FRED Entertainment

Director: Jonathan Jakubowicz
Cast: Mia Maestro, Ruben Blades, Carlos Julio Molina, Pedro Perez
Release: August 5, 2005
Synopsis: Every sixty minutes a person in Latin America is abducted, and 70% of them do not return. This is the story of a young couple who fall victim to some ruthless Venezuelan kidnappers, and the traumas they endure in captivity.

Prognosis: Negativo. I really did give SIN CITY a chance. I gave it a few chances. I sat there and I tried to find something good that could’ve stayed with me.

Ultimately, though, it fell prey to what happens when you cross written pulp with the conventions of humanistic speech and the oddity of people actually talking in a way that’s queer to the ear.

I’m glad Robert Rodriquez is so active in making films even though it would’ve taken me a few squares of pot brownies to induce me to see THE ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL in 3-D. He’s prolific and even here in this film, where he plays the part of producer, that nebulous nether region of being able to take all of the credit or none of the blame, there is flashes of that sweaty headiness that made his low-budget foray into film so exciting.

What I think this trailer lacks, though, is confidence.

What I mean by this is when I watched the whole thing from start to finish there is definitely a need by someone to amp up the action to the point of making me believe this is going to be a “non-stop thrill ride.” Usually one likes to save the quick cuts feature, where you essentially blow your load and cobble together unrelated scenes to punch up the idea to people about what the movie is going to be.

This whole trailer is a quick cut. I damn near get motion sickness from the sweeping camera moves and ostentatious aping at trying to be this slick, cool movie. It doesn’t work.

“In the most dangerous city on earth”¦”

I am thankful, thankful, that Voiceover Guy is here narrating the whole trailer. I would’ve goofed on the guy for having to state such an untrue fact about this being the most dangerous city on earth, as I not only think his tune would change if we stuck him in the middle of Baghdad in the middle of the night with a strobe light attached to his forehead and an “I (heart) U.S.A.” patch stuck to his back, but he is the only stabilizing force in this trailer. You’ve got to watch your superlatives, kids, remember that.

We are quickly flashed moments of people under duress. I think we’re supposed to get that many folks are kidnapped and that crime is out of control and there is nothing the po-po’s can do and it’s a bad place to live. I get it. Flashes of money, masked perpetrators and scared citizens help me to complete the picture he’s trying to paint. It’s a Paint-by-Numbers but it’s still painted just fine.

Rodriguez’ name, well, his likeness anyway as “The producer of”¦”, established big credibility and, like it or hate it, the reason why big names get on to small projects like this isn’t so much because they were so actively involved in the production per se but that the famous cache helps to get a small picture like this noticed a little easier.

From here we meet the people who will be the prey in this film, a hot looking lady and her equally cool looking male model fiancée, a real Barbie and Ken power couple of South America, and the cards on the screen that tell us this flash quicker than a pervert in New York. You are not allowed to stabilize on anything.

So, these hot young’uns are kidnapped and are held for ransom. I wait to see what really makes this film different from any other show on A&E where they reenact kidnapping footage to tell how a cop really saved the day but the funny thing is that I think that’s it.

This is a movie about where, and I quote Voiceover Guy, “outlaws call all the shots.” Oy vey. For reals? Is this all there is? You’re telling me this is a movie about a kidnapping and you don’t have like a Denzel Washington type character getting all sorts of pissed, blowing people up in a rage?

Nope.

What’s redeeming about the trailer, though, is after we’re given a better introduction to the thugs of this film, I still don’t understand why, I think I am able to see that what really adds something else to the film is that the fiancée escapes but his girlfriend is left to fend for herself and he has to find her before they slash her face and give her a Columbian necktie or so I think.

It also appears this film was shot in DV but I can’t really say for sure. I see that they do one of those camera tricks where the camera is mounted in front of the person and they stay stable no matter what they do, kind of like that wisenheimer who terrorized that convenience store in the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” video. But, just based on this footage here, I can’t in good conscience recommend anyone see this film.

Director: Marcos Siega
Cast: Evan Rachel Wood, James Woods, Ron Livingston, Adi Schnall
Release: August 12, 2005
Synopsis: The film centers on a sexual harassment scandal that engulfs an exclusive Beverly Hills private school. Wood plays a teen who frames her teacher for sexual harassment. The teacher has yet to be cast, but Woods plays the girl’s father, Applegate is a reporter for a local news station and Livingston plays a fellow teacher who also is a lawyer representing his colleague.

Prognosis: Positive. Hmm, social satire?

I always appreciate when movies want to try and explore the more ambiguous lines that are drawn between the high school experience, bitchy teen girls, racism and the ever present fear that teachers could be sued for doing nothing more doing than their jobs; I love that genre. Now, in ELECTION, you had a lot of things going on and Alexander Payne did a glorious job with infusing a story like that with some seedy elements and making it all worth watching. It is, perhaps, one of the only movies with Reese Witherspoon that doesn’t make me too angry with incredulity as I question what the hell I’m watching.

That said, then, the trailer for this flick, though, has a lot to prove if it plans on making a statement while being entertaining.

This thing starts off rather odd. We have a reporter who’s doing a remote from the grounds of a prestigious prep school. It’s all very leafy green with trees and grass but I don’t know what she’s doing out there. The strange thing is we’re not left to linger on the reason.

We’re introduced, however, to our white protagonist girl who tells her obviously ethic and dark friend that she’s glad she was born white. Stack this image on top of the visage of Johnny Cracka, a boyfriend possibly, who stands next to his Aryan goddess while pointing a finger at said ethic friend and laughing. Well, ok, if that’s the way things are going to go. The shock and awe campaign of being as offensive as possible is in full blitzkrieg. It doesn’t let up.

Our pasty pale girlfriend now sits in the dean’s office sitting next to a male student who just happens to wear a yarmulke and is being told by the dean that her racial remarks won’t be tolerated. I believe her comments, as they’re shown, to the boy are, and I quote, “Well, at least my father isn’t a money grubbing Jew shyster.”

Yeah, we’re really swinging for the blatant and patently derogatory fences here.

James “The Donger” Woods pops up as the girl’s father and scolds her for being so obviously hateful against the world and the multiple ethnicities that are contained within it. An R. Kelly joke is made that falls flatter than Julianne Moore’s chest and even I’m ashamed at having mentally constructed an obvious offense of my own.

We’re shown this was an official selection at Sundance which is nicely placed and well-executed. And, you know, while I’m thinking of it, how many fucking movies are shown there anyway? Seems every movie I’ve seen has been an Official Selection in some way or form. Voted Best in its Class to Self-Flagellate To, Sundance Film Festival.

After this, my man Ron Livingston pops up as the ubiquitous teacher who not only wants to tap that girl’s cooch, and I haven’t a clue why as her forehead alone is wide enough to comfortably serve Thanksgiving dinner, but who is in danger of being in the cross-hairs of the young minx as someone who she decides deserves to be taken to court for no good reason. We’ve been here before in movie territory, haven’t we? Teacher accused of something they didn’t do seems more like fodder for a Law and Order episode than a full fledged movie but, whatever.

Seems our harlot is doing all this because she wants to become an actress. She’s a whore who wants to lay the country with her ability to cry on command.

