Spitball Army

I live in the Crestwood neighborhood of Birmingham. There is a movie theatre down the street from me called The Edge 12. I can walk there from my home, if I so desire. This theatre has twelve screens. They frequently show films of great merit. They also show films for everyone else. We all get to choose.

(photo: spitballarmy.com)

Three new films are opening at The Edge 12 today:

Bad Teacher (2011)
Directed by Jake Kasdan.
Starring Cameron Diaz, Jason Segal, Justin Timberlake and someone named Lucy Punch.
Rated R.

Here’s a movie to give Bridesmaids a run for the off-color money. Bad Teacher (promoted with the tagline: “She doesn’t give an ‘F'”) is a comedy centered around a foul-mouthed, junior high school teacher (Diaz) who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague (Timberlake) – a move that pits her against a well-loved teacher (Segal). For a quantitative measure of how much you will either love or despise this film, count the number of bleeped expletives in the trailer below.

Cars 2 (2011)
Directed by John Lasseter and Brad Lewis.
Featuring the vocal talents of Owen Wilson, Larry le Type de Câble, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, John Turturro and Brent Musburger (as Brent Mustangburger).
Rated G.

Star race car Lightning McQueen (Wilson) and his pal Mater (le Type de Câble) head overseas to compete in the World Grand Prix race. But the road to the championship becomes rocky as Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage. With a character named Mater (presumably a Redneck form of the word “tomato”) in France, we’re only one small step away from a Freedom Fries joke, folks.

This kind of movie is relatively review-proof; that doesn’t mean that several critics won’t take a stab at it, anyway. Speaking for myself: I’ll pass. But, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you that my library-borrowed copy of the first Cars movie is – at this very moment – queued up in my DVD player, ready to roll.

Incendies (2010)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Starring Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette.
In French, Arabic and English.
Rated R.

When notary Lebel sits down with Jeanne and Simon Marwan to read them their mother Nawal’s will, the twins are stunned to receive a pair of envelopes – one for the father they thought was dead and another for a brother they didn’t know existed. In this enigmatic inheritance, Jeanne sees the key to Nawal’s retreat into unexplained silence during the final weeks of her life. She immediately decides to go to the Middle East to dig into a family history of which she knows next to nothing. Simon is unmoved by their mother’s posthumous mind games. However, the love he has for his sister is strong and he soon joins her in combing their ancestral homeland in search for a Nawal who is very different from the mother they knew. With Lebel’s help, the twins piece together the story of the woman who brought them into the world, discovering a tragic fate as well as the courage of an exceptional woman.

Incendies was honored with eight Genie Awards (the Canadian equivalent to the American Oscars), including Best Picture, and was one of five finalists for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. If I see one film in a theatre this week, this will be the one.

The following eight films have been extended for another week:
• Bridesmaids
• The Green Lantern (2D and 3D)
• The Hangover, Part II
• Jumping the Broom
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins
• Super 8
• X-Men: First Class

These three films closed their current run yesterday:
• Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
• Madea’s Big Happy Family (quite possibly the longest-running film to date in this theatre’s short history)
• Thor

The Edge 12 has some ongoing promotions. Tuesdays are no longer just a recurring day of the week there, but have been dubbed “$5.00 Tuesdays”: most films can be seen for just a $5.00 admission ticket. And, on Fridays, The Edge 12 offers free popcorn at all shows.

The Edge 12 Theatre is located at 7001 Crestwood Boulevard. A recording detailing all movie times can be accessed by telephoning (205) 795-3500; a real live human answers the phone at (205) 795-3595. Showtimes can also be found on the MovieTickets website. The theatre has a Facebook page under the name The Edge 12 Birmingham and tweets under the handle @Edge12Bhm.

Information in the capsule summaries above might have been provided, in varying degrees, by IMDb, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and Wikipedia.