FRED Entertainment

Director: Mike Mitchell
Cast: Michael Angarano, Danielle Panabaker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Steven Strait
Release: July 29, 2005
Synopsis: Set in a world where superheroes are commonly known and accepted, young Will, the son of Commander Stronghold and Jetstream, tries to find a balance between being a normal teenager and an extraordinary being.

Prognosis: Positive. Can someone out there answer one quick question for me? It won’t take more than just a moment, I promise: Did Kurt Russell sign a lifetime contract in blood with Disney? Did he slit his own aortic veins open and, in a glorious spouting of viscous red platelets, forever sign allegiance to the Mouse House? I mean, not that I care or anything, but I am just curious to know.

The short review on this trailer is that it looks the way it should. You have more exposition than is really necessary, shots of most any notable person in the flick, and you have Voiceover Guy helping to move things right along at a rather comfortable pace. It looks like the kind of safe family entertainment that many parents will make their cinematic pick for Movie Night. And, you see, that’s not a bad thing, and I am trying hard not to goof on that, but that’s as far as things go for this movie. I don’t even need a review of this movie to tell you that as soon as you are done watching this trailer you know pretty much every in and out of the plot, character, situation, crisis, and eventual ending to the movie. Again, not a bad thing, but it’s par for Disney’s style of marketing movies.

What should tip anyone off, and this is good for those of you who will ever have to take a test about identifying origins of films just based on seeing the opening 10 seconds, that this is a Disney movie is the idyllic suburban setting for the film. The tinkling of the happy piano and the exterior shot of a way too manicured front lawn, and the real unnatural bedroom stylings of a kid who’s about to go to high school is a dead giveaway. Plus, it’s the first morning of school and, judging by the lighting, it’s high noon with the morning glory wattage seeping in through the window. Where are the neighbors down the street who have friends that feel the need to honk their friggin’ horn every time they pass by the home? Where are the douche teenagers who like the sound of glass breaking and, thusly, shatter anything with a silica base on the blacktop just because it “sounds cool”? Nowhere in this Disney picture, that’s where.

Anyway, Kurt is all proud of his son who is starting his high school career at his old alma mater. What’s more is that when the kid gets on the ol’ cheese wagon the wackiness kicks into Ensue mode as the short bus turns into a rocket ship and blasts its way to a flying city of sorts. At first I think it’s a S.H.I.E.L.D carrier (high five to all the nerds in the house who know what I’m talking about) but when I see Lynda Carter acting in an administrative capacity I am hoping Kurt has done his boy right and is sending him off to stay with Wonder Woman and all her Amazon girlfriends. Again, I realize it’s Disney and tuck it back in.

The effects work of all the superhero kids who display their powers, especially after one of the sexaholic nerds pulls a Scott Baio ZAPPED! on some poor fraulien, is fun in a roustabout way and it’s kind of cheeky to see girls getting into the antagonizing act as well.

Bruce Campbell is as solid as ever in his stint as a high school coach of sorts as he determines if his young wards are either going to be superheroes or sidekicks. I dig that. On a kiddie level, that’s funny, and that would sell me on deciding to take my eight year old if I had one.

Of course, though, the son of Kurt doesn’t have any powers and is regulated to sidekick status and his parents play the part of concerned caretakers who look like they’re trying to deal with just finding out their boy likes other men. But, whatever, this is what superhero parents worry about, right? Kurt’s wry comment about dipping his son in a vat of toxic waste just to trigger some sort of power gets a PG laugh from me.

From here, and this has to be my favorite moment, we see that these kids at the high school participate in a HARRY POTTER game of widget, wicket or whatever the hell those wizard kids played. It’s played kids who have powers and those who don’t. The sport is all well and good but that isn’t the best part. Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall fame appear as onlookers. I’m not shy about admitting to a man-crush on all things Foley so I hope his comedy in this film isn’t just limited to just a couple of lines and an extended cameo. The man is genuinely funny and I’d actually make my way to the video store to rent this just to see a little bit more from him. Now, having said this, the rest of the trailer just decides, “Aww, what the hell…Let me just show you the rest of this movie.”

And then you see the rest of this movie play itself out. The bad guys are clichéd bad, the bully in the high school is clichéd bully, and even the ending seems trite and hackneyed but this should be nothing compared to the amount of good, clean fun Disney has planned for the entire film.

Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, William Hurt, Ed Harris
Release: September 30, 2005
Synopsis: An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

Prognosis: Positive. Want to know why I really didn’t like KISS OF DEATH?

Apart from David “My Middle Name Has Always Been “˜Awesome Career Moves'” Caruso’s problematic acting I just couldn’t take Samuel L. Jackson’s constant eye wiping. The way it was leaking, that hanky he used to sop up the tears, all of it, I just kept on getting that sympathetic response from my own eyes and I damn well didn’t appreciate it. Here, though, I think Ed Harris’ wicked eye problem won’t be much of an issue as long as nothing oozes out of it.

Now, SCANNER and THE FLY. Two great movies. I think with a pedigree like this from a long-standing director, and you open a trailer with an odd hold-up of a diner that ends rather heroically, we may actually have something going here. It’s like pouring a foundation and the purpose of getting the catalyzing thrust of the action out so swiftly only helps to keep people’s attention. However, it’s not very exciting, it’s not exactly gripping, but it simply does not waste time in getting to where things need to go in order to cram everything in and make it dramatic.

The deal is that Viggo runs an extremely clean diner in Whitesville, U.S.A and he’s about to close up for the night. A couple of really old hoods straight out of Deadwood come in and try to stick up the joint. After trying to reason with the gentlemen Viggo pulls a Brad from FAST TIMES, utilizing a Mr. Coffee in his plan of attack. I’m sure he was thinking, “Damn, I’m sure happy I paid attention to how Judge Reinhold got his wrist into it,” and promptly dispenses with the whoop ass. Even shoots a dude.

The town rejoices but (insert dramatic music) he has a secret.

Later, Ed Harris comes by, donning TERMINATOR 3 shades, to talk with Viggo a little bit.

On a side note, Harris oozes the kind of eeriness and hardcore manliness that makes me sit in awe of his prowess as a strong actor and, as he obviously has something to say about what Viggo did, you can sense Ed’s presence as an intimidator.

We’re led to believe that there’s shared history. When Ed, with his blind eye all milky and glassy from whatever impaled into his ocular cavity, casually asks Viggo’s wife, the so-so Maria Bello, why it seems that her husband is so good at killing people I get intrigued. In fact, the booming bass shot that punctuates the scene is perfect.

And the fact that the trailer people keep Voiceover Guy at arm’s length and just let things slowly burn out on its own is great. While not even close to being on any top 10 of mine of the year I am very impressed by the get-in, get-out and leave them wanting more attitude. They could’ve shown so much more and I appreciate the restraint shown in not doing so.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore
Release: September 14, 2005 (France)
Synopsis: Revolver is a Vegas-themed gangster film with characters named The Caddy, French Paul, Fat Dan, Howard The Indian, Johnny Walker and a guy named Dorothy. Several groups of individuals try to screw each other over for a lot of money. It’s the story of a hotshot gambler who becomes tangled in a game with deadly consequences.

Prognosis: Positive. Jason Staham in a Guy Ritchie film? Really? How original.

I say this in jest only because I completely think that Jason has the unique ability to either dissolve into the background of a movie like SNATCH and has the power to bring it all forward if he has to step up in a lead like THE TRANSPORTER. I like both movies for what they are but Jason adds that star quality that you can’t really teach. But, you know, Guy Ritchie isn’t getting off as easy.

The guy can make a good gangster film. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, SNATCH, and even his wee film, THE HIRE, bristles with Michael Bay-ian repetitiousness. You can look at this way: Guy Ritchie is like a good DH on a baseball team. The guy is never called up to do anything more than hit the ball. He’s not asked to play the field, he’s not asked to make great plays. His only job is to hit the ball the way he seems to know how to do. Guy Ritchie is that DH. I can’t honestly see any glimmers of talent that can extend beyond the British gangster flicks that he’s so fond of making.

And that’s fine by me because he is so good at it.

The trailer here is presented in a unique way that’s usually only reserved for foreign films: no one gets to say a word.

It’s all about the movement and direction of the characters of this film but, without knowing who is who, you don’t quite know if there’s a bad guy who you’re trying to root against or if this is one of those movies where no one is above reproach.

When the screen opens up and you see Big Pussy from The Sopranos you know, without even having to think about it, that this is going to be another one of Ritchie’s gangster movies. It’s like seeing someone who comes to visit every once in a while; whether you enjoy having that person come around is another matter entirely.

