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.

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