FRED Entertainment

Director: Mike Binder
Cast: Joan Allen, Kevin Costner , Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, Alicia Witt, Mike Binder
Release: March 11, 2005 (New York)
Synopsis: When her husband unexpectedly disappears, a sharp-witted suburban wife and her daughters juggle their mom’s romantic dilemmas and family dynamics.

Prognosis: Sorta, Kinda Positive. Alright, as part of my community service obligations to the elder sect out there, here’s a look at a new romcom with Kevin Costner and Joan Allen.

Yes, you would be right to assume that I don’t have any real hard anticipation in seeing the movie and, further, you would be correct in quickly saying that this looks like a chick flick that;’s only compounded further by the amount of starlet wattage behind Allen as her daughters. That said, however, I would like to at least put this one out there as a movie that at least one of you out there will have to see because your boyfriend/girlfriend saw this trailer while watching Live with Regis and Kelly, while you were out busting your hump, which, in turn, makes you their date but I would like to be the first with a set of nads to say your options could be a lot worse.

It seems harmless enough of a movie. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of trailers lately and this one is ok with me because a) we don’t have an annoying voiceover that usually starts these kinds of trailers and b) we get a great dollop of the back-story behind Allen’s character right out of the gate which makes her kind of endearing. It’s amusing in a feminine sort of way, the husband just running off with his secretary, and leaving his family of three hot teenage girls to fend for themselves, so by the time Kevin shows up I know right where we’re headed. Again, that’s ok.

I’ve seen TIN CUP enough times where I am almost embarrassed to mention the number of moments I find myself watching a minute or two and then watching the rest and, I have to be honest, I am not a Kevin Costner fan. Yeah, yeah, DANCES WITH WOLVES, blah, blah, blah, but really. C’mon, he’s no Bruce Willis or Treat Williams by any stretch but when I see him running into Allen the first time I am content to see where things go.

And things seem to be going in the direction of TIN CUP. Guy likes girl, girl has some attraction to boy, boy has some deep fascination with a sport that makes him unable to communicate effectively with a member of the opposite sex, girl pushes the boy away just long enough to get fitted for a diaphragm and they end up doing it. But, that’s alright with me because there really seems to be more going on than just a mother with relationship problems. She has four girls who she can’t seem to communicate with either, one of which actually gets a job where Costner works, and there is a nice interplay between what Costner knows Allen needs and what Allen is trying to fight against.

Instead of two young dolls of Hollywood’s elite having a romantic comedy where we know what’s at stake for each of the protagonists we get a layered story of interpersonal relationships built around a near dysfunctional family and one near dysfunctional man. And hey, those daughters are hot if I haven’t already said it already.

The music near the end sucks, the cards introducing everyone are kind of flat but I can’t help feeling that the story rises above common convention because of the added element of the daughters. Yeah, they’ll resist him at first and they’ll all end up loving him at the end but I am more curious to see how they get there than I am with knowing the destination.

Director: Jeff Byrd
Cast: Anthony Anderson, Leila Arcieri, Jay Mohr , Charles Murphy, Glenn Bang, Jennifer Byrd
Release: April 22, 2005
Synopsis: Hoping to foil his own gold-digging wife’s plan, a loathsome businessman arranges his own kidnapping, only to realize that there are plenty of other people interested in his wealth as well.

Prognosis: Yikes. This one is helped, as best as it can be, by the almighty voiceover guy but it is awfully awkward when Turk from Scrubs asks our object of derision, Anthony Anderson, how he is doing today. He’s about to park the guy’s car as Anderson just says “Rich” and walks right by him.

Great. A movie about a rich guy who no one likes. What fun.

“Malcom King is a millionaire everyone wants a piece of.”

So”¦our star, A-list magnate of KANGAROO JACK and MY BABY’S DADDY, is wealthy. Really wealthy and it appears, by the opening moments of this trailer, that people all around him are conniving to get a slice of his pie.

Two people in this trailer are the only things that are keeping me from going to take a look at a trailer that’s all in Swahili: Charlie Murphy and Jay Mohr. Charlie is just flat out funny in ways I wish his brother was nowadays and Jay is just a good supporting guy who possess a good amount of comedic talent. These two conspire to kidnap Anthony for money but it appears they’re not really prepared for a life of crime. They’re inept in that funny movie kind of way.

The next scene involves some dudes getting yelled at to find out what happened to Anthony but what irks me is that the lady who’s doing the yelling at these two guys (who happen to be white) says she’s gonna be on them like, “white girls on NBA players.” Yeah, again with the white people jokes. What the hell, I mean I don’t see a big proliferation of jokes at the expense of black people here in the 21st century but I guess if you want to stoke some hostility, mission accomplished.

Turk comes back into the picture, enjoying the riches of Anthony’s money as he cavorts in a silky red robe but how it relates to some nameless chick getting her groove on in a discothèque I haven’t a clue.

I do like, though, the characters that seem to take shape in this picture. Since it is a comedy, and there needs to be some way to tell the difference between our kidnappers to make the situation amusing, just like in RUTHLESS PEOPLE (a not entirely horrible movie”¦) the people in this film all have quirky personalities. One of them is a completely brainless woman, another is an ex-con played by Murphy who shows his predilection for bathing with a side order of an uncomfortable Turk, and a loser who has nothing left to lose in Mohr. I will say one thing, though, in Anthony’s defense. When Mohr says that he is holding Anderson ransom for ten thousand dollars Anderson slaps the phone out of his hands to yell at him saying he’s kidnapped a rich man, not Bobby Brown. I laughed at that. I’m a big fan of Bobby Brown jokes.

Unfortunately, this film looks like it will die on the vine in a particularly limp way at the box office but there is always video.

Director: John Pasquin
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Regina King, Enrique Murciano, Diedrich Bader, Heather Burns, William Shatner
Release: March 24, 2005
Synopsis: After Cheryl Frasier and Stan Fields are kidnapped, Gracie goes undercover in Las Vegas to find them.

Prognosis: Negative. What the hell happened to Sandra Bullock’s career? Some would argue the question: Did she really have one to begin with? I will say that I was a big big fan of 28 DAYS and even SPEED and THE NET if there is nothing else on in the middle of the night, but I remember the first MISS CONGENIALITY with such a rueful attitude that I will try to lay out exactly why every man is doomed should their lady friend or boyfriend take them to see this.

Point #1: The trailer opens and we’re in New York. We’re off to a rousing start. But, first thing on my mind is where did Benjamin Bratt go? It’s like how Elizabeth Shue opened BACK TO THE FUTURE II as Marty’s girlfriend and you knew immediately that something was amiss. Shatner’s back, though.

Point #2: We get introduced to Bullock again as the pinnacle of all tomboys. She socks one of her FBI friends in the arm and we see her preparing a meal in a most male kind of way just so we’re assured she is completely asexual.

Point #3: Diedrich Bader is obnoxiously playing a gay man who wants to make over Bullock so she can be the new PR face for the FBI. It’s flamingly fake and I cringe when I see him in much the same way I did when Anthony Clark did the same thing in THE ROCK. Would it have been so hard to get a normal gay man? I guess it was”¦

Point #4: Regina King. I love this woman. I do have to admit that seeing her is a great thing and both she and Bullock seem to be competing for the Most Butch award. They don’t get along, don’t worry they’ll love each other by the credits, and the only friction that seems to matter in this movie is how these two ladies will get along.

Point #5: The movie is about, apparently, not just how she and Regina eventually become bestest friends but how Sandra can go undercover as an old lady to save her best friend from a kidnapper. I really don’t know if I can go on explaining this plot. Do you realize someone got paid more money than you probably make in a decade to write this?

