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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