Coming Soon

1/30 -- TAKEN, shaken, and stirred by new movies

Finally The Wrestler is in wide release, and it is fantastic! I will not soon forget it. (Watch the trailer.) FilmCouch will discuss it this Friday.

Taken -- Watch the trailer. I was wary of this film until I saw this tougher-than-nails trailer, where Liam Neeson gives a monologue as hard as anything ever put on film.

The story: Neeson plays a former spy who will stop at nothing to save his teenage daughter from her captors. The criminals do not want ransom; they want to turn her into a sex slave.

I'm excited to see it, but I wonder how it handles the modern problem of the sex-slave trade? Will Taken just exploit modern slavery to put a new twist on the old "they took my daughter" action plot? (For example, Arnold Swarzenegger's Commando.)

The Class -- Watch the trailer. We might think we've seen this before, but I think we'd be wrong. A teacher struggles to meaningfully teach an ethnically diverse group of rough-and-tumble high schoolers...and the trailer makes it look like it's way more than a French Freedom Writers!

Based on a novel by Francois Begaudeau, who also stars as Mr. Marin, essentially playing a version of himsef. It won the Palm d'Or at Cannes, and I'm really looking forward to it.

The Uninvited -- Watch the trailer. A girl's mother returns from the dead to warn her about her father's new fiancee. The father is played by the excellent David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck, Bourne Ultimatum); his creepy new fiancee (who was nurse to his late wife) is played by the lovely Elizabeth Banks.

It's a remake of the Korean horror flick Tale of Two Sisters. Has anyone seen it? (Here's the trailer.) It looks like the rare movie where the remake could be better than the original.

New in Town -- Watch the trailer. Big-city Renee Zellweger gets a huge dose of culture shock when she's sent to a small Minnesota town to supervise a manufacturing plant's "restructuring."

It's full of talented and likable actors: Nathan Fillion, Harry Connick Jr., and J.K. Simmons (Burn After Reading, Juno, Thank You for Smoking). But even if it's good, do you think this Neo-Great Depression flick will connect with audiences? I thought during the Great Depression people wanted to escape to movies that weren't about hard times?

So, ladies and gentlemen, unless all the king's horses and all the king's men go to see New in Town, it looks like Paul Blart will remain the number one comedy in America for another week. Will Pink Panther 2 unseat the champ?

Re:1/30 -- TAKEN, shaken, and stirred by new movies

I have to be honest, I was hoping Liam Neeson would pull out a lightsaber during Taken and start lopping people's heads off.

On a side note, Neeson spent a few weeks shooting for Five Minutes of Heaven in between shooting for this film. (At least that's what I think happened from an interview I watched recently on youtube.)

Five Minutes of Heaven recently premiered at Sundance 2009.

Re:1/30 -- TAKEN, shaken, and stirred by new movies

NEW DVD's 1/27

1. RocknRolla -- Watch the trailer. RocknRolla made people say "Guy Ritchie is back," but when I recently watched Snatch I was surprised at how dated it felt.

By contrast, RocknRolla seemed surprising, even as I recognized some of the trademark Richie-isms in the soundtrack choices and cinematography. I recommend this one, and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

2. Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- Watch the trailer. Most of the buzz around this Woody Allen film stemmed from the make-out scene between Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz.

But hey, it's Woody Allen, who once in a while he still puts together a really good movie (i.e. Match Point). Is VCB good? I haven't seen it.

3. Pride & Glory -- Watch the trailer. You've heard that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link? Well, this film has Ed Norton, Colin Farrell, and Jon Voight, and it's only as good as Jon Voight.

4. College -- Do not watch the trailer. Do not watch the movie.

5. Fireproof -- Watch the trailer. Something of a rarity, since it was produced by a Christian church and still received a wide release.

Stars Kirk Cameron, as a fireman for whom it's easier to risk his life saving people than it is to work at his failing marriage. 

6. Lakeview Terrace -- Watch the trailer. Samuel L. Jackson plays a psycho cop who's got an irrational beef with his neighbors, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington.

7. The Lucky Ones -- Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams and Michael Pena are Iraq veterans on a US road trip.

8. Zodiac -- Watch the trailer. The one David Fincher made before The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The one about the 1970s Zodiac killer. The one that was far too long and only so-so.

Re-releases

1. Groundhog Day (1993) -- Watch the trailer. I watch this once a year around February 2. This is the "Anniversary Edition," commemorating the...16th anniversary?

Hey, how many years of Feb. 2 do you think Phil lived through? Sixteen years? Less? More? 

2. The Bourne Trilogy -- A couple weeks ago, I was asking a friend if he thought Underworld 3 would be the best of the series, and he said, "When was the last time any part three was the best?" 

I suggest to you: The Bourne Ultimatum.

3. Pink Panther Film Collection -- Includes A Shot in the Dark (1964), Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), and Son of the Pink Panther (1993).

I hadn't seen A Shot in the Dark until the first Steve Martin Pink Panther came out, and I was surprised at how little Peter Sellers is onscreen! I haven't seen any of the later films; anyone have favorites to recommend?

4. The Stewardesses, Deluxe Edition -- Watch the trailer. FilmCouch discusses how this crappy little porno became the most successful 3D movie in history.

Re:1/30 -- TAKEN, shaken, and stirred by new movies

spout:

2. The Bourne Trilogy -- A couple weeks ago, I was asking a friend if he thought Underworld 3 would be the best of the series, and he said, "When was the last time any part three was the best?" 

I suggest to you: The Bourne Ultimatum.

I'm not sure, but I think overall people liked Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King the best, but that may just have been because it was finally over!

I think that Red is the final and most celebrated of Krzysztof Kieslowski's three colors series.  It's mostly a thematic series, but there is some slight narrative overlap I believe.

Christmas Vacation was my favorite of the Vacation movies (even though I've only seen parts of European Vacation)

There that's what I got.