BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) PROMISED LAND
Gus Van Sant seems to be hit or miss for me. I either love his movies or I’m utterly annoyed. When Van Sant works with Matt Damon good things happen. Matt Damon plays a corporate salesman who, along with his work partner Frances McDormand, go to a small town to buy drilling rights from the people. Their town is suffering from the economy collapsing so they’re kind of screwed and have no choice. They get resistance from a school teacher on a mission who gets help from Damon’s rival, played by John Krasinski. This should be a good movie. I’m excited to see John Krasinski get in some dramatic camera time. He’s an awesome actor and with The Office winding down he needs to get into bigger movies like this more often. We also get Hal Holbrook, Lucas Black, and the always awesome/always hot Rosemarie DeWitt. I can’t see this movie not getting tons of acclaim. It should be good.
(THREE) THE BITTER PILL
Steven Soderbergh can be a weird dude. It’s a good kind of weird though. In his latest movie he’s tackling the world of psycho-pharmacology. It goes into how the drugs affect people and the people around them. It’s not a topic that hasn’t been covered before. The whole idea of an artsy in-your-face pharma-drug movie has been done and done well. This is Steven Soderberg though. You can’t expect anything too conventional. There has to be a slant and an interesting perspective or I doubt he’d do it. He put together a great cast too. Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Channing Tatum, and Catherine Zeta-Jones? This movie AT LEAST will be “good” and “interesting” with a huge upswing if the planets align.
(TWO) DJANGO UNCHAINED
Quentin Tarantino makes great movies. There is no denying that. There are few filmmakers that have such a bold and loud voice as him. I get and see the complaints and murmurs about him just being a carbon copy of whatever obscure 70’s movie he’s into at the time. He’s a fan of film. What’s wrong with that? He’s not “ripping off” anything. He’s paying homage to what he himself has been entertained and inspired by. I’d like to see him stray more from the standard fare, but that “standard fare” is who QT is. Some movies turn out great and some don’t. Regardless, they are HIS movies. Luckily for Tarantino fans, his new project “Django Unchained” looks to be great. When it was first announced the casting sounded really interesting. Will Smith was to be the lead, a freed slave going across America with a German dentist. In order to be freed and to save his enslaved wife from her owner he has to work with the dentist to hunt down and kill some bad guys. Will Smith would have rocked, but instead we get Jamie Foxx. I don’t hate Foxx, but I don’t have any interest in seeing him in a movie. Sadly, that’s my biggest issue from getting super excited. I have to rely on the fact that Tarantino knows what he’s doing and the rest of the cast including Christoph Waltz as the dentist, Walton Goggins, Sam Jackson, Bruce Dern, RZA, Robert Carradine, and Jonah Hill will be awesome. Of course I want to see this and so should you.
(ONE) OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, this is NOT a remake. Repeat, this is NOT a remake. This is an adapted film based on the prequel to the classic 1939 Wizard of Oz movie. That itself is kind of awesome. James Franco stars as the man who would later become “The Wizard”. We cover his early days as a small-time circus magician and his whole journey of meeting the witches. They’re not buying him as being as great as it’s said. He has to use his magic and skill to sway them and to lay the foundation for the ‘Land of Oz’. It’s a cool idea and I’m really surprised no one stepped up to do this yet. I saw the weird sequel from the 80s and I still like it, but this is a gold mine. Sam Rami stepped to the plate and has made this beast. The cast is awesome. James Franco as Oscar Diggs, Mila Kunis as Theodora, Michelle Williams as Glinda, Rachel Weisz as Evanora, Zach Braff is in there, Abigail Spencer, and of course Bruce Campbell has a role. The visuals look great and I’m genuinely excited to see this movie once it hits IMAX 3D. Sadly, this is also one of those movies that could oversaturate on-the-fence customers. We’ll have to avoid a lot of evil Disney promo to not be sick of this before March. I still want to see it.
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