In Theaters Now – March 26th
Rebecca Pahle
How to Train Your Dragon
Directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
Finally, a computer-animated kids movie about a misunderstood human who becomes friends with a misunderstood animal and has to end up saving the day! Wait, what do you mean we’ve seen this movie before? Lilo and Stitch? What’s that? Actually, it’s another movie directed by DeBlois and Sanders, and maybe I’m being too hard on them by inviting comparison between Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. After all, in Lilo and Stitch the animal is actually an alien, and in How to Train Your Dragon the animal is. . .a dragon! Big difference, right?
Greenberg
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Ben Stiller (playing Roger Greenberg) has been best so far in The Royal Tenenbaums, which was directed by Wes Anderson, who co-wrote The Life Aquatic and Fantastic Mr. Fox with. . .Greenberg director Noah Baumbach! See, isn’t it fun playing “Six Degrees of Indie Moviemakers”? It looks like the film will include a lot of angst (“Why am I here? What should I be doing with my life?”) – plus, the film features Greta Gerwig and Mark Duplass, filmmakers in the Mumblecore genre whose movies have succeeded at bringing soul-searching conversation to the screen.
Chloe
Directed by Atom Egoyan
It seems like Amanda Seyfried had built her career thus far upon playing sweet and innocent characters (see Dear John, Mamma Mia!, and the upcoming Letters to Juliet). In Chloe she breaks that mold, playing an escort who is hired by Catherine (Julianne Moore) to seduce her husband David (Liam Neeson) in order to confirm her suspicions that he is unfaithful. Things to awry when Chloe begins to report her affair with David back to Catherine with an increasing amount of detail. If you couldn’t tell already, this movie is rated R (for “strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, nudity, and language”). So if that’s your sort of thing, enjoy! If not, How to Train Your Dragon is rated PG.
Hot Tub Time Machine
Directed by Steve Pink
I really wanted to hate the trailer for this movie. I mean, a movie where the time machine is a hot tub? C’mon! But the trailer actually had me laughing, though it’s hard to say whether the movie itself will be funny. The trailer is chock full of references to the 1980s (in the movie four friends travel back in time to 1986): Hey, remember when people wore legwarmers? And listened to cassette tapes? And—horror of horrors—remember when there was no Internet? It looks like the entire movie is based on that sort of ‘80s nostalgia, which probably isn’t enough to carry a feature film, but it’s possible. We’ll have to see.