The metaphorical needle scratch comes right after this as we get an oddly indented quote about chess on the screen that lingers there all on its own. I mean, look at it. It’s like the quote was too damn small but they had to figure out a way to make it seem bigger. “Oh, I know what we can do,” Trailer Maker says, “We can just fill the top of the screen with the quote, leave a while lot of black space in-between, and then shove the name of the person who said it all the way down to the bottom like I’m trying to squeeze an extra pair of flip-flops into an already bursting piece of luggage.” “Brilliant” is the only answer that I assume came back. It’s jarring, though, to the eye.

Next scene is a bulb poppin’ flood of light. It’s a casino and as the camera pulls in quickly to a couple of people who are standing in front of it we see it’s none other than Ray Liotta. It’s always a pleasure to see that a guy in front of a camera. He was always meant to play in these kinds of movies, no doubt about that.

The guitar riff that rolls through the various cut scenes, one is a shot of Jason walking out in the middle of the rain outside of some correctional facility, thugs abound, a chess match plays itself out, some guy pops another, and some skuzzy ho dangles her taco, protected by some delicious pieces of white silkiness. The lollypop the lady sucks on is, I take it, some visual reference of how well she can pleasure a guy? I always think that about chicks who suggestively slob on some Charms Blow-Pop goodness but I’m fairly dense about these matters.

The other thing you’ll notice in the second half of this trailer is that this new movie from Ritchie seems a bit bloodier than recent productions. There is lots of it in the subsequent scenes of the many gunning downs that seem to be happening on the screen along with the number of guns that are brandished. There are a LOT of them and I am genuinely curious to know if the events in this picture are going to take place from across the pond or whether these guys are just good at getting armaments.

And that damn lollypop chick shows up again but, this time, her lollypop is gone, I wonder for a moment if she’s able to get to the Tootsie-Roll center of a Tootsie-Roll pop because she likes to felliate so many men. Just wondering.

I do, also, have to give up props to how this trailer ends. Two things: 1) When the guitar is wailing, showing us all the groovy money shots of the guns going off, and it just stops abruptly, with Ray walking away from the camera, his heels clicking off the hard floor with long taper candles flanking him, that’s money. I liked that. 2) The card that tells me that this movie isn’t coming to me until “Autumn” is funny. I don’t know why. My Americanisms limit that word to “Fall” and anything beyond that get just me thinking how much more formal that sounds. I like that too.

Director: John Singleton
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Andre 3000, Ice Cube, Tyrese, Garrett Hedlund, Dax Ravina
Release: August 12, 2005
Synopsis: Four brothers look to avenge their mother’s death.

Prognosis: Negative. Was this the same guy who did BOYZ N THE HOOD? If it is, indeed, the same guy I want to know what alien symbioyte invaded that man’s head and is currently preventing him from making quality films instead of this cookie cutter action flick.

I have high hopes for Singleton as a director and I couldn’t wait to see his newest directorial effort. I hear that Tyrese Gibson is in it and I say, alright, the guy did his thing in 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS: WE’RE SO FUCKIN’ FURIOUS THIS TIME. I hear Mark Wahlberg is in it and I give him the benefit of the doubt. I loved THREE KINGS but thought that ITALIAN JOB was just a showcase to display his ability to memorize some lines with such hollowness I wondered if it was the hypnotic lure of his well-built pectorals and well defined mid-section that got him the job. Then, I see it: Andre from Outkast. I give up. I’m sure he’s great and all but, damn, Andre was that powerful of an actor, who, by all accounts, is really a musician? I’m talking to every actor very seriously here like I would if I was that South African guy when he tied up Sgt. Murtah in LEATHL WEAPON 2 in those hushed tones: I would be going nuts. I would be going out of my head just thinking of how messed up things must be when the guy from “Hey Ya” gets a major supporting role while you’ve been busting your ass doing Shakespeare in the Park and shilling for Bank One in those Maximum Checking ads I keep seeing. It must suck.

Anyway, back to the trailer.

Things open up with a toast to an old lady. Mark, Tyrese, that “Hey Ya” guy, and some other white dude are giving praise to their adopted mom. They’re from “the street” but they got hearts as big as skyscrapers. It’s all very sweet. You get a white joke tossed in there for kicks, as you’ve got two brothers who are white, two who are black, and it’s all very sweet. Loving, you could say.

As we all know from Trailers 101, class, whenever you start a trailer with people smiling, you can expect that to be filled with something else after just a few moments.

Luckily, we don’t have to wait that long.

Ol’ mom’s gets popped in a convenience store (See??? A couple of weeks ago I told you my theory on convenience stores and the inherent evil of them and I am ashamed to see what I thought was a goofy theory just get played out by someone who I thought was a creative director.) and it’s here that I’d like to test the water for a reaction for an idea I have. What would all of you think if there was a concerted effort to see chicks bite it just as hard as guys do in films. Guys seem to be the only ones deserving of squib treatment and seeing this old woman get shot, off camera, raises an issue with me. I want to see that shotgun blast take her out along with some Big Grab sized Doritos and a display of Pepsi 12-packs. I call for equal treatment but I can understand if I’m the only one out there who thinks this.

Anyway, back to the trailer.

So, mom is shot dead and everyone has that filmic kind of scowl on their face. It’s that, “Eeee yar! I won’t rest until you’re avenged, mother!” along with, wouldn’t you know, one of those strident walks where everyone is walking in a long line and it’s all in slo-mo. Isn’t this also kind of hackneyed? I thought we goofed on it in SWINGERS and that was going to be the end of it? No? Ok, never mind.

So, the trailer shows our guys taking the law into their hands, acting all sorts of shot crap as they play Columbo and try to figure out, with steely bravado, whodunit. The language and speech with which these guys talk is rough to listen to without checking IMDB to make sure, absolutely positive, that John Singleton directed this movie.

Oh, and there’s some more laughter at the expense of the white actors in the film, so I appreciate that as well.

The rest after this is just more exposition about how these little detectives are going to figure out who killed their ma.

Now, I appreciate the effort to make a movie that is part whatever and part whatever else but I can’t watch a trailer like this and not feel that there is something seriously missing that would make me want to see this film. As it stands I just wouldn’t be able to recommend to anyone that this looks like an enjoyable night at the movies. It looks like a fairly good matinee but that’s about it.

Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Li Gong, Takuya Kimura, Faye Wong, Ziyi Zhang
Release: April 23, 2005 (Tribeca)
Synopsis: He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention…..to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back- except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.

Prognosis: Nervous. This trailer does a real disservice to itself.

The movie, ostensibly a sequel of sorts to IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (one of my top 25 of all time), is about how two people collide with one another in a resplendent splash of requited and unrequited love.

What you see on the screen, though, doesn’t even come close to getting this across. You really do need to have some of these people talking to one another so we can get the point of what this film is all about. It starts off wonderfully enough, though.

You have a woman and man looking at each other in a dingy apartment hallway, longingly, as the narrative is right on track. You “get it,’ you know? These are two individuals who are more than likely going to hook up with one another. A card in-between shots rightfully states that this move won some awards. Best Actor and Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards is a good way to establish that all-essential credibility people look for before investing in a foreign flick.

However, all that momentum is replaced with BLADE RUNNER.

The scenery changes, the mood shifts and we kind of get that it’s far in the future from when these people first met. We can get that much, thankfully, but there should most definitely be more than that. People need to feel that they can identify with these people on the screen but the trailer keeps us at arm’s length. Every person in this trailer looks despondent and we don’t know why.

We deserve to know what’s going on as the whole idea of a movie is to tell a story but what we get in return are people making out, and we don’t quite know who these people are as we’re “in the future” and the lightening isn’t helping me any with putting my fingers on who is who.

There’s a lot of making out, which I can appreciate and get excited over, and the effects are sublimely sad. I feel my mood sinking to these people’s level.

There’s a whole lot of people closing their eyes tightly as they toss their heads back, like they’ve just been kicked by a chimp in the nards, and a handful of artistic shots that start to stray into the realm of artistic expressionism which, if I could be so bold as to make a statement on, is not a good idea when trying to sell this movie to the greatest number of people. It goes to that area that’s best reserved for when you finally have people sitting in front of you, but that’s just me.

That all said, though, the lens through which all of this is being filtered is unadulterated joy. Wong Kar-Wei appears to have made a visual delight of a film that I know won’t be like BLADE RUNNER, won’t be too heavy on existentialism, although there will be some, and hopefully the smoky and slow style with which he directed IN THE MOOD will make its way into this newest chapter of love between two people who could never seem to take the step towards love that can finally be everlasting.

Director: Les Mayfielde
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy, Luke Goss, Miguel Ferrer, Anthony Mackie
Release: September 9, 2005
Synopsis: Federal Agent Derrick Vann (Jackson) walks the walk, while affable dental supply salesman Andy Fidler (Levy) talks and talks in the odd couple action comedy The Man. A case of mistaken identity forces the mismatched duo to team up and sets off an intense and hilarious adventure as they speed through the streets of Detroit to pull off a sting operation and solve the murder of Vann’s former partner. Along the way, they uncover much more than they could have ever anticipated.

