August's Most Anticipated Films
by Brian Eggert
As this mediocre summer blockbuster season winds down, August remains consistent with the performance of May-July months by offering a selection of titles that look good, but not great. The below list of films includes this site’s most anticipated releases of August. The choices—based on the quality of actors, director, story, and trailers—are pure guesswork and have no bearing on the inevitable review. For a complete list of upcoming releases and their respective movie trailers, visit the Calendar.
August 5:
The Change-Up
Lately, everything seems to be “from the writers of The Hangover” Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, doesn’t it? I prefer to think of them as the writers of Flypaper and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which acknowledges the reality of their overestimated talent with a bit more accuracy. For The Change-Up, Lucas and Moore team with director David Dobkin (The Wedding Crashers) for a hard-R comedy that, with a knowing sense of irony, adopts the body-swap comedy premise of Freaky Friday and Vice Versa. Ryan Reynolds plays an oversexed bachelor and Jason Bateman plays a married man who longs for single life. When they exchange bodies after a wish-gone-wrong, raunchy antics ensue, after which they’ll no doubt learn some valuable lessons. Hopefully everyone involved has fun within the confines of this eye-rollingly silly scenario. Click here for the trailer.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Twentieth Century Fox already failed to effectively restart their Planet of the Apes franchise in 2001 with Tim Burton’s dreadful remake. Their second attempt, directed by The Escapist helmer Rupert Wyatt, forages all-too-familiar prequel territory. Set in modern-day San Francisco, the story follows a scientist (James Franco) who gives his test chimps a drug that’s supposed to cure Alzheimer's, but instead makes them super-intelligent. The central chimp, named Ceasar (Andy Serkis, in another motion-capture ape performance), leads an uprising against the humans and, well, you can guess the outcome. Brian Cox, John Lithgow, and Freida Pinto also star in a script that has been around the block since Minority Report scribe Scott Frank’s first draft a few years back. The trailers boast effects that range from amazing to laughable, so at this point the result could go either way, although the potential for something different and good is here. Click here for the trailer.
August 19:
Fright Night
For a certain audience, remaking the 1985 cult-classic Fright Night just won’t work. And not simply because the original remains such a bold signifier of the ‘80s horror mentality, but because replicating the original’s idiosyncrasies to any satisfactory degree seems near impossible. Nevertheless, the curious choice of Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) to direct this remake contains real possibility, as does the casting of Colin Farrell and Anton Yelchin and David Tennant in the leads. The other portion of the audience, those unfamiliar with the original, will probably view this as another product of Hollywood’s post-Twilight vampire love affair. The story follows a teenager (Yelchin) who bands together with a down-and-out celebrity (Tennant) to battle his next-door neighbor (Farrell), whom he believes is a bloodsucking vamp. Click here for the trailer.
August 26:
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Guillermo Del Toro scripted and produces Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, the directorial debut of Troy Nixey, whose short film Latchkey’s Lament impressed the El laberinto del fauno helmer enough to inspire his confidence, so it should inspire ours. This remake of the popular TV movie from the 1970s changes the original schema considerably, but keeps the basic idea of creatures haunting a family’s new home. Here, they’re pestering a young girl (Bailee Madison, from Brothers and Just Go With It) and her parents (Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce). And given the surprising R-rating on this, things should get serious. Granted, we’ll have to wait until 2013 (!) for Del Toro’s next directorial effort, Pacific Rim, but given the quality of Del Toro’s official stamp (see The Orphanage), this is just about as good as the real thing. Click here for the trailer.
Our Idiot Brother
A favorite from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Our Idiot Brother features another genial performance by Paul Rudd, who plays a pot smoking slacker just released from jail. Dumped by his girlfriend and homeless, he relies on his three sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer) for support. Real life brother-and-sister Jesse Peretz and Evgenia Peretz directed and co-wrote the film respectively, bringing a real-life edge to their screenplay. Meanwhile, audiences should forget that the former directed the Zack Braff/Jason Bateman stinker The Ex. In a summer of disappointing R-rated comedies (The Hangover 2 and Horrible Bosses), this one has the potential to walk away with the title “best comedy of the summer”. Click here for the trailer.
August 31:
The Debt
A victim of the recent troubles at Miramax Films, The Debt was supposed to hit theaters last fall to coincide with awards season but was delayed during the studio’s sale. Focus Features now has distribution rights to this thriller from director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), based on a German film from 2007. The film follows a trio of aged Mossad secret agents (Hellen Mirren, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson) who attempt to piece together an incident from their past involving a Nazi spy. Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, and Marton Csokas play the younger versions of the characters. What looks to be an involving dramatic thriller, here’s hoping it allows Madden to recover from disappointing releases like Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Killshot. Click here for the trailer.
One Film You Shouldn't See
August 12:
Final Destination 5
Generally speaking, unless you’re Harry Potter or adapting a Tolkien book into a fifth feature film in a series, there’s little a “Part 5” has to offer—especially for a horror franchise like Final Destination. You know the story: A group of twenty-somethings cheats death because one of them foresees their fates; this incites an unseen Death to result to outlandish, seemingly coincidental revenge schemes. This is the worst kind of pointless horror movie, one whose sole purpose is to conceive of elaborate death sequences. Saw gave it up after seven movies, not because the movies became unprofitable, but because there were no more stories to tell (at least, for now…). Of course, Saw’s final entry dabbled in 3-D, and so have the last couple entries here. Made for the lowest common denominator, this kind of nonsense belongs in the direct-to-DVD bin. And with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark in theaters this month, no self-respecting fan of the horror genre should bother. Click here for the trailer.