411 Movies Roundtable: March 2009 (Part 1)

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 03.03.2009

The 411 staff takes a look back at the month that was, and discusses the upcoming big releases in March!

Welcome to the monthly 411 Movies Roundtable. It's been a busy month in the movie world, and as usual old Oscar has been hogging the limelight, and what a ceremony this year's was - who could've foreseen Sean Penn winning the big one only to be ambushed with a steel chair by Mickey Rourke to set up the big title match at Wrestlemania 25? *** Never mind though, as the merry month of March is shaping up to throw us some potential big-hitters - this month, Nic Cage takes on numerology and hopes for a better critical reception than Jim Carrey managed with the same subject, Dreamworks throws its oversized hat into the sci-fi arena, and the guy who did the movie version of 300 is apparently hashing out another tired old comic book adaptation. Give it a rest, Snyder!

*** Disclaimer - column introduction written before the Academy Awards

This month's picture theme is going down a horribly predictable route. Sorry, folks.

Let's get down to business...

Introducing this month's participants:

Jack of all trades Jeremy Thomas!

B-movie guru Bryan Kristopowitz!

Resident Whedonite Jason Chamberlain!

The Furious one himself, Arnold Furious!

Master of the alternate take Shawn S. Lealos!

The goose Steve Gustafson!

...and I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield!

The Month That Was

Jeremy Thomas

Biggest Winner of the Month: Slumdog Millionaire for the second month in a row. Eight Oscars and a whole host of other awards would be enough on its own, but add into that it brought in enough money in February to trump all but four movies and you have an easy win here. A distant (but still impressive) second goes to Coraline, which is showing incredible legs and looks to be the sleeper hit of the early year.

Biggest Loser of the Month: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:. A near-record-tying thirteen nominations for the David Fincher-directed film led to a piddly three awards. No Best Picture, no Best Director, no Best Actor, Supporting Actress or Screenplay. While Button looks to be the top-grossing of the Best Picture nominees, it appears that Fincher will need yet another amazing film in his repertoire before he can be called the force behind a film that the Academy loved.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: While Oscar was all the rage in February, the ongoing SAG labor issue has to be considered very big news. The actors' guild replaced chief negotiator Doug Allen, which prompted a whole host of drama and caused president Alan Rosenberg to try and stop the proceedings to no avail. The new negotiating board then went to talks with the studios and rejected their "final offer," meaning that the possibility of a Hollywood-crippling strike isn't dead yet. Will it ever end?

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: 12 Rounds! No, I kid. Watchmen, obviously, is every fanboy's dream and looks to open huge. The visuals have been astounding so far, and I know damn well that I'm going to be there. Especially after all the drama regarding its release, this is a rare Hollywood story that may have a real-life happy ending.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: The two-disc edition of Quantum of Solace comes out at the end of the month. While not as good as Casino Royale, the second Daniel Craig Bond film had a lot of moments to enjoy. While there are no deleted scenes or commentary, there look to be a host of featurettes that should be fun watching.

Classic Movie of the Month: Calling it "classic" may be a bit much as it's only eight years old, but in honor of Alan Moore's Watchmen making it to the screen, I felt like honoring another Moore story that made it to the big screen. I'm a huge fan of serial killers in fiction, and when you add in Johnny Depp, it's bound to be good. Thus came along From Hell,, Moore's story of a possible explanation for Jack the Ripper. It's a moody, atmospheric movie in which the Hughes Brothers carefully and painstakingly recreated the infamous Whitechapel murders and has a mostly-great cast to boot.

Movie Quote of the Month: The Ripper: "One day men will look back and say that I gave birth to the twentieth century."
Inspector Abberline: "You're not going to see the twentieth century."
- From Hell

Bryan Kristopowitz

Biggest Winner of the Month: Tyler Perry, as his latest flick Madea Goes to Jail opened with $40 million, his biggest movie opening to date. Plus, his Meet the Browns sitcom is doing quite well on TBS (I think it got an order for 80 episodes or something like that) and there's already talk of Lionsgate wanting another Madea movie as soon as possible. Perry can do no wrong, at least right now.