Prognosis: Holy Crap, It Can’t Get Any More Negative Than This. As things began I hoped for something other than something incredibly unbelievable with Samuel L. Jackson playing the clichéd hard ass with Eugene Levy playing the incredibly white, and racially inept embodiment, sidekick.

I am wrong on both accounts as Voiceover Guy gets right to it by letting us know that Sam Jackson just lost a partner on the night of a big gun cache heist. Jackson’s all tough with his hair all mused with a big scar on his lid to show how smooth he is as an undercover cop. The thing is these undercover cops never look like dudes who should be undercover cops. They’re always looking like Hollywood envisionings of what an undercover cops should be but, whatever, right, this is the movies, who gives a crap? Fair enough.

Now, these weapons that were stolen in some part by some Eurotrash looking playboy, and, again I wonder, what is with this horrendous characterization? Look up any recent story on arms dealers and I can bet you that none of them look like Aryan demigods that women would easily slide open for, like a good looking gynecologist, oh no. But, again, who cares, as Eugene is “mistaken” for someone who has inside knowledge about what happened with these weapons as the comedy starts rolling in from the hills from there.

Um, yeah, so Eugene is eventually cleared as someone who was involved in masterminding the big plot but he is somehow roped into helping Jackson find out who IS behind it all. Things devolve quickly from here as Eugene protests helping the cops out in this sensitive police manner to which Jackson shoots Eugene in the ass as he tries to run away from the whole situation. Huh? How is this supposed to be amusing? Some dude gets caught up in a case of mistaken identity and he gets to be someone’s bitch? Oh, and let’s not forget that a few scenes later show Eugene getting released from the trunk of Jackson’s car for whatever zany reason the screenwriters have come up with as to why Eugene deserved to be placed in there in the first place. I bet it’s wacky!

And yeah, as KC and the Sunshine Band strikes up with that Vanilla Ice favorite (I still have that cassette somewhere, too.) “Play That Funky Music” I am loathe to see how horribly Eugene attempts to set race relations back with his “characterization” of an inept white person because, as we all know from movies like BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE (which also starred an inept white guy who doesn’t know shit about black culture in the form of, whada know, Eugene Levy), white people wouldn’t be able to live in a major metropolitan area without the help of keen, street-wise folk.

Anyway, against all my better intentions I hope everyone sees this movie and makes it successful like every other stereotypical yarn of this breed. It will do well because no one cares about what makes sense but only what looks “zany” and what seems to have the sheen of commercials that star midgets or apes or half naked chicks who get wet at the sight of an overweight everyman who knows that Keystone Light is the king of all beers.

So, get to it, America. Vote with your dollars. Let the studios know you want more of these kinds of movies. I sure would appreciate seeing more of these trailers.

Director: Greg Harrison
Cast: Courteney Cox, James LeGros, Michael Ealy, Nora Dunn, Anne Archer
Release: July 22, 2005
Synopsis: After a dinner out, photographer Sophie Jacobs (Cox) and her boyfriend Hugh (Le Gros) stop at a corner store for a late night snack. While Sophie waits unaware in the car, Hugh is murdered in a violent robbery. Haunted by guilt, Sophie goes on with her life as best she can: teaching photography at a local art college, meeting her mother (Archer) for lunch, and visiting her therapist (Dunn). But one day at school, a slide mysteriously appears in the projector’s carousel: an image of what looks like her car in front of the corner store the night of the shooting. Are these paranoid visions stemming from her grief and guilt, or does someone know something about the murder?

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Begrudgingly Positive. “There is so much life in you and so much”¦emotional larceny in all these others”¦”

Sorry, but when I see James LeGros speaking his first words to Kyra Sedgwick from SINGLES this is the first thing I think of and, most likely, will always think of from here on out.

What we have here, though, isn’t what it seems at first.

You get a poppy reggae organ in the background as James and Courtney Cox are driving home from a wonderful evening on the town. He’s kinda creeping me out with the way he is totally turned to her as she’s driving, with thoughts of sexual deviation probably bounding from every synapse, and they end up stopping in front of a quickie mart. The exchange goes on way way too long as Cox orders her man inside the “˜mart to get her something with chocolate.

It’s a New York minute before our boy hops to and gets the hell out of the car and, just as he does, you hear the indomitable and unmistakable sound of an event that is about to head south very quick. The change in mood approaches forcefully like an oncoming cloud bank.

And, while I have everyone’s attention, why is it that really bad stuff always happens in a quickie mart? If there is one plot device what screenwriters use more often than starting a movie with someone waking up in their bed is that the quickie mart is a place for bad shit to go down. Take your pick of any movie from REGARDING HENRY, BLUE STREAK, GROSSE POINTE BLANK, THE REF, and on and on, I could list movies all day. Damn, makes me want to avoid one like it did the ocean after I saw JAWS.

Anyway, her dude is shot in the quickie mart, big surprise, but things take an interesting turn as we get the word that this film was an official selection at Sundance, Los Angeles, Seattle and many other festivals and it presents this information in a very delicate way. So, thumbs up for that. I like knowing this is the kind of story that has some appeal to others; I’m confident in my own likes but it’s so much easier when you get the approval of some people you can trust.

The editing even gets creative as the camera blurs out, some visual media pieces are tossed in, as it jars everything slightly, creating and evoking a mood that’s very discombobulating. I like it.

Courtney lies on a hardwood floor, looking up, distant.

Nora Dunn returns to the silver screen as a serious therapist as she talks to Courtney in a dark room, which I don’t quite understand as to why that’s really necessary to proactive mental healing, but we get the impression that the shooting has jarred her sensibilities to the point of a full-on scramble.

She’s an art teacher. At one point she’s back in a dark room where she’s using a projector to comment on a student’s project. A slide comes on the screen and it’s the outside of the quickie mart the night her dude was gunned down. Oooo! How spooky!

The trailer starts to quicken from here on out as her old memories of ol’ Andy trying to get his mack on with his little lady start to conflate with new information regarding the shooting.

The editing gets quicker and more chaotic as, I think, we are being led to believe that Courtney is either not all there or that there is something about this murder that she may know but isn’t letting on.

Can I take Courtney Cox serious as a dramatic actress? Has the decade long pummeling of her behavioral and un-funny retardedness with the rest of the anti-intellectual goon squad numbed every fiber of my being? Almost, but, in her defense, she does have hints that she’s trying and that does count for something with regard to a low-budget outing like this.

Director: Alice Wu
Cast: Michelle Krusiec, Joan Chen, Lynn Chen
Release: May 27, 2005
Synopsis: For 28-year old New Yorker Wilhelmina “Wil” Pang (Michelle Krusiec), life is a juggling act between a promising career as a surgeon and her responsibilities as a dutiful daughter. Like the #7 train she takes to visit her Chinese family on a weekly basis, Wil is perpetually in transit between two worlds. The expectations of the Flushing, Queens society she is from and the desires that alienate her from it have made Wil content to live below the surface — even if it means playing an inadvertent game of charades with her widowed mother (Joan Chen) and the old world Ma represents. The masquerade is comic even in its pain as Wil tolerates Ma’s weekly set ups with eligible Chinese-American boys at the Friday Chinese socials; but it quickly becomes a farce when Ma’s mask cracks first.

Prognosis: Positive. While at the Key Art awards a couple weeks back I remember Don LaFontaine saying that there really should be room for more people in the voiceover business and that encompassed having more women in this game.

I never really thought this was an issue until I heard the Voiceover Woman for this trailer. It’s odd to hear. My ear felt jarred by the switch-out. Although, it fits right in with the mood of this story and I see why they went with it.

That being said, though, it should be noted that since this is advertising and you’re trying to reach as wide an audience as you can you risk alienating causal males who may or may not want to see the film. It doesn’t matter, I think, as the mere mention of a movie that only really stars women will get the Chick Flick label no matter what.

For me, because I am really in touch with my femme side, I really want to see this movie. The story that unfolds quickly from the first frame is presented wonderfully and even though it doesn’t give away all the nuances of where the story is going to end you still get the idea that this will be a film that will be filled with substance and you really couldn’t demand any more from your lesbian/Asian/mother-daughter/absent father genre movies.

The trailer opens delicately with a run rising over a waking city.

You have two stunning ladies talking about how they met. One of the women can’t believe she hasn’t met the other one until now (they look like they’re in their late twenties) but she is reminded that they, indeed, had met once. It was back when they were children. There is instant chemistry synergizing between the two of them and you quickly realize it’s because they’re in love with one another.

Will, one of the ladies, has come out to her mother about her love for her partner and you can tell this relationship is one where one is proud to be a lesbian while the other has some issues of dealing with her public displays of Sapphic love. Not that 50% of the world would have any issue with it (insert rim shot here) but you can tell there is some inner friction.