Point #6: The two of them, grudgingly, make their way to Las Vegas. A lot of the trailer’s running time focuses on how these girls have to use teamwork in order to accomplish their goals. Seriously, someone got paid for this.

Point #7: I was going to give it up for the faux beat down Regina gives Regis Philbin but I take it back because the trailer literally ends with Bullock’s trademark double snort like it’s amusing to listen to.

I do understand I am not the target audience. I even know that my presence in the movie’s audience isn’t needed but if you think that this trailer will get me to go willingly and not put up a fight when my wife is screeching to see it you’ve got another thing coming, Buster Brown. Couldn’t you have focused more on the Vegas showgirls aspect, give me a little more Regina a little less Sandra? For the demographic it’s aimed for, in all honesty, it’s a fabulous trailer. For every other individual who doesn’t share the same chromosomal pair, however, it should put the fear of God in you.

Director: John Maybury
Cast: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley
Release:March 4, 2005
Synopsis: A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.

Prognosis: Negative.Adrian Brody, fresh off his shucking and jiving in Coca-Cola ads, stars in yet another installment in a little known genre as the “man with amnesia” mystery movie.

The trailer is good going, though, in giving us a clear understanding of what’s going on in this movie. Adrian is a thin and skinny John Rambo type who is aimlessly wandering America with his army issued duffel bag and dog tags.

In the next scene he sees someone stopped on the side of the road and goes to help them out.; he’s a mobile AAA, if you will. A young girl who was in the car when he arrived asks if she can have his “˜tags. He says sure without so much as batting an eyelash. They move on as he walks down the road a bit before being picked up by some random dude in a station wagon but this is where everything trips out, acid style. He somehow gets thrown into the loony bin and is framed for shooting someone he didn’t do and we’re told this all happens in 1992.

I think to myself that, wow, another one of these happy just to be alive kind of movies where our protagonist comes out of prison with a greater understanding of humanity. But then, something really cool happens. When he gets committed some kooky therapist there gets the idea to strap him in a straight jacket and slide him into a morgue holding container for hours on end. Hey, some dudes at Abu Ghraib like to stack prisoners in naked pyramids in real life so this brand of behavior conditioning is nothing shocking to me.

Flashes of random images start whipping by as his breath becomes labored and intensive. He cries out and I assume, judging by the frequency they take him and in and out, they continue doing this for a long long time.

He eventually gets out, looking none the worse for wear, his dental hygiene, oddly enough, being well cared for in the crap hole he was shown in, and meets up with Keira Knightley.

It should be no surprise that she is the girl who got his dog tags over a decade ago. Ta-da! He has no idea what year it is, he talks some gibberish about how he met her 15 years ago and then things get really choppy.

Essentially, we’re to believe that there was some odd behavior modification going on with the doctor that “helped” Adrian, somehow we’re to believe that Keira is the one woman who can help this man, he’s shown getting busy with Keira (Because I know if I was having problems knowing what year it was and who I was that I would need some sweet warm womanly love to get me thinkin’ straight, too, yo.), and then some A-chord musical interlude starts in to show how these two kids git “˜er done to get to the bottom of things.

Thoroughly unimpressed.

Director: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Cast: Gerard Damiano, Erica Jong, Linda Lovelace, Norman Mailer, Harry Reems, Gore Vidal, John Waters.
Release: February 11, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: More than 30 years after Deep Throat’s provocative debut, this documentary examines the legacy that the most profitable film of all-time left on society.

Prognosis: Positive. First of all, the green screen that comes before the trailer begins proudly displays that this trailer is for a movie rated NC-17.

Yahtzee!

I feel like I’m 13 years-old again and I look over my shoulder to see if anyone can see my monitor as the clip unfolds.

Instead of an annoying voiceover by “the guy” we slide into the controversy this film caused by listening to the ramblings of Hick McPodunk about the decline of western civilization that was pushed forward by the release of this porn movie.

The basics are tossed out there in print form: it was a $25,000 movie that has grossed over $600 million.

I like the way that in lieu of the voiceover we get fact after fact. True, this film caused a ripple effect inside the Nixon administration, and it only heightens the social subtext to what this flick did.

What’s hilarious is that at one point in this montage of clips and pictures is some old Aunt Bea character that looks terribly close to my grandmother saying she doesn’t, “want someone telling me I can’t see a dirty picture.” While it induces a certain “ewww” reaction in me I like the contrast.

Also, we get pundit commentary from John Waters, Gore Vidal, and Hugh Hefner so it’s a real cavalcade of those who were right at the nexus point of what this movie did or can comment on in it as it related to the sociological implications of its debut. And here you thought it was all about butt shots and ti%&y shakes and pu%#$ pumps. For shame, you lotharios.

The commentary gets more interesting as we see the director and production manager and other vital people in this story being interviewed about their involvement in the movie and it’s interesting, just on the surface, to see where their lives have taken them. There is a tennis back and forth motion of showing pictures from the past with modern images of these people and I like that what is happening here is someone wants to tell a story. Walter Cronkite, in file film footage, says how a judge ruled the movie obscene and you just know the kind of PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLINT arguing that’s gonna be present throughout this picture.

I am very and utterly surprised that Brian Grazer is attached as the producer of this movie as just being affiliated with a tawdry subject, read here: Kevin Bacon in THE WOODSMAN, starts comments about the ridiculous implications that might have for a career. Obviously, for Grazer, nothing will hamper that Ryan Cabrerra love slave look so I commend him for at least thinking this was an interesting story to tell.

There is a certain cheesiness to it all, the production value of the trailer and the music that goes along with it, but I can’t help but be confused whether I really want to see this documentary for its depth or because I want to see the naughty bits. I’ll publicly state that it’s for the former and secretly for the hope of looking at some poon.

Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Will Ferrell, Radha Mitchell, Chloe Sevigny, Amanda Peet
Release: March 18th, 2005
Synopsis: Two alternating stories about Melinda’s (Mitchell) attempts to straighten out her life.

Prognosis: Negative. Yeah, ANNIE HALL is the best romantic comedy ever put to film. Woody Allen is pure genius. He is one of the most unappreciated director/writers of our generation. Everyone in Hollywood always says they’re honored when he picks up the phone to ask them to star in a new production of his. He has the best taste in women.

Stop it already. Seriously.

How long can this guy turn out average fare before people stop believing the hype? I’m not saying people are wrong to say things that are more than complimentary but just adjust your perception of the world and see that his hit-or-miss style, for a long time now, isn’t as genius as the press would have you believe. For every SWEET AND LOWDOWN there’s two ANYTHING ELSEs just waiting to be released. This film, MELINDA AND MELINDA looks like something in-between.

If I could go half-way myself on either positive or negative I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one I’d choose with any great accuracy. This movie almost feels like a more cerebral lost episode of Seinfeld.

“Let me tell you a story and you tell me”¦is it material for a comedy or a tragedy?”

I like the premise and the way this trailer begins. It already supposes where we’re going with the story and it sets my anticipation that what we’re going to be shown is two scenarios seen through two different emotional lenses.

The cards introducing Woody as the writer/director is simple, the music is nice and as the voiceover says that everything is going to take place during a dinner party I am content. The party’s host, who comments that he’s running out of “obsequious” banter and seeming just like the kind of city-yuppie a-hole intellectual poseur who needs to have his faux ivy-league ass kicked in a bar fight, is a little pretentious but the premise that someone unexpected comes to the party is good. Then, that’s when Wallace Shawn, a near and dear actor for his timeless role in A PRINCESS BRIDE, pipes in and let’s us know we have the makings of a great comedy. It’s odd, a little stilted but it does rise above some other kinds of openings I’ve seen.

