8/19 – 8/21 It’s a good weekend to love movies. If there’s any justice, The 40 Year-Old Virgin will make at least 100 million, but since the world is a cold, cruel, ebola-ridden place 20 million is probably more realistic. Steve Carell’s masterpiece comedy opus is battling it out with Red Eye, another very good film which could easily capture number one. The box office can’t possibly go wrong this weekend… unless a lot of you are dumb enough to see Supercross. That said, here’s my usual look at what you should be watching this weekend. Get to a movie theater!
Misc. Limited Releases (Opening on fewer than 500 screens.)
Broken Flowers finally expands this weekend, into 389 theaters. If you’ve been waiting for it, now is your chance. The documentary Reel Paradise gets its debut this weekend, you may have read Lexi’s review on our site a couple of weeks ago. It’s not the sort of thing you can’t afford to miss. Then there’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, debuting in a meager 3 theaters. This is the followup to Park Chan-Wook’s very cool revenge flick Oldboy, which drifted into the US earlier this year and is already slated to be turned into an American remake. There’s a screener copy sitting on my TV right now. Oldboy was good but flawed, if Sympathy works out some of the kinks, then it could be something special.
But the most interesting limited arrival this weekend is Romance & Cigarettes, and it seems like it has been a long time in coming. Debuting in 6 theaters, it’s a musical by John Turturro, whom you may remember for his performance in O, Brother Where Art Thou?. Well he’s a writer and director too, and a pretty talented one. His time in O, Brother means he’s not a total stranger to the musical, and its kind of cool that his most high profile directorial effort so far would be one. Not at all what I would have expected. With a breast-tacular poster (look to the right of these words) and a cast featuring (among others) Kate Winslett, Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, and James Gandolfini it’s definitely worth a look. Here’s hoping Walken gets a chance to dance.
Supercross (Opens Wednesday in 1,580 theaters.)
I hated this movie even more the first time, when it was called Torque. I doubt it’s gotten any better this time than it did for Laurence Fishburne when he messed around with this kind of crap. I haven’t seen it, but it’s probably safe to describe it as incessant stupidity punctuated by loud motor noises. Unless you’re some sort of motorcycle enthusiast, if you go see this movie you may want to consider reading a different movie site. I’m afraid we may not be able to properly service your movie reviewing needs. Just in case you want it, here’s a plot synopsis: Pretty people ride motorcycles. They take a break from riding motorcycles to do pretty people things. Ugly people in the audience commit mass suicide. Pretty people in the audience leave the theater with their dominant place in society and mastery over time and space re-affirmed, because they’re too stupid to know any better. The end (of the world, not just the film).
Valiant (Opens in 2,000 theaters.)
Wait a minute, I thought Chicken Little was supposed to be the first computer animated effort from Disney? It is. Valiant is a British import being distributed by Disney, not created by them. While I sincerely doubt that Vanguard Animation will prove a capable replacement for Pixar in this regard, the voice cast makes the film worthy of some notice. Yes, I know. Big name voices really don’t usually equal quality in an animated film. However, this one has snagged (among others) John Cleese and Tim Curry. I love listening to Tim Curry. It doesn’t really matter what he’s doing, so long as the guy is talking. The film’s plot isn’t exactly inspiring, it involves animated wacky World War II Homing Pigeons, but low expectations may equal a pleasant surprise. If you’re a parent with young kids, you could probably do worse.
Red Eye (Opens in 2,700+ theaters.)
Director Wes Craven shows admirable restraint in Red Eye to develop a fairly capable, tension-filled thriller in confined spaces. Rachel McAdams stars as a normal, career-minded woman stuck on a plane sitting next to an assassin. He’s been stalking her, and now he wants something from her. If she gives it to him, a political figure will die. If she doesn’t, it’ll guarantee the death of her father. She can’t call for help, and there’s no way off the plane and so the nail biting tension keeps building and she struggles with her emotions and looks for a way out. The film falls apart at the end when the plane lands and Craven goes back to his old horror tricks (namely lots of running and screaming), but for most of its running time the film is taut, simple, and smart. McAdams continues to prove herself as one of the brightest, most talented young actresses in Hollywood, and Cillian Murphy is so good you’ll wish he’d had an even bigger role in Batman Begins. Red Eye is a nice little thriller.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (Opens in 2,840 theaters.)
Red Eye is a nice film, but 40 Year-Old Virgin is one of the year’s very best. Steve Carell really blew me away with this one, a movie that’s not only ridiculously funny but full of an amazing amount of energy and heart. Unlike Wedding Crashers or much worse, Napoleon Dynamite, it doesn’t beat you down with over-the-top, wacky characters going straight for the easiest, cheapest jokes. More importantly, it doesn’t dip into gags that simply make fun of its characters (though that would have been easy). Instead, the film works hard to make you actually care about the people caught up in it, and garners continuous laughter by building and building and building on the personalities of its characters and chemistry of its cast. It’s an amazing comedy and a really wonderful film, probably the funniest movie to show up in theaters in at least a decade. It’s an instant classic, an absolute must see movie. Don’t wait for video, part of the fun of this thing is seeing it as part of a group experience. Get out and support The 40-Year Old Virgin. You’ll love it.
