PopSyndicate.com

New Movie Musings

Quick thoughts on this week’s new releases... Once again, "assessing the risk" of spending my precious entertainment funds on this week's new crop of movies. Let's see what we have out there...

The Kingdom

What is it? - FBI team goes way out of its jurisdiction to investigate a bombing in Saudi Arabia and has to deal with Saudi "meddling American interlopers" prejudice, which means they have to fight politics as well as the bad guy.
Positives - Good core of actors (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman), directed by actor/writer/director/producer Peter Berg (The Rundown was fun and Friday Night Lights was a good movie even if it wasn't as factual as they led people to believe... I played on the Houston Stratford team that made it to the Texas state semifinals that year), composer Danny Elfman, cool trailer scene with the grenade dropping on the hood of their car
Negatives - writing provided by relatively unknown screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan (but he does have family in the biz with his brother Joe Carnahan being the writer/director on Narc and Smokin' Aces)

The Game Plan

What is it? - Tough as nails professional football player has an unknown daughter show up on his doorstep and winds up having to juggle parenting and his football career.
Positives - fun concept, Madison Pettis (with comedy experience from working on Cory in the House), The Rock hamming it up
Negatives - writer/director Andy Fickman is hit or miss with me (decent with She's the Man, but not as much with Who's Your Daddy?... and I haven't checked out Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, which he directed) and I'm not sure about lawyer/TV producer turned screenwriter Kathryn Price.

Feast of Love

What is it? - Described as being (supposedly) a modern version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Oregon. Essentially, a bunch of love stories crossing paths to show the many faces of love and romance.
Positives - director Robert Benton (screenwriter on the original Superman movie and writer/director of such movies as Kramer vs. Kramer and Still of the Night), Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear (loved his Coach Vermeil in Invincible plus... he was Captain Amazing), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill, Finding Neverland)
Negatives - There's always potential for the story (or the audience) to get lost when following multiple storylines like this, but it can be done (Pulp Fiction).

And in limited release this week:

The Darjeeling Limited

What is it? - Three brothers take a train trip across India to find themselves and wind up finding trouble and comedic misadventure along the way.
Positives - The three leading men are perfect for this kind of movie (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman who I enjoyed in I Heart Huckabees), writer/director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), writer/producer Roman Coppola (son of Francis Ford Coppola and pretty decent music video director)
Negatives - apparently it might be a bit unsettling to people who keep track of the lives of actors (in this case, Owen Wilson)

Lust, Caution

What is it? - Ang Lee's NC-17 tale of resistance, plots, and general espionage in Japan-occupied Shanghai during WW II.
Positives - director Ang Lee, actor Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Hero)
Negatives - Remains to be seen whether the explicit sexuality (that drove the NC-17 rating) detracts from the overall movie or blends into the storyline.

___