Director: Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, Tony Leech
Cast:(Voices) James Belushi, Glen Close, Andy Dick, Anne Hathaway, David Ogden Stiers, Anthony Anderson, Xzibit, Chazz Palminteri, Sally Struthers, Patrick Warburton
Release: January 13, 2006
Synopsis: In the re-telling of this classic fable, the story begins at the end. Chief Grizzly (Xzibit) and Detective Bill Stork (Anthony Anderson) investigate a domestic disturbance at Granny’s (Glenn Close) cottage, involving a karate-kicking Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway), a sarcastic wolf (Patrick Warburton) and an oafish Woodsman (Jim Belushi). The charges are many: breaking and entering, intent to eat, wielding an axe without a license, but these unusual suspects have their story to tell first.

Prognosis: I’ll Read The Book. Has anyone seen that wholesome Anne Hathaway vehicle that showcases her, um, vehicles, HAVOC? Yeah, me neither, but I did hear about this movie around the same time when the hubbub about HAVOC was percolating to the surface.

There’s just something about that film’s controversy and this animated movie being the first from the Weinstein Company that raises some good questions about what HOODWINKED hopes to establish about the big dollar potential in their kid flicks. I know people remember what happened to Fox Animation after a couple of wretched movies destroyed that arm of their filmic portfolio. It’s not enough anymore to just make a kids movie and expect that if it’s done halfway well that the bucks are going to roll in.

You’ve got to come correct at the theater and it’s pretty much all Pixar’s, really Brad Bird, doing in the last decade or so that they’ve raised the bar in terms of what really makes good animated fun. Sure, you may have a suck ass movie and make many dollars at the box office or in the secondary home video market (that craptacular SHARK TALE and CHICKEN LITTLE proved that) but this is more about longevity, having a unique voice.

I can’t really say I hear echoes of greatness it in this trailer.

What I do like, though, from the outset is that this movie is being told in a Rashomon fashion, getting many perspectives from the same event, and for that it gets some kudos. What’s really not so great is that the first third of this trailer is burnt by just recounting the story of Little Red Riding Hood when Red starts to talk to who she thinks is grandma. Yeah, you can go this route and the glib funny-funny joke at the end of the usual exchange, when the wolf pitches a fit about being interrogated by the girl, will make some of the parents giggle but something odd happens. The granny who was replaced comes bounding from the hall closet, gagged and tied up with rope, while some strapping Swiss/Germanic lumberjack busts through the bedroom window. This should be a funny moment, there should be a bon mot or something said by either the goofy looking guy who’s donning some tight tight lederhosen or the wolf who’s just been had.

No, we don’t get any of that. We just get the modern angle of cops showing up to find out exactly what has happened. It’s not funny, it just seems, well, normal.

The moment takes our Japanese-inspired turn when the whole gang is being interrogated by the lead detective in the case, a frog who I guess is supposed to be funny, and we’re supposed to believe that’s there more to this story than just Red coming to visit her grandma.

The angle here is that Little Red might not be so innocent in the crime, that grandma might be some kind of secret agent (I still don’t know why we had to see her snowboarding down a mountain after she tossed two explosive charges (!) on top of it), the wolf might actually be a victim (aren’t we all?) and the lumberjack is a buffoon; say what you will, but when I started to read plays in college around the time of Shakespeare and beyond I’ve always had a soft spot for the idiots. I don’t suffer fools gladly but when they’re genuinely stupid I appreciate that kind of stock character.

And yeah, the music that runs underneath our character introductions, EMF’s “Unbelievable”? I think if this movie was going to come out circa 1992 it would be relevant but almost a decade and a half after its release? No, it’s not.

The last third of the trailer really wants to play up the angles of how this story is going to turn the traditional story on its head but the jokes, visual gags and assorted attempts to inject humor just don’t work. My kid may like it but I just can’t see myself placing this in the pantheon of great kids films.

Director:Wayne Wang
Cast: Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Gerard Depardieu, Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito
Release: January 13, 2006
Synopsis: A shy cookware clerk (Queen Latifah), believing her days are numbered, throws caution to the wind and embarks on a dream vacation to Europe. While staying at a grand hotel, she and her uninhibited attitude have a profound and humorous effect on the guests and staff.

