March 1, 2011 - 10:10pm
Weekend Movie Guide: Sleepy releases for Super Bowl Sunday
BY DAVID TAO
Having roommate problems? So’s Sara, the lead character in “The Roommate,” which enters wide release this week. Played by Minka Kelly, a 30-year-old actress who has made a living playing teenagers (case in point, “Friday Night Lights”), Sara finds herself sharing a dorm room with Rebecca, played just a tad more convincingly by 24-year-old “Gossip Girl” alum Leighton Meester. The two aren’t squabbling about normal roommate issues, like cleanliness or noise. No, you see, Rebecca’s actually a clingy, murderous, off-her-meds sociopath. When Sara gets a boyfriend and presumably sexiles Rebecca one too many times, she snaps and goes on a rampage, attacking Sara’s friends in creepy jump-scare after creepy jump-scare and, according to the trailer, lighting some guy on fire in the process. Fun times are had by all.
Speaking of lighting people on fire, the writers of “Sanctum” apparently think that that’s a necessary part of escaping from a flooded cave. The movie, executive-produced by James Cameron — featuring both his “Avatar”-style 3-D and his penchant for witty, highly-believable dialogue — follows a group of explorers with more internal drama than a high school clique, attempting to “shine a light where no human’s been.” From the trailers, that’s code for a reaaaaaaaaaaally deep hole in the middle of the jungle, connected to what looks like a giant show cave tourist trap. But then a typhoon comes and everybody’s trapped underwater. Cue the dramatic tension and the uplifting story of pure inspiration, as well as the woefully misplaced (but still sort of awesome) scene in the trailer where one of the characters gets set on fire by a torch. Hopefully my sarcasm translates well into print.
Nothing new comes out at the Michigan Theater until Sunday, but if you’ve still got time to catch a movie, make it this one. “Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen,” is a German film about 12th century feminism, following the life of famed Benedictine nun Hildegard von Bingen, a true renaissance woman who persevered against the sexism of the era to become one of the era’s most well-known religious figures. But if you’d rather watch the Packers pound the Steelers, “Black Swan” is still showing all weekend at the State Theater. If you do decide to make the trip though, remember that that the ratio of people actually trying to watch the movie to people who’re just trying to see Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman getting it on has likely plummeted substantially.
In closing, your best cinematic bet this week is, once again, coming out on DVD. There’s the surprisingly good “Let Me In,” a remake of the critically-acclaimed Swedish vampire thriller that features teen phenomenon Chloe Moretz as the 12-year-old vampire Abby. Also out is “Never Let Me Go,” one of the most underrated films of 2010. Based on the novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro, the film features Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan as confused clones dealing with human emotions in a stunted alternate-reality dystopia. This was largely ignored despite featuring some of the most heartwrenching performances of the year. Meanwhile, next week, Justin Bieber gets his own wide release documentary. In 3-D. And people will watch.
