Summer Movie Preview 2010 Part 2 Page 1

SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2010:
PART II

john cribbs, paul cooney, eric pfriender & christopher funderburg

<< click here for Summer Movie Preview 2010 Part I >>

JULY 2
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) oscillates between vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison), who wants Bella's hand in marriage, and werewolf Jacob Black, who has just declared his love for her. Meanwhile, the Cullens and the Quileute werewolves unite to stop an army of powerful vampires from seeking their revenge on Bella.

CF: So, back to Showtime2 and all the movies that are on the one and only cable channel that inexplicably comes in through my tv: this Twilight film has been on several times and I've seen probably 95% of it at this point because I'm just going to watch what's on Sho2 and that's that. Until I get bored and go type various things on a computer. Anyway, I don't get why everyone hates these movies - they're perfectly inoffensive and, while that Robert Pattison seems like a complete nutsack, the Taylor guy is cute and likable. I guess that makes me on Team Native American Werewolf. But there's just no reason for the sheer amount of vitriol directed at these movies. Is it because the vampires play baseball at one point? The movie is actually nicely moody and surprisingly understated - I get why people like it. And Kristen Stewart is a good, young actress, no doubt soon to be destroyed by fame and drugs and mean-spirited, self-congratulatory backlash a'la Lindsay Lohan. Where's the anger coming from? Is it Vampire Purists? Because it's been the crappiest of monster genres for decades now; there's no denying this stuff is a step up from Anne Rice and Dracula 2000.

The verdict: Only if it ends up on Sho2.

EP: I keep getting confused about Twilight. Am I supposed to see these because they are so massively popular that they have actually become culturally relevant? That doesn't seem right. I know next to nothing about them, and since this is the last one, there doesn't seem to be any reason to start now. [It's not the last one. The director of Candyman 2 and Dreamgirls is directing the next installment. --ed., of team ed.]

JC: Is it just me, or does Robert Pattison look like an older, grungier Frankie Muniz trying to dump that Malcolm in the Middle persona and look "bad" for the ladies? I don't find these movies offensive, I just literally don't understand their appeal. They're moody vampires, they're running around in the Washington woods, they're playin' baseball. Apparently this is enough to make Kristen Stewart bite her lower lip and lift her eyes. The first one looks like it was shot over a Tuesday afternoon. When I heard the rumor they were flirting with Gus Van Sant as the next director, I got excited - who better to find interesting things in absolutely nothing? Sadly that didn't happen, so the vaguely-gothic version of the Harry Potter saga continues its March to Blandness unobstructedly.

PC: About fucking time. Why the hell do I have to wait so long between installments? My dick doesn't go up by itself you know. I need the Twilight saga more than I need oxygen, and in case you didn't major in biology, you need oxygen to live! Yes that's right, I can't live without this unattractive chick torn between a pasty english dude who really isn't very handsome, and some werewolf closet case.

Is Demi Lovato legal yet?

The tally: 1-3

The Last Airbender

Aang (Noah Ringer), a young successor to a long line of Avatars, learns that he possesses the power to engage the Fire Nation and hopefully end their century-long war against the Water, Earth, and Air nations. Directed by M Night Shayamalan.

EP: There are some really young kids out there who probably think this movie looks awesome.

PC: It sounds like a joke Harry Potter would make after farting. Dumbledore and Dwizzlenutt join forces to bend the air...wait a minute...M. Night Shama Lama Ding Dong is making yet another film? What the fuck is this 1998? The party's over asshole - your talent left with Chumbawumba. This Indian fucker keeps getting knocked down but some Hollywood a-hole picks him up again and gives him 100 million to make some fruity magic teenage bullshit picture? Go bend a dildo in your ass and spare us anymore of your cinematic garbage you fucking silly little hack.

JC: I keep saying that M Night Shayamalan, a clearly talented director but a piss-poor storyteller, should look into helming a script written by anybody but him. So I was excited to hear his follow-up to the new camp classic The Happening was an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, something he hadn't created himself (they should have let him use the full title and really confuse people.) I didn't take into account that he would still be doing the screenwriting, so maybe my hopes have already been dashed, but I'd like to believe that handling characters and situations that aren't his own will humble Shayamalan a little. And if not, I don't give a shit, it will just be another terrible M Night Shayamalan project that further mars the cred he never really deserved in the first place. But if there's an off-chance that this will at least be a visually-inventive fantasy adventure with lots of fight scenes and various airbending - and no swinging away or fake forest monsters or killer trees - I'm into it.

CF: I'm with John on this.

The verdict: What John said.

Tally: 2-2

Twelve

In New York City's Upper East Side, the life of a young drug dealer (Chace Crawford) is dismantled in the wake of his cousin's murder, which sees his best friend arrested for the crime. Also starring Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin and 50 Cent. Directed by Joel Schumacher.

