Take The City And Run

The Weather Man looks like it could be entertaining. Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine are certainly great actors, but they’ve also made some pretty bad movies. Director Gore Verbinski has proven himself to be a very comptent genre director and this could prove his chops with slightly more intimate material than, say, Pirates Of The Caribbean. Perhaps the best sign that this could be more than the average grown-man-with-existential-angst type of film is the inclusion of Hope Davis, who has a pretty good track record for doing interesting work.

But the best bet for the week has to be Paradise Now, which follows two Palestinian friends recruited to be suicide bombers. It’s sure be controversial, but is it any good? The trailers hint that it could be a great film beyond the inherent politics involved, so it will be interesting to see how much attention is paid to the quality of the actual filmmaking as reactions begin to mount.

Of course, there are a couple of sequels out there for those not willing to stray from the tried and true. Last year’s Saw was such a contrived letdown that it’s hard to expect much more from Saw II. Truly disappointing, though, is that The Legend Of Zorro is supposedly so lackluster — the 1998 Mask Of Zorro was a surprisingly fun, well-made action/adventure flick.