Film News & Trailers

We see tons of films and get to discussing them from time to time and often wax nostalgic on films we would rather see made than what we’ve just witnessed.  I’m a big fan of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and the sequel made a decade later Before Sunset.  I’ve wondered why other great romances aren’t given a second look a few years down the line.  The one I’d most like to see would be a sequel to my favorite Cameron Crowe film of all time about a kickboxer and princess…

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1989’s Say Anything… remains one of my favorite films.  The tale of opposites attracting has never been more memorable, more engaging, more fun, or more sweet. 

I enjoyed Linklater reuniting Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy’s characters from Before Sunrise to let us see those same characters years later in Before Sunset (read that review here).  I would love to see Cameron Crowe do the same and reunite the kickboxing Lloyd with the brainy Diane.

What happened to those two young lovebirds when the plane touched down in London?  Are they together or apart?  Let these two reunite and bring all of us along for the ride!  We’ve been smashed from all sides with recent ridiculous and horrific pseudo-romantic-comedies and I for one would like something a little more meaningful.  I’ve been critical of Crowe’s last two films (Vanilla Sky and Elizabethtown) which lack the heart of these characters, but I wish he’d revisit these two and see where they would take us.

So what’s out there this week.  Well today we’ll take a look at the films scheduled to be released this Friday which include Adam Sandler in control of all reality, an ex-con being pulled back into the world of crime, a controversal look at the policies and prisoners of Guatanamo Bay, and a documentary on Leonard Cohen.  All that and more; read on.

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Here’s what’s scheduled to hit theaters this week.  Want to know more, just click on the title for film info including a full cast list.  Want a closer look, just click on the poster to watch the trailer.

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The latest from Adam Sandler “borrows” its plot from such memorable films as Stay Tuned and Clockstoppers.  Sandler plays a workaholic who discovers a universal remote that allows him to control reality by freezing, rewinding, and fastforwarding time.  Along for the ride on this one are Kate Beckinsale (sans rubber suit), David Hasselhoff (sans talking car and swimsuit), Henry Winkler (sans leather jacket), Sean Astin (sans hairy feet), and Chrisopther Walken (crazy as ever).  The film marks a reuniting with Sandler and director Frank Coraci (The Waterboy).

Waist Deep

The latest from director Vondi Curtis-Hall (Glitter, Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story), finds ex-con (Tyrese Gibson – he of Fast and the Furious 2 fame) trying to live a clean life removed from his past but is pulled back in when his son is kidnapped during a carjacking.  Yeah, I think I’ve seen this once or twice before before with the clean living con forced back into the world of crime; not exactly an original premise but what do you expect from the director of Glitter?.  Rounding out the cast this time are Larenz Tate (Crash), Meagan Good (Roll Bounce, Brick), rapper “The Game,” and Darris Love.

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (limited release)

A new documentary by director Lian Lunson (Willie Nelson: Down Home) focuses on the life and music of singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen.  The film is compiled from interviews and performances, mostly from the tribute to Cohen in 2005 at the Sydney Opera House, by Cohen, Bono and the Edge from U2, Anthony Hegarty, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Linda Thompson, Anthony Hagerty, Anna and Kate McGarrigle, Hal Wilner, Nick Cave, Julie Christensen, and more.  The film has recieved mixed reviews as many feel the actual man is barely profiled in what appears to be more a celebration of his work than a true documentary.

The Road to Guantanamo (limited release)

Co-directors Michael Winterbttom (In This World, Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Wonderland) and Mat Whitecross attempt to tell the tale of the Tipton Three – three Islamic friends, all British citizens, who were held in Guantanamo Bay, without ever being charged with a crime, for two years.  The critical look at America’s post 9/11 policies is sure to stir some controversy.  The film has been praised and attacked by groups for its disturbing portrayl of the US military and government’s knowledge and acceptance of these circumstances.  The film stars Riz Ahmed, Farhad Harun, Afran Usman, Shahid Iqbal, and Jason Salkey.

Wassup Rockers (New York)

Hispanic teens blow-off the hip-hop craze in South Central L.A. and grab their skateboards and rock out to pun rock.  Escaping to Beverly Hills they run into trouble with cops and the eccentric elite as they become lost in la-la land and learn important lessons about themselves and the world.  The latest from writer/director Larry Clark (Kids, Bully) was picked as the opening night film for the Slamdance Film Festival.  Like Clark’s other works this stars a collection of unknowns – Jonathan Valasquez, Fransico Pedrasa, Milton Velasquez, Yunior Usualdo Panameno, Luis Rojas-Salagado, Iris Zelaya, ad Ashlye Maldonado.

