Attacking the White House, Hollywood style

About three weeks ago, I saw a couple of actors on a talk show, telling about their upcoming movie defending the White House when there is an attack on it, and a wannabe Secret Service agent not assigned to the President gets caught up in the threat.  They seemed to have a good rapport and made the movie look reasonably entertaining.  They had a short clip that looked good, as well. So, when I went to see Olympus Has Fallen last weekend -- as you're recall, about defending the White House when there is an attack on it, and a wannabe Secret Service agent not assigned to the President gets caught up in the threat -- that's what I expected, the movie the two actors had just been promoting a few weeks earlier.  And as I noted the other day, I was only semi-moderately entertained, and felt more assaulted than having fun.

It turns out what I saw being promoted three weeks ago -- it's another movie entirely.  The two actors were Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum.  And the movie was the similarly-titled, White House Down.  As far as I can tell, the plots overlap, as well, it's just that one is outside terrorists, the other (White House Down) is a domestic threat.  I suspect the plots have other difference, but still.

Hey, no wonder I was so disoriented by the movie I saw.  And at least I now have a second chance to enjoy the movie I thought I was going to enjoy.  (More on that in a moment.)

By the way, you may know this.  If so, you're probably laughing yourself silly at me by now...

I really should pay attention to credits more closely, I guess.  But the thing is, when there's a movie I know I want to see, I intentionally don't pay much attention to it.  I don't want to know the plot, I really don't want to know who all the cast is.  If I'm going to go, I want the pleasure of discovery. 

Boy, howdy, did I ever make a discovery last weekend.  The problem is that, although White House Down looks much more entertaining for my taste, with the rapport between the two actors, a less-brutal plot and Roland Emmerich directing -- known for grandiosity, yes, but not assaulting his audiences, more a case of sweep -- I'm not sure if I can sit through another Attack on the White House Movie.  We'll see -- the good news is that it's not scheduled to open until June 28, so I have time to recover. 

In the end, I think that's a large part of why I got flummoxed.  I just figured that a movie being promoted at the beginning of March would be released three weeks later -- not four months!

By the way, did you know that they just brought back The Wizard of Oz in a new, updated print?!  It's odd though -- when I saw it the other week, some of the cast didn't look familiar.  I always thought the main character was the little girl, not the wizard.  Oh, well, I guess that's what happen when you convert a regular movie to 3D.  Things just look different...