FRED Entertainment

Director: Michael Radford
Cast: Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins
Release: December 29, 2004
Synopsis: In Venice, young Bassanio needs a loan of 3,000 ducats so he can properly woo a wealthy heiress of Venice named Portia. To get the necessary funds, Bassanio approaches his friend Antonio, a merchant. Antonio’s money, unfortunately, is invested in merchant ships that are presently at sea; however, to help Bassanio, Antonio arranges for a short-term loan of the money from Shylock, a Jewish usurer. Shylock has a deep-seated hatred for Antonio because of the insulting treatment that Antonio has shown him in the past. When pressed, Shylock strikes a frightening bargain in wicked humor: the 3,000 ducats must be repaid in three months, or Shylock will exact a pound of flesh from Antonio. The merchant agrees to this, confident in the return of his ships before the appointed date of repayment.

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Prognosis: Positive. When I read Merchant of Venice in college for the first time, freshman year in Karen Keres’ English 102: Your Free Time Is Mine class, I was a bit confused by it. Not by the plot, mind you, but by the language. It takes a while before the ear becomes accustomed to the sounds and lilts in the player’s voice and words. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING was my first Shakespearian film adaptation and that was pretty much all she wrote when it came to decide what I wanted to do with the next four years of my academic life.

There have been absolutely splendid filmic adaptations to Shakespeare’s work. Baz Luhrmann’s envisioning of a modern Romeo and Juliet was a frenetic speed overload that captured the essence of what it meant to be from the wrong side of the tracks. Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET was wonderfully put together and, in my opinion, hasn’t been rivaled since its debut. Now comes this version of Merchant of Venice which looks to take its place in the pantheon of films that high school kids will be renting in order to pass their English classes.

What you notice, immediately, is that this sucker is rated R. Now, I don’t remember a lot of drugs, explicit sex, or swearing so I am a little caught off guard as to why this flick would be given such a rating. Al “hoo-ha” Pacino is Shylock, that Jewish troublemaker who is at the center of so much brouhaha in this story, and it’s not until I see him being spat upon by Jeremy Irons, who plays the part of Antonio, that I feel the flood of plot points come back to me. The location is obviously Venice, but never before has it looked so period specific. Joseph Finnes, breaking out his best Shakespearian wares since wooing many a lady with that SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE flick, is back in wonderful form.

Even though this is a Sony Pictures Classics release there are helpful crib notes displayed to get everyone on the same page about what’s the big deal here.

“To win her love”¦money must be borrowed.”

The trouble in this story, as with everything else in life, all begins with a woman. Ralph wants to get her, needs cash to get the girl, thousands of ducats to be precise, and then things go sour when, as we all should know and say in harmony, the loan that Shylock lends Irons defaults and his buddy is on the hook for repayment. The story has many things going on, to say nothing of the undertone of anti-Semitism, but there are some very relevant things that are brought up that make this play timeless. The issue of law, friendship and romance are not bound by the time in which this film takes place.

When it comes to the rest of this trailer, though, it’s great to see the trial where Pacino is about to take a pound of Irons’ flesh. Irons faints like a little girl and we get a little classic Pacino rage when he says of the flesh he is about to exact, “‘Tis mine!” We see how Portia, played here by Lynn Collins who was last seen in a bit part of 30 GOING ON 30, goes from playing a fairly good-looking woman to a dude in order to get Irons out of legal trouble. I tell ya, it takes a woman to get into a trouble and one to get you out.

The overall look of the selected scenes shows this to a painstakingly time-specific piece and I could take far more of these sitting down in the theater than I could of just one AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE. There is such an attention to costuming here, to the language and there seems to be a real emphasis on really accentuating the most riveting of moments in this play and it all comes across.

What I still can’t figure out, though, is why in hell this movie is getting an R rating. Maybe we’ll be getting a little more than just some male flesh; “˜tis might be a fair maiden’s we might be getting a randy gaze at.

Director: Adam Shankman
Cast: Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham, Brittany Snow, Carol Kane, Brad Garrett
Release: March 5, 2005
Synopsis: Assigned to protect the five out-of-control children of an assassinated scientist working on vital government secrets, Navy SEAL Shane Wolfe (Vin Diesel) is suddenly faced with juggling two outrageously incompatible jobs: fighting the bad guys while keeping house. Replacing his usual arsenal of wetsuits and weapons are diapers and juice boxes, with which Shane must not only must battle a deceptive enemy but wrangle with the five children.

Prognosis: Negative I was watching BOILER ROOM the other day and reminisced about how saturated the movie buzz was when Vin Diesel was heralded as the next “IT” action star. PITCH BLACK was fairly entertaining, I really enjoyed FAST AND THE FURIOUS and then XXX was about to come out; I was amped and then I went to see it opening weekend.

It was like I wanted to run back into a store and demand a refund on the hope I had wasted.

The guy then started to moan about XXX 2 (Thanks for taking up the slack, Ice Cube. If you can go the 90 minutes without making a lame-ass PlayStation joke I might actually watch it) and passed on 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS (Who whoulda thunk that Ludacris and Tyrese, 2 dudes who are 2 cool to have 2nd names, would turn out a not-entirely-crapworthy film?), and then decided that PITCH BLACK 2 would have us quaking in our collective Jockeys only to score a $112 million, give or take, at the box office when production and marketing had cost around $140. Whups on all three accounts.

Now, here’s the new softer side of Vin. That whole action thing was so passé anyway, right?

Vin is introduced as Shane Wolf. Military drums rap-a-tap-tap as decorations reinforce the idea that he’s an ex-Navy SEAL.

He’s tough as nails, dammit, as we’re given his resume as a tough as nails Navy SEAL guy. He’s been in Somalia (apparently wearing nothing but camo pants and a white Hanes-His-Way T-shirt), Serbia (where he’s operated jet ski’s to evade enemy choppers), Bosnia (where he’s choreographed amphibious landings wearing not a wetsuit but a Hanes-His-Way white T-shirt), and now this.

Voiceover guy gets desperately throaty when he says that Shane Wolf is going where his skills mean NOTHING: Suburbia. A pink bike is on its side at the bottom of the steps leading to the front door. Cue the requisite: “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

This where the trailer really starts to confuse me; the music that starts to play is Tone Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina.” While I try to understand why, of all the music I listened to in 8th grade, why this was chosen over Inxs’ “Suicide Blonde” the kid who answers the door lets out a shrilling screech because she obviously has never seen a man look so menacing wearing a Hanes-His-Way T-Shirt.

The eventual gist, I take it, is that he has to protect a family. We’re not told why but we’ll play along.

This is when his tough as nails bit comes in as he comes off all hard and emotionless. He tells the kids that since he has no time to learn their names they’ll be given designations Red 1, Red 2, Red 3 and one Red Baby.

Ah, yes. Red Baby. It’s at this point when the old tried and true gag of a man not knowing how to change a diaper comes in to play. Cindi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” comes chiming in. Are we in a flipping time warp backwards that not one current ditty would have sufficed or could have been cleared by legal?

Oh yeah, and this is good, the movie, we’re told, is being directed by the same man who gave us BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE. I felt vomit at the back of my throat trying to make an escape.

From baby we go to the minivan. Again, apart from the hilariousness of Vin driving a car that has World’s Greatest Mother bumper sticker on the back, the whole problem his ego has with realistically accepting a car for what it is has him cracking wise as he says, “Think of it as a Bradley assault vehicle.” Good one, Vin. I’ve got to catch my breath from the giggles that spilled from my funny bone.

He has problems with acting normal at the park, he can’t tell a bedtime story without relating it to war, but he eventually gets an epiphany to turn his frown upside down and take charge of the family. Yeah, he straps on a baby carrier, loading it up with juice boxes instead of bullets, holstering air freshener instead of a side arm, and becomes the best friend to all the kids in the family.

He gets into some kind of altercation with Brad Garrett, to which Vin treats him like his little bitch, and then we get a couple more gags to fill up the running time.

Bottom line: I saw this movie when it was called Mr. Nanny. I didn’t actually see it, per se, but I did read the back of the box cover while perusing the video store for the latest Van Damme movie back when I was in high school but the plots seem oddly, and disturbingly, similar.