This all eventually escalates into a lawsuit being filed against Ron for sexual assault and, what’s really weird, our racist high school girl has a lusty dalliance with the reporter from the beginning: Jane Krakowski. At first they almost kiss but a few scenes later they are both shown, on a bed, recovering from a passionate, well, I don’t need to explain as you can go to Penthouse Forum to fill in any blanks I’m leaving. I’m thinking there’s some lesbianism goin’ on. Not that it’s a bad thing, I’m just here to point it out and say I hope there’s an explicit examination into this most natural of acts.

We get jerked back into the court where Ron is trying to defend himself against a fake description of the events leading to his appearance in said court but when one of Cook’s friends says that he did something to her as well, using the word “boob” to describe what Ron said to her, Ron gets indignant. He stands up and yells he would never use “boob,” he’s an English teacher. I would have to agree; there are far more graphic and fun words to describe a chick’s mammaries.

The whole trailer feels like this John Waters movie that wants to add some introspective issues into its fabric. It’s an odd mixture of impossible people and the possibilities for what might be said through situations that are more emblematic than what they appear to be. I just know I felt a little dirty after watching this.

Director: Cameron Crowe
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Orlando Bloom, Susan Sarandon, Judy Greer, Jessica Biel
Release: October 14, 2005
Synopsis: A rich ensemble comedy with two central leads. The project is intended to be a love letter to the resilience of the life force and is a story of an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of a Southern patriarch’s hilariously elaborate memorial.

Prognosis: Negative. I never met a hot chick on an airplane.

I never get seated to anyone that even remotely comes close to the definition of “hot.” In fact, case in point, I was on a plane from Milwaukee to Phoenix and was seated next to who would’ve been classically defined as a woman under species laws and regulations, but was closer in fact to the crazy French woman from Lost. I was sitting in the middle seat, she was the window, her ass pressed right up to the arm rest. She even had her own saliva stained bed pillow pushed up to the side of the plane but it was all just indicative of the kinds of ladies I meet on flights.

Orlando Bloom, however, gets Kirsten Dunst. Figures.

I do like the way this trailer eases you in. It drops you gingerly into the middle of a 972 million dollar dissolution of a company that Orlando either owns, works for or has a part in. Either way, Alec Baldwin does a knock up job of quietly voicing the severity of the situation. Add on to this a card that says his day is about to get worse and you can already see how this will get worse. A snotty call from Bloom’s sister doesn’t betray any secrets that couldn’t have already been guessed by watching multiple episodes of Eight is Enough, Charles in Charge or a very special Small Wonder.

So, Kirsten is a flight attendant and gives Orlando, who’s sporting a quite smooth American accent, a lesson in grammaticism when it comes to pronouncing words like “Louisville.” There’s some of that coffee, tea or me stewardess sexiness sparking between the two of them but nothing really comes to fruition immediately.

Now, the difficult part of this trailer seems to be that there is a dense back-story to this film but it is way too cumbersome to deal with here so the feeling I’m getting is that the trailer seems to say “Why not just give the funny before getting to the serious?”

Orlando, it seems, is stepping into an extended family situation not unlike the McCallister’s the night before they all left for Paris in HOME ALONE. Compare Crowe to Hughes? Sure did, but it’s all played for the same effect in both the films. We get these obnoxiously created familial characters where everyone’s related and everyone has that certain quirkiness you only find in movies. Oh, but Orlando isn’t quirky like any of them and that’s what separates our protagonist apart from these bumpkins. It almost feels condescending, the way Orlando moves in-between these people, but the movie needs a brooding, deep thinking guy and he’ll just have to do.

This deep thinking, and gravely postulating, individual uses his James Dean-like indifference for all things human to interact with the stewardess he met on the plane and who he decides will do just fine for a phone friend. You don’t get really any sense of whether Orlando is feeling anything as it all feels kind of wooden. I guess we’re supposed to swoon at the idea that he decides to tell this woman he just met all these really deep and personal things about himself, about the relationship he’s had with his dead father and how this is the moment when he’s really going to “come of age.”

It just feels very hollow to me and Orlando especially looks indifferent and stiff as he moves through this thing. If you’re trying to create a protagonist who’s really cut off, emotionally, from everyone else then you have to show some hope he’ll snap out of it but there’s nothing here that would prove that’ll happen. That’s the real bummer of a film, let me just state that up close. Did I like ABOUT SCHMIDT? Not really, because Jack just bummed me the hell out. How am I supposed to be engrossed in a story when you have such a miserable misanthrope at its center?

I especially don’t appreciate Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” chiming in the background as it’s a rather false and manipulative ploy for me to subconsciously think, “Ooo”¦Tom Petty. I wonder if Orlando is learning to fly, too, after the moving loss of his father?” Probably, but the sight of Kirsten in a bubble bath makes me forget any of the pent up frustration I feel, like I’m wearing wool pants in South Carolina on a salty summer’s day and I just decide to let it go.

Does Cameron deserve a pass for a trailer like this? Hell no.

Director: John P. Whitesell
Cast: Martin Lawrence
Release: December 16, 2005
Synopsis: Martin Lawrence returns as FBI agent Malcolm Turner, a master of disguise who again goes deep, deep undercover as the corpulent septuagenarian “Big Momma.” To avert a national security disaster, Big Momma becomes a nanny housekeeper in the suspect’s household ““ only to find him/herself becoming attached to the three children of the dysfunctional clan.

Prognosis: Radioactively Negative. I can’t imagine why anyone would offer to greenlight this movie.

I know I’ve wondered aloud this very same thought on a few projects but for all that’s holy and unholy in this world, Lord Jebus, why was Martin Lawrence allowed to make another BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE?

And so it was said from on high: “Because, my child, it only cost Fox 30 million to make and it quadrupled that amount at the box office. And if that’s not enough to give you solace then you don’t want to hear the amount that turd’s made in the secondary market on DVD and VHS.”

And so it was written. This is the word of the Lord.

Okay, so the first one made a lot of cash. That led to this movie’s sequel but that doesn’t mean I have to sit idly by and let this trailer run free without calling it out on the carpet for its sheer awfulness.

“Orange County, California. Home of privilege”¦”

Alright, so we open up on snippets of all the beautiful things in the OC like we’re watching one of those “Come to California” ads by the tourism bureau, except you don’t get Clint Eastwood slicing one into the clubhouse from the 3rd tee because he’s, like, 90 and swinging a golf club and you don’t get Governor Arnold twisting the English language as he tried to annunciate “California.” No, here you get lush looking real estate, a Rolls Royce dealership, and chicks lined up on their beach towels in their bikinis catching some sun. Here’s a fact about the latter: you never see a dozen chicks lined up on their beach towels in their bikinis. No, you get maybe one good looking one with some meathead who’s sitting up next to her, scanning everyone’s eyes to see if their looking at his “girl” and hoping to start some shit and even then it’s not really worth the peek unless you have mirrored shades.

