September Movie Releases Part Two

You don’t have to wait long after September’s first batch of movie releases on the 4th, since Cold Souls will debut in a rare Monday release September 7th. If you don’t follow film pretty closely, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of this under-buzzed film, since the trailer isn’t blasted around computers, TV, and movie theater previews. It’s a surrealist “tragicomedy,” a la Being John Malkovich - remember how innovative that was when it premiered? Here, Paul Giammatti actually plays himself, and we catch him dwelling on Uncle Vanya, his next project. He just can’t seem to play the role without breaking down, so he finds a company that stores your soul (sounds like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and decides to rid himself of his soul and therefore emotion until his play run is over. However, in the mean time, his soul is stolen in a soul trafficking ring, and he must follow it to Russia to get it back. He learns that happiness isn’t the absence of suffering the ability to feel pain and then joy. It sounds like a good think piece, chock full of deadpan humor, philosophical musings, and statements about technology taking over personal life.

Only two days later, Tim Burton’s buzzworthy film, 9 debuts on Wednesday, September 7th. September seems to be a good month for more experimental art pieces, maybe because it still holds the wide audience potential of summer but the elbow room that autumn and winter hold to be not so mainstream. In this CGI animated flick, we follow the story of 9 (voice by Elijah Wood) and the 8 other before him (voices by the likes of Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, and John C. Reilly) as they find themselves in a post-apocalyptic world and have to fight the machines that have taken over. The film looks very futuristic, creepy, haunting, and definitely a must-see.

August 4th, 2009 by Courtney Iseman | Posted in Movie News | (4)