Look, twelve years won’t erase the memory of the man who was the touchstone of my youth, as he was emasculated when Hulk Hogan had to put on that pink tutu and I only hope I’m not around when we see Vin having to play dress-up with the mother’s muumuus, wearing lipstick. How the mighty have fallen.

Director: Jean-Francois Richet
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Bryne, Brian Dennehy, Maria Bello, John Leguizamo, Ja Rule, Drea de Matteo
Release: January 21, 2005
Synopsis: On New Year’s Eve, inside a police station that’s about to be closed for good, officer Jake Roenick (Hawke) must cobble together a force made up cops and criminals to save themselves from a mob looking to looking to kill mobster Marion Bishop (Fishburne).

Prognosis: Positive. Rogue pictures, those masters of marketing who decided to release SEED OF CHUCKY well after the Halloween holiday had passed (Good one, fellas”¦), bring us a tale about a snowy city downtown precinct that is supposed to be closing its doors for good. Voiceover guy really hams that last line up for all its worth. Ethan Hawke, reprises his good cop role from TRAINING DAY, as we see the precinct essentially empty.

The last of the baddies seem to be in transit to a new holding pen but before things end quietly for the boys in blue, ta-da, a school bus filled with “Detroit’s most lethal prisoners” have to make a stopover for the night because there is so much damn snow on the ground.

Ok. First of all, let’s chuck the believability factor out the window because, having lived in Chicago, I know the city can be a bitch when it comes to snow plowing but there’s never been enough, in my short history, that would have made something like this happen. Even disregarding that whole snow thing let’s take a look at Detroit’s “most lethal prisoners.”

First, you have John Leguizamo. The man is like X-MEN’s Toad; completely worthless in a fight. Then you have Lawrence Fishburne. Ok. Him? I’ll believe that he has the vibe of an astute Hannibal Lecter with the kind of clothes he has on. Ja Rule? Hell, no. I will not believe that even a dude like him with as big of a Napoleon complex as he must have is any more dangerous than the guy who stole my lunch money in grade school. For those that have been unfortunate to see his many Cribs appearances can relate I’m sure.

Anyhoo, we’re supposed to get that Lawrence is supposed to be this tough as crap gangster who seems to have cajones of steel. Well, being how he is this big kingpin of Detroit crime he has some people collecting outside the precinct to bust him out of jail. I’m not sure how his thugs knew he was going to be caught up in a snowstorm or that these hoods cobbled together an entry/exit plan in a matter of hours but there you go.

It looks like the bad guys bust in, guns blazing, and try to free Larry. The phones, obviously, are dead and Ethan and Maria Bello (just the kind of gal you need by your side when you know you’ll be one of the last people alive by the end) intend to fight off some cops who, apparently, are the masterminds behind this and I’m a bit off guard. I’ve seen DIE HARD 2 and I’m totally an expert on these kinds of things but I had no idea that these cops weren’t in fact trying to get Lawrence out of jail but to try and put him six feet under for reasons that haven’t yet been explained.

Now, I’m no John Carpenter completest, but I had no idea that we now have a vested interest in keeping Larry alive as he is about to give testimony that will put Gabriel Byrne, one of the po-pos waiting outside to kill ol’ Lar’, and a few other cops behind bars. Brian Dennehy, one of the greats in the business to ever don a cop uniform, is back to his crotchety roots as he disagrees with Ethan’s estimation to arm the criminals in order to get out alive.

From here, bullets start flying and we get a real quiet hip-hop beat bouncing in the background as Ethan gets all bombastic with the thugs he’s trying to lead. The producer of TRAINING DAY is back on the case here and you barely have time to focus on that as flames start exploding, bullets start whizzing and mayhem ensues all around everything. Even with my mild affliction of ADD I couldn’t stay on task in figuring out what in hell was happening. Needless to say, though, I liked the style of it. Who among us couldn’t go for the fictional depiction of bad cops getting capped, the promise of needless violence getting out of hand wantonly, and the hope that Ja Rule dies a horribly slow death? I’m in.

Director: Mark Brian Smith, Tony Montana
Cast: Troy Duffy, Willem Dafoe, Billy Connolly, Jeffrey Baxter
Release: November 10, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: OVERNIGHT begins as the classic Cinderella story when Boston-bred bartender and budding filmmaker Troy Duffy sells his screenplay, “The Boondock Saints,” to Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films. A bidding war gets Duffy much more than a hefty check; it also gets him the right to direct the film plus a deal for his band to produce and perform its soundtrack. Then, in a gesture straight out of a fairy tale, Weinstein offers to buy Duffy the very bar in which he works, turning the young man and his yet-to-be-made movie into overnight sensations.

View Trailer:
* Medium. The movie reel icon is on the front page (Flash)

Prognosis: Positive. I’ve never heard of this guy. I’ve heard of the movie, it being some 2nd rate, low-budget crime flick but I’ve never heard of him. In a documentary about how a man had chance for it all and then let it slip away as he implodes, this has to be good.

The trailer opens up with a really jaunty voiceover that says that the man who this documentary is about went from, “bartender to movie maker, overnight.”

The film festivals this movie has played at are flipped though quickly, which surprises me as being at Sundance is something that should, at the very least, warrant a moment to show that off. However, in lieu of actually seeing what this film has garnered, critically, we rush to get the first sound bite from the filmmaker:

“I hope to conquer the world!”

Just looking at the crazed look in the guy’s eyes who is saying this you know things will blow up wonderfully, and eventually, with everything that he touches.

Quick clips fill the screen with shots of revelry, alcohol and partying as we’re given a little more context about this, so far, nameless lottery winner of sorts. He essentially goes from the bar life to a million dollar contract deal with Miramax Films. The only difference between this guy and Kevin Smith is that Kev already had a movie to pimp and Kev wasn’t a screaming lunatic, as this trailer makes this guy out to be.

The lottery winner lives the high life for a while. No worries. Then, one of the guys involved with the documentary, says, “and then overnight”¦boom.” We’re not told how the bottom fell out for our fearless director but we are, interestingly enough, shown the famous people involved with BOONDOCK SAINTS and the people he hung with while he was still the man. It’s impressive that a first timer had access and was able to persuade some good names to star in his film.

Willem Dafoe, Paul Reubens, Marky Mark, Billy Connolly, Emilio Estevez (although, Emilio really only counts for ½ a celebrity. A full one if you want to count his dalliance with Paula Abdul and his seminal work on MEN AT WORK), Patrick Swayze and Jeff Goldblum were some of the people he kept company with.

Our child prodigy keeps going on and on about how he’s the best there is at what he does and before I start hallucinating, thinking he’s ripping off every issue of Wolverine I’ve ever read, the world starts to crash around him and I’m loving my place in the grand scheme of things.

He starts bitching out someone over at Miramax for not getting enough attention, Dafoe tells the poor schmuck to keep his mouth shut, he’s yelling at anyone who’s in front of him, he’s denied entrance into Miramax proper, and then he descends into a drunken bender that I’m sure not even Dean Martin would’ve approved of.

Overall this is a great way to set up a documentary. The essential nature and aim of a doc should be to simply show events as they transpired while telling a story. The fact, though, that we know how this story begins, gets going, peaks and then descends into a disastrous crescendo is enough to whet any appetite for some good old “sucks to he him” movie going.

Director: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Maggie Cheung, Don McKellar, Nick Nolte, Beatrice Dalle, Laura Smet, Jeanne Balibar, Ian Brown, Tricky
Release: To Be Announced
Synopsis: Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung) is a woman who wrestles with her dream of becoming a singer, her fitness as a mother, and daily life without her partner Lee (James Johnston). Her past is riddled with drugs and regrets, the result of which left Lee dead in a desolate motel room in Hamilton, Ontario, and landed Emily with a six-month jail sentence.

Clean follows Emily to Hamilton, Paris, London and San Francisco and in three languages (English, French and Cantonese), as she battles for a place in a world reluctant to forget the woman she has been and unwilling to accept her as the woman she longs to be.?

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Prognosis: It’s such a pleasure to watch. Man, I dig it when trailer people actually utilize music and not treat it like it’s simply background filler.

Metric, a wonderful contemporary band that mixes synthesizers and pure alt rock with a female vocal lead, gets to play their song “Dead Disco” live while things open up.

