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By Christopher Stipp

March 5, 2004

MARCHING FORWARD

Finally.

Are we done now with the Oscar pimping, primping and publicizing? Yes, we know Billy Crystal had as much relevance as an Apple IIe, that Joan Rivers and her suckling fawn, Melissa, have as much command of simple facts and decorum as a brain-dead ten-year-old with OCD in a Precious Moments boutique, and that Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Will Ferrell were the funniest parts of the night. Aside from that, and what your feelings are of Bill Murray getting completely robbed of his Oscar, which really”¦

It is all over and it’s time to press forward.

With the awards season coming to a close, it is fact that it is now time for the faucet of films to open wide and flow like wine. Some great movies are starting to open and already there are some good trailers for next week (ready for something from Japan, perchance?). I am just glad I made it through the dead season with my will to live still intact so let me know what you thought of this week’s offerings.

And this brings me to my next topic of conversation. The first review this week is a new film from a young director that is coming to a DVD player near you. There is no actual review beneath the cursory information because you are going to write it for me. Allow me to explain.

In Chicago where I grew up, there was a legendary radio host by the name of Jonathon Brandmeier. He wasn’t a shock jock but he was a mesmerizing radio host. He drew heavily on his audience for material and he had a bit, a famous one, where people would call up and say they had the best answering machine message. Ever. Jonathon would call up, play the message for the audience and let the populace say what they thought of the person’s creativity. If enough people called in, he would give out the person’s phone number and let the general public essentially assault an individual’s home for a weekend. Jonathon would ask for the tape, back when it wasn’t all digital, and then would play what kinds of messages people would leave. It was unscientific, probably skewed in favor of the drunkards and loudmouths, but it always made for the best free radio you could be listening to. The best part about it is that people were always asking to do it because they all thought they could reinvent the wheel. Now, in 2004, I look to you to be the populace I know is out there. Your mission is to see the trailer and then send me whatever your thoughts are concerning the film’s merit based on what’s presented. What works, what doesn’t work, are there good characters, does it need more nudity, and what kind of a prognosis would you give it?

Watch the trailer, send me what you thought, be mindful of your grammar, watch your potty mouth, and I am going to fill in the space below next week with what you all thought. If you have an indie project and would like the general public’s opinion, write me. I’ll supply the audience and the words but you need to come to the table with some stones and the willingness to get an honest critique by the teeming masses. It’s put up or shut up time for all you who think you have what it takes. Obviously, if you made a porno or an actual snuff film, no one else but me will ever see it because that’s not the point of this arena. (Send those anyway, though”¦) You need to have a trailer to show the world. This is your moment. Show it off but be prepared to have some of the sharpest wit whittle your big fish down to sushi sized pieces. Pitter patter, let’s get at “˜er. Show some love to PIZZA: THE MOVIE by sending in some comments.

Finally, be sure to check out the last trailer on the list this week. MY BIG FAT INDEPENDENT MOVIE, written by Film Threat’s own Chris Gore, looks like a hilarious send-up of all that which is supposedly indie and is my favorite trailer this week. Maybe it’s because I call into question my own cinematic sensibilities or that I find foul language always good for a giggle.

PIZZA: THE MOVIE (2004)

Director/Writer: Donald Gregory
Cast: Craig Wisniewski, Jason Muzie, Daniela Mangialardo, Alex Aco Adzioski, Eva Conrad, Sharon Stookey, Thadeous Pudlik
Release: May 29, 2004
Synopsis: Three years after graduating, Kevin Miller’s crush on a girl from high school has kept him from moving on with his life. When she shows up in town on break from college, he realizes this might just be his last chance ever to win her heart, only she doesn’t even remember him. His bizarre, sometimes annoying, and generally unhelpful best friend hatches a scheme to get them together. But for it to work, Kevin will have to give up his comfortable boring life and step into the crazy world of pizza delivery.

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Progonosis: ?

YOUNG ADAM (2004)

Director: David Mackenzie
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer
Release: April 16, 2004
Synopsis: Featuring a strong cast headed by Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan and Emily Mortimer, YOUNG ADAM is a moody, sensual thriller that takes place on the canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh during the 1950s. The film focuses on the crisis of Joe (McGregor); a young drifter who finds work on a barge owned by the down-to-earth Les (Mullan) and his enigmatic wife Ella (Swinton). One afternoon Joe and Les happen upon the corpse of a young woman floating in the water and the questions begin. Accident? Suicide? Murder? As the police investigate the case and a suspect is arrested, it becomes evident that Joe knows more about the drowned woman Cathie (Mortimer) than he will admit. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the investigation, Joe and Ella embark on a passionate affair.

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Progonosis: Positive.

I remember thinking that Sean Austin was destined for great things when I saw THE GOONIES. Oh sure, there were a few B.R.A.T. Patrol, TOY SOLIDERS, and ENCINO MANs along the way but he was destined to be the quintessential second banana. I didn’t get to see the same dream realized for KARATE KID’s William Zabka but I’m still holding out hope. Thank goodness, then, that Ewan McGregor has been charting his success on an upward trajectory that, while not an ostentatious A-lister, seems to be more concerned with mixing affective and provocative art projects and heartless, soulless, jack-fests also known as the STAR WARS prequels. I am happy that YOUNG ADAM sees Ewan returning to take on a more gritty and substantial role in something worth watching.

One of the biggest traps that can befall a trailer for a thriller is that it can give everything away. Simple as that. You can tell who did it, where it happened, and that it was done with a candlestick in the bedroom. There is an art to unraveling a certain amount of information without giving away clues but it goes against with obeying the first law of trailerdom: you need to give people a reason to see your movie. YOUNG ADAM, though, sets the plot up with giving us words on the screen like “everybody has a past,” “everybody has a secret,” and “everybody has a story.” Ewan looks like a writer and his role in events here appear to give everything away.

The trailer is probably one of the nicest looking clips I’ve seen this week. The cinematography is wonderful, the score is hauntingly appropriate much to the thanks of David Byrne, and the semi-nudage is enough to slightly titillate and entice a viewer to wonder what the hell is going on. It looks like Ewan has a few scenes of hot love with Tilda, boffing his boss’ wife, all the while a mystery surrounding a young woman’s death seems to implicate nearly everyone involved. Obviously there are things going on, some red herrings sprinkled well throughout the trailer, that show that anything is possible with this story. The fact that Ewan is shown a couple of times at a typewriter only muddies the water of what is possibly made up and what could be fact. I love that.

With there being so many murder mystery movies that are just plain unwatchable, and all seem to star Ashley Judd, it’s nice to see a film like this coming to the States and give a good value to our entertainment dollar.

POLAR EXPRESS (2004)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Tom Hanks, Chris Coppola, Eddie Deezen, Ed Gale, Nona Gaye, Josh Hutcherson, Michael Jeter, Peter Scolari, Hayden McFarland
Release: November 10, 2004
Synopsis: An inspiring adventure based on the beloved children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg. When a doubting young boy takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that shows him that the wonder of life never fades for those who believe. Sony Pictures Imageworks and visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston, Oscar winners for their innovative work, help bring this enchanting holiday story vividly to life in full CG animation through Imageworks’ next-generation motion capture process, which allows live-action performances to drive the emotions and movements of the digital characters.

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Progonosis: Got a Woody?

Wasn’t Tom Hanks already in one of these a few years ago?

I believe the TOY STORY series is perhaps the gold standard for computer-animated movies. I do realize they are sending traditional animation studios out to pasture but watching this trailer, I can see why. However, the clip here for POLAR EXPRESS looks like it has more in common with elements from FINAL FANTASY than anything that could be judged in the current animation craze, a la SHREK and FINDING NEMO.

I can appreciate the fact that this film just feels different than the other animated movies coming to a familyplex near me and that’s why it deserves some play here. Whenever something goes out of the bounds for traditional hegemonies it is always a thrill to at least see what the public at large will do with it. In the case of FINAL FANTASY, for example, it was largely scoffed at because of the same reasons why this one should succeed. For one, the genre. Who were the ones seeing that movie? Nerds, like myself who were familiar with the sci-fi genre. It edged out families in the process. With technology and a built-in audience, you’ll at least get a small contingent of folks who’ll just have to see it because of the simply based on the economy of availability. There is not much more for parents to dump their clattering brood off to see.

