#95

This week in my world:

Yeah yeah, I’ve heard. Cinema is dead and Hollywood has the green light to crank out enough Ice Cube family vacation films, Martin Lawrence comedies, and teenage dramedies to fill multiplexes far across the land. The masses have spoken. The mighty Indy gods of Tarantino/Rodriguez/Weinstein have finally failed and the Wayans Brothers have already started putting together their next laugh riot franchise film. Money in the bank for major movie studios.

In case you haven’t heard, the experimental film Grindhouse is being considered a financial flop and more than a few people “in the know” are panicking and looking for the rivers of blood and swarms of locusts. Many others are pointing to the latest Weinstein flop and taking note. Not even this power group can manufacture an “independent” film into a mega blockbuster. What really happened?

The Weinstein’s have been in spin control ever since the unofficial word came down from www.boxofficemojo.com. The movie was too long. Guerilla internet marketing left the film with too narrow an audience. People just didn’t get the true experimental nature of the film. It was just too “indy” for middle America, too “inside” popculture for mainstream audiences. Or, did this dream producing/directing team attempt to manufacture the type of following an independent film normally gets after weeks of grass roots word of mouth, in a single opening weekend? Consider this week the teaser. Next week I am going to take a look at the retro-grindhouse film, the hype surrounding this film by Indy darlings Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, what went wrong, and if any of it really matters.

Until next week my friends…

This weekend at your local multiplex (4/20/2006)

In The Land of Women: Dramedy
Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Vega, Olympia Dukakis, Elena Anaya, Meg Ryan
Plot: When a young man is dumped by his fiancée, he decides to head home to take care of his ailing grandmother. When he meets the house full of women across the street, he learns to develop a relationship with the women.
Buzz: zzzzzzzzzzz… huh, oh yeah. Take your date and probably get laid. Jesus, that would be the only way I would walk into this showing.

Hot Fuzz: Comedy
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Timothy Dalton, Anne Reid
Plot: A super action hero cop (Pegg) is so good at his job that he is transferred to the quietest town in England for making the rest of his crew look bad. The town seems normal until a series of accidents makes the cop suspicious.
Buzz: From the makers of “Shaun of the Dead” this is definitely the must see of the week and the buzz on this flick is hot. Full of action and laughs.

Fracture: Thriller
Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Straithairn, Embeth Davidtz, Billy Burke
Plot: When a man is acquitted if the murder of his wife, a crusading attorney tries to find justice.
Buzz: It will be interesting to see if Ryan Gosling can hold his own against the acting power of Anthony Hopkins as they play cat and mouse in what could be a pretty tight thriller.

Vacancy: Horror
Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale, Frank Whaley
Plot: A couple looking for a place to stay during a rainstorm find a nice hotel. What they don’t know is that someone is watching, and they are in serious danger.
Buzz: A seemingly cheesy horror idea with a premise that starts "a couple gets stranded by the road in a rainstorm and finds an out of the way motel" has been done a million times before (mostly at boy scout campouts and fifth grade creative writing assignments). The one thing that strikes me as odd… how in the world did they get Frank Whaley (yes the Frank Whaley) to star in such a cookie cutter horror flick. Oh yeah, and the way too luscious Kate Beckinsale is in the movie someplace too.


This week on DVD (4/17/2007)

The Good Shepherd
Black Christmas
Volver
Charlotte’s Web
Death of a President
3 Needles
Twin Peaks (season 2)
The Natural (se)
The Brady Bung (se)
Law and Order (season 5)
All That Jazz (music edition)
The Streets of San Francisco (season 1 and 2)
Murder, She Wrote (season 6)
Bedazzled
Roseanne (season 7)

As always, you can send me your loving adoration and hate mail to DPlace76@yahoo.com. You can read about my random musings at http://bigdpimpin.livejournal.com/ and you can read about all of the comings and goings of the Stumblebum crew at www.myspace.com/stumblebumstudios.