I was going through the release dates for a few films this morning and began noticing that the spring is actually filled with great to decent looking and sounding horror pictures and genre pictures. It's funny to see what happens when movies like "Taken" and "300" change studios minds about when certain things could get released. Before "300" March was pretty much a waste land for mediocre comedies to drain up some cash or for the blandest films to pick up a little here and there and then disappear. "Taken" became a mega hit through January and February of this year and has seemed to inspire studios to let other action titles take on the spring instead of letting it ride the waves of summer.Much as it pains me to say it, I feel "Drag Me to Hell" would've performed better either in the spring or fall rather than the summer sandwiched in against "Up" and a week or two before "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". However with "Shutter Island" would've done well no matter what AND probably been an awards contender this year. But no matter, as soon as we look it'll be in theaters making a killing hopefully. The only thing that's bad about all this is that often these things can go one way or another. Nowadays American audiences want fast food entertainment, and I'm not taking something decent, I'm talking straight out the grease pit, dropped on the floor, wrapped up with a few dead roaches and flung at them, which they'll happily chop into. This is how "Paul Blart: Mal Cop" made $64,000,000.
But there's some good looking stuff coming along anyways. Enough to where people could avoid shitty comedies, awful looking PG-13 horror films directed at tweens or young teens that don't know any better, cheap-o dramas and overly cliche' action films with not style or soul.
I mean you get "Daybreakers", about as genre crazy as it gets. Vampires in the future that are harvesting humans and now the blood is running out. You get Sam Neil, who when he isn't doing plays and running from dinosaurs, can be one creepy as hell villain. Ethan Hawke as a vampire scientist who's become disillusioned with this world and gets changed back to human by Williem Dafoe and now they've got some slainin' and changin' to do. I know, I know... the idea of vampires actually killing someone and sucking their blood is a bit over the top. But I guess the creators don't care too much for ones that glitter all the time.
"The Book of Eli" aka Denzel with a machete in the wastelands of the world. Immediately after the trailer launched people made connections between the film's look and the game "Fall-Out 3". I agree, but "Fall-Out 3" never made Denzel, perhaps ones of cinemas most entertaining badasses to watch. Even when the movie is poor, he's still on his A-game. Furthermore he's protecting a bible with his very life against Gary Oldman and Ray Stevenson and teaching Mila Kunis the ropes. And this is the Hughes brothers first film since "From Hell" a rather underrated thriller with Johnny Depp.
And finally "Shutter Island". The big dog. Martin Scorsese goes horror and I couldn't be happier. The film screened at Butt Num-a-thon in Austin, TX a few weeks ago. The AICN crew has reviewed it and loved it calling it one of his best directed films and saying that this may be DiCaprio's best performance as well. The movie is pure thriller involving an escaped mental patient, a series of mysterious doctors, the CIA... and well... tons of mysterious shit like that. Now audiences of late have given mystery films the rope. Something that's missed me off to high heaven, but I figure with names like Scorsese, DiCaprio, Kingsley, Ruffalo... it'll get itself a nice audience for quite a few weeks.
Others of interest is the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake with Jackie Earle Harley ('Watchmen'), Nic Cage and Ron 'Hellboy' Pearlman play knights and fight crazy ass witches in "Season of the Witch", Robert Rodriguez's grindhouse trailer "Machete" hits the screen in feature length with the likes of Trejo, Lohan, Don Johnson, Steven Segal and Jessica Alba as well as a treat for "Planet Terror" fans. Benicio Del Toro is "The Wolfman" written by Andrew Kevin Walker ('Se7en') and is being hunted by Agent Smith i.e. Hugo Weaving. Even if this movie looked cheap and was rated PG-13 I'd see it. Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon re-team for a non-Bourne film, "Green Zone". Steve Pink producer of "High Fidelity" and "Grosse Point Blank" r-team for the lowbrow, but filled with potential to rock "Hot Tub Time Machine". "Clash of the Titans"... Liam Neeson is Zeus, what the fuck else matters? "The Runaways"... i.e. the story of the band starring... Kristen Stewart, please don't fuck this up. Jude Law and Forrest Whittaker are "Repo Men" for a futuristic organ company; there will be blood and laughter. "The Losers", based on the graphic novel about CIA agents cut loose by the government and almost killed. The cast makes me smile with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba and Columbus Short. Oh and it's screenplay is written by Peter Berg (director of 'The Kingdom' and 'Hancock'). Comic adaptation of "Kick-Ass", nuff said there.
So you see... there's a lot of cool shit to see in the spring. 2010 gonna be interesting I think.
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