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So what’s out there this week.  Well today we’ll take a look at the films scheduled to be released this Friday which include a reunion for Speed stars Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, sequels to Garfield and The Fast and the Furious, a collection of independent and foreign films in limited release and (finally!) the wide release of Al Gore’s fascinating documentary on Global Warming – An Inconvenient Truth.  Read on…

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Here’s what’s scheduled to hit theaters this week.  Want to know more, just click on the title for film info including a full cast list.  Want a closer look, just click on the poster to watch the trailer.

An Inconvenient Truth

In this documentary former VP Al Gore asks audiences to take a hard look at Global Warming.  The film focuses on presenting facts and scientific evidence and cautions and calls for the need for serious change in the United States and the world.  It’s been playing in limited release for the past few weeks and has already stirred up some controversy (did you see what happened when it was mentioned on our sister site Transbuddha?).  We’ll take a look at Gore’s new book on Wednesday (of the same name) and have our reviews for the film on Friday.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

The third film in the series; this time without both stars (Vin Diesel, Paul Walker) moves to Tokyo as a hot shot American street racer (Lucas Black) finds himself caught up in the underground world of drift racing.  Diesel wisely left after the first film and Walker passed on the franchise’s third (almost always a sign of bad things to come – see Superman III) to make movies such as Into the Blue and Running Scared.  The director behind the camera this time is Justin Lin (Annapolis).  Also starring in the film are Little Bow Wow, Nikki Griffin, Lynda Boyd, Leonardo Nam, and Zachary Ty Bryan.

The Lake House

Speed co-stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunite for this bizarre love story.  The premise involves two single people staying in a lake house two years apart who can communicate to each other through movie magic and begin to fall in love but attempts to meet in real life always end in failure.  The film is a remake of the 2000 South Korean film Siworae.  If you can wrap your brain around the premise (which just might need to include some alcoholic beverages to do so) then it might be interesting to see how these two work together after so long.  Alejando Argresti (Valentin, Modern Crimes) directs.  Check back Friday for our review.

Nacho Libre

Jack Black plays a priest who dons wrestling attire and enters a luchador tournament in order to win the money to save the orphanage and win the heart of Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera).  The film teams Black up with writer/director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and reunites him with co-writer Mike White (School of Rock).  In what is a rather lackluster summer this one could become a big hit.  I was all hyped-up to see it until I started watching the trailers which bare a striking resemblance to a number of Robin Williams’ early career mis-steps (Popeye, The Survivors).  Check back Friday for our review.

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties

Sequel to the 2004 film returns Brekin Meyer as Jon Arbuckle and Bill Murray as the voice of his lazy lasagna loving feline Garfield.  The plot this time involves Jon and Garfield traveling to the UK and a case of mistaken identity which leaves Garfield ruling his own castle.  Co-stars include Jennifer Love Hewitt, Roger Rees, Lucy Davis, Greg Ellis, Bob Hoskins, Tim Curry, and Billy Connolly as the nefarious Lord Dargis.  Writers from the first film Alec Sockollow and Joel Cohen returned to pen this script and director Tim Hill (Max Keeble’s Big Movie) takes his turn behind the camera.

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (limited release)

Based on the gay comic strip the film follows the life of professional assistant Ethan Green (Daniel Letterle) and his misadventures with his mother (Meredith Baxter) who employs herself as a gay wedding planner, and a jealous ex-lover who schemes to sell Ethan’s house out from under him.  First timers abound here in writer David Vernon and in director George Bamber (who worked as an assistant director on films like Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Hope Floats and Phenomenon).  The film has played in several small, mostly gay, film festivals and the response has been mixed.  Some love it and many hate it.

Wordplay (New York and Los Angeles)

This new documentary by first time director Patrick Creadon focuses on the word of crossword puzzles.  The film has two main subjects: the first is The New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz and long time fans of his work which include Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Ken Burns, and Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina who all appear in the film; the second subject of the film is an examination of the 28th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stanford, CT where people compete in both speed and accuracy to be crowned the crossword champ of the year.  Check back on Friday for our review.

Loverboy (New York and Los Angeles)

Kevin Bacon directs and stars in this film about Emily (Kyra Sedgwick) a possessive single mother determination to raise her young son (Dominic Scott Kay) and to be a better parent than her own (Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon who appear in flashbacks with Bacon’s real life daughter playing the younger Emily) who obviously screwed this girl up pretty bad.  The film also co-stars Matt Dillon, Oliver Platt, Campbell Scott, and Jessica Stone.  This marks only Bacon’s second stint behind the camera and his first for a full length theatrical film.  The film was adapated from the Victoria Redel novel by Hannah Shakespeare (Paperlily).

