Quick Review: Exodus: Gods & Kings (dir. by Ridley Scott)

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Leonard Wilson

Okay, let’s face it.

After Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic “The Ten Commandments”, it’s pretty hard to come up with another story about Moses that comes as close to it. I’ll admit I have a personal love for 1998’s The Prince of Egypt. Ridley Scott makes a great attempt in his new film “Exodus: Gods and Kings”, but it comes off feeling like the result of having one person relay a story to you through 3 other individuals. By the time the story reaches you, it’s no longer the same tale.

This is a hard review to write with regards to avoid spilling details.

Exodus follows the story of brothers Moses (Christian Bale – The Dark Knight Trilogy) and Ramses (Joel Edgerton – The Thing, The Great Gatsby), sons to the great Pharaoh of Egypt (John Turturro). Both brothers are seasoned warriors, but with the passing of Pharaoh, a truth is brought to light that forces Moses into exile. During his time away, he finds God and makes it his mission to free his people. Ramses refuses to listen to reason, and some drastic measures are taken to help convince him.

That sounds great on the surface, but it’s the execution that’s flawed. And this is Ridley Scott of all people. I loved Kingdom of Heaven and moderately enjoyed Robin Hood, but I just didn’t completely feel like I was invested in this film.

Biblical tales are tricky. Stick too close to the source material and you can have a heavy-handed story that says what it should, but could bore some audiences. Take too many liberties, and you can have audiences excited, but leave some upset or shocked at what’s presented (like with Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ). Here, the liberties are taken to a place where most of the movie doesn’t even require Moses to be in it. The argument could be made that the other films did this too – that the acts occurred with Moses as a harbinger of what was to come. Exodus makes it more of a difference of opinion on how to handle Ramses. Moses elects for a more battle hardened strategy – let the people fight for themselves. This left me wondering where they found the time and freedom away from the Egyptian Soldiers to learn what they did.

On the flip side of the coin, God decides to handle it Their own way. This leaves our Moses in a position where he’s at odds with the Almighty, a sharp contrast to the Moses that followed the Word to the letter. To an audience that can’t help but make comparisons, it’s way off, though it’s supported by the theme that one shouldn’t say things just to placate others and that they should follow what they believe. What came before basically said..”Okay, I don’t know what your plan is, but you’ve shown me your wonders, I believe in you and you’ll guide me right.” Exodus says..”Okay, you’ve got a plan I’m not too cool with, so…uh…just give me a chance to save / warn the people before your wrath comes down.”

There were four writers on board for Exodus. Both Adam Cooper and Bill Collage worked together on Brett Ratner’s “Tower Heist” and Jeffrey Caine is known for “The Constant Gardner” and “Goldeneye”. Steven Zallian (Moneyball, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, American Gangster) was the fourth. I’m thinking with all those fingers in the pie, the movie was bound to go in a different direction. Again, it’s not terrible, just different.

The casting for Exodus is okay. The strongest performances go to both Bale and Edgerton, and I’ll state here that I had more fun watching Edgerton on screen than I did with Bale. I haven’t seen him play the villain like this since The Guardians of Ga’Hoole and he does a decent job here. Bale does well, but it’s like watching Batman again. Not saying he’s typecast because of it, but seeing Christian Bale yell is almost expected in a movie these days. Reunited with her Aliens director, Sigourney Weaver has about 10 to 15 minutes total of screen time in the film, and Ben Kingsley might have the same amount. Aaron Paul spends most of his time making that stare he does when he see something incredible. There’s not a lot for any of these actors to chew on, but they try their best with it. Both Indira Varma (Game of Thrones) and Ewan Bremer (Jack the Giant Slayer, Trainspotting) are on hand as Ramses’ advisors. They don’t really count too much in all this.

Visually, the effects for the Plagues are very good. I honestly think those segments were the best in the entire film. The rest, I’m not so sure. The Red Sea sequence, when it happens, it done in such a way that the mysticism is just about sucked out of it. I’m sitting there hoping for a big reveal and found myself asking if that was it. Perhaps it was the angle where I was sitting or the theatre I saw it in, but it wasn’t as clear as it could be. It seemed like I was watching a 3D version of the film (I went for the regular one). The fight sequences were also done very well, many of which were similar to Ridley’s Robin Hood or Gladiator. Also note that at 154 minutes, it’s a long film. I pulled my iPod Nano out of my pocket twice to check the time.

