releasing this week: The Crazies & From Paris with Love

To be honest I almost only picked one film this week but I thought I’d better give people a choice… Fact is that I’m not sure there’s a great calibre of films coming out today; They don’t look bad but they just don’t look great. Anyway the ones I did pick were The Crazies and From Paris with Love. If you know me then it shouldn’t be too hard to guess which one is the only one I thought really worthy of highlight!

Actually before I go on I’m going to give a quick special mention to Leap Year. It looks awful but it is set and filmed in Ireland so it might be worth a look just to see the familiar sights.

So first up, The Crazies

Hopefully you guessed right – The Crazies is definitely the only one I really want to highlight. I’ve been seeing this trailer in cinemas for a good while now and I love how it starts off. I’m not so sure about how it continues. It looks to me that it’s giving a lot away so as a result I’ve only really seen about 2/3 of it and I’m rather worried that’s too much. If you do want to give it a look then I recommend just watching the first minute or so.

For those who don’t know, this film is a remake of the George A. Romero’s 1973 film of the same name. Sorry, I should have said the legendary George A. Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. I haven’t seen the original but I gather it’s not bad. No matter, I’ll probably watch it after this one…

There aren’t really any big names in this film. Timothy Olyphant is probably the biggest, a good solid actor as far as I recall. I’ve never heard of the director either, Breck Eisner. He did direct an episode of Taken (the TV series) though and I loved Taken so he’s cool by me. Nothing to worry too much about there so.

As you can imagine this is a horror film, in fact it looks like it’s a zombie film. I’m not sure if the people in it are actually dead or what but they definitely look a bit like zombies so I’m gonna say it is. I love zombie films. They’re all the same but they’re usually good fun; I hope there are a few laughs in this one anyway. It does look pretty creepy though and I like the look of the cinematography, looks sinister, so I’ve relatively high hopes for this one. Must try to batter them down before I go along…

Second film I thought I’d tell you about this week is From Paris with Love.

I actually heard very little about this film till last week and I’d be lying if I told you I know much about it now… I’m sure I will by the end of this article though. Well ok, I do know that Jonathan Rhys Meyers and John Travolta and so I’m guessing it’s some kind of action film of sorts… *goes off to do a bit of googling*

Right, had a look at the trailer and it looks like it’s along the lines of Bad Boys or Die Hard… action packed, explosion filled, ass-kicking mayhem. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays the straight man to John Travolta’s maniac and they run around killing folks all over the place. As far as I can tell. It’s got some decent pedigree though, Luc Besson wrote the story while Pierre Morel directs. I never saw Taken but I know it was very well received in some quarters so perhaps From Paris with Love will be great. If it sounds like your kind of thing then come on down!

If that really doesn’t sound like your kind of thing there’s a whole host of other films out at the moment – have a look at my last few ”releasing this week” articles to see what else is on at the moment. I haven’t written the review yet but I definitely recommend A Single Man if you’re feeling like some serious Oscar-worthy drama.

Other films coming today are…

Extraordinary Measures – Drama about the researcher’s struggle to find a drug to treat his children’s rare genetic disorder. Based on the true story of John and Aileen Crowley and starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser.

Everybody’s Fine – What looks like a relatively gentle drama about a widower who realises that he needs to reconnect with his family. Starring Robert De Niro and a host of other names you would recognise.

Micmacs – I probably should have given this film the second spot this week but it’s another small release so I thought I’d pick something a bit wider. For those who are interested, it’s from the director of Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I wasn’t mad on that film but this one looks like fun. It’s about a guy with a bullet lodged in his head who finds himself hanging out with a load of weirdos who live underground… what’s doesn’t sound fun about that?

Leap Year – I mentioned this one earlier but just a few more details. Basically it’s a romantic comedy starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode based around the apparently Irish tradition which says that on February 29th of a leap year a woman may propose to a man. I didn’t know that was just an Irish thing but how or never. Looks slightly twee but you’d never know, we could be pleasantly surprised.

Capitalism: A Love Story – Michael Moore’s latest documentary, this one is about the on-going financial crisis.

All these films are in cinemas from Friday 19th February 2010.