Cidade Baixa [Lost City] (New York and Los Angeles)

A life long friendship is put to the test when Deco (Lazaro Ramos) and Naldinho (Wagner Moura) steam down the Brazilian coast and decide to pick-up a young prostitute (Alice Braga) who offers sexual favors for a ride down the coast.  The film also stars Jose Dumont, Felipe Ferreira, Leno Sacramento, and Andrea Elia.  The Brazilian film won the Award of Youth for director Sergio Machado (3 Historias da Bahia, Onde a Terra Acaba) in 2005 at the Cannes Film Festival.  The film is presented in Portuguese with English subtitles.

Yeah we knew FF2 was going to get made but Jessica Alba’s interview with MTV makes the sequel sound even worse than the original.  “We’re going to amp up the action, amp up the love interest, amp it all up!”  About her own character Sue Storm Alba added, “I’m the most powerful of the four…I can kind of do everyone else’s powers.”  Scared yet?  Well then how ‘bout what she has say dealing with the plot of the new film which will involve the introduction of my favorite Marvel hero – the Silver Surfer.

The Surfer, created by Jack Kirby, was one of Marvel’s first attempts to add depth and philosophy to comic books in the form of a contemplative, noble, tragic, and poetic hero that Stan Lee fell so in love with for years he would allow no other Marvel writer to create his high minded dialogue which often included the Surfer’s distaste for what humans were doing to their planet and themselves.  So how does the movie version stand-up?  “There’s a little tension between the Silver Surfer and Reed, he’s a little good and a little bad so it’s just a matter of what does Sue Storm bring – the good or the bad – out of that boy.”  Seriously, if Marvel lets a half-wit like Tim Story destroy one of Lee and Kirby’s greatest creations to make a buck at the box office I’m done with the House of Ideas Greed for good.

FF2: Still Craptastic
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So what’s out there this week.  Well today we’ll take a look at the films scheduled to be released this week which includes a remake of The Omen screaming into theaters on Tuesday, and the latest from Robert Altman and Pixar’s newest racing onto the screen this Friday.  All that and more; read on.

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Here’s what’s scheduled to hit theaters this week.  Want to know more, just click on the title for film info including a full cast list.  Want a closer look, just click on the poster to watch the trailer.

The Omen (opens Tuesday)

Remake of the 1976 horror flick about a young child named Damien (Seamus Davey Fitzpatrick) that might just be the devil!  The remake borrows shots and dialogue aplenty from the original (not to mention shots lifted directly from Kubrick’s The Shining).  This one stars Julie Stiles, Marshall Cupp, and Liev Schreiber.  This isn’t director John Moore’s first remake, he gave us the 2004 version of Flight of the Phoenix which looks quite good compared to this one.  The film hits theater on Tuesday (6/06/06 – isn’t that clever!) so check back tomorrow for our review.

Cars

The latest from Pixar is just an amazing and dazzling piece of animation that borrows its heart (and plot) from the Michael J. Fox flick Doc Hollywood.  Owen Wilson voices the young hot shot stock car who finds himself trapped in the small town of Radiator Springs forced to fix the damage he inadvertently caused on his way to the biggest race of his life in California.  There he finds what he’s been missing in the sleepy town where he if forced to slow down.  Other voices include Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Tony Shaloub, George Carlin, and Larry the Cable Guy.  Check back on Friday for our review.

A Prairie Home Companion

Put together Garrison Keillor (who wrote the screenplay) and Robert Altman (who directs) and fill the cast with Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, and John C. Reilly and you’ve got my attention.  The film is a behind the scenes look of the final days of America’s most celebrated radio show broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Despite the great cast listed above the one getting the most hype is Lindsey Lohan (isn’t that one of the signs ushering in the apocalypse?).

The King (limited release)

Gael Garcia Bernal plays a troubled Elvis Sandow who after his discharge from the Navy goes in search of his long lost father (William Hurt) who abandoned him as a child and now lives as a pastor with a new wife (Laura Harring), son (Paul Dano) and daughter (Pell James) in Corups Christi.  Written by James Marsh (who also directs) and Milo Addica (Monster’s Ball); both were labeled as nihilists after the film’s premiere at Cannes and has been attacked as well for the film’s incestuous subplot.