What I do like about the next scene is that Voiceover Guy talks about all the really opulent things in Orange County and then it ends with a remark about some criminal plot that threatens national security. The two things just don’t jive, you know? It’s a piss poor setup on top of the fact that these threats to “national security” are all meeting in the open, late at night, in the parking lot of some well-lit office building. I love it when criminal masterminds meet and congregate together, standing up while dealing in secrets that are threats to national security with a laptop. It’s kind of like when Bill Sadler caught Steven Segal peeping in on his criminal activities, down at the wharf no less, in HARD TO KILL. I somehow believe the reality of Steven Segal but have a real hard time with this.

In both instances the premise is fairly stupid. No one meets out in the open but there seems to be this romanticized idea that criminals love to do this sort of thing on a regular basis.

Anyway, the FBI’s top agent is going undercover and that person is Lawrence in a fat suit. I’ll give props to the effects people for making such a convincing looking suit but how is this disguise related to going undercover? I don’t know and I imagine the explanation would hurt my brain if I dwelled too long on the plausibility of it all.

So, you get Martin prancing around the beach, in full corpulence, wearing a yellow one-piece swimsuit, jogging on the ocean’s edge in slo-mo so you all can have a laugh at the funniness that is a fat person trying to run.

Then, we hear Lawrence make a comment to a guy who’s stretched out on his own towel who’s also wearing a Speedo about putting on some pants. Oh yeah, and Big Momma then makes a comment to the dozen chicks lined up on their beach towels about wanting to put some lotion on them.

I hope it’s obvious why I could never make it as a screenwriter. I just don’t have the comedic “edge” when coming up with thinking of really old and tired situations that I could put on screen that would make people lose a spleen or two from laughing so hard. Ass.

Director: Tim Story
Cast:Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Ioan Gruffudd, Julian McMahon
Release: In Theaters
Synopsis: Marvel’s first family of comic superheroes takes the world by storm as the longest running comic book series in history comes to the big screen. Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic, who can elongate his body; Susan Storm / Invisible Woman, who not only can become invisible at will but can render other objects invisible; Johnny Storm / Human Torch, who can shoot fire from his finger tips and bend flame; and Ben Grimm / The Thing, a hideously misshapen monster with superhuman strength, together battle the evil Doctor Doom.

Prognosis: In Another Dimension This Would’ve Been Positive. You could have got me at hello but you’re too goddamn late.

This is what frustrates me at times about all the writing and ranting I do. I watch something and have it completely pegged. I got it. I know I got it. But then something like this comes out and it’s like if the WIZARD OF OZ started with everyone seeing the midget working the controls but then trying, for the rest of the movie, to make you forget what you just saw.

I watched the first trailer for the FOUR and loathed it. I was ashamed to have even come near its presence or even avowed its existence. The production values looked laughable at best and hideously scary at the worst. It was like if the trailer for CHARLIE’S ANGELS and the original FANTASTIC FOUR movie starring that man-child from NOT QUITE HUMAN were mashed up to create something that even little kids would snicker at. Not that I know what a snicker, or even a chuckle for that matter, sounds like but I am guessing it comes pretty close to what happens when one watches that trailer. I almost feel apologetic for that first one because of all my purchases of the Brian Michael Bendis envisioning of this new geek squad at my local comic book store.

Way too long story, short, is that this is the trailer everyone should have been locked, stocked, baited and caught with.

Without a doubt, this is a wonderfully produced trailer and my golf clap goes out to the magician who was behind the transformative effects that good editing can do. Let me share in the glory that is this trailer.

The beginning. It sets up the conflict between Reed Richards and Dr. Doom. You know what, fanboys? Yes, it’s shitty that Doom is now relegated to corporate baron status but there’s a little bit of somethin’ that you always have to compromise on if you want blockbuster values on your film. And it’s not too big of a compromise as you can see that any suit with money to burn can quickly be placed into bad guy territory by any hard working stiff who sees what Corporate America likes to do to the downtrodden.

The relationship is established and our fantastic four are launched into outer space. This is where the glossing by the editorial crew really starts shining. My original beef with the trailer was that the “space station” moments really looked bad. I mean, it was the kind of bad that the nearly bald guy uses when complaining about Elwood Blues in THE BLUES BROTHERS at Chez Louis, harping on about the stench rolling off of him, that I compare it to. Here, though, none of that. It’s quickly, with a capital q, run through in favor of showing the blast that makes our team so fantastic. The hits each one of them takes feel weighty. You can sense that “Ahh” moment when you can understand how they went from geeks to Gods. The guy from Nip/Tuck (is that show really any good?) is a bit into his whole bad guy thing but, whatever, he’s the bad guy, right? Right.

Then we get how everyone finds out that they’re a little different. Here, though, we start to feel the nice foundation we’ve worked so hard to pour start to sway a little. The Thing, though, still looks about as believable as the Marvel Superheroes they have pimping the Capital One card in those ridiculous commercials but it’s, again, quickly gone through.

Things click up a notch with the absence of voiceover when we’re given a set piece, Dr. Doom’s arrival onto the scene as an evil superhero set to wriggidy-wreck havoc unto the poor innocent bystanders of this busy metropolis. The effects, again, are a delight to look at. Even Jessica Alba’s “moment” is visually appealing.

I really like the quiet pause of this trailer as well. Doom shoots something out of his corporate penthouse through his window, a projectile of some kind, and both Johnny and Sue see something way off in the distance. Johnny runs and leaps off the building and it’s eerily silent. You see him descend without saying a word and out of nowhere you hear him scream out, “Flame on!” Right on. That’s the money shot.

Johnny also seems to be the centerpiece for the latter half of the trailer but it’s easy to see why. He exudes the kind of ADD energy that’s needed in a role like this and he does it well here in the trailer. The editors got it right and it’s really a wonder where the hell it has been.

This could’ve been the trailer that got my money but, instead, it got everyone else’s this past weekend at the box office.

Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis, Colin Hanks, Thomas Kretschmann, Kyle Chandler
Release: December 14, 2005
Synopsis: A remake of the 1933 classic in which an expedition exploring a remote island capture a gigantic ape and bring it back to New York for exhibition. A beautiful actress who accompanies them is menaced when the monster’s love for her causes him to break out.

Prognosis: Positive. My sister actually cried at the end when we watched the original KING KONG as kids. I admit that I was emotionally caught by the elements that made the classic just that but let’s not confuse my sister’s hysteria with what I see developing here. I happen to be smitten by the possibility that this could be a rather entertaining night at the talkies.

One of the things that you notice, though, as you watch this thing is that everyone’s clothes are impeccably pressed and are looking particularly sharp. It only really detracts your eye if you concentrate on it but I do take contention with the film for so obviously taking the Hollywood approach to rendering an environment as sterile as possible. Now, I could be talking out of my ass but did every single person really have that straight from the cleaners look back then?

But, never mind that.

Another thing you notice about the roles, though, is that Jack Black is perfectly cast as the hook or by crook movie director who is trying to get another of his films made. He’s fast talking and fast walking and he honestly just exudes the right elements. Naomi Watts, as well, is just the right person to channel made so famous by Fay Wray. I do apologize for bringing that name up as I know that Harry Knowles is probably grabbing a tissue at the mere cosmic mention of that screen siren that recently passed away but it’s good to see such a dashingly beautiful woman placed right back into Kong’s palms.

