It's time for your spring movie preview edition of the Cultural Taproom, Part 1, Volume 1. Watch for many, many more juicy spring movie preview editions to follow until such time as the spring movies become summer movies, at which time this segment will need to be re-titled and possibly scrapped altogether.
March 28th - "21". Ever since the success of the movie Rounders and the following mad rush of America to the poker table, movies or shows centering around casino-style gambling have raked in the cash. For evidence of this, you need look no further than the rising television ratings for poker... if you yourself play poker, it's enjoyable fare, if you don't, it's as engaging as watching C-SPAN at around 3 in the afternoon.
Enter "21", about a group of above-average college braniacs who are led to Vegas by their professor to learn, and exploit, the practice of card-counting. Leading the "Who's that?" cast are a pair of thespians who haven't done much since they appeared together in Superman Returns, and that's probably no coincidence. Lex Luthor and Lois Lane lead the charge to the blackjack table in late March.
April - "Goal II: Living the Dream". Strictly inserted for Austin's benefit... actually, no one will go see this movie and I'll be surprised if it's actually showing at a theatre within 50 miles of my home.
April 4th - "Leatherheads". Ah, here we are, a movie about a sport that Americans actually care about. Football has seen its share of Hollywood successes (Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, Rudy), but this movie, from the looks of the trailer, is more of a comedy. The setting is unique - the early days of football employed a leather helmet instead of the hurtful assemblage of resin and Kevlar that are used today. I daresay that George Clooney would not soon recover from a helmet-on-helmet collision with today's gladiators, although people would still go see his movies because he is, so to speak, "dreamy".
May 2nd - "Iron Man". For those of you not familiar with the comic book character or his origins, this film stars Robert Downey Jr. as a filthy-rich womanizer whose life is easily overtaken by booze and excess. I know, I know, poor Robert may have been typecast for this role before our Creator even conceived of him, but that is actually the makeup of Tony Stark, the Marvel-universe genius who, out of circumstantial necessity, builds himself an "Iron Man" suit capable of going toe-to-toe with any tank or jet plane. The machine also makes a good martini.
Tune in next week for more amazing previews.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Dude, how do you post this TODAY and forget to mention the HUGEST bit of entertainment news of the week?
Behold, Indiana Jones....
D**N YOU BEN!
Indy releases a few weeks after Iron Man, and so was set to appear in Spring Movie Previews, Volume 1, Part 2. Thanks for spoiling it for everybody! Now there will be no reason for anyone to come back and read the exciting next installment.
I guess it's on to my next project...
Spring Baseball Preview part 1 of 57!!! Yippeeee! (Pitchers and catchers report today)
Why would you ** out "Darn"?
Am I the only one who is sick of Comic movies. Iron Man will not receive my patronage both for that reason and because I never got into the comic stories.
Iron Man is an interesting one because he's not a "household" superhero. A few years ago there were a lot of questions about whether that kind of movie would hold up, but then Daredevil made almost $180 million worldwide, and the floodgates were opened.
At least for the benefit of my industry, I hope the genre stays strong. This summer we have Iron Man, Batman 2, Hellboy 2, and a new Hulk from Edward Norton that is supposed to be much better than Ang Lee's.
Post a Comment