So”¦same dinner party premise, same kind of people, same unexpected guest but this time instead of asking for some wine or champagne (who the hell serves champagne at a dinner party?) she admits to having ingested fistfuls of sleeping pills. Of course, the wackiness ensues with the hostess admonishing her guests from getting up from the table to help the damsel in distress because the food will get cold and before she can yak on the rug Will Ferrell tells her to go to the bathroom because that’s new carpet. The premise is continued when Melinda, the sleeping pill chick, is being introduced to a man who has a successful dentistry practice. Will Ferrell tells his wife Melinda has already been married to a doctor and a dentist is the same thing but”¦oral. I loved that Seinfeld episode.

The trailer kind of slides here for me as this chick Melinda is the centerpiece for the film and in-between all the talk of finding her a man and settling down, to say nothing of the fact that all we know about this chick is that she likes sleeping pills, Will ends up really liking her as well.

“Love can be a tragedy or a comedy.”

Now, as I see it, it seems that Chloe Sevigny takes a shine to Melinda’s man and they hit it off as well. Things also go awry when, at the end of the trailer, Will catches his wife in bed with another man. He seems pleased because his fantasy to have Melinda to himself seems to be coming true, and I know it is supposed to appear funny, but wasn’t this all a plotline in Rescue Me, another television show?

Yeah, I don’t think the audience who this movie is catering to would watch a show like Rescue Me, either. It’s too gauche and bourgeois for the kinds of educated people this film is aimed at. Still, that was a good episode. Here, though, the joke could work for those not in the know. It looks like a serviceable comedy, if I can be so bold as to say that, but it will live or die on how well the dialogue comes across because there isn’t anything worse than a movie that tries to be clever only to impale itself on its own petard of bad clichés.

Director: Darin Beckstead
Cast: Todd Wall, Aaron Fiore, Kahil Dotay, Bill Allison, Tony Larimer
Release: November 20, 2004 (New York), DVD release soon
Synopsis: Inspired by the making of Spielberg’s 1974 shark blockbuster. Steven, a young filmmaker must find a way to make his monster movie after he and a friend (George) accidentally break the film’s main prop (A Mechanical Shark).

Prognosis: Positive Ok, so when I had to access the trailer for this independent movie I had to first go to the movie’s home page. When I opened it up I seriously thought I was going to be watching something on the Branch Davidians as I could swear the man looking back at me on that site bears a strong resemblance to David Koresh.

What this movie is, really, is something that feels along the same lines of GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE and I think that may have something to do with Lucas being depicted again in this short with the tell-tale beard and semi-morose attitude. Plus, at 25 minutes, the film looks like that’s just about enough to keep a gag like this going before it becomes tiresome and annoying.

The trailer is really amusing as it shows how JAWS really came together after Spielberg accidentally destroys the shark, trying to secretly show it off to Lucas one night. Right off the bat we get into why I need to see the movie, the conflict, and that’s too important not to make mention of here. Sometimes first time directors are so eager to show off everything they’ve done that they feel a need to cram but this trailer feels open and it doesn’t rush me through things. Within the first 20 seconds I know this is a comedy and that in a moment of child-like exuberance Spielberg kills the one thing that the entire movie rests on: a killer shark.

The trailer could’ve started right into how this malfunction affects the other people in the movie but we get an introduction into the various other members of the cast. Some people that are shown are good in their own thespian right. The producers of this interpretation of JAWS are rightly concerned about how this will affect the rest of the production when the shark is no longer usable, there is a guy who bears a wicked resemblance to Richard Dryfus and eerily sounds like him too, but the sheriff’s line about Spielberg, when commenting about this young auteur and his film style, saying that he wouldn’t be able to direct his way out of a paper bag is a groaner. It is. It’s just like those people who like to use a sentence that has the predicate of “on crack” and they insert someone or something that’s really just crazy or loony to them. “Out of a paper bag” is another one that needs to be jettisoned out of the earth’s verbal lexicon.

This doesn’t take away from the trailer’s ability to tell me why I should give a crap about its existence, though. I like parody. I am the fiscal reason why “Weird Al” still cranks out CD’s every couple of years. Comedy is, by some people’s estimation, a far more tenuous medium than any other genre. I was smiling at a couple of things in this trailer and I think that says something. Does it mean the movie might be great? Yeah, but it also could mean the rest of the film is filled with duds.

The trailer here sets the premise up, gives us a little look into the chaos that ensues after Spielberg trashes one of the most important props in movie history and it even tosses in some moments that would have me, at the very least, seeking this one out on television.

Director: Wes Craven
Cast: Christina Ricci, Shannon Elizabeth, Portia de Rossi, Michael Rosenbaum, Scott Foley, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Joshua Jackson, Mya
Release: February 25, 2005
Synopsis: Set in Los Angeles, “Cursed” centers around an estranged brother and sister dealing with the recent loss of their parents, whose lives are irrevocably altered one dark night in Los Angeles by a vicious animal attack.

Prognosis: Negative. I think one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen put on a screen involved Bill Paxton, an enormous toadish outfit and a little fly. For those who don’t know what scene I was talking about it is when Bill is turned into a hideous little creature in WEIRD SCIENCE. He’s just sitting on his stumpy little legs and thwips a fly right out of midair, enjoying it, before he realizes what he’s done. Somehow description doesn’t do it justice but you never forget a funny like that when you’re a kid as everything that comes after it just seems weak in comparison. Cases in point: Daniel-san grabs the buzzing fly with his chopsticks in KARATE KID, Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY, and even Booger in REVENGE OF THE NERDS II: NERDS IN PARADISE when he gets the fly with the monstrous loogie he jettisons from his mouth just don’t compare to Bill.

Even Christina Ricci’s fascination with catching flies out of the air with her hands just doesn’t do anything for me.

It seems that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson (it’s a true Marvel Team-Up if there ever was one) came together to make a werewolf movie but you would never know it by watching this trailer.

The thing starts with Christina taking her brother home. They’re bickering and I can’t really follow it, and it’s really late at night. The road is dark and of course there is heavy foliage besetting both sides of the street so Christina doesn’t see this mysterious something crash into her windshield. In the process of swerving her car away from the point of impact she knocks some lady off the road. I am genuinely curious to know what’s happening but it honest to God seems like it’s a promo for the TV show Lost as this other woman is yanked out of her car by some faceless creature and we have nothing but a blur to go off of. End of scene.

Some days later the brother says he is displaying some odd traits (like the aforementioned fly thing with Ricci), he’s able to bound some school bleachers in a single jump, and dogs start to gather around his house just like the whole cat thing from SLEEPWALKERS (a fairly strange Stephen King movie that I didn’t terribly dislike). His own dog, as well, turns into one of those freak HULK dogs but without the overtly odd physical transformation. It’s not scary, it just seems funny.

The whole trailer is trying to convince me that this is a new chapter of what AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON did for werewolves in the 80’s but I just don’t buy an inch of it. And I really do want it to be good, honestly, I do. Wes Craven gave me NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, Kevin Williamson gave me SCREAM, but all this looks like is an inbred mix of crap acting and bad attempts at trying to seem like a horror film when this only seems like a great cautionary tale as to what film should be avoided come the end of February.

