Friday, February 3, 2012
Film Your Big, Miraculous Weekend at the Movies
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:52 AM
The Innkeepers: Haunted house aficionados in the Greater New York Area can program a new ghostie double-feature this weekend, as Ti West follows up his creepy, retro-80s House of the Devil with another presumably creepy/retro horror tale (though probably not as period-retro as Woman in Black). It's about a haunting in Connecticut. But it's not A Haunting in Connecticut. It's also not my proposed Haunting in Connecticut sequel: A Vermonster in Rhode Island.
Chronicle: Found-footage anything has been rendered as ordinary as it looks by three Paranormal Activity movies in three years, plus any number of ripoffs 'n remakes. But word is this found-footage teenage-superhero origin story has a few tricks up its sleeve, and I'm eager to see it for the simple reason that I'd love to see a superhero story minus the reverent franchise-building of Marvel, which has come to dominate the scene in between the years where we get an awesome Batman or X-Men movie. Watch this one carefully; Fox likes this director for the new iteration of Fantastic Four, and it's always hard to tell if Fox is in X-Men: First Class/Rise of the Planet of the Apes we-totally-get-it mode, or Mark Steven Johnson/Rob Bowman who-the-fuck-cares-as-long-as-it-comes-in-on-time mode.
He doesn't have that post-Internet TV comedian thing where you're equally comfortable starring on a good sitcom, doing goofy big-screen comedies, and/or cameoing in whatever your buddies are up to in whatever medium (see Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, etc.). He even sticks for his sometime Office (and License to Wed!) director Ken Kwapis for Big Miracle, an inoffensive and even semi-interesting save-the-whales true story. Though no one will confuse the director of The Beautician and the Beast for David Fincher, Kwapis does show some attention to the process of how various groups (environmentalists, oil men, politicians, Alaskan locals) came together to save some whales in danger of getting frozen under the Alaskan ice in 1988 (yes, like Donnie Darko, this movie is set against the backdrop of the Bush/Dukakis presidential race).
A few times during the movie, I found myself thinking that this could've been an Altmanesque ensemble comedy under different circumstances, and while it isn't, I bet no one thought of the word "Altmanesque" during that Dolphin Tale movie from September. Big Miracle is pretty forgettable, and the romantic stuff between Krasinski and Drew Barrymore (as a Greenpeace... well, the movie never exactly says what her job is) isn't just pointless, it's actually kind of off-putting, based on how little they seem to like each other. But if your kid wants to watch a bunch of TV stars and character actors band together for whales, it's not a rough sit. For Kwapisologists: it's his best movie since Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants!
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Please look up Rupert's film history first before discounting his acting ability and his work habits. He has actually done several films during the filming of Potter and has several projects actually in the works. Perhaps you never saw Wild Target or have heard of Into the White, Postman Pat, Eddie the Eagle or Cross Country, but these are all films in which Rupert if going to appear. He is by no means just sitting around driving an ice cream truck.
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