Lets’s face it, any new releases the week will be swallowed up by the second weekend of Avengers: Infinity War. So we can’t really blame the big studios for not trying. But some smaller studios have stepped in to pick up the slack.
1. Bad Samaritan (Electric Entertainment, 2,007 Theaters, 111 Minutes, Rated R for violence, language throughout, some drug use and brief nudity, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer at press time:57% fresh [34 reviews]): Has this ever happened to you? You got to rob a rich guy’s house and you find a girl bound and gagged in there? Turns out your target is a serial killer, and now he is after you. Then you find yourself in a game of cat and mouse with the guy, with the final prize being your life.
The answer to the above question is; probably not, unless you are a character in a another film. This premise seems very familiar, even though I can’t think of another film with the exact same plot.
Regardless, it looks we’ll be getting a really good performance from David Tennant. Glad to see not all former Doctor Whos phone it in when they take a role for a paycheck.
2. Overboard (Pantelion, 1,623 Theaters, 112 Minutes, Rated PG-13 for suggestive material, partial nudity and some language, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer at press time:31% fresh [35 reviews]): Of all the comedies of the 1980s that could be remade, I could think of about 50 that would have been selected before the original Overboard. That film was nowhere near a classic and the best thing it had going for it was the real-life chemistry between real-life couple Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.
But we got a remake anyway, and a gender-swapped one to boot, because swapping genders in remakes always works.
Anna Faris plays the Kurt Russell role as a single mother barely making ends meet who is degraded by an arrogant, rich playboy (Eugenio Derbez, playing the Goldie Hawn role). When the playboy washes up on shore with amnesia after being thrown overboard, she gets her revenge by claiming he is her husband.
3. Tully (Focus Features, 1,353 Theaters, 96 Minutes, Rated R for language and some sexuality/nudity, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer at press time:89% fresh [123 reviews]): Juno launched Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody onto the national consciousness. Cody won an Oscar for her work writing the film and Reitman got a nomination. It seemed that we were witnessing the the start of two legendary Hollywood careers.
The years since have proven other wise as both had some highs but also some low. But this film, which reunites the pair with Charlize Theron, the star of their 2011 film Young Adult, seems to be a return to greatness for all parties.
The film deals with a woman struggling with raising three kids who gets the gift of a night nanny to help her with that task. She soon finds that the nanny, Tully (Mackenzie Davis) changes her life as well as changing the diapers.
The blockbusters take another week off next week, unless you consider a new Melissa McCarthy film to have blockbuster potential. See you then, and Mat the 4th be with you.
