At the time I’m writing this, I haven’t yet seen either of this weekend’s two major new movies. Judging only by the trailers and TV spots, both look like clones of the original movies that they’re based upon.
The bigger of the two openers this weekend is the PG-13 remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1990 sci-fi action flick ‘Total Recall‘. The remake stars Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel, and is directed by Beckinsale’s hubby, Len Wiseman. Personally, I liked what Wiseman did with his first two ‘Underworld‘ movies and loved his take on the ‘Die Hard‘ franchise, so I’m actually very curious to see how ‘Total Recall‘ turns out, despite the fact that it looks like a scene-for-scene remake. (Hopefully, I’ll have a review ready soon.)
The second widest opener for the weekend is the third title in the ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid‘ (or as I like to called it, “Diary of a Prick Bastard,” because the main character is such a douche) franchise, called ‘Dog Days‘. ‘Wimpy Kid 3’ takes the annoying characters and follows them over the course of a summer. From what I’ve read, this movie combines the stories of the third book, ‘The Last Straw’, and the fourth book, ‘Dog Days’. But I would have been more inclined to see the movie if it was titled ‘Straw Dog Days’.
Rashida Jones co-penned the Sundance dramedy ‘Celeste and Jesse Forever‘, which gets a limited opening due to the good graces of Sony Pictures Classics. In it, she and Andy Samberg play best friends who once gave marriage a shot, but have since divorced. The fact that they still act like best friends and are inseparable seems to be a problem for all of their friends, but not them.
Broken Lizard’s Jay Chandrasekhar has a new movie called ‘The Babymakers‘. The film stars the underrated Paul Schneider as a husband who can’t get his wife, the overrated Olivia Munn, pregnant, so he enlists his buddies for a good old plan of breaking-and-entering to retrieve his sample from a local sperm bank. As long as it’s better than ‘The Slammin’ Salmon’, I’m in.
The director of ‘City of God’ gives us a romance flick with ‘360‘, an ensemble title starring Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Foster. The film combines a large set of characters from all over the globe in a supposedly fluid manner.
The documentary ‘Craigslist Joe‘ also opens this weekend. This film sounds much like the 2009 documentary ‘No Impact Man’, which followed a family trying to be completely carbon footprint-free. This time, a guy gives up everything to see if he can survive solely by the good graces of other people through the means of the dirty ol’ Craiglist.
