Friday, October 19, 2012
Film Your Weekend at the Movies with Paranormal Sequels and Morgan Freeman Reboots
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 12:20 PM
Alex Cross: Speaking of reboots and dopey prognostications: James Patterson Crime Franchise A was brought to the screen by Morgan Freeman in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider; now Tyler Perry has taken over as a younger, sexier... well, okay, definitely younger, and also taller, Alex Cross, superdetective. I'm kind of bummed that Perry isn't directing it himself; instead, that job falls to the stunningly inept Rob Cohen. Excepting the first Fast and the Furious movie (which has been outgunned by Fast Five anyway), Cohen has made a stunning run of truly terrible movies: The Skulls, XXX, Stealth, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. It's like he was designed to make us grateful for Brett Ratner and Stephen Sommers. Anyway, as long as the late-90s Morgan Freeman murder mystery is getting the ol' redo, can we throw Ashley Judd a bone and just start putting her in these? Or must she suffer the humiliation of tough-lady murder-centric thrillers making a comeback now starring Taylor Schilling?
The Sessions: I've heard that this John Hawkes-showcasing Oscar-bait-y movie is good and not even all that Oscar-bait-y considering the usually suffocatingly inspirational circumstances. But frankly, there are a ton of movies coming out in November while I'm out of town, so my strategy is going to be to not think about The Sessions even a little bit for at least another month, when I assume it will still be playing at some theater frequented by older gentlemen and ladies. Okay, one last thought on it until I actually see it in four to eight weeks' time: John Hawkes playing a gentle, mostly paralyzed nice guy in an Oscar-bait type of role; compare/contrast with the idea of Steve Buscemi playing a gentle, mostly-paralyzed nice guy in an Oscar-bait type of role. What I'm saying is, I'd probably be more interested in Hawkes and Buscemi teaming up to live in the woods and bicker over firewood gathering, but that's just me.
Nobody Walks: My review for The L has some more info on why this seems like a movie I should like but isn't. At least seeing it afforded me a Thirlby-filled month, as I caught up with Dredd (trivia: Olivia Thirlby is second lead in Dredd!) and this festival also-ran. She has yet to really find the sweet-spot balance of decent mainstream genre pictures and strong, distinctive indies. Basically, she needs to do a movie with Rian Johnson.
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