Weekend Forecast: 8/15/08
Penelope Cruz is neither Vicky nor Cristina in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
You can almost feel summer winding down and the fall movie season arriving, can’t you? Here’s what’s on tap this weekend:
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Woody Allen’s tale of two American women, the sensible one (Rebecca Hall) and the adventurous one (Scarlett Johansson), who travel to Barcelona where they become involved with a painter (Javier Bardem) who is still involved with his volatile ex-wife (Penelope Cruz). Whatever else you want to say about it, the cast and setting are too much to resist. Tickets
- Tropic Thunder (Wed 8/13) R-rated comedy with Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller as three self-absorbed movie stars making a big budget war movie filming in the jungles of Southeast Asia. When it turns out the soldiers on the other side are real bad guys… Tickets
- Fly Me To The Moon. 3-D animated flies hitch a ride on Apollo 11. Well, on the bright side, Tim Curry does one of the voices. Tickets
- Mirrors. Alexandre Aja (High Tension) remakes the 2003 Korean horror film Into the Mirror. Kiefer Sutherland stars as a suspended cop who takes a night watchman job with evil mirrors. That’s right, I said “evil mirrors.” Tickets
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars. George Lucas takes one step closer to finally eliminating those pesky actors. Tickets
Limited
- Henry Poole is Here. Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies) directs Luke Wilson as a terminally ill man who tries to pull a Leaving Las Vegas in a suburban neighborhood with a case of vodka, but people just won’t leave him alone. When a neighbor discovers a mysterious stain on his stucco wall, his home becomes the object of religious pilgrimages. What’s a brother gotta do to die quietly anymore? Tickets
New York
- Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer. Documentary tracing seven decades in the rough life of the hard living song-stylist and jazz diva. She isn’t known for having possessed the best voice, but she could improvise with the best of them and in the early days she shattered the image of the demure big band jazz vocalist by swinging as hard as any of the soloists. Tickets
- A Girl Cut in Two. Claude Chabrol, the father of the French New Wave, return with Ludivine Sagnier (The Swimming Pool) as a young woman caught between a famous author several decades her senior and his bitter enemy, the unhinged young scion of a pharmaceutical fortune. You just know someone is going to get it, don’t you? I caught this one at LAFF and it didn’t quite work for me. It’s stuck with me though and I’m looking forward to catching it again. Tickets
Filed under: Weekend Forecast
Tags: A Girl Cut in Two, Alexandre Aja, Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Ben Stiller, Claude Chabrol, Fly Me To the Moon, Henry Poole is Here, Jack Black, Javier Bardem, Ludivine Sagnier, Luke Wilson, Mark Pellington, Mirrors, Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Tim Curry, Tropic Thunder, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen
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Sign me up for the Allen, the Chabrol and the Stiller.
What an eclectic late-summer batch!
The Chabrol won’t be available to me, but I’m seeing the Allen tomorrow, and I saw the Stiller yesterday.
I liked it quite a bit.
I have another concert on Saturday night, but I will definitely see the Allen tomorrow night with Lucille, and the O’Day and Chabrol on Sunday and Monday. The Stiller could be a family matinee outing, but that R rating will probably dash that possibility.
Encounters at the End of the World finally opens here but I will be out of town all weekend. Not sure when I will get to that one. Looking forward to it though.
Comments here have made me more excited for the Allen film and I’m curious about the Chabrol. The Stiller remains on my radar although I remain equally dubious of it. Also mildly curious about Henry Poole, although everytime I see the trailer I keep thinking they’re referring to Henry Fool, which really throws me for a loop. I would be far more interesting if Poole had some Hartley and Posey going on.
The early reviews on the Anita O’Day jazz doc are extraordinary. This one is a must, especially for music fans (like myself and others here)
Yes, I’ve had my eye on the O’Day doc for a little while, though it looks like I’ll have to continue to wait to see it here.
I’m most looking forward to VCB. I didn’t make it to the midnight show of Tropic Thunder on Tuesday so that’s still on tap as well.
Aye, VCB is definitely something to get excited about.
Yes to Vicky Christina Barcelona and Tropic Thunder.
A big no to Star Wars.
I still want to see Man on Wire again.
I’ll be interested to see if there is an outpouring for VCB. I’m somewhat lukewarm to the film (enjoyed the travelogue aspect much more than the relational one), but then again I’m no Allen disciple. I loved Match Point, but all of the Allen dieharders seem to hate it, so I’m probably not the best barometer for VCB.
For me, I would see VCB, Tropic Thunder, the O’Day doc and maybe Henry Poole (which is being screened here for the press tomorow but I am busy).
I am doing a catch-up this weekend, nothing too exciting, just a lot of film’s I want to see. Whatever.
I’m probably not a good barometer either Evan. I have huge gaps in my Allen experience and I don’t consider myself a fantatic. I do like the guy and in this case I’m drawn to the cast and the milieu.
Nick, we’ll all be lucky if the O’Day doc makes it out of NY. Jerks. They get everything.
Yes, I’m interested in the O’Day documentary as well, but those New York City pigs are the only ones getting it for now. Darn ‘em all!
I’m mostly offline this week, out on the Left Coast (LA first, SD second) for another wedding this weekend. I look forward to VCB when I get back next week, along with Bottle Shock, which I have fortunately yet heard little about. My initial curiosity about Star Wars has waned significantly, and at this point I’d be surprised if I ever see it. If anybody does, though, I could be persuaded.
My weekend movie going drought has reached its fourth or fifth week. Pretty amazing that I feel like I haven’t really missed anything.
I don’t want to oversell Tropic Thunder too much, but I’m still finding myself looking back on it fondly. Waiting for the popular response and or backlash…
By the way, readers, I’m happy to report that Mr. Craig Kennedy is a.) a real person, and b.) as nice of a real person as you’d expect. Some of you already know this, but it’s worth another mention. Glad I got to know him before he hits the big time…
Glad I got to have lunch with you on your way through the City of Angels, Daniel.
And you can keep the 50 bucks I promised you if you said nice things about me.
I can also return the compliment. The flesh and blood version of DG is as nice as the one on the Intertubes.
Hey now, Craig, we New Yorkers can’t help that we’re lucky when it comes to movies, music and arts in general. :-)
That’s NOT fair. *stamps china doll feet HARD*
You dudes had lunch and we don’t get ANY details?
Well, then I fully expect some dish in private, you two….
I play to be a New Yorker some day, but until then, I’m always gonna be jealous of you lot.
VCB goes from enjoyable to agreeably incoherent to disagreeably incoherent to flat out random. Not bad. But not a fan, either.
I agree with your sentiment, K. I just read an interview with Allen in Newsweek yesterday and the film makes a lot more sense now in light of his relentlessly pessimistic outlook on life.