The 7 Word Weekend Review 4/16/10

All the week's new movie releases in 7 words

Who Do You Love - King me! Hah- oh wait that's checkers.

The Secret in Their Eyes (limited) - It looks interesting, just not in theater.

The Perfect Game (limited) - Louis Gosset Jr., Cheech Marin... Case closed. 

The Jonses (limited) - Though I hate Demi, should be great.

The City of Your Final Destination (limited) - Perhaps, if I'm in a boring mood.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (limited) - Your mom was wrong, vandalism is cool.

Handsome Harry (limited) - Indie road trip movie. Need more? Buscemi.

Death at a Funeral - Déjà vu, from French, literally 'already seen.'

Kick-Ass - I only need two words, hells yeah.

Remember when I said a while back that I'm not really bothered by remakes since they can't destroy the original? I lied stand by it. When I heard about the remake of Death at a Funeral, a movie that came out just a few years ago, I was pretty boggled. I have seen the original and while parts of it are quite nasty, it's a very funny and dark movie. Seeing the fresh 'American' treatment advertised, I have no interest in watching it. I'll admit, I was a little upset at first, but after thinking about it I had a change of heart. 

Really, remaking a film within a few years has been standard practice since the very beginning of cinema.  Heck, last decade Hollywood remade every horror movie that Japan put out. It's a rich tradition. The real complaint I see is that more people have seen the original Death at a Funeral, so they're able to complain. When Ringu was remade as The Ring, I heard horror fans whining, but that was it. Evidently, in this instance I actually side on the remake's side, since I thought the original sucked hard. 

As I said, I have no intention of watching the new one. I think it looks completely pointless (though casting Peter Dinklage does lead me to wonder if the whole thing is a bit of metahumor) and absurd. But no reason for anyone to get upset about it. Well except for the British, but then they already think we're all a bunch of wankers anyway.

So I actually watched this last year but I was talking with someone about it yesterday and I thought I would discuss it here. Dear Zachary is a documentary made by the friend of a man who was murdered. It's done in the form of a letter describing the events to his late friend's son. This isn't a spoiler of any kind, the mother of the child is the killer. All sorts of insanity is documented. She wasn't convicted of the murder, fleeing to Canada. The ending is... Well I don't want to say too much. If you decide to watch it, I guarantee you'll be crying and incredibly upset by the end.

I made some mistakes this past week. I watched two films I knew couldn't possibly be good. 

The first was a horror film called Carriers. Few horror plot lines scare me, but I do always get a chill when watching super virus movies. Not sure how I always end up watching these things when I'm sick, but never mind. The film stars Chris Pine and Piper Perabo with a little Christopher Meloni thrown in for good measure. It focuses on 4 survivors travelling across the wasteland the country has become. Their whole goal is centered around getting to the ocean, a place where they have happy memories. Right away the tone is established as Zombieland meets Cabin Fever, without the stylish humor. Sounds good in theory, but it fails in execution. To me, none of the character's actions really make sense. The movie was so empty I felt no real scare in the world created. Because I'm generous (there were a few isolated good moments) I'll give it a 3 out of 10.

The other disaster I watched was Woody Allen's 'Whatever Works.' The movie is essentially Larry David narrating directly to us a twisted love story. Through it he debases the concept of religion and in particular Christianity. No real shocker, but religion here mostly plays as a poorly executed McGuffin. The main problem is that the writing feels like it was done too quickly without even an edit. The various points he's striving to make tend to separate from the characters development like oil and water. Not to mention that every character is completely one note. Even after their supposed 'revelation' that changes them, they're still the same character with no actual arc. Just another misstep from Woody Allen. As it does have a few actual chuckles in it I rate it a 4 out of 10

This week I was kind of lax on the posting, as I was under the weather. Hopefully I should be back up to steam next week. For now I leave you with my favorite Muppet song of all time.

Oh and you should look into Exit Through the Gift Shop, cause it sounds really good.