The trailer here, dealing with a Christmas time moment of a boy being magically whisked away on a train that comes barreling through the suburbs, is fairly innocuous. However, and lest we forget this is aimed at the kiddie crowd, this advertisement should make little rug rats everywhere pester their parents until November to see this movie. I like the use of the dark room and the slow, steady movements of the camera as the bass from the train starts to rattle various minutiae inside the boy’s bedroom. It is a little weird to hear Tom Hanks’ voice behind his likeness, though. I can only compare it seeing the Hall of Presidents at Disneyworld for the first time as a youth and seeing George Washington come to life. However, as quick as the trailer is, and as much as it doesn’t give anything away, I will likely take any kid to see this simply because I loved the story growing up.

Chris Van Allsburg is the man who gave us the book way back in 1985 and it was, and still is, a delight to read and look at. The pictures are simply small pieces of pure imagination. Even though JUMANJI wasn’t as wonderful as the original book (Hell, they should have really had Tim Burton go to town on that one.), this attempt at adapting his work might bring something interesting to the table. Also, Robert “USED CARS” Zemeckis is the one taking point for directorial duty on this. Say what you will about how he makes films, but he produces pieces of art that is widely digestible by a massive cross-section of the populace. Think of him as the Jeff Koons of moviemaking. And, better still, he still holds a warm place in my cinematic library for his work on BACK TO THE FUTURE.

ENVY (2004)

Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Christopher Walken, Rachel Weisz, Amy Poehler
Release: April 2, 2004
Synopsis: Tim (Ben Stiller) and Nick (Jack Black) are best friends, neighbors and co-workers, whose equal footing is suddenly tripped up when one of Nick’s harebrained get-rich-quick schemes actually succeeds: Vapoorizer, a spray that literally makes dog poop, or any other kind for that matter, evaporate into thin air – to where exactly is anyone’s guess. Tim, who had poo-pooed Nick’s idea and passed on an opportunity to get in on the deal, can only watch as Nick’s fortune – and Tim’s own envy – grow to equally outrageous proportions. The flames of jealousy are fanned by an oddball drifter (Christopher Walken) who takes it upon himself to help fix Tim’s situation, but only causes Tim’s life to careen more wildly out of control”¦and Nick’s with it.

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Progonosis: There is a reason behind every delay.

When I first saw this trailer, way back in the 2003, I thought this film could be a fairly funny movie for my father to see; it looked non-threatening, safe, gag filled, void of anything I would funny and simply relied on Jack Black’s mugging for laughs.

The Stiller machine hadn’t yet been cranked up to 11, Jack Black had yet to star in SCHOOL OF ROCK, and, on paper, those of us in the know thought that the pairing of these two would be a solid lock. However, as the trailer unfurled the story, crisis, and, vaguely, how it was going to be resolved, I was thinking that I probably was going to skip it. It felt odd, though, seeing Stiller, Black and Poehler, a great comedian in her own right, all put together with nothing to show for it. There were no sparks, no pizzazz; not even so much as a flicker with the addition of Chris Walken and Rachel Weisz. Just as I wondered how well it was going to fare, it happened.

It all went away.

The tentative release date was vapoorized, it was “reshuffled” to open sometime in the latter part of last year, and now it is being matched against HELLBOY and HOME ON THE RANGE. Seeing the trailer with a pair of fresh eyes makes me realize I wasn’t wrong about the reservations I had last year. There simply isn’t anything here to latch onto. There is not one great comedic moment you can ruminate on to justify ponying up $18.75 a ticket to see this thing on a Saturday night with your old lady. The fact that Barry Levinson hasn’t helmed a good film since 1997’s SLEEPERS is not a good box office omen, either.

I love Black. I love Stiller. That’s why it’s so hard to figure out what the hell is happening with this trailer. I can’t figure out why it doesn’t work, but I am more apt to wait until this thing is thrust upon me on a transatlantic flight before I see this one in favor of checking out what could be in store with HELLBOY.

THE STEPFORD WIVES (2004)

Director: Frank Oz
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill, Roger Bart, Jon Lovitz, Glenn Close
Release: June 11, 2004
Synopsis: Joanna (Kidman) and her husband (Broderick) move to the beautiful upper-class suburb of Stepford, where she soon starts to suspect something is strange and artificial about her new female neighbors. The wives living in the houses around them all seem to be too perfect, with bland, character-less personalities. Everyone that is, except her new friend Bobbie (Midler), who as a cranky, sarcastic, non-exercising alcoholic still has some semblance of personality and independence. As Joanna and Bobbie investigate their neighbors further, they discover that there is indeed something artificial about them, something… robotic, the result of the husbands banding together to replace their human wives with cyborg copies who are subservient, sexually compliant and devoid of any distinguishing character traits. Will Joanna and Bobbie be the next ones replaced by perfect robotic clones? (Roger Bart plays a gay confidante of Kidman’s character who ends up getting “straightened out”; Walken and Close play a couple; Lovitz plays Midler’s husband).

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Progonosis: Kidman is a killer.

I bring this trailer to you as proof for a larger trend in trailerdom as of late: trailers as factitious product commercials.

They are trailers as commercials selling commercials that are really selling movies.

I am curious to know the origins of these things, but evidenced by the explosion of ones that have been doing a good job of it as of late there is something there that adds a little bit extra immersion into a manufactured world. Even RESIDENT EVIL: APOCOLYPSE, a film that should be a love fest of all things inane, does a good job getting into the mix of faux advertising.

For all the right reasons, this trailer is very effective. A voiceover, much like the one who tells us to head to a local car dealership to take advantage of the “Lexus sale event going on right now,” hits all the right keys in establishing a few things: 1) The “commercial” is supposed to appeal to a nonexistent audience of affluent mofo’s who strive for the finer things in life. 2) It creates a real and palpable mood that makes the pay off at the end that much sweeter. 3) It gives an immediate dipping into the laws, also known as the donnee for those of you with a classical education, that govern the world the film exists in.

The trailer does the footwork before you spend the first half-hour trying to figure it out yourself and, the best part, it doesn’t give anything about the plot away; that, in itself, is a commendable achievement for what just amounts a quick look at Nicole Kidman. There are no quick cuts, flashes of light, explosions of sound, but there is a deliberate, singular idea being expressed in this clip.

Yoda, also known in real life as Frank Oz, is the little green gremlin behind the lens on this one. His last real big hit, BOWFINGER, is probably one of the only movies made in the “˜90s that actually made me believe that Eddie Murphy could still be funny. (Oh well for hopes that die a vicious death.) Frank has done some great work with WHAT ABOUT BOB, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and spent a lot of time with Muppets. His direction isn’t what you would call memorable or even notable, but if given the right story, and seeing how the man who wrote this thing gave us ROSEMARY’S BABY, THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL and, yes, even the great comedy, SLIVER, there could be a good chance the odds are with this Jedi.

MY BIG FAT INDEPENDENT MOVIE (2004)

Director: Philip Zlotorynski
Writer/Producer: Chris Gore
Cast: Paget Brewster, Neil Barton, Eric Hoffman, Darren Reiher, Ashley Head, Brian Krow, Neil Hopkins, Rob Schrab
Release: Coming Soon
Synopsis: “My Big Fat Independent Movie” is a spoof along the lines of “Scary Movie” and “Not Another Teen Movie.” It includes parodies of some of the indie film world’s most renowned movies such as “Memento,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Magnolia,” “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” “Amelie,” “Run Lola Run,” “El Mariachi, “The Good Girl,” “Pi,” “Swingers” and many others.

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Progonosis: Positive.

Name as many movies as you can, and, go: PULP FICTION, THE GOOD GIRL, EL MARIACHI, AMELIE, MEMENTO, RUN LOLA RUN, and how the hell can you go wrong with Clint Howard?

With the relative success of movies of SCARY MOVIE and the tepid NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE, each one cribbing and culling from notable films, MY BIG FAT INDEPENDENT MOVIE looks to do the same with the “art film” genre. The only difference between the three of them is that I may actually pay to see this one. Like attracts to like, I guess.

Right from the beginning things begin with borrowing a little page from Quentin Tarantino’s independent opus, RESERVOIR DOGS. It’s the “cool walk” that scene has already been copied for comedic effect, sublimely, in SWINGERS, right? However, the trailer makes friends with me by quickly dropping a few f-bombs; always a nice touch if done humorously. After that there’s an EL MARIACHI/AMELIE foreign language exchange which I can’t stop from thinking out which was good for a laugh out loud moment. From there, it’s a roller coaster ride up and down about what works well and what could easily play better with someone else’s comedic disposition.

Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s a very funny trailer if for the only reason that it offers up the reasons why it’s spoofing the movies it’s incorporating into the film. The same things that most of us yearn for in an “important” film, the high-falutin’, high-brow, superiority we feel over others and their mass marketed drivel, is the same thing this film looks to goof on. The movie feels like it is, at once self-aware of the plot points that make movies they’re lampooning while some characters are just blissfully unaware. There are lots of gags that seem to be Zucker-fied in this casual romp of a pic and it’s nice to be able and poke fun at some of the films regarded with respected reverence by many a film fan.

Also, and it’s important to note, Chris Gore is listed as the man responsible for primarily penning this story. Chris, who has been a deeply rooted champion of independent film long before it was en vogue to be a sycophantic suck-up of every movie touted as “art,” is probably one of the best-equipped writers out there today to be able and write a story that can overcome some of the common pitfalls with designing a well-crafted satire. However, and it’s a quibble again worth mentioning, there are some bits here that just don’t really fly as well as some others; that’s just something inherently tricky about writing comedy. Every gag isn’t 24k gold, every quip isn’t quotable and not every character works well in a blink-of-an-eye trailer snippet. What I can see here, though, is enough for me to plunk down some dough and see it. The film is an interesting meld of action/drama with a twist of humor. I would add something about what makes great satire but any trailer that ends with someone asking if that’s a “pubic hair in your teeth” simply gets a recommendation for others to check it out and see if what they see in this comedic Rorschach test.

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By Christopher Stipp

February 27, 2004

I HEART GOOD TRAILERS

I know it’s almost a cliché to admit but the one thing I like about hospital shows is when they rub those two white paddles together with that clear, K-Y jelly looking stuff and yell “clear” as they either save or do away with a character.

It was getting fairly desperate for me as I was looking down the road, hearing only the chirp of tiny crickets as I wondered where the hell Hollywood went on vacation. You have 50 FIRST DATES sitting on top of the box office for the second week in a row, a full twelve million dollars separating first and second place, and I am, frankly, disappointed in all of you. If you keep watching them, they will make more. It’s like Tribbles or Gremlins. Adam Sandler doesn’t do media junkets because he knows you will keep coming back for more. Sigh. Well, expect some of the same thing reconstituted, rehashed, reworked, tweaked, and put on a platter for you to consume with your millions sometime in the next few months. But, I am not here to dwell on mediocrity. I want to herald a better week of new trailers that look to make their inroads before the summer movie season begins to get into full swing. Like Booger from the REVENGE OF THE NERDS echoes in the gymnasium when they all find a new place to live: “It’s about fuc*in time!” I couldn’t agree more.

And before I forget, if the mood hits you a certain way, check out the new and improved PUNISHER trailer that’s being circulated on Yahoo!. It actually redeems the previous sins, egregious as they were, committed by the studio’s first couple tries at an acceptable trailer. This new trailer should have been the *first* one released and would have stopped any of the hemming and hawing most people have been doing now that the others were taken into consideration. That’s a shame, really, as some early sneak peeks into the final version of the flick actually show it to be a nice ride and not completely without merit.

And hey, let’s all give it up to I HEART (insert your own cute-looking heart here) HUCKABEE’S. This trailer or clip, or whatever it wants to call itself, is the best thing I saw all week. In fact, if you have a family I urge you to check it out because Naomi Watts, who stars exclusively in this thing, could very well save your family’s lives with the powerful, dramatic performance she gives in less than twenty five seconds. At the very least she’ll be the shining beacon to your young teenage boys. Or girls, depending on which way, you know, they “lean.” Why aren’t all trailers like this? They all should star Naomi Watts doing a slight variation of what she does in this trailer.

13 GOING ON 30 (2004)

Director: Gary Winick
Cast: Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Kathy Baker, Phil Reeves, Andy Serkis, Samuel Ball, Kiersten Warren
Release: April 23, 2004
Synopsis: On the eve of her 13th birthday, all Jenna Rink wants is to be pretty and popular. After a humiliating experience with the coolest kids in school, Jenna makes a desperate wish for a new life. Miraculously her wish comes true, but with one catch… she’s only five days away from her 30th birthday. Jennifer Garner plays Jenna and Mark Ruffalo plays Garner’s childhood friend and love interest. Judy Greer plays Lucy, Garner’s best friend, Kathy Baker plays Garner’s mother, Phil Reeves plays Garner’s father, Andy Serkis portrays Garner’s boss and Samuel Ball portrays Garner’s boyfriend.

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Progonosis: For those with an XY chromosome: Horrid. For those of the cuter persuasion: a must see.

Women everywhere will not stop reminding their significant others that, come April 23rd, your collective butts will be safely planted in a movie seat watching this movie.

I love the whole changing bodies/minds/getting an older body with the same psyche movie genre which reached its nadir with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage (I still watch that thing when it comes on cable. I almost feel ashamed admitting that publicly.). It’s a great premise for a film if you’re watching as a twelve-year-old: what if you could be all grown up without having to go through the awkwardness of puberty, the heartache, the heartbreak, the parties, the growing up, the double teaming of twins after a torrid night of Jager shots in a seedy Mexican restaurant, etc.? If you’re watching as an adult, then, the movie becomes more about capturing something innocent about someone and just supplanting that into the body of a thirty-year-old body of someone who looks like, let’s say, Jennifer Garner. Add a little Mark Ruffalo into the mix as forlorn object of desire, put in a whole lot of mediocrity, bake with a little uninspired camera work and end, somehow, with someone learning a very good lesson about growing up. Am I wrong to suggest it can all be contained thusly?

The movie is directed by Gary Winick who garnered some attention for his work on TADPOLE, a wonderfully constructed movie about a young boy who thinks like a boy, looks like a boy, but has a thing for really older ladies. 13 GOING ON 30 is about a young girl who thinks like a girl, no longer looks like a girl, but who will have a thing for an older dude. I’m not knocking Winick at all, but there just seems to be a close, celestial simulacrum to both films. Obviously, this trailer has a lot more public attention than his other film had and with Jennifer on point for this operation it stands to reason there will be many a young girl, girlfriends, wives who will clamor to see this vehicle.

Also in this trailer you’ll catch Judy Greer who, if you don’t recognize the name, is playing the role of Jennifer’s best friend. Again, if you don’t immediately recognize the name or face and are having a bout of “don’t I know her?” is because she has also played the part of the best friend in WHAT WOMEN WANT and THE WEDDING PLANNER. It is also interesting to note that there are no less than four writers on this film. Two of them helped pen WHAT WOMEN WANT so take that for what it’s worth in information.

The rest of the trailer is a jumble of hilariousness ensuing as someone who, by all intents and purposes, is thirteen but who is allowed to mingle with the rest of adult society. I am wondering, judging by the romance between Ruffalo and Garner in the clips shown, if they’re gonna hook up like Hanks and Perkins did in BIG. I still have conflicting feelings about what that actually meant. Was it statutory rape? If Garner and Hanks still think like thirteen-year-olds is there some kind of sexual learning curve? I find it best to just leave it right there and let the rest of American women think it’s just sweet. The pseudo music video at the end just oozes all the possible estrogen it can muster, as it shows Mark smile lovingly, Jennifer and him swinging, and the two of them having “a moment.” The latter is the nail in the coffin for all the guys who think that they’ll get away without seeing this movie. Maybe it could actually be worth seeing. You can let me know after you get dragged to the multiplex.

GOOD BYE, LENIN! (2003)

Director: Wolfgang Becker
Cast: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Sass, Chulpan Khamatova, Maria Simon, Florian Lukas, Alexander Beyer, Burghart Klaussner, Franziska Troegner, Michael Gwisdek
Release: February 27, 2004
Synopsis: October, 1989 was a bad time to fall into a coma if you lived in East Germany – and this is precisely what happens to Alex’s proudly socialist mother. Alex has a big problem on his hands when she suddenly awakens eight months later. Her heart is so weak that any shock might kill her. And what could be more shocking than the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of capitalism in her beloved East Germany? To save his mother, Alex transforms the family apartment into an island of the past, a kind of socialist-era museum where his mother is lovingly duped into believing that nothing has changed. What begins as a little white lie turns into a major scam as Alex’s sister and selected neighbors are recruited to maintain the elaborate ruse – and keep her believing that Lenin really did win after all!

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Progonosis: Uberzeugt.

