Film Friday: A Weekend of Pushing Buttons

This weekend at your local Big Screen, the movies are about pushing buttons. In The Box, directed by Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly, a mysterious man in a long coat who appears to have been slapped in the face on more than one occasion shows up at the home of Cameron Diaz and James Marsden to ask if this attractive, cash-strapped couple wants to see what’s in his box. Spoiler: it’s a button. Push it and you get a million dollars, but when you do someone on the other side of the earth whom you do not know will be forced to watch Kelly’s previous movie, Southland Tales. Therein lies a moral dilemma. If you were Cameron, would you ever be able to spend that money with a clear conscience?

Or you could see Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, the heavily-titled film about a young woman struggling with all manner of difficulties in Harlem. The film itself isn’t half bad, but the title—. I half expected a “Buy Now” button in the corner of the movie screen. I’m thinking that if I were to push it, someone on the other side of the earth, whom I do not know, whose name I could not possibly guess (although I suspect it’s gemmy), will get a million dollars. The movie’s original title when it premiered at the Sundance festival and won the audience award was Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, but since another movie named Push has come out in the meantime, this one had to be retitled like a chop-shop VW. Thankfully, the new name is still sturdy enough to support above-the-title product pushing and multi-channel branding, in the names of Oprah Winfrey, Mariah Carey, and Tyler Perry.

Oh, and speaking of scary knockers, no amount of pushing could make me watch another adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. They’ve got another one in theaters this weekend, an animated version, bridging the mindless gap that exists between Halloween and Christmas. But I’m done with the face of Jacob Marley and the trio of conjugated ghosts. Was done, am done, will forever be done. Humbug.

I can’t recommend The Men Who Stare at Goats to anyone I know, either. I like most of the people on the screen—Clooney, McGregor, Bridges—but not this screen, not this time. I’d rather stare at the goats of Christmas past than sit through this middling satire again, and you know how I feel about them. Oh, it’s not terrible. But weak jokes and cheap sentiment aren’t my bag.

Even the DVD bin this week isn’t particularly appealing. G.I. Joe: Based on the Toy by Hasbro and The Taking of Pelham 123: Based on a Much Better and Less Sanitized New York Classic Whose Numbers Are Spelled Out. I spotted one gem: the 50th anniversary edition of North by Northwest. Yeah, it’s crass the way the studios keep coming up with reasons to re-sell the same movies—Blu-Ray! Anniversary! Bonus Featurette!—but this is a good flick, firmly within my top five Hitchcock films.

So rent a classic. That’s the theme this week. Or one of these. Push play, not buy. Dust off a non-Dickensian oldie, pour some hot cocoa, and hold your horses for some stuff that’s coming around the bend: Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Werner Herzog’s Fantastic Lieutenant, and Richard Linklater’s Me and the Always Undeniably Fantastic Orson Welles.