Day: July 27, 2013

I don’t know what I’ve been thinking all along about Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips (Columbia, 10.11) but in the wake of the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin tragedy are you going to tell me that the Ted Nugent crowd isn’t going to perceive this movie as being about Tom Hanks, the Ultimate Mild-Mannered, Extra-Decent White Guy Whom Everyone Likes, going up against some scary, no-good, bad-ass black psychopaths waving guns around? I’m not saying Greengrass’s film is going to stoke racial fires in any way, shape or form. I’m talking about what Captain Phillips looks like on this international poster, and how the Zimmerman-sympathizing Bubbas out there are going to respond in gut-level terms. Be honest. Our culture is our culture. Tell me I’m crazy because I’m not.

There’s real-deal Italian ice (i.e., the kind I used to eat when I was a kid) and there’s the bogus corporate kind, which is what this place in Point Pleasant is selling. When I was young Italian ices were sold in round cardboard containers with a little wooden spoon. You’d peel off the top lid and the ices (my favorite was cherry) would be nearly rock-solid. It would always take a few minutes of chipping away on a hot summer’s day before the ice gradually softened and you could eat actual chunks of it. But this Point Pleasant joint is selling….I don’t know what to call it but it’s like a Slurpee sorbet that’s just firm enough to hold its shape.

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For me (and, I suspect, for most of us), Relativity Media’s Romeo And Juliet (10.11) will hinge on how well Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth can breathe life into William Shakespeare‘s prose. I’m presuming that Steinfeld, who turns 17 on 12.11.13 but who was 15 when during principal photography, has the chops to be at least pretty good as Juliet. Stellan Skarsgard, Damian Lewis, Paul Giamatti and Ed Westwick costar. Julian Fellowes‘ adaptation was directed by Carlo Carlei.

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Yesterday afternoon a Deadline story announced that Exclusive Media’s 9.20 theatrical unveiling of Peter Landesman‘s Parkland was an “Oscar-Season Release Date.” I wouldn’t go that far. True, the JFK assassination drama will be opening soon after the slated Venice and Toronto film festival showings (and perhaps with critical huzzahs to boot), but in my book a 9.20 release is just three weeks after Labor Day. A real Oscar-season release means mid-to-late October and beyond. It means you’re wearing jackets and sweaters on your way to the theatre.

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