Sunday 24 May 2009

Summer Lineup


The summer months are a difficult time for arthouse cinemas. With good weather, nobody wants to be indoors, adults have less time because children are on holiday, and Hollywood releases all its huge tentpole films this time of year, swallowing up all the potential attention away from the smaller films.

So here's this summers biggest films:

Terminator: Salvation - 3 June. This could be a healthy re-boot after the awful T3. Christian Bale can do no wrong it appears. Easily one of the biggest films of the year.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 19 June. More Michael Bay awfulness. The trailer is as enjoyable as this gets, but it won't stop it from making a ton of money. (notice the tendency to add a colon to film titles these days).

Ice Age 3 (in 3D).- 1 July The least annoying (apart from Pixar) of the hilarious animals comedy franchises. 3D should boost what is probably going to be the least interesting of these films.

Public Enemies. - 1 July. I know Universal have high hopes for this (£12-£15 million in the UK)and you certainly can't go wrong with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale taking the roles DeNiro and Pacino played in HEAT. Add Oscar winner Marion Cottiliard and it would seem difficult to screw it up. It all depends on whether the female audience will come out for Johnny.

And now the summer gets crowded:

7 July - Bruno
15 July - Harry Potter 6
24 July - Taking of Pelham 123
31 July - Land of the Lost
7 Aug - GI Joe
21 Aug - Inglorious Basterds

I think the sleeper hit of the summer won't be any of these, but rather COCO BEFORE CHANEL, the biopic of Coco Chanel starring Audrey Tatou. This has LA VIE EN ROSE numbers written all over it.

2 comments:

  1. do I detect gender stereotyping here?i.e.whether the female audience,etc..I don't wish to damn a film before release,but I hope the Chanel film won't be like 'Cheri'-beautiful photography,immaculate diction,but hollow to the core,as if stephen Frears popped in once or twice to see how things were doing:I am,incidentally of the demographic that films such as Cheri and Chanel are presumably meant for -but bring on Public enemies!

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  2. No gender stereotyping at all....I am sure our female customer profile is very different from the mainstream one, and our audiences are much more fluid and open minded. I was simply reffering to the wide commercial possibilities of Public Enemies in the UK. Johnny Depp has cross-gender appeal, and I think that the obstacle is the violence and gritty authenticity that Mann usually brings to his films.

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