Maggie Chung, coming to us Statesiders off her enrapturing performance in HERO and before, hopefully, coming to us later in Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 (a follow-up to his sweet and tender story IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE), is all sorts of punk rock in this trailer. Wearing black leather and donning a frightening fro and a greasy man on her side she enters a nightclub where, as the trailer would have you believe, Metric is rocking the crowd.

Outside, twenties are counted like singles as Maggie scores teeny-tiny Ziploc bags of white powder. Smack, Horse, Crank, Cocaine, Black Tar, whatever you want to call it, all makes its way back to the fleabag motel she’s staying in with her sleaze of a companion.

The rock continues to rock the kids as Maggie lights up a cigarette, as her nameless man tries to tell her something, he pisses her off, and she takes the car to someplace dark and quiet to light up another cigarette.

She eventually goes back to her hotel room to find the po-po’s there. The door to her room is open and she tries to see what’s happened, we find out, to her husband. The cops find a body and drugs. She’s arrested.

A graphic on the screen lets us know this flick got some play at Cannes this year.

The rock stops and is replaced by a soothing monotone. Maggie is in the back seat of a cop car, crying. She’s shown in prison, sitting. She eventually gets out and walks alone on the side of a busy suburban street in the middle of the day.

She ships out to a different country to get a clean start. She starts waitressing. Nick Nolte enters her life. Although we’re not really told what he’s supposed to be doing it appears he acting in a sympathetic capacity.

Maggie cries again. Is she lonely? Desperate for the drug life she left behind? It’s ambiguous but it’s enough to see that she’s a woman who feels something crushing down on her.

I am a big fan of what Chung has done with her body of work and I like it when Nolte plays people with a muted restraint as it appears he is in this movie. I love the way things are put together here and it’s enough for me to seek this one out if and when it ever surfaces here in the States.

Too often art is too arty for its own sake but this seems like a good story about a fractured soul and one can only hope it’s as good as it appears.

Director: Dan Harris
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Emile Hirsch, Jeff Daniels, Michelle Williams, Kip Pardue
Release: February 11, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: The Travis family façade is destroyed by an event incomprehensible to them — an event which will open locked doors and finally reveal the secrets that have haunted them for decades.

Prognosis: Hell Yeah. Sandy Travis. Sigourney Weaver plays another mom on the verge, one of her best performances that came in the form of THE ICE STORM, as she’s introduced trying to buy rolling papers to buy a little weed from the local Quick Stop.

Emile Hersh, fresh off the better than expected THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, plays a son who gets into a car crash and is laid up for a bit in the hospital. The kid even cracks a little wise with some other hospital patients by telling them it’s an old war injury. “Which one?” they ask. “Vietnam,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Ben Travis. Jeff Daniels, a superb everyman, plays the dad. He tries to connect with his son by letting him know if he needs any cash to see that new band whatisname, Nirvana, to let him know. The family laughs at him and I feel his wimpish pain.

Penny Travis. Michelle Williams, the daughter of Ben and Sandy. She’s less than thrilled to be home for the holidays.

I love dysfunctional families.

Let me interject here and say why this is a good trailer thus far:

1) No voiceover.
2) No explanation about what’s going on.

Sigourney gets busted by the po-pos. Her drug habit is less than under control and the cops let her know that while she sits in the back of a squad car. The whole family seems to be in free fall and it’s not until we get back to Emile when the gloves come off and the knuckles start connecting: he lets his dad know he’s a pretty horrible father. Jeff Daniels concedes the argument to his son while, in the next scene, he’s asking his wife what she thinks about cosmetic surgery as he plays with her face. Note to men everywhere: wait “˜till she comes to you, dude. You are begging for her to jump in the sack with the cashier from Ralph’s when you do this. Sigourney obviously doesn’t need my help because she does this very thing in the next scene.

Emile expresses some discontentment about living with the family he’s saddled with, but there is something funny that happens. Emile seems to be picked on by a large bully at school to which Sigourney responds by traipsing over to the trailer park where the bully lives with his mother (the obvious location for most all bullies in this world) and unleashes some real motherly love and venom at the kid that is to be seen to be believed.

The last section of this trailer is snippets of all the main characters wallowing in their own despondency. What I really like, first of all, is the use of the Postal Service’s “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight,” excellent trailer song choice, and, second, that the use of color and transition works well throughout. There is a seamlessness to the snippets shown and it never feels jarring. The ending to this thing, as well, is bittersweet as Jeff Daniels tries to have a moment with his wife.

He tells her he loves her. They’re sitting outside and it’s a nice day. Signourney looks back and him and simply says, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Disfunction always makes for a great story. Always.

Director: Rob Zombie
Cast: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Matthew McGrorey, William Forsythe, Leslie Easterbrook, Danny Trejo, Natasha Lyonne, Ken Foree
Release: August 12, 2005
Synopsis: After killing Sheriff Wydell, the Firefly family is caught in the path of a vengeful cop (Sheriff Wydell’s brother). The police raid the family and Baby, Otis, Captain Spaulding and the rest head out. Rumor is that a prostitute named Candy falls for Otis. Get ready for a nation-wide killing spree!

Prognosis: WTF??? The trailer opens up with a news guy reporting on a horrific scene discovered by cops. Right away you know there’s gonna be some violence but what’s odd is that the footage is immediately faded out to show some blonde honey cavorting and mincing around for the camera and it’s none other than Sheri Moon Zombie (Rob’s wife). She plays Baby Firefly, one of the three titular Rejects on the run after the 1st movie “House Of 1000 Corpses.” (Big ups to Sean B. for the reader assist on that)

William Forsythe shows up on the screen acting all tougher than leather and I am whisked back to his seminal role as Frank Whaley’s boss in CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, the man who was about to “pump the pasties” off of some piece of white trash. After him we get the freaks from the first HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES.

“You wanna start the killin’ you best start it right here.”

Most noticeably we get Sid Haig, one of the most menacing looking dudes ever to get parts in both A and B movies, appearing all sorts of twisted with his yellow and black teeth. The man seems genuinely born for this role.

Some po-po’s, wearing gas masks and brandishing shotguns, knock down a door and enter a small room that looks like a run-down old shack. Sid, Ginger and a stand-in reject from Hee-Haw strut down a vacant highway in the middle of the day carrying firearms. While this is a wet dream for all you 2nd amendment nuts, the shotguns the police were holding up go off and then we are jerked, rather abruptly, to some waitress screaming at the top of her lungs. Why? I don’t know and we’re not shown. This trailer is knocking me around like a Tilt-A-Whirl.

From here there are all sorts of quick clips of images so random I’m not sure what the hell I’m looking at. There are no cards to intersperse the action, no voiceover to guide the plot and there isn’t a shred of dialogue to move things along. There are guns going off, people are screaming left and right, explosions pop on the screen, glass shatters everywhere and we even get a quick look at my hero of ugly Latin character actors, Danny Trejo. To the untrained eye, this could very well be a piece of crap well worth avoiding.

I’m completely sold on it though, believe it or not.

“A tale of murder, madness and revenge.”

The above scroll finally starts to roll across the screen as the camera quickly follows an empty highway at mid-day. There are garbled voices in the background as the music builds up to a fever pitch and the screen goes black. Rob Zombie is the only one credited with making the film but that’s fine. The man has shown he has the ability to craft something that will someday run on your local station as their midnight movie of the week.

This trailer is short, completely cheesy in every sense of the word, and I think everyone knows that. It would be easy to just expect minimal things from a film like this but that, I believe, would be a mistake. Rob has championed his own ability to create a film like no other person can do, or willing, to produce nowadays.

Director: Robert Luketic
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan, Wanda Sykes, Monet Mazur
Release: July 29, 2005
Synopsis: A woman’s (Lopez) idyllic engagement is thrown into doubt after she meets her beau’s horrifying mother-in-law (Fonda).

Prognosis: Negative. “This Mother’s Day”

This is not any movie that any man wants to be subjected to for any length of time. I write this trailer review to let you know what will happen should you not get to the remote fast enough to turn this crap off if you see this thing on the television.

