Davis: Other movies coming up this weekend besides Transformers
This weekend is going to be all about the Transformers but I like rooting for the underdog, so I am going start with Larry Crowne.
Although it is not only starring Tom Hank and Julia Roberts and is also directed and produced by Hanks, it still is a quiet bit of counter-programming against those alien robots. Larry Crowne is the story of a Navy veteran who loses his job as a team leader at a big box store and goes back to community college to start over.
There he becomes part of a colourful group of outcasts who are also trying to find a better future for themselves.
He unexpectedly develops a crush on one of his teachers (Julia Roberts) and just when he thinks everything in his life is going nowhere, he discovers a new reason to live.
Hanks is a quadruple-threat as he also co-wrote the movie with Nia Vardalos, who he and is wife discovered while doing her stage show which became My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Rated General with a warning of coarse language.
In another bit of counter-programming, Monte Carlo stars Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester and Katie Cassidy and is the story of three young women vacationing in Paris who find themselves whisked away to Monte Carlo after one of the girls is mistaken for a British heiress.
They find themselves in a lavish world, where they live like royalty and experience romance, discovering the true magic of friendship along the way.
It is clearly aimed at a young female audience teaming young singer-actress Gomez with Gossip Girl co-stars Meester and Cassidy. (Just in case you are wondering, Katie Cassidy is the daughter of ’70s pop idol David Cassidy.) Rated General with no warning.
And finally, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. If I come off cynical, it is because I am not a big fan of director Michael Bay. Of his movies I did not walk out of, I only tolerated them because they did have moments of brilliance. I actually made it through and even enjoyed the first Transformers but I left part way through the second.
To his credit, Bay actually admitted that he was not happy with the second one as he had to do many of the rewrites himself because of the screenwriter’s strike a few years back. He promises that the third delivers, and even though he was not originally a fan of 3D, his second promise is that the 3D will not disappoint.
Shia LaBeouf is reunited with Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro and added to the cast is Patrick Dempsey, Frances McDorman, John Malkovich and Ken Jeong. The noticeable departure of Megan Fox just prior to the start of filming has been made even more noticeable with recent rumours that she was actually fired by producer Steven Spielberg. She was replaced with model and first time actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Rated PG with violence and coarse language.
Rick Davis manages the Capitol Theatre.