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Wide Relase Films: August 31, 2012

Dennis Brian

10 months ago

The end of August seems to be the dumping ground that Jan or Sept often is known to be.

The Possession: I like the look of this and the actors involved suggestion some character development may exist, would not hate seeing this. Sam Rami produced but I have not liked a film of his since A Simple Plan.

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure: I have never heard of this before and am fascinated. You have to admire any kid’s film trailer that starts, “from the marketing visionary..” The director of Camp Rock made it (usually a tween director moves up not down). Cary Elwes (a long way from Saw) is in it. I want to see this weird shit but cannot for fear of looking like a creep. What the hell are these things and why do they like to dance so much?

Lawless: The director of The Road directs Shia and Tom Hardy in a 20s crime flick. Shia said recently he wanted a “Warren Beatty gamechanger” not sure that doing something Bonnie and Clydish will help him, blah.

TakaAwe​some

10 months ago

I’ll be checking out Lawless for sure; Hillcoat+Hardy+Cave > negative Cannes buzz.

Polaris​DiB

10 months ago

“What the hell are these things and why do they like to dance so much?”

Apparently the Doodlebops but more Teletubby’ey.

—PolarisDiB

Dennis Brian

10 months ago

I am curious about their obsession with milkshakes

They even have Chaz Palminteri (Mr Bronx Tale, would rather be feared than loved)

The cast in general is so odd

joey Noodles

10 months ago

Can anyone else really not wait for Killing Them Softly?

Steve Pulaski

10 months ago

You forgot For a Good Time, Call…, just to let you know.

And that Oogieloves looks plain awful. Can’t believe Chazz Palminteri, the man behind the fantastic Bronx Tale, would agree to unambitious trite like that.

Dennis Brian

10 months ago

For a Good Time Call

huh not listed on boxofficemojo, looking up now

Dennis Brian

10 months ago

“And that Oogieloves looks plain awful. Can’t believe Chazz Palminteri, the man behind the fantastic Bronx Tale, would agree to unambitious trite like that.”

And how did Toni Braxton get top billing?

TakaAwe​some

10 months ago

@Joey – me! I can’t wait. But that’s not until October, unfortunately.

Dennis Brian

10 months ago

Regarding Oogieloves film from wiki (I have seen a handful of Tyler Perry films in a theater and I find this incredibly insulting to Perry fans who come out. I have never heard any participation in those films. I have seen that happen in horror films though):

“The film was produced and written by Kenn Viselman, who was behind the American localization of the British children’s series Teletubbies and Thomas & Friends. Viselman claims that he and Teletubbies creator Anne Wood had multiple disputes with each other, because Wood refused to let Viselman pursue a film adaptation of the show, but when he went to a showing of the Tyler Perry film Madea Goes to Jail, he saw how people in the audience would shout out advice to the characters on screen. This lead him to the idea of creating a children’s film in the vein of Teletubbies with the interactive aspect, allowing the children to sing, dance, and respond to the characters on screen.”

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

..

Matt Thornto​n

9 months ago

Possession horror films are almost never worthwhile, but I actually like the cast and trailer for The Possession, do there is a very high possibility I’ll go see it unless it gets completely shredded by critics. I would be lying if I said I didn’t jump in my seat the first time I saw the little girl stab her father with the fork.

I’d rather be tortured Marathon Man style than watch The Oogieloves. Lawless looks entertaining and has a great cast aside from Shia LaBeouf, so that’s my top priority next weekend. My city is scheduled to finally get Celeste and Jesse Forever next weekend, so I’ll be seeing that as well.

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

I am fascinated by these Oogieloves. But I have surgery on Friday (they open on Wednesday but have to do pre-op stuff) so doubt I could go. The newspapers are saying if your kid already loves the oogieloves take them, but it will be torture.

How can kids already love them? They were just constructed for this film. I find the over drive marketing (from the marketing visionaries…) the casting, the slightly racist comment on Tyler Perry fans (shown earlier in this thread) reason enough to suffer this torture if I am able to go.

Matt Thornto​n

9 months ago

Well, if you are able to be tortured by the Oogieloves, let us know what you think!

Westley

9 months ago

Well, judging from that trailer I think Oogieloves is gonna be some premium-grade Nightmare Fuel for the whole family. What kind of sick people come up with this stuff? That trailer is creepy.

Matt Thornto​n

9 months ago

I just watched the Oogieloves trailer. Creepiest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen. I now need to watch something much less terrifying, like the trailer for The Possession.

Matt Parks

9 months ago

“Lawless: The director of The Road directs Shia and Tom Hardy in a 20s crime flick. Shia said recently he wanted a “Warren Beatty gamechanger” not sure that doing something Bonnie and Clydish will help him, blah.”

Bonnie and Clyde was the Depression era (the ‘30s) Texas, Lawless is about Prohibition era (the ’20s) bootleggers in Franklin County, Virginia (“Moonshine Capital of the World”) . . . except for the fact they’re both set a long time ago, there’s a world of difference.

