SEPTEMBER 21
With Resident Evil: Retribution hitting theaters the week before I’m a little surprised Lionsgate chose to release Dredd 3D only seven days later. The film looks even more like a video game than Resident Evil, which is actually based on a video game. Dredd is based on a comic, which was previously adapted back in 1995 with Sylvester Stallone in the lead role. Now Karl Urban takes over eliminating much name-recognition giving the studio only an R-rated, CG blood bath to sell. It’s a title that seems like it could be in some trouble even if it’s good.
While Dredd tells the story of future police, End of Watch is focused on the here and now and it while it won’t be relying on 3D, it has a gimmick of its own. Written and directed by David Ayer (writer of Training Day), End of Watch stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as a pair of Los Angeles police officers and follows their lives using footage from the handheld HD cameras of the police officers, gang members, surveillance cameras and citizens caught in the line of fire. So it’s not necessarily a “found footage” film, and it’s trying to put a new twist on the genre, so we’ll see if it can live up to its billing as a “gripping” and “riveting portrait of the city’s most dangerous corners.”
The second horror release of the month is actually more of a thriller as the PG-13-rated House at the End of the Street will hope to bank a little dough on the back of The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence as her and her mother (Elisabeth Shue) must face the big bad scary house at the… end of the street!
I’ve already seen three of the films hitting theaters in September and one of them I really enjoyed, that being The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a high school drama you won’t see coming. The film is an adaptation of Stephen Chbosky’s best-selling novel of the same name. Chbosky adapted the screenplay and then directed the film and he’s compiled an excellent cast to tell his story, a story I don’t want to go into here and will save a few details for my review. Suffice to say, I was impressed with all involved, which includes Ezra Miller, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Mae Whitman, Nina Dobrev, Johnny Simmons and Dylan McDermott. Add this one to your calendar.
The last title for the 24th is one that looks like it may be more of a crowd-pleaser than the Oscar bait we normally expect from a Clint Eastwood feature as he puts his acting shoes on once again for Trouble with the Curve, Eastwood plays Gus, an aging Atlanta Braves scout with vision problems whose daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), reluctantly agrees to be his eyes on a crucial recruiting trip. The film co-stars Matthew Lillard, John Goodman, Scott Eastwood and Justin Timberlake who plays Johnny, a rival young scout who happens to like and respect Gus.
