Director: Jay Russell
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta, Jacinda Barrett, Billy Burke, Kevin Chapman, Morris Chestnut, Scott Cooper, Kevin Daniels, Balthazar Getty, Tim Guinee, Brooke Hamlin, Jay Hernandez, Robert Patrick
Release: October 8, 2004
Synopsis: LADDER 49 is about a firefighter named Jack (Phoenix) who awaits rescue from a burning building. There, he reflects on his career, wife and family. Travolta will play Kennedy, Jack’s captain who is made fire chief. He sees his firehouse, which includes rookie Jack, as a tight-knit family.

To make it feel like this is a real firehouse, with real guys, and not one populated with pansy poseurs, we get a look at the men of Ladder 49. We get a rockin’ A-chord musical intro with the camera panning on the firehouse as Joaquin “There Isn’t a Damn Thing Wrong With My Lip” Phoenix, an obvious scrub new to the crew of veteran firefighters. Joaquin is the newbie that is followed in the first series of clips as he learns his place in fireman society. We get him finding his way through a fire, enduring practical jokes from his fellow firefighters, and we even get a shot of some of the guys singing karaoke (“Fire” no less). The latter brings to mind the movie S.W.A.T. where the crew starts singing the theme song to the old series. I don’t understand the phenomenon. I don’t sing the song about “Being Stuck In A Cube For 10 Hours A Day And Sometimes You Never Get A Lunch” when I’m with my buddies huddled around the EZ-Bake-Oven trying to reheat last night’s spaghetti, but it’s Hollywood so I’ll let it slide and believe in my own special way that guys like this love to sing about their jobs. However, this is when things get a little soft.

There are clips of a tuxedoed Joaquin getting married, more hilarity ensuing as Joaquin gets the ol’ Gatorade over the head trick (those silly firefighters), Joaquin getting hugged by another one of his buddies (can you feel the love so far in this thing?), Joaquin saving the life of someone trapped in a building (he gets some more patting on the back), and we even get a touching moment where his son says he doesn’t want to see his dad get hurt (aww…he says it in his jammies too…). With the ephemeral boys club atmosphere secured with the ever-present hint of danger out of the way we get the real meat of the story. The main set piece seems to be set against a 20 story building that happens to be en fuego and this is when it actually gets interesting.

There are tons, literally, of fire trucks and lights and water gushing out in every direction against the building which looks closer to Arkham Asylum than it does anything else. There’s screaming, great interiors of fire swallowing the place, some verbal male bravado (“I’m not leaving until you leave!”) thrown around, Joaquin gets into danger as the guy the crew has to save, all the while Travolta shows himself to be the fearless leader by telling the rest of the firefighters they’re gonna get him out alive. It would be fine to leave things here and tie it up but we get some unrelated clips of the other players in the film: Robert Patrick (it’s great to see him working), Morris Chestnut, and even Jacinda Barrett. Jacinda who?

Don’t know the name? The woman billed third, above Robert and Morris, was part of MTV’s Real World television series circa 1992. She was the rail thin model who lived in a posh flat in England with that balding race car kid, and the rawkin’ English guy who got his tongue bit off. That’s the one. It wouldn’t be so bad of an omen after seeing how dedicated she was to the craft a decade ago (she was a hardcore model, true, just like the acting powerhouse Ashton Kutcher so I could be wrong), but she’s given a hefty role here in what looks like a fairly pricy flick. I’m not sure what one has to do with the other but I’m curious to know how well she can pull it off.

Director:Joshua Marston
Cast:Catalina Sandino Moreno, Guilied Lopez, Patricia Rae, Orlando Tobon, John Álex Toro, Yenny Paola Vega
Release:July 16, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis:HBO Films and Fine Line Features present the Sundance and Berlin Film Festival award winner, “Maria Full of Grace”. The film tells the story of one young woman’s journey from a small Colombian town to the streets of New York. A bright, spirited 17-year old, Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno) lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia and works stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation. The offer of a lucrative job involving travel – in fact, becoming a drug “mule” – changes the course of her life. Far from the uneventful trip she is promised, Maria is transported into the risky and ruthless world of international drug trafficking. Her mission becomes one of determination and survival and she finally emerges with the grace that will carry her forward into a new life.

Maria is shown sitting in her bedroom, alone, before getting herself together and going out onto the streets where she meets a man who offers her a job. It’s a job that involves “traveling,” where she could be work as a courier.

This is where the movie stops becoming a Saturday Morning Special about girls who get pregnant too early in life and the ways in which their sexuality…not at all. This now is a flick about drugs.

Cut to a thick wad of bills that is put on a table as Maria stares it. There are small white pellets, which contain either heroin or cocaine, look like big vitamins as Maria swallows them. Lest she believe that no harm can come to her, other than the stomach upset that she might face by ingesting globules of tightly packed narcotics, the local drug dealer lets her know that if any of the pellets, “get lost along the way, we’ll talk with your sister, mother, and grandmother.” Nice. The threat of violence is a great way to create a little tension and the trailer does it nicely insofar that even I felt a pang of concern for the very demure seventeen year old girl who now is caught in this world.

