Five Most Anticipated American Non-Blockbuster No-Awards-Expected Films of 2006
by Nick
Wells came out with his preview of the summer blockbusters yesterday ("Not-So-Bad Summer"), which didn't say anything I'm guessing most of us didn't already know. Most of the great films usually come out of left-field, so I figured I'd list the small Hollywood films I'm anticipating this year, which aren't expected to sweep the box-office, or win any awards, but could turn out to be gems none the less.
1. Borat
Man, if you don't know Borat...
Release: November
2. Crank
Let's see if everyone agrees on this one:
Jason Statham is the modern heir to the action-hero mantle laid off by Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone. He may not have Willis' charm, Schwarzeneggers über-brawn or the sympathetic working-class quality that Stallone had, but he has something in between. The Transporter films have made at least his face known among action fans, the only thing that's been missing is a proper hit. I'm betting that Crank might be it.
In the film Statham plays the assassin Chev, who at the start of the film is injected by a disgruntled victim in LA with a poison that will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline flow high and going for 24 hours. So Chev goes on a total rampage throughout LA.
If done right this could be like Falling Down without all those moral issues making a mess of things towards the end.
Release: September
3. Fast Food Nation
Along with making A Scanner Darkly Richard Linklater filmed this one, an ensemble drama on - you guessed it, you genius you - fast food. Something about the whole package here has me anticipating this one, a lot. I think it's the thought of "Traffic - with hamburgers". That and a cast consisting of Luis Guzman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Cannavale (who was great in Station Agent), Ethan Hawke and Avril Lavigne(?).
Linklater going back to doing a film about modern day youth is reason enough, really.
Release: Summer?
4. Children of Men
I'm of the persuasion that even with science-fiction films that go really wrong, I can usually find something interesting or watchable. Even movies like The Island, Aeon Flux and Sky Captain, terrible as they were, had some cool ideas and sequences. Sue me.
And when they go right, they go really right. Films like V for Vendetta, Serenity, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko were all sci-fi films released this decade. None of them won any Oscars, but they were all great films.
The premise of Children of Men may sound like a potential yawner: in a near future where mankind is unable to have children, a woman has gotten pregnant. The film follows her and her bodyguard's journey through a ravaged England to deliver her to safety.
Two things make this a must-see,
1) It's being directed by Alfonso Cuaron.
2) The cast: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Peter Mullan, Danny Huston and Chiwetel Eijofor (whey!).
Release: September
5. When The Levees Broke
The talk about United 93 is mainly over whether it's 'too soon' (don't agree with this, but I'm not one of the wounded parties, so). I hope the same sentiments won't apply to future coverage of the Katrina disaster. And is it irony or tragedy that the same sentiments probably won't?
Spike Lee has been working on this for HBO since september last year, and will show it on the channel for the disaster's one year anniversary.
This being Spike Lee one can guess what his focus will be, and I hope he stirs up debate, I hope he sets out to be controversial, but mainly I hope he sets out to do something more than a filmed Kanye comment. There were admirable deeds done during those days, but compared to 9-11 this was a very different aftermath, and why was that? Spike shall deliver.
When it comes to what happened in New Orleans there's no 'too soon.' There hasn't been enough.
Release: August 29th on HBO
1. Borat
Man, if you don't know Borat...
Release: November
2. Crank
Let's see if everyone agrees on this one:
Jason Statham is the modern heir to the action-hero mantle laid off by Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone. He may not have Willis' charm, Schwarzeneggers über-brawn or the sympathetic working-class quality that Stallone had, but he has something in between. The Transporter films have made at least his face known among action fans, the only thing that's been missing is a proper hit. I'm betting that Crank might be it.
In the film Statham plays the assassin Chev, who at the start of the film is injected by a disgruntled victim in LA with a poison that will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline flow high and going for 24 hours. So Chev goes on a total rampage throughout LA.
If done right this could be like Falling Down without all those moral issues making a mess of things towards the end.
Release: September
3. Fast Food Nation
Along with making A Scanner Darkly Richard Linklater filmed this one, an ensemble drama on - you guessed it, you genius you - fast food. Something about the whole package here has me anticipating this one, a lot. I think it's the thought of "Traffic - with hamburgers". That and a cast consisting of Luis Guzman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Cannavale (who was great in Station Agent), Ethan Hawke and Avril Lavigne(?).
Linklater going back to doing a film about modern day youth is reason enough, really.
