This Week in Film

/ / Film News & Trailers

No other film (with the possible exception of Transformers) has left me with a sense of trepidation and dread as this Air Bud-looking live-action remake of the beloved cartoon.  No rhyme nor Shoeshine Boy here, though I must applaud the casting of Peter Dinklage as Simon Barsinister.  Jim Belushi, Alex Neuberger, Brad Garrett, Amy Adams, and Jason Lee as the voice of Underdog also star.  Check out the official site.  We will find out if there is a need to fear when Underdog crash lands in theaters on Friday.  Larger trailer available in the Full Diagnosis.

Underdog
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The Simpsons on the Big Screen

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Simpsons Movie
  • IMDb: link

“Why would you pay to see something you can see for free on TV?”
—Homer Simpson

The Simpsons Movie movie review

If you’ve watched thw show you know the basic formula of it’s 18 years of success: Homer (Dan Castellaneta) screws-up, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) gets into trouble, Lisa (Yeardly Smith) fights for a lost cause, Marge (Julie Kavner) gets angry, and by the end of the episode everything turns out fine.  Not surprisingly the script for this movie version holds true to form.

The main story involves the obsessions of Homer with a new pig and Lisa with cleaning up Lake Springfield.  When these two storylines converge Springfield is put in danger (guess who’s to blame) and the family finds itself hated by their friends and hunted by President Arnold Schwarzenegger and the EPA.

The film is enjoyable and fans will not doubt flock to the theaters to have a chance to see their favorite characters on the big screen.  However one does have to ask why this film was made, and why was it made now while the show is still in production?  In one of the better jokes (though it rips-off Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back read the review) Homer asks the very same question.

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No Need For Reservations

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: No Reservations
  • IMDb: link

“You know better than anyone.
It’s the recipes you create yourself that are the best.”

No Reservations movie review

Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is the head chef at an upscale New York restaurant.  She’s also compulsive, anal, controlling, and a times what could be referred to as a bitch on wheels.  All this changes when her sister dies in a car accident leaving her young daughter Zoe (Abigail Breslin) in Kate’s care.  To make matters worse the owner of the restaurant (Patricia Clarkson) has hired a new chef (Aaron Eckhart) to spice things up and pick-up the slack in the kitchen as Kate deals with her grief and new responsibilities.  You can guess where the story goes from here.  Kate learns to be more open and accepting, Zoe struggles with her mother’s death and new surroundings, and the animosity between Kate and Nick turns into love just as movie romances always seem to do.

No Reservations isn’t a bad film, but it’s so predictable and tame that it more resembles a frozen dinner than cuisine.  If not for the fact of casting three remarkably talented and likable leads the film would be almost completely unwatchable.  Though the star power isn’t enough to turn this turkey into a swan it does enough to make the film at least palatable.

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Worth a Listen

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Talk to Me
  • IMDb: link

Talk to Me

Petey Greene (Don Cheadle) is a con artist and a convict.  Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) works for the local Washington D.C. radio station WOL.  Through a chance meeting as Dewey visits his brother (Mike Epps) in jail a long, and often tumultous, friendship develops between the pair which lands Petey an opportunity as a disk jockey.

Martin Sheen provides a nice supporting performance as the radio station’s manager who is less than thrilled with putting a malcontent ex-con who speaks his mind on the air.  Dewey’s gamble pays off however and Petey provides the voice the station and its listeners have been waiting for.

The film is bursting with great performances.  Aside from the two leads, who will knock your socks off, and the nice turn by Sheen, the film also features Taraji P. Henson as Petey’s girlfriend and Cedric the Entertainer in a humorous and subdued performance as the Nighthawk.  All are terrific.

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Lights Out

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sunshine
  • IMDb: link

“Our sun is dying.  Mankind faces extinction.  Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star.  Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left Earth frozen in a solar winter.  Our payload, a stellar bomb with a mass equalivant to Manhattan Island; our purpose, to create a star within a star.”

sunshine-poster

50 years into the future our sun is dying.  One mission to restart the star has already failed; now the fate of the world and the entire human race rests in the hands of the crew of the Icarus II who will attempt a desperate mission to try and re-ignite the sun using all of the world’s remaining nuclear weapons. It’s an interesting set-up as we begin with the crew already 50,000,000 miles away from Earth when the discovery of the first Icarus spacecraft and a small miscalculation put the lives of the crew, and the entire population of Earth, in jeopardy.

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