Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Anna Sophia Robb, Helena Bonham Carter
Release: July 15, 2005
Synopsis: Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore), a boy from an impoverished family under the shadow of a giant chocolate factory, wins a candy bar contest and is given a tour, along with four other children, of the amazing factory run by the eccentric Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) and his staff of Oompa-Loompas.

Prognosis: Positive. First, you hear a cymbal getting rap-a-tap-tapped. The screen’s black so you don’t know quite what’s going on.

Then, off-camera, Johnny Depp speaks up and says, very matter-of-fact, “Let’s boogie.” At least I think it was Johnny Depp but more on that in second.

Some double doors open up to a wild confectionary candyland that truly only Tim Burton could’ve conceived. It looks like a cross between Beetlejuice’s tabletop town and a stage production of A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS: LIVE. Then, the oddest tune starts to play. It sounds like Oompa-Loompa music. I say this only because if there was one instance when a kind of music was truly sonically representative of a class of orange midgets, this would be it.

While these erratic noises of brass and timpani all go off we get a quick view of all our favorite, rotten little children. There’s Violet, Mike, Veruca Salt (Still love that band…), and, of course, Charlie Bucket.

They are all here on display but one would be quite challenged to make anything more than a couple things out in the nauseating and dizzying pace this teaser is hell bent on going.

From what I can make out, though, the filmmakers have the style of the golden tickets down pat just as they were more than two decades ago. That may not seem like much, but it is.

Mike still seems to be the most unlikable little crap bucket that ever had two parents, Augustus Gloop still ranks gluttony as his number one divine sin in the world, but then, suddenly, we get a full frontal of Willy himself. I still don’t know what to make of Depp’s Wonka but he looks crazed, looney, pale, and has a wispy Beatles-style haircut that almost makes him appear to be a deprived child molester that was just set free in a schoolyard. I do apologize for anyone who was ever allegedly at Neverland Ranch, but I calls ‘em likes I sees ‘em.

The crazy boat ride appears to be very surreal; the watery flow of chocolate under the boat’s hull looks delish.

That shrink room where Mike transports himself via TV waves still has that groovy washed-out white vibe to it, and the discordant images just start fleeing by at a pace too rapid to make any sense until…

Augustus falls into the chocolate river.

That scene could really be where Burton cranks the skeeve factor to 11 if he gets creative with the young boys misery. I will say, though, wherever Depp is going with Wonka’s new personality in this compared to Gene Wilder’s old one, he is really making a break from the old.

Director: F. Gary Gray
Cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, The Rock, Christina Milian, Vince Vaughn, Danny DeVito
Release: March 4, 2005
Synopsis: The continuing adventures of Chili Palmer, strong-arm debt collector turned Hollywood movie producer. By the time the story begins, Chili has abandoned the fickle movie industry. And so his adventures, this time around, concern the music industry where he becomes the promoter of a struggling singer who is being pursued by the Russian mafia.

Prognosis: Positive Yes, I liked the first one.

There was something about Chili Palmer, the way Travolta played him after his “comeback” was heralded in Hollywood as if no one had ever done it before. The movie was just a fun romp and it’s odd that it’s been ten years, an entire decade, since someone was able to cobble together a new one.

It was worth it.

The first thing I thought of when I heard of this film coming down the pike I dropped to both my knees and just prayed that another Elmore Leonard wouldn’t be savagely butchered like the BIG BOUNCE was earlier this year. Well, in all honesty, I don’t know that for sure as I didn’t go near that thing after enough cautious warnings from poor souls who went told me that the story was disjointed and it didn’t really have anything more than a cheap look at some crazy chick’s cans. I stayed away and the box office said all it needed to say.

Here, though, we already know that Chili wanted to get into movies and, hence, GET SHORTY. While that movie lambasted filmmaking for all its pretension and glitz seems to take a different angle in this one as it appears to blow up, in all its stereotypes, the music business.

The trailer starts with Chili wanting to get out of pictures and into music. Simple as that. The plot is quickly gotten to, a big plus in my book, and the events are set in motion quite rapidly. How hard is that to do? Most studios take the entire two and a half minutes in a trailer to get to the friggin’ point. I appreciate that, MGM. Gracias.

One thing that is not going to be par for the course is attention to reality. Within the first few seconds we get thugs who look like they’re straight out of a comic book (with all the dark clothing to match), Russian mafia guys who look every bit like you think they would, and one young up-and-coming star who already is in real life so where’s the conceit? These are small quibbles, though, as the trailer matures like a 13 year-old boy.

