The early-year
doldrums may be behind us, folks. We got ourselves a true-blue event
picture hitting the movie houses this weekend. There are a couple
other options for those not on my taste wavelength, too. Let's check
'em out.
The Choice
Director: Ross Katz
Writer: Bryan Sipe
Starring: Teresa
Palmer, Benjamin Walker, Maggie Grace, Alexandra Daddario, Tom
Wilkinson, Tom Welling
For their
reputation as goopy messes, the industry of Nicholas Sparks novel
adaptations has produced a competent and affecting set of features.
They look good, they feature actors who are probably at least a
little above the source material's quality, and at least one of them,
The Notebook, is a downright solid romance. The latest seems a
little quaint by Sparks's standards, with a plot involving a pair of
neighbors whose dogs can't deny nature and have a litter of puppies.
It leads to a forbidden romance for the owners, as they are otherwise
spoken for. There's an obligatory emergency – a car accident –
but this otherwise appears to be a gimmick-less enterprise. I'm not
familiar with the two leads, but any movie that boasts Tom Wilkinson
(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Grand Budapest
Hotel, you name it) is probably all right in my book.
Hail, Caesar!
Directors: Ethan
Coen, Joel Coen
Writers: Joel Coen,
Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh
Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett
Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum
Joel and Ethan Coen
are arguably our finest working filmmakers, able to work in any genre
with a knack for wit, tension, an ear for dialogue seemingly bestowed
from on high. To see them do a backstage comedy-caper-kidnapping plot
set in 1950s-era Hollywood is all the more reason to be excited.
George Clooney's working with the Coens again, so you know it's a
zany one. Plus Josh Brolin gets to hopefully continue his comedic
winning streak after Inherent Vice and, oddly, large parts of
his character in Sicario. I couldn't be more excited,
especially since the usually prolific brothers have put out only one
other movie since 2010's True Grit. That last one just so
happens to be a contender for “Rob's favorite movie of the decade,”
Inside Llewyn Davis, so yeah. I'm a little giddy.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Director: Burr
Steers
Writer: Burr Steers
Starring: Lily
James, Sam Riley, Bella Heathcote, Ellie Bamber, Millie Brady, Suki
Waterhouse
Mashup culture irks
me. It's like someone throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot and
forgetting to turn on the burner. Just because you take elements of
seemingly unrelated things and put them together doesn't mean the
work is done there. Existing properties cobbled together for comedic
effect, like a classic novel and our culture's modern zombie
obsession, shouldn't be the end goal but merely a starting point.
That said, I could be way off base here. Lily James, who is almost
literally Downton Abbey's cousin Oliver, has nevertheless
seemingly become the show's breakout star after starring in last
year's Cinderella. Now she gets to be Elizabeth Bennett, a
role previously made memorable by Jennifer Ehle and Keira Knightley.
But this time, zombies fight her. Maybe there's more alchemy and
distillation than the trailer lets on, but I can't say I'm optimistic
on that front.
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