This is going to be the “Small Film Edition” of the Movie Round-Up, mainly because I don’t want to make a post just about the only wide opening this weekend:
Michael Jackson’s This Is It:
Never has there been a film so ominously appropriately titled. Personally, I’m a big fan of the old MJ. The Jackson 5, his solo work up to about half of the Dangerous album. And there is no denying that he was the King of Pop… but he was also the King of Odd. While it is possible that I might one day see this film if it becomes available for streaming on Netflix, I absolutely won’t be rushing out to the theater to see it.
Now, on to the smaller films opening this week…
Gentleman Broncos:
This one is from the director of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, both are films I found funny but not really worthy of the devotion and cult following they have received. Gentleman Broncos looks to be cut from a similar cloth and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it when I get a chance to see it.
The House of the Devil:
The only horror film opening on Halloween weekend, sadly its only in three theaters. But that’s okay, you can see it through Xbox Live and a few other On Demand services. My main draw to the film, besides it being a horror movie, is that one of the stars is A.J. Bowen, who I know. I’ve enjoyed his work in The Signal and even Creepshow III, so I’ll probably find the time to watch this one at home if its still available on Xbox.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day:
In 2001, I took a three month contract dig working overnights as a server engineer. My job was to periodically check the servers and make sure they were doing their job, and if they weren’t I had to fix it. To the credit of the people who built the servers and software, they rarely weren’t. This meant I had approximately six to seven hours each night, just me and one other engineer doing nothing. I spent a lot of time browsing the net and listening to music, we even installed games until they took away our 3D graphics cards. Since every PC had a DVD-ROM drive, we also watched movies. Mostly I watched my own movies from home, but one night the other engineer slipped me a burned DVD, written across the white label was “Boondock Saints”. And thus I was introduced to the original film. I absolutely adore the film, it is not perfect, nor even in my top ten, but I’ve seen it a couple dozen times and I still enjoy it as much as I did the first time. It is just so well crafted and the characters are so interesting… When I heard a sequel was being made, my first reaction was “Yes!” but then I thought about all the sequels that suck and I was worried. However, I’ve heard enough good news about this one to get me excited again. It is opening on 65 screens, none of which are in Atlanta. Hopefully it will go wider… if not, I’ll catch it on DVD where it can join the first film in my movie library.