The story progresses in this trailer as we are shown examples of how one of the girls’ parents, her mother to be exact, doesn’t want to believe her daughter is a lesbian and tries to keep setting her up on dates with dudes; she intentionally sabotages every attempt. Now, had this been the entire story, woman struggling with her own sexuality and how she makes her mother understand she likes the beav and hates the meat, I would’ve done a Men on Film “Hated it” and moved right on. But this trailer surprises me.

Her disaffected mother comes to her daughter’s doorstep and essentially lets her know that she’s pregnant. What’s a daughter to do?

The resulting moving in of the mother and the really nice silence that’s employed in the trailer when her daughter, girlfriend, and her are all sitting having dinner together in her daughter’s place screams volumes. When the mother asks her daughter’s girlfriend if she has a boyfriend, oblivious but not really, the story starts to metamorphose into something else entirely.

This becomes a movie about how a daughter tries to get her own mother back on the romantic track in finding someone who will appreciate her and, hopefully, get her on solid ground.

The ubiquitous cut scenes of her mother going on blind dates with dudes who are obviously not right for her is a bit hokey but the premise is still solidly kept afloat.

The ending for the trailer is bittersweet and humorous but if I had any main issues is that the music is wretchedly weak and I am not left with anything really solid to hang onto as my last impression.

The Asian American experience with regard to issues of homosexuality and having to deal with a rigid matriarchal support system is one, and I am going on a limb to declare this, hasn’t really been dealt with before.

This movie looks to tackle a lot of issues and I only hope it doesn’t treat them lightly. For me, because I am really in touch with my femme side, I really want to see this movie. The story that unfolds quickly from the first frame is presented wonderfully and even though it doesn’t give away all the nuances of where the story is going to end you still get the idea that this will be a film that will be filled with substance and you really couldn’t demand any more from your lesbian/Asian/mother-daughter/absent father genre movies.

Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, Erika Christensen
Release: September 23, 2005
Synopsis: Flying at 40,000 feet in a cavernous, state-of-the-art 474 aircraft, Kyle Pratt (Foster) faces every mother’s worst nightmare when her six year-old daughter, Julia, vanishes without a trace mid-flight from Berlin to New York. Already emotionally devastated by the unexpected death of her husband, Kyle desperately struggles to prove her sanity to the disbelieving flight crew and passengers while facing the very real possibility that she may be losing her mind. While neither Captain Rich (Bean), nor Air Marshal Gene Carson (Sarsgaard) want to doubt the bereaved widow, all evidence indicates that her daughter was never on board resulting in paranoia and doubt among the passengers and crew of the plane. Finding herself desperately alone, Kyle can only rely on her own wits to solve the mystery and save her daughter.

Prognosis: Apathetic. You know what, for a while the MSN network had a corner on the exclusive trailer for FLIGHTPLAN.

Now, I think it’s absolutely pants that I had to sit through a dammed Listerine commercial before being able to watch the preview for Jodie Foster’s latest flick. Crap holes, the lot of them. I had to sit through that Listerine commercial where you’ve got that guy who looks like Matt LeBlanc’s younger brother who’s all “look at me swishing this stuff between my cheeks!” I didn’t need new mouthwash as I don’t use the stuff but, even if I did, I wouldn’t buy a product that’s being shilled by some guy that looks like he’s swishing around man juice between his molars. Buttheads.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes, Jodie Foster has been absent from American audiences who haven’t yet checked out A LONG ENGAGEMENT, which you should because it’s awesome and I’m telling you it is and you should believe me, but she’s back in a role, through no fault of her own, that makes me think this is PANIC ROOM at 37,000 feet.

For those who don’t want to fully read the description of the flick it’s easy for me to break down: mom designs huge ass plane, takes her daughter aboard it, they’re flying home to New York at night, they grab their seats, take a nap and when Jodie wakes up for some reason or another the kid is gone. She tells someone they tell her she never brought the kid on in the first place and the race is on to either find her or to get an air Marshall to Tazer her hysterical butt before she makes a go at the cockpit doors.

The scroll that runs at the bottom of the trailer as it’s telling you the first part of this is rather lame and you’d think they could be more creative than using Word 2003 but whatever. This isn’t my campaign.

So, when Jodie wakes up, finds her kid has been missing, the hubbub she makes is slightly freaky as the story starts to play with our minds, trying to think if she really is making this whole story up or if there is something else going on, but when someone makes the comment that they’ve received word that her daughter died 6 days prior almost seal any notion that there might be something more to the story.

I am uplifted, though, by Sean Bean. I am still holding out for a Sean Bean, Vinnie Jones Ultimate Marvel Team-Up as Sean is always good to have in your corner when it comes to people losing tempers which he looks close to doing in this one. The man exudes that kind of ass-kicking vibe that he could go off at any moment. Also, there are guns, a few of them, along with some explosions as Jodie goes wild like some crazed Mr. Peepers as she scourers the innards of the plane for evidence of her daughter’s existence. I’m not sure what exactly she hopes to find as all points seem to finger the direction of her being a wacky loon job.

I do hope she gets Tazered at some point, though.

Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy
Release: June 24, 2005
Synopsis: In this new tale, Romero creates a harrowing vision of a modern-day world where the walking dead roam an uninhabited wasteland and the living try to lead “normal” lives behind the walls of a fortified city. A new society has been built by a handful of enterprising, ruthless opportunists, who live in the towers of a skyscraper, high above the hard-scrabble existence on the streets below. But outside the city walls, an army of the dead is evolving. Inside, anarchy is on the rise. With the very survival of the city at stake, a group of hardened mercenaries is called into action to protect the living from an army of the dead.

Prognosis: Positive. Damn do I love a good zombie movie.

If I could recommend a good viewing position for this trailer I would have go with the Mackenzie brothers’ advice before they screened their film, which I believe was shot in 3-B: So sit back and get some corn, and let’s have..uh..it’s movie time.

With an audio sample from the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD which still gets me every time “I’m going to get you Barbara” and a real moody, dark presentation we are hitting the proverbial ground running, er, slowly sauntering while moaning in this case, by using video clips that bring us all up to speed with what’s happened since we last left George. Night turned to dawn, then night became dawn, dawn became day (two thumbs up for the double and literal entendre) and the screen goes black and silent.

It’s great. Perfect.

I’m thrown backward as a zombie head comes up off a glassy pond in the middle of the night as hard rocking A chords, and quick editing do the rest.

We’re not really sure where the plot is at this point, how things began or brought us to be or why Dennis Hopper has arisen from his own catatonic state of major motion picture making but no worries as we get lots of zombie action and some sweet weaponry to fight off this new pack of the undead.

Now, the vehicles these peeps are using do look a lot like the ones utilized in DAWN OF THE DEAD, last year’s version, but who the hell cares when you have George Romero at the helm of this fast moving ship. The entire story seems to take place at night, upping the scare factor in any movie, and there does seem to be a localization of where the narrative will unfold.

Again, since the only person who talks in this thing is Dennis, who announces his displeasure for Zombies, it’s a wonder why he makes this joke. Is he somehow involved with this new breed of brain eaters or is this somehow tied in with the zombie mythos? Who cares, I say, as it’s been too long since George’s last foray into the genre that has bred so many imitators that I hope this one school’s them all in the form of how not just to do it well, but how to do it right.

Director: Michael Dowse
Cast: Paul Kaye, Mike Wilmot, Beatriz Batarda, Kate Magowan, Pete Tong
Release: April 29, 2005 (LA)
Synopsis: Its All Gone Pete Tong is a comedy following the tragic life of legendary Frankie Wilde. The story takes us through Frankie’s life from one of the best DJ’s alive, through subsequent battle with a hearing disorder, culminating in his mysterious disappearance from the scene. A genius in his own right, he clawed his way to the top of the DJ ranks, now living the opulent life of a superstar, he resides in his trophy villa in Ibiza with his trophy wife. This is when tragedy hits. Born with a hearing disorder he is rapidly going deaf with only one functioning ear to complete the new Ibiza season. How is he doing behind the decks? Horrible. How is he doing in the studio where he produces his remixes? Frankie dives into a low period, struggling with deafness in utter depression. After a year of locking himself away he emerges on the other side with a fresh attitude towards his affliction. He accepts his deafness and learns to function without sound. Will Frankie make it back to the DJ booth? Will his new single be any good? Will he get back his opulent old life or does he even want it back? When you can’t hear, things look very different.

It starts off like it’s going to be a very interesting bio-pic of sorts.

The static of a record loops over and over with the words “”¦I don’t know where he is”¦” slowly echoed in blackness.

You get interview, documentary, style footage of people speculating where this once prominent DJ is about whom this movie is based. It’s intriguing, sure, as a character portrait of someone who was immensely popular and then, literally, dropped off the human radar with no trace.

