Wide Release Films For Feb 10th 2012
Happy Birthday, Dennis.
thanks
getting up there (34) but lots of changes this year, may be the best one yet.
“(No I do not like Empire thanks).”
Jesus.
“But I am not bummed that they are starting with Phantom as I think it is the best of the six,”
Jesus Christ.
I felt the same way about Haywire (:
lol
…
Happy (belated) Birthday, Den. Keep surprising us (especially that Phantom Menace is best of the six!). Curious about Safe House. I liked Easy Money.
thanks Ari, it was Thursday but doing my celebrating tonight, seeing Wayne Newton at nearby casino
“has a bit of mystery (how is Jake Lloyd gonna end up fucking Natalie Portman)”
AHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
—DiB
Happy Birthday Den.
Beware the Phantom Menace.
“………..most sci fi is for kids.”
(:
NOT VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUCEMENT BUT AM STILL USING CAPS FOR IT!!!!
MC G has a film (his first since Terminator Salvation). It stars Reese Witherspoon, Chelsea (I cannot be funny so i will pretend to be a raunchy guy) Handler and Chris Pine. It is a rom com that has the smarts to open on Valentine’s Day. It should make a ton. Since i got my degree in feminist studies, every V day is actually Vagina day as in Vagina Mon. by Eve Ensler (not as in getting some altho…). So my night always consists of dinner and a performance. The money goes to domestic violence, But clueless guys should rush to see this with their ladies
I am posting it here because it comes out that week on a Tuesday,
kids love the Menace (as evidenced by this annoying sales pitch)
Yeah, I remember seeing that This Means War preview a few months ago. It seems such a transparent ploy to combine a “chick flick” with a “guy flick” and undoubtedly combining the worst elements of both.
Ah Wayne Newton, Den! I’m impressed. He looks slightly freakish now, doesn’t he?
Ugh, Den… There are no words.
can only imagine how much more annoying jarjar is in 3d. Seriously though, why does one of the worst star wars films have to have the gnarliest villain?
^ I know right?
JR:.
“Meesa love you all!”
guess u gotta have a soft spot for cartoonish slightly racist caricature.
He really is awful.
Meesa inaccessible to anyone who’s started puberty!
The ads for Safe House look interesting, or at least Denzel’s character looks compelling, but it’s the sort of thing where you go by word of mouth and reviews.
I don’t normally quote people because I think it’s annoying but:
the pod race and Darth Maul scenes being Lucas’ sci fi best work.
Can I have a hit of that, Den?
Lucas realized his and most sci fi is for kids, not to be taken seriously
Wait…how much for an ounce?
sorry I hate most sci fi/fantasy, Menace at least revels in its cartoonishness
all it amounts to is I am gonna see a movie I really wanna see that weekend.
And some of you will go to insure that episodes 4-6 get a 3D release as well (its okay I wont tell anyone)
It doesn’t revel—it completely falls on its face. Utter failure in every way.
we disagree
it was the first Star Wars film that I actually got caught up in the excitement of, the others were not worth the praise, granted I saw them as an adult (avoided them completely as a kid)
what is it about science fiction that you hate? I can’t grasp why you believe that science fiction is for kids. You must have at least some knowledge of the accomplishments and philosophical implications of Verne, Wells, Bradbury, Orwell, Clarke, Herbert, Heinlein, Dick, Benford etc.
from variety:
When a tragic accident erases all memory of a woman’s marriage from her mind, her husband must work overtime to recreate the spark that caused her to fall in love with him, in “The Vow,” a complaisant date-night bauble designed for romantic indelibility, right down to its touching true-story roots. Inspired by the case of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter (upgraded to Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams onscreen), “The Vow” reps that most welcome kind of Valentine’s Day offering, focusing on the feelings that bring couples closer — a recipe for big February B.O. and long-lasting ancillary.
Leo (Tatum) can’t believe his luck. Somehow he managed to wed a woman, Paige (McAdams), he thinks is out of his league. She’s an artist; he runs a small recording studio. Together, they live a seemingly perfect, boho-chic existence … until a dump truck plows through the back of their scrappy hatchback, sending Paige through the windshield and into a coma that leaves her memory partially wiped.
When she comes to in the hospital, she remembers everything up to law school, thinks she’s still in love with former fiance Jeremy (Scott Speedman) and can’t wrap her mind around the idea that she ever would have traded in such a seemingly perfect life to marry Leo.
As if fate isn’t a cruel enough adversary in his efforts to win Paige back, he also has to contend with her family and pesky ex. Sam Neill and Jessica Lange play Paige’s controlling parents, who seize the opportunity of their daughter’s accident to pave over a catastrophic falling-out five years earlier, while Jeremy, fetching yet flat, takes wicked delight in Paige’s inability to remember the reason they broke up.
