Pondering the Summer Movies, Early
May. 5th, 2003 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteIn case you missed it - and you may have, if you only learn about movies from ads on Buffy and Smallville - the summer movie season began with X2's successful release. (A tip of the hat, BTW, to Fox and MArvel for not drowning us in endless hype about the film.)
I've persued the forthcoming movie schedule, and find a good number of films I am at least intrigued by, with a couple that will require my wallet to open no matter what.
Matrix Reloaded - The top of my list. I love the original, and will join the faithful in getting to the theater as soon as possible. But I fear the hype level is already too high, and that the critics will have their knives sharp for this. So for once, I am not looking for reviews in advance. I want to be surprised.
Bruce Almighty - OK, we all know how this will go. Carrey is not likely to do a film of this sort that doesn't have a heartlifting and moralizing ending. But Carrey remains a force of nature who you find yourself watching in the worst films. (Lord help me, but I watched Dumb and Dumber, and darn it if he wasn't good in that.) But this may be worth waiting to rent.
Finding Nemo - It's Pixar, and most of the creative taleants that gave us Toy Story, etc., are back. But the story looks relentlessly cute in the trailers.
The Hulk - One the one hand, it's Ang Lee directing. On the other, it's a character who in his most famous incarnation can get dull fast. Even with Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte in the cast, this could be a dud, good CGI or not. But it's goota be more exciting than an average episode of the old TV show.
Sinbad - Just learned about this one over the weekend. It's Dreamworks' next animated film, and features the voices of Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones. and Michelle Pfieffer, it's written by John Logan (Gladiator and Star Trek: Nemesis). I think this will probably tank like every other American-made animated action film, but if it's as good as it could be, I'm ready to see it.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Alan Moore's funky Victorian Justice League in a film written by James Robinson (writer of my favorite comic book, Starman), starrring Sean Connery. What could be wrong here? Well, the story now has Tom Sawyer in it, huge changes were apparently made to the other characters, and Alan Moore's last comic to go Hollywood, From Hell, tanked badly. OTOH, if this is a success, maybe the long-lost Watchmen project is revived?
Pirates of the Caribbean - If you told me about this film without the name of it, I'd probably be curious at the least. The name leaves me suspicious, after the world was subjected to The Country Bears, I don't trust Disney's newest marketing ploys.
Of course, there are two other media events that might overshadow the movies for many of us, the end of Buffy and the arrival of the fifth Harry Potter book. I figure that you want to see a kid-friendly film without kids in the theater, do it the weekend after HP5 lands. We could see the first time in history a book trumps a movie.
And this is all the warm-up for the fall, when the King returns, the Matrix revolts, Harry Potter is directed by someone not named Chris Columbus, and Peter Weir directs Russell Crowe in Master and Commander.
I've persued the forthcoming movie schedule, and find a good number of films I am at least intrigued by, with a couple that will require my wallet to open no matter what.
Matrix Reloaded - The top of my list. I love the original, and will join the faithful in getting to the theater as soon as possible. But I fear the hype level is already too high, and that the critics will have their knives sharp for this. So for once, I am not looking for reviews in advance. I want to be surprised.
Bruce Almighty - OK, we all know how this will go. Carrey is not likely to do a film of this sort that doesn't have a heartlifting and moralizing ending. But Carrey remains a force of nature who you find yourself watching in the worst films. (Lord help me, but I watched Dumb and Dumber, and darn it if he wasn't good in that.) But this may be worth waiting to rent.
Finding Nemo - It's Pixar, and most of the creative taleants that gave us Toy Story, etc., are back. But the story looks relentlessly cute in the trailers.
The Hulk - One the one hand, it's Ang Lee directing. On the other, it's a character who in his most famous incarnation can get dull fast. Even with Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte in the cast, this could be a dud, good CGI or not. But it's goota be more exciting than an average episode of the old TV show.
Sinbad - Just learned about this one over the weekend. It's Dreamworks' next animated film, and features the voices of Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones. and Michelle Pfieffer, it's written by John Logan (Gladiator and Star Trek: Nemesis). I think this will probably tank like every other American-made animated action film, but if it's as good as it could be, I'm ready to see it.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Alan Moore's funky Victorian Justice League in a film written by James Robinson (writer of my favorite comic book, Starman), starrring Sean Connery. What could be wrong here? Well, the story now has Tom Sawyer in it, huge changes were apparently made to the other characters, and Alan Moore's last comic to go Hollywood, From Hell, tanked badly. OTOH, if this is a success, maybe the long-lost Watchmen project is revived?
Pirates of the Caribbean - If you told me about this film without the name of it, I'd probably be curious at the least. The name leaves me suspicious, after the world was subjected to The Country Bears, I don't trust Disney's newest marketing ploys.
Of course, there are two other media events that might overshadow the movies for many of us, the end of Buffy and the arrival of the fifth Harry Potter book. I figure that you want to see a kid-friendly film without kids in the theater, do it the weekend after HP5 lands. We could see the first time in history a book trumps a movie.
And this is all the warm-up for the fall, when the King returns, the Matrix revolts, Harry Potter is directed by someone not named Chris Columbus, and Peter Weir directs Russell Crowe in Master and Commander.
