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Beyond Grandpa I and II ““ 1999 is when we finished Part II, so then about four years. I went to work at Nickelodeon for a year in New York and did a pilot at MTV ““ Deadtime Stories ““ an animated horror pilot with Michael Dougherty who is actually now the big shot writer of X2 and the upcoming Superman movie, and he had created this animated horror show that MTV wanted to do at the time. I came up with a script with him and we created this little thing that didn’t make it to air. But it was a good experience.

And then I moved to LA and I’ve been working in comic books and doing little animated things here and there, and Dr. Tran is kind of our return to irreverent short animated films. We just thought, hey, we’ve got a month to kill so let’s have some fun again and my friend Jason Johnson, who co-created it and voiced Dr. Tran, he came down. He lives in Santa Cruz and is actually a massage therapist who, this is kinda funny”¦.he’s a massage therapist who recently came down with Poison Oak. He doesn’t find it funny, but I think it’s funny. So, he’s been broke. He came down and stayed with me for a few months and we were going to do Beyond Grandpa III ““ we thought that was the natural thing.

So we were just hanging out one night and came up with this character called Dr. Tran, who is a little boy who was named Doctor because his parents wanted him to become a doctor so bad. He started off as a character for an unrealized Beyond Grandpa comic book ““ the little kid in the neighborhood who the Grandpa would antagonize. Say some kid falls down and he says “Ow, ow, I need a Band-Aid” or something. And the Grandpa would say “Why don’t you get Dr. Tran? After all, he’s a Doctor” and Tran would say “I’m not a doctor!” and that would be his little catch phrase.

And so we’re sitting there talking about it and saying “yea, yea, that’s pretty good.” I’m doing the Grandpa thing and he’s doing the Dr. Tran voice and we’re going back and forth and back and forth and I suddenly realize this could make a whole film. We can just antagonize the little boy for an entire film and somehow that led into doing a mock movie trailer. Basically Hollywood sells you every good film and bad film the same way ““ like it’s the best thing you’re ever going to see. They’re packaging every turd the same as their diamonds. So, we thought, well if they’ll sell anything to you that way, why not sell a little kid? Let’s point out the absurdity by having them sell a little kid that way and somehow the two ideas just came together.

So, how did the idea of a trailer appeal to you? You figured you had a concept for maybe what would seem like almost an animated full length show but why all of a sudden, you know what, out of all the possibilities, a trailer sounds really good?

Well, part of it, well, a huge factor”“ and this is probably going to be somewhat disappointing to people to find out”“is time and budget, neither of which we had much of. So it was a matter of finding that perfect concept where we have a very stationary main figure. Our old shorts were grandpas and grandpas don’t move too much, and that’s a benefit for someone who has very little time and money (laughs). So, we came up with something with this little guy who is pretty much idle. He waves his arms around, I make a set of unexcitable normal mouths and a set of screaming mouths packed full of teeth (so that as he gets angrier, his mouth gets bigger and bigger), one background and a few posters. And then I hired a friend of mine to animate the graphics and the little figure in After Effects. Dr. Tran was a lot like a little puppet, drawn by hand and put together in PhotoShop.

How did you come up with the concept of the little Polynesian boy? Is he Polynesian or Asian because I know when I’ve seen it, it looks like Hawaii a little bit?

We never really chose. People have told us that he’s Vietnamese. We never decided that. Basically the idea was, let’s get him as far away from the American culture of entertainment as we could possibly get him. Like he is just unaffected by it. He doesn’t know what to expect and it doesn’t concern him and he’s not even interested. He’s got chores to do. He wants to finish his breakfast ““ very simple ““ and then take the cultures and juxtapose them. The original idea was contrast.

How long did it take to make it? To get it done?

I don’t think I actually answered your question. I think the idea of doing a movie trailer instead of a whole piece was just something that I always wanted to do, when we use to make short films on video throughout high school. I just kept saying, let’s try to do a movie trailer, it looks fun, but I didn’t have access to the editing software. We didn’t even have digital video in the Stone Age (the early Nineties) so, yes, it was just something I’ve always wanted to do.

But it took about five weeks. We had an early concept, but from when we started writing the script to Comic-Con was just over five weeks. It was a real rush. That’s why we had to hire an animator, editor, sound guy, and we had a producer who funded it, did our digital effects in the live action scene”¦ Rick Cortes is our awesome, awesome producer who provided us with our little kid who gets punched in the live action sequence and a lot of the resources that we had. He’s a digital effects artist whose been doing movies and stuff in the industry for years. So he did that marquee where you see Dr. Tran on the live action theatre.

Who is the Actual Asian Male [part of the live action testimonials that spoof on obnoxious audience reactions in television trailers]?

Actually he’s my friend Paul C-H-I-E-N (I’m thinking ahead because I know I spell names wrong and they always get pissed at me). So, Paul is one of the guys we did films with back in high school. I’ve known him since freshman year in high school and he’s gone on to do things of his own. He ran an Americorp group for a couple of years. I think he’s in school now and I just called him up and said “Hey, do you want to come up to LA and be in this thing.” He was glad to. We got to employ a lot of our old friends. We try to get everybody in.

Now I know, and it’s not so much a departure from Dr. Tran, but you have your own or at least you supply support for a comic book that’s now overseen by my own editor, Chris Ryall. Can you explain a little bit about your involvet in both comics and also animation? How did the two converge?

When I did the Beyond Grandpa shorts, it led to a desk job at Nickelodeon for a year, computer animating for Little Bill, Bill Cosby’s Nick Jr. show. Once we finished up our MTV pilot, I moved to Los Angeles and I got a call from my friend Serena Valentino, the creator of a comic book called GLOOMCOOKIE. I think she was just out of artists that day, and I had just moved to LA and I was like, I’m here, I’m going to get into the animation industry and I’m going to”¦..HELLO?….Sure, I’ll do a comic book and then it was BOOM. I’m inside my house every day for like two years just doing a comic book. I didn’t really need to be in LA but it was great fun.

So, after GLOOMCOOKIE, I illustrated a three issue horror mini-series called ALEISTER ARCANE for IDW Publishing, written by Steve Niles, which is now finished up and in development at Paramount Pictures. Somehow I squeezed making Dr. Tran in there somewhere. I think that’s how the timeline goes ““ so I just did it between things ““ which is the reason we had to go so fast because I had to go right on to the next comic book. We’ve gotten such good response to Dr. Tran. We did the DVD this year.

It was kind of a rush to get it done by Comicon. I was reading your journal log and it said I’m in a rush to get this done. I don’t know if I’m going to get it done ““ literally weeks were you able to get the artwork, the bonus features added, you said there were some glitches here and there that you had to work out.

And it’s been the same way with everything that we do. I don’t know how it works but by the end of it, everything is fine. And it seems to be like by the final day we’re done and it’s beautiful and it worked and everybody is happy. But every single day up to that point has been a screeching struggle of mountain climb. I don’t know why. Do you know what I think? With Beyond Grandpa I had to do almost everything myself. I wrote it with my buddies and I would animate, draw, edit and do many of the voices myself, and when you do it that way you have full control. Whereas, when you are relying on a lot of people, everybody may be talented and good at what they do, but coordinating the production becomes the new priority. Things kind of scatter and everyone is trying to figure out what you’re thinking. I’m really impressed with people who direct animation because that kind of coordination is a real skill.

Other responses to the DVD or at least downstairs at the Con?

We just started selling them but it’s going great. People are mostly saying they saw it last year here at the Con and they were waiting for it and they’ve been checking the website every now and again and that kind of stuff.

That’s how I found out about it. I saw Spike & Mike this year and as soon as I saw it, literally the next day, I was on websites on how I could get my hands on it, and I’m not being facetious, I thought it was the best short of this year that I’ve seen. It was enough to prompt me to go find out a little more about this and, sure enough, I saw the site ““ the site looks great but the short wasn’t available to buy until the Con.

And Spike has been ““ he’s been trying to get the DVD rights from us too for quite a while but we thought it would be cool to just do a limited thing. We did 400 of them, and there’s a lot of people who couldn’t come to the Con and they are emailing me saying hey, are we going to be able to get this later and I’m not positive that they will. I’m hoping we will have some left over for them. If we don’t, we did just sign a deal with Spike so he’s going to put out a DVD probably within the next few months that will have it on there. I’m considering giving him the documentary on the Making of Dr. Tran. Just because how absurd is it that there be a documentary that we made for sale in Virgin Megastore? So the fact that we only did 400 is kinda like, it dies there.

So, what’s next? What’s on the horizon? Do you have any concepts or things you’re thinking about since you’ve got a really good response from Dr. Tran?

Yeah, we thought a lot about sequel ideas for Tran, expanding the character, not necessarily the concepts. And there’s been some interest in Beyond Grandpa from different people ““ there’s always something on hold or in development somewhere. Adam Sandler started an animation website back when the whole animation website thing was really popular. Shnorff.com, I think it was called. He wanted to do Beyond Grandpa, so we were getting all geared up to do that and we thought it was great and Shnorff shut it’s doors before it even got off the ground, because of the whole dot com crash or whatever you call it.

And then we pitched another idea. We have this kids animated adventure show we pitched to a studio and this guy loved it, and the next week he lost his job. And then this guy at another studio loved Beyond Grandpa and it was like, “guys we’re going to take you out to dinner, it’s going to be great, we’re going to put this on the air.” I think it was about a month later, he lost his job.

It seems like you’re a bad totem.

A trend! So, I’ve learned to just take it as it comes. I don’t expect anything from the entertainment industry and we just make stuff when the inspiration hits us, and when we have time. You know we thought about Dr. Tran sequels but so far I don’t want to do that. It just kind of stands on its own pretty well and I don’t want to screw it up in a re-tread. Do you know what I mean? Unless we had just the right idea.

I know Craig McCracken with No Neck Joe he’s gone on ““ you know ““ to kid friendly stuff. Obviously some of the things in Spike and Mike are a bit risqué but it translates well for other people who are looking to get their start or at least get something really big off the ground. Are you actively looking for someone to put you on the payroll to do a concept in your own mind about what you’d like to maybe do?

