BLOCKBUSTER weekend!
Not sure what to see this Labor Day holiday? Read our guide for maximum film fun!
LABOR Day weekend is upon us, and as the recession grinds into its 16th year, who can afford a trip to the Hamptons, a hibachi or even a six-pack of cold ones? Movies remain the cheapest entertainment outside your door, and to accommodate cinemaniacs there are plenty of new releases and long-running flicks in the multiplexes and art houses. But which film to choose? Never fear, The Post’s Labor Day Movie Guide has anticipated your every possible query.
I can’t stand sissy movies. For breakfast, I ate a deer. That I killed myself. With my bare hands. Are there any decent action films for a gal like me?
You’re in luck! A couple of rip-roarers have come along at the end of the season. “The
Expendables 2” features Sly Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis shooting Albania to smithereens while trying to stop a ragged crew of serious villains from delivering a load of nuclear-grade plutonium. Sure, Stallone’s Madame Tussauds statue is a better actor, but Schwarzenegger and Willis seem to be having a good time, and Jean-Claude Van Damme makes an appropriately nasty bad guy.
On a slightly higher IQ plane (and by “slightly” I mean “vastly”) is “The Bourne Legacy,” in which potato-nosed tough guy Jeremy Renner tries to unlock a series of mysteries involving clandestine intelligence programs, lab-engineered super-killers and exactly what Matt Damon had on his schedule that was so much more interesting than this franchise. The action is pounding, the pace is frantic and there are no icky love scenes. By the time the movie ends, you’ll be dying to see it again, mainly to figure out what you just saw.
For a younger crowd, Joseph
Gordon-Levitt plays a bike messenger on the run from a dirty cop in the fast-moving twowheeled chase movie “Premium Rush.” He literally threw himself into the role, buying 31 stitches in the arm after crashing into a taxi during filming. The plot’s ridiculous, but at least it’s got some zippy chases. You can also catch Gordon-Levitt’s big secret in the thrilling epic “The Dark Knight Rises,” still playing in a lot of theaters. If you’ve seen all of Gordon-Levitt’s repertoire, there’s always the less-talented version of him: Shia LaBeouf, who stars as a moon shinin’, bootleggin’ hillbilly takin’ on vicious corrupt lawmen from 1931 Virginia in “Lawless,” which boasts as many bullets as dropped G’s.