In this trailer, Michael Vartan, best known for getting dropped like 3rd period French (One of my favorite lines from OCEAN’S ELEVEN, sorry”¦) by Jennifer Garner, is taking J. Lo to his mother’s house to let the two of them get to know one another. She’s playing with her hair, telling Michael she’s nervous, acting completely irrational, and he lets it fly: Don’t be nervous. She’s gonna love you.

Have we learned nothing by behavior conditioning? Of course she’s going hate her. This wouldn’t be a movie if the two of them got along, but we are supposed to play along like the dumb sheep some women are when it comes to these ridiculous set-ups and so I do. I can’t help it but the violins in the background, the massive compound where his mother lives, the opulence that is everywhere, just feeds into this idea and chicks seeing this trailer are, by this time, just in awe at the lush landscape of her man’s life. I can see the gold-digger in her eye from here.

Jane Fonda, who has taken an extended fifteen year break from the silver screen and thought, “Yeah, I’ll make a statement and make a crap film to herald my triumphant return to the talkies,” takes on the role of a judgmental mother. Michael introduces J. Lo to her. Jane puts her hands on her hips, looking really great for a woman of her age to be completely honest, and eyes up Lo in a way that makes me feel weirded for a moment as I reflect on Oedipus. Before I start thinking Fonda’s gone back to her BARBARELLA days, the action breaks for a card that lets us know that the wag who directed LEGALLY BLONDE is to blame for this. As I conjure up all I had to endure for resisting to see that movie and eventually being harangued by my insistence, months prior, the wife see THE PROFESSIONAL with me on DVD as a great example of what an action movie can really be, we’re back to J. Lo and Fonda and I know I’m doomed. The two of them cavort and giggle with each other. At one point they even give each other high-fives. (I didn’t know people still did that)

Anyhow, the party is all sorts of busted when J. Lo says she’s so happy that Fonda’s going to be her mother-in-law. The music warbles to a halt; again, I don’t know who I need a draft a memo to but cut that crap out. The whole needle thing, slowing down the music, it just screams first-year film student who needs to give it up if that’s the game they’re bringing. So, after the bomb is dropped Jane starts to scream as she pummels her sofa. Repeatedly. And repeatedly. This obviously isn’t done in front of J-Lo but maybe it should have been. It would’ve added a certain something.

Fonda and J. Lo are then shown hugging on a couch and then the most wonderful thing happens: Lo gets her face slammed into a cake repeatedly. And repeatedly. It’s absolutely delightful.

It is every man’s duty to be aware that this movie is on the horizon and I do hope you treat it like the Hantavirus. If you’re not familiar with the exact origins of this disease, I suggest you look it up; it’ll all seem perfectly clear.

Director: John Lasseter
Cast: Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Richard Petty, John Ratzenberger, Owen Wilson
Release: November 4, 2005
Synopsis: A collection of classic automobiles set out for adventure on Route 66.

Prognosis: Negative. There’s this old cartoon that ran way before my age, but it was when I was a wee lad that I stumbled upon it. The cartoon ran in-between episodes of Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy (Willy doesn’t get enough love, in my opinion) and the premise was that cars talked and mostly acted like regular people. The wife car, though I still have no idea how the deed was actually done, gives birth to a little P.O.S. that eventually learns he is a P.O.S. and tries to change things by experimenting on himself. (I know, I swear this is G rated “˜toon) The young car comes to grips with who he is and fights his father’s insistence on being a regular car even after we see the kid get a spanking and we see that it has a human ass (what the hell was that all about?), and it eventually makes peace with his dad after a near death collision.

Why do I bring this up? Because this new feature from Pixar seems like the same story, just brought up to speed with the times with a little NASCAR tossed in for some hillbilly goodness.

The trailer opens up with a little bumblebee pollinating the flowers of a country meadow. The music is very soft and precious. The bee goes in one flower and buzzes off to another while we’re told, just like the trailer for the INCREDIBLES, that these are the same people who brought us TOY STORY, A BUG’S LIFE, and while we’re waiting for what else this studio has delivered the bee gets squashed onto the windshield of a redneck tow truck. The truck swerves, yelling how he’s blind, the bee caught in his big eyes, and I am reminded of that cartoon from yesteryear. I appreciate the dig at Southern culture as they make the tow truck bucktoothed, but up comes Owen Wilson, voice talent for the sleek looking NASCAR vehicle, trying to tell the truck to grow up before getting a mouthful of bees himself. I’m sure the kids will find it amusing but I didn’t feel anything one way or the other.

Cut quickly to a Green Day song as we’re treated to a big eyed NASCAR race. The sounds of speeding cars whipping around a track fills the sound field, other vehicles attend to the ones in the pits, and we even get a little shimmer off the asphalt to create a heat illusion with the rest of the pack. Owen’s car gets slammed from the side, by the bad car I’m assuming, and he eventually wins the race.

The camera pulls back to see that Owen and his backwoods friend are just at a drive-in watching the trailer to a film called CARS. The bumpkin has some funny thing to say about how he will do anything to see that movie before the trailer comes to a speedy conclusion and we’re left thinking exactly what, then, is the movie about? It’s too late to know as the November 2005 comes on the screen. In all, though, I wasn’t that impressed by this trailer, unlike the ones for last year’s INCREDIBLES which ran with FINDING NEMO, only because I’ve already seen this movie so many years ago, albeit in a two-dimensional way.

Director: Rob Bowman
Cast: Jennifer Garner, Terence Stamp, Goran Visnjic
Release: January 14, 2005
Synopsis: Kirigi and The Order of the Hand send Elektra on a mission to kill the widower Mark Miller — a man who must pay for an act committed by his grandfather years earlier. Upon being introduced to Miller by his young daughter Abby, however, Elektra aligns herself with him and defends them both from Kirigi’s ninja assassins. But is there more to the Millers than meets the eye?

Prognosis: It makes me all tingly down there. I have a girlfriend who is obsessed with Jennifer Garner. Strike that. The chick is dangerously close to being one of those people you see on Inside Edition with their hair all mussed and their clothes all wrinkled to crap after trying to scale the gates to the stars’ home only to be met by big and burly security people and they do a sit down interview after they’re let out on bail and then, quite politely, say that they’re married or something to that effect to the object of their insanity but the star just doesn’t know it yet. Yeah, she’s about one more season away of buying ALIAS on DVD before Jennifer should start worrying.

I don’t know why but the scrolling Marvel logo gets me every time. I like it because, even before you know what’s gonna be on the screen, you already know that it’s going to be a comic book flick. Yeah, PUNISHER wasn’t all that punishing but it’s a solid calling card and it deserves some credit for the kind branding the marketing team has done with it.

There is nothing teasing about this trailer as it gets right into things with the appearance of an SBD villain that goes by the name of Typhoid Mary. She walks through a forest, radiating a deadly circle around her, possibly fueled by a few glasses of sour milk and a half-dozen crispy/crunchy Taco Bell gorditas but the cleavage helps to see past what could be the source of her evilness.

The next shot I’m look at I think is Jennifer, wielding some swords as she twirls them around her body, and I’m thinking about how hot that is but then, as the camera comes in closer, I realize it’s a dude.

I quickly go back to Typhoid Mary’s part again and stare at some cleavage before proceeding further.

After I get the sword wielding guy, there is someone else I clearly identify as a male who has a wolf literally materializing from his chest. I am completely in this trailer’s palm when I see the Hand start traipsing around the large manse that I believe is Elektra’s base of operations. Not only do I get black hooded ninjas, I get white hooded ones as well. Before I am able to praise all that was holy about Michael Dudikoff’s AMERICAN NINJA series, Jennifer’s bodice is smashingly revealed like that woman from the Hot for Teacher video as she gets up on that table to dance. All that’s missing is the kicking beat, but, alas, there is none.

We get real quick scenes of her kicking some air ass as she twirls around her sais but I notice there is a little girl involved. There’s a kid who seems to be part of Elektra’s life in this movie and I rush to my nerd encyclopedia (back issues of the series, natch) and I cannot find a single flipping issue where Elektra has a sidekick that young. Somehow I think that Goran Visnjic has something to do with the kid being there, but I can’t say for sure as I reel in horror as this movie’s plot is revealed to me by voiceover guy.

“One generation must protect the next.”

