Chances of me seeing it: 0%. Unlike most people who expound at length on their hatred of German director Uwe Boll, I actually have seen one of his movies, 2003's House of the Dead, and I can say with absolute sincerity that it was one of the single worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. The hype surrounding his awfulness is no lie, or even exaggerated. Even if I were to watch another Uwe Boll film, it would probably be In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale or BloodRayne, not creepy Holocaust porn demanding that I "never forget."
Chances of me liking it: 0%. Looks even worse than The Reader!
Beyond the jump: a festival of mediocrity!
Country Strong
Chances of me seeing it: 0%. I already saw Crazy Heart and I didn't even like it that much the first time. The last thing I need is to see the same movie with Jeff Bridges removed, the music made shitty, and a Blind Side-esque layer of Hollywood schmaltz heaped on top.
Chances of me liking it: 0%. If they really wanted to do a movie about a washed-up country music star sadly reflecting on how young and pretty her rival is before improbably returning to glory (by the way, I like how the trailer casually gives away the entire film), couldn't they have maybe cast a lead actress who wasn't fairly young and couldn't easily get work as a fashion model? I mean, give me a damn break. Gwyneth Paltrow, really? Oh, boo hoo, Leighton Meester is marginally prettier and just over a decade younger than me, how will life possibly go on? At least Crazy Heart cast a lead who actually looked old and washed up. I also like at 1:18 into the trailer where Tim McGraw physically assaults a guy for making a perfectly valid point. This movie looks fucking dreadful. Actually, I take back my 0% chance of seeing it. I need to get a head start on my worst movies of 2011 list, and this looks like a sublime way to do it.
Hereafter
Chances of me seeing it: 95%. It would be unusual for me to miss out on a new Clint Eastwood movie. I mean, I skipped Changeling because it looked boring as shit, but beyond that I haven't missed one in years. Doubt I'll miss this one either.
Chances of me liking it: 60%. Clint Eastwood has been hit or miss in recent years — Letters from Iwo Jima was a fine film and Gran Torino was hilarious and brilliant, but Flags of Our Fathers and Invictus were tedious Oscar bait. I read very little from this trailer, negative or positive, but since it isn't about a Very Important Topic I have cautious hope that Eastwood can return to form.
The Last Rites of Ransom Pride
Chances of me seeing it: 25%. Hahaha, what?! This movie looks absolutely fucking horrible! I started laughing five seconds into the trailer when Lizzy Caplan began narrating in her atrocious southern accent, and I laughed all the harder when I saw the harshly-lit, amateurish digital photography. My bad movie sense is tingling. I am powerfully compelled to Netflix this piece of shit. It honestly looks like a movie that Lizzy Caplan's struggling actor character Casey in the sitcom Party Down would do, so if I watch it I'm going to pretend that this movie is starring Casey and exists in the Party Down universe rather than the real world.
Chances of me liking it: 2%. You don't really watch a movie such as this to "like" it.
Megamind
Chances of me seeing it: 10%. I was actually slightly interested in Megamind until I saw this latest trailer which reveals that the film calls a mulligan on its supervillain protagonist premise and turns into a poor (poor, poor) man's The Incredibles by making Megamind become the straightforward hero. Now only shockingly good reviews will drive me to see it.
Chances of me liking it: 5%. DreamWorks Animation actually delivered a couple pretty damn good films in the last few years, namely 2008's Kung Fu Panda and this year's How to Train Your Dragon. Megamind, however, smells much more of Monsters vs. Aliens.
Monsters
Chances of me seeing it: 85%. Looks kinda like an also-ran District 9, with a more generic and less interesting protagonist and less visual imagination, but the trailer at least piqued my curiosity. I'll probably check it out.
Chances of me liking it: 50%. Totally up in the air. The trailer claims that Ain't It Cool News declared it "awesome," but Ain't It Cool News would declare a two-hour shot of a turd "awesome" so long as it had genre elements of any kind, so that doesn't say much.
Never Let Me Go
Chances of me seeing it: 85%. I'm intrigued by the film's period piece sci-fi premise and have heard enough about it on movie blogs and podcasts over the last several months that at this point I feel obligated to see what all the fuss is about. I do hope the movie isn't as all-love-story-all-the-time as this trailer makes it out to be, though.
Chances of me liking it: 55%. As of this writing the film's Rotten Tomatoes score stands at a decidedly mixed 67%, but a couple critics I generally trust liked it a lot, so it has definite potential. I still hold an inexplicable and persistent grudge against Carey Mulligan for the hideously overrated An Education, though. It may take me years to shake.
Priest
Chances of me seeing it: 70%. I admit, this trailer looks kinda sexy. Monsters, horror, action, some cool special effects, and Maggie Q, who I've been mildly in love with ever since seeing Live Free or Die Hard. However...
Chances of me liking it: 10%. This is the next effort from Scott Charles Stewart, director of Legion, which is one of the worst films of the year. Now, in a world where Peter Jackson has directed both The Lord of the Rings and The Lovely Bones, it hardly needs to be said that a filmmaker's work can vary wildly in quality, but Legion was so many miles away from even being watchable, let alone good, that I'm hesitant to believe Stewart can turn things around this quickly.
Rare Exports
Chances of me seeing it: 75%. My heart was won over the second I saw the words "forget everything you know about Santa," followed by "it's all lies."
Chances of me liking it: 25%. This is clearly and unapologetically a high concept movie structured entirely around a novelty gimmick, which means that it likely has nothing to offer beyond said gimmick. But it at least deserves a chance.
Saw 3D
Chances of me seeing it: 1%. I only saw the first Saw and felt absolutely no compulsion whatsoever to see Saw II, or Saw III... or Saw IV (when will it end?!)... or Saw V (not yet!)... or Saw VI (holy shit!), and so I feel especially little compulsion to see Saw 3D. I grant it's possible that one day, many years from now, desperate for something to watch, I'll Netflix the entire series. But it's pretty unlikely.
Chances of me liking it: 0%. The seventh movie in a series of which I didn't even like the first one? Gee, I wonder.
And the week's winner is: This was not a particularly strong week. By default it seems like it would have to be Eastwood's Hereafter, with Never Let Me Go and Monsters as the runners-up, but I'm not exactly chomping at the bit or counting down the days until any of them. So I declare Country Strong the winner for producing the strongest reaction from me, even if it was one of sheer revulsion.
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