Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black, Chris Cooper
Release: November 4th, 2005
Synopsis: When a young man joins the Marines and trains to be a sniper, he finds himself plunged into the chaotic swirl of sand, oil, fire and death that was the Gulf War. View Trailer:
* Medium (Windows Media)

However, I can look past all this luggage and baggage because any time you have a kid who is narrating his inner feelings about serving his country, and there’s an uneasiness that’s pasting and gelling it all together, you’ve got some good juxtaposition going. I appreciate that.

Even before we get the handle on what Jake Gyllenhaal is doing, preparing for, we get the ubiquitous Directed By card, glossing over his efforts on ROAD TO PERDITION, and going straight for that Oscar card with AMERICAN BEAUTY. Understandable considering the nebulous handle most people either had or didn’t have on PERDITION.

What gets me about this trailer, and how it slowly sucks you in, is that after they flash Jamie “Don’t Call Me Stealth” Foxx it’s Jake’s blind vacancy behind his eyes that gets me. He’s not quite Private Gomer Pile from FULL METAL JACKET but there’s uneasiness behind the anticipation in his face.

Chris Cooper, with his microphone tilted toward his face, the way he’s proselytizing and addressing a choir of hungry soldiers who are all willing to do thy bidding, shows us a flicker of greatness once more as he lays down the aims for the attack that’s about to happen. Cooper isn’t screwing around.

The soundtrack changes. It’s lyrical with a minimalist hip-hop beat pulsating underneath it as the images we’re getting, Jake popping a gum bubble as he mans a sniper rifle, a dude sleeping in a foxhole, a platoon marching with their gas masks on and the sweetest looking line of fighters, a good dozen of them, flying side-by-side with their exhaust lines trailing behind them, trigger curiosity but we don’t get much in the way of narration.

That’s fine, though.

We get more of the same as the trailer goes beyond its halfway mark. Jake dons a Santa hat sans shirt, guys are playing football in their gas masks, oil field flames shoot into the air like geysers and a humvee flips over from an explosion underneath it.

The trailer doesn’t see a need, the precious seconds bleeding away as more discordant images conflagrate to the point of confusion, to fill us in on what the hell this is all about. If we’re going by style alone, that’s fine, A+, but if I had to take any umbrage at all is that we’re not really “in on” what Jake’s role is. Is he an eager boy who turns into a man and then realizes he was eager for all the wrong reasons? Does he turn into a sadist who gives in to his animalistic rage and need for violence? The point is never resolved and I would hope we get a little more insight than this.

James Dean’s adolescent brooding and “dangerous” air went out when he did. I’ve got to identify with who I’m seeing but I got none of that here. The imagery, though, is worth the price of viewing.

Director: Bennett Miller
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Cliffton Collins Jr., Bruce Greenwood, Chris Cooper, Bob Balaban, Mark Pellegrino
Release: September 30, 2005 (limited)
Synopsis: On November 15, 1959, the brutal murder of a family in a small Kansas town sent shockwaves through the nation ““ and captured the attention of one of the most distinctive minds of our time. One-of-a-kind author Truman Capote was sent to Kansas to pen an article about the crimes for The New Yorker magazine. He ended up writing one of the most celebrated books of the century. CAPOTE follows Truman Capote (Hoffman) on his odyssey to create the landmark bestseller In Cold Blood. With signature style and mordant wit ““ and his friend Harper Lee (Keener) in tow ““ Capote attempts to charm the locals and work his way into the story behind the murders. He’s soon shocked, however, to find himself forming a friendship with one of the killers, Perry Smith (Collins). As the book nears completion and execution day approaches, Capote finds himself torn in directions he never anticipated and is forever changed by his experiences.

Prognosis: Confused. Alright, peeps, this is your medicine for the week.

Yeah, it would be Hella Cool if I would’ve looked at the new DOOM trailer this week but you all can’t be living your life under a Technicolor, Dolby Digital, Hi-Fi surround sound rock. Broaden your horizons, as it were.

This has all the horizon you’ll need for a while.

What I like about the opening about this trailer is that even though there is something very quiet about a rural home in Kansas (I lived there for years and I can vouch that there ain’t jack crap going on within its suburbs) it’s very loud when you punctuate that scene, a very cold and blustery scene, with a flash of light and a gun blast. That gets your attention.

Cut to Seymour Hoffman. Tortured with a voice that would’ve made David Sedaris recognize there was probably someone else in this world who got their ass kicked more than he did, Seymour talks about wanting to write about the murders. There’s something that interests him about it. Before we know what really interests him about the story we are shoved into Seymour’s backstory. It’s wickedly brief and you can use the melodic cues to take you through it all.