Had the incident — or some variation of it — not happened to a real couple, auds might chalk it up to the worst possible abuse of Hollywood’s favorite lazy-screenwriting tool: dramatically expedient amnesia. But “The Vow” doesn’t play by the rules of other selective-memory-loss movies, where jagged flashbacks provide glimpses into the protag’s mysterious past, culminating in a well-timed flood of revelation; Paige’s best memories are gone, never to return.
Hence, the pic leans on Leo’s perspective in this seemingly unthinkable situation — his driving force to win her back is the strength of all the personal moments the two of them shared, bundled into a 15-minute greatest-hits reel at the film’s outset: Their meet-cute at the DMV, a thoughtful get-well delivery at the restaurant where she works (Cafe Mnemonic — get it?), etc. As he struggles to win her back, the memories continue to motivate him.
Take a step back, and it’s impossible not to notice that these flashbacks all share one thing in common: They all feature Leo going above and beyond to make Paige happy. If she weren’t so darn pretty, straight male auds might begin to question what’s so special about a woman in such constant need of wooing. Everyone else is encouraged to think he loves nothing more than trying to earn her love, garnishing scene after scene of superhuman patience with close-ups of Tatum’s watery eyes and glimpses of body parts typically reserved exclusively for Paige.
Her dilemma would be easier to swallow if Tatum were less swoon-inducing as the poor sod stuck trying to win her back. He compensates somewhat by delivering his lines in a sort of Neanderthal stupor, downplaying the cockiness of his previous roles. Even so, what teenage girl wouldn’t trade her best memories to wake up in a hospital bed married to the studly “Step Up” star?
Coming off HBO’s critically acclaimed “Grey Gardens” telepic, director Michael Sucsy adapts well to a genre dominated in recent years by Nicholas Sparks adaptations (the casting of McAdams, star of Alzheimer’s weepie “The Notebook,” can be no coincidence). With its stately crane shots and plaintive score, “The Vow” feels as unabashedly sentimental as those melodramas, but resists the cloying impulse to manufacture tragedy for easy tears. It’s also wonderfully specific, fabricating details about Leo and Paige’s relationship against which girls will judge their suitors for decades to come.
Still, as “The Vow” flirts with the fantasy of a woman torn between two handsome and wholly devoted suitors, it feels like an ice-cream shopping spree in which you can have any flavor you want, so long as it’s vanilla. Gone is the suspense of a great love-triangle movie, replaced with the ultra-romantic notion that if the heavens really wanted Leo and Paige to be together, their chemistry would be strong enough to transcend having to start over.
Camera (Deluxe color), Rogier Stoffers; editors, Nancy Richardson, Melissa Kent; music, Rachel Portman, Michael Brook; music supervisors, Randall Poster, Stephanie Diaz-Matos; production designer, Kalina Ivanov; art director, Brandt Gordon; set decorator, Jaro Dick; costume designer, Alex Kavanagh; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Glen Gauthier; sound designer, Tim Chau; supervising sound editor, Chau; re-recording mixers, David E. Fluhr, Chau, Jeremy Peirson; special effects coordinator, Warren Appleby; special effects supervisor, Tim Barraball; visual effects supervisor, Brendan Taylor; visual effects, Mr. X, Custom Film Effects; stunt coordinator, Rick Forsayeth; assistant director, Jeff Authors; casting, Cathy Sandrich Gelfond, Amanda Mackey. Reviewed at Grauman’s Chinese, Hollywood, Jan. 6, 2012. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 104 MIN
from variety:
Hardly the first movie to envision the CIA as a hotbed of corruption, secrecy and deadly internecine warfare, “Safe House” is a viciously energetic South Africa-set actioner that makes up in sweaty atmosphere and brute force what it lacks in surprise. Swift but overlong, this mechanically effective Hollywood debut from Swedish-born helmer Daniel Espinosa (“Easy Money”) doesn’t have an original bone in its body — or, by the end, an unbroken bone between its two leads. Cat-and-mouse pairing of Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds should land punchy if not pulverizing B.O. blows at home and overseas.
The first-produced screenplay by David Guggenheim superficially recalls the template of 2001’s “Training Day” in that it casts Washington as a ruthless, not-to-be-trusted avatar of violence playing malevolent mentor to a white-male rookie. But there are also shades of the “Bourne” movies present in the pic’s slamming edits and herky-jerky handheld camerawork, its de rigueur cynicism toward dirty agency politics, and its restless toggling between the men in the field and the CIA suits trying to hunt them down.
