This time around we have a couple of comedies (I think), a Canadian drama and a few far east offerings that’ll knock your socks off! Let’s dig in shall we?
Just before Sundance kicked off, I picked out two movies which I thought looked and sounded like they would be good picks and it looks like at least one of them is going to make it to theaters this year.
Bottle Shock stars Eliza Dushku, Chris Pine, Bill Pullman, Freddy Rodríguez, Dennis Farina and the fantastic Alan Rickman as an English wine expert headed to the Napa Valley of the 1970′s in search of this apparently fabulous wine to take back for the big tasting competition in France. It looks like it could be great fun and as I mentioned the first time, Rickman has some of the best lines.
Bottle Shock opens in limited release on August 8th.
The Stone Angel
Kari Skogland’s The Stone Angel (our review) is a good adaptation of Margaret Laurence’s classic novel. Starring Cole Hauser, Ellen Page, Dylan Baker, Kevin Zegers Ellen Burstyn, and newcomer Christine Horne, the film tells the story of Hagar, a 94 year old woman, whose son tries to move her into a retirement home. She runs away and spends a few days on the beach remembering her youth. It’s a tender, adult romance which I thoroughly enjoyed though it lacked some of the emotion of the original novel.
The Stone Angel is still playing in cities across Canada and opens in the US on July 11th.
More trailers tucked under the seat.
My first thought was “Oh no, not another crappy, unfunny movie starring Matthew Broderick” but thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Diminished Capacity stars Broderick as a man suffering from amnesia who takes a trip with his Alzheimer’s-impaired father, Alan Alda, and his highschool sweetheart, Virginia Madsen, to sell a highly valuable baseball card. For good measure, they’ve added the fabulous Dylan Baker in there and to be fair, it does look like it could be funny but I’ve seen this before and it was called Little Miss Sunshine. Actually, this feels like a mix of all the big “indie” films of the last few years. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it also doesn’t have me jumping for joy.
Diminished Capacity opens on July 4th.
Red Roses and Petrol
I didn’t realize this but Tamar Simon Hoffs’ Red Roses and Petrol has been kicking around since 2003. The film is based on an award winning play and stars Malcolm McDowell as the patriarch of the Doyle clan and after his death, the family gathers “celebrate” his life.
The fact that this has been sitting around for a couple of years is a little disheartening but it does look like it could be interesting and I always love to see McDowell on screen. We’ll have to wait and see if this opens wide enough for anyone to see it.
Red Roses and Petrol opens in limited release on June 27th.
I Served the King of England
This was one of the films that caught my attention at VIFF last year but I simply couldn’t squeeze it into my schedule. Directed by Oscar winner Jirí Menzel, the film approaches WWII from a completely different lens. This is certainly the most apparently lighthearted approach to the subject as the film centers on life at the opulent The Hotel Paris.
It looks surprisingly funny and absolutely gorgeous and considering I already missed this one once, I’m not passing it up a second time.
I Served the King of England opens August 22nd.
Tôkyô!
I’m not quite sure how I managed to overlook this the first time around but when I saw this teaser, I knew I had to see this film.
Another cinematic experiment, Tôkyô! features directors Joon-ho Bong, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry all writing and directing their own portions of the film, feature three individual stories telling separate tales of the city.
The teaser doesn’t give us much but it certainly made me giddy! I don’t know why but all the flashing made me want to see more!
At the moment, it doesn’t appear that Tôkyô! has a North American distributor. We’ll be sure to keep you posted with new updates on this one!
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
I know for a fact that this trailer has been kicking around the interweb for a while but it wasn’t until yesterday, when speaking to a South Korean friend who came out to a movie with me, raving that I had to see this, that I decided to check it out.
Directed by Ji-woon Kim, the same man that brought me one of my favourite horror films of the last few years The Tale of Two Sisters, this Western which tells the story of three Korean outlaws in 1930s Manchuria and their dealings with the Japanese army and Chinese and Russian bandits is, by her accounts, nothing short of brilliant. The trailer fantastic! I want to see this now!
Look for The Good, The Bad, The Weird making an appearance at a festival near you!
Shit that’s a lot of trailers. At any rate, the first one looks great. More Dushku and Rodriguez in the trailer would be nice, but I think I need to move Rickman up quite a few notches on my best of belt. All he does is impress.