There is a production company that I’m actually working with that has a show idea. It’s more their thing than it is mine so I don’t want to say too much about it but they had me come in and design the characters, rewrite the pitch, kinda conform the characters to my sensibilities, things like that ““ I’m not sure where that is right now. I have a manager that tends to keep track of that stuff for me, so I don’t know. I don’t have too much interest in the business side of it actually. It’s just a wonderful process of working with talented people. And like I said, Dr. Tran ““ many of my buddies ““ cause I’ve got some funny friends ““ Jason Johnson and Justin Hunt who both were in Beyond Grandpa, are two of the funniest guys you’ll ever meet and I just happened to go to high school with them. So, I’m just lucking out basically. With comic books I have a little trouble with the isolation. You get to the point where you go stir crazy and get up and go the bed and between that time you are endlessly working on comic books. That’s all you’re doing. There’s nobody around. Occasionally someone walks their dog by and I say “Please keep me company”. So I don’t know where I was going with that so”¦..

Animation and comics. Obviously with animation you get to be involved with a lot of other people and no isolation with getting other people involved. Doing comic books is very interesting. Do you find one is more artistic than the other? Do you derive more satisfaction than the other?

They are both challenging ““ in ways ““ unique. So, I don’t know. I want to write screen plays and do the whole thing. I just like playing with media and seeing what happens. When we made Dr. Tran, we had no clue that people were going to like it. You never know. You work in a vacuum. You don’t know if people will be OK with what you did. We thought, oh god, this kid’s four or five”¦ he uses all this language and we thought this 3D sequence that only goes for a few seconds, are people going to be pissed at us? We (the audience) have been sitting here waiting for this 3D sequence and now we have to take our glasses off ““ is the crowd going to lynch us? And, thankfully, people just embraced it but you have no clue until the day and you are sitting there anxiously waiting to see what people think. It’s just a really cool process and it’s fun to take the risk and see what happens.

So, if I can avoid it, I’ll try not to get another desk job, but every now and then that kind of thing pops up and you have to do what you have to do. So far, we’ve got a cool little fan base and people are interested in Dr. Tran sculptures and stuff like that. I would love to see that! Nothing I’ve ever done has been made into a toy, so, it would, of course ““ (a guy in an Optimus Prime costume walks by). Optimus! I’m a big Optimus Prime fan and I’m a big Destro fan.

Really? What about Destro?

I haven’t seen any Destros walking around the Con this year. We hide Destro in all our films.

Really?

We don’t tend to tell people where they are since technically Destro is copyright trademark Hasbro Inc., whatever it is. But we love “˜em so on the lowdown we stick him in there.

Is he somewhere in Dr. Tran?

There is a Destro reference, yes, somewhere.

And Beyond Grandpa?

He’s in Grandpa too. I’m not sure I should be telling you that.

No, it’s OK. That can be off the record if you like.

We put a thing on the web site showing where he is in Grandpa.

Well, thank you very much for your time.

Cool, man. Thank you for asking me to do this. This was fun.

Director: Rick Schroder
Cast: Peter Greene, Pooch Hall, Jeff Ham, Julia Jones, Wayne Knight, Tim McGraw, Russell Means, Branscombe Richmond, Richard Roll, Rick Schroder, Justin Scot, Eddie Spears
Release: October 1st, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Black Cloud is an inspirational story about a young American Indian boxer who overcomes personal challenges as he comes to terms with his heritage while fighting his way for a spot on the US Olympic boxing team.

Prognosis: Positive. There isn’t any voiceover to be found in this trailer.

For an independent movie of this size a voiceover is usually employed to try and sell an audience on a movie in much the same way a salesman would do everything in his power to convince you the El Camino is poised for a comeback. This trailer is bold enough that it uses its imagery, its dialogue and its rapid fire flashes of action sequences to get you interested in the film. There’s a risk in letting the elements of the film sell itself but it works.

What we have, in the beginning, is a voice off-screen.

“How long you been boxing?”

“I’ve been fightin’ my whole life.”

Sweaty gloves knock into padded heads and then, like a surprise guest star on Nash Bridges, we get PULP FICTION patrol officer Zed himself, Peter Greene, but in this go around he plays a boxing scout who is trying to convince Black Cloud, Eddie Spears, to come and try out for the United States Olympic boxing team. The offer is quickly rejected by his trainer who says that Black Cloud doesn’t need adulation, he boxes because, “he needs to.”

This is when the drum beats begin and you know, judging by the scowl on his face, Black Cloud is going to get into a world of hurt with the mountain sized chip on his shoulder. His self-paved road to boxing greatness is hindered by a father who drinks too much, a dead mom he cannot remember, and by Rick Schroder, who gets his ass deservedly whooped for making a comment about the very same mother and for sporting that wicked handlebar moustache..

Black Cloud is told he is the chosen one, but I am feeling this doesn’t have anything to do with Eddie Murphy or a little Asian boy. He bobs and weaves around a punching bag, he runs free on the mesa of his land, and looks like he scores a fairly nice lady in the process before the ass whooping is returned to him in the ring. There are many punches tossed in Black Cloud’s direction before a wise Indian man tells Cloud that he must lose himself before he finds himself. I know he doesn’t know Eminem, and if he does it’s probably for his crisp candy shell, but the song that the line evokes seems weirdly appropriate anyway.

Then, as if out of nowhere, his smack talkin’, smooth movin’ opponent in the ring calls Black Cloud Tonto. If there’s any reason why a guy deserves a cinematic beat down I’m feeling that comment sealed the deal. I’m feeling this trailer for the amount of rage these dudes have for one another. All that’s really missing is a cage match.

We get intros to Schroder and Tim McGraw who, if you look up the showbiz appearances by the latter, only has one other acting part to his name before this one: as a guest musician on a Neil Diamond television special. It’s nice to see Tim here sans the man who made coming to America such a sinister, musical odyssey.

From here, lighting fast snippets fill the screen as bits and pieces of the film flicker and flash too fast to bring into context. What I can see, though, is a movie predicated on ferociousness. Black Cloud is looking to take his anger out on the world and it seems that if he doesn’t find a positive channel, the very same things that are falling apart around him will only serve to drag him down as well. See? I didn’t even need voiceover guy to tell me that, either.

Director: Don Mancini
Cast: Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Billy Boyd, John Waters, Redman, Hannah Spearritt
Release: November 12, 2004
Synopsis: Following the events of ‘Bride of Chucky,’ killer dolls Chucky and Tiffany are now faced with the challenge that all parents face: raising their precious child, Glen (Billy Boyd), to become a family of killer dolls.

Prognosis: Positive, I think. This looks exactly like it should.

There is the first person view from way down low. The room is ominously dark where once a birthday party occurred, evidenced by a quarter slice of cake missing from the whole (not much a party by my standards, but I can understand if all the kids were on an Atkins plan), and a cheesy “˜80s synth soundtrack fills the air.

The first kill Chucky makes is enough to get cheers from me as the true horror genre has been absent for far too long in modern cinema. And though I fear this won’t be played straight for gore and chills, supplanted by a comedic tone and tongue-in-cheek cheekiness, there is still more going for it than it really should. I want to dislike this film, but I can’t stop getting anxious at the thought for getting another go with that crazy ass toy.

One of the things that happen in this trailer is that it recounts the events of its predecessor, a lazy method of exposition, but it quickly gets to the point: Chucky and his new bride want to make a human child. And the person who is the dame du jour is Jennifer Tilly. It’s creepy, and see if you agree with me, but when the voiceover says Jennifer’s name it sounds like Satan’s voice from the EXORCIST and I was waiting for him to follow it with a continuous chanting of “redrum.”

As soon as Tilly’s character mentions in a faux interview that she was good enough to play Erin Brockovich and wouldn’t have had needed to wear a Wonderbra, I am convinced that I should expect more funny and less homicide. The film’s producers are going for more of a comedy/horror reaction in this one and it’s further evidenced by Chucky’s bride giving him a clear plastic cup to fill up with, um, stuffing or whatever the hell would pass as man gravy from a doll in order to get Tilly preggers. There’s actually jokes being cracked near the end of this trailer between Chucky and his wife but I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m used to my horror and comedy keeping at least fifty feet away from each other.

At the very end there is a conceit that has Chucky rolling in an H2 by himself and comes upon Britney Spears. He doesn’t seem to like the chick that seems to be into guys who try, as hard as they can, to appear like they grew up in Watts and he does us all a favor by running her off the road. A big explosion ensues with John Waters, master of weird, looking on. It’s surreal and I question whether I really like it but it’s so amusing in a juvenile way that I look past its immaturity.

Also, I like that Jennifer gets introduced as an Academy Award nominee and, right after that, Chucky is given credit for being an MTV Movie Award nominee. This movie looks like it isn’t taking anything seriously but that’s actually a slight shame as I still yearn for the horror of old. However, the teens out there looking for a movie to waste their money on for a Friday or Saturday night diversion might find what they’re looking for in this movie. My only wish is that this film makes up for the heinous outing of BRIDE OF CHUCKY.

Director: Andy Tennant
Cast: Will Smith, Eva Mendes, Kevin James, Michael Rapaport
Release:February 11, 2005
Synopsis: A professional matchmaker’s program is threatened by a female journalist who enrolls as a student and plans on publishing an exposé on his fraudulent methods.

Prognosis: Negative. Will Smith.

How the mighty have fallen. Not out of financial disrepair, mind you, but fallen into a cushy pigeonhole of safe vanilla characters and a one trick pony execution.

“Most guys just don’t understand women.”

We are treading into very dangerous territory with this opening line. After it’s presented, however, we get a woman tossing a cup filled with ice in the direction of man who protests too much that his unheard question to the woman was purely innocuous. Will Smith addresses and shatters, with unwelcome aplomb, the 4th wall by talking right to the audience by saying this is where he steps in.

Will goes over the man, still visibly pissed some beyotch flipped some cold crap on his nice sports jersey, and gives him a quick assessment of what the woman thought he was saying while offering some tips on what he can do to possibly get all up in that and hit it.

This would be amusing if it was a promo for an NBC show called Matchmaker. Oh, right, there was already a show called that and it was cancelled. No one believed it then and I don’t believe it here. But, being as objective as I can, I plod forth.