I was sitting in a theater last week, about to enjoy my yearly sojourn to see SPIKE AND MIKE’S SICK AND TWISTED FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION when I saw this trailer. I was a bit confused as to why they were showing it at an event where the main attraction is a series of short films that contain lewd, base, sophomoric, objectionable and, most times, hilarious material. Not withstanding the pot smoke, it was not really the target audience this film wants to try and reach. Since I am of the demeanor that if it looks good, I’m halfway interested, but I was surprised by how much I have been ruminating over this particular trailer.

First of all, it’s subtitled. Yes, there’s reading involved. Since it is a foreign film, and since not everyone in the world speaks English, I do understand that choosing a flick like this is a lot like choosing a book. You have to be really interested in the people, time period, or the material. I submit to you, then, that the idea behind this film, it’s execution and the way the movie presents itself is good enough reason to take a chance on this one.

The trailer sets up the premise quickly and gets right to the point: it’s East Germany prior to the Berlin wall coming down and a kid’s mom falls into a coma. She comes to many years later, the push of capitalism and marketing brands changing the face of life as everyone came to know it, only to have her physician tell the young boy that she is very weak and cannot handle the undue stress that comes with a weak heart. What does the son do? He makes everything as it was during communism. Everything. Of course wackiness abounds, and a short clip of the woman’s son trying to recreate news is cheeky, but there seems to be a real heart that comes through in the translation.

For those needing name recognition, Wolfgang Becker is the mastermind behind the classic Kinderspiele and Schmetterlinge to say nothing of his opus, Tatort – Blutwurstwalzer. No, I haven’t heard of any of these, but being in America gives us some lead time in figuring out if it’s worth a look by finding out what the rest of the world thought. Judging by the reviews that some folks across the pond thought, it would be well worth your foreign film dollar.

SHREK 2 (2004)

Director: Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, Conrad Vernon
Cast: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Antonio Banderas, Rupert Everett, Jennifer Saunders
Release: May 21, 2004
Synopsis: After battling a fire-breathing dragon and the evil Lord Farquaad to win the hand of Princess Fiona, Shrek now faces his greatest challenge: the in-laws. Shrek and Princess Fiona return from their honeymoon to find an invitation to visit Fiona’s parents, the King and Queen of the Kingdom of Far, Far Away. With Donkey along for the ride, the newlyweds set off. All of the citizens of Far, Far Away turn out to greet their returning Princess, and her parents happily anticipate the homecoming of their daughter and her new Prince. But no one could have prepared them for the sight of their new son-in-law, not to mention how much their little girl had…well…changed. Little did Shrek and Fiona know that their marriage had foiled all of her father’s plans for her future…and his own. Now the King must enlist the help of a powerful Fairy Godmother, the handsome Prince Charming and that famed ogre killer Puss In Boots to put right his version of “happily ever after.”

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Progonosis: Positive For the love of Christ, with no offense to Mel’s latest, can someone please explain to me why, in 2004, I still have to endure “All-Star” by SMASHMOUTH?

I’m sure they’re lovely people, living in wonderfully decorated mansions thanks to the royalties skimmed from this ditty, but could the people at DreamWorks have found some other song, “California Sun” by the RAMONES perhaps, that could work in their ad campaign for this film? Sigh. I am also aware of the obvious cries that this is an obvious cash-in on the success of the first, but TOY STORY 2 did well as a sequel and I actually have a feeling this one will do as well, if not better, than the first.

What I enjoyed from the first film was its sharp humor that was directed at Disney. There were some great pot shots taken against the Mouse House and they were spot-on. What made it enjoyable was that there was more wink-wink-nudge-nudge going on with the adults than most kid fare and, perhaps, made it the success it was when the first one was released. I am not sure what else is left in DreamWorks’ canon or cannon, but the additions of a few celebrity voices might help carry the sequel to box office gold. I’ll start with the minor players.

There’s Rupert Everett as Prince Charming. His entrance in the first part of the trailer is wonderful. It’s visually funny, with the shot of the Prince swishing his blonde locks back and forth in a slow-mo fashion, and Rupert has shown his bland comedic knack for mainstream comedy.

Next is the addition of Antonio Banderas as Puss-in-Boots. Again, it’s the blocking and the visual styles of the animation that make me actually want to see him more in this character. All Antonio does in this trailer is introduce the character and I’m already hooked on the part he’s playing; not bad for a man who starred in ECKS VS. SEVER.

After that we get the combo of John Cleese and Julie Andrews as Fiona’s parents. I really didn’t think much of the parts of her parents when the movie was in production but to hear, now, the characters come to life is wonderful. Julie Andrews, for most people, holds a special place and she is the most ideal woman to be the calm foil to John Cleese’s hotheaded character. It is ironic, if nothing else, that if you take a peek at Julie’s body of work in the last, oh say, five decades, she been heavily involved with Disney. Is a small piece of the larger Disney pot shots this film will take? It’s interesting to think about and maybe not so much of a coincidence. I am also of the mind that, if given enough time, John Cleese could make reading out of a dictionary humorous. His talents as a comedic professional stretch further than his stint on Monty Python and he is one of the best still working today. I am interested to see if he can do it all by voice alone and judging by his screen time in the trailer he does a great job presenting his persona through his inflections.

Without a doubt I will see this movie. I know there are animation purists who decry computer animation but times they are a-changin’ and I am more than happy to explore what can happen when you break the hegemony of what is traditional in this business. Again, I hope it’s not an empty cash-in. The first one was wonderfully constructed and can only wish that they realize what made the first one great and not attempt to pull a LION KING 1 ½.. It’s that kind of greed that deserves every barb that is cast against Disney.

Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2004)

Director: George Hickenlooper
Cast: Rodney Bingenheimer, David Bowie, Kim Fowley, Gwen Stefani, Cher, Beck, Alice Cooper, Liam Gallagher, Mick Jagger, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Paul McCartney, Joey Ramone, Phil Spector, Neil Young
Release: March 26, 2004
Synopsis: THE MAYOR OF SUNSET STRIP is a wildly entertaining ride through rock-and-roll history as seen through the eyes of one supremely distinct figure, Rodney Bingenheimer. Directed by acclaimed documentarian George Hickenlooper (HEARTS OF DARKNESS), the film examines the life of Los Angeles’ “Mayor of Sunset Strip.” Coming of age in LA in the 1960s, just as rock-and-roll was bursting onto the scene, Bingenheimer was obsessed with all things musical. Though not a successful musician himself, he nonetheless befriended rock’s elite. In the 1970s, he opened up his own club, Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, which played host to luminaries such as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Marc Bolan. It was in 1976, however, when Rodney found his true calling. On his weekly radio show on KROQ, Bingenheimer introduced several of popular music’s most celebrated voices to America–Blondie, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Smiths, and Coldplay. Hickenlooper incorporates interviews with Bingenheimer and an endless parade of musicians, as well as a nearly unbelievable scrapbook of photos, to show just how closely connected Rodney was to the scene. A fascinating portrait of rock-and-roll’s unsung hero, THE MAYOR OF SUNSET STRIP also makes poignant commentary on the bizarre nature of celebrity and the infatuation it breeds.

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Progonosis: Positive.

After seeing the ubiquitous KROQ logo as one of the first images present in this documentary on the life and times of Rodney Bingenheimer I was feeling a bit perturbed. That’s all you get for the first 15 or so seconds, that he is the best thing that has ever happened to KROQ.

I thought, for a moment, that this might have been propaganda by showcasing one of radio’s oldest shills for a conglomerated industry that now makes sure I hear the new Britney Spears single once every hour. I mean if I wanted to hear about a DJ’s life, I’ll call up my local “zoo crew” morning show in my local market and get an idea for how some live on ramen and free concerts. Then, the cribbing of images of the Sex Pistols, the Stones, Green Day and Joan Jett started to solidify the internal consternation that was starting to boil over. But all that only lasted for a few moments. Out of nowhere, a voice from God maybe, said that this man, Rodney Bingenheimer was responsible for spinning Blonde, Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Nirvana long before anyone.

I was intrigued.

This man was allowed into the inner workings of the Beatles, the Stones, and even the Monkees? On top of that, he was the man who scored some Elvis groupie poon? Just based on the latter, I am apt to give the man his due and listen hard to what’s being said. And it was just then when Rodney himself says that he is “the designated driver between the famous and the not-so-famous.” Some say he should be a huge mogul with the experience he’s seen. From what I can see, though, and what becomes apparent by watching the last third of the trailer, is the examination of how radio and culture and fame all coincided with one man who has seen it all develop. Here is a man who has hung out with old and new stars of the rock age yet seems, oddly, very meek and meager about it all.

