Weekend Forecast: Barbarian Slackers vs. Indecent Proposal
By Craig Kennedy - June 18th, 2009; 12:01 am
Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood do Whatever Works
I’m glad the LA Film Festival starts tonight because this is another pretty dismal looking weekend for new releases. The best bet appears to be Woody Allen’s Whatever Works opening in limited release.
Opening wide:
- Year One. A couple of misfits (Michael Cera and Jack Black) are booted out of their barbarian tribe and left to cause trouble in the ancient world. Harold Ramis is something of a childhood hero around here so I’d love to see him return to comic form with Year One, but I don’t see it happening. Still, it could be good enough for a few chuckles.
- The Proposal. Here we have a low-concept romantic comedy with the likeable Sandra Bullock and the likeable Ryan Reynolds. She’s an uptight New York book editor and he’s her assistant. They despise one another, but when it looks like she might get deported back to Canada, she cons him into pretending they’re married. When they go back to Alaska to meet his folks, there is much awkward fish-out-of-water zaniness. I can hear the pitch meeting now: “It’s Green Card meets Northern Exposure!” Shudder. Also starring Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenburgen, Betty White and Malin Akerman.
Expanding this week:
- Away We Go. I had an allergic reaction to this Sam Mendes faux-indie staring Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski, but there are plenty of critics who thought it was just swell. I don’t recommend it, but then I’m the guy who liked Land of the Lost.
Opening in limited release:
- Whatever Works. Larry David as a surrogate Woody Allen in the Woodman’s latest comedy which was actually written around the time of Annie Hall. Evan Rachel Wood plays the young Southern woman he falls for.
- $9.99. Tatia Rosenthal’s episodic stop-motion animated tale based on the short stories of Etgar Keret (Jellyfish) promises to offer just less than $10 worth of knowledge about the meaning of life. An awards-qualifying run in Los Angeles in December 2008 earned the film less than $10 worth of Oscars.
- Dead Snow. In this horror-comedy, eight horny med students on a Norwegian ski trip are beset by frozen Nazi zombies. “Frozen Nazi zombies…I hate these guys.”
- The End of the Line. Another feel-bad documentary about how deeply we’re all screwed. This one says that at current fishing rates, we’ll run out of seafood by 2048. This one however claims to offer solutions.
To mark tonight’s opening of my home town film festival, this week’s musical sponsor is X with a 1982 performance of Los Angeles.
Filed under: Weekend Forecast
A very appropriate and inspired musical sponsor. :D
If – big if – I get to the movies this week I’ll be catching Unmistaken Child and Tetro, in that order. As usual I’m at least a week behind the Weekend Forecast. Often I’m months behind.
If I get to anything, it will be Revanche. We’re headed out of town for the weekend, so it’s highly unlikely. Saw Outrage last night, liked it, would recommend it. It asks a lot of important questions that the straight world has willfully ignored for some time now.
I can’t get excited about a single film opening this week, although I might eventually see Whatever Works, $9.99, and End of the Line.
As for our musical sponsor, X is always great but it led me to wonder about all the negative songs about LA in the annals of music. Even Randy Newman’s much celebrated “I Love LA” has an undercurrent of mocking sarcasm typical of Newman’s work. But jeez, everyone from Missing Persons to Guns and Roses has had their say about LA. Tool wrote the ultimate FU to LA with ænema, which celebrates the Big One knocking the entire city into the ocean.
Anyway, X just got me thinking. I know there’s been love songs written about LA too, I’m just saying.
Yeah, looks like LAFF is really your best option. June is always pretty terrible, though (‘08 – The Happening, Get Smart, The Love Guru, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, etc…).
I’d like to see O’Horten this weekend but chances are I won’t get to theaters until next week. Besides I’m being furloughed for a week so I’ll have weekday hours to burn. Heck, I’ll probably even see Year One if only to pick up where Land of the Lost left off.
Tonight Guy Maddin is coming to town for a live commentary during a screening of The Saddest Music in the World. I haven’t seen it but have heard raves. I actually haven’t seen Brand Upon the Brain or My Winnipeg, either, so I really have no idea what to expect.
Also opening for a week is a restored 70MM reel of West Side Story, also with digital sound. I’ve still never seen it in a theater and I hope not to miss it this time around.
Don’t forget LA Woman by The Doors, Joel. There are a number of anti-LA movies as well…there’s something about this town that offers so much promise until you actually get here. Plus a lot of dreams have come here to die. I have a love/hate relationship with it myself and it took me a long time to grow into the love part of it.
Revanche gets a modest LiC stamp of approval.
Alison, I heartily recommend both films on your plate and I hope you get to at least one of them. If I were a betting man (and I am), I’d guess you’d like Unmistaken Child best, but you might surprise me.
I’ve tried to make it through Saddest Music in the World twice and have failed both times. It bugs me because I think Maddin would be right up my alley.
70mm West Side Story. There’s a movie that definitely should be seen in a theater and so much the better in 70mm!