As for the kid factor, I would say that teens and older can see this. There’s quite a bit of violence early on, along with some bloodshed, but nothing too extreme. In terms of sexual situations, there really aren’t any.

I think overall, my expectations for what this could be were larger than the final product. Had I never known of any film prior to this, Exodus would have more of an impact for me. As it stands, I’d watch it again, but probably when it hits Cable.

Trailer: Exodus: Gods and Kings (Final)

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Arleigh

Ridley Scott has been hit-or-miss (mostly misses) of late and response to the trailers and news about Exodus: Gods and Kings doesn’t seem to be helping.

Yet, despite all the indifference to Scott’s upcoming Biblical epic (and calls of whitewashing) I am quite intrigued about this take on the Book of Exodus. Will it have the pageantry of Demille’s The Ten Commandments (both of them)? Or will it be another CGI-overload? Or will it be a piece of entertaining pulp a la Gladiator? I guess we will find out this Holiday season.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is set for a December 12, 2014 release date.

Trailer: Exodus: Gods and Kings (Official)

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Arleigh

Ridley Scott has been instrumental in bringing back the sword-and-sandal epic when he unleashed Gladiator to audiences everywhere in the summer of 2000. Since then he has made many films which range from black comedy to historical epic right up to horror and a war film.

With Exodus: God and Kings, Scott returns to the sword-and-sandal epic but now with a heavy dose of the Biblical as he adapts the Old Testament Book of Exodus. A film working on the same scope and scale as Cecil B. Demille The Ten Commandments released in 1956, this latest adaptation of Moses, Ramses and the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt looks to put the epic back in 2014.

With each passing year, more and more of Scott’s films have taken on the unavoidable sheen of the CGI as his visuals attempt to recreate time and places of Earth’s past. For some, Scott’s been more miss than hit with the last couple films yet they all remain visual feasts and Exodus: Gods and Kings looks to continue that streak. Whether the film will be good storytelling will be something that’s still to be decided.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is set for a December 12, 2014 release date.

Embracing the Melodrama #40: Bugsy (dir by Barry Levinson)

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s continue to embrace the melodrama with the 1991 best picture nominee Bugsy.

Gangster Benjamin Siegel (Warren Beatty) may be known as Bugsy but nobody dares call him that to his face. Siegel may be best known for his quick temper and his willingness to murder anyone who gets in his way, but Ben insists that he’s not as crazy as everyone considers him to be. Instead, Ben knows that he’s a very special person, a visionary businessman whose business just happens to be organized crime. Along with his childhood friends Lucky Luciano (Bill Graham) and Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley), Siegel is one of the founders of the modern American crime syndicate. Unlike his more practical-minded partners, Siegel revels in being a public figure. Bugsy examines how Siegel became a celebrity gangster and how that celebrity eventually led to his downfall.

As the film opens, Luciano and Lansky send Siegel out to Los Angeles, specifically to look after their west coast business operations. Before Siegel leaves, he is specifically told to keep a low profile. So, of course, as soon as Siegel arrives in Los Angeles, he starts hanging out with actor George Raft (Joe Mantegna) and having a very public affair with actress Virginia Hill (Annette Bening). Siegel quickly falls in love with the glamour and glitz of Hollywood and starts to think of himself as being a movie star. When he’s not working with violent gangster Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) to control the Los Angeles underworld, Siegel is attending film premieres and even shooting a Hollywood screen test. Back in New York, Luciano and Lansky can only watch as their childhood friend goes out of his way to defy their instructions and become the most famous gangster in America.

Eventually, Siegel goes on a gambling trip to Nevada and comes up with an idea that is destined to change America forever. With funding from Lansky and Luciano, Siegel begins construction on the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, Siegel’s plans are so extravagant and, in many ways, impractical that the budget soon soars out of control. Not helping matters is the fact that Virginia is embezzling money from the casino’s budget. Even after Siegel finds out, he can’t bring himself to be angry at her. He understand that he and Virginia are essentially cut from the same cloth.

