The Weekender: Spies, road trips and ‘Colored Girls’

IN THEATERS:

Due Date
Starring Robert Downey Jr, Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx
Written by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Szytkiel & Todd Phillips
Directed by Todd Phillips
I’m still excited about this, but my enthusiasm wanes the more previews I see and so-so word-of-mouth I hear. Anyone who’s hoping for another Hangover is bound to be disappointed, but I’m still going to set my heights fairly high. Downey and Galifianakis always make something watchable, if not extraordinary. And a side of poignancy alongside raunchiness can be wonderful, but maybe that’s just me. Either way, I predict this will be the biggest opening weekend for a comedy EVER. (Like, $70 million big.)


Megamind
Starring the voices of Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey
Written by Alan Schoolcraft & Brent Simon
Directed by Tom McGrath
It’s taken me some time to warm up to this film since I had some serious 3-D and Ferrell fatigue. But this could give Despicable Me a serious run for its money (at the box office and the Oscar shortlist). Ferrell voices the blue, shiny-domed villain who finally ride the city of his pesky arch-nemesis Metroman, only to find himself dealing with the serious consequences of a world without heroes.


For Colored Girls
Starring Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad
Written for the screen and directed by Tyler Perry
After Lee Daniels became only the second black man to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar, Perry seems to be in full on prestige mode, adapting this award-winning play with an all-star cast (including Whoopi “I Blow Everything out of Proportion” Goldberg). But I’m expecting a full-scale Nine-sized disaster as Perry has a special gift for turning projects into melodramatic pieces of drivel. Plus, while the film is being marketed as a a top-shelf drama, it’s actually a quasi-musical made up of some 20 narrative poems. And I doubt Perry, or anyone, has the chops to pull something like that off.


Fair Game
Starring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Ty Burrell
Written for the screen by Jez & John-Henry Butterworth
Directed by Doug Liman
Boy, I wish Doug Liman would do a fun movie again. Where’s the guy who did Swingers and Go? Despite the talent involved, I’m complete cold to the idea of this movie, a domestic drama/political thriller about Valerie Plame, ousted by the CIA after husband published damning reports about the existence of WMDs in Iraq. Please get back to basics, Doug.
PLAYING EXCLUSIVELY AT THE MAGNOLIA AND AMC NORTHPARK


Inside Job
Directed by Charles Ferguson
A documentary can only have so much power. The Thin Blue Line got a convicted man off death row; Fahrenheit 9/11 didn’t get Bush out of office. But I hope Ferguson’s film puts some people behind bars. It looks like a relentless assault on the Wall Street goons that got us into this nearly unprecedented financial crisis and the two Presidents (Bush and Obama) who didn’t do a whole lot to stop them. Get ready for the feel-bad movie of the year!
PLAYING EXCLUSIVELY AT THE DALLAS AND PLANO ANGELIKAS


Monsters
Starring Whitney Able, Scoot McNairy
Written and directed by Gareth Edwards
It may not be District 9, but Gareth Edwards low-budget monster movie looks severed head and mutated shoulders over Skyline.
PLAYING EXCLUSIVELY AT THE MAGNOLIA AND HDNET ON DEMAND

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