I went from jaded to engaged while watching the trailer to this and am eager to seek this one out when it comes to the local art house. Anything that can do that deserves at least a closer look. I am not pleased about where radio has gone, with the destruction of ma and pa stations across America, but here is someone who could possibly give an insight to where rock went and when it might return to the free, commercial airwaves. Plus, who can resist looking at a man with such a hypnotic coif?

I HEART HUCKABEES (2004)

Director: David O. Russell
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts
Release: Sometime in 2004
Synopsis: Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences the meaning of which escapes him. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad Stand (Jude Law), an executive climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a popular chain of retail superstores. When Brad also hires the detectives, they dig deep into his seemingly perfect life and his relationship with his spokesmodel girlfriend, the voice of Huckabees, Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts). Albert pairs up with rebel firefighter Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg) to take matters into their own hands under the guidance of the Jaffes’ nemesis, the French radical Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert).

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Progonosis: Sold. Sometimes, just seeing a trailer like this re-energizes you.

With a cast, and crew, like this behind it there is no absolute way they can eff it up, right?

That’s the hope after seeing this and, one hopes, that the wheels don’t come off this H2 as it rolls down the Hollywood highway. There is a lot going for this film.

Naomi Watts is one of them.

She’s actually all of them, actually, when you see this trailer. I am reminded of a young Oliver who begged to have some more when I saw this thing again and again. To the ladies, I apologize, but feel free to wear out the bandwidth for the trailer for 13 GOING ON 30. To the dudes, this is all you. Consider it my version of equal time. I would like to point out to you as well, for reference sake, that you pay close attention to seconds 1, 8, 16 and 20. QuickTime will keep track for you.

After you’ve seen this one, and I would be remiss if I didn’t do my due diligence here, it is important to note that David O. Russell of THREE KINGS, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER and SPANKING THE MONKEY is the one responsible for directing this movie. It is also important to note, as well, that his was the co-pen that brought the script to life. Of many directors working today there are not many who can claim to have a fairly clean track record for films that never did completely suck. All of his other three movies are easily some of the best I’ve seen from a director that wasn’t a one hit wonder. With a lead time between two and five years between projects, a feat not unlike Wes Anderson, it’s good to see someone actually ruminate on a good idea for a film and let it marinate for a while before going full boar on it.

Kudos to David O. for cobbling together this trailer, a la RESIDENT EVIL and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND, by not showing the other players in this picture for public consumption. There is some heavy talent that could have easily been used in the promotion, and most likely there will be another one later that gives us the whole story, but, frankly, I could care less and am now going back to watch this thing just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVESBy Christopher Stipp

February 20, 2004

FIGHT THE POWER

The Hughes brothers, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Singleton, Mario Van Peebles, Kid ‘N Play, Damon Wayans, Ice-T, Laurence Fishburne, Nia Long, David Allan Grier, Martin Lawrence, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, and even the entire crew of Full Force.

My cinematic lexicon would have been a pale shade of pink had it not been for the accomplishments and generous gifts that these black actors, directors, and movie makers have given me. It’s easy to point out the megastars out of the bunch that went on to command millions and millions of dollars per picture. Some have even lost their comedic edge and swiftness they once had in lieu of the easy payday, but I don’t begrudge them one bit. I’ll call them out and make them pay for every petty piece of pap they try to pass as their next “artistic” project, but I would do the same damn thing. So would you.

I’ve always been a nerd when it comes to my copious consumption of all things PBS (except anything having to do with antiques, old homes, or anything directed by Ken Burns. Who has that kind of viewing time on their hands?) and it was my pleasure to catch a program called Beyond the Color Line. It dealt with a few topics about blacks in contemporary America, but it was their special on the issue of race in Hollywood that caught my attention. To make a very long program, and thesis, very short, Henry Louis Gates Jr., the host at the center of the series, posited that blacks who were more crème colored found much more success than those of darker skin tone. For example, in the realm of women, names like Halle Berry and Alicia Keyes were put up as evidence to support his theory and he suggested that perhaps there is a prejudice, not of a blatant nature, but more of a preferential system of discrimination whereas it’s better to get a woman of a lighter skin tone of perhaps lesser talent than to put a darker woman in an acting role.

Is he crazy? Is he right? Is there still an uphill battle to fight or are a handful of whiners crying over sour grapes that they didn’t win the big boobs and nice ass lottery and are now being given their twenty million a picture deal like everyone else? I would hate to think of where my thinking would be today had I not seen the graphic depiction of street violence in NEW JACK CITY, awed by the social commentary by John Singleton, and oh yeah, laughed at the sight of Gerard’s dad in BOOMERANG, which still holds a place in my top list of favorite comedies.

I know I’m not making twenty million every two weeks at my day job and so I wonder if this isn’t all something to do with economies of what will bring in the bucks and butts and has nothing to do with race. If a certain segment of the population could bring in $150M a picture, would that change Hollywood’s perceived bias against minorities? I believe Hollywood looks at what it can exploit, make for cheap and earn a profit on.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts if you have them. In the meantime, let me celebrate the last remaining moments of Black History Month with a few views into some upcoming movies. Yes, I realize The Rock was born in Hawaii but his dad does have African in him (I’m thorough in my research) and so I found a way for him to make my list this week. Besides, I like the fun factor the film has. And let’s give it up to Denzel who made my number one pick of the week with his new flick MAN ON FIRE. It’s sweet, looks gritty and, the best part, Dakota Fanning may bite it in the end. I’m so there.

WALKING TALL (2004)

Director: Kevin Bray
Cast: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Johnny Knoxville, Neal McDonough
Release: April 9, 2004
Synopsis: In Walking Tall, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Chris Vaughn, a retired soldier who returns to his hometown to make a new life for himself, only to discover his wealthy high school rival, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), has closed the once-prosperous lumber mill and turned the town’s resources towards his own criminal gains. The place Chris grew up is now overrun with crime, drugs, and violence. Enlisting the help of his old pal Ray Templeton (Johnny Knoxville), Chris gets elected sheriff and vows to shut down Hamilton’s operations. His actions endanger his family and threaten his own life, but Chris refuses to back down until his hometown once again feels like home.

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Progonosis: Oddly enough, positive.

There have been a few people who have tried to be “the next” bankable action hero. Steven Segal tried to do it for a while before he started to slip down a road paved with hot doughnuts and bad county/western music. Jean-Claude Van Damme gave it a go before he got involved in activities that weren’t unlike some of the bad asses he was ass kickin.’ Hell, even Fred Ward thought he could muster enough support to give REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS a go, but guess what, none have been able to sustain a fairly good mix of brawn and semi-tolerable voice talent. (I intentionally left out acting, because c’mon, we all know that’s not what they’re being paid for…)

Duane “Candy Ass” Johnson is looking good filling the shoes that the governor of California has vacated.

I know I’ve already dogged The Rock for his incredibly unwatchable THE SCORPION KING, but if I was thirteen again I might have found the combination of sword-fighting, fire arrows (that makes the third week in a row that I’ve given a nod to this cinematic staple) and Kelly Hu in a fairly small amount of clothing, enrapturing. So, with that said, and my surprising, very surprising, enjoyment of THE RUNDOWN (maybe it was the low expectations that helped) that has me possibly queuing up to see WALKING TALL.

It was actually a critic who said of the Rock’s performance in THE RUNDOWN that it was “a strictly formulaic action picture that suggests some of Mr. Schwarzenegger early, low-budget vehicles, like COMMANDO and RAW DEAL.”

No shit. How long did it take you to make that connection, Kreskin?

The Rock is early in his career as an action star, studios are not handing over their pocketbooks to him just yet and so he has to make do with what he has. And you have to admit he has something. Being a WWF wrassler, The Rock understands the meaning of being a showman and an entertainer. While I never once watched his exploits, I can see the charisma that compelled young boys to want to emulate the man. The trailer for WALKING TALL shows his ability to completely dominate a character, make it his own and make me believe what he’s sellin’. I genuinely hope if there was a race to replace Arnold’s vacuous void in action pictures it would be by a guy like Duane and not by someone like Vin. We all know the fix would be in on that.

Neal McDonough also makes an appearance in this thing. The man was solid in Boomtown, a great series, and did a memorable job in MINORITY REPORT. The rest of the cast, however, is not really that noteworthy.

You have Johnny Knoxville who, so far, has only convinced me he should have stuck with the program where people shoot bottle rockets out of their ass, a director who is responsible for unleashing a Whitney Houston video on the populace and a writer whose last project was CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE. There will be more needed here than just the people’s elbow.