The real reason here why I can’t even be kind of helpful towards this movie is that I have nothing to invest in any of these people. They seem, first of all, like bratty little whelps that need a reed across the ass; second, there isn’t really an explanation as to what’s at stake for any of these people as for all I know killing their friends in werewolf fashion might be a good thing; third, the transformation into a werewolf isn’t even hinted at until the end when we really do get a nice Dracula-like shot of Christina gorging into the neck of what I think is her boyfriend.

Disappointing, to say the least.

Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons
Release:May 6, 2005
Synopsis: During the Crusades of the 12th Century, Balian of Ibelin (Bloom), a young blacksmith in Jerusalem, rises to protect his people from foreign invaders.

Prognosis: Negative. “From the director of Gladiator,” the copy says. What it should say is, “From the director of Gladiator comes the exact same thing but just add many hundreds of years”¦”

I joke, I kid”¦sorta.

The trailer opens up wonderfully enough. Orlando Bloom has a voiceover where he is trying to rally the troops about some noble cause they’re involved in. We get an overhead shot of galloping horses that kick up lots of dust and that makes it seem more “epic.” We even get some nameless hottie hugging a young kid as he’s probably sold off into male slavery but the chick is squatting among the same damn crop field that looks exactly like the kind of agricultural product that Russell Crowe walks among at the end of GLADIATOR. It’s probably left over from that film but I can’t say for absolute sure just yet, and then we get some badass wielding a huge blade on a nice sunny day. Is it a knight in battle? Orlando makes me think it’s so but we press on for a before I have a chance to ascertain that.

The hottie shows up again, looking like one of those goth chicks I wanted to mack on in high school with the amount of black eyeliner she has on, but it looks like she’s spoken for by Orlando.

Ok, here’s why this is a bad beginning so far to the trailer: I don’t have an idea of who Orlando is supposed to be (good guy or bad), I see Liam Neeson but haven’t a clue what or who he’s scripted to be and as someone who might be a little helpful in getting people into the seats with the buzz surrounding him for KINSEY this might be a prudent time to get him more properly introduced, and, moreover, where the hell is the story? I feel like David St. Hubbins from THIS IS SPINAL TAP looking into an empty olive and feeling a sense of anger and dejection.

I get a flash of Liam getting surgical with his own sidearm sword but we come upon his voiceover as he talks, again I can only assume, to Orlando about being part of a kingdom of conscious. This time we get Jeremy Irons who looks all suited up for battle on a Hollywood screen, some shots of people riding horses, a lot of pomp of kings and queens and I am completely lost without a road map. Who the hell are these people and what are they doing?

Is Orlando fighting for good? Is he on a crusade against Jeremy Irons? Is that the whole point of the title of the film? If all these things are a yes then I am going to need something more than the quiet lead-in to the battle of thousands (I am sure many of whom who are shown were digitally placed into harms way for my pleasure). I got burned on TROY and on ALEXANDER last year because I thought “how can you screw up a battle sequence after LORD OF THE RINGS?” Well, both of them tried and succeeded in doing so and here it isn’t any different.

However, when some guy who is kneeling on the ground gets socked across the head by something heavy and blunt, the dude’s long curly locks whipping around his face, you’ve got my attention. Also, I am a sucker for the dozens of arrows in the air at a single time trick so I appreciate that as well.

It’s as the trailer is heading into the final turn that I finally become invested in Orlando’s character. He’s on a mission, for sure, but there is a nice lady who waits his safe return and that’s illustrated quite nicely. Liam, though, is oddly shown whipping his sword around in what looks like the exact same fight as the beginning of the trailer. I am happy to add, in the trailer’s defense, that there is an awesome display of flaming catapults. Those little orbs of molten beauty are really the only saving grace here. I mean Middle Earth is one thing but if this is the time of the crusades Orlando looks too damn cute in every shot. Couldn’t they have at least roughed him up a little around the edges? It’s a minor quibble but, even still, this is one of the first movies Ridley Scott has done in a while that I’m really not amped up to see and I think that’s the true letdown of the entire trailer.

Director: Elliot Greenebaum
Cast: Michael Bonsignore, Maggie Riley
Release: February 4, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: “Assisted Living” chronicles a day in the life of Todd, a janitor who spends his days smoking pot and interacting with the residents for his own entertainment. Todd’s detachment from his surroundings is compromised only by his unlikely friendship with Mrs. Pearlman, a resident who begins to confuse him with her son. On this particular day, Todd must choose whether or not to play the part. “Assisted Living” is shot and staged in a real nursing home and gains much of its unique effect and style from the participation of actual residents and staff members. During much of the film, it is impossible to distinguish between what is real and what is fiction.

Prognosis: Positive. Now this is the kind of trailer that makes me smile.

Just when I start to think that maybe I am the jerk-off who can’t find anything nice to say about the labors in trailers of other people one like this makes me think that there are people out there who are trying really hard.

I appreciate that this trailer starts off with a steady flow of information. The makers of this trailer, first of all, use a nice piece of running time of the actual movie to introduce us to the protagonist. It’s a guy who looks like a male nurse, but who I guess turns out to be the janitor, and he’s apologizing for coming in late to work. He walks past someone who might be a co-worker or boss but he doesn’t care because he’s already given the excuse as he was walking and that’s the end of that. He works in a retirement home. The screen goes black. Now, how hard was that?

The next scene has a nice guitar score in the background as our man starts to make a few phone calls to the residents. He’s pretending to be dead members of these people’s families. It may sound cruel, and in a way it is, but it’s too damn funny to see the number of people he talks to and what he says to them. The Q&A ranges from who’s there in heaven with them to what heaven-sex is like.

We get to know this guy a little more when he starts to talk to one of the residents in particular. He seems genuinely nice, to a point, but he also appears to have a way of trying to find different things to amuse himself while working. The cards that are interspersed with the trailer have written sound bites from various news publications regarding the quality of the film. Here it is quite useful in couching the right expectations for the film.

What’s more is the use of long scenes in this trailer. Where many studios want you to at least see a frame of every shot done for a film that’s crammed into their trailer this film appeals to me because I see how these people talk and act with one another. It’s risky but it’s funny to see how our protagonist operates inside the boundaries of his job.

There is a real vulnerability to this guy and the trailer is able to communicate that wonderfully.

Director: Christophe Barratier
Cast: Gerard Jugnot, Francois Berleand, Jean-Baptiste Maunier, Jacques Perrin, Kad Merad
Release: January 14, 2005 (New York)
Synopsis: The new teacher at a severely administered boys’ boarding school works to positively effect the students’ lives through music.

Prognosis: Positive. Yeah, this one’s a reader, an import, a foreign language flick, but I absolutely enjoyed this trailer enough to give it a mention.

What’s nice about this trailer is that it starts off very subtly. A metronome tick-tocks in front of a classroom where a small boy watches it go back and forth. A dozen or so small feet shuffle in quick succession as if they’re running to or from somewhere. As is usually the case with foreign language films we get sweeping views of the landscape to show us that we’re in a different time, a different country but everything is tight.

“They were the orphans of World War II that were forgotten.”

The choral singing of one boy fills the background with sound. It’s nice, soothing even. Young boys mill about, I take it to be, a small rural orphanage.

“He was a composer who had given up on music.”

We see what looks like Mr. Stick Up His Ass come to the gates of this boys town as the singing subsides and gives way to a jaunty piano that opens us up to what looks like a KINDERGARTEN COP classroom but with all dudes. The man looks unimpressed and even more so when they pull a Mr. Shoop (Yeah, I’m a Mark Harmon fan, a SUMMER SCHOOL aficionado, so what?) as play keep away with the guy’s belongings.

So far I am really into what this trailer is selling because the set-up was done simplistically and there hasn’t been a moment of stuffiness. That’s a really good thing what with my short attention span these days.

