Director: Stephen Herek
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Kelli Garner, Vanessa Ferlito, Monica Keena, Christina Milian, Paula Garcés, Cedric the Entertainer
Release: February 25, 2005
Synopsis: Tommy Lee Jones stars as a Texas Ranger who must protect a group of cheerleaders who have witnessed a murder.

Prognosis: Negative. This is one you should only watch through the spaces of the fingers that are secure on your face while reeling in horror that Tommy Lee Jones needed money this bad. As it stands, I also don’t think you’ll hear him on Regis and Kelly saying, “You know, I read one page of this script and knew that I was born to play this part.”

As it is, in the beginning of this trailer Lee comes walking through the smoky entranceway of a college football stadium, looking Texas tough and proud of it. Now, in contrast to this, in the next scene a gaggle of cheerleaders are witnesses to some murder. Quickly we are to infer that he’s in charge of keeping them safe because they’re in immanent danger of someone doing something very untoward to them and that these girls need a middle aged man to protect them. The girls act so so cute when they’re all collected together in an interrogation room. They actually start flipping through albums of the po-po’s mug shot books and start picking out the cute convicts. Too bad the Kids In The Hall did the joke over a decade ago but I’m quite sure most of Middle America hasn’t so it’s a safe hack.

Essentially what you have here is a bland blend of Walker, Texas Ranger and a not as near as funny BRING IT ON, which, I still contend and will die believing, is a tour de force of teenage cinema.

Back in this movie, though, Tommy saves our girls from harm as someone rigs their cheerleader van to explode but was shoddy enough to leave some wires dangling in plain view so Tommy could get them out just in time before it all goes ka-blooey.

The plot thickens, or weakens, after we find out that Tommy decides to move in with the girls to really make sure nothing happens to them. One of the other jokes that’s made is a pizza guy comes to the door and I swear it’s the U.S. Marshall I really liked from THE FUGITIVE and then hated in U.S. MARSHALLS comes back to auditory life. He makes the pizza guy put his hands above his head and turn around; I damn near thought I would see a waterfall next. Unfortunately, what I received was Tommy getting stampeded by Grade A co-eds with no real ability to keep the crazy chicks in control and this is when Cedric “The Entertainer” waltzes into things. Again, like a studio joke that will not die, C&C Music Factory starts bumpin’ with “Everybody Dance Now” as Cedric gets into a dance off with the cheerleading ladies. I have no idea what it’s all about, apart from it being an obvious gag for simpletons everywhere to have a good snort, laughing at the funniness of it all, but it doesn’t help wherever the hell this movie is supposed to be going.

Oh, and P.S., middle-aged men like Tommy aren’t allowed to use the words “old school.” I’m positive he had no idea what it even meant before a scriptwriter put it into his vocabulary and it’s embarrassing to both him and us.

You ladies will be happy to know, though, that in this movie Tommy Lee actually allows himself to be emasculated. He gives into the girls, although, hell, who wouldn’t, and dons a cucumber facial mask while getting a lesson in whoring oneself up for a date. From what I can gather I think you girls are supposed to find that amusing.

The rest of the trailer just gives me no positive note to give you. I really tried to find something good in Tommy mistaking the mascot for the killer or when Cedric gives a sin speech about casting the first stone and Tommy wings one at his temple or even where Cedric does a series of back flips down a church aisle only to come down on a wooden table, shattering it.

Sorry, but this one is homogenously bad.

Director: Andrew Douglas
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George
Release: April 15, 2005
Synopsis: A family is terrorized by a demonic force in their new home that was the site of many gruesome murders a year earlier.

Prognosis: Positive I like the beginning and the way it slowly pulls me into this trailer.

It’s totally dark, a completely black screen, and we suddenly hear what sounds like three gunshots.

Static engulfs the picture and then tunes, black and white no less, in on what seems like a news report on a crime committed at a home. Quick flashes of police tape, bodies being carried out; a newspaper title of “Family Slain” jumps erratically into our viewing area; mechanical and static sounds crunch in the audio field while we get pictures of the victims; and then a nice shot of a body bag rolls right into the picture.

Oh yeah, and we’re clearly told that this all based on a true story.

Sweet.

Next, we get a man who looks like Jesus himself, with the exception that Jesus wouldn’t slay his own family, I’m just saying, being arraigned at a trial. A news reporter says that the guy heard voices in his head that told him to kill his family.

