Next Week's Sneak Peek

Coming soon to a theater near you

By colincovert

March 1, 2013 at 12:08AM

Everyone who's thankful Disney assigned its Oz spinoff to Sam Raimi rather than Tim Burton, raise your hand.

Wow. That's a lot of hands.

"Oz the Great and Powerful"

How can one movie contain so much crazy awesomeness? Earthlings, drink heavily in preparation for Don ("Bubba Ho Tep") Coscareli's "John Dies at the End." Paul Giamatti not only costars, he produced irt because he's a huge horror geek. Who knew?

It takes a big actor like Tommy Lee Jones to play a big figure like Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In "Emperor," Matthew Fox costars as the military man put in charge of investigating Hirohito's responsibility for Japan's attack on, and surrender to, allied forces.

"Mad Men" meets "All the President's Men" in the Oscar-nominated political dramedy "No." Gael Garcia Bernal stars as a politically noncommittal 1980s advertising whiz who's drafted to sell democracy like soap flakes in Chile's first election since the 1973 Pinochet coup. Kind of a big week for deposed despots.

In "Dead Man Down," Noomi Rapace blackmails Colin Farrell to knock off the crime overlord who abused her, Terrence Howard. It's directed by Niels Arden Oplev, who did the original Swedish "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy. Standard action thriller + overqualified cast and crew = ?

"West of Memphis" is a documentary detective story that tackles a horrendous crime -- the murder of three 8-year-old boys -- and a horrendous miscarriage of justice. Facts are re-examined, new evidence is revealed and new suspects arise in this Peter Jackson-produced true crime shocker.

See you at the movies.

about the writer

about the writer

colincovert