On the one hand you have this jaunty beat which shows Seymour as the insider for New York’s affluent and aristocratic buffoons in a time when the notion of a social insider meant more than being a Page 6 leech but after the giggles and patronizing accolades are heaped upon Capote’s persona the music gets morose. Seymour is in Kansas, wearing a deliciously well woven scarf, in the middle of winter. We’re not really sure what he hopes to uncover and his laissez faire attitude regarding the crime doesn’t help establish his motives.

At one point in this trailer, after we’re on the hunt for some Midwestern kind of killers, we get Capote reflecting on how people have misjudged him for his entire life just because of the way he talked. True, he does have that kind of whiny, tinny voice that has never really before been harnessed by heterosexual male but that’s no excuse to be so down on yourself. Really, if I want to go to a pity party I would sooner go over to humanitarian Richard Simmons’ house so he can explain to me why he thinks he’s so misunderstood by a society because of his “eccentricities.” After getting this out of the man we’re graciously allowed back into the trailer’s action.

What follows seems pretty conventional just based on what I see in this trailer’s presentation. We have a dude who may or may not be guilty of the crime of murder and you have Capote who is like John Grisham’s wet dream, a man who will defy the odds to prove the man’s innocence, just by investigating the man’s life. It’s all very true to Hollywood form except here you have some black and white pictures of Capote and the would-be killer in some poses you would think they’re shooting for the J. Crew Fall 2005 calendar. It’s very strange.

Chris Cooper, bless his heart, looks like the beleaguered cop who has been on the case for years and has to endure the eccentricities of this fruit loop of a writer. It just looks like it’s taking everything Cooper has to not pistol whip the poor bastard into leaving town on the next Amtrak leaving Wichita, Kansas.

The end of this trailer has Cooper and Hoffman sharing a table, Cooper’s body language subtly showing us the phrase “Get me the hell away from this bastard before I dish out a little small town justice” in all its resplendent glory, and when Hoffman nearly whispers the title of his book the look on Cooper’s face is all but worth a 1,000 hand-typed words.

Director: Mark Waters
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, Jon Heder, Dina Spybey, Ben Shenkman
Release: September 16th, 2005
Synopsis: When David (Mark Ruffalo) sublet his quaint San Francisco apartment, the last thing he expected – or wanted – was a roommate. He had only begun to make a complete mess of the place when a pretty young woman named Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) suddenly shows up, adamantly insisting the apartment is hers. David assumes there’s been a giant misunderstanding”¦until Elizabeth disappears as mysteriously as she appeared. Changing the locks does nothing to deter Elizabeth, who begins to appear and disappear at will – mostly to rebuke David for his personal living habits in her apartment. Convinced that she is a ghost, David tries to help Elizabeth cross over to the “other side.” But while Elizabeth has discovered she does have a distinctly ethereal quality – she can walk through walls – she is equally convinced that she is somehow still alive and isn’t crossing over anywhere. As Elizabeth and David search for the truth about who Elizabeth is and how she came to be in her present state, their relationship deepens into love. Unfortunately, they have very little time before their prospects for a future together permanently fade away.

Prognosis: Awful. Hi, I’m Mark Ruffalo and I was pretty good in that indie tear fest movie YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. Lucky for you I was also in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND which I got to get my swerve on with Kirsten Dunst in my Fruit Of The Loom’s. You’re lucky because those movies don’t pay enough for me to pay the rent so I have little option but to star in movies like 13 GOING ON 30 and this new one JUST LIKE HEAVEN, big Hollywood marketing darlings which you middle America ladies seem to gobble up like chocolate pudding. I wish things could be different but I can’t see any other way to make sure my career keeps going.

Someone needs to give Mark a check just so he’ll stop appearing in these pre-packaged titter-fests which women love to drag their men to. If there was something redeeming about the filmic history of Reese Whitherspoon I’d love to share it here but since it’s nonexistent I can’t possibly be expected to do that. So far, and this is for those keeping score at home, I have been pulled into every movie that chick has done in the last 7 years because I have a wife who think she’s the bee’s knees and, by default, I’ve been to most every opening weekend of this chick’s flicks.

That’s why, in this movie, I am happy to report, with much glee, Reese is hit, head-on, by a truck and killed.

Let me repeat, she is hit, head-on, by a truck. If this scene could have been filmed at different angles I could actually see the point of watching 90 minutes of just this one moment.

Suffice to say, though, she doesn’t stay dead and that’s a big disappointment. She apparently is a hard working doctor, one commenting that she’s worked for 26 hours and needs to go home to rest her pretty blonde head, to which she keeps on keeping on. And that’s when she’s hit by a truck, head-on.

Cut to Mark Ruffalo who needs a place to live. He, apparently, chooses Reese’s old space and actually sees her after one of his showers. Again, things could be interesting if he was rubbing one out right before their meeting because that would honestly put a new twist in this dead person/live person/no one else can see them genre.

