I’m going out of town for Thanksgiving, so I’m not sure whether I will be able to write a “Movies this Week” next week. I don’t want to feel all that pressure on me to get it done, especially if I’ve been eating a lot of turkey and just want to nap.
So I thought I would do two weeks at once, folding next week’s movies into the current format with this week’s new films. This meant I had to face the scary nationwide Thanksgiving releases, for which I was unprepared. I had to be strong. I had to hang on. Or my mind might well snap … See, the whole thing has left me so unhinged that I am unintentionally paraphrasing Rocky Horror. Oliver Stone and Chris Columbus in the same week, it can’t be good for a girl.
My general opinion of the movie fare for the next two weeks is that if you live in Austin, you should check out the Dobie and the Alamo, or maybe go see The Incredibles. Otherwise, proceed at your own risk.
Category: film rants
movies this week: let’s escape
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure could use some good old-fashioned escapism and entertainment. I’m in dire need of wit and humor and action and adventure and really wild things. And I notice that the ideal movie for these things is playing next week.
No, I didn’t mean The Incredibles. I am too annoyed by noisy crowds to brave a Pixar movie on opening weekend. Maybe in a couple of weeks.
I was thinking more of The Lady Eve, that delightful Preston Sturges comedy with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda and Charles Coburn, which is being shown in Austin next week. Aren’t we lucky?
You know what kind of movie you want. Maybe you’re fortunate enough to find it in a theater this weekend. Maybe you have to go to Vulcan Video (or your local video store of choice) and dig around in the VHS section. But my advice to you is to find your favorite brand of escapism and indulge like mad.
(A special edition of Dr. Strangelove was released on DVD this week. That might be a particularly apt choice. On the other hand, it might seem a little too apt.)
movies this week: happy holidays
It’s always fun to pick movies associated with an upcoming holiday, and find a few to watch as part of the celebration. And as you know, one of the more important holidays is taking place this week, so I have been thinking about appropriate movies.
(Oh, geez, now she’s going to talk about scary movies again, and probably gush over Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi.)
Of course not. That has nothing to do with the holiday I am talking about. If there’s some lesser holiday involving skeletons and witches and ghosts, it pales in comparison.
(I get it now. She’s going to talk about patriotism and voting and apple-pie American films, probably gushing over The Candidate and Bob Roberts and maybe even Blaze. Give me a break.)
I am not. That’s not really a holiday anyway. And it is not as important as the upcoming holiday of holidays.
I am talking, of course, about my birthday.
movies this week: bloodless feast
It was 9:00 on Monday night when my boyfriend and I declared that we would never watch another horror movie again. Or in my case, at least not for the foreseeable future.
I was grateful to Alamo Drafthouse Downtown for programming a lot of horror movies this month that I hadn’t seen before and wanted to see. Some were part of a tribute to the recently deceased art director Robert A. Burns. They also scheduled Suspiria. And when Shawn of the Dead was released in Austin, my boyfriend and I thought we should watch some George A. Romero movies first so we could get possible in-jokes.
However, after weeks of seeing Night of the Living Dead and not-quite-half of Dawn of the Dead and Re-Animator and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and various other gory or frightening movies (I was tempted to count Control Room because Donald Rumsfeld looked convincingly zombie-ish, but I will restrain myself), we have Had Enough, Already.
Seeing some of these movies at Alamo made it worse, because in order to get to the theater on time for a 7 pm movie during the week, we ate dinner at the theater. We tried to get there early enough to eat before the movie started, but inevitably I would have a mouthful of fries during some blood-drenched scene and ugh.
Seeing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre while attempting to eat a pizza was the last straw. I think I will wait for another opportunity to see Suspiria because in the past month, I have seen enough Karo-syrup blood to fill up Sam Raimi’s garage. I am making an exception for Shawn of the Dead this weekend (I hope) only because people have assured me that it isn’t a horror movie, it is a comedy.
To prevent anyone else from having such difficulties, I am evaluating the movies opening in Austin this week based on their horror and gore factor. As a further public service, i am including my estimate of dining possibilities for these movies—what would be safe to eat, or if it would be safe to eat at all. You want to be careful. You never can tell what unexpected horrors you might encounter at this time of the year.
movies this week: the puppets are here
The big movie event in Austin this week is the Austin Film Festival. Several movie theaters in town have screens dedicated to showing festival movies. However, there are so many cool movies playing in town this month, even if you don’t make it to the festival, you can see a different movie practically every night. Yeah, even if you skip the lame ones.