And then it happens. The trailer gains foreword momentum.

The sad and lonely guy eventually does find inspiration with these lads, somehow, and I like that I’m not shown how this happens after these hellions do all they can to make this guy’s life miserable, Something is triggered as our teacher finds a way into these kids’ insides. The choral music begins anew and it’s superb.

This all leads to the mini-scenes of boys being boys, seeing what they did to amuse themselves in their downtime, and there are even a couple of camera shots that just linger long enough to be quite provocative. One is of some man dressed very nicely in a vest and tie but stands on his desk, flying a paper airplane around himself. It’s absurd but it makes me wonder. The same can be said of a shot that has a very small boy, no older than maybe 4 or 5, standing all alone as it appears someone is driving away from him. I’m not sure whether I should feel sad for the lad or wonder why he just stands still as the camera pulls away.

It may be a lot of things but the premise is interesting, the music is splendid, the camerawork is more than adequate and I loved the last thing that this director has done which was WINGED MIGRATION.

Director: Terrence Malick
Cast: Jason Aaron Baca, Christian Bale, Greg Cooper, Colin Farrell, John Ghaly, Wes Studi
Release: November, 2005
Synopsis: A Terrence Malick-scripted drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and the British in the 17th century.

Prognosis: Surprisingly Positive This is one movie that will most defiantly be discussed in certain media circles come next Thanksgiving.

What I like about the film, immediately, is the trailer page where I watched this thing. The photo art that accompanies the small screen for viewing the trailer has a picture of an Indian. You can only see the back of his head, it’s slightly shadowed, with trees all around him. His Mohawk is in full-effect, the feathers are a great touch, very punk circa 1982, and I am struck at how poignant the image is when you see the approaching ships in the background of said picture. It’s eerie, for most who know American history, knowing what will be coming then and in the next couple hundred years. If you live anywhere else in the world and aren’t up on world history, specifically this nation’s love of Thanksgiving, we here in the States celebrate our arrival in the New World, forgetting all that liberal jazz about the smallpox, the mass slaughter of innocents, how we drove a native population nearly into extinction, and everything else we’re literally paying for today, by killing various forms of fauna and having kids make these gnarly hand turkeys that stay on the fridge well after the holiday is finished. But I am getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? What I am trying to illustrate is that I think this film may be a good step in showing how pleasant we were to the natives and the kind of chaos many thousands of white folk brought to this New World and the trailer does an admirable job in fanning the flames of what will, no doubt, be brought up in about 10 months.

The trailer sets things in motion nicely.

The sound of native music echoes among the people on the screen as they are communally joined in a ritual. It’s barely dawn and they stand in a large bank of water. They’re hunting fish.

We’re given, casually, the fact that Terrence Malick, from THE THIN RED LINE, directed this film. The transition is very smooth and it’s not obtrusive.

Virginia, 1607.

A three boat armada enters the frame as a single bang of a large drum symbolizes the weight of what’s about to come next. Another bang of the drum shows the natives getting restless as they spot a small patrol boat led by Colin Farrell. Hell, I would be restless too if I had no idea what a mullet was but yet had no way to describe the evil I felt on the inside by looking at that insidious hairstyle coming ever closer into my life.

The men come off the ship and there is a nice close-up of a single leather boot squishing into the muddy bank as its wearer plods onto land.

The Indians seem to welcome these strange men as the whiteys seem perplexed as to what to do. Even the head of P.A.G.A.N. from DRAGNET, Reverend Jonathan Whirley aka Christopher Plummer (I’m also a big fan of that midnight movie), seems wierded out by the welcome.

We see a nice depiction of the tribal people more than the Europeans (God only knows what nationality Colin will be playing this time) and we then get right up to the lip of where things start to boil over but we don’t get there. There also doesn’t seem to be conflict between the Indians and Europeans but we get a peek into a certain assimilation that takes place with Colin. In a way that makes me think this is a little bit like THE LAST SAMURAI (a movie that should’ve been better but decided to piss any cred it had away with Tom Cruise walking away from a machine gun assault. Bollocks.) but without too much depending on a love story. Not that there isn’t one, though. There is a very nice ending shot of an Indian woman, in full-on Pocahontas garb, walking slowly into a grassy thicket. She’s all alone and maybe she ahs something to do with Colin but since I can’t say for sure I can only guess. But what I will say is that, again, this is a good case why voiceovers don’t necessarily have to be the knee-jerk go-to solution in telling a story. If you use good imagery, like this one does, and you really try to organically get your point across the audience is a lot smarter than some will have you think.

Yeah, I also know it’s Colin Farrell and it’s so hard to trust him to take the lead in anything but I just have to think that TIGERLAND wasn’t just luck. I’m pullin’ for the lad, I am.

Director: Uwe Boll
Cast: Christian Slater, Tara Reid, Stephen Dorff, Will Sanderson
Release: January 28, 2005
Synopsis: Based on the video game, Alone in the Dark focuses on Edward Carnby, a detective of the paranormal, who slowly unravels a mysterious events with deadly results.

Prognosis: Negative. Christian Slater. Christian Slater. I still maintain that HEATHERS, TRUE ROMANCE and PUMP UP THE VOLUME were his true pinnacles of celluloid history. INTERVIEW OF A VAMPIRE? That was supposed to be River Phoenix and doesn’t count. KUFFS I am extremely happy to own on DVD but would never admit to that in public conversation. So, it is with great dread that once again Slater is pumping out another weak-assed attempt to try and finagle some better roles; this, I am afraid, will only get him a supporting spot in DUNSTON CHECKS IN 2: DUNSTIN GOES APESHIT.

The poster, though, for the film is an HR Giger nightmare and I like that. It’s creepy, it’s dark and it’s says to me that this movie is looking to be something more than just a weak scare flick. Uwe Boll, the mastermind behind the lens, just looks like he was on autopilot making this. Sure, HOUSE OF THE DEAD was applauded by some, certainly not by me by any means, but, come on, let’s take a look at this trailer.

We get an overhead shot of a city during the day. Whether it’s supposed to be New York, Chicago, L.A., Peru, I haven’t a clue and none is even offered as we switch to a Christian Slater voiceover and he is in full-on Nicholson as he starts to talk about investigating whatever the hell seems to be happening again. Somehow, using backgrounds as the clues, it has something to do with mosquitoes and human lungs. I’m not sure but this could be the first movie based on West Nile Virus.

Slater talks with someone, wearing the same trench coat and black t-shirt as he seems to be donning in every shot, a requisite for any bad movie mo-fo with an attitude but a good moral compass, and their talk is fixated on an ancient tablet of some sort. Tara Reid, hot off her role in MY BOSS’S DAUGHTER, is the one woman who will be accompanying Slater on some trek into the depths of someplace dark where you just know she’s not gonna get killed because she’s supposed to be the hot chick and hot chicks never get knocked-off although I don’t think Tara really qualifies anymore”¦

What is so alarming to me is that we are well into the trailer and we don’t have any sense of trepidation or buy-in as to why I should give a care about any of the things happening on the screen. So far it’s like being jerked around from scene to scene with no real context and I am actually thankful for Voiceover Guy when he finally chimes in.