As Maria makes her way to the States, via a jet plane, you can tell she’s getting nervous, nearly overwhelmed by either the fear for her safety or concern she has for her family. She disembarks off the plane and immediately we get a cop who asks her for her passport. Before you can say the word busted, the screen goes black.

For my free trailer money, it doesn’t get better than this. I nearly slapped the side of my monitor in protest as I wanted to see what happens to this girl. The usual series of accolades the movie has received so far in the film festival circuit flash on the screen, but it is of no use to tell me. I already want to see the progression of events and to understand what exactly will happen to Maria by the end of this film. Oh yeah, there’s subtitles. If you’re planning on taking the resident illiterate in your life to the movies this should not be on your list.

Director: David R. Ellis
Cast: Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, Jason Statham, Jessica Biel, Noah Emmerich, William H. Macy, Valerie Cruz
Release: September 17, 2004
Synopsis: How do you save someone’s life if you can’t put down the phone? CELLULAR pits a young man in a high-stakes race against time as he searches for a kidnapped stranger whose only connection to him is through a wrong number on his cell phone.

Jason Statham kicks off the trailer by shoving Ms. Basinger into what looks like an attic, and then proceeds to knock the snot out of a wall phone which seems rather out of place for where they are but, hey, I didn’t pull the purse strings on this thing. He tells her that he needs to know something, she blubbers and says she doesn’t know anything, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that he’s got the wrong family, but before we get a good shot of Jason twisting slightly to knock that MILF into last Tuesday with a backhand, we get boobs in a bikini.

Off his high profile roles in NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE and THE PERFECT SCORE, sporting the same hair and facial expressions, we get Chris Evans and his buddy using, whadda know, a cell phone as they are fully engulfed in their moment of sauciness, saying how great it is that phones like this were invented. Cut to Basinger who, unbeknownst to Statham, silly Englishman, seems to know her way around busted telephonic equipment. Through a series of crossed wires and a great knowledge of what’s needed to make a shattered phone work properly (that’s one plumbers crack I wouldn’t look away from should my Caller ID ever need home servicing) she gets a hold of our youthful male hero. Just in case you should not know how a person is able to get a hold of someone by telephone there is a handy graphic presentation that charts the path of an actual call. As he believes it might be a prank, Evans doesn’t believe it at first but gets hip real quick when Kim hides the receiver as Statham enters the room again, hopefully to deliver some justice after enduring a VHS copy of THE REAL MCCOY.

Right about the time you think this is a flick you could walk away from William H. Macy pops on the screen like some cinematic flash of divine intervention. With a ‘stache that could make any male adult film star of the ‘70s be ashamed for their facial prowess Macy is a cop and he suspects, later finds out for sure, ta-da, someone’s been kidnapped. Before he can investigate the crime scene where Kim might have been taken from, a baddie involved with the plot tries to put a cap in the cop’s cranium but Macy is too important to the film’s plot line to be disposed of that easily and easily escapes harm.

On the other side of town Chris now believes Basinger, after listening to a hysterical rant about some thugs going after her son, and heads to a smarmy looking prep school where Kim’s son looks like he’s getting into a car. Before Chris can yell out “heywouldyouwaitaminute” the kid is snatched like a Princess DI Beanie Baby and whisked away to parts unknown. Holmes starts a chase, funniness, by commandeering a Geo Metro or a Ford Festiva, some sort of P.O.S. car, and goes after those who took the kid. He is obviously new to the whole chasing people with a motorized vehicle and so he gives us a very convincing “whoa” as he weaves in and out of traffic. This whole scenario, if you can keep up with it, is topped with Chris seeing his phone flash LOW BATTERY. Isn’t that always the way? Here, seriously, brings us to a point in the trailer where Chris stops his crap car, after being asked by a now very clear thinking Basinger who asks if he happens to have a charger. After Chris finds a .38 special in the car, giving another Joey Lawrence patented “whoa,” he gets out, only to have the thing demolished in a blaze of fiery explosiveness by an unsuspecting Mac truck, runs into a store with said gun and burning wreckage of a car still roasting a few feet away, asks for help in the cell phone store, gets told to wait his turn by two different sales people, holds up his gun and then yells out “who’s gonna sell me that charger” while a now bawling Basinger sits on the other line.

I couldn’t make this crap up even if I tried. I wasn’t sure, and am still not yet convinced, if this movie is supposed to be a comedy. I was blown away by the mere spectacle of it all; not what was on the screen, mind you, but the leaps in logic that were put in front of me like warmed crap on a platter. Most people would refuse to eat it up, but there are those who are hungry for anything

It does look like the very able bodied Statham gets some good screen time as he goes after Chris with a pistol, but I am sure, just like the fight with Jet Li and Mel Gibson in LETHAL WEAPON 4 (Is there no one else who believes that Mel should have been turned into a wet mass of prune? It wasn’t even close to a fair fight.) Statham will be disposed of easily. The end has a very unimaginative “hello” being uttered with the phone-off-the-hook buzz echoing in the background. Is it too much to have Kim not make it in the end?

Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Release: November 5, 2004
Synopsis: Alexander is an epic story that is as daring, bold and ambitious as its subject, a relentless conqueror who by the age of 32 had amassed the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Past and present collide to form the puzzle of the protagonist (Colin Farrell), a tapestry of triumphs and tragedies in which childhood memories and Alexander’s rise to power unfold side by side with the later day expansion of his empire, its gradual decline and ultimate downfall.

Warrior.

The production values are visually present as is the violent nature of the material; kudos as well or the sustained shot of Colin from behind wielding a spear as he rides into combat. There seems to be more of an honesty with the battle sequence provided as nothing feels false or too glamorized.

Lover.

There is a nice look at some of the ladies but I’m really not interested to see Colin get it on if it’s just going to be one long tease with nothing so much as a nip slip. We get the idea he was a voracious womanizer but that has no currency with me if all I’m going to see is the bottom of their ankles as different colored robes slump to the floor.

Seeker

Visually, there is a good visual use of white snow and a red pullover that is keeping our hero warm as he surveys what could possibly be another part of the world be has yet to overtake. There is a lot that Alexander did when he was in charge so it will be interesting if this film shows the wide gamut of exotic locales he battled in.

Conqueror.

We’ve seen the cast of thousands shot in TROY as we have in the other LORD OF THE RINGS movies so it’s nice to see but it’s nothing that inspires any jovialness. This would have meant something in the fifties or sixties if I knew all of those figures were actual people but I’ve just grown jaded in my old age, I guess, as I think whether or not they’re CGI or figurines.

Savior.

There is a tremendously awesome shot at the end of a muddied, crazed looking Colin wielding a ferocious pig sticker as he goes up against a frigging elephant. There is no setup and no reason why he’s going at it but I’m really interested to know what the hell is going on.

The only issue I have with this trailer is of the final shot. It is of a smiling Farrell looking straight into the camera and I swear I started to smile myself as images of Harlequin romance novel model Fabio danced in front of my eyes. Colin has a tough, critical road to hoe if he wants to make friends and influence people (not that he could care in the slightest) but he needs a movie like this to either prove he’s worthy of being in the company of great directors like Stone or if he would be better off slinging random objects at people in a Bullseye spin-off. The boy can act but he needs to establish some credibility. Hopefully this will be it.

Director: Takashi Shimizu
Cast: Megumi Okina, Misa Uehara, Misaki Ito, Yui Ichikawa, Kanji Tsuda
Release: July 23, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis: A volunteer home care worker, Nishina Rika (Megumi Okina), enters the home of a bed-ridden patient and discovers a strange ghostly presence lurking behind a door sealed with duct tape. Her discovery unleashes a horrible evil which baffles police investigators, who find that a whole series of people have gone missing from this particular house. Further investigation leads to Izutni Toyama (Misa Uehara), a former detective who handled the case of a man who murdered his wife in the house, but whose son was never found. But when the angry “Ju-On” spirit of vengeance that has infected the house reaches beyond its boundaries to kill Toyama and his daughter, Rika realizes that the horror is spreading. Worse, unless something is done about it, she feels she may become the angry spirit’s next victim!

If you can ignore him, and I know it will take every ounce of your being, there is some great imagery going on. Regardless of it’s a penultimate rip of THE RING, RINGU, or THE SIXTH SENSE the trailer is a beauty to watch. Apart from some great uses of whites, darks and colors, the vibe this thing puts out is the exact right thing in order to sell itself well to the intended audience.

Starting from the opening, we get some nice and slow shots of our doomed characters. Since no one was wearing a HELLO MY NAME IS… sticker on their best pockets I have no real way to determine who I know will die before the last reel spools to its conclusion. It’s a nice feeling, though. There is a certain discombobulating feeling, not knowing what is going on, as the trailer hits its stride, shots fading in, fading out at just the right speed. Just when you see someone almost bite it a ghastly apparition appears, in the form of powered sugar people (they seem to be glazed with a white, powdery substance not unlike a fresh batch of Entenmanns’s lightly dusted donuts), but, damn, if they aren’t still scary as all hell looking.

I do get that there is one survivor of this all (there’s a shower scene for those interested in knowing) and there is some kid, a la every movie of the RING-like genre, stricken with the need to draw bad refrigerator art. There is a great image that flashes on the screen as one of these white people are behind a small piece of smoky glass. I find the vaguer the initial physical manifestation, presentation, of the scary thing and just letting it linger on the screen to let people get into it, the better. It’s about thrilling, not shocking. This film seems to grasp the latter. Although, and I won’t lie, I do appreciate the former as well so come one come all I say. The quick beat of the final presentation of clips to this thing at the end is a treat as there is enough great “gotta see” moments that it could easily be worth a ticket to see how they all play out.

While I will not suppose myself to be an expert on all things Asian cinema, the nerds who are know who they are, I do know that it behooves the average citizen of this country to check out some of the online stores and auction sites to get into a continent that has been doing scary better even before Gore Verbinski got his talons into the RING franchise. It’s not a bad thing to be a copycat, but be safe in the knowledge that Asians are the ones who have triggered some of the best stuff you already own in your movie library.

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