So this is going to be a damn kidnapping flick? As I come to terms with this being a buddy movie on the level of a Sidekicks TV special (I loved that show) one of the stills that comes up between the fight scenes says that this movie is being brought to us by the forces that gave us X-MEN. I’m calling shenanigans on that remark. Yeah, Zak Penn helped to write X2 but it was really the synergy between Singer and David Hayter that were the real forces that brought us the X flicks, chumps. That kid thing still irks me, though, as we head into the final moments of the trailer.

That little bending of the truth in the previous statement is quickly overlooked by some great looking effects as the man who I thought was a woman who ended up being a guy appears again only to turn into a fine mist as Garner tries to slice him in half and as the guy who had a wolf appearing from his chest has dozens of snakes materializing from his midsection. Plus, this trailer gets kudos from me for the near lesbian kiss between Garner and Mary and for including a crapload of martial arts. Evidenced by the latter MATRIX movies kung-fu does not a film make but seeing how this film is slated for release on January 14, when the collective movie scene is ensconced in movies pretentiously preening for an Oscar nod, a little Garner in a skimpy red top whipping around sharp blades seems like a good reason to at least keep a watchful eye on this one.

And Aime, seriously, get some help.

Director: Joel Zwick
Cast: Kenan Thompson, Shedrack Anderson III, Aaron Frazier, Omarion, Marques Houston
Release: December 25, 2004
Synopsis: Bill Cosby’s character, “Fat Albert,” comes to the big screen as a live action/animated feature film. The movie is based on Cosby’s stand-up comedy monologues about his childhood, centered around a group of urban adolescents growing up in a Philadelphia neighborhood.

Prognosis: Negative. No, little Bobby, that sound you hear is not the clickity-clack of a train but of the sound of my own childhood ready to jump the tracks.

“Staying Alive” by the Bee-Gees plays in the background. A vicious red sweater and too blue of a pair of pants starts jostling up and down. Voiceover man tries to tell me, trying to be all coy and crap, that Fat Albert was a “hero” who “walked the walk” and “talked the talk.” Before the hideous sight of Keenen as Fat Albert, saying Fat’s signature line and scaring the holy hell out of me in a moment of disbelief about what I’m seeing, comes lunging at me I am at a loss at how heroic a cartoon can be. I try to compare Fat’s actions to the Looney Tunes Weasel, who tried as hard as his little rodent will would allow him in trying to get a hold of a delicious chicken only to be thwarted by Foghorn Leghorn every time, but I don’t see it even coming close. The Looney Tunes Weasel wins hands down.

By looking at the trailer it appears to be that Fat jumps out of the TV and into real life by landing in the middle of someone’s family room. He shocks a woman out of her gourd before cutting to a scene where she teaches the rest of Fat’s crew about how to operate a can of soda. While I found most of what this trailer has to offer some filmmakers idea of a joke, the soda bit is actually the best part of this thing.

After we get the gang acclimated to 2004, where one of them mentions that malls look like indoor cities, even though Woodfield Mall, one of the largest in the country, in Illinois was open at the time that he was “supposedly” around. Fat then has someone trying to take his red sweater off only to have Fat protest and whisper he doesn’t know what’s underneath it. Ha-Ha, my good man. Good one.

We get Jeff Garlin, obviously needing a little extra something in his pocket for the holidays, asking the gang if they’re yanking his chain over some remark, that we don’t get to hear, but no one understands his idiomatic expression because it originated in a time they’re not familiar with. Again, awful.

We get the ubiquitous stomach slap as Fat projects a skinny man backward when he high-fives with his tummy, Fat raps, Fat finds true love, they all try to get back to the cartoon world by trying to fling themselves at the picture tube, no-face-hat-wearing Donald is teased about his chapeau (a joke already made funny years ago on a Newsradio episode), Fat finds he can skateboard real well by accident and he even manages to get his fingers slammed in a window. Bill Cosby makes a cameo appearance in this but it’s really all for naught. Awful and shameful and all sorts of ““fuls.

If you need to punish your ten-year-old, take him to see this.

Director: Jonathan Caouette
Cast: Jonathan Caouette, Michael Cox, Adolph Davis, Rosemary Davis, Renee Leblanc, David Sanin Paz
Release: October 8, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette’s documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother — a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more — culled from 19 years of his life.

Prognosis: Positive. I’m usually against the use of cards to pimp a film. They’re intrusive at times, annoying at others, obnoxious and they can sometimes destroy the groove of a trailer. The way they’re used for this film, however, adds a certain richness to the trailer that is at the same time satisfying and intriguing.

We’re told everything we need to know by the cards in-between scenes of this film.

“It was 20 years in the making.”

Lovely powdery blue skies fill the screen.

“It was filmed against impossible odds.”

There’s a soothing guitar medley play as I wonder, “Well, if it was impossible, how did the guy do it?” Sorry, it’s just a reaction.

Our filmmaker is hugging someone in black and white.

“It’s unlike any movie you’ve seen before.”

Really, it is. The picture starts to turn into kinetic artwork as our director goes from a baby picture, to one of him as a young man, and lets us see his evolution as a person.

A quote from LA Weekly chimes in with his own opinion about why this is such a great film.

Our director makes a call concerning about his mother. He wonders if she is still not talking.

Another quote, this time from a guy over at Newsweek.

Frames of a woman who may be our director’s mother flicker for a moment before they are replaced of those of him, smiling.

We get a quote from the Los Angeles Times.

More home movie footage, inexplicably random, appears before a quote by Roger Ebert who extols praise on this man’s effort. This is about the time when things get a little weird. Quick shots of unrelated images are shown with the kind of rapidity like an overworked Cuisinart before things settle on this man’s mother. He asks her what she thought of her first moments at a psychiatric hospital. Our director pleads with her to talk about it before she turns tail and walks away.

Executive producers are Gus Van Sant and James Cameron Mitchell. I feel safe with these names. I usually don’t with any name that comes up for executive producers but I do with these. Some of the best avant-garde cinema, if I can use that word without sounding too snobbish, has trickled from their respective efforts.

Various front shots of our director fill some of the time; we see him going from young lad to young adult.

This film was a winner of the Los Angeles Film Festival and was also an official selection at, well, everywhere, judging by the list.

One of the last contiguous clips comes from someone the director knows who accuses him of trying to, “scheme something on me.” Some protestations to the contrary go nowhere with the old coot.

“Your greatest creation is the life you lead.”

Some real odd music plays, although I quite enjoyed it, but the amounts of clips and examples of what this film is about was enough to convince me that this could the most affective movie that’s getting a limited release this year.

Director: Kevin Kerwin
Cast: Andrew Benator, Claire Winters, Matthew Lawler, Dave T. Koenig, Finnerty Steeves, Wendy Herlich, Leonard H. Robinson, Katherine Markey, Jacqueline Sydney
Release: TBD, for wide release, and hopefully soon to a film festival near you.
Synopsis: An inside look at one of the nation’s top film programs – UNY Film School. The blood, sweat and tears of student filmmaking – all leading up to the awarding of UNY’s coveted Filmic Achievement Award – given to the best filmmaker in each graduating class.

Prognosis: Positive. The opening starts just like an informational video for a film school.

There’s an establishing shot of the school and that’s where we hear an interviewed voice telling us about the top faculty, a shot showing a barefooted hippie-type, sitting Indian-style on a conference table which is worth a few laughs, and a teacher showing students how to make sure your thumb and index finger are properly positioned so you can get an idea of perspective. Everyone in the room follows his lead. Buck Felty, a spokesperson and dean for UNY Film School, looks like a younger, well-rested Bill Murray type. He’s quiet but his voice is soothing as he says to his interviewer that the hungry kids he deals with who have “a big, gaping hole” in them and that they’re the ones who are ready to fill it. You can do nothing more than believe him.

From the get-go you see that this movie is going to play it straight and go for the laughs that way. It’s daring but as this trailer reveals more and more you can’t help but be amused by its sublimity.

Since this movie is a mocumentary of those in a six month film school program you can only begin to start thinking of those who would populate a quick and dirty institution like this. One of the other people interviewed, a woman who states that she won second place at the Brooklyn Transgender Shorts Festival with her first piece, is absolutely endearing as she sells her abilities in front of the camera. She embodies, as does the other participants in this film, certain stereotypes of those looking to make it in the film industry. The only problem that one should have with poking fun at the very same art form the legitimate filmmakers are trying to do here is if it felt false or wasn’t able to sell itself on its premise. Some might sense something too raw about their own experience and put the film down out of spite, but it works.