Release: Summer?
4. Children of Men
I'm of the persuasion that even with science-fiction films that go really wrong, I can usually find something interesting or watchable. Even movies like The Island, Aeon Flux and Sky Captain, terrible as they were, had some cool ideas and sequences. Sue me.
And when they go right, they go really right. Films like V for Vendetta, Serenity, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko were all sci-fi films released this decade. None of them won any Oscars, but they were all great films.
The premise of Children of Men may sound like a potential yawner: in a near future where mankind is unable to have children, a woman has gotten pregnant. The film follows her and her bodyguard's journey through a ravaged England to deliver her to safety.
Two things make this a must-see,
1) It's being directed by Alfonso Cuaron.
2) The cast: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Peter Mullan, Danny Huston and Chiwetel Eijofor (whey!).
Release: September
5. When The Levees Broke
The talk about United 93 is mainly over whether it's 'too soon' (don't agree with this, but I'm not one of the wounded parties, so). I hope the same sentiments won't apply to future coverage of the Katrina disaster. And is it irony or tragedy that the same sentiments probably won't?
Spike Lee has been working on this for HBO since september last year, and will show it on the channel for the disaster's one year anniversary.
This being Spike Lee one can guess what his focus will be, and I hope he stirs up debate, I hope he sets out to be controversial, but mainly I hope he sets out to do something more than a filmed Kanye comment. There were admirable deeds done during those days, but compared to 9-11 this was a very different aftermath, and why was that? Spike shall deliver.
When it comes to what happened in New Orleans there's no 'too soon.' There hasn't been enough.
Release: August 29th on HBO
|Link|5:12 PM
3 Comments:
Hey, I loved Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow! No need for apologies there.
I don't think there's really any comparison between 9/11 and Katrina, so the same sentiments shouldn't apply, and that is neither irony nor tragedy to me. I don't think I should have to explain that it is quite different to see needless human suffering as the result of a natural disaster and lack of adequate planning and implementation in the face of it on the one hand, while on the other hand witnessing what at first looks like a bizarre and tragic aviation accident that in moments turns into the first stages in a coordinated act of terrorism on an unprecedented scale. (I'll give you hijacking a plane to fly it into a building, but four simultaneously was pretty darn unprecedented.)
The scale of what happened with Katrina was not unprecedented, as shocking as it was to many people. I distinctly recall the National Weather Service warning about the impending disaster that was issued in the hours before Katrina made landfall. The guy who wrote it was right, and not enough people who should have known better, whose job it was to prepare for that kind of thing, paid attention to it. And too many other top officials initially passed it off as just another hurricane, big deal--we get plenty of those all the time.
Or maybe I'm missing the gist of what you're saying, Nick. Yeah, there probably was some racism and/or evidence of disenfranchisement of the poor of New Orleans in the response to it. Absolutely. But if instead of 9/11 happening the way it did, if there had been two hijacked airliners crashing into the Superdome in New Orleans during the Superbowl, I don't think there would have been any delay in reaction to that. There had become a complacency about hurricanes being manageable disasters. They just aren't as sexy as color-coded terror threat levels.
I think there has been enough coverage of Katrina and its aftermath, but unfortunately it has been concentrated among certain media outlets while others have pretty much ignored the lingering effects. NBC News here has been very diligent in their coverage, and they've had at least two extended documentaries air on the Sundance Channel. Viewers have actually complained to them that they're sick of hearing about it.
I am really sick of former FEMA chief Michael Brown's recent media rehabilitation.
BTW, there were a lot of TV documentaries on 9/11 in September 2002--isn't Spike Lee's thing a documentary, too?
As for United 93, did you all see that a large Manhattan theater pulled the trailer after patrons complained? Doesn't say much for its box office potential, at least in New York City.
If people are saying that "it's too soon," then this movie needs to exist. My first reaction to that is: bullshit. From the publicity material, this movie doesn't seem to me like it's about obtaining catharsis. It's about reducing what happened to packaged entertainment that, if anything, will obscure the real issues. Maybe I'm wrong, but the marketing is turning me away. The trailer running before Inside Man looks like something the Bush campaign would have been gleeful to have running in theaters in the run-up to the 2004 election. Keep playing those images of planes crashing into buildings, and people will stay scared.
It is sometimes too soon, if the material isn't really enlightening.
But at the same time, the reaction I have following my first knee-jerk reaction is: I hope you're right, Chris.
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