However, back in New York, Luciano grows more and more frustrated with Siegel’s wasteful ways and Lansky comes to realize that he can only protect his friend for so long…

Bugsy is a big, extravagant movie that tries to be a few too many things at once. Over the course of two and a half hours, it attempts to be a love story, a biopic, a classic gangster film, an allegory for the American dream, a history lesson, a period piece, and finally, a metaphor for the act of filmmaking itself. (When Siegel complains that Luciano and Lansky don’t understand why the Flamingo has to be huge, it’s hard not to feel that he’s meant to be a stand in for every director who has ever had his budget cut by a meddling studio executive.) When a film tries to be so many different things all at once, you can’t be surprised when the end result is a little uneven. Bugsy starts out slowly but gradually picks up speed and the final part of the movie is everything that one could hope for from an epic gangster film.

The film works best as a character study of a man who, in the best American tradition, attempts to reinvent himself by moving out west. Back in New York, Ben is known as a cold-blooded and dangerous killer. However, once he arrives in Los Angeles, Ben attempts to recreate himself as a celebrity and then as a visionary. For him, the Flamingo is about more than money. The Flamingo is about being remembered for something other than his nickname. The Flamingo is his way to escape from his past. However, as Bugsy makes clear, the past can be ignored but it never goes away.

Trailer: Ender’s Game

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Arleigh

It’s finally going to happen. A film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi novel Ender’s Game is going to be on the bigscreen. This was a property that was often talked about becoming a film, but years upon years of talk never amounted to much other than fan casting and never getting past the concept stage.

I knew that the film adaptation had gotten the greenlight over a year ago, but I just assumed that something will derail it once again and leave Ender’s Game as another case of film vaporware. The fact that there’s now a trailer released by Summit Entertainment means that the film will come out. Now whether the film adaptation satisfies the book’s legion of fans and still entertain those who never read a word of Card’s novels still to be determined.

Ender’s Game is set for a November 1, 2013 release date.

Quick Review: Iron Man 3 (dir. by Shane Black)

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Leonard Wilson

It’s kind of hard to write about Iron Man 3 without giving much away, so this will be kind of condensed. If there’s one thing to learn about Iron Man in Iron Man 3, it’s that the events of the Avengers are really weighing down on Tony Stark. While the movie is more of a stand alone feature than being one part of a larger tale (like the first two leading up to Marvel’s The Avengers), it still manages to be a piece of a puzzle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It just happens to be one of those corner pieces. It’s not meant to be viewed the way the others are seen, but still manages to pack a punch.

Taking over the reigns of directing from Jon Favreau’s work on the first two films is Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s Shane Black. Black brings the witty dialogue and buddy partnership from those film into Iron Man 3 with ease, though the story does take some liberties with the comic.

The movie finds Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) unable to sleep or relax much since the New York Incident, having spent a bit of time in a wormhole and a separate dimension for a few minutes. This has left him with panic attacks as well as doing a lot of research in his workshop. This includes a new improvement to the Iron Man suit that allows him to call it piece by piece when needed, which was a nice touch. As a result of the world finding out that we’re not the center of the universe, they upgraded the War Machine and Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to the Iron Patriot. The Iron Patriot acts as the first line of defense, which is just in time, considering that a new threat looms on the horizon in the form of The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). Through televised declarations and using the same circular pattern from the terrorist group that captured Tony Stark in the first film, The Mandarin pledges to destroy all the President (William Sadler) holds dear.

So, the basis of Iron Man 3 is whether Tony Stark can get past what scared and changed him in The Avengers, stop the terrorism of the Mandarin while still finding a way to protect Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Let’s first start with any problems before we get to the good stuff – because there’s a lot of great things about Iron Man 3. First off, the movie hasn’t any kind of interaction either from any of the other Avengers or from S.H.I.E.L.D. In any form. This isn’t a bad thing, as the story isn’t about them, but at the same time, it could come off as being expected given everything we saw in The Avengers. For me, personally, I was hoping for more of a connection, but it’s not terrible that it doesn’t exist.

Secondly, the women in the movie aren’t flushed out very well. You won’t find anyone on the level of Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) in Captain America here. While Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen has an important role in the movie, her screen time is really minimal. Given she’s a scientist, I’m not sure there was a whole lot for her to do, but Elizabeth Shue was a scientist in The Saint and she was all over that movie. Paltrow also takes something of a back seat to Downey and even to Favreau, who returns as Happy Hogan. Instead of concentrating on the girls, they introduced a new individual in the form of a kid. It works to some degree, but kind of felt like filler in some ways until they could get to a point where some action was taken.