It sells the idea and it’s funny to see these filmmakers with enough tunnel vision to warrant a kick in the head with a steel boot in order to snap them out of their candy coated dream world. Before that happens, though, we get Delvo Christian. He is the kind of guy who, if you had to work for him on a film set, violence might ensue against him. Too serious to be taken seriously and too arty for everyone else, the man embodies a belief in all things obtuse and melodramatic but thinks he’s being poetic. Mike Pack, the Kevin James look-alike, seems like the real comedic relief here who believes that after six months he’ll be ready to film a movie. The level of myopia present in all these people is amusing itself. This six month program, as well, has a competition to see who will win an illustrious film prize for best film.

A musical interlude starts to show the various productions as they are put together.

A title card puts up the words “12 students” in small white letters; it’s at once unassuming and completely helpful in gaining more information. We have people talking about what their aims are as filmmakers as we get more from Delvo and his assumption that he deserves to win the Filmic Achievement Award simply because of who he is. Some bits play from one group’s film and we essentially fade, as does the music, away into the background.

Comedy is one of the hardest genres to be successful in, but this film looks good enough to warrant a screening to see if the trailer was the best thing about this film. From the outside looking in, though, it appears that it could deliver.

Director: Gurinder Chadha
Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Daniel Gillies, Naveen Andrews, Namrata Shirodkar
Release: December 24, 2004 (New York, LA)
Synopsis: A Bollywood update of Jane Austen’s classic tale, where Mrs. Bennet is eager to find suitable husbands for her five unmarried daughters. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, the Bennets have high hopes, though circumstance and boorish opinions threaten to get in the way of romance.

Prognosis: Positive. Alright, it’s been a little while since I’ve put something here worthy to take your ladies out and see.

I was a big fan of MONSOON WEDDING and I am not ashamed to extol the delight I’ve found in BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, so it is with great joy that Gurinder Chadha has taken a Jane Austin classic (I give respect for all the English majors in the house who had to get through this) and has really given it a Bollywood treatment.

Things begin with a flourish of drums and bright saris as people twirl and choreograph themselves around each other. Voiceover guy ruins the fun by giving us a Casey Kasem “From the director of”¦” It’s not really that hard, however, to completely ignore what the man is saying in order to pay attention to the action on the screen; nor is that hard to ignore the sound of the man’s voice as you gaze on the new hotness of Aishwarya Rai. Yeow.

We get more dancing, flames, color and excitement as voiceover man intrudes once more to tell us that our Indian heroine, Aishwarya, is about to have an arranged marriage but that she has a mind of her own about who she is going to marry. Her mother, though, has other plans and makes mention for the lovely lady to smile in front of potential suitors and not to say anything too intelligent; patriarchal, misogynistic customs have never been funnier, in my own opinion, than they are here. Of the possible men she is able to get hitched with is John Jameson from SPIDER-MAN 2, with her last choice being a rich, bumbling American idiot (why are we always the rubes in international films?), Martin Henderson, who is, according to our protagonist, “conceited and arrogant.” We then are given her mother’s choice. This is probably my favorite because he exudes so much sleaze and who giggles like Yakov Smirnoff. I’m a sucker for it every time and because we are given a shot of him eating with his hands in a such a piggish manner and a snippet of him trying to seduce Aishwarya in a black wife beater, clad in his garish gold chains, the guy gets my vote.

From here we get a music interlude where there is dancing in the rain, more dancing by a cast of thousands, loads of confetti, and pimped out elephants. It does not help that the voiceover tells us this is a movie where Bollywood meets Hollywood, but since this is going for the female dollar and not really mine it’s acceptable here. We do get a great line from Henderson who mentions what he thinks of Indian dancing:

“It looks like you just screw in a light bulb in with one hand and pet the dog with the other.”

You’ve got to love that cultural insensitivity masked behind a veil of complete ignorance as Leo Sayer’s “Feel Like Dancing” gets pounded into your ears. I love crap like this.

Director: George Lucas
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz, Ian McDiarmid, Jimmy Smits, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew
Release: May 19, 2005
Synopsis: As the Clone War continues, Anakin Skywalker finds himself dangerously close to the Dark Side of the Force and comes into conflict with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Prognosis: Cautious. Seeing how most of the rank and file in Nerdom (myself included) have already seen this, let’s see if we all can’t pick this thing apart and try to prestidigitate whether George’s latest, and hopefully final, foray into a galaxy far, far away is going to deliver.

First thing that you notice? The new footage isn’t the lead-off hitter here. We get some of John Williams’ classic score with the opening titles to every STAR WARS flick. First visual out of the gate is Luke from the first one, walking like he’s carrying a heavy load in his pants, as we’re offered Sir Alec Guinness’ treatise on the Jedi Knight order. We even get a little Qui-Gon Jinn, a little somethin’ somethin’ from CLONES, and some different views of Anakin. They’re obviously building up the whole, dark side thing, and it’s a nice way to lead but, damn, get to the new footage already. We’ve already burned about half the running time of this thing.

Alright, just when I’m ready to start ripping on this thing, we get Anakin with really menacing yellow (Sith?) eyes looking back at us. I’m skeeved by the appearance but that’s a good thing. Are there any resident nerds out there who can say whether this represents Anakin’s decent into the dark side and does this explain the emperor’s crazy eyes? Anyhow, the introduction to the heavy Darth breathing with an exploding volcano in the background is a nice touch. The shot lingers longingly on these volcanoes as then we’re treated to the appearance of some metal spider contraption (possibly to retrieve his fried body?) and the screen fades black.

The emperor asks Lord Vader to rise.

We get snippets, and shots, of the major players in this sixth episode. Of most interest, and believe me it is not that Muppet Yoda, is Chewy. Actually, it’s a whole lotta Chewies as Vader comes off the assembly line, fresh in his black leather getup.

From here, the snippets start going off like a string of Black Cats. There’s some planes flying with that signature sound trailing behind them, Yoda unleashes his green monster, Anakin and Padme do a little smooching thing, and then, the best part, a whole lotta Wookies appear ready to start throwing down with an unknown enemy. Mace Windu, Samuel L. Jackson, looks to be taking his last stand and, if his interviews over the past few years are any indication, he’ll be going out with a shebang. There’s a freaky-looking tall guy with rat teeth, some interstellar firefighters are putting out a smoldering ship, Obi and Anakin duke it the hell out, some more stuff gets blown up and then a freaky looking ghoul with a lightsaber looks to do some damage. The ending score rocks hard as does the end titles.

Will it suck? PHANTOM MENACE was worse than CLONES so there seems to be some progression happening here. Oh, and P.S., don’t think I didn’t notice there isn’t a shred of dialogue present here. It’s probably one of the smartest decision George has done in a while and it does this trailer a great service by holding back anything coming out of their mouths.

Director: Patrick Paulson, Michael John Warren
Cast: Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Foxy Brown, Michael Buffer, Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, Damon Dash, Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott, R. Kelly, Ghostface Killah, Beyoncé Knowles
Release: November 5, 2004
Synopsis: Filmed during his “Black Album” era, Jay-Z looks back on his career as one of rap music’s most successful emcees and entrepreneurs.

Prognosis: Negative. Public Enemy always said, “Don’t believe the hype.”

With this documentary there is no doubt that I won’t.

What we have here, essentially, is a concert film. There isn’t anything else left to expound upon regarding this issue but if you read the placards interposed with the footage being provided you would have no way of knowing this. Now, I am a big fan of the concert film format and with Paramount Classics behind the thing you would think this would be more than just a MTV-style (derisively used in this case) long form video from some of the biggest 15-minute famers this side of the Bronx but as it is, and judging by the success of the recent tour outing Jay has had with R. Kelly, there ain’t nothin’ else goin’ on but the rent.

