October 2nd

 

Shutter Island (Paramount)

Shutter Island Paramount Pictures.jpg 


The new film by Martin Scorsese (The Departed, Casino, Cape Fear, Raging Bull) already sports the most intriguing trailer of the year. Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo star as two U.S. marshals, who, in 1954, are sent to a creep-crawly mental institution to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Shutter Island is based on the 2003 book by Dennis Lehane, who wrote Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone, two other novels adapted for the big screen. While I thought Mystic River only faked complexity and suspense, Gone, Baby, Gone bubbled over with tension. If Shutter Island is half as good as it looks, I’m there! There’s nothing more entertaining that some crazy people. That’s why I watch reality television, ride the subway in New York, and go to t-ball games.


October 9th

 

Whip It (Fox Searchlight)

Whip It Fox Searchlight.jpg

 

Drew’s got a brand new pair of roller skates! Though she was doing whiskey shooters at the age of four, Drew Barrymore waited until she was in her thirties to try her hand at directing a feature. Her first film is Whip It, which stars Ellen Page (Juno) as a young woman who rebels against her beauty-pageant obsessed mother and joins a roller derby squad. As a professional sport, roller derby is much like wrestling. It’s all about bravado, smack-talking and the show. If Barrymore can capture that tone, Whip It could work. With characters named Malice in Wonderland, Dinah Might, Smashley Simpson, and Bloody Holly, it appears that Drew may be on the right track.

 

October 9th

 

Zombieland (Sony)

 

It was 2004 that the Brits released Shaun of the Dead, the often-times hilarious zombie romp that launched actor/screenwriter Simon Pegg into the limelight. Since 2004, we’ve seen a lot of zombie movies (I Am Legend, 28 Weeks Later) that tried to take the genre back to its original horror movie roots. After all, zombies are supposed to be scary, right? Well, for me, zombies are a whole lot like the vampires and the whole notion of them is just absurd. So, if you are going to use zombies in a movie you should spoof them, much like Robert Rodriguez did in Planet Terror, his contribution to the Grindhouse double feature. In Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer takes the same approach and casts Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland) as an unlikely duo trying to stay alive in a world overrun with the undead!


October 16th

 

Where The Wild Things Are (Warner Brothers)

Where Wild Things Are Warner Bros.jpg

 

When I was in high school I took a mime workshop and our piece de resistance was a white-face rendering of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 masterwork, Where The Wild Things Are. While it’s impossible to top the artistic integrity and the gut-wrenching of our mime interpretation, director Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) is giving it a whirl. Along for the ride are Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo and relative newcomer Max Records, who plays the young boy who would be king in a land of wild things!

 

October 23rd

 

Saw VI (Lionsgate)

 

Would you like to play a game? Uh… No.

 

October 28th

 

This Is It (Sony)

 

Michael Jackson’s body was still fresh when studio types started warring over hours and hours of raw rehearsal footage from Jackson’s forthcoming London concerts (there were to be 50 and all had sold out). Sony Pictures won the bidding, forked over $60 million dollars and hired choreographer/director Kenny Ortega (High School Musical) to assemble a documentary about Jackson’s last days as the King of Pop. For fans of Michael, who truly believe he is ’gone to soon’, this will be an October treat. I personally will watch This Is It in search of clues and answers. Did anybody see Michael Jackson’s untimely death coming? Most importantly, did he?