Week 3:
February 14th – 21st
I am starting this week off a day early, taking my cue from the movie studios. Four major titles are hitting theatres on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, starting with the less-than-apropos A Good Day to Die Hard. The fifth feature in the beloved action series sees John McClane (Bruce Willis) travelling to Russia to save his son (Jai Courtney). He also apparently travels back in time, to an era where the Russians are our enemies. Hmm. Well, no one ever accused the Die Hard series of being prescient, I suppose. The original Die Hard is one of my favorite movies, I really enjoy the sequels, and if this fifth film can provide some solid action, character work, and one-liners, it will hopefully justify its existence. Look for my review February 13th.
In a very different vein, Warner Bros looks to kick off the next young-adult cinematic sensation with Beautiful Creatures, a supernatural romance story based on the novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I don’t see much appeal in the story pitched by the film’s trailers, but the cast – which includes Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, and Emma Thompson – is more than promising, and the film appears to have some interesting visual ideas. I look forward to giving it a look.
Audiences can find a romantic alternative in Safe Haven, the newest Nicholas Sparks-based film, starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel. I assume we have all seen this basic archetypical film ten to twenty times before in the last few years, so why not experience it one more time? Kids, meanwhile, can look forward to Escape from Planet Earth…or not, because it looks awful. My intuition tells me that parents should probably find something else for their young ones to watch, but only time will tell.
On home video, February 19th sees Game of Thrones: Season 2 arriving on DVD and Blu-Ray, giving viewers a solid month and a half to catch up before the show returns to HBO in late March. This is an excellent season of television, and comes highly recommended.
Likely Best Picture winner Argo also arrives this week just in time for the Oscars, alongside Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina. But most exciting, from my point-of-view, is the release of a remastered Terminator Blu-Ray. The disc came out in England months ago – our own Jeremy Lebens reviewed that release – and apparently offers a revelatory viewing experience for fans of the film. I cannot wait to check it out.
Also on February 19th, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance arrives on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The radical new gameplay style, which takes a more action-based approach than its predecessors, has riled Metal Gear fans, but as someone who has never quite warmed to the series before, I am actually extremely interested in this experimental change of pace. Crysis 3, meanwhile, launches the same day for Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows PCs, and looks to offer series and first-person shooter fans a robust experience.
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