Director:Tim Story
Cast: Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon, Ann-Margret, Gisele Bundchen, Henry Simmons, Jennifer Esposito
Release: October 8, 2004
Synopsis: Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon team up in this non-stop action-comedy. Latifah is New York’s fastest cabbie whose skills behind the wheel and souped-up car help an overeager undercover cop (Jimmy Fallon) pursue a gang of female bank robbers.

Prognosis: Negative. Jimmy Fallon. How exactly do you describe his brand of comedy?

From what I can tell, Fallon is seen as a comedic voice for a young, stylishly messed up hair generation, an entertainer for the Hollister-wearing sect who think that Hot Topic is “keeping it real” and are really edgy, and he’s also one of the only comedians who I can tell, by watching Weekend Update on SNL who delighted in laughing at his own jokes. In the trailer for TAXI, oddly enough, he seems to just play things straight. Why no one thought to tell him this technique might have been infinitesimally more effective years ago than giggling like a wanton school girl after everything Tina Fey had to say is beyond me. Here, however, he comes off with a slight sheen of charisma and I actually believe it.

He comes off as inept, meek, and irresponsible, strengths he can really play to his advantage, and when he tries to commandeer a vehicle, in the opening scene of this trailer, to chase down one of the finest looking ladies this side of Brigitte Nielsen who just robbed a bank, the ensuing pile up of cars lets you know precisely what you’re going to get in this film. Although the “alright, I get it” feeling comes over you after the 3rd or 4th car that rams into each other, it isn’t until he steps into Queen Latifah’s cab where all the ire for this film should be aimed at.

“I don’t usually stop for white guys; my way of balancing the universe.”

If you pause for a moment and think about the implications of the above quote you will notice that this marks the 2nd film, right after BRINING DOWN THE HOUSE, which has used poking fun at white people as its comedic thrust inside its trailers. I won’t make a commentary about the right of equal time in the future should someone have the brass ones to do it right back, but the very same vibe that kept me from going to see HOUSE are the same ones that will keep me from even coming close to seeing this one. Odd word choice aside, the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell” is a nice inclusion into the trailer’s background. Latifah’s souped-up taxi, looking like a repainted version of K’s car seen in MEN IN BLACK, is the focus for much of what remains of the trailer after this.

After we get the set-up, there are some moments that are supposed to be funny: Queen puckers her lips to the hot bank robber as they drive next to each other, Queen says she’ll help Jimmy out but “the meter’s running,” Jimmy blows out Queen’s passenger side window with a wayward gunshot only to have Queen yell at him with Fallon jumping back in an inexplicable moment of childish cowardice. To make up for the previous minute and a half of skin pulling, we get something most of the dudes out there can appreciate: bikinis, guns, fast cars, broken glass, and, the ever popular when you have a movie with fast moving vehicles, a jump over an unfinished bridge.

Luc Besson. Does anyone remember when his movies conjured up images of young ladies with pistols? Of Rosanna Arquette in the water with an intimidating Jean Reno as he plunged deep into the ocean? Of finely crafted action movies? Well, I have and he’s actually credited with penning a very early draft of this film. I cannot imagine, and it pains me to try, what kind of hatchet job this movie has been through since it left his hands. I hardly think he had Fallon and Latifah getting into zany misadventures in mind when he put pen to paper.

Director:Pauly Shore
Cast: Jaime Bergman, Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, Fred Durst, Tom Sizemore, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg, Heidi Fleiss, Ellen DeGeneres, Kurt Loder
Release:Summer 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Hollywood comedian/actor Pauly Shore loses everything: his house, nobody in Hollywood wants to represent him, he moves back home with his mom and is now parking cars at the Comedy Store. Then one night when he’s up in his mom’s loft, a dead famous comedian appears who tells Pauly to kill himself cause he’ll go down as a comedic genius who died before his time. Pauly then fakes his own death, and the media goes crazy. Celebrities are talking about him on MTV and girls are fighting over him on Jerry Springer. It’s everything that he wanted…his plan worked. A week or so later the LAPD is tipped off about his whereabouts and they break down the door of the seedy motel room that he’s hiding out in and throw him in LA County’s celebrity wing.

Prognosis: Positive. Is it wrong to admit that there is something funny about this movie?

I believe the statement can be made that I was probably not the only one who helped financially support Pauly Shore’s career in the real late 80’s, early 90’s. I was there for ENCINO MAN, I paid to see SON-IN-LAW, I laughed at IN THE ARMY NOW (which, I am almost therapeutically admitting here, I just bought on DVD), and I even ponied up a couple week’s allowance (back when a CD sale meant you only paid $15.99) for his first comedy CD.

Then 1994 hit.