Biggest Loser of the Month: Steve Martin, as his The Pink Panther 2 more or less tanked at the box office, as it only made $11 million its first weekend, well below expectations. Martin's first Panther movie opened with around $20 million and ended up with around $90 million, if memory serves correct. The sequel isn't going to come close to that. It's a shame, as the flick is actually pretty funny (if you give it a chance and you're into silly movies). Maybe home video will be kinder to Inspector Closeau.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Platinum Dunes has been threatening the world with a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street for a while now, but with the recent mega success of their Friday the 13th redux Platinum Dunes has now said they want a new Freddy Krueger immediately. What was originally just an existential threat is now looking like an actual incoming attack. So now all everyone wants to know (including me) who exactly is the studio going to get to play Freddy? And will they keep the same spelling, or will it become "Freddie"? It could happen.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Watchmen, obviously. Race to Witch Mountain looks like it'll be fun. Last House on the Left, just to see if it "lives up" to the original, Monsters vs Aliens looks pretty decent, and 12 Rounds looks okay.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Man, there's some good stuff coming out this month. Disney releases a 2-disc 70th anniversary edition of Pinocchio, Transporter 3 comes out, Let the Right One In will finally reach a larger audience, Howard the Duck gets some kind of special edition DVD, Synecdoche, New York will also finally reach a larger audience, The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 5, one of the greatest movies ever made, Punisher: War Zone comes out (I can't wait), Mr. Belvedere the sitcom finally comes to DVD (seasons 1 and 2 to be exact) and Andy Richter's first brilliant sitcom, Andy Richter Controls the Universe: The Complete Series arrives so we can all see what the hell that unaired episode where Andy rides a jet powered skateboard was all about.

Classic Movie of the Month: Bulletproof (1988): This is the classic 1988 action flick starring Gary Busey, when Busey was riding high from his turn as the mercenary villain Mr. Joshua in Lethal Weapon. In Bulletproof, Busey plays Frank McBain (one of the greatest action movie names of all time), a rough and tumble scumbum cop with a shady CIA past who is recruited by his old employers to go to Mexico to steal back a super tank that was stolen by a bunch of evil Communists from different countries (Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, among others). It's got plenty of standard 1980's action hooha in it, all of it outstanding, but most importantly, it's got Busey with a .44 magnum calling people "butthorns" and pulling bullets out of his own body after he gets shot (hence the name Bulletproof). It's also got Henry Silva and William Smith in it, too. That's like the greatest cast of all time. Well, it's on the short list for greatest cast of all time.

Movie Quote of the Month: Littlejohn: "Braddock, I'm warning you. Don't step on any toes."
Braddock: "I don't step on toes, Littlejohn. I step on necks."

- Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) and Littlejohn (Jack Reader), Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988)

Jason Chamberlain

Biggest Winner of the Month: I'm going with the late Heath Ledger for being posthumously awarded a richly deserved Academy Award for his work in The Dark Knight. The Oscars may have let me down by snubbing TDK in pretty much every other category, but at least they recognized the absolutely electric performance Ledger provided. Would he have won if he was still alive today? Maybe, maybe not, but I have no doubt his performance would have been nominated and just as celebrated as it is with him no longer with us. He was just that good.

Biggest Loser of the Month: With the Academy Awards defaulting to their classic "let one movie sweep everything" maneuver, Slumdog Millionaire raked in the gold while Benjamin Button, another movie that was nominated for pretty much everything... got shut out of pretty much everything.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: You've got to be kidding me. Is there still a threat of a potential SAG strike? Have these brain surgeons learned nothing from last year's debacle? In today's economic climate, the last thing anybody wants to hear about is overpaid actors going on strike. It may make things better for the majority of working actors, the ones that don't make the big nut, but that's not going to make the sight of Paris Hilton on a picket line any less nauseating.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Um... Watchmen. Watchmen, Watchmen, Watchmen. A thousand times Watchmen. There is nothing that even comes close. I've been anticipating this movie for well over a year. A masterpiece of a story, and all indications are that it has been masterfully translated onto film. If Alan Moore wants to hide in his bungalow somewhere and ignore the movie's existence, that's cool. I can't bad mouth the guy, he's a genius. But I think he'll be missing out with this one.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: The first Batman franchise is coming to Blu Ray. High Def transfers of Batman and Batman Returns? Fuck YES. Even Batman Forever will look damn good on Blu. And I could use another coaster, so that Batman and Robin disc is going to come in handy. I'll never watch it of course, unless I accidentally drink bleach and need to induce vomiting. But the first three flicks are solid.