“November 23 2003″

The above is the first thing out of the gate about this film. We get New York City at nighttime with the sound of a helicopter ready to make a landing in the city, yo. We get a modulated voiceover letting us know that Jay-Z sold out the garden in a way that makes it sound like he’s just scaled Mt. Everest. It’s an accomplishment, yes, and all the fans that are giving it up for ol’ Z in front of the camera are really eager to let us confirm that. We get a good look at the sea of humanity just waiting to see the man perform, his fans eagerly anticipating his show. I’m cool up until this point, but then I see this:

“History was made.”

Huh?

Did I miss my memo? I know the boat passed me by on the whole leet speak thing but damn. I’m positive I would have found out from random 12 year-olds strolling though Hot Topic as to why this was a day to live on in infamy but instead all I get is a verbal non sequitur from some random guy, clad in a white doo rag and a blue cap placed demurely askew atop his head, dribbling on at the mouth about “the freeway’s there” and “we here. The boys.” Allright, if you say so, Chief. Further investigation into why I feel so consternated trying to follow this trailer only leads into this placard:

“The Ultimate Artist.”

I’m expecting to see Prince, Full Force, or even the O’ Jays but all I see is Jay-Z walking out of his limo and before I can yell “shenanigans” I see the other placard:

“The Ultimate Concert.”

Sigh. We see more of Jay walking through the bowels of Madison Square Garden, holmes hasn’t performed once yet on the screen, and then we quickly flash to one year later as the mixing of this recorded event takes place. The audio snippet we are given says that the recoding being made is going to be a “living testament” to “history in the making.” Even with some visual aides that show some flash of the audience and the resulting be-bopping of Jay-Z on stage, with all the lights and accoutrements of a Vegas side show, it all just reminded me of that time one year when I saw Hammer perform. I couldn’t see him when he was M.C. Hammer, I didn’t have enough money, but when Hammer came to play and I could afford to see him on the downslide of his career I was there getting my teenage swerve on and this show reminds me of that in a way.

What else really doesn’t “do it” for me? Well, Puff Daddy for one (you are not P-Diddy, you are not P-Did, and you most definitely are not P.D.). He overstates the point when he says that Jay-Z in the garden is history in the making. First of all, Puff, take off the mink and take off the sun glasses; you’re inside a sweaty stadium. Second, by showing how great it is that he manages to hang with Usher (tick tick tick on those 15 minutes), Mike D from the Beastie Boys and Rick Rubin (the real legends in this thing), it does nothing to answer the question about what makes this concert so special. Oh, yeah, the answer comes in the concert footage showing you getting down with “yo’ bad self” with a booty shaking Beyonce. Nice. Keep it real, Dude. Oh yeah, and spotlighting R. Kelly is really cool too. Someday I wish I could say I had an alleged child urinator at my historic music show, too.

Also, generally speaking, thanks for throwing another “historic” testimonial my way as well. It really seals the deal.

I think my aggression against this trailer is that it doesn’t make its case for why this was historic. I would’ve bought the reason that this was going to be the last time any of these people would be on stage with each other. I would’ve listened if Jay-Z said why this Lollapalooza of hip-hop acts and studio gangstas was so momentous for either him or for some kid dying of leprosy that he promised a hell of a show to. Instead, I get treated to a commercial extolling the virtues of absolutely nothing. It’s hard to make a case if you don’t give a reason for me to care. One side or the other will believe you but you’ve got to make the point.

I’d sooner say that Motown 45, a special that aired on ABC earlier this year, is more deserving of the title “historic event.” I like my artists to have a little more staying power than the flash in the pans that many of these artists will be but that’s just me.

Director: Uwe Boll
Cast: Kristanna Loken, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez, Will Sanderson, Udo Kier
Release: 2005
Synopsis: In eighteenth century Romania, Rayne, a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), prone to fits of blind blood rage but saddled with a compunction for humans, strives to avenge her mother’s rape by her father, Kagan, King of Vampires. Two vampire hunters, Sebastian and Vladimir, from the Brimstone Society persuade her to join their cause.

Prognosis: Hilarious. Man, did I have a good laugh.

Can you ever recall a movie moment when you simply couldn’t believe what you were seeing? That the she was a he with a dong in THE CRYING GAME? That mimbo Brad Pitt actually managed to be at the heart of what made FIGHT CLUB and SEVEN two of the best films made in the 90’s? This is the same thing, in a way, but this time it’s the people starring in this film that make this trailer so unbelievable.

Kristanna Loken, an 18th century Blade who is half-human and half-vampire, is out to avenge her mother’s rape and takes two men along with her to accomplish her mission. While the premise is really about a feminine version of Wesley Snipes who goes around killing things it has all the makings and stench of a B-grade splatter fest. All you have to do is put Antonio Sabato Jr. in there, let a few gallons of blood spill everywhere, ratchet up the violence, give something to the 13 year-olds (read here: copious nudity), and make sure you give some nods to the video game to let the fanboys know you’re all about “keeping it real.” Seems easy, right?

Oh, no, my good man. There is actually more talent to be found in this thing than you’d guess. When this thing first opens it’s a little disorienting as the sounds of clanging blades and squirts of blood shooting in indiscriminate directions makes it hard to focus. All of a sudden we see Kristanna, looking like one of those freaky hippy chicks that went gonzo over human entrails in FACES OF DEATH, donning a strange look on her face. I’m thinking it night be that half-vampire thing expressing itself but I won’t ever know for sure I’m whisked away to images of her just standing on a dark hill, playing with her swords; it’s cheesier than anything I’ve ever seen this year.

Was this woman really the Terminatress? What makes the pot sweeter is Michael Madsen popping on screen riding on a trusty steed. His hair is all lanky, dirty and I’m sure he’s really aiming to impress as they show how he can literally throw down with his sword, killing something that we can’t see. Michael’s riding buddy, Matt Davis, also looks sturdy on his flea ridden glue factory but he’s also shown how he can also throw down with his sword. Repetitious, sure, but we’re not shown what they’re disemboweling. Fact: if you want to get the young demographic to see a movie about vampire killing then you’ll have to show some vampires being killed.

At this point I’m a little confused about why there’s hardly any good American violence but I end up sympathizing, identifying if you will, with all the actors present in this thing. I realize it must be rent time. A lifestyle needs to be paid for and this seems like the Hollywood equivalent to working at a local Piggly Wiggly for a few a weekends, pimping Bagel Bites, for extra dough. I don’t knock them for that, though. What does alarm me is that Michelle Rodriguez pops up in this thing, really stretching her acting abilities in this one as she looks, well, surly and pissed at everyone. She then proceeds to, get this, shove a sword into someone’s chest; what’s even more amazing, however, is that we’re shown the chest in full bleed mode. My frown has turned upside down and I am digging the copious amounts of graphic imagery, but then it happens.

The very nexus point that turned this trailer into one of the glorious five that get reviewed here every week reveals itself: Ben Kingsley shows up.

I’m floored.

I hope someone out there takes a look at things up to this point in the trailer and agrees with me when I say that it’s one the weirdest things you’ll ever witness. I don’t know if Ben’s a vampire killer or a vampire killer killer but Sir Ben is shown blatantly murdering someone on a bed. He just kills “˜em. Quicker than a Keanau “whoa” Kristanna makes another appearance. As she’s the movie’s namesake she’s shown at the end killing a few more people, vampires, in a bloody rage of fury.

I would be too quick to call this movie crap, and it would probably be unfair, but I can give a guarantee that you won’t ever see a cosmic convergence of star power like this anytime soon. Bad film never looked so funny.

Director: Christoffer Boe
Cast: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Maria Bonnevie, Krister Henriksson, Nicolas Bro
Release: September 10, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Increasingly cool towards his wife Aimee, yet haunted by jealousy, August starts to invent the story of her infidelity. Enter Alex, a charismatic young photographer who dreams of a romance beyond what he has with girlfriend his Simone. After a night with Aimee, Alex wakes to find that he has become, in a significant and literal way, a different person. Cristoffer Boe’s debut feature is a twisty and entertaining Kieslowski-like urban love story that plays with form and style in ways that will surprise you and keep audiences talking about it for a long time.

Prognosis: Beautiful. If I could tell Palm Pictures about how most everything they’ve put out there this year has simply looked great I would. I would like to say something about the content of these pictures but to do so would be speculation as there simply aren’t that many art houses here in the great Southwest to take chances on these kinds of pictures. This one comes to us from across the ocean so, yeah, there’s some reading involved but it shouldn’t matter so much in this movie as the premise is wicked sharp.

