Weekend Movies: A Remake and a Sequel – Wait a Sec, I Thought Summer Was Over!

What’s up with this weekend’s movies? Isn’t October supposed to mark the beginning of the good movie season? Tim Burton gives us a stop motion remake of one of his old short films, and Liam Neeson – at the whopping age of 60 – revisits an action role. Here’s hoping that next week’s ‘Argo’ offers some greatness.

The widest new release today is ‘Taken 2‘. When I first heard that a sequel to ‘Taken‘ was in the works, I rhetorically asked, “How in the world do you make a sequel to that movie? Is that girl from ‘Lost’ going to get kidnapped again?” Well, someone found a way. From what Aaron has to say about it, it isn’t good. This time Neeson gets taken. Good thing he taught his daughter a few violent tricks.

The second wide release is Tim Burton’s ‘Frankenweenie‘, a feature-length remake of his original 30-minute live-action short film of the same title (which can be found as a special feature on the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas‘ Blu-ray). As burned out as I am with Burton, I have to admit that I quite enjoyed this little tale of a boy who reanimates his dead dog. Really stamping the seal of approval is my daughter Elizabeth. In her own words, “I liked it even more than ‘ParaNorman’!”

Not opening, but expanding wide this weekend is ‘Pitch Perfect‘.

Already available On-Demand for a few weeks, the dark comedy ‘Butter‘ finally opens on the big screen. The film stars Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman, Ashley Greene, Ty Burrell, Alicia Silverstone and Rob Cordry as a group of folks plagued by animosity when the town holds a butter-carving competition. IMDb calls it Alexander Payne-esque, so I’m interested.

Also opening is the 2012 Cannes contender ‘The Paperboy‘. From the director of ‘Precious‘ comes a thriller starring Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack and Zac Efron. This murder mystery looks scandalous and is said to be reminiscent of a good old-fashioned exploitation film. Again, I’m intrigued.

Magnolia is releasing the Sundance horror flick ‘V/H/S‘, a sordid clip-show of “found footage.” The narrative of the film is that a group of kids break into a house looking for a VHS tape. Once in, they find a slew of other tapes. Searching for a specific tape, they start popping in the videos to see what’s on them. ‘V/H/S’ shows us all the footage that they rummage through. For this title, I’m very interested.

We also have something called ‘The Oranges‘. This Romeo & Juliet tale tells the story of two feuding families and the children from each house in love with each other. The movie stars Leighton Meester, Hugh Laurie, Adam Brody, Catherine Keener, Maeby Fünke, Allison Janney and Oliver Platt.

2 comments

  1. EM

    I’m going with a buddy on Wednesday to see Frankenweenie in 3D. But it’s going to be hard for anything to top last night’s entertainment. I went to see Casablanca. I’ve seen the film umpteen times on TV screens, but this was the first time I saw it theatrically, on a big silver screen and with a good-sized audience. It felt like I was seeing it for the first time—not just my first time, mind you, but as though it were 1942. Not just the screen was bigger; all the emotions were, too.

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