The To-Do List for 5/1/09

It's been eight days in a row now that I've been to the movies. I've seen everything from The Soloist, to Star Trek(review upcoming), to Death Note: L. And I came nowhere close to seeing everything I wanted, which is why the shit will continue apace with no possible end until Saturday. That day I'll be too busy to see anything, providing a welcome break from my movie going escapades. What I've discovered is that I could probably see a movie a day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. I don't know if that's sad or what, but it's true. Even terrible movies like The Soloist provide me a great deal of happiness a couple of hours at a time.


This week things slow down a bit. After looking at the list of movies in the area I realized something: I really ought to stop calling this weekly post The To-Do List, since I always write about movies I have no intention of seeing, like the entire library of Matthew McConaughey. That doesn't make much sense, does it? I should focus solely on the films that are truly in my line of fire. So it's either change the title or stick to the original premise.



Let's just say that I wasn't a guy who's been reading Marvel comics for the better part of 25 years(Good lord I'm old!), would I still want to see X-men Origins: Wolverine? Who cares? The fact is I am a guy who reads X-men comics and I DO want to see this. It follows the formative years of the ol' Canucklehead as we go through the highlights of his life ala Benjamin Button. Finally they listened to the fans and included arguably the two most popular "mutants" in the X-universe, Gambit and Deadpool. Based on what I've heard and seen I'm a bit skeptical on their treatment of the Merc with a Mouth, but I'll give it a fair shot. Chances are I'll see this tonight in preparation for The Punch Drunk Podcast on Sunday(Yay, it's back!)



Battle for Terra looks like it could be a sleeper hit. The computer animated 3-D sci-fi film features an impressive voice cast(dont they all at this point?) and an interesting premise that places the human race as the villains, attempting to overthrow the peaceful alien planet of Terra. My only real gripe is the look of the animation, which bears some resemblance to the recent Clone Wars film. Which was awful. Hopefully this will be better than that.

Also in my sights for this week are a couple holdovers from last week: The indie coming-of-age film, Lymelife starring Rory Culkin. And also American Violet, which I've been trying to see for damn near a month now. I'll get to it this week I hope. Both films are playing at AMC Shirlington, Cinema Arts Theater, and Landmark E Street.



New in theaters that haven't hit the Metro area yet are the Jim Jarmusch spy/thriller/drama/travelogue, The Limits of Control. This one features the talents of Bill Murray, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Tilda Swinton. It's open in limited but will hopefully go wide soon. Also, Mutant Chronicles still hasn't found a way to DC, which means someone out there has it out for ol' Travis. They know how bad I want to see this sci-fi epic starring Thomas Jane and Ron Pearlman. And yet they continue to torture me. Please please!! I ask for so little!