2013
9/5
The Lock:
Other Options:
Working For It: The only nation wide release for the first week in September. It's some sort of movie about a musical family moving from the 50s to the 70s. It's a solid cast featuring Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Seth Green, Amanda Crew (Silicon Valley), and others.
Working Against It: It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page less than two weeks before its release. I'm not sure what of, but that is a warning sign. To say that I expect this to bomb would be an understatement.
Odds I'll See It:12%
Working For It: You might have heard of it. Oscar winner the year that Pulp Fiction and the Shawshank Redemption came out. Beloved classic. Jaded, cynical people like to hate on it. Made oodles of money. There's not a bad thing I have to say about it.
Working Against It: As a rule, I try to avoid re-releases in theaters because I already know what to expect. I never got to see this in theaters and the selection otherwise may necessitate that I see this. We'll see.
Odds I'll See It: 20%
Working For It: A movie written and directed by Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch. That's an interesting selling point. Emily Browning is the only actress in it who I recognize.
Working Against It: I don't want to be one of those people who doubts Murdoch's ability to make a good movie simply because he is known as a musician, but his IMDB page is empty beyond this and some soundtrack contributions. He hasn't written anything. Hasn't even done work on some shorts. It's a little worrisome.
Odds I'll See It: 5%
9/12
The Lock:Other Options:
Working For It: Morgan Freeman. So there's that. The first movie was a modest hit in 2011. With a similar release date and lack of other family releases, this could do similarly well despite having a much flimsier story, especially in a post-Blackfish world.
Working Against It: Well, anything that mostly takes place in a Sea World like place is going to make me think of Blackfish, which isn't favorable. Then there's the fact that this doubles-down on the inspirational angle which I find tedious.
Odds I'll See It: 8%
Working For It: A home invasion thriller starring Idris Elba (as the antagonist) and Taraji P. Henson is not something I would immediately shy away from. I like seeing any time a TV director jumps to movies and wish Sam Miller success in that regard.
Working Against It: On second thought, when was the last time I watched a home invasion movie? I haven't seen The Crazies or Funny Games. I prefer my scary movies psychological more than thriller. I can probably wait.
Odds I'll See It: 4%
Working For It: Yeah, they are going through with a third one. Sure, I've read the book and am a little curious what the movie would look like. I almost have to admire how Atlas Productions (because, of course it would be called that) is getting these made regardless of what happens.
Working Against It: They can come up with whatever excuse they want but three different casts, crews, and directors for the movies is a bad sign. I haven't seen either previous movie. I'm in no hurry to see this one. Philosophy aside, I've never been convinced about how cinematic the book is, so, yeah. Not high expectations or motivation for this one.
Odds I'll See It: 12%
Working For It: It's a crime drama. I like some crime dramas. Around this time last year Prisoners made a good impression on me. It has Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace. I like them. It's James Gandolfini's final movie role. That's something.
Working Against It: I don't know anything about the story beyond that it's a crime drama. That leaves a lot of room for it to not be very good. I'm unfamiliar with the director, primarily because he's pretty green.
Odds I'll See It: 7%
Working For It: Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader reunite for a dramedy about a couple of estranged twins reuniting after a decade and bonding. There's a lot of funny people in this being asked to do more than just be funny. That list includes Ty Burrell, Luke Wilson, and...look I don't know the rest of those people, but isn't four good names in an indie movie enough?
Working Against It: Sometimes, when indie movies feature a lot of normally funny performers, the distributor tries too hard to paint it as a comedy, when it is really a drama with a couple funny parts. I'm pretty sure that's what this is, which won't make it bad, by any means, but it makes it hard to know what to expect.
Odds I'll See It:40%
9/19
Working For It: Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Corey Stoll, and Adam Driver playing siblings stuck in a house together with Jane Fonda as their mother. Featuring Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, Abigail Spencer, Dax Shepard, and Ben Schwartz around them. I don't even care if it isn't funny at all. I'm there.
Working Against It: For every Date Night in Director Shawn Levy's career, there's a Real Steel and Night at the Museum so it's hard to predict the tone of this. He also did The Internship, which has been getting more support since it was in theaters than I expected. I'm setting a low bar with high potential for this one.
Odds I'll See It:78%
Other Options:
The Maze Runner
Working For It: Thanks to the resounding success of Twilight and The Hunger Games and moderate success of Divergent, studios are going to keep churning out these YA Novel adaptations. I've accepted this as a fact of life. At this point, it's a matter of deciding which high-concept dystopia translates well to film. This movie seems limited to the maze that [mostly] young men have been thrown into to fend for survival. The cast is a little too young for me to know well, so I can't speak for or against them as a selling point.
