In this week’s pre-New York film fest edition of Screen Grabs: Patton Oswalt shits the bed Jackie Robinson gets on-screen redemption the origins of a Californian cult are revealed and Matt Damon and Jim from The Office take on fracking. I’m Mark Teo filling in for Jesse Locke. This is Screen Grabs your guide to the week’s news in film. Stay. With. Us.

Vamps

Hay betch! Remember in 1995 when director Amy Heckerling and then Aerosmith vid star Alicia Silverstone out- Mean Girl ed Mean Girls in Clueless ? Yeah neither do we. Either way the two join forces with Krysten Ritter in Vamps a lighthearted vampire-themed rom-com that is ostensibly about Mean Girl vampires dealing with the horrors — see what we did there? — of love and turning middle-aged. (Cue the gramp-ire jokes: I vant to suck your varicose veins!)

The Source

The Source director Maria Demopoulos’ documentary about Father Yor’s legendary 1970s cult debuts internationally this October at Hot Docs. Here’s what to expect: A white-clad utopian family experience. Oodles of timelessly beautiful women. A rock band. If it all sounds Polyphonic Spree-esque that’s because it’s all really fucking Polyphonic Spree-esque.

The Hobbit

After debuting a gloomy trailer last December — read: we liked Nimoy’s take on the Tolkien classic better — the second Hobbit sneak-peek was unveiled last week. (Though you likely already know that.) This trailer however was decidedly more Jacksonian: Note the stunning sweeping shots of grassy meadowlands. Or the white-knuckle escapade across a sheer rock cliff. Or the violent-but-not-gory monster slaughter. Here’s the trailer in all its alternate-endings glory.

Life of Pi

In a surprising turn the Ang Lee-directed Life of Pi seems every bit as surreal and imaginative as the Yann Martel book that inspired it — no doubt thanks to the Coldplay and Sigur Ros songs featured prominently on its newest trailer released last week. Starring Rafe Spall and Irrfan Khan as Pi Patel — a boy marooned on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger — Life of Pi slated to debut at the New York Film Festival this month adds a big-budget CGI boost to an already psychedelically absurd plot. As if it needed it.

Nature Calls

We love Patton Oswalt — especially because he’s a D.C. hardcore kid — and we’re sure you do too. His involvement in Nature Calls alone makes it notable. Yet this looks puerile. And obnoxious. It’s about a kidnapped boy scout troop gone badass (thanks to Johnny Knoxville) purportedly and its synopsis compares it to Meatballs . All this film told me is that immigrant kids suck at camping which as an immigrant kid I can personally verify. The reason? Because nature fucking sucks.

The Promised Land

This column’s second-most obviously notable pick — after The Hobbit of course — goes to Gus Van Sant’s The Promised Land . Call it the Coles notes edition of a Jeff Gailus column: Headed by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski it details a farming town made rich — yet torn apart environmentally — by fracking. Yes it’s the age-old commerce-versus-small town values narrative but it also looks like a charming interpretation of a particularly hot-button topic.

The Gambit

The Coen Brothers take a spastic stab at renvisioning 1966 comedy The Gambit a Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine classic. It’s a loud poorly accented take on British comedy with plenty of star power with a hillbilly-esque Cameron Diaz and an abnormally foolhardy Colin Firth trying to con Alan Rickman out of a shitload of cash. It’s blustery and cartoonish but that isn’t a bad thing for a Coen Brothers comedy.

Sinister

Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose was a lukewarm homage to the exorcist genre but he earns serious creep props for Sinister ’s trailer. Starring Ethan Hawke as an all-too-enthusiastic crime novelist who visits the site of a family murder the murder scene’s crime soon reveals its secrets to the writer. Sure its plot takes cues from Insidious and its gritty picture quality recalls Paranormal Activity. Go ahead roll your eyes. But try to make it to this red-band trailer’s final shot without getting spooked. Not for the faint of heart.

42

If this trailer’s any indication the Brian Helgeland-directed Jackie Robinson-inspired 42 hits all sport-film pleasure points: Lead Chadwick Boseman who plays Robinson is supported by grizzled faces in Harrison Ford and Jon Bernthal. Its gorgeous cinematography manages to make both Brooklyn and its baseball stadium look like alien territory. And like all good sports movie it takes sports narratives and aims squarely for the zeitgeist using the game as — it seems — a metaphor for race in America. (Even if 42 does take a decidedly conservative cast-your-bucket to the topic.)

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