A man breathing out a mouthful of smoke opens things up. It seems cold, urban. A card flashes on the screen.

“It happens every day.”

A city at night; it looks busy and congested. The very same man from the beginning meets a woman on a subway train. They smile at one another.

“You see a chance.”

A lazy jazz cut lingers in the back as our hero spots the same woman having a drink by herself at a lonely, dark bar. He chats her up. She seems very receptive.

“You make a choice.”

The two of them go back to her apartment and come together and then come separately. The scenes shown from the actual act are tastefully represented in snippets of mouths, eyes, parts of the back, in a much romanticized way. Then, a woman’s lips blows out a match. The music stops.

“The outcome is nothing you could have imagined.”

The man rides the subway home to find he can’t get into his apartment because his door is no longer where he left it. A neighbor doesn’t understand what the guy’s talking about when he knocks on her door and doesn’t even acknowledge any memory of he is. No one does. Friends and family all stick to the same story: they’ve never met the man in their lives. As soon as the screen fades, after a nice looking flip book effect of a silhouetted man falling flickers on the screen, the awards come up. Cannes is but one in a few competitions this film has won an award. It’s not much but, again, in cases were you have a foreign film it’s best to show how pimp your movie is compared to the other films you’re in competion with.

A lonely violin orchestra plays behind the man without a past as he runs though a vacant street and then comes upon someone who claims to not know him. He asks this woman, the very same woman from the beginning, to talk to him. He says he knows nothing but wants, “to know everything.” Yeah, it’s a little obsequious and arty but it just feels right.

I tell you what, no bull crapping aside, this trailer makes me want to seek out this film to see what is going to happen to this guy. I feel bad for him by the end of this thing and it has completely “OWN3D” me in every sense of the word. There are some obligatory review snippets from some reviewers about how good the film is but just looking at this trailer and trying to piece together where this film will go is satisfaction enough..

Director: Kevin Rodney Sullivan
Cast:
Release: March 25, 2005
Synopsis: A sarcastic father (Mac) has plenty to say about his daughter wanting to marry a white boy (Kutcher).

Prognosis: Negative. Ashton Kutcher. Bernie Mac. Boy, is this a mismatch.

Alright, for those keeping score at home, this is studio picture that hopes to cast a wide net at the total pool of moviegoing folk. What this means is that you can expect sub-standard directing, writing that mimics Must See/TGIF TV (Just think if Joey, Life With Jim, My Wife and Kids, et. al, are all put into a blender), and make sure you add very tired and busted ending. That said, however, the trailer doesn’t do much to break out of this formulaic stereotype. Literally.

Any movie that starts with “X has the perfect life”¦” is in trouble with me. Obviously, the three steps you can see ahead of you will forecast that this person’s life is going to go into the crapper. Ashton is a successful businessman who has a hot looking girlfriend. She’s literally strapped to his hip when he comes home to his lady and they really love each other. This must be the movies because all I get when I get home is questions about whether or not I remembered the dry cleaning, did I remember to call that person who left us a message last night or how tragic it is that a friend of hers knows someone who was just diagnosed with herpes.

So, Ashton and his lady are going on a trip to see his girlfriend’s father who just happens to be Bernie Mac. The reverse racial jokes start just as soon as Bernie mistakes the cab driver, who happens to be black, for being his daughter’s boyfriend. Bernie then tells Ashton where to stick the luggage. We even get that annoying warped music stop (a variant of the record scratch when an epiphany descends on one of the characters) when Bernie realizes that Ashton is, in fact, the man his daughter is in love with.

Oh yeah, the laughs keep coming when, at dinner, one of the daughter’s relatives ask whether or not they’re any available black men in New York. Yeah, good one. Then you get one of the friends of the girlfriend who’s really excited to see who her boyfriend is and, discovering it’s Ashton, mistakes him for the IRS because, class, If You Happen To Be A White Person In A Black Person’s House You Must Be There For Something Related To Business; you obviously couldn’t be there for any other reason.

The rest of the trailer is how Bernie and Ashton deal with the consternation that Bernie has about his daughter dating a white guy. What I find works well, if anything, is that Ashton is able to summon the powers that be and channel the same guy he was in MY BOSSES DAUGHTER, JUST MARRIED, DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR, and every other movie, with the exception of BUTTERFLY EFFECT, he’s ever done. To be able and call it in every time with consistency takes some talent if nothing else. And believe me, after you watch this trailer you will be convinced there is nothing else.

I really don’t mean to take such a stiff tone but, damn, did BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE or HEAD OF STATE teach us nothing when it comes to this kind of inane humor? Obviously not, as this one is headed straight to the theaters in the early half of next year and will likely be a hit with older white folk everywhere.

Director: Terry George
Cast: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte, Desmond Dube, Antonio David Lyons, Mothusi Magano
Release: December 22, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.

Prognosis: Positive. For anyone who didn’t see one of the best 52 minutes of television dealing with how things really went down in regard to the conflict in Rwanda, and I speak here of Fronline’s exposé on PBS, you missed a wonderful opportunity to see how vicious and sinister hoards of humans can be against their own people. Politicial leanings aside the Rwandan conflict should be counted as one of the worst moments of the Clinton presidency. One of the real horrors is that we could have stopped the mass genocide had we spoke up and intervened.

Don Cheadle plays a hotel manager for one of the nicest hotels in Rwanda. It looks nice as there are people frolicking near the pool. It’s no pool like the one at Treasure Island in Vegas, but it’ll do. Don lives there with his family and they’re painted as being content with their familial splendor. His kids are idyllically playing with a rope as he gets a little sugar with his wife. His voiceover is happy up to the point where he says, “until the day everything changed.”

Military and paramilitary men march through a main thoroughfare of a Rwandan city, carrying banners, obviously serious about something. The next thing you see is the same soldiers riding in green jeeps, their machine guns hanging over the side. Don’s son lets him know what’s going on and there is obviously some concern about what’s developing.

“Based on a true story.”

Usually when you get a movie based on a true story you could really almost discard it. Anything on Lifetime usually qualifies for this distinction in my book, but here it’s welcome as it’s a glimpse into history that many people never knew was happening.

Back in the trailer, guns go off, chaos reigns, looting seems to be de regur and there is a sense of lawlessness. Don is reassured when the UN shows up on the scene as he figures everything will get taken care of and order will be restored. Hell, I’d think the same thing. Nick Nolte, though, mentions how the UN are there as peacekeepers, not peacemakers. This comment will only serve to fuel the actions of those who are terrorizing Rwandans.

“We’re a four-star hotel, not a refugee camp.”

People are shuttled into Don’s hotel, obviously for shelter. Some children are huddled in an ambulance as an aid worker says that the Tutsi children are being ethnically killed to stop their numbers from growing. Don grows disillusioned as he wonders out loud why no one is intervening in this crisis. Joaquin Phoenix, a photojournalist with a ferocious beard, makes the best point when Don asks him why no one will help and Joaquin simply states that Americans will see what’s going on, say how horrible it is, and continue eating their dinner. It’s a culture of apathy that prevents any real action from happening.

A bus full of white folk get the hell out of Rwanda in a New York minute and sit in stark contrast to Cheadle who stands in the middle of a rainstorm knowing what the exodus will mean. Then, out of nowhere, a rocket, which really almost looks like a Ball Park frank being shot of the end of a sparkler, flies up into the air and slams into the hotel.

Some cut scenes are shown of more violence on the part of rebel insurgents before you see Don hanging on the edge of a truck, bound for safer harbors, but saying good-bye to his family as he stays behind to help those who need helping.

Don confronts one of the leaders of the mass genocide, obviously trying to play both sides of the fence for his own survival, and has a bombastic moment worthy of an Oscar (Trademark, All Rights Reserved, Copyrighted) statuette. The rest of the trailer is filled with a rich score that only supports the emotional component of this film as we’re shown Don helping out anyone and everyone he can.

There are two things at play here in this trailer: the establishment of stark realism in showing the things that transpired over a decade ago in an African country and the performance of Don Cheadle which seems to gravitate towards the dramatic. What’s here, though, is more than enough to warrant some attention towards Don as a worthy award contender.