It’s Friday! And I’m really busy! You know the drill!
“A Drummer’s Dream”: Documentarian John Walker brings his camera to a fantasy camp for drummers; Glenn finds the result charming but a little thin on surprises.
“Due Date“: Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis are Steve Martin and John Candy, basically, in Todd Phillips’ stealth update of “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”. It’s your basic studio buddy comedy, except Downey is as good in it as he’s ever been in anything — and that’s really saying something.
“Fair Game“: Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, a pair of respectable Americans chewed up in the path of the Bush Administration’s push for the war in Iraq, in Doug Liman’s well-appointed but ultimately inert docudrama. I tried awful hard to like this, I really did.
“For Colored Girls”: Look, just because Tyler Perry has all the money in the world doesn’t mean we have to sell him the rights to anything he wants. Glenn explains why Perry’s take on Ntozake Shange’s revolutionary play is maybe not the best idea.
“Megamind“: The best way to ruin a great idea is to throw all the money in the world at it. Or at least that seems to be what happened to DreamWorks Animation’s supervillain comedy, which has some terrific moments but can’t figure out how to turn them into a movie.
“Summerhood”: According to Susan, Jacob Medjuck’s summer-camp comedy is about as much fun as having your pants run up the flagpole. So that’s not good.
Throw in yesterday’s Lightbox openings of “The Father of My Children“, “Marwencol” and “Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields” — which Ben recommends highly — and that’s a decent assortment of cinema for the weekend … even before you throw in tonight’s free screening of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” at the Bloor and the first Essential Cinema screening of “Jaws” Sunday night at the Lightbox.
So don’t you dare say there’s nothing to see this week. I’m just not having it.
Reading Glenn’s review of “For Colored Girls” makes me wonder who would do the absolute worst job on “The Vagina Monologues” Garry Marshall? Judd Apatow? Michael Patrick King? Michael Bay? This list goes on in all sorts of scary, inappropriate ways.
I would love to see Michael Bay sign onto a movie version of “The Vagina Monologues”, and then be shocked to learn it’s a play.
Why would anyone even want to bring The Vagina Monologues to the screen? Wasn’t the theatrical production bad enough?