For me, outside of these two elements, those are the only real problems with Iron Man 3 for someone unfamiliar with the comic book canon (like myself). If you read Iron Man on a regular basis and know all the characters, you may be really upset at where it goes, because the adaptation in some way really veers off from the comics. Veers off on the levels of Organic Web Shooters in Spider-Man, that kind of deep.

Now for the fun stuff.

What Iron Man 3 does really well is the way it handles the connections and interactions between the characters. Between Black’s and Pacific Rim writer Drew Pearce. The film basically has the same snap as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the final confrontation takes place in a location similar to Lethal Weapon II. Between Downey’s narration, James Badge Dale’s (who should get a run at being a comic hero or villain sometime) attitude and the action sequences, the film moves pretty well. Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian was cool. While I liked his character a lot, there were a few elements that were over the top. Kingsley’s Mandarin definitely works for the film, but the direction the story goes is a little weird.

Overall, Iron Man 3 is a fun ride for anyone following the Iron Man movies, and is an overall stronger film than the first. The lack of a direct teaser taste for the next Avengers film and a story shift that could upset die-hard comic fans threaten to hurt the story, but it makes up for it (I feel) by at least giving the story a sense of escalation. If Iron Man 2 was about Tony’s efforts in keeping his technology out of the government’s hands, Iron Man 3 would show why it was important. I wouldn’t mind seeing where this all goes.

Lisa Marie Does The Dictator (directed by Larry Charles)

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past year or so, I haven’t been able to go to a movie without seeing the trailer for the new film from the creators of Borat, The Dictator. The first few times I saw the trailer, I chuckled at a few scenes and I rolled my eyes a few times and I thought to myself, “Maybe I’ll see that.” And then I had to sit through that trailer another 79 times and I stopped laughing and rolling my eyes because I had reached the point where I could practically recite the entire damn trailer by memory. For a while there, I told myself, “There’s no way I’m going to waste my time seeing this.” But, just a week ago, I realized that, after seeing the trailer 139 times, I had no choice but to see it.

I needed closure.

I finally saw The Dictator last Wednesday and my reaction to the film can best be summed up by a mild chuckle and a shrug of my shoulders. It’s not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just a rather forgettable one.

In the Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen plays General Aladeen, the ruthless leader of the Middle Eastern country of Wadiya. Aladeen spends his time playing video games, rewriting the dictionary, ordering executions, and trying to develop a nuclear weapons program. Aladeen is a pretty bad guy but he’s also strangely likable because 1) he’s more stupid than evil and 2) he’s played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Anyway, Aladeen goes to New York to deliver a speech to the United Nations and while there, he’s kidnapped by an assassin (a hilarious John C. Reilly) who was hired by Aladeen’s uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley, who has pretty much cornered the market when it comes to playing evil uncles). Though Aladeen loses his beard in the process, he manages to escape the assassin and he soon finds himself lost and unrecognized on the streets of New York City. With the unwitting help of a clueless pro-democracy activist (a very funny Anna Faris), Aladeen attempts to figure out a way to thwart Tamir’s plan to introduce democracy to Wadiya.

Watching The Dictator is something of an odd experience because, while the film itself is full of funny moments and Sacha Baron Cohen shows an admirable willingness to follow his character to the most of logical (and illogical) of extremes, it’s also a strangely forgettable film. It’s certainly funnier than the typical episode of Family Guy (I hate that freaking show, by the way) but it’s nowhere near as profound as a below-average episode of Community (which was the best show on TV last season, in my always correct opinion). Director Larry Charles doesn’t seem to be sure whether he’s trying to make a thought-provoking satire or if he’s just trying to make a broad, gross-out comedy that just happens to have an international backdrop. The end result is a film that is extremely uneven, a film that climaxes with a speech that feels like it was taken straight out of the Occupy handbook despite the fact that the movie has just spent the last 70 minutes poking fun at the Leftist stridency of the Occupy movement through the character played by Anna Faris.

(Personally, I preferred the film when it was simply content to be funny as opposed to when it tried to be important.)