The filmic portion of our film comes from Paul Kaye, playing the part of our lost DJ in question, Frankie Wilde, who starts party people up by spinning some beats. We’re treated to various forms of adulation this man was given for his work inside indoor clubs to outdoor events. Interposed with the fictional portrayal of Wilde are more interviews from people who knew him, worked with him or were inspired by him. I’ll admit that I was intrigued by the premise of this movie and can’t tell if Wilde was a real person of this is all just improvised.

Next, as there is always an element of substance abuse in any effective Behind the Music-style of story, we’re shown his decent into drug addiction. From licking hallucinatory toads to just abusing his body we come to the portion of the film where it starts with the words, “”¦and then it was gone.”

Wilde is standing on a majestic mountainside, somewhere very warm and expensive looking, and is cupping his hands over his ears as he screams out to no one. We’re given a few different angles of “The Scream.” It leads us to the quote that pretty much tells us how this process of self-destruction speeds up.

“There’s not much you can do as a DJ if you can’t hear.”

Wilde is shown tearing his world apart, destroyed by his inability to communicate in the way he was best known for doing. He was useless as a DJ. He was useless to everyone or so it seems.

The interview footage speculates on what this deafness drove him to do. Is he really just a record clerk in some store in the middle of nowhere? Did he kill himself? Is he even still around?

Even though we don’t get any answers there is a really poignant moment where Wilde is sitting in a restaurant where a woman, Spanish perhaps, dances to a classical guitar solo. She’s wearing a vibrantly red dress and holds part of it up as her legs start to move. Her thick black dancing shoes rap tap tap, rap tap tap, rap tap tap on a hardwood floor. There’s something in the vibrations he can feel that transcend auditory sensations (kind of like that one episode of Quantum Leap where Sam is “Rod the Bod” and he finds this hot deaf girl who uses bass from a speaker to help her dance and he really digs her but he doesn’t know sign language but he wants to because you know he wants to hit that like it was 1999) and you can see it in Wilde’s eyes that there is something there that he can respond to. It’s a wonderful trailer moment that’s pure and speaks for everyone who hasn’t done so already.

The trailer eventually just trails off into a heavy mix of snippets and scenes but that’s what you’d expect to see out of a movie about a DJ whose life was all about BPM’s and getting people up to let them get down. Again, it’s probably a good pseudo bio-pic but it’s just not my thing.

Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach De Bankolé, Willem Dafoe, Danny Glover
Release: May 16, 2005 (Cannes)
Synopsis: A story of slavery, set in the 1930s American South.

Now that’s out of the way, I see MANDERLAY, a title I thought would show me an insight to Las Vegas showgirls, via some Dogme movie making technique, that would show just how seedy that town is and finally give me a good reason to plan a trip but was sadly let down when I realized I didn’t read correctly. This film is an important piece in Trier’s trilogy of sorts that really began with DOGVILLE.

This piece here, set yet again in America, stars Willem Dafoe, Danny Glover (Good to see he’s making a concerted effort to come back into the cinematic fold) and everyone’s favorite nepotistic IT girl for the moment, Bryce Dallas Howard. The context is the 1930’s and the exact geographical location is a bit ambiguous but it’s stated that it is the South.

A foreigner cobbling together a racially based film, one that will no doubt raise the cackles of Mama’s Family U.S.A., shouldn’t be that much of a hot button, right? The trailer, though, is very good at capturing what the rest of the world already knows about our past. As simple as it sounds, this installment of Trier’s insight into human nature around the 3rd decade of the 20th century eases us gently into exactly what’s happening. There is no ambiguity and I appreciate its straightforwardness.

There is an orchestral string movement that paces the action of this trailer and it opens up on the small, physically, plot of land where all the action takes place. Yes, it looks like a stage production at some moments just like in DOGVILLE but when Willem enters the scene as the wealthy white guy, riding in style, while black people are depicted hurling cotton bails into the back of a truck as they labor away, you can feel the powder keg that’s being packed.

The subsequent narration of the events that transpire in this film talks about our main characters. The slave system in all its hideous glory is given context by introducing us to our cast. Unfortunately, even though it’s effective in lighting the wick all on its own without anything more elaborate, the word “nigger” is used to describe all of the black characters and I can’t imagine this trailer will ever be seen on PAX TV. The word is pejoratively used, obviously, to show the kind of environment everyone exists in and, ostensibly, to let everyone in the audience know that this isn’t going to be a very feel-good experience.

What’s odd is that all of our players are given numbers. These numbers correspond, according to the narrator, to the person’s personality. I don’t know the real meaning behind it but when it’s stated that this number system was used to keep a psychological grip on the slaves that our heroine, Bryce Dallas Howard, is going to come save the day on her own I am at the same time not impressed nor have any belief that a pale and hot looking white cracka’ like her is going to be anything else but a target for the white rage that will no doubt erupt when she tries to upset the status quo of the land.

Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin
Release: September 30, 2005
Synopsis: The feature-length adaptation of Joss Whedon’s TV show “Firefly”, set five hundred years in the future, aboard Serenity, a transport ship captained by Capt. Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds.

I wouldn’t be caught so much as flipping past Angel on my way to watch a Cubs game on a Sunday afternoon.

I’ve never watched, or had an interest, in checking out Firefly.

But if you got a movie with that dude from MY BODYGUARD (man, the way he bitch slapped Matt Dillion is the true stuff of movie magic”¦) and D.C. CAB (the touchstone of my youth that taught me that Mr. T deserved more acting roles and that it is possible to get a fire going in one’s home with a flamethrower) I am all in. It’s been forever since I’ve seen Adam Baldwin and he looks really engaged with this material. It’d be hard not to be as the one thing I do consume of Joss’ is his take on the X-Men franchise. God bless that man for that and it allows me to understand what this guy is doing with the script.

Now, keeping in mind I’d rather click over to C-Span if an Andromeda or an X-Files episode comes on, I am pretty engaged with this trailer from the very first moment. The spaceship that is carrying our mixed crew in the opening sequence (is it the same one from the series?) looks like one of those Ertl model jobbies I used to find at KB Toys as a little kid; you know, those bulbous white shoebox looking thingies that had various antennae sticking up and seemed awfully ill-designed for space travel but were sold as space ships.

It’s alright, though, as it somehow piques my interest in what’s happening off-screen as we get the captain’s subdued, but still bombastic, in that captain sort of way, speech about how everyone’s come aboard for different reasons but now’s the time to, well, just suffice to say that he’s getting everyone ready for a fight of intergalactic, interplanetary, Beastie Boy, proportions. Cheesy as it may be I am sure someone gets all goosey when they hear him say that.

The effects are what really get me. They’re really well done. Even though there’s no air in space and you can’t really hear explosions, and that anything that blows up would implode, I’m fine with putting that aside for some good space battling.

The lines here are also pretty heavy handed. “I’m taking your sister under my protection,” and the way our captain inflects that line, makes me laugh and roll my eyes, but the subsequent crash landing effect using a very real shot of some rural American location more than makes up for it. The juxtaposition is welcomed.

“Whoa,” I yell, and I do yell “whoa,” as a crispy looking zombie pops up for a wee second on the screen, our captain with a pistol at his side does an Indiana Jones hip shot and takes it out.

We get a Wesley Snipes/Blade guy with a sword that seems to be in pursuit of the previously mentioned girl because there is something obviously up with her. This is just made more apparent during the sound stage kung-fu demo she gives us as she moves and gives carefully blocked martial arts ass kickings. Again, it looks choreographed by Bob Fosse but whatever.

What I do have a problem with, though, is the written fellatio heaped upon Whedon’s work on this movie and past endeavors. Yeah, he’s great as a writer, no doubt about it, even not having ever seen a Buffy or Firefly episode, the man is demand I get that but, slow the pole smoking a little.

You get my positive vote but turn that volume down a notch.

Director: Vadim Jean
Cast: Martin Short, Jan Hooks, Linda Cardellini, Janeane Garofalo, John Michael Higgins Elizabeth Perkins
Release: May 6, 2005 (Limited); Soon to be playing at a dollar theater near you
Synopsis: “La La Wood” follows the legacy of Jiminy Glick (Martin Short in a fat suit), first introduced on “The Martin Short Show,” who went on to get (non)-critical acclaim for his talk show “Primetime Glick,” where Mr. Glick interviewed countless celebrities (which usually ended in verbally–sometimes physically–insulting/assaulting them). Now comes “La La Wood”–Jiminy Glick’s home. This is his story (sort of).

In the annals of moviedom I would imagine other properties out there could be made better use out of than this wholly useless film. Here’s my sincere mea culpa about how it pains me to kick this a little: I like Martin Short. Big fan of his work in INNERSPACE and his first stint in FATHER OF THE BRIDE and Glick is a fairly amusing sideshow act in small doses but this is the whole bottle compared to a sip or two.

