After the deluge of
releases last week, Hollywood has given us a bit of a break this time
around. Only two major movies are out, but each looks like a
potential powerhouse, albeit in completely different ways. There's a
big spectacle and a small acting showcase about recent events. Both
could contend for “best of the year” lists based on early talk
about them. Let's see what we have in store for us.
The Martian
Director: Ridley
Scott
Writer: Drew
Goddard
Starring: Matt
Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels
A scientific
explorer gets left behind on Mars and has to survive while his
forgetful coworkers figure out a way to go back and pick his
straggling butt up. It looks thrilling, beautiful, and most
importantly for a genre that often has a problem with taking itself
too seriously, it seems very, very funny. That's no surprise given
that Drew Goddard (co-writer and director of The Cabin in the
Woods) wrote the script. Goddard knows how to draw distinct lines
between characters and find humor in their idiosyncrasies. Goddard is
even more of a reason to be excited about The Martian than
director Ridley Scott – and that's with nearly everyone in the
critical community saying this is Scott's best movie in quite a long
time.
99 Homes
Director: Ramin
Bahrani
Writers: Ramin
Bahrani, Amir Naderi, Bahareh Azimi
Starring: Andrew
Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern
You know what
sucked? The Great Recession. 99 Homes looks into the root
cause of the economic meltdown, the housing bubble. Andrew Garfield
plays a young man whose house gets foreclosed on by Michael Shannon's
real estate bigwig or something to that effect – financial details
and fancy words for “becoming homeless” are not my strong suit.
Shannon offers Garfield a job as the guy who has to go to future
foreclosure sites and tell the residents to vacate their houses. He
makes a lot of money doing it, but the “selling your soul to the
devil” theme is strong even from the trailer. It may become
overwhelming in a feature-length movie, but the acting abilities of
both Garfield and especially Shannon alone make it worth seeing.
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