OCTOBER 12
The second week of October begins to feature a few heavy hitters, but first to the not-so-heavy of the bunch beginning with Atlas Shrugged: Part II, a film that appears to have come out of nowhere after the first installment based on Ayn Rand’s novel cost $20 million and only managed $4.6m at the box-office. I guess they assumed getting Samantha Mathis in the lead role was what they needed. It does make it seem like if Atlas Shrugged can get a sequel most anything can.
This weekend also offers the latest “Kevin James fall down go boom” movie that incorporates “boom” directly into the title. Here Comes the Boom features James as a 42-year-old biology teacher in a failing high school who turns to moonlighting as a mixed martial arts fighter to help save his school. Sounds good right?
Most of our attention (or at least my attention) will be focused elsewhere, however, first with Smashed, a film that just may be Mary Elizabeth Winstead‘s dramatic coming out party as buzz surrounding her performance has been out there for a while now. The picture centers on an alcoholic married couple (Winstead and Aaron Paul) whose relationship is tested when the wife attempts to get sober. Yeah, so it’s not exactly an “upper” but it could feature some great performances.
Next is Ben Affleck‘s latest directorial outing, Argo. The film is based on Joshuah Bearman’s April 2007 Wired magazine article, titled “How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue American from Tehran,” which told how the CIA and the Canadian government teamed to rescue six U.S. diplomats who’d been taken hostage at the American embassy by a group of Iranians in 1979. The CIA’s ruse involved the explanation that the six hostages were actually a Hollywood film crew scouting a movie titled Argo. I’ve heard good things and hope it lives up to what I’ve heard.
And finally one of my most anticipated films of the year, Martin McDonagh‘s Seven Psychopaths. The story centers on a struggling screenwriter (Colin Farrell) who gets caught up in a dog-napping scheme and with the likes of Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Olga Kurylenko, Tom Waits and Abbie Cornish along for the ride I can’t wait to see how McDonagh follows up on In Bruges, which if you haven’t seen you simply must.