Kevin James headlines as well in this movie. He somehow, through the magic of Hollywood and imagination beyond even my ken, gets some trim that looks awfully close to Cameron Diaz asking for his number. Why is she asking for it? What did he do that was so great? No clue. I am aware though that Will is supposed to be a date doctor, who is named, coincidently and wickedly ironic, Hitch. He’s helping Kevin out in what seems like a stretch role for the King of Queens who is now playing a dateless, lumbering dufus instead of a married, lumbering dufus.

The highlight for me, if I had a highlight reel that I could show over and over again, is Will coaching Kevin on how to dance. Oh yeah, I love it as we get the whole stereotype of white people, men specifically, of not being able to dance. Will shows us what he means by giving us an example. Yeah, it was funny when Eddie Murphy did it in RAW but it is just played out, Middle America humor here in the 21st century. If it was my movie Kevin would shoot back with a bon mot by explaining that the word ask is not annunciated as the thing firemen use to beat down a burning door.

In a twist not seen since THE CRYING GAME Will seems to lose his ability to impress the opposite sex when he finally meets someone who he is interested in. (Gasp!) I know what you’re all feeling. It’s not as bad as seeing a kielbasa whip out at you but, damn, them thar writers thought of a winner plot line. Will bumbles, crumbles and simply falls apart around the woman he wants to make his. We even get an allergy gag, one I was really fond of when it Martin Short did it in PURE LUCK, but here?

I’m just amazed that CBS isn’t putting this in between reruns of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND and STILL STANDING.

Director: John Moore
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Miranda Otto, Hugh Laurie, Jared Padalecki, Tony Curran
Release:November 24, 2004
Synopsis: An action-adventure in which a group of air crash survivors – cast-offs from society who will never be missed – are stranded in the Mongolian desert with no hope of rescue. As they attempt to build a new plane from the wreckage of the old one, in hopes of flying back to civilization, they experience a rebirth of their own.

Prognosis: Unimpressed. I first came across Dennis Quaid in his role as a reckless young pilot who will stop at nothing from being with his severely permed girlfiend, Meg Ryan, in INNERSPACE after being injected into Martin Short (Damn, two justified Martin Short references. I wonder what the hell is happening in the cosmos this week). I hate to think that he’s the kind of an actor, who I don’t find particularly compelling in anything he’s ever done with the exception of a couple movies like TRAFFIC, who really won’t ever be in anything profound but he’s like a good hitter in a line-up that manages to just hit well enough to justify his place but not good enough to be the one who captures all the headlines. This will be another one of those kind of movies.

When the trailer opens I imagine the movie is going to be an interesting remake that blends some new elements into the plot to make things more modern. I stop thinking so much after seeing the prop engine plane in the middle of a desert. This movie will be exactly like its predecessor. In fact, if you go back and look at an old movie poster for the first film, which starred Jimmy Stewart and Richard Attenborough, you see the same line of people pulling a plane though the desert that you see doing it here. It’s odd, if you haven’t seen the first version, when the plane actually gets into the air as the girl from THE GOLDEN CHILD watches it go over her head because you’re not quite sure where on God’s green earth these people are supposed to be. I am left to assume they are in Asia somewhere and at some time in history but I don’t know that for sure. Thankfully, I’m someone who likes figuring out these kinds of puzzles and not having to hear throaty voiceover guy spoil the fun is a nice change of pace.

Like all good movies that start with a plane taking off, though, that bird is going to fall from the sky. I have to give big ups to the trailer makers who show one of the props actually disengaging from the wing of the plane and embedding itself into the fuselage. The screen goes mute. There is only a moment’s worth of actual music score as the plane goes tumbling down. Awesome. Everything gets flamey and smokey and I wish real hard for maybe only one or two of the guys to make it. Unfortunately for me, a lot of people live, with the exception of the one dude I see getting sucked out of what once was the tail section of the plane.

Dennis lets us all know that they are in the middle of the desert, have little water and any chance to get rescued is about zil to none; I like this movie even more. I do, however, have to take contention with the shirtless guys on parade. Yeah it’s a desert but where are the topless chicks in the desert? Seeing these dudes only make me feel inferior because they have bigger breasts than I do. Quickly diverting my attention, though, is Giovanni Ribisi who steps in (he is one of the best, but also the most criminally underutilized, actors working today) and lets us all know that in order to get out of the desert they are going to have to make a plane out of the one that crashed. I am real curious to know why in hell these guys were carrying welding equipment, and matching cover masks, but I’m intrigued. Spirit in the Sky cranks up and we get the montage so popular in the 80’s of people coming together during a musical interlude so that by the end of the song everything is all finished and perfect. Yay.

We get some tense moments. A lighting storm shocks one dude off the wing of the metal plane (I hope that guy dies for not having learned thing about electricity from Mr. Wizard’s World), a long strip of quiet nomadic locals take a shine on the Americans rebuilding their plane, we get some violence courtesy of a gun, and, of course, the eventual test flight of the newly constructed plane.

Overall, this feels like a Disney production with nothing really spectacular going for it other than the possibility of the one girl having to strip down because of the heat. Since I know that isn’t going to happen and that a certain percentage of the movie’s stars will miraculously make it out alive on the makeshift plane this movie should do as well as any average, dependable sports player you’re really not expecting much from.

Director: Brian Levant
Cast: Ice Cube, Nia Long, Aleisha Allen, Philip Bolden, Jay Mohr
Release: January 28, 2005
Syn: The fledgling romance between Nick, a playboy bachelor, and Suzanne, a divorced mother of two, is threatened by a particularly harrowing New Year’s Eve. When Suzanne’s work keeps her in New York City for the holiday, Nick offers to bring her kids to the city from Washington D.C. The kids, who have never liked any of the men their mom has dated, and are determined to turn the trip a nightmare for Nick.

Prognosis: Dizam, this looks like crizap. I remember a time when Ice Cube was a man to be feared. In photos with NWA, Ice had his jheri curl tucked inside the black ball cap on his head that clearly read Ice Cube so you knew exactly who you were looking at when you saw him. The man laid down dope rhymes and was a masterful storyteller, to say nothing of the man’s flow, long before I could appreciate it. I was in awe at how many F, S, P and N bombs the man dropped. It appealed to my fourteen year-old sensibilities.

Push the fast-forward button on the time machine a good fifteen years, insert that sound of the tape going really really fast, and you come up with a version of a man who seems to be faring quite nicely after being co-opted, and willingly letting it happen, by the powers that be. This is a safer, gentler Ice Cube.

“Mom says that we should be polite.”

The trailer opens with a nice man brining flowers to Nia Long. He looks like a successful man, he dresses nice, but it’s quickly apparent that Nia’s kids don’t like suitors. So what’s a kid to do? Make Rube Goldberg contraptions that ensure that the men never want to come back again. In the previously stated man’s case, flying tomatoes that explode on impact will do well enough, but there needs to be something more that will really get the simpletons in the audience laughing, or guffawing, out loud. Ah, yes. Marbles. Everyone in the world can appreciate the funny in a man slipping on a patch of marbles.

“I feel sorry for the next sucker who tries to put on the moves.”

Ice is all pimped out. He has his matching coat and cap, is rolling in a nice ride, and in the shop he works at, and possibly owns, he tosses a football at the heads of some kids he doesn’t like. He looks like he is loving life, and, oddly enough, doesn’t like kids. Cue Nia. On a side note, if single moms around the world looked as good as her there would be no child left behind I can promise you that. Ice is impressed with her and ends up trying to help the single mom out by offering her jumpstart on a car with a dead battery. It’s raining out, he mentions the dangers of doing it in the rain, but they ignore the possibilities of simple science, and the man shoots back in an electric shock when the inevitable happens.

Seeing how he wants to shoplift the pootie Ice somehow willingly takes on the responsibility to transport Nia’s little hellions to wherever the hell she has to quickly go off to in the first place. Of course, seeing how Ice’s ride was really nice and he’s accustomed to things looking just as good, the kids begin their travails with the strange man by trashing his car. Next, at the airport, one of the little jokers puts a corkscrew in Ice’s pocket to be found by security. Normally, this matter would be taken care of with nary a second thought as security would tell Ice he would not be able to board the plane with it and would confiscate the item. No, since this is movie is about physical humor, and a movie geared to a more kid friendly sect of the population, Ice is treated to a Terry Tate style beat down.

So, with flying out as an option Ice decides to drive and that’s where, while sitting on plastic covering the seats, one of the kids utters this movie’s title. From here, it’s pee jokes, Ice getting locked out of the car, the kids going for a joy ride in a parking lot, somehow the kids ending up on a freight train while Ice rides along on a horse (don’t ask me how this happens), Ice literally goes mano-y-mano with a deer, as a myriad of other physical pranks pepper this montage of events. There is the obligatory hug the kids give to Ice, probably when everyone learns what it means to really love someone, while I try to learn to stay away from this formulaic crap. We get one more gag, courtesy of the little boy, of the puke variety to end this one on a classy note. Of course by the end of this movie Ice’s car is trashed beyond all methods of repair and the fact that they all end up at a train station somehow is probably a good indication of this actually occurring.

I would ask where the man I once saw as a roughneck bad ass is but I already know the answer to that question: having a good time getting paid many dollars to be less threatening to audiences.

Director: Zak Penn
Cast: Werner Herzog, John Bailey, Kitana Baker, Gabriel Beristain, David A. Davidson, Steven Gardner, Crispin Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Lena Herzog, Ricky Jay, Michael Karnow, Robert O’Meara, Zak Penn, Pietro Scalia, Adrian Shine, Russell Williams
Release: September 17th, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: A documentary exploring the myth of the Loch Ness monster.

Prognosis: Hmm. As movies go, I don’t usually focus on the person writing them when I think of whether or not I’ll enjoy the final piece. I like to give every film an honest chance to make an impression regardless of its origins. Here, though, after seeing this trailer, I am convinced that the man behind the script will ultimately kill or levitate this movie beyond its initial premise. But first things first.

