We’ve officially moved out of the death march month that is January, and enter into February with a slew of new titles waiting for you to feast your eyes on them.
Coraline is the latest effort from stop-motion animator Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas). Based on a novel by Neil Gaiman, in which a young girl walks through a secret door and discovers an alternate world. Kind of like Bizarro Superman. Or the “Bizarro Jerry” episode of “Seinfeld” with Kevin, Gene and Feldman. A lot of people have been excited for this. I thought the theatrical trailer was weak, but thought the internet only trailer was better. If it’s a creepy as the latter trailer sells it to be, I think it could be interesting.
Dance Flick is one of the most egregious errors in a week where most of my exclamations can only be expressed by the words, “goodness gracious” (imagine how Christian Bale would add his spin on that phrase). The Wayans brothers continue to return to the well already slaughtered by Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (Disaster Movie). Please, just let the whole spoof genre die. If there’s one film I beg you not to see this weekend, this is it. I know that will affect you none.
Fanboys (limited) looks HOOOORIBLE! I’m sorry to all Star Wars fans. I would love it for you if this film turned out any good. I couldn’t dare to think so, however. It was filmed years ago, has been edited and recut to death, delayed again and again and is being dropped on you as a limited release. Not even George Lucas treats you this poorly. The premise is a group of Star Wars fans attempt to break into Skywalker Ranch to steal a copy of The Phantom Menace to show to their terminally ill friend.
He’s Just Not That Into You was delayed from back in the fall, but it’s received a lot of promotion since then. It has a crazy cast list consisting of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connolly, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Drew Barrymore and on and on. I wonder how they’ll be able to truly establish all these characters and all these stories they have going on in the film. They apparently needed 129 minutes to do it, but even then, you have to call it into question. This might be the biggest grossing movie of the weekend due to all the names.
The Pink Panther 2 is a completely unnecessary sequel to the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther. I remember as an intern at The Montecito Picture Company when I was in college, they had about 40 drafts of that damn script. I had no idea the first one even did well enough to merit a sequel. It certainly couldn’t have been funny enough. I would imagine the second one is the one that kills off the franchise, like the other recent Steve Martin series, Cheaper By the Dozen.
Push is probably the most intriguing of all this week’s films. It’s a superhero movie of sorts, starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle as people possessing telekinetic powers. They all differ in variation, from a “mover,” a “watcher,” and (at last) a “pusher.” They combine to combat a dark government agency called “The Division,” who’s been genetically altering citizens to help with their dirty work. It somewhat resembles a feature-length episode of “Heroes,” and will most likely be this year’s Jumper. Hopefully better, though.
