Movie Releases, 9/1

It's September, or January II for movies. Let's see what wasn't good enough for the previous four months or the next three.

Neil LaBute returns with the remake of The Wicker Man. I have never seen the original. This stars Nicolas Cage as a sheriff looking for a girl who has vanished on a small island inhabited by...crazy-ass people! And he's got to figure out what the hell is going on. Ellen Burstyn also stars, along with Leelee Sobieski, who hasn't been in anything high-profile in 5 years. I'm kind of interested in seeing how the writer/director of movies like the great In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors does horror.

This might be fun: Jason Statham in Crank, a movie that looks like his Transporter franchise fused with Run, Lola, Run. The plot: he's an assassin who has been injected with some sort of poison that will kill him if his heart rate dips below a certain point. Kinda also sounds like Speed. What better way to keep up your heart rate up than killing a bunch of the guys responsible, and having sex with Amy Smart?

Then there's Anthony Mackie in a street-ball drama called Crossover. Somehow, this relates to him getting a scholarship to UCLA to become a doctor. His best friend wants to win an underground b-ball tourney. And the evil Wayne Brady plays a sports agent. Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch? We'll see Friday.

The limited releases get tricky, but again I will try my best and "check local listings."

Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which I have seen no previews for, is apparently getting a 125-screen opening this weekend. Luke Wilson plays a guy much like Fry from "Futurama" who gets frozen, and 1000 years later is unfrozen in a world full of dumbasses, and being considered a genius in this world. I've been wanting to see this for awhile, but the release date and this odd rollout might spell doom.

Lassie, starring Samantha Morton and Peter O'Toole. Enough said.

Zhang Yimou, one of the top filmmakers from the land of China, has his Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (or: Qian li zou dan qi) arriving to these shores. This concerns a Japanese man subbing for his sick son in the filming of a folk-opera star. You never know from a premise like that, but you give respected filmmakers a chance.

And an interesting documentary called This Film is not Yet Rated (rated NC-17 by the MPAA, the film's subject). This concerns the absolute hypocrisy of the MPAA concerning major Hollywood films versus independent films, violence is OK and sex is not, and so forth. Many give their opinions on the subject, including Kevin Smith, John Waters, Matt Stone (who with Trey Parker sent up the MPAA splendidly in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut), Darren Aronofsky, Maria Bello, and Atom Egoyan, just to name a few.