The screen goes black again but we’re quickly given a card that says “One year later…the Lutz family movies into….” and you can pretty much start guessing this is where the weird stuff starts to happen.

The first thing that’s odd is that Ryan Reynolds is the main Lutz in question as the card then says “They only lasted 28 days.” Of course you get copious amounts of freaky violin music in the background and I have to admit that it’s good, it’s effective. It’s the kind of music that brings me back to the FRIDAY THE 13TH days where the violin would play that one high pitched note right before someone would get a machete right through their melon. Of course, even here, there’s lightning and rain to give it that certain creepiness as Ryan slowly walks up stairs where I assume he thinks something is going on.

We don’t know for sure what’s happening, though, because after that all we’re given is cut scenes of an ax stuck in a stump, some person hiding behind some wooden closet doors (the bad guys ALWAYS know you’re watching them behind those things), a swarm of insects start buzzing around a priest who is obviously trying to use the whole “The power of Christ compels you…” and is failing miserably, we get a creepy looking ghoul who seems to be hanging out at the bottom of a pond and then we are treated to a whole lot of chick screams as the woman in question is caught in the middle of a rainstorm and on the roof of her house while doing it.

This film looks promising only because of the buildup to the scattered money shots and even though there isn’t a whole lot of talking I am aware of everything that is happening in this film. A voiceover would have rendered this trailer sterile and I appreciate the way things just happen on the screen naturally.

Director: Ekachai Uekrongtham
Cast: Asanee Suwan, Sorapong Chatree, Orn-Anong Panyawong, Nukkid Boonthong
Release: January 21, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: Based on the real life story of Parinya Charoenphol, a Muaythai boxer who underwent a sex change operation to become a woman. The movie chronicles her life from a young boy who likes to wear lipstick and wear flowers to her sensational career as kickboxer whose specialty is ancient Muaythai boxing moves which she can execute expertly with grace and finally her confrontation with her own sexuality which led to her sex change op.

Prognosis: Positive. The trailer opens up at the very beginning of daylight in the Far East. The sun rises over a hilly and grass-covered mountain range.

In the next scene we get two different images being constructed for us: one is of a hand pulling up some fishnet stockings up a leg, the next is of a boxer pulling up his fighting trunks. A dress is pulled up and some manicured red nails are turned upside down as the boxers hands are wrapped up in white tape.

“When did you first realize you wanted to become a woman?”

What we have here, kids, is a movie about a man who wants to be everything he’s always desired to become: a member of the opposite sex. Instead of launching into the exacting details of the here and now we get some exposition into this man’s past.

As a child we see him admiring women. There is a delightfully beautiful dancer on a stage in his small town as she cavorts for the delight of a crowd when a tube of lipstick rolls to within his grasp. He says in a voiceover that he always knew he was different. The kid decides to put the lipstick on and come home to his family and perform the same dance the woman was performing for the town. The dad is looks concerned but what we can infer is that he’s tossed out of the family for his femme ways.

We next see the awards this film has won and assuages any subliminal concerns we aren’t being lulled to believe this is some Chicks With Di%&# Volume 43 advertisement.

It seems this kid was banished to a life of literal wandering for a long long time before stumbling onto a camp where all they do is train fighters. He decides to give it a go and allow himself to achieve mental and physical perfection.

Now comes the kicking in of some heads.

The guy lands some nice punches and even gets in a sweet kick. This is interspersed with his desire to cross-dress while still retaining his desire to achieve greatness with his boxing. Some taiko drumming kicks into overdrive as we are shuttled off to Japan for a championship of sorts. The guy is a superstar and what’s nice is that he still finds in himself the ability to be the woman on the outside he always wanted to become. The kicks get stronger, the violence gets harder, and we see the road of introspection this man has had to go through in order to get to where he is.

His training is embedded in his identity and so is the need to put on make-up before each match. These moments are assisted by the cards from the major press here in the States that have seen this film and want to give the movie its due by saying how moving a picture this is.

The subject matter alone will keep some people away but this trailer is wonderfully constructed to keep the line tight between showing what this man wants and balancing it with who he is. It doesn’t seem like a movie that belongs exclusively to the gay/lesbian genre but with the element of dudes kicking the crap out of one another, especially the wicked awesome monkey punch our hero lands at the end of this thing, it shows some things that could appeal to all different sorts of backgrounds. These words, I know, will fall on some deaf ears but this film, just on the surface, looks like it will be more than a man who just wants to be a woman. It looks like a man trying to define himself as he defiles opponents in the boxing ring.

Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, Jean Reno
Release:September 23, 2005
Synopsis: A prequel to the 1964 Peter Sellers original film, where the detective must solve the murder of a famous soccer coach and find out who stole the infamous Pink Panther diamond.

Prognosis: Negative. Quick background on the guy who’s directing this. He has been at the helm for all of the following movies: CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (2003), JUST MARRIED (2003), BIG FAT LIAR (2002). I had to endure the savagery that was JUST MARRIED and CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN all on my wife’s insistence. I wasn’t impressed and, as married to a woman who likes her entertainment as mainstream as Friends was in Must-See TV, she loathed it more. JUST MARRIED was a vapid, useless, needless movie that could’ve just as easily been used at Guantanamo Bay to elicit confessions out of all the detainees present there and could’ve avoided all this controversy there now and CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN was only good, for me anyway, to watch Hillary Duff start her downward roller coaster ride in films.

And, apart from the directing, what the hell happened to Steve Martin? He isn’t what he once was. He’s no Bill Murray, this much I know, but what’s odd is his taste in art is impeccable (I saw his collection at the Bellagio years ago), his writing is decent (he shouldn’t try so hard, though), but his films in the past few years have questioned my feelings about his brilliance in PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES, BOWFINGER, and even THE SPANISH PRISONER. It’s truly been a confusing times for those who are trying to understand what made him do CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, BRINING DOWN THE HOUSE and even LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION.

I’ve watched the trailer and I just can’t recommend this film. I’ve tried to be open-minded but let me just try and put this into a language we all will understand.

At first I’m kind of excited because I really think this film will be interesting because of its international embracement of football (Americans, read here: soccer) and of the chaotic mess that is a football stadium at mass capacity. We even get Jason Statham who steps out onto the field and brandishes a ridiculously sized ring to the crowd. I don’t know how a dude showing off a ring as hideous as that in front of soccer hooligans would elicit the kind of pandemonium, even if it is the pink panther diamond, but I guess this is the movies so we have to take it at face value. I’m bummed when Jason is quickly killed off and his big ring is stolen in the process. Not that the ring is gone but that Jason isn’t going to be in the film any longer.

Of course we’re told that that only one man can solve the case but right then and there I’m not quite sure why in the hell this bumbling idiot is handpicked to solve the case. I realize this is a comedy but if one wants to build some sort of believable characterization that someone can suspend their disbelief in they are going about it in the wrong way. But who the hell am I to judge, right?

So, Steve Martin, a pale imitation of Peter Sellers, introduces himself, donning a moustache that not even I can believe, to the tune of the Pink Panther. I do, however, have to give proper credit for an amusing gag where Steve whips out his id to show Kevin Kline, one of two foils in this movie, as he introduces himself as Inspector Clouseau and the badge hurls at Kline and sticks in his chest.

It’s all downhill after that.

We’re introduced to his partner, Jean Reno, who seems to be Clouseau’s handler more than anything else. In our first viewing of Reno, Martin and he are walking down a street. Wearing an embarrassing beret Martin lets Reno know that he’s going to attack him to keep him vigilant. (Huh?) Apart from me not understanding the purpose Reno, though, gets him first by sucker punching him in the face. The absurd facial expression that Martin contorts into puts me at a loss to explain what’s supposed to be funnier, his mugging or the fact that Reno hit him first.

The two of them next visit a crime scene where a dead guy is on the floor. Reno explains that what happened to the man was fatal. “How fatal?” is the quip back from Martin. Ha, we’re supposed to say, but I’m seriously not even cracking a smile. What the hell am I watching, I’m asking myself.

Next is a look at the moment where Martin is trying to cut into a piece of glass to get into a drug store late at night. Why he’s trying to cut into glass, while other cars are whizzing by, is beyond me. He makes a circular motion to imply that he’s going to only take small part of the window out the whole thing but, except for the middle he’s cut out, everything shatters around him. That was amusing, I’ll admit that.

After that, Steve puts on a blue light on top of his car (the lights that cops in the old days would put in their dash like in the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” video) and of course it falls off as he’s taking a corner and gets an old lady in the forehead. Nice try, but that’s lame. Seriously.

