Coming Attractions

I woke up today with a bad case of the don't wannas -- only to realize that there really isn't anything I have to do. I always compare the completion of a book project to the end of a semester in school, where you've just gone through a long period of always having something you were supposed to be doing, and the final push is really intense, and then when it's all over, you feel kind of weird not doing anything, like there's something you're supposed to be doing that you forgot about. This project isn't exactly done, but this phase of it is, and although I'll probably keep working on it out of a sense of optimism, I'm not on a deadline.

Between seeing the new Harry Potter movie twice this weekend and getting bored and going through all the coming attractions previews they have OnDemand, I feel like I've had a good glimpse into the future of moviegoing, so here are some of my thoughts and observations on the coming attractions.

There are apparently two "green" superhero movies coming out, The Green Lantern and The Green Hornet, and because I'm not really a comic book or superhero person, I can't quite keep track of which one is which. One seems to be more of the straightforward heroic type thing involving a guy with some serious abs and the other seems to be more of a comedic thing involving one of those overgrown manchild slacker guys (I won't even say "frat boy" because a frat boy has at least managed to get into college). Neither movie looks particularly interesting.

They ran the Cowboys and Aliens trailer both times I saw Harry Potter, and it got the same reaction both times. It starts out looking very traditional old west, and then there's an alien attack, and we see James Bond and Han Solo fighting against spaceships in the old west, and then the title of the movie comes up and the audience totally cracks up. I guess because of the "Aliens" instead of the more traditional "Indians," but I still wasn't sure why that title was so very funny after the trailer we'd just seen.

They seem to be giving the Little Red Riding Hood story the Twilight treatment in a movie called Red Riding Hood. The trailer mostly seemed to involve moody shots of a long red cape swirling around on the snow, mixed in with earnest scenes of attractive young people saying things like, "We can never be together!" and looking angstily at each other.

I'm very excited for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. That book was very cinematic, so it should make for a good film. I just want it to do well enough that The Silver Chair gets made (IMDB currently has it "In Development") because that was my favorite book in the series, and I think the quest story would make for a good movie. Plus, since they seem to like trying to add teen romance to the series (since there was none in the books but that's good for box office), that's the one book where the two Earth kids traveling in Narnia aren't related to each other, so I think it would lend itself well to a budding attraction that develops along the way, depending on how old the kids are by the time they make it.

On the romantic comedy front, it looks like my holiday season romantic comedy will be How Do You Know. I like the lead actors, and it looks like it's Paul Rudd in nice guy romantic comedy lead mode, not frat-pack mode, and I generally like James L. Brooks movies. It doesn't look like it's a holiday-set film, though, since it seems to be taking place during baseball season. I really need another holiday-set romantic comedy, since I think The Holiday was the last one. On the other hand, Love and Other Drugs looks like it will fall into the "not for me" category.

I admit that I'm kind of intrigued by the new version of True Grit. Supposedly, this one is more based on the novel than the John Wayne version was, and the cast looks good. There was a condensed version of the novel in one of those Readers Digest Condensed Books volumes we had when I was a kid (that we probably got from my grandmother), and that was one of my chosen ways to traumatize myself. I have a snake phobia, and for some weird reason, I liked to force myself to read the scene where the girl falls into the snake pit. I don't remember anything else from the book, so I may not have read it all, and I suspect it would have gone over my head, as I was about six or seven at the time.

I did watch one non-Harry Potter movie over the weekend. There was a British supposed romantic comedy (which was actually neither) on Sundance Channel OnDemand called Someone Else. Basically, it's about a man with a longterm girlfriend who has been seeing someone else, breaks up with his girlfriend to be with his other girlfriend, only to find out that other girlfriend is seeing someone else, and he sets out to find someone else but has bad luck with that, mostly because he's a selfish, boring idiot. It was so bleak and depressing that I ended up watching a CSI marathon on Spike afterward to cheer myself up and get a more positive outlook on life (and I don't even normally watch CSI). But I guess all of that love sucks and people suck stuff is what made it Sundance-worthy. It's not art if people are happy.

So, anyway, I may actually be going to the movie theater in the next month or so. I'd like to see Morning Glory (maybe tomorrow) because I used to work on a morning news show. After I get back from Thanksgiving, I'll have to see Tangled. Then the next week I'll see Voyage of the Dawn Treader on opening day. The following week, there's How Do You Know, and then my friends will be going to see the new Tron that Saturday (though I never saw the first one, but I think that will be rectified the previous weekend). I admit that I'm kind of intrigued by Black Swan because of the whole psycho ballerina angle, but I doubt that will be playing at my neighborhood theater. I may have to make a trek downtown for that. I hope it will play at one of the theaters I can get to via train, since they'll be opening the line that runs up to my part of town in early December.

Oh, and while I was at IMDB, I couldn't resist peeking at the Enchanted, Inc. movie page. Apparently, there's now some Facebook thingy where you can "like" it. Only 4 people like it so far. I don't know if getting lots of "likes" will help give it a push, but if you feel so inclined ...