Serious Films:
Summary:
Pot growers Ben and Chon have a good life, business and shared girlfriend they
both love and who loves them – it is all working out. But, everything falls
apart when she is kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel. Now they must go to
extremes to get her back. Filmmakers: It
seems like every time director Oliver Stone has a new film everyone is quick to
call it his comeback picture, as he is known for the great films Platoon, Wall Street, JFK (my favorite), and Natural Born Killers but has
not really made another to the level of those films in almost two decades. He
is working with relative newcomers composer Adam Peters and production
designer Tomas Voth and
excellent action cinematographer Daniel
Mindel (John
Carter). Cast: Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson star with Blake Lively co-starring. John Travolta, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch, Benicio Del Toro, Joel David Moore, Shea Whigham, and Demian Bichir feature in
support. Expectations: Savages has the
potential to be a very fun and entertaining action-thriller, and Oliver Stone
could use a commercial and critic hit. Based on the trailer, I am looking
forward to seeing it as a good summer film. It is probably worth checking out
for action oriented thriller fans (let us just hope Stone does not bog the
narrative down in preachy border/war-on-drugs politics and just allows it to be
a fun film). Trailer: Here.
Action/Adventure:
Summary:
Rebooting the Spider-Man franchise, the new Peter Parker has a new
origin story. Peter sets out to find out what happened to his parents causing
them to disappear when he was young. His search leads him to his father’s
former partner Dr. Curt Connors. Meanwhile, he develops a relationship with his
first love Gwen Stacy, whose father the chief of police hurts his alter ego
down. Filmmakers: Director Marc Webb, coming
off (500) Days of the Summer,
seemed like an odd choice for Sony to task with revamping their flagship
franchise, but picking good filmmakers (and potentially blooming auteurs) with
less experience over Hollywood action/adventure veterans to helm big franchise
movies has paid off in the past commercially and critically (Tim Burton – Batman, Christopher
Nolan – Batman
Begins, Peter
Jackson – The
Lord of the Rings, Sam Raimi
– Spider-Man, Matthew
Vaughn – X-Men:
First Class, Bryan Singer
– X-Men, Alfonso Cuaron – Prisoner
of Azkaban, Joss
Whedon – The
Avengers, and probably Sam
Mendes - Skyfall). Webb
is working with great composer James
Horner (Avatar),
cinematographer John Schwartzman
(Armageddon) and production
designer J. Michael Riva (Spider-Man 3). Cast: Webb also has a fantastic group of actors as
well with Andrew Garfield
starring and Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans co-starring. Denis Leary, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Irrfan Khan, Campbell Scott, and Embeth Davidtz feature in
support. Expectations: When The Amazing
Spider-Man was announced, I was really disappointed that Sony was not going to
give Raimi his Spider-Man
4 (especially since Sony had essentially taken Spider-Man 3 creatively away
from Raimi during shooting and ruined it to some extent). Spider-Man
2 is still my favorite superhero/comic book film to date, and I really like
what Raimi did with the character of Peter Parker. Though, while I did enjoy
Spider-Man 3, ‘dark’ Peter was a bit too campy and silly. All that said, The
Amazing Spider-Man became something I have been looking forward to since the
casting of Garfield and Stone (both among the best young actors right now).
Most know Garfield from The
Social Network, but he is also wonderful in Never
Let Me Go, Red
Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 and Boy A. Early reviews point to
their acting and chemistry as the best part of the film, and with Webb
directing I am not surprised, as it seemed logical that he would take a more
relationship and character oriented approach (than action and special effects
over everything – the typical Hollywood way). I think this will be on par with
Raimi’s first in the series, but not as good as Spider-Man 2 (and probably not
close). And, as much as I would have liked to have seen Raimi’s fourth film, a
good Spider-Man film by a new director is better than none at all. Trailer: Here.
Comedy:
Summary: A group of suburban dads get together a form
a neighborhood watch group, not so much to keep the neighborhood safe but more
so to goof off and get out of day-to-day family events that have become
mundane. However, when aliens invade Earth, they must step up and defend their
homes. Filmmakers: Creatively, the film has
a good team with Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer directing his second
feature (his first is the very funny, under-seen Hot
Rod) and a script from Evan
Goldberg and Seth Rogan (Superbad, Pineapple Express and The
Green Hornet). Schaffer is working with a good genre specific group
including composer Christophe
Beck (The
Muppets), cinematographer Barry
Peterson (21
Jump Street) and production designer Doug Meerdink (Cedar
Rapids). Cast: The film stars Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Richard Ayoade. Rosemarie DeWitt, Billy Crudup, R. Lee Ermey, Will Forte, and Jorma Taccone populate the
supporting cast. Expectations: Schaffer
directed most of the Lonely Island videos and did a great job with Hot Rod –
The Watch could be his breakthrough as a comedy director if it does well. While
it looks like a tamer suburban version of Attack the Block, it is R-rated
so there is at least potential for things to get more out of hand (crude comedy,
language and violence) than if it were PG-13, which should be beneficial given
the intended audience. The cast has a lot of comedic talent (though, Ben
Stiller seems like he gave up years ago, just taking paychecks for terrible
sequels to tired franchises). However, it will be most Americans’ first experience
of Richard Ayoade (who is wonderful in The IT Crowd), who may very
well steal the movie. I think Fox is hoping The Watch will play like 21 Jump
Street did earlier in the year (but with a sci-fi twist) as a really fun and
entertaining R-rated action comedy. Trailer: Here.
No comments:
Post a Comment