Beyonce Knowles gets introduced after that gag and I start to wonder why it is that pop singers suddenly feel that they have what it takes to make it as an actor in this business. Far be it from me to judge because I’m sure everyone around her tells her how great she is at everything she does I don’t, however, have to feel secure just because she’s in a film. I’m a little bit less interested that she is, but there’s nothing in this trailer that shows even what kind of part she’s playing so what’s the point other than the fact she can walk well down a street.

The trailer ends with Martin falling down some steps to a subway but it’s not amusing to me to spend the time trying to explain it.

I really am a fan of Steve Martin. There is more than enough to support the assertion that he was definitely one of the best men working in comedy in the early ’80s. With careers of Chevy Chase going the route of a VEGAS VACATION and of Bill Murray’s going the way of Oscar-worthy performances, one has to say that Steve seems inexorably caught right in the middle of these SNL alums. I don’t know why that’s the case but one look at this trailer is more than enough reason for me to withhold my box office dollars from this turkey.

Director: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Maria Bello, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Nick Stahl, and the rest of Hollywood’s elite.
Release: April 1, 2005
Synopsis: An adaptation of Frank Miller’s stories based in the fictional town of Sin City. Chief amongst the town’s residents is Marv, who trawls the darkest areas of town looking for the person who killed his one true love, Goldie.

Prognosis: Positive, I guess. This one’s complex so let me just break things down.

The trailer essentially does all the talking. There are no voiceovers and no descriptive cards letting us know how everything fits together. This alone deserves a golf clap.

We first see the image of Marv as realized in comic form by Frank Miller. The live action comes right after with Mickey Rourke smoking a cigarette, looking like a pastiche of assorted foreheads and chins from DICK TRACY. Black and white seems to be where Rodriguez wants to take this and it looks wonderful. Color, though, is used to highlight his girlfriend’s, Goldie, blonde hair and of the red silk on the bed that both her and Marv shared. Cops are coming for Marv and he hears them right outside his flophouse apartment door. He busts through the front door, though, before they can get in, Hulk-style, with both biceps flexed.

Hartigan’s next with Miller’s depiction of the old guy. Obviously, Willis is a younger stand-in from the comic but with X-MEN’s success we can see how film adaptations can benefit with the bending of the rules. He’s in a seedy bar looking for Nancy Callahan. Jessica Alba is Nancy in all her showgirl glory. The music chosen is sultry, the colors used to accentuate her dancer outfit are really choice, and the way she moves is alluring even for the few seconds we see her. Actually, it’s really alluring. Now, even though some artistic license is being taken with the characters I’m a bit torn on the way they decided to go with having Nick Stahl as the yellow guy in the film. It’s really cartoonish but if helps to serve the plot then, oh well.

Dwight, as played by Clive Owen, is up next and he’s as every bit of tough guy as he is a handsome chap out for some trouble. Dwight’s voiceover shows some of Benicio Del Toro’s character as well as some of the other dangerous ladies of Sin City. Some great angles are all cobbled together to create some tension leading into the final half of this trailer. Even Marv’s character has some “weight” as a real person and not some Sunday morning funnies cutout.

There is a moment when a car flips over after going off the side of the road where it does feel slightly artificial but then we’re back into things with a rundown of all the people who are starring in this production.

Alexis Bledel is one who immediately caught my attention as her claim to colorization in this film is her stunning blue eyes and Jamie King gets some props for her blonde locks. Brittany Murphy and Rosario Dawson, however, get nothing but shrinkage from me as I couldn’t get a feel for what parts they are supposed to command although I am sure there are Miller aficionados who could easily tell me how they fit into everything. Elijah Wood’s mysterious appearance as a pair of whitely illuminated spectacles was visually impressive as was all the other cut-scenes included right after his introduction. I’ll take a guess here, as I can’t know for sure because the credits didn’t list her in the trailer, but it may have been Devon Aoki’s moves that I rate second best to Jessica Alba’s. Shurikens always hold a dear place in my heart and I believe it was she who was the one tossing them at one point in this thing as well as the wielding of two samurai-sized blades, descending from a high place in the city towards the camera below.

I do also have to give some love to Marv’s mention that you “can walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything” as the visuals pull back from the city proper, the camera turning, revealing the title of the film. That’s nice.

Now, after seeing this, though, I am still left unsure as to how I should feel about the movie. So much of what I saw did remind me, in a bad way, of DICK TRACY. However, much of everything else had me wanting to see how all these stars come together to tell one of the greatest gritty noir crime stories in the last fifteen years. I’m conflicted and I’m not sure why. Hopefully more footage will either secure my spot one way or the other.

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