Movies released in the spring are under little pressure. The season to make money is a few months away, and the time to gather nominees has past. As Hollywood prepares for the annual awards season, the real movie gems hit the theaters.
One of these gems is Transamerica, starring Felicity Huffman of television’s Desperate Housewives. Huffman stars as Bree, a preoperative male to female transsexual.
Days before he is due to become a she thanks to modern medicine, Bree discovers she fathered a son, Toby, while in college.
She ventures from Los Angeles to New York to get Toby out of jail, and on the subsequent cross country trip back to L.A. to see Toby’s stepfather; Bree learns a thing or two about what her life could have been.
When a Stranger Calls, the season’s most advertised horror film, will hit theaters this spring.
A remake of the 1979 film of the same name, Stranger follows Jill Johnson, a teenage babysitter whose life is turned upside down one fateful night.
She receives calls from a male voice hinting that she should “check on the children” she is watching.
If this film is anything like the original version that inspired it, don’t miss the first 15 minutes.
In March, the eagerly anticipated V for Vendetta is released. Originally set for release last fall, Vendetta’s terrorist subject matter has already landed it a great deal of controversy.
The film follows the plight of V, a mysterious superhero who isn’t afraid to use acts of terrorism to save society from a totalitarian government.
Written by the Wachowski Brothers, the driving forces behind the Matrix saga, V for Vendetta is sure to garner a great deal of attention and a big profit to match.
Flight 93 is the first of two films set for release this year to feature Sept.11 – based storylines.
The cast features relatively unknown actors as the passengers of the doomed flight, adding to the believability of the story.
Like many historical disaster films before it, including the 1997 blockbuster Titanic, Flight 93 faces the burden of taking a story for which audiences already know the outcome (and for which many would like to forget), and making it a film audiences would willingly pay to see. Flight 93 hits theaters April 28.
The success of such films as Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana, both of which came out last winter and dealt with the controversial topics of national interest abroad and anti-American sentiments at home, has proven that Americans are willing to watch and talk about such films.
Of course, the release date of each is no surprise. Flight 93 is released as the spring movie season ends and before the summer blockbuster season begins.
Marta Rusek can be reached at mrusek@temple.edu.
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