“Some gateways should never be opened”¦”

Thanks. Now we’re getting somewhere. Slater and a bunch of people, who will no doubt be dead by the third act less Reid and maybe Dorff, depending on how good his agent is, find their way into some ancient something or another. There are skulls on one wall so that should be plenty creepy, right? Then, some security guard starts to investigate what appears to be a big black room. As soon as the poor sap starts to say “Hello?” you know how this encounter is going to end. I just hope to get a glimpse of the thing that’s gonna kill him. I’m robbed of that but somehow I there are display cases everywhere and now I get the clue that this might be happening in a museum. Huh? Yeah, no context equals confused. Confused leads to anger and anger leads to wondering why this film looks like it was shot on one soundstage and appears to meld elements of STARSHIP TROOPERS and every lame one-guy-against-it-all cliché you can hurl at it.

Ahh, but I am not without some compliments regarding this film. At about one minute six seconds I get exactly what I need: gunfire, hand-to-hand combat, and a better look at our titular villain. Yeah, it’s like a midget horde of Godzillas but it’s loud, it’s visually engaging and I actually feel some sort of pull towards to the theater to see it.

However, after the hard rock soundtrack ends and the night watchman gets it by what looks like a Shiwalla car scrubber with fangs, I am no more inclined to see this movie than I am anything else Slater has done in the last five years.

Director: Peter Segal
Cast: Martin Lawrence, Horatio Sanz, Steven Anthony Lawrence, Steven C. Parker, Patrick Warburton
Release:April 15, 2005
Synopsis: An acclaimed college hoops coach is demoted to a junior varsity team after a public meltdown.

Prognosis: Negative. “A comedy where old school meets middle school”?

A tagline like this really does tell you exactly what kind of film you’re in for. I was about to get all mental on this trailer, an obvious target for some sharp commentary about where Martin Lawrence’s career is going, but I won’t. This film isn’t for you or I and but it is trying to cater, I think, to a more youthful audience. I guess Lawrence is thinking is if Eddie Murphy is getting paid big money to not be that funny and cater to kids, why can’t I? And who could blame him, anyway? I sure as hell would like some of that sell-out action. This trailer, though, to its credit, gives us everything we need to know about the story from start, middle to finish.

First, we see that he is a very successful college coach. He appears to be the coach of a team that has done very well for his reputation as a great leader of men, but, like all movies that are about big tumbles from the top, he’s knocked off his pedestal. It seems he was excessively cruel to a school’s live hawk mascot when he accidentally kills it by punting a basketball into its head. He’s immediately banned from coaching college basketball and we even see more of his Bobby Knight-like qualities when he tries to refute the punishment.

So far the story is well-put, the camera angles are about as vanilla as you’re gonna get, there is nothing at all special about the acting and we pretty much know this is going to be all about Martin.

He somehow makes his way back to the middle school where he used to go, I am sure there will be a huge plotline surrounding why this indignant little man would stoop so low, and asks to coach their basketball team. Would you be terribly surprised to know that each one of these kids homogenously suck at playing basketball? Yeah, me neither. Each one of these kids, though, especially the girl, have a wacky characteristic that sets them apart from any other normal kid in the world and I guess that will appeal to the eight to twelve year-olds out there who may want to waste their time to see this.

I do have to say it is kinda funny that when the kids don’t listen to Lawrence’s advice to keep their hands up while guarding their man he, in turn, puts Icy Hot under their armpits. I found that little act of child abuse hilarious. I’m actually going to commit that bit to my future Rolodex of Things To Do To My Own Kid Someday. I actually laughed.

But for every step, though, we take forward we go twenty backward. What happens near the end of this trailer is we see these kids do what every other kid’s movie show underdogs do: win. They now have great looking uniforms, Lawrence fires them up by letting them know they’re winners (Awww), there seems to be a great celebration at the end, and there’s even a moment when the guy who fired Martin at the beginning of the trailer tells him the following, “Are you out of your mind?” The guy is holding a contract in his hand and Martin goes on to explain that he found a group of kids who blah blah blah. Essentially you now know that he’ll be offered his old job back and he’ll refuse it. Um, who the hell cut this trailer? Isn’t the whole point of one of these things is to stoke interest and to possibly, at times, tease? To even give away the secondary ending seems absolutely beyond anything I can comprehend but I guess that’s what’s needed to bring in the young’uns.

For the rest of the audience, though, that this movie does not appeal to I am sure we all give you thanks for ruining an already wafer-thin movie and for saving me the money of having to find out myself how this thing ends.

Director: Moon-saeng Kim, Park Sunmin
Cast: Joon-ho Chung, David Naughton, Hye-jin Yu, Ji-tae Yu.
Release: February 18, 2005
Synopsis: Civilization has been destroyed by war and pollution, but the survivors have built the last city of Ecoban. As most natural resources have been exhausted, Ecoban is powered by pollution. The citizens of Ecoban need to continue creating this pollution leading them into conflict with the inhabitants of Marr, while one man just wants to clear away the clouds and show the sky to his beloved.

Prognosis: Visually Positive. As a big fan for all things TRON, I submit to you SKY BLUE.

At first I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting. I mean nearly the first thirty seconds of this trailer is spent showing us who made the damn thing. Yeah, it’s cool to have a really great lead-in to show what company put the time into making the film but when it represents a good percentage of your running time you may want to think about scaling things back a bit.

After the intros are finally out of the way we’re shown a really nice close-up of rain falling to the ground; rain just coming down on concrete. It’s simple, it’s artistic in a way and I like the way it sort of eases us into revealing what film festivals really took a shine to this movie: Tokyo Film Festival, Sundance, Venice, London.

“How long has it been raining? Forever.”

A nice female voice is the first sound I hear as the screen goes black and that’s when it happens. A bike, right out TRON but without the neon shite on the sides, goes blazing, hauling major ass, into the side of a mountain that has a tunnel etched into it.

Were told it’s 2142 and, as all movies that go this far in the future show us, people seem to be living underground in vast networks of post-apocalyptic urban jungles, there is a very musty and dreary feel to everything but it all seems very real to me. I am amazed when I see that this is an animated movie.

The story is daring with its cocksure overlords, their grand designs to be rulers among men, and the lone rogue out to stop it all. I’m not faulting the film, though, as I would if the animation used traditional methodologies to tell this tale but every story like this one needs to have a twist to set it apart and the visuals that are supporting the action pop out at me with a colorful panache.

Yeah, there are grandiose moments of bombast of our hero trying to rally his troops in killing whoever is in charge of their misfortune but the sequences used how the action will go down beats to hell anything I’ve seen for a while in the realm of Asian animation. I can’t tell for sure if it’s a blend of live action with animation or if it’s CGI mixed with animation but it’s riveting.

I do have to give even more props to how this thing goes out. I have a thing about liking it when trailer really blows out the wad at the end to really sell a film with bits and pieces that may not even be related to anything. The explosions, the energy, the gunfire, the movements of the characters, they all get me excited to find out where this film will be coming to my part of the world. It’s animation with serious style.

Director: Jesse Dylan
Cast: Will Ferrell, Robert Duvall, Mike Ditka, Kate Walsh
Release: May 13th, 2005
Synopsis: Family man Phil Weston, a lifelong victim of his father’s competitive nature, takes on the coaching duties of a kids’ soccer team, and soon finds that he’s also taking on his father’s dysfunctional way of relating.

Prognosis: Positive. The only thing that Will Ferrell has to fear is being pigeonholed as the “go to” guy for a character that needs to be slightly off from the norm. His performances in recent years have been nothing less than commendable for their ability to raise an average production into something more when they’re entrusted to his brand of comedy. From his recent stint as a crazed ex-Santa helper in ELF and even as Ron Burgundy in ANCHORMAN they both have shown his abilities as a comedic actor. He is really one of the best talents that is actually maturing in an age where EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND or JOEY pass for what mainstream culture demands of its humor.

Thank god for Will.

