Deleted Scenes 07.30.09: Looking Ahead - August
Posted by Robert Sullivan on 07.30.2009
Heading into my birth month with plenty of optimism...maybe. Come on in.
Hey, everybody. I'm Rob, this is Deleted Scenes, and welcome back to my final column as a 24-year-old. Sunday's coming up fast and it's time for all of you to show your undying love and approval. But before you get to that business, it's time for a little of this business -
And now that you're done updating yourself on all that pretty information, how about you make 411mania.com YOUR official homepage? I know you will, good readers.
On with the show.
The dog days of summer are here, and it's known for two separate things - containing my birthday and featuring some of the worst theatrical releases of the year. Does that preexisting condition hold up for 2009's August movie slate? Let's check it out.
August 7th
Yeah, it looks rather generic with only a very slight glimmer of hope for an actually solid horror film. But it does have Steve Zahn in its corner, and hopefully while filming was going on he was taking as many drugs as he did before doing Conan on Tuesday. Or maybe he just wanted to tell stories about hitchhiking in a chicken suit on "The Tonight Show," that might've just crossed his mind as something fun to do that day. In either case, at least it's not a raging act of douchebaggery like Joaquin Phoenix's misadventures on Letterman recently. I highly enjoyed Zahn's previous experience in the genre as Joy Ride is a forgotten gem that actually made Paul Walker and Leelee Sobieski tolerable, so I'll give this one a look.
From a studio horror film to a bizarre indie about Paul Giamatti playing a version of himself looking for his soul (nonmetaphorically, at that), Cold Souls could either be a navelgazing disappointment or an enjoyable braintickler. The trailer wasn't anything too exemplary, but the movie's got Giamatti and David Strathairn, whose presence in this film is hopefully evidence that the 411Mania collection drive last year was enough to allow him to turn down further pieces of garbage like The Uninvited.
Yeaaaaaaahno.
Poor Dennis Quaid.
Poor Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Poor Rachel Nichols' breasts.
August 14th
Oh, I am amped for this one. Although, as previously stated in other columns, I would not have approved of trailers and TV spots revealing the aliens' faces or what one was saying while it was being interrogated, District 9 has kept enough mystery about itself and just seemed straight-up cool through these anticipatory months. I'm very ready for a subversive "action" movie about trapped aliens and their human oppressors, but I'm not sure if America as a whole is going to like what it sees when it goes to check out "that cool new action movie this weekend." What will finally end up posted on Boxofficemojo will be interesting, to say the least.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But you readers know what kind of a sap I can be if a movie hits my buttons just right, and the trailers have done just that - mildly intrigue the brain with an interesting central conceit, promise tragedy, and then play on my massive weakness for the best thing to come out of Canada since Martin Brodeur.
Well done, marketing people behind The Time Traveler's Wife.
Well done indeed.
Back to earning my street cred here. *cough* Grace has been tearing up festivals for a long while now, and you'll have to seek it out in only a handful of theaters because the studio's a bunch of bitches, it certainly seems worthy of the effort. A horror film about just how deep maternal love goes when a baby declares its preference for something other than mother's milk, Grace can hopefully deliver on its hype when it gets its hard-won tiny theatrical rollout.
August 21st
Oh, Quentin Tarantino. You'll soon get me to give up my money yet again for one of your love-it-or-hate-it cinematic efforts, and perhaps this time you'll treat me kindly for doing so. Its Cannes reaction was decidedly mixed, but this film's never seemed like anything other than right up my alley - an unfairly-maligned-for-his-looks actor in Brad Pitt (whose work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has earned a lifetime pass from me, as you all know), a humorously strange point of view, and Hitler in a cape prancing about and screaming "nein!" at others' failures sounds good to me.
And there goes all that cred right back out the window.
But I swear, it's for a good reason - it's got Matt Saracen in it! If I could make it through the atrocious X-Men Origins: Wolverine because Tim Riggins had a role, I can easily go through a breezy romcom that isn't massively fucking up a huge franchise forever and ever.
"Friday Night Lights" love, people. It runs deep. If I don't show it, who will? The Emmy people, who thought the dude from "The Mentalist" gave a better performance than Kyle fucking Chandler? I don't think so.
August 28th
What can I say, I'm Irish Catholic. Without our love of crushing guilt and self-flaggelation, what are we, really? So I'll buy a ticket for something else, probably Inglorious Basterds if I love it and audiences are staying away in droves as I expect, and check out Rob Zombie's latest round of showcasing how very little he understands about Michael Myers and the franchise as a whole. Just can't wait to see Homeless Mountain Man Michael Myers and his plethora of mommy/daddy issues splashed across the screen again.
*tear*
Then I'll go cleanse my cinematic palate with this indie comedy by Ang Lee, where he hilariously cast Demetri Martin as its straight man. I don't know why, but I just adore that choice. I mean, think about that. Demetri Martin as the average center around which hippies arrive for the most glorious concert event of all time. That just makes me smile, even the now-reliable standard in the trailer of "old people unknowingly take marijuana," if only because it shows the adults being joyously happy as opposed to going through a ridiculous meltdown a la a certain talentless douchebag's mom in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
I get some criticism at times about how my columns tend to be shorter at the end, but really now - 1) this is the last major release of the month and 2) it's the latest entry of the Final Destination franchise and it's in 3-D. Of course I'm seeing this. I've been eagerly awaiting this since My Bloody Valentine showed that the genre need not fear 3-D any longer, that the format has vastly improved and...fuck, it's Final Destination in 3-D, people. This is going to be a great time at the movies with your lady friend, guaranteed.