This trailer opens up with a man, a scraggly, barfly kind of a man, talking about the Loch Ness monster and its mythic past. And then, the last person you would think to see in a reality/fiction film, Werner Herzog pops on the screen saying he’s always been interested in the difference between fact and truth. The camera pans out onto the loch itself as its deep waters crest back and forth, the grey skies and damp atmosphere captured fully in the frame. Werner stands on the edge of a small boat and reiterates the notion of a dinosaur-like creature swelling beneath the surface; he interviews a scientist who believes, as well, in the creature and its realness.

There’s a nice voiceover that lets us know that a pack of filmmakers and scientists, with some clips given more of a “reality” feel with the time code still embedded in the footage, boarded a boat looking for Nessie. The trailer then shows the people tagging along for the ride while another clip shows a moment when a scientist explains his own position on the mythical beast. And then, things get interesting.

There’s a commotion on the boat. Hands pound on the fiberglass window of the little booth where Werner is steering. The scientists have found something; they’ve found the monster. It rams the boat. A man goes overboard. People ask what it is while Werner requests to keep filming. The last piece of film is of a man with the government who is confounded by what exactly happened during this voyage. As reality movies go, it’s a winner of a trailer.

One of the things about this genre, which has seen a proliferation in fiction pieces couched as real documentaries (SEPTEMBER TAPES, OPEN WATER, COMIC BOOK: THE MOVIE, etc…), is that they are part of the nation’s zeitgeist. People like their entertainment, for good or bad, real and unscripted. What these movies show, and it’s interesting to keep in mind next time you watch a “reality” program, is how well the line between fact and fiction can get blurred with someone talented enough behind the pen. And, since I brought it up, the guy behind this one is Zak Penn and has been responsible, in part, for bringing some nerd friendly movies to the big screen. From the Piven classic, PCU, the check-your-brain-at-the-door action fest, BEHIND ENEMY LINES, to the indeterminable powerful script of X2, the man has done some notable work. Let’s hope his directing and writing the film doesn’t add up to him spreading his talents too thin.

Director: Bill Condon
Cast: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O’Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry
Release: November 12, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Academy Award-winning Bill Condon (GODS & MONSTERS, CHICAGO) explores the life of the pioneer of human sexuality research, Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson). Spanning six decades from his childhood in the early 1900s to his death in 1956, the film turns the microscope on the man whose landmark studies on the sexual behaviors of the common man rocked a nation. The interviewer of tens of thousands, Kinsey subjected his own life and that of his researchers to the same type of analysis that produced his 1948 best-selling book “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.” But while the Kinsey team’s focus was predominantly outward, perhaps what they learned about themselves was as great as that which they taught their country.

Prognosis: Positive. I’ve always known that Kinsey was right.

What people admit they do, sexually, when asked publicly is a lot different than what actually happens when the doors are closed, curtains are drawn and people get freaky deaky. This trailer gets right to the heart of this and doesn’t waste a moment.

This, the second trailer in the series, feeds off the first which simply had Liam Neeson sitting in a chair behind a white background as he speaks directly to the audience in an interview-type fashion. Chris O’Donnell, whose last good film, really, tapped into every middle-aged man’s zeitgeist and vocal repertoire with the phrase “hoo-ha,” looks good as one of Kinsey’s interviewers as does Peter Sarsgaard.

“All we have is what people like you are willing to share with us.”

I like the preceding comment because Liam addresses the audience and it not only works well to create some intimacy but it has the same effect as it did when Kinsey did it so many decades ago with people who sat in his office giving up details about their most intimate of activities. I appreciate the rapid fire answers some of the people offer to questions we aren’t given but we can only imagine what they are as one blonde beauty gives a cryptic answer to some question that she, “thinks about her cat.” I’m not sure what this was in regard to but I only hope she was a minority sample.

Just as we hit the midpoint we are thrust into knowing that Bill Condon, the man who won a well-deserved Academy Award for his writing on GODS AND MONSTERS, is the same man who brings us this one. The accolade is not too intrusive and it even adds some credibility to the project. What furthers the feeling that this movie is a statement more about our culture dealing with sexuality than just simply about the man who reported on it, a man who wanted only to find some sliver of truth about people, is the way the trailer unfolds showing how social forces moved against him. People wanted his knowledge to further their own agendas, but Kinsey became vilified by some in the government who couldn’t appreciate what his scientific work was doing.

There was also conflict at home and at the office and you see what kinds of strife await the man on all fronts of his life. The mood by the end of the trailer is heavier than when it started as there are questions about not only how far Kinsey went to get the information he needed but what kinds of questions he didn’t ask about himself when dealing with those whom he loved.

This looks like a middle of the road drama that may get some buzz later for Oscar consideration but I can’t see anything that may provoke that kind of talk.

Director: Geoffrey Sax
Cast: Michael Keaton, Deborah Kara Unger, Chandra West, Ian McNeice
Release: January 7, 2005
Synopsis: Michael Keaton plays successful architect Jonathan Rivers, whose peaceful existence is shattered by the unexplained disappearance and death of his wife, Anna (Chandra West). Jonathan is eventually contacted by a man (Ian McNeice), who claims to be receiving messages from Anna through EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), the process through which the dead communicate with the living through household recording devices. At first skeptical, Jonathan then becomes convinced of the messages’ validity, and is soon obsessed with trying to contact her on his own. His further explorations into EVP and the accompanying supernatural messages unwittingly open a door to another world, allowing something uninvited into his life.

Prognosis: Positive. Where the hell did Michael Keaton go?

The man, at one time, was poised for a long, Tom Hanks-ian career. There was the BATMAN franchise that started in the late eighties, and before that, BEETLE JUICE, MR. MOM, and I still admit to being glued to basic cable when GUNG-HO is on the television. So, it’s good to not only see him back in something more high profile than just LIVE FROM BAGHDAD which was excellent but was limited in the number of people it actually was able to reach, but this is a good trailer that seems like a mix of WHAT LIES BENEATH and POLTERGEIST.

The trailer begins with a really bad voice over, that much I can say. The man tries to be throaty and ominous but he really only manages to get to a level where it seems he should be sticking to his night job of being the guy who says, “Next week, on Law and Order”¦” That aside, it’s a great setup. It presupposes that you’ll believe that what you’re about to hear is real.

What happens is that the screen gets all green and you get slow close-up a voice modulation system that flickers up and down. A voice speaks out: “I will see you no more.”

Ok. So what? The voice comes on but there’s no context. Before you get completely befuddled about what it is you think you’re listening to, this voice, and a few others that follow, turn out to be voices from the dead. The subtitles try and break it down and interpret what the people think they hear from all the static in the background, but it’s like listening to those dogs at the beginning of that dope Beastie Boys song “Sure Shot” that say “I love you.” Convince me that those dogs are really able to say “I love you” and I’ll start believing your trailer but as I was a bit of a freak on the subject when I was fourteen and stupid the trailer’s conceit still intrigues me.

The guy doing the voiceover does a serviceable job, though, to let us know that what is going on is the art of electronic voice phenomenon; through sound and image the dead communicate with the living. Pure and simple. We get a few more audio examples which includes the obligatory “I love you,” but, sadly, no dogs come through.

This all leads nicely to Michael Keaton mourning the loss of his wife. Some wag asks if he’d like to hear his dead wife’s voice. He’s torn up, bummed out, probably slightly happy now that he has a free ticket on the indiscriminate poon express, but this opportunity brings him some solace. However, things always have a way in these kinds of movies to veer off course. His life becomes infected with poltergeists from voices on the television, the phone, to apparitions in the hallway. Now, and I’m being absolutely serious here, I’m not sure about you but Deborah Unger appears to be playing some chick who is somehow staying with Keaton in his house. Let’s all say a prayer that the old wife gets jealous and does a little somethin’ somethin’ like what was done with JoBeth Williams in POLTERGEIST in that scene where she’s tossed around on the ceiling wearing nothing but”¦well, just get on your knees and pray to Zod. May our voices be heard.

What’s also intriguing is the website, aaevp.com, that’s given out at the end of this trailer. I checked it out and the page seems to be designed by Mrs. Lipinski’s third grade class. I’m not kidding you when I say there is a little animated ghost, hovering sheet with black eyeholes and all, which sits near the top of the page. HTML never looked so bland. However, the trailer gets some additional points for trying to make things feel more real.

Director: Roger Michell
Cast: Daniel Craig, Samantha Morton, Rhys Ifans
Release: September 17, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: Adapted from Ian McEwan’s novel, ENDURING LOVE begins by showing a young man named Joe Rose (Craig) who has planned an exquisite afternoon in the British countryside to celebrate his girlfriend Clarissa’s (Morton) return a six-week stint in the United States. This beautiful picture quickly takes a turn for the strange and ugly when a hot air balloon attempts to make a crash landing. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope while his passenger, a young boy, is far too afraid to jump down. Suddenly, the wind starts whipping and Joe and a group of four other men rush to secure the basket.

View Trailer:
* Medium (Quick Time)

Prognosis: Positive. “I think that you think that there’s this sort of bond between us because of what we went through.”

In my eyes, Rhys Ifans is still the man who daringly went out to greet a media onslaught outside his front door wearing nothing but his knickers in NOTTING HILL. I only remember this because I am still in therapy trying to forget every detail of the tiny plum smugglers he was wearing. Daniel Craig, on the other hand, only reminds me of that South African fellow from LETHAL WEAPON, Derrick O’Connor, who should have been in a lot more villain roles after carrying off a pitch perfect in that flick. Other than LAYER CAKE I don’t really have a good reference point for Daniel but that’s a good thing here; it’s nice for an actor not have to live up to any kind of role they’ve played in the past.

The two of them share some coffee time together while Daniel enjoys a fag. Mind you, the mood seems tense. Rhys looks despondent and maniacal, but we see what Daniel is referring to when he comments about sharing an unsettling moment with his new friend. A hot air balloon accident tangles their two fates together and Rhys is now the Bobby to this Peter’s Brady Bunch moment (you know, the one where Bobby locks himself in Mel’s meat locker and”¦never mind”¦).

There is wonderful score tucked in the background as we see the events in question unfold. It seems that Daniel was all ready to propose to Samantha Morton before Rhys and he try to save a little boy in a hot air balloon. You can see how that would ruin the cozy couple’s picnic plans, but it appears that Daniel let go of the balloon rope before one of the other rescuers forgot to do so. That person fell to their death. Rhys was there and now he won’t leave the poor sod alone.