When this trailer begins, selling itself in a wholly different way, one of those “Gotcha!” things that studios are so fond of doing for some reason, you think that this could be a horror movie of some kind.

“Beyond your deepest fears”¦”

I mean you have some knife wielding woman walking down a dark hallway, ready to slice and dice, and you have throaty Voiceover Guy doing his best to be all creepy with the tense wood instruments flailing in the background. The joke that’s supposed to make all of us guffaw is that the biggest terror in Hollywood is Glick. Get it? Yeah, stupid, I’m sure Joe Bob Montana will think, “Man, I done thought it was goin’ be “˜orror movie. Dem suits sure is smarter than me.” Smart one, Chief.

So, it seems that Glick is going to the Toronto Film Festival. He’s starry eyed, and says so a few times before he actually makes it to the red carpet where he’s knocked over by a horde of women who run to get Brad Pitt’s autograph. Now, Brad is nowhere to be seen, the women are obviously not clotheslining Glick, which would be funnier than all get out, but there’s nothing genuinely slapstick-y about the pratfall. The only real display of what Martin Short is known for with this character, making asinine comments or asking questions that don’t even come near home plate, doesn’t even clock in until the trailer is nearly half way done. That’s not smart, that’s just plain ignorant.

My spirits rise a bit with none other than Pat “Leave a Horny Message at the Beep”¦Allegedly” O’Brien as he makes a faux Hollywood Insider report on Glick being catapulted to media fame from obscurity; it’s was like seeing O.J. Simpson after his run-in with the law when watching NAKED GUN. The rest after this, though, just doesn’t evoke any laughs whatsoever. I’m not trying to be callous but, damn, it’s just not funny. There’s even a Scooby-Doo style mystery sub-plot that’s hinted at but I’m not sure I get what is happening as I’m too enthralled with trying to wonder how much it cost to make this film and how it will do in the secondary market.

I do have to say, though, that seeing John Michael Higgins in this was like finding a life preserver on a burning ship; I’m not so sure he’ll be able to do anything with what’s given to him but John is an actor that I wouldn’t mind seeing week in and week out doing informercials or playing the part of a recurring attorney in the on-again, off-again series Arrested Development. The man is just good.

As for the trailer? I can’t find anything worth salvageable. If this were a record review I would have to put this entry into the “Recommended only to fans” and even then I would probably write the article under a pen name.

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Cast: Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds, Willie Nelson, David Koechner
Release: August 5 2005
Synopsis: Cousins Bo (Scott) and Luke (Knoxville) Duke, with a little help from their cousin Daisy (Simpson) and Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), egg on the authorities of Hazzard County, Boss Hogg and Sheriff Coltrane.

It’s en vogue to be a hater against a band that has so obviously and completely “sold-out” and no longer makes the kind of music that really elevated them to rock star status back when Joshua Tree was huge; those bitches have really given it to all of us since then with their arena tours and iPods. People engender a kind of myopic definition of purism when it comes to explaining what makes a true rock band and I, for one, don’t understand a note of it.

I say fuck-all to that.

People want rock stars to be larger than life. Fans want someone to give them a show, to give them something worth paying their money to come out and see, and people, ultimately, want their rock stars to be nothing more than entertainers but somehow they want their rock stars to be gaunt, emo-self-loathing paragons who would eschew stardom and all it’s trappings. However, critics need to take their spotlight of shame and direct it at talentless, here-today-gone-yesterday, preening and vacuous bitches of corporate manufactured music and leave the contemporary masters of public ceremony alone. It’s not enough that Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 is still selling CDs to a willing public who celebrates mediocrity like it’s manifest destiny but yet there’s something inherently wrong to keep a gravy train chugging after more than 25 years.

That’s a long way around of trying to say that DUKES OF HAZZARD looks like big fun the movies, isn’t it?

Yeah, I have to admit it: this is a really nice trailer for a summer movie and among all the people who will rally against it I was one of those voices until I saw this trailer. I’m usually wrong about these things but I feel alone, again, in my support for a film that’s looking at an uphill battle.

Things start off on the right foot as the “countdown” beings. Throaty Voiceover Guy booms in with a serious tone as he comments that the countdown is beginning for the movie event of the summer; we all know how facetious that comment is but its purpose lays in the way the countdown begins at 05 and works its way down to, yup, 01, in all its orange glory.

That at least shows a little creativity if nothing else; thank god that’s not all.

The “yee-haw” that blares out of the screen as the General Lee clears a long ravine takes me back to Seann William Scott’s last car clearing, ROAD TRIP, but its obvious here when the car doesn’t blow up a few seconds after it crashes into the ground that we’re in a whole new realm of physical probabilities. (Translation for those residents of Macon County, Alabama: The car ain’t done blown up af’er it should’ve went up like a ro-man candle; he-haw, git “˜er done!) And that’s fine because the car sequences look fabulously executed. Not only that but we oddly saved from any more voiceover work and are treated to a nice musical interlude, a little Southern rock to get the feet a-tappin’, and it’s much appreciated because we, the viewer, can watch some of the car work that this movie will revolve around.

Jessica Simpson’s introduction, even though I am not a fan of that blonde Barbie who may or may not be as dumb as she appears and acts, is actually not entirely disruptive.

After we get that she’s going to be an empowered member of the Duke threesome, we get the very classic theme song of the old TV show and get more stunts. And that’s what really this movie should be about, you know? Nothing but car chasing and some old school Burt Reynolds SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT moves with a dash of T&A that the children really like nowadays. As the song is playing the graphics on the screen introducing everyone is a nice touch as well, a wink to the standard way our guys came to us every week on CBS. It’s cheesy, grainy and looks put together by 1st year film editors, but with a kind of irony that really works.

Problems? Yeah, a few. When Scott and Knoxville open their mouths there are few old and busted things that come drooling out. Like when Scott makes a “shrimp on the barbie” joke when introduced to an Australian hottie I immediately think back to DUMB AND DUMBER. Boss Hog walks into the screen, pimped out in the old school creamy white suit, resplendent in the form of Burt Reynolds himself, at one point offers up a C-note to anyone who can knock out some perp in a jail cell, which is also holding Bo and Luke Duke, who is taunting Hog. What’s really funny is the delivery of some anonymous goon as he immediately clocks the guy out. The goon who does the hitting rushes to the bars to say, “Don’t you you’re not supposed to wear white after Labor Day?” in a way that’s oddly appropriate and funny.

It’s dumb, stupid, but I loved the tone and delivery of the joke. And that’s why, people, when I see that Jay Chandrasekhar, one of the main minds behind SUPER TROOPERS and CLUB DREAD, might be making appreciators out of haters.

Might.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, Morgan Freeman
Release: June 17, 2005
Synopsis: BATMAN BEGINS explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knight’s emergence as a force for good in Gotham. In the wake of his parents’ murder, disillusioned industrial heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. He returns to Gotham and unveils his alter-ego: Batman, a masked crusader who uses his strength, intellect and an array of high tech deceptions to fight the sinister forces that threaten the city.

One of the best compliments I can bestow on a trailer like this is that it doesn’t use Voiceover Guy and it doesn’t rely on cards to set up exactly what we’re looking at.; things are just allowed to coalesce naturally.

Also, the trailer utilizes Nolan’s script as Liam Neeson’s near whisper narration brings us to one point, that one intersection in Bruce Wayne’s life, where the costume became the joi de vie of his whole being.

I like the bat dissolve of the WB logo in the beginning which almost seems ironic since it’s been a long goodnight in a cave since that company decided to do something smart with the franchise but you can now can see why. The direction of this movie appears to be handled with such delicate confidence that you half wonder why it has taken this long to get the Batman movie made which everyone said needed to be done.

We see young Bruce falling down a well, finding that cave where those little bats dwelled and struck fear into his young boy’s heart, cutting to him standing over his dead parents, to the now ubiquitous Sherpa shot as he quests for knowledge of where his life is going.

The sweeping views and vistas of this far-off place where Bruce trained to use his body and mind as a weapon is captured beautifully in the scenes chosen. Michael Caine breathes life into the new Alfred incarnation; he exudes the caring, confident, yet subordinate, role as his butler and there really does seem like there is a believable history between these two men.

I find enjoyment of Bale rolling up, after his eventual decision to shower, shave and come back to Gotham, in a big pimp daddy mobile which shows us the true playboy that Bruce Wayne was. This was something that was overlooked or glazed over in previous episodes, I believe, and I like he has some arm candy to show that he is Master Bruce, King of All Poon. He is young, rich and I like that there’s some shallowness that’s being put on display.

As an aside, this could be something or it could be nothing but if this is supposed to be Gotham then why is he driving a car with Illinois plates? Freeze it in QuickTime. I did and think it’s hilarious. That license plate is from Illinois. Holla, Chi-town! Now, it could be that Bruce just likes to take advantage of the tax benefits of plating his cars out-of-state but I just find it amusing.

