movies this week: support your local video store

Yawn.
I don’t really care about any of the movies opening this week. Hero looks like the only interesting possibility. So I will suggest alternative movies to rent for each new movie appearing in Austin this week.
Also, aGLIFF opened in Austin this weekend, which is probably an improvement on most of the mainstream stuff in theaters right now.

New movies in Austin this week:
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid—I didn’t even realize this was a sequel. I just thought it had a dumb title. Apparently there was an Anaconda back in 1997 (with Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Owen Wilson) and it did well enough to warrant a second movie. I don’t know how I could have missed that.
Rent instead: Evil Dead. Or Evil Dead 2, a rare case in which the sequel is every bit as entertaining as the original movie. If not more so.
Bush’s Brain—Don’t smack me for this but I have seen enough political documentaries this year and if I do decide to see another one it’s going to be a really good one like Control Room and not this particular film.
Rent instead: The Fog of War, which was the best political documentary I saw this year.
Danny Deckchair—This is supposedly a whimsical Australian lark about a guy who is in the media spotlight because he tied too many balloons on his deck chair and he flew across town in it. I keep getting stuck on the premise. If you could tie enough helium balloons to a deck chair to levitate yourself on it, we should have been able to do this as kids. I am sure we tried.
Rent instead: Donnie Darko. Oh, wait, the director’s cut is in theaters this week. Hm. Maybe a nice Preston Sturges movie, then. The Palm Beach Story is weird and witty and wonderful.
Hero—This movie was released in China in 2002 and Miramax has finally gotten around to releasing it here, allegedly due to the influence of Quentin Tarantino. China nominated this martial-arts epic for an Academy Award. If you have the same taste in movies as Quentin Tarantino, I am sure you’ll love it. That detail aside, I think I might like to see this movie.
Rent instead: No, you might want to give this movie a try.
Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2—Why? I mean, why?
Rent instead: Anything. I don’t think you could get much lamer than this. If you need to see a movie with babies in it, get Raising Arizona.
Suspect Zero—I keep seeing ads for movies with Ben Kingsley in them and I wonder why it’s been so long since I’ve seen a movie with Ben Kingsley (I think Sneakers might have been the last one … no, it was Dave) and then I realize it’s because most of them seem terribly uninteresting to me. This is a serial-killer thriller directed by the guy who brought us Shadow of the Vampire (which I liked) but it doesn’t seem to grab me at all.
Rent instead: Sneakers, because a good caper film is always entertaining.
Notable events/revivals in Austin:
Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut—Playing all week at Dobie. I saw this movie when it originally released and I liked it a whole lot. I definitely recommend the original cut. I’m a little wary about a director’s cut, though, since lately every director’s cut I’ve seen makes a film worse, not better. This version is 20 minutes longer and supposedly fills in some of the gaps and background info. The Austin Chronicle has a good interview with the director, Richard Kelly, about this version.
(I have one gripe about this film, but it’s trivial and makes me look like a huge film geek. Probably no one else noticed it but me, anyway.)
Evil Dead 2—Playing at midnight at Alamo downtown 9/2-9/4, and at Alamo Village 9/10-11. Well worth staying up to midnight to see.
Ju-On: The Grudge—Premiere at Alamo downtown on Sept 5. Opens at Alamo Village on Sept. 10. This is the original Japanese version, not the American remake due later this year. It’s supposed to be amazing. And quite disturbing.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show—Alamo Village is going to show this movie regularly on Saturday nights starting on Sept 11, with a live cast. I’ve seen it enough times, myself, but that’s another story entirely.
We currently have two rental DVDs in the house: Gregory’s Girl (which I am watching in sections and hope to finish soon), and Bad Santa (which we are going to watch as soon as I finish posting this entry). We saw The Manchurian Candidate (2004) on Friday so I don’t know if we’re seeing any other movies in theaters this weekend.
(Special thanks to my boyfriend for suggesting the theme behind this week’s entry. Except now he thinks he’s my Muse. That’s so cute.)