The film has a stalker vibe to it but Rhys really plays up an angle of someone who’s really depressed yet incredibly clingy. He’s obsessed with the death of one of the rescuers and he starts to show up at odd moments, at odd times and tries to slip into this guy’s life.

We’re told, at this point, that the same guy who directed NOTTING HILL and CHANGING LANES is the man behind this one. At the same time Rhys serenades Daniel in the most uncomfortable way as it’s creepy and it’s more different than anything we’ve come to expect from the director.

We are given nary an inch of inkling about how this film is going to end. Splendid tease in every sense of the word.

Director: Jonathan Glazer
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Arliss Howard, Peter Stormare, Anne Heche
Release: November 5, 2004
Synopsis: A young widow is finally getting on with her life after the death of her husband, Sean. Now engaged to be married, Anna meets a ten year-old boy (Cameron Bright) who tells her he is Sean reincarnated. Though his story is both unsettling and absurd, Anna can’t get the boy out of her mind. And much to the concern of her fiancée (Danny Huston), her increased contact with him leads her to question the choices she has made in her life.

Prognosis: Positive. I like the opening.

There’s a person jogging on a snowy path. It looks cold, it’s empty, it feels lonely and a pack of dogs (?) with no owner crosses his path. He keeps running. The hooded man stops underneath a small jogging bridge. He collapses and dies.

Nicole Kidman says he can’t get him out of her system as she stands over his snowy grave.

Time goes on, Nicole tries to shake the fact she was 1/3 of BMX BANDITS, but then something else more extraordinary happens.

Out of the blue, after visiting the very same place her poor husband collapsed and died, Nicole says that a kid she met is the reincarnation of her late husband. The child comes to live with her. The only rebuttal that Nicole can give to the more forward thinking people in her family who say “And what kind of Jamaican Red have you been throwing in your hash pipe this week?” is this: “He said, “˜it’s me, Shawn.’ What am I supposed to think?” I’ll tell you what I think: that I should have been scrolling the obituaries and tracking down hot young widows as soon as I hit puberty, that’s what. Damn, that kid’s got game.

So, ok, I’ll give the film the benefit of the doubt.

Nicole’s new fiancée doesn’t believe the kid. I don’t blame him, either. Hey, if I was about to marry that kind of woman, all crazy but incredibly rich, I would probably even be suspicious of myself, so I believe the fiancée’s character. So, what does he do instead of taking the kid out back and hitting him in the head with a phone book so it doesn’t leave a mark? He questions him. The child has an answer for every question. The music in the background keeps things tense as we look for chinks in this kid’s armor but it doesn’t show. Nicole is all confused because she doesn’t know what to believe and the fiancée is freaking out because he knows that until this kid is out of the picture he ain’t getting any anytime soon.

The trailer is fast, gets in and does what it needs to do, and gets out. There isn’t a wasted moment or lost opportunity. This is a solid trailer. Granted, it doesn’t blow me away as the last time I thought a flick with the young Cameron Bright was going to be a good hit, GODSEND, he ended up effin’ up the works. So, I’ll give him another chance to be the creepy wildcard and we’ll see where this one goes. The director, as well, should get some props for making one of the best movies of 2000: SEXY BEAST.

With Lauren Bacall in the mix there is some good talent present. Let’s hope it doesn’t go to waste.

Director: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
Cast: Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang
Release: September 24, 2004 (limited)br> Synopsis: Directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak and headlined by Asian superstars Andy Lau and Tony Leung, INFERNAL AFFAIRS is a tightly wound thriller which centers on two Hong Kong police officers – one a gang mole on the force and the other an undercover cop in the gang – who share the same objectives and who find their destinies intertwined in this high-octane police actioner.

Prognosis: Positive. This one has been sitting on the shelf for a little while.

Released in Hong Kong on December 12, 2002 this movie has made its way, finally, to US shores. For those of you at home keeping track of Miramax’s score for how many other countries have seen this film before us, the movie has been from Hong Kong to Norway, Australia, the UK, Sweden, France, Denmark, Germany, flippin’ Estonia, Romania, Hungary and on and on it goes until the United States, the last country on record, is the final kid to pick up the scraps of what everyone else has been enjoying. I make no presumptions about why it has taken this long but it has and we’re the last to see it, again.

The voiceover we get for this trailer is good. Because it’s a foreign language flick and it’s an action/drama kind of film you need someone to really play up the kinetic quality of the whole production. The beginning opens with a great shot of Hong Kong at night, just to provide some geographic clue as to where we are, and then, in the daylight, we get some dude in a black wife beater running from something or someone we can’t see.

Before we get too far into things we are shown all the awards this film has won but it seems more focused on getting the word WINNER fully legible in big letters than they are with telling in which competition it actually won them. I even tried pausing the screen and I still can’t make out what the hell is written at the bottom. It could’ve been a student film contest sponsored by Dunkin’ Donuts, but it’s ok because for the last two years the world has been speaking with their dollars about this film.

From the wife beater guy we’re told that two friends became the “best cadets on the force.” At first it looks like a military operation but it turns out to be a proving ground for Hong Kong’s finest po-pos. At one point one of the two friends is shooting a pistol without his shirt on but still has his cop hat and cop glasses on as I wait to hear some “It’s Raining Men” in the background. One of the guys goes undercover to infiltrate the mob, looking all scruffy in his undercover getup, but the other one stays on the visible side of the law with a snappy haircut to boot. What seems to be the case here is that both men are after a traitor in their midst.

While the voiceover guy says that said traitor is deadly, dangerous, blabbity blah blah, I see some flashy moments of split screen being employed; with two guys going after the same dude it makes sense. The level of direction this movie appears to possess and the way it shows how competent its cinematography makes me wonder why this has languished in Miramax’s vaults. Actually, I can forward a few hypotheses but doing that may push back the release date by a few more months so I’ll just stay mum on the subject.

“What they don’t know is that they are hunting for each other.”

Normally I wouldn’t get all giddy for a line that a voiceover ever tosses out, as it’s always a hackneyed, sales pitch-y rhetorical device to brainwash twelve-year olds, but it worked well for me here. The small bits of press praise the film has received is welcomed as it helps people decide, for some of them anyway, whether it’s worth going out of their way to see.

As a side note I also like the body falling on top of the car at the very end too. If you ever need a way to end a trailer, having a lifeless body fall on top of a car will always get kudos from me.

Director: George Lucas
Cast: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie, Ian Wolfe, Marshall Efron, Sid Haig
Release: September 10, 2004 (Directors Cut); September 14, 2004 (DVD)
Synopsis: George Lucas adapted this, his first film, from a short he made at University. THX 1138, LUH 3417, and SEN 5241 attempt to escape from a futuristic society located beneath the surface of the Earth. The society has outlawed sex, with drugs used to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs, and gets LUH 3417 pregnant. They are both thrown in jail where they meet SEN 5241 and start to plan their escape.

Prognosis: Positive. At the San Diego Comic-Con there were these freaky hippy dudes, but without the sub-dermal patchouli smell and dressed in the same Egyptian clothing the people in this film, passing out small postcards pimping this film. While I am still not quite sure what this film is about I am sure there are cadres and legions of you hiding behind an electronic veil of anonymity that could. Some of you can attest to going to film school because of Lucas’ inspiration whereas I wore a white helmet wearing a short bus that showed nothing but RASINING ARIZONA and STRANGE BREW. Here, however, is what I think is going on in this film: it’s a balder version of I, ROBOT and a more frenetic-paced film than 1984 with a tinge of BLADE RUNNER nihilism. Do I even come close?

If nothing else, the trailer is great. I gasp in horror myself that I am actually looking forward to picking up something this upcoming Tuesday made by Lucas himself that I am not grinding my teeth down to stumps wishing I could just pass up (yes, I am one of the many who was lured into the dark side to own PHANTOM MENACE, but, really, Ray Park was criminally underused but a wonder to watch when he was on screen.).

Here’s how I see things: you have a po-po walking a little kid down a stark white hallway. The feeling is antiseptic and abnormally clean, clinical even. Static buzzes on a television screen and it’s Mr. Napalm himself, Robert Duvall, asking for medication; something stronger, perhaps? A faceless voice, with a tone that’s too chipper to be sinister, tells him that it if he has a problem he shouldn’t hesitate to ask for assistance. Duvall looks beaten, emotionally, and is on the verge of giving up on everything.

Old school printouts, the ones where there’s alternating green and white boxes and are perforated on the sides, jut upwards on the screen. These are the same kind of printouts that always got jammed if your name wasn’t Bob Villa and you ended up not matching the effin’ spindles just perfectly. Everything goes black. Bob stands in the corner; flashbacks of a bleached BLAIR WITCH ending come to mind, as he taps his head against the wall. The chipper voice asks, “What’s wrong?” Bobby doesn’t answer.

Duvall works the assembly line, wearing some badass vintage headphones that could go for some serious dough on E-Bay, on some maniacal looking robot. The voice behind a dozen glowing television screens call out again, “What’s wrong?” Before I think Duvall is making out with some dude, not that there is anything wrong with that but I like to know these things going in, I see the grainy visage of a holo-projected Obi-Wan pop up on the screen. I could care less who it actually is but it’s cool nonetheless as long as the voice attached to it isn’t that man-child platypus from the first two films who I wished hard would’ve got whacked.

The sets look minimal but the tinkering that Lucas has done to this in recent years, even though I haven’t seen frame one of the actual film, is evident by the kinds of enhancements I can see. After we see the apocalyptic world Duvall lives in, and after we finally see that he really wasn’t kissing a dude, not that there would have been anything wrong with that, we hear the woman in question say that “they” have been watching the two of them. I am assuming they aren’t allowed to get together. A green screen shows us that Duvall is indeed a sexual deviant who is to be conditioned out of his disorder. Here’s where the really good stuff comes.