I don’t know if it was a paradigm shift in my own taste or the taste with the rest of the country but his shtick was simply not funny anymore. I happily lost track of the VHS copies of his movies and all but forgot about my interest in the man. Then, a few years ago, there was resurgence, a blip really, of popularity for the man. I had heard about him wanting to make this film, saw him incessantly on Celebrities Uncensored (a vile vice worse than pounding stacks of Double Stuf Oreos late at night), and developed a little short-term nostalgia for the man. The premise of this flick is great: Pauly appears to off himself as a P.R. stunt to secure a somewhat luxurious place in comedic history as a memorable actor but eventually gets caught trying to do pull it all off.

What’s great about this trailer is that it moves fast. We are shown a man on the downslide of life: his sitcom is cancelled, that Carrot Top moved inside his old house (I believe Carrot Top is the devil incarnate and makes the joke ever so much funnier.), is despondent as he lives inside his mother’s house and gets the idea to kill himself, and that’s where the cameos start.

One thing you’ll notice about the movie, if you investigate it further, is the sheer amount of celebrity that is squeezed into it. Not only do you get View Askew’s own Jason Mewes, but you have enough A-list and B-list starts to choke a chicken with. Chris Rock? Vince Vaughn? The Hilton sisters? The list literally could go on for a few inches, and it does for nearly a foot, as the number of actors who are in this movie are mind-boggling.

I am not sure if the trailer does itself a disservice by not giving more of a glimpse of the star power contained in it. I realize that even though it might be cheating by showing a cameo and it ends up only lasting a few seconds when the movie actually plays but tough crap. I bought enough X-Men books in my day that showed an all out war on the cover only to be stiffed by a weak ass fight near the end of the book. Even though this film is only getting a limited release, the website says the DVD will follow shortly thereafter. Either way, I’ll give this film a chance and take a second look at the Weasel.

Director: Joe Roth
Cast: Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd
Release: November 24, 2004
Synopsis: Based on the John Grisham bestseller of the same name, the film centers on Luther Krank, a man who decides to skip Christmas and all the surrounding trappings and go on a vacation with his wife Nora (Curtis) instead. When his daughter decides at the last minute to come home for the holiday, Krank is forced to put Christmas back together.

Prognosis: Negative. Where do you put a movie like this?

I can tell you, without even having read the script or seeing more than five minutes of contiguous footage, your parents will love this film. They will laugh their proverbial nuts off when the mailman goes sliding on a sheet of ice or when Tim Allen gets a face full of Botox and can’t manage to keep anything in his mouth because he’s virtually numb from the neck up; this is comedic gold, nay, comedy platinum, to Middle America.

Snobbery has nothing to do with the above comments, but a lack of creativity and originality has everything to do with how limp this film looks. Many of us expect more from our films only because we’ve seen it all already and probably, as young’uns, have seen both sides of the funny movie coin. If I took an informal poll I would guess that most here enjoy the more subtle giggles of a movie that doesn’t pander as hard as this film does in its trailer. There is a heavy reliance on physical humor with the jokes and it’s a market already cornered, currently, by Will Ferrell.

The film had an interesting premise: a husband and wife decide to skip celebrating the annual ritual of gift giving, but, as an army of soccer moms and dads bear down on the couple, a latter day suburban junta clad with warriors willing to take down moving vehicles, we have a community that is freakishly willing to fight their neighbors to male them see the error of their ways; they obviously aren’t too concerned with the Goldman’s or Schwartz’s around the corner. That’s the real shame here. A film that could have been done with sinister precision is now your everyday adult comedy brought to you with as much bite as a toothless heroin user.

Taken together, and considering the odd, singular CGI inserts showing the decimation of a Christmas tree and a wrecking ball that takes out a snowman, the only thing really appealing in this trailer is seeing Jamie-Lee Curtis scream her lungs out no less than three times; it reminded me of better days, and better films, like HALLOWEEN. Such is the cost of growing older, I guess.

A movie like this, with a built-in reading audience that gobbles Grisham’s work up with every published novel that debuts, might just be critic-proof in the same way most summer flicks are impenetrable by a reviewers’ stern cautioning. It’s light, whimsical fare, coupled with a holiday centered theme, might turn a tidy profit with the crowds that will flock to this flick in heady anticipation of seeing that mailman take another spill on his ass.

Director: Dagur Kári
Cast:
Release: Fall 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Is he the village idiot or a genius in disguise? 17 year old Noi drifts through life on a remote fjord in the north of Iceland. In winter, the fjord in the north of Iceland is cut off from the outside world, surrounded by ominous mountains and buried under a shroud of snow. Noi dreams of escaping from this white-walled prison with Iris, a city girl who works in a local gas station. But his clumsy attempt at escape spirals out of control and ends in complete failure. Only a natural disaster will shatter Noi’s universe and offer him a window into a better world.

