Weekend Forecast: Fantastic
By Craig Kennedy - November 12th, 2009; 12:33 pm
He really is a quote unquote fantastic fox
Behold the weekend forecast. Though it’s only opening in 4 theaters this weekend, LiC’s pick of the week is Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. It’s cussing great.
Opening wide:
- 2012. It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. Sure I’ll probably regret it, but I’m tempted to see Roland Emmerich wreck the world one more time. Then again, I imagine we’ve seen all the money shots in the trailer. If it blows, I have no one to blame but myself.
- Pirate Radio. Retitled and slightly re-edited from its original UK version, Pirate Radio wrangles a great cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh and January Jones; a great soundtrack featuring The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Troggs, The Easybeats, The Turtles and Jimi Hendrix; all in the service of the story of a group of renegade DJs who illegally broadcast rock and roll music in the UK in the 1960s. Critical response has been mixed on both sides of the Atlantic, but there are too many good things to ignore this one.
Limited
- Fantastic Mr. Fox. Boggis and Bunce and Bean. One fat, one short, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean. And so begins Fantastic Mr. Fox, a movie I love now even more than when I first saw it. I have a feeling it’ll play better to Wes Anderson fans and the arthouse crowd than to the families and children it’s being marketed toward, but as a member of the former groups, I’m at peace with that. Having said that, I would like to see all future negative reviews of Wes Anderson movies forced to exclude the words “quirky”, “hipster”, and “twee”. Seriously. We get it. You can’t find a way into the heart of Anderson’s insular style. It’s your loss. Fox opens this weekend in New York and Los Angeles and it’ll get a wide rollout for Thanksgiving.
- The Messenger (NY/DC. Expands 11/20). Ben Foster plays a US Army officer assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. There he becomes emotionally attached to Samantha Morton, a woman whom he had to notify of the death of her husband. Woody Harrelson plays his partner.
- Dare. High school drama with Emmy Rossum as a high school senior…experiencing drama. Alan Cumming and Sandra Bernhardt play older teacher/advisor types. Yawn.
- Oh My God? Filmmaker Peter Rodger explores religion throughout the world speaking to such noted theological luminaries as Hugh Jackman, Ringo Starr, Seal and David Copperfield. No, I’m not shitting you.
- Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon. Documentary about inner city teens competing in an entrepreneurship competition. With no Oprah or Tyler Perry endorsement, this one will likely get ignored just like The Providence Effect before it.
- Women in Trouble. Best known as the screenwriter of Snakes on a Plane, writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez delivers this ensemble comedy following 10 “women in trouble” around LA for 24 hours. One of them is Carla Gugino, a porn star who discovers she’s pregnant. Emmanuelle Chriqui, Adrianne Palicki, Marley Shelton and Connie Britton also star with support from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Simon Baker and Josh Brolin. Hmmm. I like the garish, exploitation style title. Whether it’s any good or not remains to be seen.
New York
- Uncertainty. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins are a couple whose story unfolds across two separately realities joined by the flip of a coin. One is a family drama and the other is a murder suspense story.
- William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (LA 11/20). Documentary about the late civil rights lawyer. “I want a fuckin’ lawyer, man. I want… Bill Kunstler, man… or, mmm…or Ronald Kuby.”
This week’s musical sponsor is The Bobby Fuller Four with Let Her Dance, from the soundtrack to Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Filed under: Weekend Forecast
Really getting into the heavy period of movies here. I’ve been slowly catching up, seeing one for every two that I give up on (Bright Star, Coco, Zombieland). I’ve seen An Education, Amreeka and Good Hair in the last week and enjoyed all for different reasons.
Anyway, I’d love to get to some of these this weekend but it’s not looking likely. Tonight I’m going to a screening of It Happened One Night at the local microcinema – believe it or not I’ve never seen it.
We don’t get Precious, Fox, or The Messenger until next week, but all three are on my high priority list.
Pirate Radio can’t be all that bad, can it? I’m thinking PSH resurrecting his character from Almost Famous.
And yeah, let’s be real, I want to see 2012.
It Happened One Night is one of my all-time favorites, Daniel! Hope you enjoy it. Would love to see it in a theater. It was was one of the first old films to charm me with it’s timeless playfulness and wit. I can watch it anytime, anywhere.
If I get over this sickness, there’s probably a Roland Emmerich film in my near future. How’s that for dubious motivation?
Have plenty of DVDs to catch up on, as well. The Men Who Stare at Goats movie is here, but it’s feeling more and more like a rental, unless someone wants to convince me otherwise.
Can’t wait for Fantastic Mr. Fox to go wide. That’ll be a fantastic week. Love the song, too.