Watching this film, it became apparent to me that, for all of his comedic talent, Baron Cohen works best when his cartoonish (if well-played) characters are placed in a recognizable reality. Baron Cohen needs a “straight man” to play off of and unfortunately, The Dictator doesn’t provide him with that. Everyone’s equally cartoonish in this film and, as a result, the movie makes us laugh but it never really makes us think.

There’s a part of me that always wants to declare that I’m officially “burned out” on Sacha Baron Cohen because, seriously, it’s become rather trendy to claim to be a huge fan of his work. Seriously, I’m at a point now where if I one more person brags to me about how much they loved Borat (always speaking in a tone as if to suggest that only they have seen and appreciated this “obscure” film), I am going to scream. However, every time I get close to getting on twitter for the sole purpose of making snarky remarks about the guy, I see him give a surprisingly good performance in a film like Hugo. The Dictator may not be Sacha Baron Cohen’s best film but I still look forward to seeing what he does in the future.

Quickie Horror Review: Species (dir. by Roger Donaldson)

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Arleigh

1995’s Species was a studio’s attempt to replicate the start of a new sci-fi/horror franchise like the one begun by Ridley Scott’s Alien. Roger Donaldson was tapped to direct this attempt with a cast that included Sir Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Marge Helgenberger, Forrest Whitaker and Alfred Molina. The lucky gal who gets to play the role of Sil — the half-alien, half-human hybrid — fell on the stunning and gorgeous shoulders of Natasha Henstridge.

Species pulls from so many different sci-fi/horror films and shows from the past that it’s hard to find anything original in the story. There’s stuff from Alien, The Hidden, and even some episodes of The X-Files. The one original twist in this derivate film was the plot of an alien race sending over the genetic markers of its race and instructions on how to recombine it with human DNA to create a form of hybrid. Why the scientists decided to go through with such a seemingly dangerous task is known only to the writer who put pen to paper to create the screenplay. The bulk of the film’s story comes from one the creation of one such human-alien hybrid named Sil (the young version played by Michelle Williams in one of her very first roles) and how her creators and handlers begin to realize that she has an almost desperate need to procreate.

The acting by the select group of experts (Madsen, Helgenberger, Molina, Kingsley and Whitaker) were good enough and no one embarrassed themselves in the end. Henstridge does a fine job of being sexy and hot. It helped that she pretty much was naked through most of the film, or at least put herself in situations to be naked. In fact, Henstridge goes beyond just being the naked eye candy in the film, but does a great job playing the naive adult Sil who escapes her lab-prison as her instincts propel her to find the perfect mate. It’s during this search that much of the film’s gore make their appearance and there’s a bit of it.

The art design of Sil as the evolved alien hybrid came courtesy of the great Swiss surrealist, H.R. Giger who also did the design for the alien creature in Alien. Giger’s biomechanical designs have always been disturbing and beautiful at the same time and he didn’t disappoint with his design of Sil. If there was a quibble on Sil’s final design it was that it still resembled a bit too much of the alien design in Ridley Scott’s Alien. But it was still great to see H.R. Giger still creating such wonderful artwork and designs for people to see. His popularity has always been mostly composed of the elite circles of the artworld and those small, loyal art groups with a penchant for the surreal, weird and disturbing.

In the end, Species was a good sci-fi/horror that didn’t bore too much and for those who enjoy their gore this film had its equal share of the red stuff. Gratuitious nudity and sex from Natasha Henstridge as Sil the alien hybrid and the excellent designs from H.R. Giger gives this film enough good things to look at. It doesn’t bring anything new and pretty much reuses alot of other things from other movies, but Species was good enough albeit derivative of better past films and shows.

2010: The Year In Film So Far

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Everyone views history in their own individual way. Some people remember past years by what they saw on the evening news (hence, 2004 becomes “the year Bush was reelected”) but I define them by what was playing at the nearest movie theater. Ask me when I was born and I won’t tell you, “1985.” Instead, I’ll tell you that I was born the same year that Terry Gilliam’s Brazil was butchered by Sid Shienberg. For me, the quality of a year is determined by the quality of the movies that were released during those twelve months. You may have hated 2009 because of the economy. I hated it because it was the year of the overrated movie, the year in which otherwise sensible people ignored great films like An Education, A Serious Man, District 9, and Inglorious Basterds (which, praised as it was, deserved considerably more) in favor of Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

2010, however, is shaping up to be a far better year. Though a final judgment can’t be passed on 2010 until 2011, here’s a few thoughts on the year so far.

