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Scream 4
It looks like the Weinstein Company has pulled the trailer at the last minute (perhaps not surprisingly). I will review the trailer and post a bootleg version; look out next week for the official debut. 14 years after a low-budget film called Scream shocked and delighted audiences with its wry witty blend of laughs and scares comes the fourth installment in the Wes Craven franchise. It has been 10 years (believe it or not) since Scream 3 left audiences wanting but enough has changed in the genre over the last decade to give Craven some new material to literally and figuratively skewer; let’s just hope he has something left to say. It is infrequent to find a director who will return for a sequel let alone a quadrilogy and the same goes for Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette who all reprise their famed roles. The new teaser is taught and seems to boast the trademark mockery of the genre that Craven ironically helped build. Carving its way to an April 15 release date, Scream 4 looks to revive this iconic director’s recently slumping track record.
Paul
Director Greg Mottola has seen himself land a double-punch of critical knockouts and a still respectable one-for-two box office record with Superbad and Adventureland. The latter was a victim of mis-marketing and is in actuality one of the best coming-of-age films of the last decade. Mottola shifts genre gears again with the sci-fi film Paul, the tale of an alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) who teams up with two geeks Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) on a road trip. A supporting cast nothing short of amazing includes Jane Lynch, Sigourney Weaver, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Jeffery Tambor, Bill Hader, David Koechner and Blythe Danner for what will no doubt be a cameo-filled extravaganza. The premise sounds (and looks) silly but what Mottola has indefinitely shown is his ability to infuse humanity into comedic situations and with Pegg and Frost having penned the screenplay, let me say that March 18 cannot come soon enough.
Restless
Gus Van Sant has always been a rather eccentric filmmaker, but he seems to have shattered the “quirky-scale” with Restless, an indie romance about a troubled man (Henry Hopper, as in the late Dennis) who likes to attend funerals, and in the process meets a terminally-ill girl (Mia Wasikowska) while at one of his regular endeavors. Oh, and did I mention he sees the ghost of a Japanese fighter pilot? This is only Hopper’s second big-screen acting job so we will also have to see if he is up to the task. It is certainly no surprise we are seeing Wasikowska in more and more projects, as she is perfectly straddling the line between independent darling and the next big thing. I trust Van Sant and his incredible track record does not lie (look at Milk just two years ago), but I hope he can balance so many bizarre elements into a cohesive whole.
All Good Things
A duo of Oscar nominees and the ex-Miss Mary Jane Watson grace All Good Things, the indistinguishably themed thriller starring Ryan Gosling, Frank Langella and Kirsten Dunst respectively. This trailer reminds me of the recent Darren Aronofsky clip for Black Swan in which the plot remains mostly ambiguous, swirling in a melange of genres and themes. Even its IMDB synopsis describes it as a love story/murder mystery and a tale of loss, family and obsession -- not exactly to the point. Yet, it is because of that quality this film has piqued my interest (that and its cast of course). The director is Andrew Jarecki who directed the acclaimed and Oscar nominated Capturing the Friedman’s back in 2003. So if all good things come to those who wait, then consider me patient for this films undetermined release date.
Wrecked
Siphoning what knowledge I have from Danny Boyle’s upcoming effort 127 Hours, combining it with a little Memento and a dash of Lord of the Flies gives what is a fairly reasonable assessment of the intense-looking Wrecked, the tale of a man (Adrien Brody) who wakes up in a demolished car at the base of a ravine with no knowledge of who he is, where he is, or what happened. Shot in only 18 days on a micro-budget, Wrecked continues Brody’s streak of starring in small, under-seen films. While this should do little to snap that streak (although he did surprise everyone in Predators this year), this looks like an intense, psychologically challenging Indie production.
