Saturday, March 11, 2006

Movies opening this week

The Hills Have Eyes (Aaron Stanford, Emilie de Ravin, Dan Byrd, Kathleen Quinlan, dir. Alexandre Aja)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Although I've learned not to put any stock in these remakes of 1970s horror flicks, the few positive reviews I read before seeing this film, combined with the promise that Aja showed with High Tension and the blessing of Wes Craven, misled me to have slightly heightened expectations for it. Although it's maybe more ambitious than the average quickie remake, it's still not very good, and Aja doesn't add anything worthwhile to Craven's original formula. I still think he's got some promise as a genre director, though, but I've yet to be convinced that anything positive can come of these endless remakes, even if the people involved are talented. Wide release

The Libertine (Johnny Depp, Samantha Morton, John Malkovich, dir. Laurence Dunmore)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I saw this movie so long ago that I considered watching it again just to write the review. In the end I didn't bother, and this isn't exactly a film to waste that much time on anyway. If it weren't for Johnny Depp, I have a feeling this would have gone straight to video. The Weinstein Company has had it on the shelf for like two years as it is (since back when the Weinsteins were at Miramax), and when it got pulled from January release I really thought it would just disappear. I guess enough people will see anything Depp does to make it worth releasing, but I still bet it will be out of theaters in a month and on DVD by the beginning of summer. Wide release

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