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.

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