This trailer starts off interestingly enough. Kids are all frolicking with one another in a series of youth sports. From soccer (I remember sucking at that) to football (I was too big of a puss to even try) to baseball (Let’s face facts”¦I was once the walk leader for my little league division I was so scared of that white leathery thing) Voiceover Guy let’s us know that these are the things that build character in young children’s lives and it took coaches to instill these values into us.

Cut to Will Ferrell, in a crazy pair of Blublocker shades, telling a pack of small kids to play dirty if they have to, while admonishing them not to get caught if they try, as Mike Ditka looks on, gnashing on his gum as only Da Coach can do. The children go in for the huddle and it seems that soccer is the name of the game in this film.

What comes next, though, is genuinely amusing. A little kid, literally, no more than a few feet tall rolls over a soccer ball. The ball is half this kid’s size. Will Ferrell, short of using foul language, yells at this poor child and at the end of the rant he tells him to, “grab some bench.” Verbal abuse, when put in odd contexts, is an excellent brand of laugh getting that Will seems to have a knack for doing well.

What’s more is Will’s verbal taunting of an opposing team’s player as he trash talks from the sidelines. The abused child eventually goes after Will, even gets him on the ground, and nearly has him crying uncle.

Will then turns his attention to these kid’s parents. Where there has been much made, as of late, of coaches who abuse their positions for their own sake the trailer has Will calling out a parent’s utter lack of respect for himself and makes one of them run a lap.

The trailer ends with his own son, who is on the team, trying to keep his father in check. Will doesn’t see what his son is even referring to as he says he’s doing everything for him and for the two of them to have fun. Herein, then, lies the crux of the film. While things don’t seem to be anything more than just a vehicle for Will to be”¦well”¦Will it does seem like a flick, like ELF, that will get parents as well as kids in to his movies.

Is this a bad thing or a good thing? Does having a career essentially built on films that just showcase you while everyone else is really just a supporting character a positive way to move through movies? His stint in BEWITCHED, one of the first times since OLD SCHOOL, will show how he really does with sharing the screen. The thing with that is, though, that I can’t even think why that would be a problem. Will has shown himself capable of melting into the background as well as being at the forefront where the action is. He is all about giving seemingly normal people just that slight quirk that is amusing to the rest of us in an audience but confounds all those who come in contact with him on the screen. So far it’s working well.

Director:Ron Howard
Cast: Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Connor Price
Release: June 3rd, 2005
Synopsis: Set in New York during the Depression, this is the story of James Braddock (Crowe), who takes up boxing to make money to feed his family, and ends up becoming quite famous in the process, eventually going up against champ Max Baer.

Prognosis: Positive Yes, this is one of the most manipulative trailers you’ll see in a long time but, damn, it does it really well.

I wasn’t necessarily a fan of his work in MASTER AND COMMANDER nor was I in love of everything that he did in A BEAUTIFUL MIND (made by the same people here) but this film does feel different in a way that almost makes me feel lured to see what this film can do.

The thing opens up with Russell Crowe getting his ass beat in a boxing ring. Everything about it feels like a period piece and the boxing gloves (the rope tied around those leather mitts) give it all away. The camera moves in slow motion, Russell looking obviously exhausted from the fight, as he falls from the ropes.

The scene dissolves.

Paul Giamatti appears to be Russell’s trainer and the two of them are sitting on the edge of an empty ring. Paul lets him know that he’s getting old, he’s getting slow, and that it’s over. Russell just wants another fight. He looks like a man beaten. The scene dissolves.

Renée Zellweger is his wife and she tells him that she’ll always be behind him; it, too, feels like a sincere statement of love that I somehow manage to take at face value.

“I believe we live in a great country”¦”

Russell takes the reigns on a voiceover that has little to do with the action on the screen. He appears to be locked out of a factory, along with the rest of the working population there, and it all has the texture and scent of the depression in New York as the foreman of the warehouse shouts out from behind a locked gate that he needs only nine men to work out of the dozens that have shown up. Russell isn’t one of them.

An interesting point of fact here is that even though that Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are the men helming this thing from behind the lens the cards that tell us this are miniscule in comparison to the savage fonts that some directors employ to let anyone within eye shot of their trailer know who’s in charge.

Russell admits in the voice over that he owes everyone money. Renee stands in a snowy alleyway sobbing her eyes out. The man is down as low as one man can get but yet he mentions the things he’s grateful for, with accompanying film to show it: his three healthy “troublemaking” kids and his beautiful wife. You’re so busy looking at the people he’s talking about that you don’t ever sense that the cards that introduce Renee as Renee just blend seamlessly into the background of the narrative. Absolutely splendid.

The trailer ends with us seeing him behind a half dozen radio microphones, this voiceover being a small conceit that hasn’t revealed until the end, and that he’s been talking to the media about how this is his second chance; the last second chance of his career. The feeling I get as things come to a finish is that you don’t really know if this boxer will come out and win this fight. You know everything that’s prelude to this but it doesn’t feel hokey in a way that most sports movies are. It could go either way for this palooka and that’s about as much as you can ask for in a film like this.

The music, as well, gets some extra points for its smooth and ethereal like quality. It carries us delicately from one moment to the next.

Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Djimon Hounsou
Release: February 18, 2005
Synopsis: Based on the DC/Vertigo comic book Hellblazer and written by Kevin Brodbin, Mark Bomback and Frank Capello, Constantine tells the story of irreverent supernatural detective John Constantine (Keanu Reeves), who has literally been to hell and back.

Prognosis: Getting Warmer… I know that some of the production issues this film has had in the past have already made people talking heads on the subject of doomed productions. However, it does not take away from the feeling that this film, at the very least, delivers on a visual level when you see this trailer.

I reviewed the teaser way back in May when this film was already slated for a 2005 release. There was a lot that Warner Brothers could’ve done to that teaser or, more importantly, left out in order to really tease the premise of this film. Instead of doing that what do they go and produce? A trailer-worthy cavalcade of images and small snippets of really good bite-sized pieces of eye candy, that’s what.

This new trailer exceeds even my own expectations out of a production that has Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz helming the leading roles.

The thing starts off oddly enough. Keanu sits in a very large room in an electric chair. The floor seems like gold linoleum as a guy who could pass for the authentic Huggy Bear tosses a pot full of water onto the floor where it touches Keanu’s feet. (Those of you with a fetish for that sort of thing will be more than delighted at the images provided) Huggy busts a floor lamp light bulb wide open, leaving the center filament intact as it illuminates the already bright space. He asks Keanu if he’s sure about this, to which our “Whoa” man says no. Homeboy jams the lamp downward, Keanu gets some voltage not seen since that one part in FACES OF DEATH or even SHOCKER and we’re off. What’s really special about this trailer is that with this new installment Warner Bros. jams even more visuals for us to consume so it’s really hard to keep things together.

Next, some dude stands before a fireplace; we’re not shown his face but he extends his wings like it’s a deleted scene from X2. We’re offered context at all but it’s just there to be shown.

Weisz stands before Keanu and wants to ask him a couple of questions. She tells him she knows what circles he travels in, that he’s interested in the occult and as we get her voice doing a sort of impromptu voiceover over a scene that shows a woman crawling on the ceiling. This bit has me digging this film even more; any movie where you can get people crawling on ceilings gets my attention for a few more seconds than it really should. It’s an Achilles heel.

In one of the longest scenes provided Keanu is hanging out with a friend of his. The friend has a magic wand of sorts and says the thing contains dragon breath. It’s all well and good until Keanu turns to the side and unleashes a wicked stream of fire from the tip of that thing. I’ll admit, it looks pretty impressive.