Prognosis: Yeah, I’ll Suggest This To My Lady Friends. Honest question for the peanut gallery:

Does a movie that is anchored by Queen Latifah and LL Cool J warrant a label that it is necessarily an urban romantic comedy, and let’s be honest here when we say that urban means that it befits a certain segment of the black population, or are we beyond middle America’s box office punch when it comes to marketing a movie to everyone and not just narrowcasting to one race?

I would hope so because this flick, while not being marketed to dudes like me who would rather spend the afternoon trimming the hedges, actually tugs at the right places. For what it is supposed to be, a romantic comedy, it pops on all the right cylinders.

Now, for future reference, marketing rom-coms means that there are certain things you’ve got to execute in order to get the biggest, noticeable punch for your ad dollars:

1. Give away the movie. No matter what you’ve got to tell the entire story in the two minutes, thirty seconds you are given.

2. Make sure you showcase the ladies. Your story may involve a dude but, like in real life, dudes are irrelevant to your protagonist but make sure, when possible, to make them look like idiots.

3. Be sympathetic. Ply at chicks’ heartstrings by manipulating them with rusty, dusty oldies music. For examples of this look at trailers for RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS, THE FAMILY STONE, HANGING UP and nearly every single movie where chicks are all laughing for no good reason.

Now, our trailer here begins with showcasing Queen in all her simpleton glory. You root for her because she is immediately shown getting worked over by her insufferable boss and that she has a thing for LL; I mean, hell, who doesn’t have a thing for LL? I might have a thing for LL. Point is, she comes off sweetly. I didn’t have high hopes for the film when I initially saw the print advertising for the movie but any animosity I had gets slowly burned by a nice, easy build-up to what is, at it’s core, the point of the film.

She’s got three weeks to live, or so it says as these things have a way of magically being magically rectified by movie’s end, Queen takes a big dollar loan/withdrawl from the bank, I’m unsure of how this could happen so fast but fuck reality, man, this is the talkies after all, and goes off to some exotic locale and splurges on all the things that she’s dreamed of consuming.

It’s formulaic, yes, of the woman who had nothing, gets everything, and plays the country bumpkin/simpleton in a world populated by hoity-toidy tight wads. People like these kind of rags to riches variants and when I see Queen just doing one thing after another that shows how she’s really just a proverbial fish out of water, with the assumption that she’s going to find her way back to LL is all but assured. Oh, but it isn’t assured, it’s effing showed in all its lame glory.

The closing music to this trailer? “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” This couldn’t have been more textbook. Ladies are going to be dragging their dudes to this one in quick order. If the original version of this movie, which came out over half a century ago, is any indication I am sure we’ll see a new incarnation of this same story around 2050.

Director: Matt Mulhern
Cast: David Schwimmer, Janeane Garofalo, Judah Friedlander, Susan Lynch, Dick Cavett
Release: November 11, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: A down-on-his-luck, divorced father works the night shift at an Atlantic City casino. When his relationship with his young daughters and ex-wife is jeopardized by a run-in with the law, he struggles to get his life – and family – back together before it’s too late. A moving and humorous look at the limits of unconditional love and what defines a family.

Prognosis: Down and Out. First time I saw Janeane Garofalo was episode one on Fox when The Ben Stiller Show, one of the first real great Fox fuck-ups to come from that would eventually claim the life of Arrested Development, debuted over a decade ago. She was smart, witty, pretty, funny and all sorts of perfect for the show.

When the show dissolved it was rough trying to keep up with her comedic stylings, her talent just leeched away into the gutter by Saturday Night Live, but she’s made a voice for herself in a serious way in the past few years and it’s wonderful to see her here doing more than just being the foil for more important, read here: studio sap, stars.

David Schwimmer? Can’t say I like him that much. He’s got a one tone acting style, has a droopy eyed delivery that I can’t say is done on purpose or brought to me by the fine people from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and is not really compelling as a leading man.

