1. Drive (FilmDistrict, 2,886 Theaters, 100 Minutes, Rated R): Ryan Gosling, fresh of gaining a whole new batch of fans due to his overall studliness in Crazy, Stupid, Love. takes another step towards a more mainstream career with this film.
Gosling did star in The Notebook, but never truly capitalized on mainstream stardom from that role. He is mostly thought of as the indie film star with such efforts as Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl and Blue Valentine. But depending on how audiences relate to this hard-boiled action film, he might be making a permanent break towards the mainstream.
He plays a wheelman who finds out a contract has been put out on his life due to job gone wrong. Somehow, Carey Mulligan gets pulled along for the ride.
The film has an interesting cast, including Christina Hendricks, so it might be worth a look.
2. I Don’t Know How She Does It (The Weinstein Company, 2,476 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City presented the idealized version or the metropolitan woman. She had a fun job that made little or no demands on her time yet provided a strong enough financial foundation so she could live her life exactly the way she wanted. Meet the girls for two hour lunches? Done! Shopping sprees on 5th Avenue? Sure, why not? Travel to exotic locales? She’ll meet you at the airport.
Taking that into consideration, her role in the film might be considered her an acting stretch. She plays an urbanite who has to work hard to succeed at her job while trying to juggle a family at home and is constantly trying to make the ends of her life meet. Perhaps no more realistic that the fairy tale that was Sex in the City, but perhaps more relatable for modern audiences.
The film has an interesting cast, including Christina Hendricks, so it might be worth a look.
3. Straw Dogs (Sony/Screen Gems, 2,408 Theaters, 110 Minutes, Rated R): While the protagonist of the film has changed from a mathematician to a screenwriter and the location moved from rural England to the rural Deep South, U.S.A. (because that is the only place that a plot like this can happen, right? Like nobody up north ever gets violent? Sheesh.), this film appears to be a direct copy of the 1971 original, right down to the poster itself.
The story is about that screenwriter (James Marsden) who relocates to his wife’s (Kate Bosworth) redneck home town. The move is one of many causes of tensions between the pair, tensions which are exacerbated when the locals start harrassing the couple. When the locals cross a line that should never be crossed, the screenwriter gets his revenge in the most bloody way possible.
This of course raises the question, if you are going to do a shot for shot remake of a classic film, what will bring people to see this in the theaters rather than just renting the original? Will James Marsden bring something to the role that Dustin Hoffman didn’t? I like Marsden’s work but even I don’t think that’s possible.
If you do decided to go see this film, and regret the decision half way in, just pretend that Richard White and Lois Lane from Superman Returns are on a vacation that goes horribly wrong, and keep hoping for Superman to come in and save them.
4. The Lion King (3D) (Disney, 2,330 Theaters, 89 Minutes, Rated G): I just think it’s ironic that this film, one of the first of presumably many films in Disney’s catalog that will be rereleased in the 3-D format, will be hitting theaters one day after a Slate article that decares the 3-D trend all but dead.
The articles shows that the trend has been in decline since August of last year, and that a number of high profile films were earning more money in good ol’2-D than they were in 3-D.
Of course, this is just for new films being released in 2-D as well as 3-D. This here is a re-release of a classic movie in the 3-D format. This will bring a bit of novelty that will bring in the customers, right? And the fact it is in a limited two-week only release will make it more of an event, therefore, more successful? Right?
Maybe, maybe not. But since this one in a planned line of 3-D rereleases by Disney and other companies, I’m sure there will be a lot of people checking the pulses of the 3-D fad to see if this film revives it.