Prognosis: Positive. There are many reasons to escape the mainstream. Many people will say it’s just because some individuals want to appear cool or put on the affectations of someone who needs to be different but, to me, escaping the populist fare of modern American cinema and seeking a flick like this might be enough to simply give someone an appreciation for the talent exuding from other parts of the world.

Yes, this is a film with subtitles. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending if you’re racist, according to The National Foreign Language Center in Washington DC, the percentage of individuals who speak English around the entire globe is roughly only around 20%. What this means to you is that there is 80% of the world’s population who have stories to tell, who don’t speak this language, want to put it on DV or celluloid and this is one that has been graciously subtitled for our pleasure. It’s a story unlike every other that will come out this year and it’s visual appeal would’ve made up for any ambiguity in the plot of which there is none as everything is easily understandable if you’re willing to just look at it.

We have our protagonist, who looks like a darker, more brooding version of Powder, who has to start his day in the cold Nordic town in which he lives. Simply looking at the snowed-in area in which he lives is enough to make you thankful this is summertime and that most of us live closer to the equator than they do, but there is a subtle, genuine beauty in it all. There is also something to be said of the first few bars of music that underlay the imagery; it’s warm and inviting in a way that an unknown song sonically takes you over. After our man gets his rump out of bed, instead of him shoveling the driveway he has to shovel out of his house.

We next get the vibe there is something going on with the boy as he hasn’t really said a word as he uses a rifle to shoot truck sized icicles off a small mountain ridge; it seems very sad in a “tell me more” kind of way. The obligatory “we won!” award mentions, playing right in with the mood of the trailer, is welcome. Lord only knows what kind of an uphill battle this movie has with the market for foreign films not spoken in English being what is here in the States and so it’s nice to see that others have done the work for you and there just may be something there worth the effort to see. This sentiment is confirmed as our young man, Noi, is scrutinized by a shrink who asks how often the young man “flogs the dolphin.” From here we learn the kid wants to be a lawyer, much to the amusement of the man sitting with him in his Jockey’s and wife beater, and then, out of nowhere, we get a lone man on a stage. The man starts to sing a song in English, imagine that, and it’s genuinely effective here as our protagonist gallivants with a brown haired beauty that could pass for a Nordic Kirsten Dunst in low light; the two kiss, have a little fun, and then she breaks a window to get inside a house. It’s all very sweet.

The remainder of this trailer gives us snippets of reviews from American sources in an attempt to give this film, again, a better chance of survival in the open waters of commerce. It’s not that it’s desperate but it’s an admirable thing to see someone trying so hard to get a film noticed. Even based on the remaining clips at the end of this trailer I would gladly pass up WHITE CHICKS or any number of failed attempts at populist pap. The latter does have a warm place in my heart, it does. It’s just when you see something like this that makes you wonder at the possibilities at what 80% of the world is capable of producing.

Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Simon Callow, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver
Release: December 3, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera tells the story of a disfigured musical genius (Gerard Butler) who haunts the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, waging a reign of terror over its occupants. When he falls fatally in love with the lovely Christine (Emmy Rossum), the Phantom devotes himself to creating a new star for the Opera, exerting a strange sense of control over the young soprano as he nurtures her extraordinary talents.

Prognosis: Positive. The man who made sure Hollywood didn’t dump one wooden nickel into a comic book film for years made this film? I’m beyond impressed.

It starts out very dingy. There is clutter everywhere on the screen. Harking back to the 1800’s, where candles and bright colored costumes provided the means by which people were entertained, the film takes place in the Paris Opera House but the trailer gives none of this information. The trailer is as delicate as the ballerina’s feet that warm themselves up in a small wooden box on the floor, next to the stage on which she will perform.

The violin that plays quickly, keeping pace with the back and forth clips from various points in the film, works perfectly with the dark mood that the movie conveys. We get to see the lush fabric the players used in their productions, the conductor in the orchestra pit handing out music for the merry minstrels to play, exotic dancing and formal moments of ballroom waltzing flicker for a moment together in one breath. There are masks, sword fighting in the snow, an ugly chick, spacious rooms where people are gallivanting gleefully, a glimpse at the Phantom, torches (which may mean a hunt for the phantom beast in which case I hope Schumacher decides this could story could use some revising as well with things possibly resulting in a public burning at the stake.), a monkey (which always does a movie a bit of good), some late night boating, and a hoard of other mentally burnable images that just go by too fast to mention.

The music is simply delicious, the cast isn’t pimped out with high-class names, like sellable whores to make the masses come, there is no scroll of any kind (save for the obligatory maker of the film and when it is coming out), and it makes me want to see what kind of film this can be even more. There is room for error, for sure, but Schumacher is still in the hole with me for his successful barfing upon the BATMAN series and the piss poor attempt at making Chris Rock into some kind of action star with BAD COMPANY. He does get some Brownie points towards getting his Good Director patch back with this trailer but if this film is half as good as the clips within it indicate he mustn’t worry about a thing.

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