Saturday, September 17, 2011

Multiplex Round-up: Drive and Straw Dogs

On a dreary and wet Saturday afternoon in Larryville you can stay home and watch KU (almost certainly) lose to a Georgia Tech team out for revenge or you can check out Nicholas Winding Refn's first foray into mainstream American filmmaking with Drive:

Entertainment Weekly says:

"Drive revels in sensory detail; it's a visually and aurally edgy Euro-influenced American genre movie about the coolness of noir-influenced American genre movies about the coolness of driving...".

Sold!

To prepare, we've spent the week watching the great existential driving films: Vanishing Point, The Stunt Man, Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop, Walter Hill's The Driver. Join us tonight for a pompous discussion at the Pig.

But what about the other major big-screen option this weekend: Rod Lurie's remake of Peckinpah's classic meditation on violence, Straw Dogs. Let's see what the angry Peckinpah-purist film geeks over at AICN are saying:

"...the main problem with Kate Bosworth is that she doesn’t look like she likes to fuck... Now – I know that this isn’t necessarily Kate’s fault, but Rod Lurie as director, because in WONDERLAND and RULES OF ATTRACTION – Kate looked primed. But here… she just isn’t sexual. The Chess piece scene in this version makes the Animal Crackers in ARMAGEDDON seem like Bertolucci."

We'll be seeing this soon so we can join the debate and also because we promised Rod Lurie on Twitter that we'd watch it with an open mind! And we keep our promises, Rod Lurie!

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