February of 2017 is here. Shockingly enough, so is America. We’re making due, folks. Let’s talk about movies, ‘kay?
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| Photo credit: Rings Movie/Facebook |
Rings
Director: F. Javier Gutiérrez
Writers: Jacob Estes, Akiva Goldsman, David Loucka
Starring: Vincent D’Onofrio, Laura Wiggins, Aimee Teegarden
The last time we left the Rings franchise, in 2005, the internet was a different thing. Twitter didn’t exist. It was a totally different world. Now, we have streaming video bombarding us everywhere we look. Therefore, it’s time to let the girl in the well climb out of our YouTube channels to strangle us to death or whatever it is she wants to do to our helpless bodies. Does she eat people? I really can’t remember. No matter what it is she wants to do with her victims, she’s freaky. Now she’s going after people like Vincent D’Onofrio, who is one of the weirder screen presences in Hollywood. All’s well.
The Space Between Us
Director: Peter Chelsom
Writers: Allan Loeb, Stewart Schill, Richard Barton Lewis
Starring: Britt Robertson, Asa Butterfield, Janet Montgomery
When a boy born on Mars (Asa Butterfield) meets a pretty girl from Earth (Britt Robertson) via video chat (she is not going to climb out of a well, unlike the girl in the movie listed above this), he gets all the butterflies in his tummy and he wants to go meet her. Problem is, his immune system isn’t built for Earth’s atmosphere. He might die or something, but love’s worth it, especially when all he can see in the rest of his life is red rocks and space-science-y stuff. Based on the trailer, this one feels very much like another adaptation of a John Green novel for teens, like Paper Towns, but this time with science fiction involved. That’s not a bad setup if you ask me, but I’m a nerd who desperately wants to go to space. Therefore, I want to chastise this big-eyed dork for wanting to leave space. I have a very complicated relationship with this movie, if you can’t tell.
The Comedian
Director: Taylor Hackford
Writers: Art Linson, Jeffrey Ross, Richard LaGravenese, Lewis Friedman
Starring: Robert De Niro, Leslie Mann, Danny DeVito, Harvey
Robert De Niro plays a comedian for the second time in his career. This time, he is less of a mentally deranged kidnapper like he was in The King of Comedy and more of a jerky insult comic, like Don Rickles. He punches someone at a show, gets community service, meets a woman who is down on her luck enough to also be sentenced to community service (Leslie Mann), and they begin a May-December sort of thing that may or may not be romantic in nature. He learns things about himself, reconnects with his family a little bit, and perhaps begins to be nicer to people. It’s directed by Taylor Hackford, whose Ray was a little bloated with trying to fit too much of Ray Charles’s life into it, but the guy knows a thing or two about injecting schmaltz into his movies. Even if it’s bad, it’ll be cool to see De Niro and Harvey Keitel back together on the big screen.
Confidential Assignment
Director: Seong-hoon Kim
Starring: Hyun Bin, Young-nam Jang, Ju-hyuk Kim
South Korean director Seong-hoon Kim takes some shots at North Korea in this action comedy about North Korean gangsters heading into Seoul to start some crime-related shenanigans. Detectives from both countries must team up to bring down the syndicate and get over their own cultural differences. If this sounds a little like Rush Hour to you, that’s because it is, but it seems a little less martial arts-related. Fish-out-of-water buddy cop movies are usually a solid way to spend a couple hours.
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