Friday, February 29, 2008

Now Playing: Girlie Women and Semi Professional Men

L I M I T E D
Bonneville -Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen take a road trip. Together. How on earth have I not heard of this? I don't even really care if it's stale... though I'd prefer it to be slightly more risky, more three-dimensional and more surprising than the paint-by-numbers female buddy movie that this trailer implies. There, I've said it. Only I didn't...Okay, okay this trailer looks bad (sorry) but... but: Lange, Bates, and Allen! I will still see it.
City of Men is a sequel (of sorts) to City of God. This time Fernando Meirelles is a producer, not the director. I'm not sure I could handle a return trip but it'll be of interest to huge fans of the violent breakout '03 film.
Chicago 10 -it's a buzzy partially animated documentary about the volatile 1968 Democratic convention and the violent government oppression and trial that followed.

E X P A N D I N G
No Country For Old Men -the Oscar winner for Best Picture gets its biggest theater count yet by several hundred. I sometimes can't imagine who hasn't seen this yet but then I remember statistics about how few movies people actually go to in the theaters. It'll have a looooooooonnnngggg life on DVD. It's starting it's 17th weekend at the box office and it's been expanding then shrinking then expanding (repeat) that entire time. Perhaps unsurprisingly its weakest weekends were the two right before the Oscar nominations gave it its second wind. It's third wind comes today courtesy of Oscar wins.

How much of a post-ceremony boost do you think it'll get?

W I D E
The Other Boleyn Girl is getting bad reviews but at least this romantic "historical" drama has eye candy in the form of Scarjo, Natalie Portman and King Bana. Bonus points: costumes by world great Sandy Powell (The Aviator, Far From Heaven, The Velvet Goldmine, Shakespeare in Love).
Semi Pro
Other websites have already said brilliant things about this latest Will Ferrel sports comedy and I'd like to let them do the talking but in my terrible habit of reading too many blogs and reading them poorly and in fits and starts, I've forgotten where I read that brilliant thing and what exactly was said and it begins to fade in my over-celluloided mind. What. Where am I? I don't care about this movie. Next...
Penelope -the magical tale of a blah blah blah... you know what it's about since the trailers gave Christina Ricci's miss piggy act away. I know this is really a chance to see Ricci again (yay!) and watch James McAvoy pucker up again (yay --pretty soon he will have made out with every young female star, right?) but my point... um. Oh, yes. Whenever I see photos of Reese Witherspoon in this (she produced and has a supporting role) I think of Meg Ryan's attempt at a little edge in Addicted to Love.


Is that weird? My mind always goes there. Maybe it's the kohl-ed eyes.
8

18 comments:

gabrieloak said...

Bonneville is a bore, despite the efforts of the actresses. I saw it two years ago in Toronto and I don't know why they bothered to release it. Should have been put on Lifetime.

adam k. said...

Hey Nat, a question: how is Razor? Can I watch it before Season 3??? I thought it took place around the end of Season 2. I am one of the unlucky few who missed out on season 3 until after they decided to pull it from iTunes. So now I'm stranded without my crack... can I at least watch Razor?

Also, Boleyn Girl will likely get Powell another costume nod. It could even win... look what happened to Golden Age (and I predicted it!). Showy costumes = oscar

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, adam, The Duchess makes Kiera Knightley look like she has cleavage, which is an engineering feat in and of itself.

NATHANIEL R said...

adam i can't recall the sequence but Razor is about the Pegasus battlestar so if you've already gotten to the point in the series about that, then it's safe to watch. Because Razor basically fills in a chunk of time that the normal series did not when it did one of its time jumps (of which it is so audience unfriendly and audaciously fond)

daveylow ouch.

arkaan costuming nom then too ;)

adam k. said...

Yeah I was a little miffed that right after...

*SPOILERS*

...Lee took command of the Pegasus, and I was expecting to see him take it on all these wonderful adventures, they decided to follow it with an episode all about the cylons on Caprica, and then just plow right into the rescue storyline, which set in motion all those extreme season 2 cliffhanger things which left Lee's command of the Pegasus as the last thing on my mind.

And then of course a year had passed and EVERYTHING had been upended anyway.

I am going to watch Razor then.

And yeah I think Boleyn and Duchess are both safe bets for costume nods. All that real and manufactured cleavage on display will get them on plenty of ballots.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the Boleyn's costumes are as close to being a nomination lock as you can get a year in advance. Natalie's green dress seen in the poster seems to trump even Keira's.

I'd write more, but I can't stop laughing at Chigurh and his deadly Oscar. Sweet.

Anonymous said...

Penelope is beyond bad. DON'T SEE IT! It was one of those few times that I went to the cinema and felt sad that I just lost 2 hours of my life.

Reese, James, Christina, Catherine - what were you doing!?!

Kamila said...

Actually, Nathaniel, "City of Men" is NOT a sequel to "City of God". If you think you are going to see violence in the movie, you are going to be disappointed. The picture is about two young kids entering in adult life, facing important subjects in their respective lives.

NATHANIEL R said...

well then the trailer is a big fat liar then, isn't it? looks very violent and very sequely --though not of course in the continuing characters/story way

J.D. said...

The Other Boleyn Girl is nowhere near being strong enough to survive 11 months of contenders, precursors, false starts, implosions, mega-raving and Keira Knightley with cleavage (!!!). Even if it is Sandy Powell and does deserve it.

Just a thought.

lawyer tony fernando said...

city of men it´s actually the movie version of the brazillian tv series, and it´s set on present day, there´s not much violence, it´s more about how the young that spend their lives in favelas handle the violence, the traffic appeal, the lack of father figure and also how someone so young that already has an offspring can handle all the pressures, and mostly about the friendship that the two main caracthers share.

Anonymous said...

City of Men is such a beautiful movie, a very tender coming of age story. Simply beautiful!

- cal roth

Unknown said...

hey, the whole J Moore in DH is not true, I think that if it was true it would be great for the show, but probably bad for her carreer.

NATHANIEL R said...

yes i was very pleased to hear her shoot that rumor down.

TV guest stints are the last thing she should be doing right now... though it's not like her film choices are giving me much hope beyond Blindness.

a horror movie? (Shelter) with inbred children? ugh. a possible western with Tom Hanks? i weep.

gone are the glory days of 95-99
the only hope for her rescue is PT ANDERSON and TODD HAYNES double-teaming with her in 3 or 4 years when they make another movie

Anonymous said...

Correction to my earlier post: the most lock-ish nomination prospect as of now would be, of course, WALL-E for animated feature.

Glenn Dunks said...

Isn't that always the case with Pixar?

Also, I was so into Addicted to Love when I was younger. That and Sleepless in Seattle and French Kiss. I was a Meg Ryan junkie for some reason.

NATHANIEL R said...

um, cuz she's a good actress. no shame in loving the Meg

*ducks and runs for cover*

Anonymous said...

Lange's horrible plastic surgery = vomit!