Some po-po’s that have silvery faces like an 80’s era Express mannequin come plodding forward, attempting to take our good hero away, but aren’t able to catch their quarry as Duvall hits the switches and takes off in what sounds like a land-speeder; I mean, c’mon, listen to it. After this, a voice goes off. “What’s wrong?” it says. It says it over and over again as small clips play.

The captivating images here are of Duvall trying to make his way through a sea of humanity, trying to escape, and of him in a small car while the mannequin cops speed on their motorbikes after his unconforming ass. The whole trailer is made with minimal music and it works wonderfully here. In the true old school way the trailer teases without revealing an ending and whets the appetite to find out what the hell is actually going on. There was no setup for this thing and we are thrust into this guy’s world but by the end we know that trouble is afoot.

Director:Elliot Berlin, Joe Fab
Cast: Linda Hooper, Sandra Roberts, Dagmar Schindel-Hildebrad, Peter Schroeder, David Smith
Release:September 8, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: As a part of their study of the Holocaust, the children of the Whitwell, TN Middle School try to collect 6 million paper clips representing the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis.

Prognosis: Positive. “Our goal was to teach children what happens when prejudice goes unchecked.”

Simple fact about me #56,342: I like movies about World War II. I don’t know why but I am utterly fascinated with what happened in that time. Be it Hitler, the Jews, the indifferent America that turned its back on it all until Pearl Harbor (Lord only knows I probably would’ve tried myself to sink America after seeing Michael Bay’s vision of fictional puke), or the internment of the Japanese (where are more silver screen examples on that story?), I am hooked on it all. So, when a film like this comes out and draws on the truly heinous to make younger generations learn a lesson or two I am all eyes and ears.

We get images of those at concentration camps and a photo of Hitler on a computer screen (I wonder if the little tikes are able to play Oregon Trail on that PC? That was electric heroin to me back in the day.) before flashes of all the pretty accolades this documentary has won. For a documentary it’s not only vital but it is a damn good idea to let people know your reality ride has garnered some positive attention. With the self-congratulation out of the way we get to heart of the plot. It does a perfect job of letting us know that this story is taking place in a town of about 1600 people where the only diversity that these southerners know is that there are different kinds of fat KKK’ers and lazy KKK’ers.

So, the teachers wanted to let kids know that Hitler killed six million people. It wasn’t as many as those who died on the inside after seeing Shaquille O’Neal’s KAZAAM but it was damn close. How should you teach, then, about one of the worst cases of mass homicide to young’uns? Revive a old custom in the 40’s that had people wearing paper clips to represent those that they knew were lost in the holocaust, that’s how. With that idea a germ was born in educators’ minds and 25,000 pieces of mail later followed a phenomenon that struck the small community. People were writing in with stories about their dead relatives from the war, there were narratives from strangers recounting the events of as they experienced them and they all flooded one school as everyone scurried about to collect 6 million paperclips. As luck would have it Tom Hanks sent in some, former president Bush tossed a few their way, and even Bill Cosby helped out by helping out this small school. Cosby probably felt it was a humanitarian atonement after inflicting LEONARD PART 6 unto the world.

Yeah, the ending’s obvious, and the story is ready-made for a People magazine exposé, but this is one of those kinds of films that could serve as an antidote for any one of the crappy children’s films that parents have to endure. I’m not there yet but, like WINGED MIGRATION, it’s hard to get kids interested in something that doesn’t evoke immediate interest and this is something that might hold their fragile attention; it held mine for a good minute and a half.

Director: Breck Eisner
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz
Release: March 25, 2005
Synopsis: Based on a Clive Cussler bestseller, this modern action-adventure is the story of NUMA agent (National Underwater Marine Agency) and master explorer, Dirk Pitt (McConaughey), who discovers that thousands of North Africans are being driven mad by something polluting the water. If unchecked, the entire world population could be threatened.

Prognosis: Negative. This trailer starts off with action voiceover guy.

Remember, this guy is different from throaty voiceover guy as this one is just paid to make you feel all tingly with anticipation while the other is supposed to make you afraid for your life. Action voiceover guy lets us know that this trailer is starting in the final days of the Civil War. And hey, just in case you’re like me and you failed American history or you’re British and were under the presumption that the Civil War was about as close as us Yanks were to actually screwing things up on our own, the nice chaps decide to flash up a cheesy effect to let us know it’s Virginia, 1865. It seems some confederates, you know, the ones who would’ve made the Ford F-150 and Red Man chewing tobacco standard issue to every 13 year-old boy, stashed some gold on a ship. Of course, it disappears without a trace; that’s what you get, though, for letting Billy Bob show off how he can steer with his crotch and chug a Lowenbrau while diddling his cousin Steve.

Fast forward nearly 140 years and get a real tight close up of Matthew “career implosion” McConaughey in the middle of the desert. It seems the ship made it onto Africa’s desert plane. Hey, don’t laugh at me as voiceover guy says bestselling author Clive Cussler wrote the damn thing. And here’s something else of interest. I try not to be a snob about anything, but Clive Cussler? The man just has a way with hitting a target audience that likes their reading spoon-fed to them via a wet nurse and that makes him bankable? Ugh. Oh well, I must not know a damn thing as the man makes millions while I scribe away in my basement eating ramen and drinking cherry Flavor Aid.

Anyhoo, McConaughey is our dashing hero, Dirk Pitt. Yeah, I’m laughing on the inside as well. So, Dirk Pitt, is our Indiana Jones-lite character who is going to uncover a “deadly secret.” From the looks of it, it appears to be dysentery but we press on looking for a semblance of a plot. Penelope Cruz is our fair maiden who I am sure Dirk Diggle”¦I mean Dirk Pitt is going to try and woo the pants off of and we also have Steve Zahn as our comedic relief who is shown getting an unbelievable shot off with his machine gun, BATMAN style, allowing Dirk’s car to go speeding through a solid wall. We get some explosions which look as dangerous as a case of treatable herpes but we do get McConaughey doing some sand surfing with a biplane on its edge which looks fairly interesting but it only lasts so long before I am yanked back to reality. This looks like ass.

I wasn’t teased with this trailer. I was downright violated.

Director: Mark Neale
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Valentino Rossi, Max Biaggi, Garry McCoy
Release: On DVD now
Synopsis: The MotoGP world championship is the pinnacle of motorcycle sport, a series of sixteen races on five continents contested by twenty-four of the world’s top riders. Filmed around the world during the 2001 and 2002 seasons, FASTER asks this question: How do you go faster than the rest, how do you win at this glamorous, dangerous game? The movie could be subtitled: How do you beat Valentino Rossi? The 24 year old Italian, world champion in 2001 and 2002, currently dominates MotoGP. He is the biggest star the sport has ever seen and the charismatic centre of the film. In addition to Rossi, FASTER focuses on three other MotoGP riders: Rossi’s bitter rival Max Biaggi; the brilliant but injury-prone Garry McCoy; and the rising teenage star John Hopkins. Their stories reveal both the ecstasy and the terror of life in the insanely fast lane, as do the tales told by a supporting cast of former world champions including Mick Doohan, Kevin Schwantz, Wayne Rainey, Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene.

Prognosis: Positive. I include this one only for its sheer simplicity.

Anyone out there like crotch rockets, rice burners, suicide rides? Ewan McGregor likes “˜em enough to take off on the open road across the European countryside and decided to lend a voice to this documentary on the sport of racing motor bikes.

What’s really apparent here, if you allow yourself to be open to the nuance of the sport, is the really thin line these guys ride on top of. In NASCAR you get hillbillies in cars, in F-1 racing you get dudes exceeding serious amounts of speed in their metal coffins should one of them get lulled to sleep by the din of their engines, in demolition derbies you get an amalgam of backwoods troglodytes and weekend warriors who are really good at making crappy cars go backward and forward while wearing neck braces and, well, go-carters? Well, men who race go-carts need to give it up and move out of their parents’ attic.

In the opening moments of this trailer, as Ewan talks about the serious races that mean most to the guys who are literally holding on to life by their thighs and fingers, you actually can feel the build-up. I appreciate there isn’t a need to immediately go to an MTV-style quick cut of tires and blurred visions of speeding bikes.

“If you want to be the world champion, this is the one you have to win.”

The music is subtly bringing things to a boil as you watch the line of colorful cyclists move in one long thread. It is only then you see these men sliding and diving into turns while bending their bodies around tight curves. It’s about this time when you see someone start wavering.

You see the unlikely winner for one race flip over his bike. The rotation of the man’s body makes you wince slightly but it’s exhilarating. I am usually all up in arms about the use of slo-mo but it’s poetic here with the rock n’ roll beat that is absolutely bumpin’ throughout the whole thing. And there’s even another shot of someone completely losing it before the trailer is done and everything goes silent.

And that’s probably the weirdest thing about this short trailer. If you watch it the music is abruptly cut off and the title is scrolled across the screen before really shutting down. I didn’t appreciate getting all hot and bothered before being yanked back into reality so quickly. I was like a man with no more quarters in the nudie booth.

I wasn’t normally someone to pay any attention at all to this kind of film but this looks like a well made documentary where the limbs and skulls of our fellow man are sure to be shown getting a bad case of road rash.

Director: He Ping
Cast: Jiang Wen, Kiichi Nakai, Wang Xueqi, Zhao Wei, Hasi Bagen, He Tao, Harrison Liu, Wang Deshun, Yang Haiquan, Yeerjiang Mahepushen, Zhou Yun
Release: August 27, 2004 (Limited)
Synopsis: In the tradition of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, WARRIORS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH weaves a thread of battle, comradeship and honor. Set in the ferocious Gobi Desert, the story follows two protagonists, Lieutenant Li (Jiang Wen) and Japanese emissary Lai Xi (Nakai Kiichi) – both first-class warriors and master swordsmen. After decades of service to the Chinese Emperor, Lai Xi longs to return to Japan, but is instead sent to the West to chase wanted criminals. His only passport back to Japan is to capture and execute Lieutenant Li, a renegade soldier wanted for leading a violent mutiny when he refused orders to kill female and child prisoners.

Prognosis: Positive. God love throaty voiceover guy. He sounds so commanding and intimidating that I am almost ready to see WARRIORS OF HEAVEN ON EARTH just because it seems like he’d beat me up if I didn’t.

