it's about a group of friends who conspire to destroy two large weapons manufacturers, which sounds both like social commentary and a kids-being-pranksters movie. So that's weird. Solitary Man (18%) is your obligatory indie with a vague/generic premise: Michael Douglas "watches his personal and professional life hit the skids because of his business and romantic indiscretions." Yawn, except I like Michael Douglas. The City of Your Final Destination (4%) is a film that I can know I don't want to see based on flashes of words on iMDB: Hopkins, Linney, doctoral, writer, and mistress. You knew it was coming: SNOOZEFEST!

June 18th: Yes I am worried that Toy Story 3 (91%) will just rehash the first two movies, which while great, were basically the same movie twice. But I have faith that Pixar will somehow still make my heart flutter, even with Tim Allen in the mix. Jonah Hex (99%) is a comic book Western with Josh Brolin kicking ass while John Malkovich and Will Arnett talk in funny voices. What reason do you see not to bask in its splendor? Jesse Eisenberg jews it up in Holy Rollers (82%) and what I mean by that is that he plays a Hasidic orthodox jew. Sorry, I didn't mean for it sound offensive. Anyway, he gets mixed up with an Ecstasy dealer and I'm sure it's funny yet dark yet kinda boring. I'm on board. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2%), is I assume, a documentary about the woman with the terrible voice and the vapid daughter who talk about dresses. I'm not on board. Living in Emergency (13%) is a documentary extolling the virtues of the Doctors Without Borders program, where we cry about how terrible living conditions are in some countries and how much better these docs are than us for going there and saving the world. In this particular case, I'd rather read about how I'm not doing enough to combat third world poverty and disaster. Ondine (77%) pits my new favorite actor who I used to hate, Colin Farrell, against my old favorite director who I've come to hate (Neil Jordan, of both The Crying Game and In Dreams) and adds a woman who may or may not be a mermaid into the equation. Interested! Princess Kaiulani (52%) tells the historical tale of the princess who fought for Hawaii's independence from the United States way back in the day. Spoiler alert: she loses. Really though, I don't like old clothes movies, but I like anti-imperialism, plus the princess methinks is a looker.

June 25th: Adam Sandler convinces his other has been 90s fart joke stalwarts to join him ina movie about Grown Ups (20%) and manages to (I predict) make a crapload of money despite the presence of David Spade. You see, they're adults, but they still like fart jokes. Get it? Knight And Day (33%) has absolutely no reason to look entertaining, what with the presence of both Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in a cookie cutter action plot about spies and innocents getting caught in the middle, but I think I could go for a mindless picture with a horrible titular pun someday. Perfect for the drive-in, mayhaps? Agora (9%) is about a Roman slave who has a crush on his master and kinda maybe sorta thinks he might turn to Christianity, which as you may guess, is going to cause him some trouble. OSS 117: Lost in Rio (15%) is a French spy comedy and while I don't feel like seeing the frog equivalent of a Leslie Nielsen picture, I do like old French music and kitsch and that stuff. Wasn't there just a movie about Coco Chanel? Well I guess there's another in Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (DEJAVU%), which shows how hard it is for a famous lady to be both a workaholic and a sexaholic. Isn't that what the last one was about?! And finally, Winter's Bone (86%) is a rustic neo-noir with a lot of potential, putting TV favorite John Hawkes (Deadwood, Lost, Eastbound & Down) into a yarn about drug dealing, betrayal, the wilderness, and daddy issues. Sounds mysteriously delicious!

This entry was posted by chris, on Tuesday, June 01, 2010. You can leave your response.