So, Jack and Naomi get in a boat and head out onto the open seas to film Jack’s latest opus. The dock where Jack’s boat awaits everyone’s presence, where you see how fake looking the shop is and the fake sea they’re going to be traveling on, looks all sorts of, well, fake. It’s a bit disarming but, I too, soon forget the plastic-ness of it all.

Hey, there’s the guy from those bouncy Coke ads, Adrian Brody! He comes and goes out of frame with saying nothing and it’s just as well for what he did to the world with THE JACKET.

Jack then takes over the voice overing duties by cluing us all in on the idea that he found an old map, possibly the one One-Eyed Willie from the GOONIES used (Yar!), that’s going to take him to an island no one knows about. Now, here’s where things get good.

The island is fortified. It’s like a WATERWORLD dry dock without the people drinking their own pee. Quick flashes of half skulls and the ominous feeling of trepidation comes across subtly but firmly.

The ship eventually stops at the island’s rocky harbor. The flash of an island native, with long, stringy white hair and a bad attitude, comes and goes. An extra from Darryl Hannah’s CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, a kid who’s still waiting for their cut of the VHS royalties perhaps, flashes on the screen with their muddy body serving to inform us of the island’s inhabitants.

Jack starts filming on the beach. He asks Naomi to scream for her life. The response of the scream is reciprocated with one of Kong’s. No one knows what or where that came from. It’s played out beautifully. No one says anything and there isn’t a soundtrack to disrupt the silence. Nice.

This is when things get exciting. The same natives from When Mud People Attack! start to close in on our film crew and abduct Naomi. What you can see, in the sets used for the mud people, is that Jackson seems to be borrowing a lot from the community construction of the Orcs of the RINGS trilogy and must’ve figured that if it looked creepy there it’ll look just as good here. It does. Scaffoldings made of wood just litters the visual landscape. It’s like Bob Villa came in and just rebuilt the same damn thing. Naomi is put into a X formation as a hostage not unlike Willie was in TEMPLE OF DOOM; they’re both just as hot and in need of some male rescuing as it is written in the playbook for all patriarchal tales of misogyny and male needs to feel virile and powerful. Seriously, someone write a paper on it before I get bored and do it myself. Kong appears and it makes me forget Sociology 303: The Male Dominion and Their Obsession About Their Small Penises. (See?) Kong looks rough and bad ass, just the way it should be.

This island playground all of a sudden turns into JURASSIC PARK. Seriously, I know that Universal has a stranglehold on the PARK films but their hunt for Naomi results in some acid flashbacks of 1993. Kong knows Kung-Fu, though, as he goes toe to toe with a T-Rex. This is the kind of cage match I’ve needed since Hulk Hogan went against Rowdy Roddy Piper at Wrestlemania.

Director: Brad McGann
Cast: Emily Barclay, Matthew MacFadyen, Miranda Otto, Colin Moy, Jimmy Keen
Release: June 10, 2005 (Seattle Int’l Film Festival)
Synopsis: Paul (Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families (Otto, Moy), frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.

Prognosis: Positive. Why aren’t there more imports like this?

You know, once in a while, man yearns for a good, old-fashioned mystery done right without the trappings of red herrings, obvious clues and poor resolutions. This seems like such an easy thing to bring to the marketplace but in the age of Bigger, Better, Louder these kinds of films are now relegated to the fringes of the cinematic radar for most people.

And that’s fine, really, because when you see a trailer like this you get interested in what it’s all about and this will, hopefully, be the second best movie to come from the land down under. (I tell you what, I can’t write that line without thinking of the dude with the lazy eye from Men at Work. Creeped me out completely as a kid. Still does. Sheesh. I can’t even watch that episode of Scrubs without wondering which way he’s looking”¦) The first real good mystery to come out of AU, and one I implore you to check out, is THE INTERVIEW with Hugo Weaving. Top notch. I still like going back to that movie and watching the way the storytelling drove that film more than anything else.

This movie, though, looks to do the same thing but it’s not quite apparent when things open up.

“17 years ago he went away”¦”

We launch into a tale of a boy who moves out of his house; this being New Zealand I guess he decided to just mosey on down the island road to another ostrich farm but I guess he’s done something a little more rewarding. We don’t know the how, when, where or why but we just accept that this boy vanishes as are quickly thrown into a classroom where he’s introduced, years later, as someone important who’s about to speak to a gaggle of students.

The only bump in the quick way we’re getting a lot of information is two-fold. One, he’s in front of a class full of kids and we really can’t infer that it’s because he’s taken some pictures judging by the quick shot of some woman with blood on her hands. It’s too quick. Slow down. It’s ok to take some time to explicate. Two, we start in with the quotes from all those fabulously famous of New Zealand’s newspapers. It’s great and all but they come awfully quick, too. Slow down.

Now, apart from all this, we get the point that the guy who’s talking to the students has been away from his family. The first blood relative we meet is this guy’s brother who is shocked as shit to see the man. The music and direction and pacing are perfect. I love it.

There is friction there between the boys and I can only assume that this would’ve been the case if he left the family and never bothered to ringy-ding once in a while.

Next, after some real quick cuts of the family farm and pastures, we meet up with a young, teenage girl. She’s pretty and she stands sheepishly in front of our wayward brother. She tells him that she found this small space, ostensibly the family farm that’s possibly been abandoned for some time, and she explains what she’s been doing there.

There is some real intimacy, social intimacy between two people you pervs, between the two and she goes on to talk about her life’s dreams with this guy. He listens and she tells him about where she wants to be someday. It’s affective and presented well because it takes its time to explain.

And then the mood changes. The teenage girl goes missing.

Whups.

You can see where things are going from here. He’s the only person to have seen her last, he’s implicated in her disappearance and there’s more than enough suspicion to go around.

The clips at the end are too confusing to put into a coherent order but it’s enough that I feel like I want to know what happened to her. Did the drifter brother kill her, did he help her leave the country, did his brother do it or was it Shakey, the town drunk, who let a pack of rabid ostriches peck her to death?

I don’t know but what I do know is that I am going to have to wait an extraordinarily long time to find out as there’s no way in hell this will be playing in this part of cactus country and that’s the real shame.

Director: Bob Gosse
Cast: Lili Taylor, Courtney Love, Mischa Barton, Noah Emmerich
Release: July 1, 2005
Synopsis: A woman attempts to realize the dreams she never knew she had.

Prognosis: Negative. Man, would I wouldn’t give to hit Courtney Love in the head with a large red brick.

I wouldn’t want to hurt her, per se, but if there was anyone who desecrates the memory of their dead rock n’ roll husband more than anyone else in this world Courtney would be at the top of that list. At least Yoko Ono had the business savvy to realize that John Lennon’s music should live on, has been more than a tad generous with the musical library John had left behind and has managed to not make public spectacles of herself on a near constant basis. Courtney just needs to relegate herself to Attention Whore status and stop with the tucks, lifts and augmentations.

Do you see what’s happened here? She’s the first thing I saw in this trailer and I am already riled up with things that don’t have anything to do with the flick itself.