It really is of little relevance of what the guy said simply based on the content of these characters and the color employed in the sets. The opening is stylistically muted with a group of men in light taupe robes, looking like the color blind sect of the Tibetan monks, wistfully going about their business. I know what you’re thinking, I do. I take one look at that blue Sony Pictures Classics and feel a narcoleptic attack come on like a sock full of sleeping powder hitting you in the back of the head. BUT, when I hear that soothing and dangerous sound of a sword being unsheathed I awaken for but a moment to see if it will be worth my while to continue. It is.

“Two warriors with a past.”

Really, the first interesting things that we see are two dudes ready to go old school sword fighting with one another. As my good guy/bad guy instructional manual goes I will take the guess that the dude with the black Elvis pompadour, black armor (or armour for our proper Englishmen across the pond), black fu-man-chu moustache with a black flavor (flavour, natch) saver is the evil one and the guy with ears that could simply flutter and allow the him to fly away is going to be our protagonist. Quicker than Richard “Suicide” Dawson can say “˜survey says’ I am fairly right on the money with that one to some extent.

It seems the two of them have been asked to escort a “mysterious caravan” that holds the future of an empire. As soon as the voiceover guy lets us know this, the camera lingers on some good looking Chinese woman who I am thinking may very well hold the key as to why this film is rated R; at least that’s what I am hoping and praying it is. Quickly, the scene moves on and we get some other Chinese guy who wears these dreads that look borrowed right out of an Alicia Keyes video. However, homeboy looks quick with the weaponry, and it is really dreadlock man who is our bad guy du jour.

The set pieces look absolutely amazing. THE LAST SAMURAI’s armor looked polished and ready to be hung in a museum but here, in this trailer, it looks like its ready for some action. Sure enough we get handheld crossbows, full fledged archers and lots of dudes on horses wielding sharp blades. It’s about this time when voiceover guy says that these men will be fighting for heaven and earth, but, whatever, I am in the mood for some violence and it pays off well. We get a great line up of men on their trusty steeds on either side of a line waiting for the go ahead to charge at one another. The signal is given and there are all sorts of screaming, the drumming in the background is a wonderful accompaniment, and we stop just as soon as the first sword goes “clang.”

We get villages set on fire, there’s the one guy versus five stand-off, we get bald guys with big beads praying, we get some ladies belly dancing while another one takes a hot bath, and, the best part, rocket”¦propelled”¦spears. This one looks like a keeper and I only pray Asia can keep cranking out these kinds of films to the US.

Director: Mark Moormann
Cast: Ginger Baker, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Thelonious Monk, Tito Puente, Otis Redding
Release: August 13th, 2004; On DVD, August 24th.
Synopsis: If you picked some of the all-time great albums in American rock, soul, and jazz, chances are one name might be found on the back of almost every one: Tom Dowd–the secret behind five decades of brilliant music, an unsung hero, producer and recording pioneer. From the perfection of live mixing to the introduction of eight-track recording, the mythology of exactly how much impact Dowd has had is still up for grabs. His diverse and genuine love of work is remembered in part through intimate interviews with several musical icons and personal friends..

Prognosis: Positive. Have hook, will travel.

“You always gotta remember the name of the game is: What does it sound like?” How true it is. Ray Charles posthumously opens up this trailer with telling us what makes a great song. In a time when substance passes for what amounts to, really, a turd in a punchbowl while every PR lackey will tell you again and again that it’s really what you’re thirsting for, regardless of its hideousness, it’s warming to see a movie about a man who has helped create the foundation on which many careers have been built.

Yes, we do get the obligatory Sundance Official Selection card flashed at us in all its ripe leafiness, but it’s ok here and they get a pass because not only is this a documentary on music that has stood the test of radio time but because they follow a good introduction by Ray Charles with Eric Clapton. Now, what makes things interesting here is that Eric tells us he wasn’t interested in working with people “like that” and he doesn’t tell us what kind of people he’s referencing. It’s confusing but I assume it’s because they’re just building this guy up.

“A brilliant documentary”- Rolling Stone

Then, after Eric, we get Gregg Allman making some of the same insinuations about the as-yet nameless dude in question. Obviously, they’re both talking about master music producer Tom Dowd but for the average layperson who doesn’t know anything about anyone they might start to get lost or, worse yet, annoyed that they don’t know who this guy is. Ah, but we are not forsaken as, almost as if channeling the spirit of Miss Cleo, we get Tom Dowd’s name tossed out there as the man who everyone in this trailer is talking endlessly about in such cryptic fashion.

So, to head off the next question of what makes this mo-fo so special we hear from the man himself. To hear him tell it he can lay claim to being front, center and accounted for when soul songstress Aretha Franklin, the great Charlie Parker, the cheeky Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Darrin, Rod Stewart, The Coasters, Lynard Skynard, and even the Allman Brothers all laid down some of their best tracks. “Music has been very kind to me,” Dowd says, as he walks down a hallway full of gold records.

“One of the very best music documentaries in recent years” ““ Film Threat.

Eric Clapton gives the man a high compliment about what Dowd is able to get out a performer when he’s recording and it let’s you know what kind of a force this guy is. Even though this is where the trailer ends it is an unbelievably abrupt stop; there is still not a lot we know about the guy, however, yet we’re asked to go spend the money and see the film. What helps make the decision easier, I believe, is this: the quotes. There are enough high praises that even if you aren’t impressed that the film is being distributed by Palm Pictures, a wonderful company putting out solid and well-executed pictures for the dozen or so people who really dig this sort of thing, you can be assured in the knowledge that someone else has taken the hard part out of guessing whether this is worth seeing and lets you know whether you should spend your money learning about a man most people will never know was behind their favorite oldies.

Director:Brad Anderson
Cast: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-gijón, John Sharian, Michael Ironside, Larry Gilliard, Reg E. Cathey, Anna Massey
Release:October 22, 2004
Synopsis: Trevor Reznik, a machinist, has lost the ability to sleep. But this is no ordinary insomnia. Trevor has not slept in a year. Fatigue has led to a shocking deterioration of his physical and mental health. Suspicious of his appearance, Trevor’s co-workers first shy away from him, then turn against him after he’s involved in a shop accident that costs a man his arm. They blame Trevor for the accident. He has become a liability to himself and others, and now they want him out.

View Trailer:
* Small (Quick Time)

Prognosis: Positive. Just based on Bale’s committal of the role I am attracted to this film like a fly to a bug zapper.

An industrial looking clock sits on a perch. It’s 7:30. The clock is dirty, grimy, and the time it’s telling is probably sullied with the dank air its hands move around in; the tick-tock doesn’t make a sound, but a series of what seem like air raid sirens go off in the dead of night. Well oiled sprockets jump up and down. Sparks from a cutter methodically do their work without missing a moment of their own time. There’s a hand that appears. It belongs to one of many who choose to work on an assembly line: Christian Bale. He does his work at his workstation, working tirelessly, as the trailer flashes briefly to a moment Bale has to himself, shirtless, on his couch. He looks lost behind the eyes. Christian secures small squares of paper on the wall. He pauses while doing his job to look over at a coworker and who gives him the international signal of “you’re gonna die.”

There’s a break in the action to show Jennifer Jason Leigh commenting on Bale’s gaunt appearance. Someone else makes a statement about his weight loss. He gives up some information that he has possibly not slept in about a year.

“How do you wake up”¦”

One of the pieces of paper is marked with a number 1. It is attached to the refrigerator. “from a nightmare if you’re not asleep?”

Christian looks at himself in a gloomy mirror. He’s spooked by something and runs through a subway station. The number 1 turns out not to be a number at all but the start of a hangman game. Bale spells out Miller. What’s odd is that Bale then confronts a man, possibly or not possibly named Miller, as he yells at him to stop messing with his head, as the possible Miller punches Bale in the stomach. What? Bale is losing it as he goes through different combinations of names he can spell that end in E R. He even goes loopy at the workplace, the very best place to lose it, and starts screaming and shoving people around him.

By the end of this trailer we get the gist that Michael Ironside hasn’t been truly memorable as the throaty bad guy since TOTAL RECALL and that this film, which seems to crib a little from Fincher (but that’s ok), looks about as happy as a Reverend Jim Jones & The People’s Temple Kool-Aid drink-a-thon. There is even some coarse language in this trailer which gets some of my attention but with the way cable television is going these days in shows like Rescue Me dropping an s-bomb here or there isn’t such a big deal.

The movie has a brooding sensibility to it, the likes of which hasn’t been seen for a while in the cineplexes lately. Bale looks riveting and the trailer doesn’t give away one ounce of the plot’s ending. Although, to be fair, the very end, where Bale spells out something else ending in E R, even Ray Orbison could’ve seen that one coming.

Director:John Duigan
Cast:Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz, Stuart Townsend, Thomas Kretschmann
Release:September 17, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis: When 18-year-old Guy Malyon takes up a scholarship at Cambridge University his world is forever changed following a passionate affair with a stunning, aristocratic but hedonistic fellow student, Gilda Besse, which takes him across Europe from the killing fields of Spain’s Civil War to occupied France… before a dangerous secret threatens to tear them apart.

Prognosis: Negative. Many things can be said about period pieces but they really don’t get my notice unless there’s a really good reason. Lesbians are a very good start.

Stewart Townsend’s pasty face, which I really cannot see in any other role than his vampy vampire bit that he employed in that awful Anne Rice adaptation, QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, is back for a go-around with Charlize Theron. Last seen under a bit of make-up, prosthetic camouflaging, and a box of Krispy Kremes she is back to her blonde bombshell roots.

The trailer begins with Stewart saying that Charlize had no idea how much he adored her at Cambridge. She asks if he was married yet. The images that dance around as they have their little play talk are wonderful to look at and admire. The era that this movie is taking place around is World War two and, judging by the explosions that are rocking the screen, I am betting dollars to doughnuts we’re in Europe. It’s then the announcer guy tells us something about passion and unleashing or something to that effect but I am just too damned interested in Charlize in bathtub to even care what’s being said. Ooo”¦there’s even a little sensual whimpering as she’s in the terrible throes of passion.