JOHNSON FAMILY VACATION (2004)

Director: Christopher Erskin
Cast: Cedric The Entertainer, Bow Wow, Vanessa Williams, Steve Harvey, Solange Knowles
Release: April 7, 2004
Synopsis: AAA can’t help the roadside emergency that is the JOHNSON FAMILY VACATION. Even the onboard navigation system has a meltdown on Nate Johnson (Cedric The Entertainer) and his family’s cross-country trek to their annual family reunion/grudge match. Reluctantly along for the ride are Nate’s wife (Williams), who’s only in it for the kids; their rapper-wannabe son (Bow Wow); their teenage daughter (Solange Knowles) who’s fashioned herself as the next Lolita; and their youngest (Gabby Soleil), whose imaginary dog Nate just can’t seem to keep track of. Can the Johnsons survive each other and all the obstacles the road throws at them to make it to Caruthersville, Missouri? Can they find Missouri?

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Progonosis: Negative.

I’ll break this one down for all you out there.

One of the first jokes lobbed in this trailer is of Cedric telling his daughter he doesn’t like her skimpy outfit.

Déjà vu of the crap variety.

Most every lame, tired, played out, redundant, sucky, crappy, clichéd and altogether evil family sitcom has, at its core, the eternal struggle of parents thinking their little girls are virtually nude when leaving the house. Great. Super. Change your clothes. We get it. Is there nothing else left in the comedic canon?

Next we get the old battle of wills when it comes to rap music. Wow. The originality factor is getting better with each passing second.

There is a reprieve from the suffocation one suffers when watching this thing when Cedric slams a cop with a shake, a black one at that as it helps to deliver the joke later, and proceeds to call him a “chocolate C.H.i.P.”

That one actually made me giggle for a moment before I was dragged back into unbridled insipidness.

Old Cedric passes up a nun in need of a ride before stopping to assist a hitchhiking Shannon Elizabeth who, oddly enough, can you believe the irony, looks like the antipodal archetype of a nun. This ranks right up there with a car chase that invariably ends up with some assholes who just happen to be carrying a 30-foot piece of glass in the middle of an intersection. It doesn’t help that it is at this point when we are reminded that Bow Wow (For those still using L’il please stop because he is growing as an entertainer and is trying very hard to shed that image. Thank you for your diligence in this matter.) and Beyonce’s sister, Solange, are in this production as well.

Obviously it does not look good up until this point. However, it does show some signs of life.

Steve Harvey shows up on the scene, thank god, and saves this from being a miserable failure of a trailer. I would want to see this film simply based on the snippet of action between Harvey and Cedric. The trailer seems to not know who this film wants to sell itself to. Families? Adults? Kids? All of the above? If it is the latter then this trailer does a miserable job of selling itself. From what I can tell so far this movie only wants to get in good with the comedically challenged.

BEAUTY SHOP (2004)

Director: Kate Lanier
Cast: Queen Latifah
Release: November 24, 2004
Synopsis: You thought you’d heard it all in the barbershop, but you haven’t heard anything yet – the women get their own chance to shampoo, shine, and speak their minds in BEAUTY SHOP. From the filmmakers that brought you BARBERSHOP and BARBERSHOP 2, Queen Latifah stars as Gina, a hairstylist who opens a shop of her own.

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Progonosis: What do you think? Ok. I’m a good sport. I’ll play along.

Here’s a trailer ready to pimp the new film BEAUTY SHOP. I’ve got an open mind and, as such, I watched with great care and attention. I looked at the nuances of camera technique, lighting, style, et al. I watched as I suspended my disbelief so I could understand the director’s point of view.

After it was over I asked myself what the hell did I just watch?

As an explanation for what happens when ladies get together in a salon, it’s super. Based on her work in this trailer Queen Latifah would do a great job shilling for Great Clips if they needed a spokesperson to give a detailed breakdown of the goings on in a hair cuttery in a playful, yet serious, manner. I almost wondered if she was going to tell me about premature female alopecia. She wasn’t. She’s trying to sell me on wanting to see BEAUTY SHOP.

For those keeping score, yes, it is being written by the same guy who penned BARBERSHOP, BARBERSHOP 2, and BARBERSHOP 3: ATTACK OF THE CLONES.

After figuring out that this film has yet to even shoot a foot of film makes we wonder what exactly, then, is the point? Is to whet an appetite for those that want more Latifah after seeing Barbershop? Most likely. Does it do a good job showing me its titular character? Yes. It still does not forgive it for being a dreadful trailer. Hell, when the trailer starting running for LAST ACTION HERO miles before the film debuted to the scorn of people everywhere, it was selling a film I wanted to see. There was commotion, cops, a little bit of uncertainty, but it was attractive. It was sexy and it sold me to want to see more.

Queen Latifah walking around telling me about how a beauty shop works wouldn’t even get my wife interested, much less get me thinking, “oh yeah. Can I sit for an hour and a half and listen to a pack of cackling yentas prattle on how men suck and all they really want out of life is….” You all get the point.

NEVER DIE ALONE (2004)

Director: Ernest Dickerson
Cast: DMX, David Arquette, Michael Ealy, Reagan Preston-Gomez
Release: March 26, 2004
Synopsis: Based on cult novelist Donald Goines’ novel of the same name, NEVER DIE ALONE is a richly literate film noir about King David (DMX), a hard-boiled, stylish criminal who returns to his hometown seeking redemption but finding only violent death. But he did not die alone…King David’s final moments are spent with Paul (David Arquette) an aspiring journalist who knew him just a few minutes but upon whose life he would forever have an impact. King David – half preacher, half Satan, and all street smarts – had recorded the story of his recent exploits on audiotape, leaving behind an often-poetic sermon on villainy and its consequences. The tapes reveal that the cycle of violence and retribution his actions have spawned has come back on him full circle, as he suspected it might all along…

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Progonosis: Could go either way.

This movie does itself a slight disservice by the way it sells itself.

What you have here, initially, is a whole of DMX and then some more DMX. Just when you thought this movie was only about him, his voice comes in and starts to sing the music that goes along with the trailer. This is, perhaps, a mild annoyance when trying to sell a movie that, obviously, has other people who show up to help carry it along. David Arquette is also in this, but you wouldn’t know that by watching DMX looking “all street” as he scowls and looks tough for the camera and as he does the voiceover that sets up where this movie is going. Ok, I get it, you’re a tough badass and don’t crap from anyone. Thanks, now can we get to someone else?

What really makes me interested, though, is the work I’ve had to do AFTER I watched this. It would have received a completely negative review had I not seen the adulation that the source material has been given.

The premise is a very good one: a real bad dude records his exploits on an audiotape, telling us how the wheel of life was somehow going to catch up with his violent past. Now that’s a movie I want to see. That is not the movie I was shown. Judging by the trailer all I see is people blasting their guns, bee-yatches in scintillating poses (not that it’s a bad thing), and, again, a whole lot of DMX. This film doesn’t do much to separate itself from the likes of EMPIRE, EXIT WOUNDS, and on and on down the line.

I guess it does cut out the one thing that might be confusing to most of the male demographic this appeals to, the story, and amplifies the periphery of what actually happens between the opening and ending credits, but I can’t help but feel there is something else they could have done to accentuate that there might actually be a story hidden inside the film.

MAN ON FIRE (2004)

Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Giannini, Radha Mitchell, Marc Anthony, Rachel Ticotin, Mickey Rourke
Release: April 23, 2004
Synopsis: Denzel Washington stars as a government operative / soldier of fortune, who has pretty much given up on life. In Mexico City, he reluctantly agrees to take a job to protect a child (Dakota Fanning) whose parents are threatened by a wave of kidnappings. He eventually becomes close to the child and their relationship reawakens and rekindles his spirit. When she is abducted, his fiery rage is unleashed on those he feels responsible, and he stops at nothing to save her.

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Progonosis: Positive.

Boom.

Right away this mo-fo gets started quickly and that’s a good thing. Denzel looks scruffy, disheveled, and predatory. This, as well, is a good thing. Then, well, there’s Dakota Fanning. Look, I’m sorry I don’t appreciate this diminutively small chica, but she is, if you ever had the displeasure of having to endure UPTOWN GIRLS, not very appealing as a little girl as let’s say, a Natalie Portman or an Anna Paquin who have gone on to do some really commendable work. That aside, and seeing how this is a kidnapping movie where Denzel needs some redemptive saving in his life, it is my guess that we won’t see Dakota donning a Columbian necktie.