Classic Movie of the Month: The Goonies are good enough, baby. I loved this movie as a kid (who didn't?) and I watched it again a couple weeks back for the first time in ages. It holds up well. It's just a fun, innocent movie about a bunch of kids going on a treasure hunt, ending up way over their heads but coming out on top in the end. Because they're Goonies! And Goonies are good enough.

Movie Quote of the Month: "Licensed to kill gophers. By the government of the United Nations. A man free to kill gophers at will. To kill you must know your enemy. In this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit. Ever. They're like the Viet Cong. Varmint Cong." – Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) prepares for his one man war on a gopher in Caddyshack.

Arnold Furious

Biggest Winner of the Month: I'm going with Liam Neeson. I really didn't see Taken being a hit movie. It came out in the UK way ahead of the US and made very little impact. It seemed so generic and yet people clearly were interested. The big news coming out of Taken's success is almost certainly Liam Neeson's bankability as a big star. After all the movie seemed to have very little else going for it. Neeson, forever the mentor in films, may now get his chance to shine as a leading man. Good luck to him.

Biggest Loser of the Month: Outlander. Tied to Third Rail it received no real box office support to back its huge budget. Jim Caviezel must be really disappointed. The premise of a "sci-fi Braveheart" didn't seem like a bad idea at all but the lack of support has resulted in it being a huge bomb. Who knows if it's any good… no one saw it!

Biggest Movie News of the Month: It being awards season I think Slumdog Millionaire cleaning up at the Oscars was the biggest thing to happen this month. We knew it would have a good night but it won everything it had a shot at. Slumdog is officially the feel good success story of 2009. Fair play to Danny Boyle who's a master of genre hopping. Perhaps now he'll get a shot as some bigger budgets. After all look at what he did with Sunshine and that was with a relatively small budget.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Watchmen. Not only have I read the book four times but I'm a big fan of Alan Moore in general. I think it's a tough ask to replicate the book onscreen because it's so dense, which is pretty rare for a "comic book". Zack Snyder seems to have made some shrewd choices regarding content and I'll be seeing it opening weekend.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Quantum of Solace is out during the month of March. Sure, it's not as good as Casino Royale but Daniel Craig is a great Bond. I'm digging his run so far.

Classic Movie of the Month: Withnail And I. Two unemployed actors getting trashed on the cheap. That's basically the plot of Withnail And I. What makes it so special is a larger than life starring performance from Richard E. Grant. Wild-eyed, crazy and carrying a vial of clean piss while swigging at varnish Grant's Withnail is one of the most entertaining layabouts in cinematic history.

Movie Quote of the Month: "Right, here's the plan. First, we go in there and get wrecked, then we eat a pork pie, then we drop some Surmontil-50's each. That way we'll miss out on Monday and come up smiling Tuesday morning". – Richard E. Grant in Withnail And I

Shawn S. Lealos

Biggest Winner of the Month: Slumdog Millionaire. The little movie that could whipped the big studio pictures butt. While Benjamin Button got 13 nominations, it could only pull in three wins, five less than Slumdog Millionaire and only one more than The Dark Knight and Milk. It took home Best Picture and Best Director, Best Screenplay and a host of technical awards. It deserved every one of those awards as well. It was a great performance by the movie at the Oscars this year. Danny Boyle has come a long way from Shallow Grave and Trainspotting and I can't wait to see what he does next.