We get some crap about Stewart moving around somewhere but, again, my attention is taken away, this time, by a heavily made-up Penelope Cruz who starts to go at it with Charlize. Stewart is somehow allowed in bed with the two of them but it’s of little importance as the duo heretofore known as Charlize/Cruz start sensually finding their own passion as they dance slowly, erotically, with one another in a club.

Then some Nazis come into the picture. Right on, I say. First you get woman on woman love, then you get some stuff exploding, and then you get some Nazis. It seems that Stewart feels the need to go fight against those evil swastika loving bastards but there is a choice to be made. He has to choose between desire and duty. He can either leave the picture to go off alone and die on the battlefield or he can stay behind and try to horn in on Penelope’s action. I say pick duty and let Charlize/Cruz explore their desires without him around. I’m wrong, of course, as Stewart keeps his heart open for Charlize as Cruz, who ends up being a nurse in the war and finds Stewart, tells him that Charlize couldn’t love her the way she loves him. And then, as if this is one big joke, they show Charlize essentially giving up everything the ancient women from the Isle of Lesbos (it’s for real, I swear) fought so hard for: the right for every woman to be with a woman and live in harmony with those women and get freaky with other women should the need arise. She gives it up and it seems like that’s the end of the frigging movie. There is no suspense, no drama. No need to go to the theater to watch it unfold. It’s all right here in the trailer. This could have been a much more different film but instead they take the safe, hetro route. For shame.

This trailer ranks right up there with WIMBELDON as one of the most wantonly revealing trailers of the year. I get the beginning, the middle and end all in under two minutes. Regardless of the argument that those who find the story intriguing will still want to go I am wondering about that pesky small contingent of people who still want to see a film and be surprised by how it ends. I guess I’m in a minority.

Director: Gabriele Muccino
Cast: Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Laura Morante, Nicoletta Romanoff, Monica Bellucci, Silvio Muccino, Gabriele Lavia
Release: Fall, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis: REMEMBER ME, MY LOVE, Muccino’s bittersweet drama delves into the lives and loves of a modern Italian family whose individual aspirations pull at the seams of their increasingly fragile unit. As their children come of age and begin to follow their own dreams, Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) finds himself torn between a passionate affair with Alessia (Monica Bellucci) and his wife Guilia (Laura Morante), while Guilia must face her own buried desires. REMEMBER ME, MY LOVE premiered at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival and screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. It was nominated for 10 Donatello Awards (Italy’s Oscar) and was one of Italy’s most successful films in 2003. It stars Monica Bellucci, currently seen the world over in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

Prognosis: Positive. Monica Bellucci.

I wasn’t really exposed, you could say, to her body of work until IRREVERSIBLE dropped into movie theaters last year. Even though a rape scene is no way to really be introduced to a person’s oeuvre, the movie on the whole gave me an appreciation for an actress who simply glows on camera. Here, she looks just as enrapturing.

As this trailer opens up we get the sound of alarm clocks. The noise, for me anyway, grips the bottom of my nerve center in my brain in a way that some people get when they hear the high pitched whine of a dentist’s drill. The clocks in question here wake up your average, well-to-do, Italian family. The dad, who looks like a younger, better looking Mikhail Baryshnikov, seems to be the Bill Cosby kind of dad. His kids dig him, his daughter is way way fine, the family looks like they could be models straight from a J. Crew catalog shoot, the golden retriever doesn’t show any sign of being whipped with a broken piece of garden hose for skootching his ass along the carpet, his wife still probably gives him some and life is, essentially, dulce. And it’s all bread and roses until, “the return of a past love.”

Monica is the past love and what a past it must have been. Short of being certifiably insane, having real problems with grown men digging comic books and kung-fu cinema or end up really being a dude under that dress, there would never be an excuse to leave that kind of lady. That’s probably why, though, the dad decides to throw his life in the crapper to hook back up with her.

What I like so far about this trailer, apart from Bellucci, is that not only does this seem like a story about infidelity but that it’s a story shot on DV while following the lives of the kids and the wife. The husband’s life is not the sole focus here as we also get to see how his actions affect all those around him.

It’s nice, especially for a foreign language film, that we get a small sentence on each one of the main player’s motivations in this film. The dad is a writer looking for inspiration (if inspiration comes in the form of Monica I am all for that), the wife is an aspiring actress, his daughter is a dancer (who looks like she’s constantly trying out for some kind of nude revue), and his son seems like a kid who is just trying to get some attention. But, as the twists continue, the dad ends up in the hospital. How does this affect the plot? I have no idea but this trailer, if you’re open to it, really does make you want to see how it ends.

Director: Forest Whitaker
Cast: Katie Holmes, Marc Blucas, Michael Keaton, Amerie Rogers, Margaret Colin, Lela Rochon Fuque
Release: November 19, 2004
Synopsis: Samantha Mackenzie (Holmes) wants what every college freshman desires: to experience life away from home and parents. But it’s not going to be easy, because home for Sam is The White House and her dad (Keaton), is the President of the United States. Despite her fishbowl existence, Sam meets and falls for James (Blucas), the Resident Advisor in her dorm. As romance blossoms, Sam discovers her new beau is a secret service agent assigned to protect her.

Prognosis: Numb. This is exactly the kind of movie Cindy would’ve talked my ear off endlessly about wanting to go see.

Now, it’s not so hard to peg what makes this movie an easy lure for women in their mid-twenties. You have a preposterous plot: you have a dad who is the president of the United States and his daughter wants to go to college. However, surrounded by so many accoutrements of being a president’s daughter, shucks, it’s just hard for her to fit in. You have a director who has done superb work in front of the camera but has only managed to create rental worthy chick flicks behind it and a couple of writers who can only count having BRING IT ON and being the fat kid from STAND BY ME as their crowning achievements. I did like BRING IT ON, though, but I’m not giving anything to Jerry O’Connell as he was to blame for KANGAROO JACK. This is not the kind of triple threat that many could make this out to be. Still, what’s here in the trailer is more than enough to make any woman deaf to my protests.

This trailer begins with everyone wanting a picture of Samantha, the commander-in-chief’s daughter, on her first few days of college. We are told she’s America’s princess but, gasp, her dad is the one running the country. Even just trying to think about how any girl of the president can be mistaken for a princess is beyond my perceivable ken, but I do know that if Jenna and Barbara Bush (the younger one, natch) wanted to star in their own presidential Girls Gone Wild I would not only be first in line to get the DVD but I would gladly kneel before General Zod and declare the Bush twins as true American princesses. (In reality, and gauging their behavior in recent years, I know I am merely one election away from this actually happening.)

Now, about the trailer. It seems that Ms. Holmes wants to be a normal gal. Reality is so far removed from this girl’s life that it appears she doesn’t know how to function like any other woman at a drunken fraternity bender. She actually whines in one moment that she doesn’t want to get her outfit dirty when drunken revelers are sliding down a wet, muddy hill. Just look at the chick. She’s a walking simulacrum, bordering on clichéd, of someone who sees normal life as alien and strange. Our girl Friday, though, decides to throw major caution into the wind as she goes careening face first down that muddy hill and finds a lovely little frat boy who, unlike his inebriated revelers, seems to take care of his appearance. What happens after this, though, is a chick flick Tet Offensive that throws up every sappy, frilly, and downright lame bits the filmmakers could have left on the cutting room floor. Katie gets our dude to take his shirt off, Katie remarks how easy it would be to find some real inside information on our man, we even get one of those white flashes of teeth that only beaus playing boyfriends in movies can give after a dumb joke is made and we even get the vibe that , awww, they might be falling in love. It’s enough to make me seethe with jealously.

What really pisses me off, though, is that she says, again, how she just wants to be like everyone else. Ok. All right. I got it. Your master plan has worked, Mussolini. I somehow realized this was a movie about wanting to fit in the first time it was mentioned, but if I wanted to be nagged this much about getting the main point of the movie I could’ve had Cindy review this and tell me what she thought the point of the trailer was.

Then, to exacerbate the situation, the chick does it again! She asks her frat boy lover how he would feel if she was just a normal person. Ahh, here’s my take, honey: as long as you are still that hot when you become “normal” and are still willing to “explore romantic possibilities” after a few rounds of Jager and Rumplemintz shots, I’m sure the dude won’t mind what happens when you decide you’re normal.

Ok, at the end of this trailer, the bitch does it one more time. She is like a one track record. What a downer this freak is. If I was the lothario who was looking to tap that Holmes action I would’ve moved onto the women’s wrestling team before having to listen to that droning on and on about fitting in, being normal, being left alone to be her own person, and on and on and on.

“It’s like you’re experiencing everything for the first time.”

The above quote comes from the jock, not Holmes. I am downright ashamed for our college men if buying into crazy women’s issues with their own self-image is the only way to score some of that fine early adult action. He does, though, get pretty deep with that Gene Simmons tongue action he busts out on our fragile heroine. High fives all around for that, though.

Man, does this movie look like emasculating garbage. I would, honestly, pick every other movie that was playing, had I seen it twice or not, before I would ever give this one a chance. Thing is, since I’m married, I don’t get a choice anymore when it’s not my week to pick. Lord only knows how hard I am going to be watching out for any sort of commercial pimping this movie as I will be blazing a fast-forwarded TiVo path right past it. May God have mercy on all male souls out there who are harangued into seeing this.

If I would have made the above comments out loud to Cindy, as I did when asked about THE WEDDING PLANNER, HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS, SWEET HOME ALABAMA, and most every Julia Roberts movie that’s come out in the last two years, she would’ve clapped her hands quickly. She’d bounce her head back and forth, laughing while she did so, as she knew that it was the perfect movie for her simply based on my protests. No matter how hard I tried to tell her all the good reasons why she should avoid insulting cinema like this it would only embolden her will even further. There are too many “you were right” conversations had on Monday mornings as she inhabited my cube but I never once mentioned I told her so.

It’s genuinely sad to know that in a few weeks she won’t be there to ask me what I thought of this movie. I would have told her to read the column but she would most likely just roll her eyes, would feign asking for the website address, somehow start whimpering, and would just end up make me retell her from memory. I did it most every week and now, without her here, there’s no one left to fill that space.

I hope wherever she is that she’s enjoying all the movies I’ve told her not to go see.