Best Film (so far): Exit Through The Gift Shop, a quasi-documentary that might just be one of the most perfectly executed mindfucks in modern history. Runners-up: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Fish Tank, Please Give, Winter’s Bone, A Prophet, Toy Story 3, and Inception.

Best Male Performance of the year so far: John Hawkes, in Winter’s Bone. Hawkes has been overshadowed by Jennifer Lawrence but he dominates every scene that he appears in. Just consider the scene where he “talks” his way out of a traffic stop. Runners-ups: John C. Reilly in Cyrus, Ben Stiller in Greenberg, Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception and Shutter Island, and Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2.

Best Female Performance of the year so far: Noomi Rapace as the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Rapace is my new role model, a Ms. 45 for the 21st century. Runners-up: Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, Katie Jarvis for Fish Tank, Rebecca Hall in Please Give, Greta Gerwig in Greenberg, and Chloe Grace Moretz in Kick-Ass.

Best Ending: The final shot of Inception.

Best Horror Film: The Wolf Man, which should have been oh so bad but instead turned out to be oh so good with Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving both giving brilliant supporting performances.

Best Bad Movie: Sex and the City 2. Yes, if I’m going to be honest, it was a horrible movie. But it was fun. the clothes were to die for, and the film managed to bring new depths of shallowness to the examination of the oppression of women in the Middle East.

Worst Film Of The Year (so far): Chloe. Oh, Atom Egoyan, poor baby, what have you done, sweetheart? You made a trashy, campy softcore movie and then you forgot that these things are supposed to be fun! Runner-up: Robin Hood, because the entire freaking movie was a lie. However, it did feature Oscar Isaac screaming, “Outlawwwwww!” and that saves it from being named the worst.

Worst Horror Film So Far: The Black Waters On Echo’s Pond. So. Fucking. Bad.

The Get-Over-It-Award For The First Half Of 2010: The makers of Prince of Persia, who just had to try to turn an otherwise entertainingly mindless action film into yet another half-assed cinematic allegory for the Invasion of Iraq. Ben Kingsley will probably be playing thinly disguised versions of Dick Cheney for the rest of his life. I was against the Invasion of Iraq from the start but seriously, I’m so bored with every movie released using it as a way to try to fool the audience into thinking that they’re seeing something more worthwhile than they are.

The Read-The-Freaking-Book-Instead Award: The Killer Inside Me. A lot of viewers are disturbed by the violent way that the main character deals with the women in his life. I’m more disturbed by the fact that all the women in his life are presented as being simpering idiots. The original novel is by Jim Thompson and it is a classic.

The worst ending of 2010 so far: Splice with the Killer Inside Me as a strong runner-up.

Future Film I’m Not Looking Forward To: Roland Emmerich’s Gusher, an ecological thriller based on the BP oil spill, starring Will Smith as the President, Dev Patel as the governor of Louisiana, Paul Bettany as the head of the evil oil company, and Ben Kingsley as Dick Cheney who will be seen cackling as oil-drenched doves wash up on the shores of California. (How did the oil get to California? Emmerich magic.) Of course, the nominal star of the movie will be Jake Gyllenhaal as the young engineer who says stuff like, “This well is going to blow!” and who is trying to reconcile with his estranged wife (played by — does it really matter? Let’s just say Emily Blunt gets the role this time around). And let’s not forget Robert Duvall, who will play a grizzled old-timer who says a lot of grizzled old-timer stuff. Look for it in 2012.

My prediction for which film will be the most overrated of 2010: The Social Network, which has not opened yet but Sasha Stone at awardsdaily.com seems to think that it’s a slam dunk for greatness which is usually a pretty good indication that the end result is going to be a predictable, bourgeois crapfest.

So, that’s 2010 so far. It’s shaping up to be a good year. I’m still looking forward to the release of Blue Valentine, Animal Kingdom, Get Low, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, The Last Exorcism, Wall Street, and the rerelease of Godard’s classic Breathless, which is one of my favorite movies and now I’m going to get a chance to see it in a theater! Life is good.