It’s an interesting week, summer-blockbuster-wise, with four biggish releases in very different genres — a comedy, a kiddie flick, an action thing and a horror movie. But none of them is quite as generic as its genre might suggest … well, except maybe “Marmaduke”.
“Get Him to the Greek“: Remember how Russell Brand stole “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” out from under everyone else? Well, they’ve given him his own movie now — a spinoff vehicle which lets him reprise the role of idiot hedonist rock god Aldous Snow — and dear god is it funny. My review should be up later this afternoon.
“Killers“: Everyone wants to kill Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl; it writes itself! No press screening, so I’m catching it today, but with any luck my review will be online shortly thereafter. UPDATE: It took until Monday afternoon, but it’s up now. Whee.
“Land“: Julian T. Pinder’s documentary looks at the latest American adventure in Nicaragua, as real-estate speculators attempt to create a South American riviera. It starts off really well, but goes sideways halfway through — either because events went in a direction Pinder hadn’t anticipated, or because he didn’t know how to cover what he had. Which is disappointing.
“Marmaduke”: I know, I know. We all thought they were kidding. They weren’t, and now the world must suffer another CG talking-dog comedy.
“Splice“: Vincenzo Natali’s clever horror hybrid stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as a couple of arrogant geneticists who create a weird new life form, then have to raise the damn thing in an icky allegory for ordinary parenthood. Much, much smarter than the simple monster movie being teased in the TV spots.
Oh, and the “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” trailer is attached to “Get Him to the Greek”. It’s somewhat amazing. I had my doubts about Michael Cera, but it looks like he can pull this off after all. (There’s also the fact that I trust Edgar Wright with this material more than just about any other filmmaker on the planet.)
Anyway, the trailer’s readily available online, but it’s really worth seeing on a big screen. And then you get to see “Get Him to the Greek”, which is pretty great itself. I’m just saying.
Damn! Russell Brand or Splice? I hate tough decisions.