Biggest Loser of the Month: Waltz with Bashir. If ever a movie deserved an Oscar win to help it earn an audience it might otherwise miss, it was this movie. The insults began when it was not named in the animated category, although foreign films have been there before (Howl's Moving Castle). It also was not listed in the documentary category, probably because it was an animated film. Then it lost the Foreign Film award to the German film Departures. Yes, it has already made its meager budget back but it is a movie that was preparing for a wider U.S. release, but after its loss, I don't know if anyone will care. [Editor's note: Departures is Japanese, Shawn, to save you from the flames]

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Sam Jackson inks a nine picture deal with Marvel. Rumor has it this is the new magic number for actors who will likely pop up in numerous Marvel films, making the franchise look very exciting. It also looks as though one of the movies will be SHIELD, which is really cool. I can't really get behind the strike concerns because movie prices aren't coming down and it all comes down to who deserves the bigger car. Because of the hard economic time, most people seem to want the producers to put all the money in their pockets instead of paying the stars. Whatever. Get richer Bruckheimer. Times are tough. You obviously deserve the profits more.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: This is way and should be clean sweep among our writers. Watchmen is most of our most anticipated movie of the year, much less the month. That is the movie I want to see more than any other movie of 2009, and I say that as a Quentin Tarantino fan. I do want to point out another movie I really, really want to see - Miss March. It stars two of the cast members from The Whitest Kids U Know and if you have not seen that show, you are missing out.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Criterion is slowly releasing their catalogue in Blu-Ray and this month includes two fantastic Francois Truffaut movies - 400 Blows and The Last Metro.

Classic Movie of the Month: The Last House on the Left. Hollywood continues to pump out remakes of everything that came before and this month is no different with two different remakes coming out on the same day. I always like to remind people to check out the originals when they hear of a remake being greenlit. Last House is Wes Craven's most disturbing work. If you only know him from Freddy and Scream, you really should check this one out to see how dark Wes Craven can get.

Movie Quote of the Month: "You're going to have a magical life. Because no matter where you go, it's always going to be better than Tucson." - Hamlet 2

Steve Gustafson

Biggest Winner of the Month: You probably think I'm going with Slumdog Millionaire right? WRONG! I was rooting for Benjamin Button to pull off the upset and Im still bitter over coming in second to last in the 411mania's Oscar Roundtable! Slumdog Millionaire is the new Shakespeare in Love! Let's be different and go with Marvel Entertainment! In a quarterly report showing solid profits, Marvel Entertainment said that it earned $63.0 million on $224.3 million of gross revenue in its fourth quarter, compared with $27.6 million on $109.3 million during the comparable quarter a year earlier. You know what that means right? Yep, a 128-percent increase in profits! Oh yeah! More than $136 million came from sales of Iron Man DVDs. GEEKS RULE! "In addition to providing a substantial contribution to our operating results, our 2008 theatrical releases have raised the level of global awareness for Marvel and two of our key brands," Marvel's chairman, Morton Handel, said in a statement. And it just gets better. The company announced that it now plans to open its Spider-Man musical on Broadway on February 18, 2010. As long as they don't cast Nathan Lane as Peter Parker they should be OK. Add in the numerous rumors and announcements about various Marvel properties and it makes it a great month for Marvel!

Biggest Loser of the Month: Box-office pundits. You know who I'm talking about. The people whose job is too guess...I mean estimate what the box office is going to look like from week-to-week. Studios base budgets, advertising and marketing on these numbers. In what must certainly have come as a shock to those who estimate earnings, it's been a very bad month. First you had them missing the boat entirely with their estimations on Friday the 13th. They projected the movie to make around $15 million and as we know it brought in $43.6 million over the four-day weekend. Then Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail earned $41.03 million over the weekend, nearly twice what the most optimistic forecasters had predicted. Throw in strong showings from Coraline ($55 million +), Taken ($100 million +), and He's Just Not That Into You ($75 million +) and a month that was supposed to be "slow" in box office receipts turned out pretty good for the movies. Not so good for them. Better luck this month guys.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: What else? Oscar fever! From all the build up to the event itself, whether you loved them or hated them, February belonged to OSCAR, OSCAR, OSCAR! The 81st Annual Academy Awards reported that the ratings were up from last year's record low. The show itself, which had been touted by some as a major overhaul of the Oscar ceremonies, received mixed reviews but overall it did what it set out to do. Celebrate the wonderful world of movies!

