The pReview Re-viewing
Friday Breakdown for..
February 21, 2014!
(warning: May cause pyrokinesis in small rodents.)
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by Jeff Finck
written: 2/14/2014
Sure, when we think of movies coming out in the first few months of the year, we imagine movie execs kicking back in their underground Galápagos Islands lair like gluttonous genies, sucking down Diet Shasta Colas while munching on kumquat carrots (which look suspiciously like pointy, jaundiced dicks). It's an image as ageless as the silver screen itself. These moguls hide away, ignoring the pleas of filmmakers who want prime release dates, but are instead bullied into motor-boating the misshapen breasts (that are January and February) with their Night of the Lepus-quality movies. It's a sad tale.. It's an even sadder truth.
So, Pompeii was this Roman vacation city, ridiculously situated at the base of a massive-fuck volcano (a fuh-cano, if you will) that was over-killed by said volcano: the mighty Mount Vesuvius. The writers of this movie, of course, took a page out of James Cameron's Titanic script an lumped some unnecessary love story into the over-arcing disaster. I just really hope there's some weird time-traveling plot involved where Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche show up to try and save everyone.
Kevin Costner plays an extremely talented spy who has three days left to live because he has.. Illness(?). In order to receive the experimental cure (Experimental Cure is, of course, the name of my all-didgeridoo Cure cover band), get out of the spy game, and reconnect with his estranged family, he will have to do one last job. That will involve killing. Over the course of three days. This is written by Luc Besson and whenever his name is attached to a movie, I know that I will love it and want to name my first born after it-- I'm still trying to convince my wife to let me name all of our kids "The Professional". On the flip side, this also has Kevin Costner attached. Luckily I do not have the same inclination toward his movies. I mean, how could you ever consider the idea of naming your child "Waterworld".. Unless it was an ugly baby. Then.. You know.. Fuck it and its entire high school life.
In Secret is based on Émile Zola's sordid tale (originally called Thérèse Raquin) of Camille (Tom Felton aka Draco Malfoy), a boy who meets his first cousin, Thérèse (Elizabeth Olsen aka an Olsen sister, but not an Olsen twin), and then Camille's mother (Jessica Lange) railroads Thérèse into marrying Camille. Surprisingly, their marriage is completely shitty and when Thérèse meets Camille's best friend Laurent (Oscar Isaac), they conspire to kill and hide the body of Camille. And THEN, shit goes downhill.
Final Breakdown: This week's Final Breakdown brought to you by.. Fun with volcanoes!
Pompeii
3 Days to Kill
In Secret
Downtown Buffalo Skyline at Night (2008) courtesy of Nathan Mroz (Buffalonian4life)
Galápagos Islands shot (2008) courtesy of Michael Nagle for the New York Times
Pompeii (2014) poster and screen shot courtesy of TriStar Pictures and FilmDistrict
Volcano (1997) screen hot courtesy of 20th Century Fox Pictures
3 Days to Kill (2014) poster courtesy of Relativity Media
Waterworld (1995) screen shot courtesy of Universal Pictures
In Secret (2013) poster and screen shot courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Time-Turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
William Turner's Mount Vesuvius in Eruption (1817) courtesy of Yale Center for British Art - Paul Mellon Collection
Grímsvötn Eruption, Ash Plume (2011) courtesy of Efill Adalsteinsson/EPA
Erupting Volcano Project (2006-2013) courtesy of how-things-work-science-projects.com
All credited images found via Google Image searches