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

He said he wanted a Beatty gamechanger then did a early 20th century crime film.

Matt Parks

9 months ago

Yeah, it’s a bad analogy all around. He’s no Beatty and, unless he’s producing, his level of involvement in making the film is completely different.

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

Yeah he is no Beatty (no one is by my estimation) and if he plans to avoid mainstream film (as he is threatening to do) he never will be

Beatty was interested in quality mainstream not indie for indie sake

Matt Thornto​n

9 months ago

At this point, I don’t think it’s Shia LaBeouf avoiding mainstream film so much as it is mainstream film avoiding Shia LaBeouf. He pissed off everyone in Hollywood by badmouthing the people who gave him a career.

Adrock

9 months ago

He’s apparently having real on screen sex in Von Trier’s next film.

Adrock

9 months ago

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

have you seen his nude scene in a recent music video

(much like his other talents) he doesn’t have much to work with

Polaris​DiB

9 months ago

“Bonnie and Clyde was the Depression era (the ‘30s) Texas, Lawless is about Prohibition era (the ’20s) bootleggers in Franklin County, Virginia (“Moonshine Capital of the World”) . . . except for the fact they’re both set a long time ago, there’s a world of difference.”

There’s a world of difference factually but depending on the director’s choices and the genre conceits, they two films may not play off all that differently. It’s like the joke about how apparently everything that came before the 50s must be colored brown; the WWII and pre-WWII world didn’t have as much color and saturation as our modern world by some unspoken aesthetic alignment.

—PolarisDiB

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

The Words is the only release for Sept 7th the following week (unless we count 2016: Obama’s America which is doing well in US and will probably go wide next week, nothing to say on this as I am anti-Romney, usually tempted to vote Green party since its hard to muster an Obama vote but if Romney actually has a chance, I will have to consider Obama). I am posting it here and now since I will be out next week and don’t feel like starting a seperate thread for this.

The Word features Bradley Cooper. Like with Limitless, he tries to play a guy with moral conflicts even tho he is famous for playing the no worries character in The Hangover. The plot does not sound so hot and Cooper and Wilde are charmless.

Matt Parks

9 months ago

Good point. Although, Hillcoat has been fairly consistant as a stylist since The Proposition, and judging from the trailers

They don’t seem particularly alike.

JapeMan

9 months ago

Isn’t “Branded” opening wide September 7th?

That movie looks awesome! Lol

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

I don’t know

I go by box office mojo and they have no mention of it going wide

Dennis Brian

9 months ago

from the Salt Lake City news:

The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. Walking up that road are The Oogieloves, a trio of the most cloyingly unbearable characters a parent could ever introduce to their preschool child.

These characters are the star of “The Oogieloves in The Big Balloon Adventure,” which is 83 minutes of cinematic candy for kids — in that it’s brightly colored, makes them jump up and down, and is ultimately really bad for them.

The Oogieloves are giant puppet-like humanoids who look like escapees from the “Barney” compound. They are: Goobie, a clever inventor; Zoozie, who loves animals and speaks many languages; and Toofie, who’s fearless and refuses to wear a belt. They live in the village of LovelyLovelyville, in a cottage overseen by their nervous minder J. Edgar — an upright vacuum cleaner — and Windy, a disembodied smiling face in the window.

The Oogieloves are planning a birthday party for their friend, Schluufy, a pink pillow. But the five magic balloons they intend to give to Schluufy float away. So the Oogieloves have to retrieve the balloons, guided by Windy’s directions and accompanied by their fish, Ruffy.

For each balloon, the Oogieloves encounter a helpful new friend: Cloris Leachman as a circle-loving grandma, Chazz Palminteri as a milkshake mogul, Toni Braxton as a sneezing soul singer, Cary Elwes as a bubble-blowing cowboy, and Jamie Pressly and Christopher Lloyd as a salsa dancer and her bongo-beating accompanist.

At each stop, the Oogieloves must perform some kind of dance or movement exercise — and the preschoolers in the audience are invited to join in, with onscreen visual cues to tell them when it’s time to get out of their seats.

Any parent whose kids went through their Teletubbies phase will recognize the Crayola-colored palette and playful pantomime going on here. (Producer Kenn Viselman cut his teeth marketing the Teletubbies in America, and worked in vain to make a Teletubbies movie.) But the Teletubbies included quiet moments, which allowed space for its pint-sized audience to breathe. Director Matthew Diamond and writer Scott Stabile don’t leave any moments for rest in this overly frenetic story.

That’s just one of the movie’s many missteps. Some of the audience-participation numbers — particularly Braxton’s slow and inappropriately sultry solo — aren’t the sort of bouncy uptempo songs that get little bodies moving. The overall look is cheesy and chintzy, and the false cheeriness becomes ultimately oppressive.

Frankly, I worry for the poor child for whom “The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure” is their first movie experience. He’ll think that you’re supposed to get up out of your seat and talk back to the screen, “Rocky Horror”-style, all the time. They may also believe that all movies are as poorly crafted and manic as this one.