In Theaters Tomorrow… I Mean A Couple Days Ago

This week’s (8/31) offerings at the theater are all really hit or miss. Honestly, I have no clue what is gonna be good and what is gonna be bad. Rob Zombie tries his hand at the HALLOWEEN series with a revision of its origin. Christopher Walken and the co-creators of “Reno: 911” are the only reason I scratch my head about BALLS OF FURY but at the moment I’m leaning towards thinking that it was a bad choice on both of their parts. DEATH SENTENCE is the film that I’m most stoked about this weekend; Kevin Bacon avenges his son by taking on a whole gang single handedly. The last film I’ll talk about, THE NINES, is only out in limited release but looks like an awesome film that will ultimately get lost in the fold. I’ll start with BALLS OF FURY since it came out on Wednesday.

The premise of this film is really, really stupid, but like I said before its got some pretty solid cast members. Some dude by the name of Dan Fogler plays a former ping-pong champ who is recruited by the FBI to infiltrate a sudden death ping-pong tourney. Fogler seems to have just started making bad films and somehow managed the starring role. My favorite Polish-Irish-Vietnamese lady in the world, Maggie Q, plays the sexy pong sage who will help put Fogler back into tip-top pong form. George Lopez plays the recruiting FBI agent. Christopher Walken plays evildoer Feng (he also starred in MOUSEHUNT with Maury Chaykin, who starred in WHERE THE TRUTH LIES with Kevin Bacon). Terry Crews (Everybody hates Chris), Jason Scott Lee (THE JUNGLE BOOK, DRAGON) Masi Oka (Heroes) Patton Oswald and a couple members of the Reno: 911 cast also appear in the film.

I’m always hesitant about a remake of a classic film, but Rob Zombie chose to spin his own story keeping characters and background the same. I was also worried about Zombie’s acid trip style but it seems that he has finally dropped that to focus on the story and character development. This version of the horror classic follows Michael Myers instead of Laurie Strode, though I’ve heard that Scout Taylor-Compton played the Strode character very nicely. Former wrestler Taylor Mane ( Sabertooth in the X-MEN series) plays Myers, Zombie’s hot wife Sherri Moon plays Myers’ mother and Malcolm McDowell plays the doctor who tries to warn authorities of the danger that plagues Haddonfield. McDowell was in MY LIFE SO FAR with Colin Firth who also appeared in THERE THE TRUTH LIES with Kevin Bacon.

Kevin Bacon goes ape-shit crazy in DEATH SENTENCE. Bacon plays a father and executive who snaps after his son is killed in a gang initiation and those responsible for the death are set free. He gets a hold of way too much artillery, does a horrible job shaving his head, teams up with a detective who pledges to help him and then proceeds to blow the hell out of everything in front of him. The film should look awesome and dark as the director of the film is James Wan who wrote and directed SAW. John Goodman plays the big boss man of the gang that Bacon’s character decided to destroy. All people in this film are now directly linked to Kevin Bacon.

THE NINES is a very interesting film that will only be open in limited release. John August (the writer of GO, BIG FISH, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and THE CORPSE BRIDE) wrote and directed this film. The film sounds like it was written in a similar style to GO and stars Ryan Reynolds (yeah, VAN WILDER) in three roles. One is a troubled actor, another a TV producer and the last is a video game designer. These three characters begin to realize that their lives are intertwined and each realizes that he will become a demigod or a “nine”. The film deals with metaphysics and that is ultimately the reason it didn’t get a wider release. I personally feel that the film sounds like something that would have come from the mind of Darrin Aronofsky but someone on IMDB who saw the film at Sundance had this to say, “John August matches Charlie Kaufman as a writer, and parallels Michel Gondry as a director.” Reynolds was in DICK with Deborah Glover who also appeared in WHERE THE TRUTH LIES (WTF?). I have a feeling that I’ll love THE NINES.