Tony Scott is the director that will be brining this grittily shot film to the multiplex and that couldn’t be more pleasurable. While his last theatrical was the very good, but quietly received SPY GAME, he also did some recent noteworthy work on the BMW film series, HIRE. The writer of this movie is Brian Helgeland. Yeah, I didn’t know who this dude was either until I checked his work and found he was responsible for giving us L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, MYSTIC RIVER, CONSPIRACY THEORY, and even such classics as NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER, 976-EVIL, and HIGHWAY TO HELL. Luckily all the latter films were before he found success outside of the horror genre and went on to win an Oscar for his work on L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Point of fact, he won both an Oscar for L.A. and a Razzie for THE POSTMAN in the same weekend and was one of only a few people who actually accepted the award publicly. The way the trailer sets the story up in MAN ON FIRE it has the earmarks of some very engaging material.

I wish there were more Denzel out there to really talk about. He has kept himself moderately busy lately, and he’s an actor who elevates every production he’s on to another level. Do I think he should have won an Oscar for TRAINING DAY? No, but he made me believe that he is capable of some very evil, dark and sinister things. Not many actors can play both sides of the bad guy/good guy fence but he does it with surgical, to lift a word from the film, precision. So, in him playing a man ready to wetwork any group of people getting in the way of his goal, the safe rescue of Dakota to her family, is a great role to be playing because, judging by the trailer, he has great support and will be able to flex some of that Denzel charm while getting King Kong on some kidnappers.

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVESBy Christopher Stipp

February 13, 2004

HELLACIOUS MUSINGS

What a lame week.

There hasn’t been much to coo about in the trailer world lately. I have to assume that studios are getting their ammunition together for the summer season and are willy nilly tossing their junk heaps in front of us in January and February before slamming us with their marketing pop-ups and relentless TV ads come Spring.

Speaking of Spring, I have to ask a question: is HELLBOY the second coming of Christ? I have seen the trailer, thought it was good, and most likely, if I get the chance, will probably see it. I’ve read on some other sites (where set visits, behind the scenes access, and exclusive interviews were given) where some are saying this will be the penultimate moviegoing experience and we all should bow down to Guillermo del Toro for blessing us with this cinematic gift. I agree that his work on BLADE II was great and that THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE was ferociously wonderful. However, what is the aim of people given preferential treatment as a movie is being made? Does it cloud one’s objectivity? What is the aim of letting individuals, people with large mouthpieces, even on the set in the first place? Kindness? Love? Hmm.

I look forward to seeing a new trailer for the film in the hopes it gives me something fresh to look at while trying to ignore the deafening din of people barking in my ear that I absolutely, positively, without compunction or hesitation, need to see HELLBOY. It is, after all, a film and there is only so much hyperbole one can attach to describing Selma Blair, Ron Perlman et al. I hope the talk simmers down, but hey, what do I know? I just review advertisements. I would tell you all what the effect any massive hype campaign does to a film, but you already know what can happen to those who buy into it and believe in it fervently.

Let me jump on this Harley hog of an article this week and give thanks to those in Touchstone who hath given us Viggo and his horse. HIDALGO should command your every ounce of attention this week as I do proclaimeth it as the trailer of the week.

SCOOBY-DOO 2 (2004)

Director: Raja Gosnell
Cast: Freddie Prinze, Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Seth Green, Alicia Silverstone, Peter Boyle, Tim Blake Nelson
Release: March 26, 2004
Synopsis: In Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Scooby and the gang lose their cool ““ and their stellar reputation ““ when an anonymous masked villain wreaks mayhem on the city of Coolsville with a monster machine that re-creates classic Mystery Inc. foes like The Pterodactyl Ghost, The Black Knight and The 10,000 Volt Ghost. Under pressure from relentless reporter Heather Jasper-Howe (Alicia Silverstone) and the terrified citizens of Coolsville, the gang launches an investigation into the mysterious monster outbreak that leaves Shaggy and Scooby questioning their roles in Mystery Inc. The ever-ravenous duo, determined to prove they’re great detectives, don a series of far-out disguises in their search for clues. Meanwhile, brainy Velma (Linda Cardellini) becomes smitten with a key suspect, Coolsville Museum curator Patrick Wisely (Seth Green), as macho leader Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and image-conscious Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar) attempt to determine the identity of the Evil Masked Figure who is unleashing the monsters in an attempt to take over Coolsville.

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Progonosis: Negative.Did anyone here actually pay to see this pile almost two years ago?

The only reason why I am giving this only one middle-finger down instead of two is that this trailer isn’t trying to appeal to me. I think. I’m still on the fence trying to figure out if it’s trying to start something with my wallet or not. What you get here is the “teenage” trifecta of Prinze, Gellar, and Lillard who are back again to try and infuse a little post-pubescent pizzazz into the old cartoon favorite. Instead of bagging on it for the obvious jabs one could take at it, I’ll break the trailer down so you know I’m being negative for an honest reason.

In the first few seconds after the trailer’s beginning we get a fart gag. Hell, even I love a good fart gag, but a fart gag that may or may not be from the best-looking girl (It really does come down to whether you’re a Betty or Veronica kind of hornball) of the movie? Ok. I’ll let it slide.

Next, we get the set up of the “story.” Shaggy, and I do give props to Lillard who does a wicked channeling of Casey Kasem’s least annoying vocal talent, and Scooby are essentially blamed for wrecking Mystery Inc.’s reputation. Come now, even the kid who asks me if he can supersize my fries knows that by the end of this kid flick everything will be great, all will be right with the universe, and the throngs of uber nerds will be lining up, en masse, just to get a new look at their unemployed Buffy.

Then, after the story is fairly much revealed and given up like a prom night tryst, there’s not much more to do other than presenting the players and giving individual screen time for each.

I did some research, yes, as demanding as it was, and I checked out the trailer that ran for the first one. I failed miserably at compare and contrast exams in high school and so this makes me feel like I’m vindicating my past. I found out that both trailers follow the same formula. It’s the same right down to its bodily function opening, the interspersed cut scenes of every character in-situ from the first one to the Scooby disguise clips at the end.

What then, does this say about the people making this film?

Yes, obviously they are looking to do a cut-and-paste of the very same thing that made them over a hundred and fifty million for the first one. I wanted to make a comparison of another film I loved only to have it earn less than the first installment of this thing, but that would have been an unfair jab.

This trailer sucks for its uninspired and unimaginative manipulation. Honesty is always better.

EUROTRIP (2004)

Director: Jeff Schaffer
Cast: Scott Mechlowicz, Jessica Boehrs, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester
Release: February 20, 2004
Synopsis: Have you ever pressed “Send” on an email and immediately wished you could get it back? Scotty Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) and his Berlin-based computer pen pal Mieke (Jessica Boehrs) have been writing each other for years, sharing every detail of their lives. When Mieke makes a cyber pass at Scotty, he completely freaks out, thinking that this guy he’s known for years is coming on to him”¦in German no less. Too bad the the one detail Scotty doesn’t seem to know is that, in Germany, Mieke is a girl’s name. By the time Scotty figures out that Mieke is a girl, and a hot one at that, Mieke has cut off her email account and all contact with him. Thinking that this might be his one chance at true love – even though he’s never actually met the girl – Scotty and his best friends, Cooper (Jacob Pitts) and the twins Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Jamie (Travis Wester), embark on a raucous trip across Europe headed for Berlin.

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Progonosis: Negative. I just couldn’t let this one slide.

I tried to ignore it, fight it, but I just can’t keep quiet.

The number one reason why this trailer is a failure at every possible turn is that everything presented gives the outcome to nearly every single gag.

My case against this trailer trash can be broken down as quick and frenetic as the cut scenes slapped together in it: one of the kids hates mimes in so he kicks him in the nuts. One kid thinks he’s going to get sex in Amsterdam only to find out he’s going to be beaten in an S/M club. The pack of them try absinthe, only to tell the audience that it’s banned in America for the wacky and zany things it drives people to do, and then shows the brother/sister twin making out with each other. We then see the boys of the film go to a nude beach without their clothes on only to find other boys without their clothes on. Then you see, well, you can see for yourself.

