Friday, September 24, 2010

In Cinemas This Week

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - (Pick of the Week) Oliver Stone's follow-up to his 1987 smash hit, Wall Street, reunites the writer-director with Michael Douglas reprising his famous role as Gordon Gecko and drags in "new-blood" Shia LaBeouf for more excessive executive wheeling-and-dealing. Gecko takes wannabe yuppie-hipster Jake Moore under his wing as the global economy teeters on disaster while investigating the death of the young man's former mentor. Looks as gripping as the original and early reviews have been glowing. Also featuring Frank Langella, Josh Brolin, Susan Sarandon, Vanessa Ferlito and Carey Mulligan. Money, money, money...

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore - Cute-looking kids animated spy adventure movie, featuring talking cats and dogs - sequel to the super successful Cats & Dogs. Just in time for the school holidays, this looks to be a Bond-parody there's even a cameo voiced by Roger Moore!), so hopefully will appeal to the parents dragged along by their children. Featuring the vocal talents of Alec Baldwin, Chris O'Donnell, Michael Clarke Duncan, Bette Midler, Joe Pantoliano, Jack McBrayer. (Also in 3D.)

Charlie St. Cloud - Charlie St. Cloud is a young man overcome by grief at the death of his younger brother. So much so that he takes a job as caretaker of the cemetery in which his brother is buried. Charlie has a special lasting bond with his brother though, as he can see him. Charlie meets up with his brother (Sam) each night to play catch and talk. Then, a girl comes into Charlie's life and he must choose between keeping a promise he made to Sam, or going after the girl he loves. - (from imdb.com) (This sounds like a solid premise, aside from the fact that Zac Efron will turn this into an insipid overly-sentimentalized exercise in boredom.)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - This came to our attention when auditions were ingeniously posted on the Internet asking kids everywhere to submit auditions online. Based on a series of online cartoons and illustrated novels by Jeff Kinney, based around the misadventures of a wise-cracking sixth grade student dealing with the usual growing pains. Reports are that this is something a bit different from the usual school holiday fare and would be a great choice for parents wanted to wean their kids into a more "indy" based style of cinema.

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen - Donnie Yen stars in this Wai Keung Lau directed historical triad kung fu epic. Yen's character Chen Zhen is a popular one, having been played on screen previously by both Bruce Lee and Jet Li. A tale of mystery and intrigue set in 1920s China and featuring lots of crazy set-piece fight sequences.

The Last Airbender - M Night Shyamalan's epic disaster picture, The Happening, was one of last year's biggest critical failures, since a slow descent into trash-dom since wowing audiences with The Sixth Sense back in the mid Nineties. I am wondering just how massively he can mess with this adaptation of a much admired series of Anime epics, done live-action. The trailers have been highly effects laden and look to be all chop-sockey action and half-hearted signifying nods to Asian culture. Will either be completely missable or such a mighty cinematic blunder that it will be hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Features Dev Patel as the villainous Zuko and our own Cliff Curtis as Firelord Ozai.

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