At the heart of the matter lies a particularly hoary MacGuffin: a classified list of operatives and agency secrets that must be protected at any cost. That means capturing Tobin Frost (Washington), a murderous rogue spy who has eluded the CIA for years, but has now surfaced in Cape Town with the incriminating file in his possession. A man with many enemies, as well as a name perhaps calculated to evoke serial killers and Santa Claus, Frost is ambushed by thugs barely five minutes in and winds up surrendering at the CIA’s nearest safe house.
The housekeeper on duty there is Matt Weston (Reynolds), an agency greenhorn in love with his unsuspecting French g.f. (Nora Arnezeder), bored with his far-flung outpost and ready for an exciting career in international espionage. Frost’s arrival turns out to be his make-or-break career opportunity: When the aforementioned thugs launch a ferocious attack on the safe house, Weston must go on the run with Frost, ensuring that he doesn’t let him get away — and isn’t killed by either the attackers or Frost himself.
Frost, of course, is not about to make this easy for him. When he’s not turning the tables on Weston in the middle of a crowded stadium or grabbing the wheel from him in one of the film’s many extended vehicular smash-‘em-ups, this most skilled of assassins attempts to wage a subtler form of psychological warfare. Yet the cruel put-downs feel second-rate, the anti-CIA sentiments could have been lifted from a blotter, and the old-pro/young-gun dynamic never rises above routine. Washington, as cool and formidable a presence as ever, is none too energized by his material, which requires him to drop thinly veiled taunts about Weston’s sexual preferences and mutter tough-guy cliches about how impossible it is for a spy to sustain a meaningful relationship. You don’t say.
Reynolds comes off as much more alert and engaged by comparison, in part because both he and his character have more to prove. Appearing opposite a heavyweight co-star in an action-heavy vehicle that requires far more in terms of bodily endurance than f/x-laden extravaganzas like “Green Lantern,” the thesp rolls up his sleeves, benefiting from his ability to project intelligence as well as insecurity, often simultaneously. Supporting cast includes Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard as three CIA execs whose various hidden allegiances will come as no surprise to anyone paying attention, as well as Ruben Blades as a world-weary old ally of Frost’s who gets closest to supplying the film with a cold, bruised heart.
Perhaps aware that his characters will compel interest only to the extent that they’re in danger at all times, Espinosa puts Frost and Weston through the physical wringer, dispensing bullet holes and stab wounds like party favors while giving stunt coordinators Greg Powell and Grant Hulley, fight coordinator Oliver Schneider and second unit director/d.p. Alexander Witt ample room to cut loose. Lenser Oliver Wood keeps the cameras on the move, and editor Richard Pearson adds another layer of disorientation by slicing and dicing every other scene into a barely coherent frenzy. In contrast with the fragmented kineticism of Paul Greengrass’ “Bourne” movies, there’s no existential dimension to the shattered-glass aesthetic here; it’s just raw, chaotic action, inelegantly shot and staged but no less unnerving for it.
Pic extracts considerable production value from its Cape Town shoot, most impressively during a chase scene set in the township of Langa, which finds Frost evading capture by leaping across slum rooftops. The ensuing destruction of homes provides an apt image of U.S. powers reducing Third World civilization to rubble, while putting a cruel spin on the pic’s title, though no one involved seems aware or particularly sympathetic.
from Hollywood Reporter
Some films have certain scenes that need to be redone, but on This Means War the whole picture should have been sent back for a reshoot. This perfectly dreadful romantic action comedy manages to embarrass its three eminently attractive leading players in every scene, making this an automatic candidate for whatever raspberries or golden turkeys or other dubious awards may be given in future for the films of 2012. It’s an eye-roller from start to finish, although the promise of a sexy competition between two CIA hunks for the attention of a man-starved honey might attract some misguided souls. Originally set to open on Valentine’s Day, which falls on a Tuesday this year, the Fox release has been hastily rescheduled simply to sneak on Feb. 14 and legitimately bow three days later.
There is more than a hint of kinship between the eventually violent rivalry that develops here between best buds FDR Foster (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) as they both court the very available Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), and the competitive relationship of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a fact that might have something to do with the contributions of screenwriter Simon Kinberg to both films (this one was cowritten by Timothy Dowling). The more elegant ladykiller FDR and brawnier but less refined Tuck are best mates and at first think they can handle the contest, but when it seems Lauren likes them both equally, the claws come out.
But from the opening sequence, set atop a Hong Kong skyscraper, in which the two CIA ops stymie an elaborate robbery attempted by Eurotrash crim Heinrich (a scowling Til Schweiger), the action is staged in a manner that is both implausible and incoherent, although perhaps the latter deficiency is deliberate so as to disguise the former shortcoming. In either event, you can’t buy what you’re looking at for an instant, a problem that unrelievedly permeates the subsequent 90 minutes.