It’s about this time when the plot comes into fuzzy focus as Keanu refers to the explanation given in the teaser earlier this year that God and the Devil made a wager for the souls of all mankind; no direct contact, just influence to see who would win. Now, that’s an easy enough plot to understand. Things get interesting, though, when Weisz’ character gets the chance, just like in that sweet film THEY LIVE, to see those that are in possession of one or the other. Mostly, though, it appears that she’s just gonna see those who are ready to tear the world a new one.

There is a nice baptism scene in Keanu’s bathtub where we get a little wet shirt cleavage from Weisz but her femininity is too much to be contained and the tub busts open. This when strange things go afoot near that man’s Circle K.

We’re not really sure what’s happening after this as what we’re given afterwards is the same as from the original teaser where Weisz gets ripped backwards through an office building. It’s a nice effect, regardless.

We’re given intros into all the characters, Keanu’s slapping his arms together in a Wonder Twins sort of way to unleash some unholy hell, Weisz gets hers through a series of personal possessions and other strange occurrences, but this thing does end quite limply with Keanu saying “Go to hell.” I’m sure it’s in reference to something really very dramatic but, still, those kinds of puns need to go away. Quickly.

What can I say but that it actually looks impressive? The same could be said for any other movie that depends too much on its CGI but if Garth Ennis had anything to do with the screenplay this may very well be a good start to the comic book movies of 2005.

Director: Peter Segal
Cast: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, James Cromwell, Walter Williamson, Michael Irvin, Nelly
Release:May 27, 2005
Synopsis: Prison inmates form a football team to challenge the prison guards.

Prognosis: Negative. Ok, so the trailer beings with “Paradise City” by Guns N’ Roses.

Now, I can appreciate the vibe of the song and what it is supposed to connote superficially but wasn’t there nothing made in the ’90s or 2000s that could’ve done the same thing? It really is a small quibble but when I also see that this film is a part of MTV Films I get a little nervous as the marketing for this project will be brutal. Any pre- or recently post-pubescent with any working knowledge of how MTV Films uses its own network to whore their films, as is the case right now with the soon-to-released, COACH CARTER, can attest how you will be an assault of commercials and personal appearances from the film’s line-up on TRL and anything else they damn well own. I know all about synergy and how it’s supposed to help market films but there is that thin line of promotion and the way some make pimping a film a lesson in visual saturation.

About the trailer, though, Sandler starts off by being shown as an inmate inside a prison. 364 days a year they’re chained up and beat down. (I not only like that tagline but I appreciate that Sandler is getting shown getting his ass booted off a bus. It’s oddly satisfying and I rewind that bit a few times just for the visual satisfaction.) For the audience this trailer is catering to it does everything right to help them understand why they need to see this new Sandler product. I’m not criticizing that, but can see how these things are being softballed to a very specific audience.

Sandler is told that another prison has a great guard football league and the warden in charge wants him, and whoever the hell he can get to play, to go up against them. Of course, the prison guards are all beefed out, have huge muscles, have nice uniforms, practice fields, equipment, etc”¦ The prison guards actually appear to be nothing less than a watered down professional football team. What this does is to visually contrast the guys that Sandler, throughout this trailer, is going to try and get to play for him. The first dude, though, looks like a mad meld of Lou Ferrigno and Hannibal Lecter. He’s completely savage and of course he says no when asked to play in this game. Of course, as soon as Sandler says it’s the guards they’re going to go up against he’s all for it.

It’s all about contrast from here on out. The guards are slick, the inmates are clumsy and hapless; the guards have moves while the inmates are inept. It goes back and forth like this for just a few moments while “Two Steps” from Lynyrd Skynyrd plays in the background.

Sandler and Chris Rock get to make a little jokes so everyone knows, if you don’t already know, this is going to be a comedy while Burt Reynolds gets to show up in the trailer to keep with the whole having to bring someone from an old production as an “homage” to the new one; I don’t yet understand why that needs to happen in most any remake nowadays.

And what would an all male football picture be without poking fun at homosexuality? Rock does an answer/response with the guys he’s trying to motivate and tricks one of them to say something that suggests that the guy is a homo. Ha Ha. Great. You know, the sooner that writers can find jokes that don’t depend on trying to harness a dangerous zeitgeist in social thinking like this one does I could more enjoy supporting a film that looks like it’s 90 minutes of pure formula.

As it stands it still looks like it’s following all the things necessary to have a standard opening while having a little latitude to get a few extra dollars should they open this at just the right time in the year when people are looking to fill their time with a little crap at the cinema.

Director: Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker
Cast: True blue American soldiers.
Release: March 4, 2005
Synopsis: GUNNER PALACE reveals the complex realities of the situation in Iraq not seen on the nightly news. Told first-hand by our troops, ‘Gunner Palace’ presents a thought provoking portrait of a dangerous and chaotic war that is personal, highly emotional, sometimes disturbing, surprisingly amusing … and thoroughly fascinating.

Prognosis: Very Positive. Regular readers out there know of my love for PALM Pictures. They’re a great outfit that gives financial boots to really out-of-the-way pictures that rise above the idea that independent has to equate to stifling, self-indulgent productions. When you watch this trailer you can see that this is a documentary that seems just as relevant now as it was when it was shot.

Quickly, this movie draws you in and gets right to the point as if seconds are too precious to waste. As the screen illuminates we’re treated to a quote from someone from the NY Times and, as is my thoughts on this sort of thing, it gives instant credibility to the production and it makes people linger on just a little longer had it not been there. I could’ve quickly pressed stop and gone on but I liked that someone else had already done the work and seen the film.

A nice baseline starts pumping. The sky is now yellow as a large plane banks on its side and we cut to a US soldier walking backwards, cradling his weapon. We know exactly where this has been filmed without needing an explanation.

We then see another soldier in a bulletproof vest, a flow of words streaming from his mouth as he’s the one rapping over the bass, standing in front of a Humvee; it’s a stark contrast to the more popular versions of current media depictions of the Cristal guzzling misogynists who stand comfortably, and safely, in front of H2s with their hoes in tow.

This is Iraq and a flood of unrest dots the screen. A punk rock tune takes over and the assault is on to showcase the chaos that is military life. It’s vivid, real, and I can’t look away and this is only the first twenty seconds of the trailer.

We’re told that 400 troops set themselves up at a palace once built for Sadaam Hussein. These guys are shown taking advantage of its large interior and pool area for really letting off some of their pent up energy. The music is perfect as troops flounder into a nice looking pool.

Some guys cruise the streets of an Iraqi town at night without their uniforms on and they appear to be just trying to take it all in. A small pack of soldiers, armed, manhandle some unwilling participants in what I can only assume is a raid. Guys are rounded up, ammunition is found, as is a lot of dough, and you begin to see character studies of the real guys who are on the frontline of this war. What’s really interesting to note, apart from one soldiers’ view about how many Iraqis greeted them with open arms a year ago and how now they’re shot at, is at one point in this trailer a soldier lets the camera see one of the vehicles he uses. The truck is outfitted in a slapdash pishposh of heavy metallic objects that are supposed to be his “bulletproofing.” It’s a sad commentary about how these soldiers have to find scrap metal to reinforce their vehicles but, again, it’s chillingly relevant.

What’s also remarkable about this movie is that, as a documentary, there isn’t really a bias that can be traced back to a left-wing liberal or a right-wing pundit. I am appreciative of any story about a conflict such as this but if this is truly a documentary about the soldiers told from the soldiers, as this trailer purports, I would do anything I could to see what it’s really like to be so young and in the middle of a war so heinously out of control.