First and foremost, a very heartfelt and happy Memorial Day to everyone, from all of us here at GTTM. We hope our devoted readers are doing well on this day.
Now then – since going to the movies is once more in widespread fashion (Last week’s The Hangover: Part Roman Numeral Double-I reportedly received over $100-million over the holiday weekend with an assist from a Thursday release), let’s see if we can keep this beach ball rolling. Here are one person’s snap judgments (to be precise, mine) about the films approaching theaters for the week of June 3rd.
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starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kevin Bacon. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Rated PG-13.
If I were judging by the cast and crew alone, I’d label this a can’t-miss. Alas, it’s an X-Men flick. I feel completely valid with my opinion that the X-Men film franchise has single-handedly destroyed my appreciation of these Marvel heroes (X2 is still the best one, and it’s fairly forgettable). The style, the awful dialogue, the liberties (Great Caesar’s ghost, the liberties!),… All heartbreaking to this one-time fan.
Believe me, fanboys, I’m just as disappointed as you are by my brutally honest reaction. It does look like attempts are being made to correct past wrongs with this latest offering – two masterful young actors are playing Professor Xavier and Magneto (McAvoy and Fassbender), an Oscar nominee is Mystique (Lawrence), and Vaughn (who gave us last year’s superhero comedy Kick-Ass and the utterly cool Layer Cake) is directing. I’d also be lying if I said Bacon as the obscure villain Sebastian Shaw didn’t catch my attention. However, since this film looks like more of the same, I have close to zero desire to see it.
Oh, and if you want to feel old, check out who’s playing Beast.
LOST ME
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starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, and Goran Visnjic. Directed by Mike Mills. Rated R.
Mills (Thumbsucker) has displayed a chunk of his personal life with Beginners, the semi-autobiographical story of an adult man whose dying widower father reveals to him that he is homosexual. From this surprising confession of truth on and with death hanging over one of their heads, the two form a closer bond like never before.
When I first read the sobering, melancholic plot of this indie, I had my doubts about its summer release, but the trailer – with its unmistakably smart quirkiness that seems to one-up the humor of (500) Days of Summer – sold me. It’s also a certainty that McGregor and (particularly) Plummer will have little to no problem executing the subject matter – both actors are currently on a rise with their careers.
GOT ME
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starring Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, and Paddy Considine. Directed by Richard Ayoade. Rated R.
Through my experience, when an indie’s trailer spends roughly half of its running time filling the screen with all the critical praise it’s already earned, it can mean one of two things. Either the film truly is the covered nugget of brilliant masterpiece that it has been claimed to be or the stink of desperation to put butts in the seats for an incredibly boring tale of self-discovery has permeated through and taken over. Nine times out of ten, it’s usually the latter. Forgive my hesitance to submerge head-first.
LOST ME
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starring Michael Sheen, Maria Bello, Kyle Gallner, and Bruce French. Directed by Shawn Ku. Rated R.
I usually love watching Sheen and Bello, and on paper, this movie about the grieving parents of a student who is killed in the midst of a school shooting that he is responsible for seems like an important one to make. That being said, you have to wonder what kind of people would rush to the theater (or even to a kiosk) for a movie like this. One could argue that relating to the struggle for closure might be a good reason, but even as a movie-lover, I think relying on a motion picture alone – no matter how good – is a very wobbly path for the goal at hand.
LOST ME
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starring Rhys Ifans, Chloë Sevigny, David Thewlis, and Crispin Glover. Directed by Bernard Rose. Rated R.
I admit I don’t know much about Howard Marks, the notorious British drug dealer this film follows. It could be because it’s a comedy starring two of the coolest Harry Potter vets (Thewlis and often spectacular Ifans as Marks), but I get the feeling I would be willing to watch this on multiple occasions much more regularly than I would with Johnny Depp’s ugly George Jung biopic Blow. It’s difficult to go wrong with Sevigny in the picture too. Terrible title though…
GOT ME
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Return next Monday or Tuesday (I always shoot for Monday) for the GM/LM for June 10th, 2011. If you routinely visit Twitter, feel free to follow @MEIER_in_a_CT along with @gttmovies for the complete rush of cinephiliac utopia.