There are all kinds of new movies this week: heartwarming, quirky, melodramatic, bursting with big-name acting talent. But only one of them has irreverent puppets fighting terrorism, and that’s the only one I particularly want to see. They’re not Muppets, but that’s all right.
movies this week: hmmm. interesting.
It truly has been one-week-on, one-week-off in Austin theaters. Perhaps this is a nice gesture on the part of film distributors to allow us to catch up on the good films during the off weeks.
Most of the movies this week look interesting. Not loads of thrills, not full of stunning visuals or amazing special effects, but the kinds of movies that keep your brain occupied and absorbed for a couple of hours. (I’m not counting the Hilary Duff movie. I’m ignoring it. Or the Jimmy Fallon movie, for that matter. Okay, maybe this was a dumb generalization to make, but I can’t think of anything better right now.) And if you want something a little more fun, there are good movies still playing in theaters from previous weeks.
movies this week: go back to last week
I think I was spoiled by last week’s movies. I cannot muster much enthusiasm for the movies opening in Austin this week. Fortunately, last week’s movies and some other goodies are still in theaters, and since I didn’t get time to see them then, there are plenty of good movies available for me in theaters.
movies this week: I need more time
The universal forces that control film (no, I don’t mean Sony and Time-Warner, either) must have looked down from their celestial screening rooms last weekend, shuddered at the number of mediocre films opening in theaters, and decreed that this would be a better week. And believe me, I am truly thankful. (Also, I finally got my expectorant from Amazon yesterday … no more formula! yay!)
Most of the movies opening in Austin this week look very promising. I can think of at least two that I want to see while they are in theaters, and a few more I think I’ll enjoy on DVD. And of course there are still some movies hanging around from previous weeks that I haven’t seen, like Garden State and Silver City.
Why is the weekend only two days long? Why are night movies so expensive? How will I make time for everything I want to see? How important is a good night’s sleep, anyway, if you’re lying down watching movies instead—isn’t that sufficiently restful? I wish.
beyond the tits of the Meyer vixens
In my high school and college days, several books had a marked influence on the films I watched and the way in which I watched them. These books introduced me to directors and movies that I hadn’t heard of before, causing me to seek out all sorts of obscure films—and this was in the late 1980s when such movies were very difficult to find on video.
The four books:
- Harlan Ellison’s Watching, by Harlan Ellison
- Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In, by Joe Bob Briggs (John Bloom)
- Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In, by Joe Bob Briggs (John Bloom)
- Shock Value, by John Waters
movies this week: formula in bulk
I ordered some Mucinex from Amazon last weekend. Mucinex is an expectorant, or as my doctor calls it, “the mucus thinner,” which is the kind of pills you get to take all the time if you have crazy-bad sinuses. It was weird ordering something so boring from Amazon, and I did consider buying the fourth season of The Simpsons in order to get free shipping, but the practical, dull part of me pointed out that if I ordered two bottles of the stuff I could get free shipping anyway.
Yesterday I found the box from Amazon hidden near the front door when I got home. I scooped it up with the rest of the mail and wondered how two small pill bottles could be so heavy. Maybe they packed them in lots of stuff so nothing bad would happen? Still, it seemed suspiciously weird.
I opened up the box and found … three tins, about the size of medium paint cans, of Isomil Advance formula. Powdered baby formula. (No, you don’t get babies if you add water, smartass. It’s for babies to drink in their little bottles.) Formula everywhere. I have to take the box back to the post office today and hope that next time I get something resembling my actual order.
In Austin theaters this week (you knew I’d get to movies eventually, didn’t you? What a surprise), it’s formula everywhere, too. Instead of Isomil Advance, we have Advanced Sitcom Formula in cans of film.
When I write these weekly movie previews, I write the summaries for the movies before I write the lead-in. After writing three or four summaries where the storyline reverted to that old film-school cliche, “Hilarity ensues,” or better yet, “Wacky hijinks ensue,” I realized that a pattern was emerging. A pattern of the standard formulaic (unfunny) comedy.
It’s like wanting The Simpsons, expecting something less interesting that’ll at least make you feel better, and ending up with an enormous amount of useless formula.
Add water—or better yet, strong drink—and enjoy.