His subsequent bump into Katie Holmes is a nice touch and, again, something that wasn’t explored in any of the other trailers. Bruce is vulnerable and this is the moment that speaks volumes. When Val Kilmer and Nicole Kidman were paired up in the previous Batman incarnation I didn’t really believe the sparks that were artificially created between those two flint rocks. Here, though, you believe that these are two people who really do have a past with one another.

Seeing how this is a summer tent pole after all and that Batman needs to get his Batgear- on before he gets his groove-on we need weaponry. Lots of it. Morgan Freeman comes to our rescue as the resident creative weapon expert. He’s doesn’t look as good as Michael Pollard in TANGO AND CASH but he’ll do as he shows Christian all the neat toys he’s going to have at his disposal.

I am especially drooley at the sight of the new Batmobile. That thing is an outback nightmare that I am sure will have lots to do in the streets of Chicago, er, Gotham. The quick clips of it working live and in action make me believe that there was a reason behind its chunky design.

Right after the car is shown, and this but a small thing, Christian is standing with his eyes closed in a very dark spot as hundreds of bats race by his face and person. I can only imagine the dry cleaning bills to get that bat shit off his clothes and shoes. Also, and I knew my nature channel watching would pay off in some nerdy way someday, what about all that crap that sits in that cave? I hope there’s a good ventilation system down there.

One word, five syllables, Bruce: Histoplasmosis. You should be less worried about The Scarecrow and more worried about lung health, my man.

Also, I am really keen on the taikos that play just underneath the action on the screen. It’s perfect.

Batman suiting up, Christian testing out some bat-shaped throwing stars, Batman standing stoically on a rooftop with his cape flapping at his ankles, the sky a sepiatone that seems to be the color palate by which all the action will be pasted against, and even Cillian Murphy’s skeevy bad guy musings are a delight when he says “the Bat Man” gets me all sorts of geeky.

The ending clips are way too good to even try and transcribe in a meaningful way but seeing the Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul in full-on head-on shots with the hell that will be visited upon the people and goons of the Loop in Chicago, er, again, Gotham, is too much to be contained in this small trailer; fanboys couldn’t have asked for a better one.

Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Michael Pitt, Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, Scott Green, Nicole Vicius, Ricky Jay, Ryan Orion, Harmony Korine, Kim Gordon, Andy Friberg
Release: July 22, 2005
Synopsis: LAST DAYS is filmmaker Gus Van Sant’s meditation on the inner turmoil that engulfs a brilliant, but troubled, musician in the final hours of his life. Michael Pitt (THE DREAMERS, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH) stars as Blake, an introspective artist who is buckling under the weight of fame, professional obligations, and a mounting feeling of isolation. LAST DAYS follows Blake through a handful of hours he spends in and near his wooded home, a fugitive from his own life. It is a period of random moments and fractured consciousness, fused by spontaneous bursts of rock & roll. Expanding on the elliptical style forged in his two previous films, GERRY and the Palme d’Or-winning ELEPHANT, Van Sant layers images and sounds to articulate an emotional landscape, creating a dynamic work about a soul in transition.

What really happened to Kurt Cobain? Was it suicide, a hit, an attempt by Courtney Love to bring her hysterical oafishness and lumbering idiocy to the center stage where she thought it belonged? I don’t know the answers to the first two but I am 100% sure of the latter.

I admit I am infinitely curious to know what happens to people in the last days of their lives when it comes to suicide. Are there warning signs that people just don’t see or is it something so intrinsically quiet and muted that no one would ever be able to see it manifested in any physical way? Now, seeing how this film is all fiction, the man in the movie named Blake but who seems to be Kurt’s doppelganger, it’s striking to me that Gus would go to the trouble of making someone look exactly like Kurt”¦if this isn’t a movie about Kurt. If he wanted to really make the conceit a little more thrilling he would’ve had our “protagonist” take his double-barrel pump action shotgun in slo-mo, mowing Courtney down in a spray of millimeter sized metal spheres, the heavy orbs stenciled with the words “Hack bitch” all over them, but his vision not mine, right?

The trailer, though, is quiet. There is a certain delicate balance between something going on and nothing really happening that’s apparent to the viewer as this thing unfolds.

A phone rings off camera. It rings a few times and goes quiet. The man playing fake Kurt lights a cigarette in one of the dankest and most forsaken kitchens.

The next scene shows someone fumbling with a shotgun. The scene after that shows a ragtime festooned Cobain/Blake, draped in a long overcoat, sloppily trying to run around a banister with said shotgun in one of his hands. What is this, an episode of Kurt Get Your Gun?

Some guy comes to Blake’s door, we don’t even know what our strange man looks like, but we hear him talking about business and what Blake’s business is and would like to get a better idea of it as our strange man is from the Yellow Pages sales office. The placement of this guy seems odd and the silence from Blake is disquieting. And hey, I don’t understand it either and Cobain/Blake hasn’t even said word one at this point, but it’s interesting at the very least. It’s hushed in a way that intones some sense there’s something distressingly wrong with the man we’re looking at. But, reading this far, I think the response to this is “Duh.”

The next scene seems has a woman, Courtney?, opening a door and finding a slumping Cobain. We quickly move from this to a scene where Blake is statically listening to someone on the phone asking him what’s happening over at his house. He doesn’t say a word. He just lets the person ramble on as we wonder why he seems to be so verbally constricted.

We get some rather stark images of a wandering Blake, once of him naked in a river and another one of him walking aimlessly in a forest (Symbolism alert!) as a woman who doesn’t quite look like Courtney says to Blake that he could leave and get away from his situation.

Now, I don’t read French, but if my ability to decipher means anything to anyone I believe this trailer ends with a statement that the movie is a work of fiction and not really true. What’s more and, I believe, more insulting, is the fact that the very last few moments of this trailer is spent pimping the soundtrack to the film which you can buy on the 9th of May in French music stores everywhere. Shamless.

Director: Alex Ferrari
Cast: Daniel Samantha Jane Polay, Paul Gordon, Amber Crawford, Derek Evans, Tony Gomez, Ruben Gomez, Eric Townsend
Release: Coming Soon
Synopsis: A gun blast, a flash of light, and a young woman awakens to the comfort of her own bed. Bonnie Clayton has it all, a great relationship, a challenging career, and the burden of a dream that grows more vivid and disturbing with each passing night. But when Bonnie is abducted by a sadistic stranger and his colorful entourage, she discovers that the key to her survival lies within the familiar realms of her recurring dream.p> View Trailer:
* Medium (Windows Media, QuickTime)

We start off with a woman, gagged, being pushed in a wheelchair. The location seems unimportant but it definitely is industrial. The music is perfect. It’s a mix between someone beating on a thin oil drum and a stopwatch. It creates mood, which is good, and also sets up tone, two vital parts to a story like this.

Quickly, we see an odd object being pulled off screen, a bloody implement is dripping with its latest kill, and we see our gagged woman having the tape on her mouth forcibly removed. I’m sure it would’ve been more painful looking if it was due to a Brazilian wax.

A man, impeccably dressed in a crisp white shirt, vest and tie, asks our frizzled haired woman if he looks familiar. The music changes.

The song then becomes the song from THE MATRIX RELOADED, “Teahouse” by Juno Reactor and Gocoo. It’s a great Taiko drum composition and one that easily raises the excitement level for anything it plays underneath. The primal and visceral mode this trailer shifts gears into just launches it to the next step of keeping an audience’s attention.

Here, in this trailer, it works beautifully to play against the images of wanton and merciless violence being perpetuated in every which direction. There are guns, knives, big dudes with bigger arms, scopes, night vision and every other clichéd, albeit necessary, element to a short film where you want to create the illusion that it is possible to have mass amounts of people converging on one location to either save, kill or abscond with a woman at the center of it all.

The trailer even ends with the woman crying out that she wants her life back as the camera violently shakes side to side, which looks like the effect employed in FIGHT CLUB when, at the end, Ed and Brad’s characters quake in the same physical space. It’s very crafty and I can appreciate the time it must have taken to get this one just right with regard to timing and scene placements.

This has to be one of the better made action trailers I’ve seen in some weeks.

Director: Richard Ledes
Cast: Michelle Williams, Tim Guinee, Meat Loaf, Merritt Wever, Louis Zorich, Bill Raymond
Release: May 6, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: Set in small-town America circa 1953, A HOLE IN ONE is a screwball-noir starring Michelle Williams as Anna, a young woman whose desire for mental health leads her to covet its latest fashion–transorbital lobotomy.

Prognosis: Positive. I’ve never watched a single episode of Dawson’s Creek and the first time I did see Michelle Williams in a big budget production of a movie was her “performance” in HALLOWEEN: H20. It was my first exposure to Josh Hartnett as well and it soured me completely on the two of them and rightfully so. I didn’t come off my high horse until I saw DICK and BLACK HAWK DOWN, respectively.