Case in point? The first scene of this trailer is of him finishing a beer as a po-po sloshes up to his car right before he’s going to be arrested for drunken driving. I can’t understand if this was to be funny, amusing or pathetic but when he sloppily says he has a kid in the back seat I get that this is supposed to be straight.

The homesick country chords play in the background as we’re pimped with the sign that this movie was a 2005 Sundance entry; good, I always appreciate when advertisers see the importance of getting this information out early.

We next see David being harangued by the judge at his sentencing which, again, is odd because he makes a wisecrack and I’m not sure if he’s the fun kind of alcoholic which are always good to have a party or he’s the depressing kind that are always a drag. He’s confusing.

He kind of backslides when Janeane threatens to prevent David from seeing the kid he was busted with whilst on a drunken bender but, again, I don’t understand. If David’s a drunk who obviously doesn’t care of whether his kid is harmed or not then why does he have a sudden sober moment about his life’s future?

I blame the trailer for being unclear for cutting some understanding of where we’re going with this movie. Case in point, David ditches the sloshy lifestyle for one of three-piece suits at an Atlantic City casino. He presents well and actually looks good but how the hell did we get here? Again, lots were left out and I can’t see how I am supposed to be amped to see a movie where I’m not all that sure of if I would want to see what happens to this goober.

And then, the best part, he slides back into the boozing. Even though David is in essence twisting down a coil that is similar to that of Nic Cage in LEAVING LAS VEGAS the difference is that I am befuddled when David starts talking about how he loves his kids and his ex-wife but obviously still likes the liquor.

Are these kinds of guys sympathetic protagonists or pathetic machinations that we should pity? I can’t say and I think that’s the real problem of this trailer. I want to like this movie so much because it seems like a real departure for Janeane but what’s here in this piece of advertising has me so wrapped up in David that I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort to look and find out.

Director: Roger Donaldson
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Diane Ladd, Paul Rodriguez Aaron Murphy, Annie Whittle
Release: February 3, 2006 (Limited)
Synopsis: In `60s New Zealand, at the bottom of the world, Burt Munro takes a 1920 Indian motorcycle and, delightfully without resources other than his own obsession and a Kiwi #8 wire mentality, spends his retirement rebuilding the bike and following his dream to go to Speed Week at Salt Lake in Utah. Under funded, without the support of a team and against all the odds he not only makes it to Bonneville, he sets a world land spend record, not once, but again and again.

Prognosis: Positive. Sometimes, things just hit me a certain way.

Be it just or unjust there are just triggers which prompt me to sit quietly and take notice; shiny objects going very fast is one of them.

I think if I was to compare this movie’s audience and range, in terms of who this movie could ultimately reach, I would place it in the same realm as the awful MADISON, that boat movie which is taking up pointless space next to the seven shelves worth of MY DATE WITH DREW at the local Blockbuster. But this movie feels a little different somehow. The protagonist here, Sir Anthony Hopkins, is just one guy and his quest seems more about his own quest than it is one of those hokey suppositions that are usually found in mainstream movies where it all comes down to one last…(fill in the blank).

At first glance you’d expect this to be a quiet kind of film. Hopkins, a motorcycle and his age all seem qualifiers that would put this movie on the docket for the 3 p.m. evening movie at the Frosty Acres Nursing Home. I was actually looking for a trailer I could kick around a bit, sharpen the old talons on a squirrelly piece of mice meat, but was floored by the intensity that builds up when Hopkins rolls his motorcycle out into the open. A couple of A chords, some steel toe shoes that look like they were ripped from a MATRIX or ALIENS vehicle, some sparks of electricity and some sweet-ass angles of said motorbike achieving a gnarly velocity are all that one needs to give Hopkins a boost.

What’s more is that before we go back into the grandeur that is Hopkins getting his quickness on he’s talking to some officials about why, as a Kiwi, he was in America. His response that he’s out to set the land speed record, not only reminds me of that delicious Tanya Donelly single that only I seem to know of or possess, but it provides a nice interlude between his solo runs and the quickness he displays against younger dudes and their fast bikes.