However, beyond that, Lily “I Know it Looks Like I’ve Just Woken Up All The Time” Taylor seems to play a put-upon wife who has aspirations. Judging by her make-out session with Courtney in the beginning I am assuming lesbianism is the first thing on that to-do list. Higher education seems be relegated to number two as she eye-spies a form that talks about getting one’s GED.

Lily’s home life seems to be consumed with taking care of a couple of rug rats who are old enough to know what it means when daddy says “Hell no” to Lily’s request to go back to school. I’m not sure if it’s just my hippy sense of openness and realizing the value of getting educated but her husband’s passionate response to Lily’s request to obtain her diploma seems a bit played out. Are there still dudes out there that feel threatened by a woman getting smart? Are there Neanderthals who are so insecure that they would vehemently deny their ladies the chance to do something with their lives? I guess there are as when Lily’s husband leaves her in a rage of disappointment that he does so because he can’t keep his wife barefoot and stupid.

I almost hear the sounds of “Gloria” in the background and I start thinking that this will be a movie about female empowerment but the ding-dong at her apartment door when she has to start all over on her own reveals Courtney Love in all her trashy, exploitative glory hole-ness.

It looks like the two of them will be a modern day Laverne and Shirley with the exception that this duo seems to be inspired by the Isle of Lesbos and the poetics of Sappho and Catullus and the other seemed to be inspired by Milwaukee and Bratwurst. Seriously, there is a lot of female on female kissing going on in this thing and I wish to hereby proclaim a pox on Love for making it the most asexual experience I’ve ever been privy to. It really is gross in a $2 hooker kind of way. Made me ill, it did.

What’s neat, though, is that Lily goes on to get her education and we get a pre-suicidal, pre-freak-out Spaulding Grey who is no doubt going to be the impetus for the catalyzing change in Lily. He will fill the “Wise old man” role that will show Lily that there is more to life than just taking care of kids who will no doubt break your heart by stealing money out of your wallet, doing drugs, sleeping with the opposite sex under your roof as you’re out working and who will pretty much run roughshod over everything you hold dear.

This does seem like a “Gloria” kind of film, though, but I am unsure how the mix of her sexual awakening with a dirty ho, her yearning to better her intellectual life and how this all fits into a paradigm of the modern family will come off.

For all the shots I am taking it I can say that it looks like a pretty good movie with a lot to say. I just don’t know, though, what to make of Courtney. I weep for the future.

Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barney Clark, Jamie Foreman, Harry Eden, Leanne Rowe
Release: September 30, 2005
Synopsis: An adaptation of the classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Prognosis: Bi-Polar. Just so we all agree: Roman Polanski is still wanted in this country for the drugging and raping of a 13- year-old girl in 1977 at Jack Nicholson’s pad, right? He hasn’t ever stepped foot in this country because he knows that he would more than likely be sent to a federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison where they take care of pedophiles like him with some prison justice? Raped a girl? Right?

Right.

So, what I see here, in this teaser is really good.

I like that instead of a lot of quick clips that pretty much confound the hell out of everyone there is a drawn out scene that not only establishes the time and place but gives us an idea of what this story is about.

As an English major I know this probably should’ve been part of my literary canon but it wasn’t as I’ve concerned myself with other literary fare so it’s nice to see I can do a little “catch-up” with this flick.

It opens up on a wonderfully painted scene of old-time England. It looks like it’s at the dawn of the industrial age where soot, black-lung and child labor were the Holy Trinity’s. You can see just in the first few seconds that it’s a gloriously painted palette of dinginess, bustle and commerce. The cobbled streets, the horse drawn carriages and the costumes are absolutely engaging. The time is captured on the screen and you believe you’re looking into the way things were.

We get a scene with a young boy standing in the middle of the street who obviously doesn’t care about possibly getting struck by a thoroughbred that might come tearing from around a stone corner or a fruit cart that could possibly be driven by someone who’s busy talking on their megaphone.

The wayward lad looks on as a couple of kids pick the pocket of a well-to-do gentleman who is patronizing the storefront of some bookseller. It looks like all the thieves get is a yellow snot rag but I guess those things might get you a lot on the black lung market.

Anyway, the shop owner comes tearing out of his store, yelling at the boys that they’ve been had. They go off running and the young boy who watched it all go down just stands there, dumbfounded. He didn’t do anything yet he feels the need to scamper like the cur he’s being labeled as by Old Man Winter who runs the shop. The kid almost gets taken out by a Mercedes Mustang carriage, with a black exterior and velvety red goodness inside for open-air seating up to 2 passengers, and takes off through an obvious back lot that stands in for this British city.

It seems like the whole town is after the young kid as dozens are shown running after him and he’s about to get away too but, out of nowhere, a really old guy, I am talking Old Man Winter’s brother, Old Man River, cold cocks the kid on the chin. Just flattens the fucker right on the cobble road. It’s hilarious.

This trailer is worth watching just for the technique the dude employs. Comedy at its best. Needless to say, I’m interested. I really would like to see how this thing is executed.

And speaking of execution, what is the penalty for drugging and raping 13 year-olds anyway? Just curious.

Director: Michael Showalter
Cast: Michael Showalter, Elizabeth Banks, Michelle Williams, Justin Theroux, Peter Dinklage
Release: August 12, 2005
Synopsis: The film chronicles the anxiety-ridden two weeks leading to the marriage of Elliot Sherman who is the quintessential “Baxter” ““ the nice guy who never gets the girl.

Prognosis: Negative. I was a fan of The State.

I know that at the time when it was getting some decent numbers, audience wise, I knew I was seeing something fairly different when compared to its SNL and Mad TV counterparts. It was funny in some places, strange in many others, but it was good for a laugh. And before it really had a chance to develop, it went away.

Enter, stage left, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER. That movie really secured me as a fan of their work if, for no other reason, than Christopher Meloni’s crazy ass chef. The members went their separate ways after this and, for the most part, have been very successful at keeping themselves in front of the American public. From I Love The 80’s, 90’s, 70’s and whatever the hell they feel like lovin’ on VH1, Michael Ian Black has made a dime or two playing the deadpan commentator. Ben Garant, Kerri Kenney and Thomas Lennon have done splendid work as members on Reno 911, a solid comedy that’s flown gently under the comedic radar for many people out there.

That’s why I’m confused at this really odd, weirdly formulaic and not very amusing trailer for THE BAXTER.

What’s nice, though, is the set-up. It comes right out of the gate in letting me know that Michael Showalter is this Louis Winthorpe III type with an obnoxiously flimsy sense of character. It starts to grate on my nerves 20 seconds in. Elizabeth Banks, the starlet who just seems to be everywhere nowadays, plays his obnoxiously hot fiancé and who, I might add, I can’t really get a handle on because what kind of a lady like her would be seen with an obvious social and personal retard like Showalter? I’m not sure myself. Michelle Williams plays the obviously shabby temp who works with both Showalter and Banks and who, as most of you can guess within the first 10 seconds, will have something to do in catalyzing a change in Showalter later on. Also, Justin Theroux, a guy who, when he gets older, will probably be the go to guy for all villains, pops in as Banks’ old high school boyfriend and makes some trouble for the couple.