In fact, it gets worse right away, in embarrassing scenes in which the beautiful Lauren runs into an old flame and his fiancee on the street in Los Angeles and pretends she’s off to meet her (nonexistent) boyfriend for lunch, then immediately encounters the couple again when she’s alone at a sushi bar. Surely a composed and confident thirtysomething professional woman like her would no longer act like a silly teenager in such a situation.
To cure Lauren’s condition, her so-called best friend Trish (Chelsea Handler) registers her with an online dating site, which is where she comes to Tuck’s attention. For his part, FDR tries to pick her up in a giant video store (does such a thing still exist?), but Lauren gives him an initial heave-ho after an argument over the relative merits of Hitchcock films, he having recommended The Lady Vanishes and she insisting upon the superiority of his later American films.
Romantic comedies have always generated fantasies of opulent lifestyles for characters with little else to do than pursue their amorous activities, but what the director known as McG puts onscreen in this regard is ludicrously beyond the pale: FDR’s apartment, which includes a babe-equipped swimming pool as a ceiling, is insanely extravagant (on a government salary), and the dates to which the boys treat Lauren include a private trapeze session, an equally exclusive peek at Klimt masterpieces and an outing to a paintball commando park where Lauren uproariously splats Tuck in the crotch with green paint.
Topping things off are two ineptly conceived and choreographed action scenes: In the first, the guys start an all-out fight in a restaurant full of people but when they finish it’s empty, even of staff or authorities who might want to take them to task for their destruction; the second is a car chase, climaxing on a dead-end freeway ramp, that doesn’t cut together properly at all, not to mention that what goes on makes no sense from the villain’s point of view.
At the center of things, presumably, is Lauren’s decision of which man to choose. Her confidant is written in to provide a sounding board and goad her into action, but Handler has been photographed to look practically like Lauren’s mom and appears entirely at a loss; the “actress” barely even makes eye contact with Witherspoon and has no sense of creating a character.
The one thing Trish does plausibly suggest is for Lauren to give both guys a test drive. But then such a move would have pushed the film dangerously into Jules and Jim territory, which might have been the one move that could have provided This Means War with some genuine edge and interest but also would have made Lauren too loose a woman for a mass consumption movie such as this. No risk, no gain.
The three leads do look awfully good doing very stupid things and all will survive to star another day. The sooner this one recedes into the rear-view mirror the better for all concerned.
The Darth Maul scenes are cool, but they should be less badass and more zen. Every time a Jedi, even Yoda, is fighting with a lightsaber they do all kinds of showy jump and flip moves and have this ‘I am so TOUGH’ expression that doesn’t fit with what Jedi is supposed to be about at all. Jedi fights should have as little wasted movement as possible.
They choreographed every lightsaber fight to be like a normal sword fight, and that doesn’t look right with lightsabers.
The pod racing scene looked cool but it’s function in the film as a plot device and merchandising tool was too blatant to be captivating.
Dennis Brian
I am writing this a day early because my birthday is tomorrow and not sure what I will be doing.
I will start with the thing I am most likely to catch shit for. I was annoyed when they announced that the first three Star Wars films are going to be reissued in 3D first. This is because the second film is gooey stupid and full of bathos and the third is laughable melodramatic. The most exciting from a fan aspect is 4 and 6 (No I do not like Empire thanks). But I am not bummed that they are starting with Phantom as I think it is the best of the six, it is full of weirdness (Jar Jar is an idiosyncratic take off of Stepandfetchit that largely works), has a bit of mystery (how is Jake Lloyd gonna end up fucking Natalie Portman) and most important has action galore, the pod race and Darth Maul scenes being Lucas’ sci fi best work. This is a great family movie because Lucas realized his and most sci fi is for kids, not to be taken seriously…fun fun fun. With Lucasfilm involved also believe that the 3D will be stellar.
Another movie for kids but one that for me holds no appeal at all is Journey 2. The fact that the Rock (who should stick to films like Faster even if it means him florishing in the straight to dvd market) is replacing Brenden Fraiser (who used to at least have sequels to fall back on), means Brenden is pretty much over. I kind of liked him even if his choice in roles was more than questionable.
Channing Tatum is the prefered actor of Steven Soderbergh right now and that tells me to avoid him. McAdams is uneven. This is the notebook for the young set. The director did the new Grey Gardens which was okay. Strangely Nick Sparks did not write this
From a fairly new Swedish director comes a muscular action flick starring Denzel Washington who is old but like Stallone still viable. Might be good, then again might be like other Ryan Reynolds films.