And what’s more about what is so crappy about this picture is that while the two of them are trying to coexist with one another, Reese not believing she’s dead, Mark trying to make sense of what he’s seeing and it all being very zany, who should appear but Jon “Napoleon Dynamite” Heder. He plays a supporting role in this crapfest and I can’t, for the life of me, begrudge the guy who obviously isn’t doing this movie for its great artistic merits but becuase he needs some face time with the American public and would also appreciate some spending money for the weekend.

Oh yeah, the tagline which says that this movie is from the same director of FREAKY FRIDAY and MEAN GIRLS? That should be like one of those Nazi P.O.W. prison camp sirens from Hogan’s Heroes, blaring into your subconscious that you should avoid this at all costs. But, here’s the twist, and this is really complex so I’ll break it down slow: when Mark decides to revisit all Reese’s old friends and colleagues and they all say how she was a workaholic, cold old maid, Reese ends up feeling really bad.

And, stab my eyes, the two of them start to like each other in a most intimate way. Now, even though there are some GHOST, ALL OF ME and DEFENDING YOUR LIFE elements going on in this movie it does not deter from the fact that the further you, your old lady or your quote-un-quote “roommate,” who is wacked out of their skull and thinks Reese is just like one of us from what they’ve seen in US Weekly, get into this trailer the more manipulative it gets.

In much the same way Quint rolled in his rod n’ reel with a crazed look in his eye when he snagged Jaws so too does this trailer play the sappy ass music, interjecting the sappy looks our two players give each other and the false emotion behind Reese’s hope that she wishes she wasn’t so dead, this trailer plays its Mysterio mindfuck trick on those sympathetic to these fake characters’ plight and this will only result in your significant, or insignificant, other drag you against your will into the theater.

This trailer, though, if I am going to be honest with all of you, is a great example of how you make a piece of advertising which does nothing more than try and snowball someone into seeing it. There isn’t one redeeming piece of story hidden behind the fluff but it does a great job in trying to persuade you that there is.

Director: Karyn Kusama
Cast: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Jonnie Lee Miller, Sophie Okonedo
Release: December 12, 2005
Synopsis: The film, based on the futuristic MTV animated series created by Peter Chung, is set 1,000 years in the future, when disease has wiped out the population save for one city. The acrobatic title character (Theron) is the top operative in an underground rebellion, but when sent on a mission to kill the government’s leader, she uncovers a secret making her question if she’s on the right side. McDormand will play the Handler, the leader of the rebellion.

Prognosis: Negative. Raven haired. Can we get that out of the way first? It’s a very becoming look on any lady who wants to put on the affectation of Wednesday Addams. Now, we open onto a scene must like that of the WAR OF THE WORLDS. There are these towers which look like the bulbous heads of the alien invaders in Spielberg’s finale/brake fest and Charlize stands on the precipice of an adjoining structure. It’s up way high and I have no idea why she has a look of fear on her face if she was the one who went up there in the first place.

She rears back and runs off the ledge, looking like Trinity from the original MATRIX: RELOADED, the one that didn’t suck as bad as the other sequel, and she even gives us a wholly unnecessary somersault as she makes it to the other side of a very long space between buildings.

Soon after we are regaled with Charlize’s voiceover about this “last society” on Earth, of course, and how it’s supposed to be this utopia, of course, and how it’s anything but, of course. There are even rebels, who form an underground movement, who are trying to reassert control over the mentally asleep citizens. The imagery and the way she moves seems awfully like Denis Leary’s character in a similarly plotted movie: DEMOLITION MAN.

Now, the government seems to be stealing its citizens on the sly for reasons unknown. That’s why Charlize is on the case, right? We get a flash of skulls, almost too fast, to really throw it home that this is serious shit. They’re not kidding around with this kidnapping stuff.

Transpose onto that, if you will, the next set of visuals: Charlize walking around in some low-cut bikini briefs. What would you be more concerned with? Human life or trying like a Kit-Kat to break you piece off of that? I know where my concern is.

There’s a weird moment when we’re told that there are people who fight for the disappeared. We get some GQ looking dude, all in spandex black, who embraces some chick, also in spandex black, but she’s wearing an eye-less cowl, the exact same lame-ass outfit that Rex Smith, aka The Daredevil, wore in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk. It’s alarming to see it revisited here as is the French kiss which takes between them. The dude passes along some silver pill via his tongue, like this is some high school kegger, and we get up-close to look at the exchange. Why? I don’t know and really don’t care.

Charlize then lets us know that she too is a fighter for those persons who are snatched by the government and we are regaled with a display of her physical prowess. She beautifully kicks some well choreographed butt as we’re told she’s expertly trained and ruthlessly efficient. It’s a little tiresome as the set pieces seem a bit worn and played out.