This trailer, though, warms me up further to Williams’ acting abilities and, to add a little more to it, the editing of the trailer itself is simply alluring.

Usually, right before I see a trailer I get an idea of what I’m seeing. Other times, though, I just like to see if I am able to “get” what they’re selling by having no hints about the plot or who’s even in the film.

Michelle pops with flavor as she narrates the opening shot of this advertisement; she is standing on a beach, alone, with a head scarf wrapped around her head.

“My memories of the time leading up to my decision to get a lobotomy are fragmented”¦”

It’s a period piece and, just like a page ripped from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, deals with the subject of using medieval and savage science to treat and diagnose a problem that’s not easily solved with a pair of alligator clips and a DieHard car battery from Sears; the only place where it was done to good effect, making for some great comedy, was in STRANGE BREW and I believe the premise of shock treatments is comedic, albeit black, in nature here as well.

Since everything happens around 1948 it’s funny to note that you’re not quite sure if it’s all supposed to be amusing or wickedly on the mark with how medical science was back then. In fact, the trailer has some doctor giving a speech to a gaggle of simpletons who are being new schooled on modern lobotomy techniques. Michelle nearly swoons at the idea of having her head scrambled as she says she’s already absent-minded. This can only help, right? All the while she’s stating on how she wants to have this done to her we suddenly get introduced to her boyfriend, Meat Loaf. Disregarding the really churlish comments one can make about her and him being an “item,” the years between them are nothing compared to the obvious absurdity of their pairing. It’s bizarre, in a John Waters kind of way, to hear Loaf validate Williams’ wish to get a lobotomy in a romantic statement of support.

The plot doesn’t get any easier to decipher than that.

She ends up getting one, something goes screwy where she ends up more withdrawn than before (imagine that), she hooks up with a young doctor who wants to give her another lobotomy along with a good rogering, and her life seems to schism on these different experiences.

“To pursue forgetfulness is to pursue happiness”¦”

The film is listed as a comedy and I can’t see how you could construct such a film in any other way. You could go for the dramatic angle but something like this, where a woman is steadfast in her desire to lobotomize her problems and only ends up creating more, but seeing Loaf again in a role where he plays the unintended heavy like he did in FIGHT CLUB just makes this black comedy that much more appealing.

Director: Michael McGowan
Cast: Adam Butcher, Campbell Scott, Shauna MacDonald, Gordon Pinsent, Michael Kanev, Tamara Hope, Jennifer Tilly
Release: May 13, 2005
Synopsis: Set in Hamilton in 1954, Saint Ralph is the unlikely story of Ralph Walker, a ninth grader who outran everyone’s expectations except his own in his bold quest to win the Boston Marathon. Ralph is a fatherless 14-year-old with a seriously ill mother, who knows he’s a time bomb waiting to explode into greatness, except that he has no idea where that greatness will manifest itself. An unfortunate incident of self-abuse in the community pool inadvertently sets him on this road when, as penance, Ralph is conscripted to the cross-country team. Desperate to believe a miracle will bring his mother out of a coma, Ralph becomes a convert to the church of running, and determines to win the Boston Marathon.

Ever since SINGLES I’ve been a quiet fan of the guys work. He’s nearly, completely, off the mainstream Hollywood radar but yet his stints in ROGER DODGER and THE SPANISH PRISONER are simply the kinds of performances that make you believe he’s just that good.

The trailer here starts out amusingly enough. You’ve got your standard boy who can’t do anything else but think of impure thoughts about women. The fact that after he stares at a woman bending over, revealing ample cleavage that would easily make the baby Jesus cry, and runs straight into a tree just shows us the kind of kid who we’re dealing with here. Add in a little Catholic school where he’s having problems fitting in with the program, disregarding the hideous cards in-between the scenes that are simply useless and distracting, and punctuating everything with a little showboating to the girls he’s trying to impress, you have all the markings for a fairly standard coming-of-age story.

However, things take a sharp turn to the left when our protagonists’ mother falls into a coma for reasons we’re not quite sure of. What is clear, though, is that event awakens something in this pre-pube, pre-pubescent lad and gets him thinking more about the big picture than of big mammaries.

Campbell Scott plays the inspirational educator who mentions that faith requires you to truly believe in something that doesn’t make any logical sense. Campbell is the motivator here and, unlike his Hollywood contemporaries who, in a coaching role, teach their wards the value of winning by working hard and striving for blah blah blah, I actually believe Campbell’s interest in this boy’s trajectory is genuine.

Then, something else happens. Our young lad feels the need to run. More specifically, he feels the need to run the Boston Marathon. When Scott mentions that the young boy actually winning the marathon would constitute a miracle the “ding” of the Please Ring For Service bell clues us in on how this meshes with the kid’s notion of his mother needing a miracle to come out of her coma and, ta-da, you have our goal that needs a resolution.

I’m usually good with my Crap Detector when I think I’m being artificially manipulated into feeling all goosey for something so obviously done out of pseudo sympathy and dripping with treacle but I’ll be dammed if I didn’t start to get all gooey as this kid trains his heart out. Campbell Scott has his own issues to deal with as he helps the young boy on his quest to win the marathon, as there is some bombastic yelling from the head priest/deity/headmaster/potential pedophile/whatever when Campbell is admonished about helping the kid along any further, but you really do think there’s something to this story right before the gun goes off at the start of the race.

You just have to know that the kid’s not going to win the race but here is an example of a movie where the obvious outcome, the protagonist winning it all in the end, is supplanted with the possibility of an ending actually fitting in with some sort of reality and, for a film of this size, I sure do hope it’s more about the journey than the goal.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: (Voices) Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner, Josh Hutcherson
Release: June 10, 2005
Synopsis: A distinguished cast of actors, under the direction of Pixar’s Pete Docter (“Monsters, Inc.”), lend their vocal talents to this English-language version of the film. Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer), an average teenage girl working in a hat shop, finds her life thrown into turmoil when she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome-but-mysterious wizard named Howl (voiced by Christian Bale), and is subsequently turned into a 90-year old woman (voiced by screen legend and two-time Oscar® nominee Jean Simmons) by the vain and conniving Wicked Witch of the Waste (voiced by screen legend and Oscar® nominee Lauren Bacall).

Prognosis: Positive. HOWLS MOVING CASTLE had me frothing popcorn kernels from the sides of my mouth.

As you watch the opening scene from this trailer you can start to see why CGI hasn’t yet dominated everything that’s colorful and exciting with regard to animation.

I was all wOOt’s and claps when Miyazaki won the Academy Award for SPIRITED AWAY and this trailer, as it unfolds, possesses that certain charm that animated movies, great ones, exude.

The music is jaunty as tanks and war machines roll through a small European town with a beautiful but sad looking woman watching this all unfold. She’s quiet but the colors and animation are doing all the communicating. The scenes, background, and weather pop off the screen; it’s nearly kinesthetic. It’s a world I can see existing.

The real and normal, though, in true Miyazaki fashion, bends and shifts into the unnatural.

Our beautiful young woman hooks up with a Danish looking Dutch Boy representative, wearing a very fey short coat and open Fabio-style shirt where a small amulet hangs from his neck. The guy/eunuch turns out to be doling out witchcraft instead of high glossy house paint.

What this relationship has to do with her being cursed as she’s subsequently turned into an old woman, and her fleeing the safe confines of her town, I haven’t a clue. I do know, though, that the vagabonds she eventually gets hooked up with, looking like extras from the much failed RETURN TO OZ flick from the 80’s, are all sorts of crazy. I mean that in a good way, though.

Wizards, spells, magic, faerie dust, most unnatural creatures, and various other mythical elements pop off the screen with a pizzazz and subdued glee that kids everywhere would no doubt put down their PSP’s for. Obviously, almost being 30 myself, I can’t help but feel wonderment at the imagination that is whirling the real with all too surreal together in a blending of mythos and traditional storytelling.

As for the voice talent, well, Billy Crystal? I’m not so sure about that guy. If you can keep him from being a parody of himself I think I’ll be able to ride the wave for the hour and a half this thing runs and wait for the DVD version where I’ll be able and turn the subtitles on. Christian Bale, however, is perfect. In the trailer you can feel his power as a narrator. His talking in AMERICAN PSYCHO, best exemplified in the scene where he’s ruminating on his business cards with his other cronies, is hands-down the best example of why I could listen to that guy rattle off the contents of the letter M in an Encyclopedia Britannica and why he’s great here.

The trailer ends on a whimper of sorts and the lame presentation of the movie’s website doesn’t really help things to end well but the fact this is Miyazaki’s newest addition to the canon of good animation the chances of this stinking are less than that of guaranteeing that Disney’s next home-grown animation entry will pale in comparison to this and is worth the risk of seeing this sight unseen.