And what would a sport bike movie be without a few wipeouts? I like that we linger for a little bit on Anthony’s face when he eats it on a barren salt flat. The expression is worth the price of admission alone. Yes, it’s fake, I know that, but it’s nonetheless effective in evoking that this geezer set out to do something that not even I have the stones to do.

The rest of the trailer intersperses this bike of his going very fast while being entertained with Hopkins’ dry wit when he’s pulled over by a po-po doing around 150 mph; for those limeys in attendance, I think that equals something very swift in kilometers.

“Based on one hell of a true story”

I just have to give it up for the musical direction of this trailer. I can’t remember when the tunes created such a kinetic feeling and you’ve got that right here. I think my penchant for all things wipe out was psychically understood by the Trailer Gods as the final image we have of old Anthony is of his head scraping, once more, the bottom of a salt flat as he cries out in the only way that a senior citizen can.

Man, does this ever look facetiously manipulative but it hasn’t ever looked, or sounded, so good.

Director: Gore Verbinski
Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård, Bill Nighy, Jack Davenport, Kevin R. McNally, Jonathan Pryce
Release: July 7, 2006
Synopsis: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley reunite in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST, an all new epic tale chronicling the further mis-adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski from a screenplay written by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio, Captain Jack sets sail on an all new adventure – filled with more intrigue, more spectacular special effects and more comedy.

Prognosis: Positive. No, it wasn’t rocking anyone’s world with its ability to create something special on the screen, technically speaking, but I’ll be damned if the first PIRATES wasn’t all sorts of mindless fun.

Gore Verbinski was a lot of people’s whipping boy until he brought people out in droves and then got them to buy DVD’s in droves as well. PIRATES proved the power of making films that are just plain fun. There isn’t foul language to speak of, no one gets their nads blown off in a spectacular way and there was actually a coherent plot that not only entertained but showed the power of having three actors who could deal with sharing the spotlight with one another.

There is no doubt that the people with this could have taken the SUPERMAN IV approach and made a movie that would ensure money but no doubt tarnish the first flick’s reputation. What I can see here, though, looks like you have a director who saw what made the first movie great and wants to try it again.

You almost want to give Gore a pat on the tuchas for wanting to try and make a LORD OF THE RINGS for the Disney sect because the trailer really shines in that it just feels like safe, family fare. It’s not a bad thing, mind you, but you just know what you’re going to get with this movie. Sometimes that’s just a nice thing to know.

Big fan of the creepy “Yo ho, yo, ho, a pirate’s life for me…” I remember standing in line for this damned ride and listening to the endless soundtrack playing again and again, so it takes me back.

I don’t really get the opening shots of the chain gang walking along a darkened rock bridge, the skeletons of dead men in long iron cages. I don’t know if we’re revisiting the events of what made the first movie so fun, that Jack was a part of the rag tag bunch of pirates, but it’s nonetheless intriguing as is the shot of dozens of people wading though a sick lake that’s covered with a thin plume of fog.

Now, and this is really cool, and I mean “cool” in the most academic sense, we get a glimpse of what I believe is Davey Jones, the salty dog who’s covered with all sorts of danger. This is what young kids really want to see on the screen and who better to voice this character than Bill Nighy.

The one thing that scares me though is when the always dependable Johnny Depp, who would’ve thought this 21 Jump Street alum was going to go on to do great things as I had my money on Richard Grieco, is in all his glory until he gets hogtied and put on a spit. You flirt with danger when you add natives into a movie; to me, it feels like lazy filmmaking. With ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS you had natives playing an awful role in an already awful movie but, in THE RUNDOWN, they were perfectly used in what should’ve been an average movie. When Depp is forced to play off of them I am hopeful we end up with something from the latter and not the former.

The last third of this trailer gives us equal doses of Orlando and Kiera in all their splendiferous glory. If I had to compare it to anything it’s almost like if Lost, HELLBOY and THE GOONIES merged into this conflagration of traps, machinations and oddities following them all. It’s enough eye candy to keep the young’uns wired for days but I am just giddy, again, academic usage, to see that movies like this are being made.

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