What does interest me, though, even after recoiling in horror at the sight of Frances McDormand donning some of the most wicked bed head, crow’s nest hair I have ever laid eyes on, is that when Aeon is given the assignment of killing some person or something she stands on the top of this overly green hill. This hill looks straight at the lush grounds which lead to the spooky base of operations of whomever and Charlize takes off running toward the place only to see that the green grass is alive and it’s sharp. Little green needles bend towards Theron’s face as she quickly discovers this. The effects here are pretty nice but that’s about it.

We get NBC Daredevil circa 1989 again, one of those quick drum beats behind the visuals which is supposed to indicate extreme action of some sort and one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen in an action movie: Charlieze whistles like she’s calling Lassie, except here she’s calling a series of iron marbles, and they somehow, someway, assist her in the quest for goodness. It’s awful.

The ending quick shots are just as bad. The low quality execution of what should be pretty intense effects, the bad guy looking just like any conventional bad guy should, the zingers that Charlize throws out which should sound like bon-mots but end up sounding like pathetic one-liners and the way she tries to come off as this tougher than leather warrior just comes across as a pretty girl who is trying to play the part of the bad-ass.

Director: Mike Mills
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Keanu Reeves, Benjamin Bratt
Release: September 16, 2005
Synopsis: Justin throws himself and everyone around him into chaos when he attempts to break free from his addiction to his thumb.

Prognosis: Positive. Big fan of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.

Huge.

When I saw it I wasn’t quite sure what the hell I was viewing but after getting to the five minute mark, I got it.

That flick makes haters or lovers out of people and, judging by the numbers of people who are wearing Vote for Pedro shirts that they bought at Hot Topic, don’t worry if you’re one of them this is a place for healing, I’d say a lot of people got the vibe of the movie and that’s a good thing.

However, but not so much a “however” as it is an Exhibit A kind of lead-in, a movie that apes the handcraftiness of Napoleon’s artistic scribblings was bound to make its way here and I am happy to say that after one year of being out there, we have our movie and I feel accepting of the angle this marketing is going in.

I wasn’t expecting much but hot damn if I didn’t like this trailer. There’s some independent flavor that’s desperately being sought after and I’ll give the filmmakers that much. The cinematography creeps up on you as what sounds like the opening piano suite from Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue starts to play. It’s not but it just seems so close and apropos. We see our normal suburban stronghold of a house; static, no camera movement. Next we get to infer our protagonist has been living in said tenement with the pencil markings on the wall demarcating how he’s grown as a young child. Next, a crapload of trash falls from the top of the screen, its source nowhere to be found, and you’re left with the “Huh?” feeling as you’re yanked to Keanu’s voiceover. He’s talking to our young man who’s laid out on Dr. Reeve’s dental chair. They’re talking about the effects of thumb sucking and what it’s doing to our adolescent. Keanau gets all New Age with him. It’s amusing in quiet way.

Flash to a hand-drawn card telling us the name of the movie. I want to see a Liger pop out at me but I don’t get it.

What I do get, though, is a rocket ship ride which passes by lots of good information like:

A) Tilda Swinton is the kid’s mom.

B) Benjamin Bratt is a sensitive listener.

C) Vincent D’Onofrio is the kid’s dad.

D) Vince Vaughn plays a creepy teacher.

Solid cast and their parts are well fleshed-out for as little time as we’re given with them.

Our kid hero likes the ladies and if you’re one of those kind of dudes who like seeing young women in their skivvies head on over to this trailer and wait until the 50 second mark. Big payoff.

The music changes to some indie-emo rock, sounds like we moved from the Crue to Foo, Fighters that is, and over the beat of the tune that’s playing we see that little Johnny has ADD, hyperactivity disorder and a couple more behavioral maladies which are easily remedied with some medication. He’s shown taking the pills and, two seconds later, which in movie time really equates to two months, it’s like comic book continuity, he’s better.

“You see those girls out there?”

“Yeah.”

“Go round them up, bring them in here.”

“In the men’s room?”

“It’s okay, I’m a teacher, I’m a teacher.”

Vince Vaughn, while not your typical, amusing wisecrack ace of a guy, does have his part as a creepy educator down pat. I even laugh at the above exchange that Vince has with our once withdrawn teen that’s slowly coming out of his social skin.

There are some weird words between Keanu and our man shortly after the bathroom scene and things take a weird turn when the kid starts to discover things about himself which weren’t previously expressed before his indoctrination into the world of pharmaceuticals. He’s smart, intelligent and he is all about getting his swerve on with many a lady. Again, for those who like teenage girls in their skivvies, go to the 1 minute 50 second mark. I have no idea what its purpose is in the grand context besides giving those playing the home game a little thrill but I’m honestly more interested in the story and I don’t get that.

If there’s anything that leaves me cold is that I don’t really get to know why I should care about the protagonist here besides cheering for the fact that he looks well on his way to scoring some high school tail before the last reel of this movie has come to an end.

Leave a Reply