So Chili wants to be the up-an-coming star’s manager but she has to let her other manager know that Chili’s taking her away from his control. Since the music scene here is all built around the urban scene I was figuring that a black guy would be in charge. I was surprised to see Vince Vaughn but he believes, just like B-Rad from MALIBU’S MOST WANTED (Blech, sorry for dropping that movie title in this column. Won’t happen again.) that he’s every bit from the street. The whole cross-cultural white guys thinking they’re black and vise versa only gets old when old white guys, like Steve Martin, start to employ the gag.

Now, I lose the plot right about here as Uma Thurman comes in as Chili’s record producer. I’m fairly sure that’s the case but I’m busy watching her tie up her bikini top. That’s ok though that I get a little spotty on the events here as all we really need to know at this point is that she’s on Chili’s side. After that’s established here’s where things really speed up.

The Rock is in this movie and he has a kick-ass afro. What’s funny about him is that, at one point in this trailer, he’s in a cowboy supply store and he is purchasing a pair of skin-tight, powder blue pants with a very silky white shirt. He twists in front of the display mirror so he can check himself out, grabs his own butt with a vigor that I am sure a certain percentage, if social statistics are any indication, will enjoy and yells out, “Scorchin’!” After this, in a different scene, Chili is talking The Rock up and telling him he has a certain look. He has “The” look. The Rock seems impressed and gives us an eyebrow raise that many of you “wrasling”enjoyers will find amusing. I’ll admit it: I had a laugh. That’s funny and The Rock can be damn funny.

The giggles and chortles keep coming as we move over to André 3000. From Outkast to the big screen the man, here, seems to be playing a hard core rap artist in this flick. We only see him talking only one time but when he does it’s after he discharges a pistol inside a house. Everyone freaks but his quip back, too lame to transcribe here as a joke described is a joke unfunny, is appropriate. Cedric the Entertainer (I always roll my eyes when I have to write that man’s name.) has a good bit as he harasses a man who is tied and gagged in the back of an H2. The SUV is parked in the front driveway to his house and his little girl waves goodbye as she heads off to school. All his bullet-proof vest posse turn around and wave back with smiles as the two H2’s parked in front spin their obnoxious rims. That, again, to me is not only stupid as it is derivative, not to mention a decade too late to be relevant, but it makes me laugh.

There are a lot of people in this thing (It’s the thing to do, nowadays. Amp up the star power in your flicks) but it doesn’t ever seem overwhelming. This movie looks like a solid Saturday afternoon picture, maybe one you’ll only want to watch once, but it does like an enjoyable once.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast:Tom Cruise, Miranda Otto, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, James DuMont
Release: June 29th, 2005
Synopsis: A contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells’s seminal classic, the sci-fi adventure thriller reveals the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it.

Prognosis: Negative. Are the rumors really true that it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that the budget for this thing is through the roof beyond anything that’s ever been filmed?

I don’t know what’s true and what’s not but I will go on record as saying that the poster design is really very good. I’m not sure if that’s the same one that will be hanging come next June, studio heads would most likely explode if at least one of the posters didn’t have Tom’s mug at least 80% of the size of the damn thing itself, but I like it a lot. I even really dig the way we come into the trailer.

“No one would’ve believed in the early years of the 20th century that our world was being watched…”

Yeah, the effects are good but I will say that the voiceover guy is a bit cheesy. I almost want to put my hands to my cheeks, shake my head side to side, and feign like I’m really scared and actually question if aliens had indeed watched us through the last century. The voice just drones on and on about how aliens were enjoying the show for the last century and how we went about our daily lives like miniature Truman Shows to little green men with big bug eyes.

Seriously, is this trailer going to start soon?

The closest I get to a chub-on is when the streetlights of a small town start to flicker as a more colorful light show starts to take place on the horizon of this Smallville of sorts. It’s the very same wicked red, yellow and green alien spaceship color that begins to get more and more intense. The town looks almost good enough to not pass as a soundstage-constructed neighborhood. Almost.

Yeah, I get that H.G. Wells’ own words are fodder for this voiceover guy’s rant but, damn, if I wanted a book on tape I’d go to Barnes and Noble. (Maybe Borders, though, as they have a sweet collection of foreign DVDs)

Things really start to cook, near the one minute, twenty-two second mark of this two minute trailer as this small town just gets decimated by an alien blast of intense proportions. I am chanting in tongues about the wondrous pyrotechnics but then I am yanked back, abruptly, into a black, quiet abyss.