Working Against It: So far, it looks like a generic YA adaptation and I've yet to run into a fan of the book to state their case. That, coupled with a September release doesn't speak favorably of it.
Odds I'll See It: 25%
Working For It: A Kevin Smith movie about a man who is tortured into becoming a walrus. That's all I know. It has Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment, and Smith's daughter. Smith is working hard to move beyond the View Askewniverse. This still sounds comfortably in his comfort zone though.
Working Against It: Red State and Cop Out have not been my favorite Kevin Smith efforts, so I'm not going in, blindly trusting this the way I would've in 2002.
Odds I'll See It:6%
Working For It: Liam Neeson is playing a badass again.
Working Against It: Remember when that was something new and exciting? Even if he limited himself to just one of these a year, it would be refreshing.
Odds I'll See It: 10%
Working For It: Simon Pegg plays a psychiatrist, Hector, looking for the secret to happiness. The title is what it appears to be. I'd say, look to Run Fatboy, Run and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People to determine if you want to see Simon Pegg in a non-Edgar Wright leading role.
Working Against It: This Director, Peter Chelsom. Let's look at this. Town & Country (2001): One of the great production cluster-fucks of all-time. Serendipity (2001): A clever little RomCom, nearly in the Richard Curtis vein. Shall We Dance (2004): A stealthily charming movie. Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009): A valiant effort to make Hannah Montana work as something more than 22 minutes at a time. You're guess is as good as mine for what this movie's going to look like.
Odds I'll See It:13%
Working For It: You may have seen something about this before. It's the one with Alice in Wonderland (Mia Wasikowska) walking with a camel or two. It's one of those festival movies I've stumbled across so many times that I may end up seeing it out of some sort of public awareness mandate.
Working Against It: As far as I can tell, it's a movie based on a real person who travels across the desert (Australian, I think) with some camels and a dog. It doesn't sound like there's going to be a lot of plot to this.
Odds I'll See It: 9%
Working For It: It's a Terry Gillam movie, so that's worth mentioning. I haven't looked up much about the plot, but when has that ever been the selling point of one of his movies? Apparently, he was very specific about the format he shot this in, so I guess that means it'll have some fun aspect ratios.
Working Against It: As I said, it's a Terry Gillam movie. If you know what that means, then you already know if you're excited to see this or not. If you don't know what that means, then you're probably not in the group who needs to get very excited. I'll help you out though: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Twelve Monkeys, The Fisher King, Brazil, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Those are all him.
Odds I'll See It:6%
Working For It: It's a movie about a couple friends who have to rescue another friend in the Mexican desert. Here's the part I love. Starring TJ Miller (Silicon Valley), Thomas Middleditch (also Silicon Valley), Adam Pally (Happy Endings), Alison Brie (Community), Krysten Ritter (Don't Trust the B...), Lance Reddick (The Wire), and Shannon Woodward (Raising Hope). Oh, indie comedies. Never change.
Working Against It: If this sounds like The Hangover, you wouldn't be far off. First time director, Scot Armstrong did co-write The Hangover Part II. More in his advantage though is that he co-wrote Old School and Road Trip. Less in his favor, he co-wrote Semi-Pro and School for Scoundrels. This movie can go a lot of ways in terms of quality.
Odds I'll See It:15%
9/26
The Lock:Other Options:
Working For It: A retired black-ops agent comes out of retirement to save a young girl from European mobsters. It's a Denzel Washington movie and he is still one of the surest draws in Hollywood. He does action well, and, even better, the young girl is Chloe Grace Moretz. In short, the odds are looking good for this. It would take some truly awful reviews to not make this the front runner this weekend.
Working Against It: Does that plot sound a little familiar? All it's missing is Denzel talking about having a specific skill set to find this girl for it to be Taken or he needs to not be retired to make it Man on Fire. It sounds like it's comfortably in his comfort zone though.
Odds I'll See It:43%
Working For It: Well, that trailer is catchy as hell. I've noticed that Claymation movies have a higher success rate than standard animation to actually be good, so I'd probably like this if I saw it.
Working Against It: The story, a little boy is raised by these trolls and then finds himself back in polite society, sounds like The Jungle Book except with trolls instead of animals. It probably won't be bad but the likely low box office return coupled with a mostly under-12 audience is an upward climb.
Odds I'll See It: 42%
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