Next Week
I didn’t do my homework last night. The idea was to watch A Mighty Heart and comment on it today for your morning diversion. Didn’t happen. Could’ve happened. I was in front of the TV, the DVD right there, but I reached for something to read instead. This movie doesn’t cry out to me, for the same reason that you haven’t seen reviews of In the Valley of Elah, or Lions for Lambs or any other number of war is bad but we’re still rich and pretty films. It’s not that I feel that it’s too soon for films to examine the various current issues that plague our country, because I don’t. It has more to do with the fact that all of these films happen to look like they suck, self-fellatio as substitute for any particular drama. A prestige film for various celebrities to knock out in between their romantic comedies and action movies. If I’m to write a Best Of 2007 soon, and I intend to, I should’ve seen these movies and others, but there was always something else. I could pretend to regret my decision, but that would be an insult to both of us.
All that said, expect A Mighty Heart, and possibly the first Chucking of a classic, for tomorrow. The classic thing on Friday will be a regular feature. These Classic columns are not my own nominations for immortality, but instead my reactions to films that have already, for a while now, been granted the gold stamp of classic by the various invisible people that do such things.
As for next week, things are still a bit in flux but this is the perfect world line up:
Interview (Steve Buscemi); Killer of Sheep; I’m Not There; The Girl Next Door.
Again, this list could go in another direction entirely, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for new release I Am Legend. I, Robot, Smith’s last strip mining of famous sci-fi, got a free pass because I wasn’t familiar with the source material. I’ve read the Richard Matheson novel that inspires this new one though (and you should too) and I’m too invested in the film’s brilliant, sure to be discarded here ending to sit through two hours of Smith’s please, please, please love me mugging. Smith can be very charming, but he needs to drop the action thing. Romantic comedy suits him better. Oh, and I hated Legend director Francis Lawrence’s last movie, Constantine, too.
Didn’t mean to get off on a drunken uncle sour grapes tangent there. Let’s brighten things up with a wish to Santa: that the There Will Be Blood release date of Dec. 26 applies to D.C. as well as the usual major citites. Me thinks I can’t wait much longer than that.
See you guys tomorrow,
Chuck
Leave a Reply