Save The Date

Friday, August 16th is just around the corner kids, and it’s big movie day with not one but three premiers set for wide release. It’s not too soon to fill your bookbag with airpopped O. Redenbacher’s and line your inner pockets with airplane bottles of Jägermeister because folks, this is a TRIPLE FEATURE.

Matinee:
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
You already know it’s the sequel to The Lightning Thief, based on The Sea of Monsters. Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), who is the son of a god, sets out with his friends, who are also kids of gods (an obvious reference to Hollywood brats and the spoiled kids of the power elite) to snag the Golden Fleece and save Camp Half-Blood! What really has us writhing in anticipation, however, is the much vaunted promise of  Missi Pyle, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Mary Birdsong as the Graeae. Should achieve 3-D fabulousness in post.

Prime-time:
The To-Do List
Set in 1993 (we’re already salivating for that soundtrack) good-girl Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) wants to make up for lost time before college so she assembles a “to-do” list of the following all-star cast: Josh Weston, Sammy Case, Blake Masters, Anthony Holloway, Logan McCree, Diesel Washington, James Deen , Tommy Blade, TJ Cummings, Billy Glide, Mikey Butders, Erik Everhard, and Bryon Long. (And, we hope, Vaseline!) R rating should be achieved through clever cutting in post.

Midnight movie:
2 Guns
Mark Wahlberg again as a DEA agent and Denzel Washington plays yet another Naval Intelligence officer—but the real reason for seeing this movie is: Bill Paxton, Edward James Olmos, Fred Ward—together again. Convoluted plot about the two stars investigating each other, each suspecting the other of stealing money from the mob, or the Russian mafia, or the Yakuza—when in actuality they are unwittingly stealing money from either the CIA or the FBI, while Doris Day performs on the BBC. Matt Busby. Dig it, dig it, dig it.

The Last Airbender in 3D

Now available on 3-D BluRay for selected handheld zombie devices!

Projecting forth to the “future” of “2010”—when it is prophesied that the world is destroyed—the “Airbender” moves awkwardly from his home: 1958 Thelma Corners, Georgia. Carrying far too much of pics load in his metal lunchbox, Airbender (who he finds is the last of his kind in 2010), Harry Potter series’ Tommy Tuberville, thrusts and jousts, taking every opportunity to launch an object at the 3D lens: a playing card, samurai sword, a loogie, a torrent of slo-mo Spaghetti-o's with a wet paper towel sauce, reminiscent of last years “The Last House on The Left in Connecticut.” It soon becomes clear that plot and action are a crippled mare pulling the 3D cart of multiple golden bootie winners Laszlo Kovacs’ widescreen digital Airiflex Hercules.

Airbender is not without its satisfying forked paths upon forked paths of helmer scribe Night Slymon’s trademarked multiple endings upon multiplexed endings. There is more prophecy evident than a glowing Guadalupe on a tortilla chip. The lush, retro hypocrisies of the late Fifties provide a blanket of God and Family, missing from chaotic mess of New York City, which Airbender arrives, unexplained more mysteriously than time travel. Apparently the Port Authority Bus Terminal has a portal in its damaged, glass-enclosed Rube Goldberg billiard ball sculpture, which then takes on dual function as touchstone and subplot.

Karate kicking his way through the panic of Times Square—where tourists from Kansas to Arkansas seem to have arrived to view the apocalypse on the side of skyscrapers projected amid cola and SUV ads—Airbender finds his powers are all too amplified with the sudden years as he horrifies himself and onlookers as he incinerates a family of eight from Toronto. Subplot upon similar subplot pile up on Airbender’s bony shoulders: now he must find virtual darkened doorway pockets of time travel where he can quickly retrieve the innocent victims to their pre-charbroiled state, while offering sage McNuggets of advice like, you can now watch the World Series in the comfort of your own home on the new Sony Telethon 3D Plasma wall model.

Climax enfolds in the unlikely guise of Times Squares “Grey McDonalds”—for Airbender has had only to travel 3 blocks of location shooting to 3D in and out of years 2001, 2004, 2112 (Rush), and 1963 Dallas. Spoiler Alert! Satisfying twist ending with truffle oil and portabella mushrooms. Special features include featurette and making of featurette featurette, Also, interactive “script machine” let’s you dictate the dialogue for subjectivity, and patented “The Future Has Many Paths” ending dictator, lets you watch pic over 144 times with unique results. Gimmick didn’t work with Clue: The Motion Picture because it’s always Colonel Mustard, but here the murderer is never the Airbender, and gimmick proves pointless. One criticism: Making Of Featurettes are not in 3D. Note: special features assume pic will garner DVD release. More likely strategy, keep in theaters indefinitely and milk box office like a treacherous snake.