The problem I have, though, is that the further we get into establishing all these quirky people the trailer is essentially not doing its job. I want to be lied to, I want to work hard in finding reasons why I think I’m being manipulated but, at halfway through the trailer, I already know that Showalter’s obvious hack at making a character that’s obviously prim and proper and completely the opposite of everyone else is just annoying and false.

The rest of the trailer just confirms this as Justin moves in closer to Banks and Showalter, in retaliation, as is most movie and television guys are want to do in cases like this, try to eschew their old selves in favor of new ones; more hipper selves; more selves that are the simulacrum of what they believe “cool” should be. And it’s just sad to see the wheels burning off of this bike.

There’s nearly an additional twenty seconds that’s wasted on showing us how “cool” Justin is. Banks and him did the ubiquitous sex weekend during a snowstorm which, as a dude pushing 30, has never happened to me but seems to have happened with every other person in film and TV who has ever had to go through inclement weather for longer than two days.

I guess I expected something a little more funny and not so awful.

Director: Dean Parisot
Cast: Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni
Release: December 21, 2005
Synopsis: An update of the 1977 comedy, where a married couple turn to robbery to pay the bills.

Prognosis: Middle-America Approved. My parents would love this kind of film.

It looks wacky, zany, a little “edgy,” and even, dare I say, slapsticky?

Yes, it looks like all these things and I certainly can’t fault the filmmakers or Jim Carrey who did great work last year in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. It’s just obvious that Jim needs this kind of picture that lets him revert to some of his more profitable talents. And, you know, it’s not such a bad thing when an A-lister like him sees his house payments going up and has to do a little somethin’ somethin’ to offset some of his living expenses.

Not that I think the trailer does anything special for me, per se, but for those who like their comedy in a milquetoast offering I say, here’s your movie and you will love it.

The opening is almost straight out of THE TRUMAN SHOW. Jim lives on the back lot of a Hollywood studio where everyone, even though they have garages, still park their car in the driveway and have exactly the same schedules so they can have some witty repartee with one another; garages must be where they keep their opium drug dens in these parts of Southern California.

So, after Jim walks out of his house he kicks a stray rubber kickball that’s strategically sitting in his yard through someone’s window off-screen. Judging by the trajectory it should’ve been the same neighbor he ends up talking to but it’s not and who gives a crap anyway, right? All that matters is that he talks to his neighbor and mixes it up with him a little; it establishes that Jim is Jim in this movie and that’s a good thing for Middle America.

The physical humor continues when we cut to Jim and his nuclear family, or for all you red states I should say “Nook-u-ler,” as he straps on a device to keep his dog from barking. The electric shock collar is always good for some laughs. I liked it in Jackass and I like it here. It’s goofy and it’s the kind of giggles that are done at the expense of animal cruelty.

Then it happens.

At one of those fun backyard parties that most suburbanites like to have with each other, a neighbor asks Jim how he’s been so successful.

Cut to a black screen and play “Free Ride.”

Jim and his wife are thieves. They even have a comedic verbal exchange before robbing a coffee house. He yells out, instead of “This is a robbery,” he wants, “Two iced mochas.” He feverously waves his gun around as Tea leaps over a counter, Dukes of Hazzard style, only to take out a coffeepot and various pieces of detritus littering the serving counter. He even thanks the barista for making the mochas. The humor just keeps coming and coming.

The trailer ends with Jim mistakenly trying to hold up a friend of his. The funny comes in when they all just sort of play it off as one big goof and they all just laugh about it like it’s so darn funny he “got” his friend.

Sigh, it takes all kinds.

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Bill Murray, Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone, Julie Delpy, Chloe Sevigny
Release: August 5, 2005
Synopsis: Bill Murray stars as the resolutely single Don Johnston. Dumped by his latest lover, he again resigns himself to being alone. Instead, he is compelled to reflect on his past when he receives a mysterious pink letter from an anonymous former lover that informs him that he has a 19-year-old son. Hesitant to travel, Don nonetheless embarks on a cross-country trek in search of clues from four former flames. Unannounced visits to each of these unique women hold new surprises. Won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.

Prognosis: Positive. Required reading for the summer? “Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live.” It’s a quick read so don’t let the double-bible thickness of it scare you off. While it’s comprehensive in ways that other look-behind-the-scenes tell-alls could never hope to match, there is a feeling of expediency when it recounts some of the more catty moments of the show’s long history. One of those things that I wish was lingered on for a tad longer, I think, is the general dislike many SNL players had for Chevy Chase. In a recent interview, around the time of Chevy’s roasting, Chase actually came close to implying that he hadn’t a clue why many of his ex-cast mates found him an incredibly unlikable asshole. What’s even better, in my opinion, that in a real school-like compare and contrast moment you see that guys like Bill Murray were and still are successful because of their ability to get the job done, consistently, without ever having to give-in to the idea that their gravy train will be chugging forever. This trailer shows why Murray is simply on the top of his game.

Sure, can you forgive him for QUICK CHANGE or that really dank elephant movie that doesn’t even get love from late night broadcast line-ups he made years ago? I think all of that can be easily erased as you see how nimble this man can be when the trailer opens up and you see him applying that same wry and deadpan style that’s made him so endearing in these last few years on screen.

The trailer is exquisitely crafted in that the whole plot is easily laid out within the first 10 seconds. He reads a letter from a woman with whom he’s had sex many years ago, bore a son he never knew about, ends up not knowing who the woman was and recites it all to the gravedigger from HAMLET: YET ANOTHER SCREEN EDITION. The uppity beat of the music keeps things light and it eases us into the issue at hand: Should be go find his son or should he sit back and let life pass him by? But of course he should find his son, say Mr. Rhetorical’s audience.

His buddy hatches a plan to find out what woman wrote the letter by matching a list of ex-girlfriends he’s been with and finding the exact typewriter it was written from as there’s some old bag out there that has yet to come into the 21st century; and what the hell is what those pompous writer types out there who are so down on the computer? I mean, I don’t see those same people down at the river and slapping their unitard long underwear on a big wet rock but, crap, oh no, don’t you be comin’ “˜round here no more with your alien technology that seeks to sink the purity that is typewriter writing. I hate those people. Now, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah, the plot. Well, it’s a bit strange but I’ll bite. Murray spends a little time with his buddy’s little girl at a tea party on a beautifully green front lawn and we’re left to linger there just long enough to see Murray just doing what he’s always done best: finding the perfect angle to amuse in whatever situation he’s in.

And that’s when I see Sharon Stone. My nads recoil at the sight of that blonde vacuum of talent and ability. It takes my will to live to not feel disappointed at the casting. He has a moment with her before moving on thankfully and quickly.

The stop on this magical trip is no better when the other maternal possibility is brought into full focus: Frances Conroy. You can interject the same nad recoil here. We move along, as well, from her and onto the next woman.

The whole time this is going on there isn’t so much as a peep from Murray’s need to seem lively or star worthy. The guy is so sure of what he needs to do there is a near unbearable relaxedness in his acting. It’s wonderful to watch as he tries to get through woman after woman, his look of despondency framed perfectly on his face, and even when he gets a fist in the face near the end of the trailer, and he has to act behind some sunglasses, it doesn’t matter.