For the last twenty-five seconds I am made to see Tom Cruise’s name in all its full frame glory, followed by Steven Spielberg’s in the exact same size, with a tag line that says “They’re already here.”

I am not teased by this trailer at all.

In fact I would like to go on record and call this a cheap goosing by Katie Carpenter in the hallway of Barrington High School Sophomore year when I wasn’t looking and, therefore, didn’t fully enjoy it than I would anything resembling a tease with this trailer.

I mean, damn, you have THE guy who wrote JURASSIC PARK, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, SPIDER-MAN, PANIC ROOM, STIR OF ECHOES, etc… and not a lick of dialogue? Not even so much as a peep at Tom Cruise? I’m comfortable who I am as a straight male and my own sexuality when I say I enjoy looking at the guy but I feel just jilted I didn’t see him here.

Ok, it’s a tease. I get that. Just wake me up when there’s something to show for all the budgetary hype surrounding this movie.

Director: Jim Fleigner
Cast: John Michael Bolger, Matthew Borish, Michael Dean, Aaron Fiore, Soren Fulton, Sam Semenza
Release: Coming Soon to a Film Festival Near You
Synopsis: Twelve-year olds Joe, Tiger and Chris break out of Little League baseball camp to secretly trail Joe’s parents, who have lied to Joe about a mysterious trip they’re taking. The boys must piece together clues, avoid their parents, dodge the police, trust a stranger – and not destroy their friendships in the process – during an adventurous road trip in their last summer before junior high. In the spirit of Stand By Me, Rounding First is a coming-of-age dramedy set in the summer of 1980.

Prognosis: Positive. I’m a pretty big fan of The Cars.

Yeah, we all wonder how a man that looks like Lurch’s emaciated younger brother managed to land a piece of tail like supermodel Paulina Porizkova but The Cars made great music in the 80’s. Here, then, the song “Let The Good Times Roll” is played through the duration of Jim Fleigner’s trailer for ROUNDING FIRST.

I like the song and it fits with the laid-back cool of a movie that celebrates the friendship of three young boys who appear to be just coming-of-age.

Since there’s really nothing to go off of in terms of having this a well-known project the story really has to be told within the time allotted for the trailer. Fortunately, it does it well.

What we have, as events unfold, are three kids who are enjoying a summer together. They’re busted early on by the cops and driven back home with a waiting mother in the driveway, one of the kids’ father is a cop who tells him to stay away from the other (we’ve all had one of those kind of friends but those were the ones who the very best to have in one’s social pocket), there’s some ding-dong-ditch tomfoolery against a rather corpulent lady in a very unflattering muumuu (I preferred egging. The sound, as its body crushed against the side of a house with aluminum siding, was glorious), and other things that boys just do when they’re that age.

There seems to also be a sub-plot with one of the parents talking about moving, the threat being of a possible breaking up of the triumphant trio, and the boys react just as anyone else would with impending doom: run away from home.

They’re on a journey somewhere, we aren’t clued in specifically with any destination, but these three boys are picked up by a drifter. Now, as a screenwriter, you could take this story as it was and make a movie out of it one way or go the route of a homicidal maniac who likes to harm young boys. The path chosen here, unfortunately, is one where the boys tag along with the strange man who watches over them in a way, sticks up a Gas N’ Go along the way, letting them shoplift whatever they want, before things slowly break down into tangible plot pieces. Oh well.

The end result here is rather gripping. The boys question whether or not running away from home was a good idea, one seems to lose it emotionally and cries like a lovelorn school girl (sitting next to a toilet no less), and the kidnapper/rebel without-a-Remington- Micro-Blade-to-take-away-his-George-Michael-stubble looks like he may actually not give himself up in the end. That would be nice. Dad’s a cop, crazy man abducts some kids, mentions not wanting to go to prison, independent picture with no real mass audience to serve…I smell shootout.

In all, this looks like a great small film. The production values on some of the graphics used are a little computerish but that’s really forgiven easily because of what this trailer does: It gives me, from start to finish, an idea of what’s at stake for the protagonists, a whiff of the complications that ensue through the resolution of their problems and an ambiguous idea of where this story might end. I know that doesn’t seem like much but that’s really what’s needed, basically, in a trailer to make it serviceable. This trailer exceeds that and it has me wondering what is going to happen with these boys.

And to the priest whose house I accidentally double-egged (holding two in my right hand, getting just the right loft) when I was twelve, I swear I didn’t know it was your house until my friend told me as we were running home, evading the police.

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