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Ok, let's just assume right now that Watchmen is the default answer. My next pick is goes to Adventureland. I know how it's going to end, I'm just curious how they get there.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: March is PACKED! Whoo Wee! What to pick? Beverly Hills Chihuahua? Cadillac Records? Role Models? Transporter 3? Wait. I got it. Chandni Chowk to China. A simple cook from Chandni Chowk is mistaken for the reincarnation of an ancient peasant warrior Liu Shengh by residents of an oppressed Chinese village. It got cool buzz so it gets my nod.

Classic Movie of the Month: In the Company of Men - you want to see a twisted movie that's tough to sit through? Pick this up! Two misogynist office yuppies set out to ruin the life of the most innocent young woman they can find in this play-turned-independent film. An ultra low-budget satire on modern corporate power and the male ego, this movie can be as funny as it is vicious, but it is anything but an easy watch. It launched the film career of Aaron Eckhart, who plays the most evil office worker ever, a man drunk with power and so heartless that he gets off on toying with the affections of a pretty, deaf subordinate just so he can crush her completely. EVIL!

Movie Quote of the Month: ""I'm a schoolteacher. I teach English composition...in this little town called Adley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I've been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was a coach of the baseball team in the springtime. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it's a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I've changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I'll ever be able to tell her about days like today. Ah, Ryan. I don't know anything about Ryan. I don't care. The man means nothing to me. It's just a name. But if... You know if going to Rumelle and finding him so that he can go home. If that earns me the right to get back to my wife, then that's my mission. [to Private Reiben] You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won't stop you. I'll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel."
- Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), Saving Private Ryan

Owain J. Brimfield

Biggest Winner of the Month: Since everyone else is hopped up on Oscar fever, I'm going to take a moment to spotlight Nacho Vigalondo, director of seminal Spanish low budget sci-fi thriller (and boy, there have been many, many bad ones) Timecrimes, which has been receiving rave reviews on the festival circuit - highlighted by no less than Edgar Wright as the sharpest independent film he's seen in years - and should ride this success to some decent box office receipts. Of course, the rights have already been snapped up for a big-budget Hollywood remake too, but we'll leave that fact out.

Biggest Loser of the Month: I'm not sure why Benjamin Button is being singled out by my fellow writers in this category; sure it didn't win any of the big Oscars, but it picked up a few, and its critical and commercial acclaim hardly peg it as a "loser". I turn my attention instead to the SAG, who apparently may still strike or something. I must confess I'm not paying attention to this situation after the whole deal with the writer's guild filled me with such antipathy, but if this is going down the same road, then everyone involved is most certainly a loser.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Oscar fever, and most particularly the success of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. Kudos to Boyle, who's cemented his reputation as the most varied director working today and deserves the recognition. It's quite impressive, too, that everyone's jumped all over this now it's swept the Academy's board when it was relatively unknown a few months ago.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Aside from the ubiquitous Watchmen, I'm actually pretty psyched to see Knowing, which should hopefully help restore the reputations of Cage and Proyas who have slipped from their critical zeniths in recent years. Of course numerology is a mundane subject, but the trailer looks genuinely intriguing.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Pick up Quantum of Solace, and witness Dominic Greene unleash the most fiendish Bond villain masterplan since Jonathan Pryce wanted to, er, do something with newspapers. I forget. Anyway, this movie's bad guy wants to increase the price of some of the water in Bolivia!!!!! Forget, the UN, let's send in Bond to get the results we need and result in a more competitive utilities market for this South American country. Compelling!

Classic Movie of the Month: Wayne's World 2, which I saw late the other night on TV and realised I hadn't seen in years. Sure, it's nowhere near the comedy or cult smash the first film was, but it's still damn entertaining and the characters remain appealing after all these years.

Movie Quote of the Month: "So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3:00 in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head round the door, and mentions there's a little sweet shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweet shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopo wner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show." - Del Preston tells his roadie tales in Wayne's World 2



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