The mood that Jim Jarmusch’s direction evokes pops right through this trailer and even as we head into the final moments of this thing I am actually surprised at the way the whole movie sort of seeps into my skin as I feel drawn in by the premise and its execution.

Director: Don Roos
Cast: Lisa Kudrow, Steve Coogan, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Cannavale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Ritter, Tom Arnold
Release: July 15, 2005
Synopsis: An ensemble cast telling 10 stories with intertwining characters. One story is about a father and son who are dating the same woman. Another features a woman who long ago gave her baby up for adoption but is now being blackmailed by a documentary filmmaker who claims to know the now-grown child’s whereabouts.

Prognosis: Negative. Too much information. Seriously.

If you have to spend the entire trailer yammering on and on about what the movie’s about don’t you think that there might be too much for the average person to synthesize properly? Maybe it’s just me but when I try and follow the directions each one of these characters are going, based on Voiceover Guy’s verbal assistance, I am left feeling confused and ambiguous about everything and that’s just box office death.

At first I think something’s amiss when I hear Lisa Kudrow’s voice asking whether she should be face up or face down on the massage table and all I hear is some garbled mess that seems coming from the mouth of Tony Shalub’s foreign cab driver character from Wings. I’m not thinking about the current plot, I’m actually thinking, “That’s nice that Antonio Scarpacci has found a new line of work.”

After breezing through what I know is a masseuse applying a “happy ending” on a female client, I am yanked to Maggie Gyllenhaal trying to seduce a guy who doesn’t seem that into what she’s doing. Something weird is happening but before I have a chance to even assess who the hell these people were and what they mean to the flick I am hurried into a restaurant where some guy talks about how something wasn’t meant to be and there’s this strange person that’s present and said person would’ve been a great dad. Who? What?

Then, Tom Arnold pops up as the dad of a gay son who was shown “getting his swerve on,” I guess you could say, with Maggie Gyllenhaal a few scenes prior. I guess the dad doesn’t know or something but before we can get comfortable again we’re taken to Laura Dern’s place where Steve Coogan, who I am thinking is also gay, is really distressed about sperm and its viability in a frozen container. He even, at one point, helps himself to Dern’s freezer to see if she keeps any on reserve. By this time I am confused out of my skull. What the hell is happening to any of these people and is it worth it to me to stick around? Sure it is. I like to see a trailer completely down itself like some deranged psychopath in a little pond skipper airplane who suddenly decides to plunge himself downward into an open field. This trailer is doing a wonderful job sustaining that kind of vibe.

So, Voiceover Guy tries to chime in but is way too late on this pick-up game. He tries to start tying some threads together and all I see is Maggie and Tom Arnold hooking up, which is really sinister in ways that transcend some kind of cosmic boundaries, Lisa talks to the guy who gives pleasure to old women with his massage technique, and I am just floored as we hustle our asses to the ending only to have it end up falling apart at the seams.

I just don’t get the trailer at all. I don’t. I know there is something happening but I can’t tell you what it is because I couldn’t even begin to tell you who the protagonist of this story.

Director: Louis Leterrier
Cast: Jason Statham, Amber Valletta, Keith David, Matthew Modine, Hunter Clary, Jeff Chase
Release: September 2, 2005
Synopsis: Jason Statham returns in his signature role: ex-Special Forces operative Frank Martin, aka “The Transporter.” Now retired in Miami, Martin makes a living driving for a wealthy family, including twin brothers with whom he has unexpectedly bonded. But when the boys are abducted, Martin must use all his skills to bring them to safety and discover the kidnapper’s master plan.

Prognosis: Decent. Not quite sure what top make of this sequel but it jumps off the blocks even before the pistol’s gone off.

One of the things that made the first TRANSPORTER so much fun was Jason Strathmore’s dedication to a chatacter that could’ve easily been made goofy and plastic if put into the wrong hands. Do I think it’s a great movie? No. Do I think the plot’s any good? No. But what a movie like that does, apart from the “unplug” factor that the movie invokes upon each viewing, is show you how well a few bucks and a few shaky cameras can get you when you really try and craft an action movie.

This trailer pops with every cut scene offered in the first five seconds. Too fast to even catch with every blink of an eye is Jason in all his car driving, stunt doubles’, glory.

I am pleased they’ve gone with the same black import car to keep with the continuity. What shakes me to my core, though, is the inclusion of a child.

It seems that the big baddie in this movie is threatening to do kill the kid that he’s been chauffeuring around for a rich family. Our man has gone straight and got himself a respectable job. Pimping himself out to be used like a Mr. Belvedere isn’t what I want out of my European heroes and to add a kid in there seems like a very Jump-The-Shark kind of thing to do. Oh, and I forgot to mention the hideously dressed but oddly attractive woman who is accompanying Jason on a very odd mission to do whatever it takes to not get this little boy killed; the woman just looks like a model who is a character in a movie that’s SUPPOSED to look dangerous. Instead, she just looks derivative. Now, I know and you know that the kid isn’t in any real danger, if he were this may the best movie ever (has there been a quality kill of young boys under the age of 10 in cinema? I think that’s a no), but the movie is moving too fast for its own good, I think.

It’s hard to keep track of a plot that’s not very well explained, even when it has Jason in it just being a bad ass, but when I see some shirtless dude, who also looks like a model (probably underwear, judging by the physique, not that I am paying that close attention, not that there’s anything wrong with making a statement, and am only making a professional opinion based on my impression of seeing a shirtless dude with sweaty hair and pecs). This guy, as well, is a “bad guy” but at the center of the discussion between everyone is a virus that looks exactly like that green shit from one of the best 80’s movies evar, THE MANHATTEN PROJECT. It’s lime green and I guess it’s pretty toxic. Come to think of it, I’ve also seen that green crap in THE ROCK, a not too awful Michael Bay film.

And just when I have this thing figured out, Matthew Modine pops up. Hell, that guy hasn’t made a good film since VISION QUEST. I’m kidding but I had to bring that up for two reasons: 1) No matter where that guy goes there will always be video of him sniffing a girl’s panties. 2) I seriously can’t look at one of those plastic workout outfits without imagining Louden Swain working out to the point of getting freak nosebleeds. Anyway. Mr. Thong Sniffer arrives, providing even less context to the film, but we get some really odd snippets to the film.

We get Jason taking his shirt off, that was for the ladies, Jason scowling as hard as he can because he wants that boy back and, dammit, he’ll get him back, Jason about to get into a street fight with ten different dudes at once but asking everyone to hold on because it’s a nice jacket he’s wearing, Jason impaling a part of a gun into a bad guys throat (Cooooollll”¦), the crazy blonde comes back into the scene as she invokes the acting spirit of Brigitte Nielsen, and Jason gets wicked with a fire hose before turning it on (you’ve got to see what happens). You even get a bit of bad language and a sweet kill with actual squibs; you’d never get that by the MPAA in the States.

And by time you get through more of the car crashes, car chases, improbable stunts that could never ever happen, more naughty language, some T&A shots and every angle worth getting of a speeding Lamborghini, you realize that you have to see this film. It may not be until it comes out on DVD but there are some gnarly set pieces that may be worth the price of the rental.