CF: Man, I want to write about all these films, I really do, but what in the shit is there to say about a movie like this? There's no chance it's anything other than terrible and all I know about it is 50 Cent, Joel Schumacher, murder, crime. Rory Culkin is great in You Can Count on Me, though. That's right, I just today (4/29/10) watched You Can Count on Me on Sho2 while I fed my baby expressed breast milk and ate a special fried chicken that my mother-in-law brought all the way up from Bogota with her. And you expect me to write something about some movie called Twelve?! Wait, one second... 12? 1+2=3. Drop the 1 and what do you have? Oh my god... 23! Where's Timmy Capella when I need him? At any rate, I need to get it down in print somewhere, but a couple years ago Schumacher was a guest up at the ol' JBFC and did a Q&A after a preview of Phone Booth and, I swear to goodness this is true, he talked extensively and casually about how he met Colin Farrell in a gay club and how they were dating on Tigerland and all of this crazy stuff about his homosexual relationship with Colin Farrell. I just don't know what to make of that.

The verdict: Schumacher is into having sex, he ain't into making love.

EP: I can't tell if this is a movie for grown-ups about an Upper East Side drug dealer, or a movie for kids that will teach them that despite all the glamourous parties and hot sex that come with being a drug dealer, there is also a high price to pay. It's directed by Joel Schumacher, so either way I won't be seeing it. Someone let me know how it turns out.

PC: What do we, as a nation, have to do to be rid of the Culkin's once and for all? Haven't we suffered through the Baldwin brothers enough? Do we need another clan of trashy Irish drug addled no talents to mar flicks for the coming decades?

And just who the fuck is Emma Roberts and why isn't she attractive?

50 cent...I would think getting shot 9 times would be more appealing than sitting through this fucking waste of time. To all involved, suck my cock.

JC: When are they going to stop naming movies after numbers? Last year if you said "I'm going to see Nine," nobody knew if you meant that weird post-apocalyptic animated movie or the flop musical based on the play based on 8 1/2. Fortunately nobody I know saw either of those fucking movies, so I was never put in that confusing situation. So is the "young drug dealer" 12 years old, is that it? Is this like a prequel to Thirteen, an exposé to let us all know that Lisa Cholodenko is wrong and the kids aren't a'ight? If that's the case I guess we can bank on a scene where either Chace Crawford, Emma Roberts or Rory Culkin or all three of them have sex with 50 Cent to demonstrate that they're reached the lowest possible point a rich white kid possibly can - having sex with a black person! No that can't be right...none of these actors could pass for 12, and the insurance would never cover Joel Schumacher around 12-year-old boys anyway. Ok last guess: you take the 50 from 50 Cent, and subtract the number of movies released in the last 12 years already titled "Twelve" - 38 - and you get...Twelve! Well this is a Schumacher joint, right?

Tally: 0-4

July 9
Despicable Me

An animated film about a trio of orphan girls who cause the normally deplorable Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) to rethink his plan to steal the moon. Additional voices by Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, Jason Segel and Danny McBride.

PC: Chris Funderburg's autobiography comes to the big screen at last...hello what's this? It's not that? Yet another cartoon? Steve Carrell? Jesus Christ I'll never forgive that cunt for Get Smart. Get bent you cocksucker. Will Arnett? Who likes that guy besides his drug dealer? However I'm sure Russell Brand and Danny McBride are going to rock the shit out of their roles. I don't watch cartoons though...not since my parish priest shoved a crayola up my ass after a particularly eventful confession.

JC: If you ask me, the word 'despicable' used in the context of an animated film is the sole property of Warner Brothers and Looney Tunes (or, Acme Properties.) So unless the ghosts of Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Leon Schlesinger, Rudolph Ising, Hugh Harman, Frank Tashlin, Eddie Selzer, Michael Maltese, Bob Clampett, Warren Foster, Robert McKimson and Mel Blanc were oujiied to the set of a new Sylvester and Tweedy movie (ok I'm not unrealistic - just pick any three of those people to revive) I've got zero interest in even hearing what this one's about.

McBride, no harm done. We all gotta buy groceries. I'll sit this out and catch you on the new season of "Eastbound and Down," or in Jody Hill's next flick.

EP: Sometimes I get confused when animated movies push the stars doing the voices as the big draw in their promotional campaigns. Is Steve Carrell doing something better here that Craig T Nelson wasn't doing in The Incredibles? This movie looks like a pretty cool concept (the antagonist is the protagonist!) that's going to be irritatingly bogged down by fart jokes and animated kids being calculatedly adorable, which is somehow more depressing than live kids being calculatedly adorable. Prove me wrong, movie. Please.

CF: Are Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig and Will Arnett out-weighed by Steve Carell, Jason Segel and Danny McBride? I say no. In this instance. What is this, a kid's film? Some more garbage like The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs where hip, happening, cool fellows (young, fresh fellows even) get together and give their hip, happening take on a kids' klassic? Wasn't Gru the barbarian that Sergio Aragones drew? That's a real question that you can take as a joke, if you prefer. Seriously, though, is that what this movie is? Because then I'm excited. I hope McBride and Wiig and Arnett play the orphans and talk in baby voices because I'd really like a reason to set a movie theater on fire.

The verdict: In the thick of summer? Someone must have delusions about Sergio Aragones' popularity.

Tally: 0-4

<< Previous Page 1 2 3 4 Next Page >>

home about contact us featured writings years in review film productions