A little bit of BEVERLY HILLS COP II, a bit of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III, some MAN ON FIRE and more of the same from THE TRANSPORTER. In all, it’s about as good as one can ask for in a bland European action movie that’s trying to play to as many audiences and conventions as possible.

Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Monica Bellucci, Jonathan Pryce, Lena Headey, Peter Stormare, Mackenzie Crook, Richard Ridings
Release: July 29, 2005
Synopsis: A fictional action-adventure tale about folklore collectors and brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, called Jake (Ledger) and Will (Damon). While traveling from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures, they encounter a real sorceress with terrifying powers and are put to the test.

Prognosis: Negative. Man, you know you’re in for some crap when you not only have Voiceover Guy’s first words being “In a world”¦” and that one of the characters in the film saying “I’m getting to old for this”¦”

Not a good sign.

Also, and this is something that’s rather perplexing, the opening of this trailer is rather odd. At first I’m not even sure what I’m looking at. It seems like it’s a commercial for something but I don’t know what it is. I damn near think it’s an ad for some Summer’s Eve product. Seriously, go with me on this.

You’ve got a girl prancing around the forest in a big red cloak; Little Red Riding Hood, to be exact. She’s prancing around in a forest, all alone, and she stops for a moment. She bends down to smell a rose of womanhood and she ends up pricking herself on the thorn of puberty, blood seeps from her finger. All of a sudden, the wafting of her broken innocence is enough to drive the wolf, representative of each and every lecherous man out there, into hemoglobin frenzy. The wolf gives away his presence and silence from the periphery and lunges at the now christened woman. She drops her basket of childhood and tears off out of the forest and tries to run free into the open space of adulthood where there is nothing to hide behind. She almost makes it to the sanctuary of a castle which no doubt represents every woman that puts up walls higher than a castle to defend herself against the evil that is manhood.

This new woman, though, looks like she’ll be a causality as she stumbles mere yards from the castle and the camera closes in and will, no doubt, be one of those girls who ends up on the cheerleading squad in high school only to give it up her maidenhead to the entire wrestling team at a Schlitz party, celebrating their victory over the high school from down the street.

Fairy tales always have a subversive meaning and I’ve always believed that.

Here, though, it’s pretty bad because there isn’t that same wonderment. After “˜Hood no doubt gets “eaten” by the Wolf, we’re whisked to the dreariest looking town this side of London. Matt Damon, who looks like a deformed elf, and his buddy Heath Ledger are con artists. They defeat wicked looking specters, which I have to say look pretty damn sweet, for people who think they’re being haunted by them and they receive muchos ducats for doing so. Only what happens is that the scam is that their buddy is all dressed up as the freaky looking ghost and they prey on stupid townsfolk. His make-up, though, is odd considering the time period. I had no idea they invented spirit gum before developing the tooth brush.

Thing is, and it’s nearly laughable if it weren’t such a grand production, there really is ghosts out there in the Enchanted Forest and the Brothers Grimm are suddenly asked to do what they’ve been doing all along. The exposition and dialogue and all the events that lead into the forest are nearly too much to take. The only thing that provides some unintended levity is that the set pieces to make this look like an Enchanted Forest only really look like a back lot that was built to make it look like an Enchanted Forest. It’s piss poor, really, and it’s rather distracting.

But, lo and behold, all is not lost, friends. The last 20 seconds of the trailer are indeed something to take delight in. Monica Belluci shows up in full Technicolor and my worldview changes. The set pieces begin to shift from dreary to exciting. All in a matter of moments the money shots are unloaded and, yay, it was good. Action abounds and there is actually something for me to look at.

Director: Fernando Meirelles
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Pernilla August, Danny Huston, Hubert Kounde
Release: August 26, 2005
Synopsis: Based on the best-selling John le Carré novel and from the Academy Award-nominated director of “City of God.” In a remote area of Northern Kenya, activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) is found brutally murdered. Tessa’s companion, a doctor, appears to have fled the scene, and the evidence points to a crime of passion. Members of the British High Commission in Nairobi assume that Tessa’s widower, their mild-mannered and unambitious colleague Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), will leave the matter to them. They could not be more wrong. Haunted by remorse and jarred by rumors of his late wife’s infidelities, Quayle surprises everyone by embarking on a personal odyssey that will take him across three continents. Using his privileged access to diplomatic secrets, he will risk his own life, stopping at nothing to uncover and expose the truth – a conspiracy more far-reaching and deadly than Quayle could ever have imagined.

Prognosis: Positive. Ralph Fiennes will always be that fat gutted Nazi minion in SCHINDLER’S LIST to me. Always will. He was just that good at inhabiting that character.

I am glad to see the guy more often on the screen as I think he’s really a silent star that has so much to offer to parts but just isn’t used as much as he could be.

In this movie, though, he gets to play a tender, sweet loving man and he virtually pops off the screen with his charisma. The opening of this trailer, which at first I think is some soft-core, Vaseline-on-the-lens, kind of porno is actually just him and what I assume is his wife making some of that sweet sweet baby-making kind of love.

The music in the background sounds worldly which is perfect because the plot is meted out slowly enough for people to understand that his wife is asking to tag along with him to Africa. The Dark Continent. The place where every Amazing Race contestant believes that God forsake on his way to creating the Mall of America.

Well, Rachel Weisz, who could easily be the bumper Oreo cookie in my Kate Beckinsale sandwich, is all smiles and giggles until she tells her man something of great importance. Ralph appears to be acting in a doctorial capacity and Rachel, in a voiceover, whispers to him that she thinks one of the women being cared for by a band of doctors is being slowly murdered.

Interesting, as is the music. Tension is perfect, the pacing is right on and my interest is sustained.

What’s more is that Rachel’s bump indicates that she’s preggers, due in a week when last we see her talking to her husband’s video camera, and it just crushes me when the gig is up and the screen goes black. One of Ralph’s friends tells him and catches him completely unaware that Rachel has been killed. What a waste.

But, that’s a good thing because that’s usually the emotional buy-in a screenwriter has to get from you to make it that much more personal. Not only is the direction just nice to watch along with the cinematography, the direction coming from the same guy who gave the world the stupendous CITY OF GOD, but the screenplay is based on a book by John le Carre. Now, while I am a book snob, no question about it, I do have to concede that guys like that make great, superficial movies. Who here liked PATRIOT GAMES, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, THE FIRM, and all those other flicks that you can either take or leave but somehow rise above average fare? I did and I am really into the trailer.

The music picks up, the percussion leading the charge in what seems to be Ralph’s battle cry, and we see Ralph just trudging through the mess that led to the murder of his wife. He doesn’t know what or who exactly to go after but there’s enough cloak and dagger mysteriousness, with everything from fisticuffs to anonymous motorcycles of death, to show you that this isn’t going to be a boring romp.

The percussion kicks up, Wes Studi pops his head in, the “conspiracy” is labeled as global, there are the ubiquitous corporate trolls who are simply hated universally the world over and are a convenient stand-in, we hear how the pharmaceutical companies are just like illegal drug cartels and that there’s a contract on Ralph’s head for digging “too deep.”

All the superlatives aside, I would have to say, based on this trailer, I would immediately see this movie just based on what I saw.