If you figure out how many different places they are going in this film, add up the number of revealed gags in this trailer, add in the amount of time needed for a good set up of each gag, and divide by the number of possible good gags that possibly weren’t shown because they were way too funny to tease you with, you should end up with all the reasons why you should wait to see this thing on video. While stoned. Or drunk. Or with the sound off (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

MINDHUNTERS (2004)

Director: Renny Harlin
Cast: Christian Slater, Val Kilmer, LL Cool J, Kathryn Morris, Jonny Lee Miller, Patricia Velasquez, Will Kemp
Release: June 4, 2004
Synopsis: Hiding inside a group of eight young FBI profilers learning to hunt serial killers is a killer attempting to hunt them. As one by one the agents begin to disappear, none can be trusted. Each one is under suspicion. And they are all in mortal danger until, in the ultimate test of their crime-solving skills, they uncover the mysterious predator lurking in their midst. MINDHUNTERS turns the serial killer thriller inside out by concealing the ultimate evil deep within the ranks of the good guys.

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Progonosis: Hemming and Hawing. Hmm. That’s about as much as I can give.

What is this exactly supposed to be: a genetic freak spawned from the best spliced farm scenes from THE RECRUIT, some of the best good-looking law enforcement support from the likes of S.W.A.T., and tossed in a blender with an actually interesting story being the blades that mixes it all together.

It all feels tangled somehow.

I’m not sure how I should feel about LL. Really. His movie career has had him in some fairly solid flops. ROLLERBALL was a genuinely crap film as was DELIVER US FROM EVA. However, he has a genuine charisma. I don’t know, though, if I’m sold on him as an actor. I feel like I’m always waiting for him to start busting out a dope rhyme while greased hoochies rub his pecs.

Val Kilmer. This makes the second trailer I’ve reviewed for him and he’s looking really good here. He’s done some really good work lately from WONDERLAND to THE SALTON SEA and, if you look at the amount of work he’s done in his career, 2004 will see the biggest output of film projects he’s ever done. He’s showing some good promise of having a stellar year.

Christian Slater. I know it’s cool to say TRUE ROMANCE or HEATHERS saw him hit his cinematic peak, but his role in KUFFS cannot be overlooked. The kid has been around a long time, some would say he is at his nadir, but he has shown great range as an actor. That’s why I am hoping he does some of what made him good in MINDHUNTERS. There are shimmers and slivers of being able to shine in the trailer, and so I hope he just doesn’t sleepwalk through this one.

As for Kathryn Morris, is she just on loan from COLD CASE? I am tired of seeing her mug for every promo that runs with a CBS program and I hope this isn’t a case of overexposure.

The main plot points are well laid out and, not counting the first third of the thing, the trailer really makes me want to see this thing. I take umbrage, though, with the first few moments that are shown in the trailer. Everyone just looks so, damn, pretty. They’re laughing, cavorting, having a smashing time being FBI actors, and then LL shows up and oozes, like a swollen pimple that needs to be popped, an obnoxious air of how-cool-am-I into the thing that I really find off-putting. It’s the nadir of the trailer, though, and once I shrugged that off like a shaggy dog after a bath, it’s nothing but the good stuff.

It’s a mixed bag for me, still, and the fact that Renny Harlin’s last directorial effort was 2001’s DRIVEN doesn’t make me feel any better. If ever there was a man who needed a miracle to stay employed just look at where Gore Verbinski ended last year and then realize that it can happen even in Hollywood.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (2004)

Director: Frank Coraci
Cast: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cécile De France, Jim Broadbent, Kathy Bates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Cleese, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Johnny Knoxville, Ian McNeice, Rob Schneider, Mark Addy, Ewen Bremner, Marsha Yuen, Maggie Q, Sammo Hung, Mars, Karen Mok, Daniel Wu
Release: June 16, 2004
Synopsis: Based on the novel by Jules Verne, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS begins with Passepartout (Chan), an adventurer, trying to make it to China to restore a sacred object stolen from his village. He’s joined by Phileas Fogg (Coogan), who puts his rep as an inventor on the line to provide the transport. Bent on stopping them is Lord Kelvin (Broadbent), head of the Royal Academy of Science, who’ll lose his fortune if the duo circles the globe in that 80-day period.

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Progonosis: Family Approved. It gets hard to find good movies you can take the family to go see that doesn’t completely suck for the adults who have to see it.

What this movie is shaping up to be is one long cameo from nearly almost anyone in Hollywood who wasn’t really working around the time this thing was shooting and had a free day to “kick it” on set for a few lines. What you see with Chan is what you get, and, lately, that hasn’t been much. From the dismal MEDALLION to the awful TUXEDO with Jennifer “I need a sandwich” Love “No really, I need one. I look embarrassingly emaciated on a big, silver screen” Hewitt, Chan has been fairly hit and miss. SHANGAHI KNIGHTS was a welcome diversion and one hopes he can resurrect some of that juice and avoid being simply average in this film.

The trailer does a great job in establishing the premise, much to the benefit to any grade school kid looking to get out of reading the Jules Verne classic and get busted for doing so (Kid Tip Of The Day: remember to excise any mention of Arnold Schwarzenegger from any reports as a result of the viewing), and gives enough eye candy to draw you in further into wondering where this flick is going to lead. Obviously, if you read the book, you know where this all going but some of us bibliophiles who have yet to read everything mankind has produced are still unsure of the zany or wacky antics that await the Mouse House’s “creative liberties” they take with the source material.

What is very interesting to note, apart from Sugar Ray’s “Fly” which is placed at the end of the trailer either not so surreptitiously or like a cold cock to the nether regions, you decide which, is the lack of cameo whoring. Apart from the draw of Schwarzenegger’s bit role that’s on screen for a few seconds, there is no indication of the star power contained in this Disney film. You have the brothers Wilson, John Cleese, Kathy Bates, Rob Schneider and even an appearance by Macy Gray (I know, the latter two aren’t really a draw for most of us, but to some segment of the population they are worth a couple dozen dollars at the box office), but there is nothing that would lead you to believe they are even in the film. Color me surprised.

It all looks like relatively safe fare for the fam (a thankful object of desire with most parents nowadays) and I would be very interested to know, when they do cut another trailer, whether it still holds the same promise for a fun matinee with a first date or some ankle biting rugrats.

HILDAGO (2004)

Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, Zuleikha Robinson, Louise Lombard, Said
Release: March 5, 2004
Synopsis: Based on the true story of the greatest long-distance horse race ever run, “Hidalgo” is an epic action-adventure and one man’s journey of personal redemption. Held yearly for centuries, the Ocean of Fire – a 3,000 mile survival race across the Arabian Desert – was a challenge restricted to the finest Arabian horses ever bred, the purest and noblest lines, owned by the greatest royal families. In 1890, a wealthy Sheik invited an American and his horse to enter the race for the first time. Frank T. Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) was a cowboy and dispatch rider for the US cavalry who had once been billed as the greatest rider the West had ever known. The Sheik (Omar Sharif) would put this claim to the test, pitting the American cowboy and his mustang, Hidalgo, against the world’s greatest Arabian horses and Bedouin riders – some of whom were determined to prevent the foreigner from finishing the race. For Frank, the Ocean of Fire becomes not only a matter of pride and honor, but a race for his very survival as he and his horse, Hidalgo, attempt the impossible.

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Progonosis: Positive. Another movie about a horse?

That was the first thing I thought of before seeing this trailer. When I saw posters for this film immediately images of a Kevin Costner-esque epic about the old west with six-shooters, Indians, dirty hair, and wide, sweeping CinemaScope shots of lush landscapes depicting a completely fabricated and false image of life “back then” filled my subconscious.

It’s not.

I love it when I’m mistaken because it forces me to stand up and pay attention to what’s really happening with the film.

The trailer starts off fairly innocuous. The trailer on Yahoo! has an annoying prat tell us that Viggo and his steed were long distance racers and have never lost a race. Ho-hum. Whoopdee-Farkin-Doo. After that, to those of us in the audience who can read, it says that Team Equine fell out of favor from the American consciousness (probably too busy raping and pillaging the ol’ west to care much about a man and his horse), forced to be a sideshow act, but were given the opportunity to race 3000 miles (no, not to Graceland) across the Arabian desert. Side note: the trailer through Apple did a much better job at creating less initial hostility with me.

At this point, I’m curious about what is happening. At the very least the trailer gets me out of the country and onto foreign soil. From there, the story’s set-up is put in motion, making it clear what Viggo’s objective is and of the risks involved, before descending into quick clips (hey, there’s swords! Lookee, there’s chicks! Whoo-hoo, a sandstorm! Everyone loves a good sandstorm! Is that a Tiger? Fire arrows! Guns!) that collectively give something to everyone afflicted with ADD something to munch on.

Viggo could have pretty much rested on his collective nerd worship for as long as he liked, but it’s great to see him go on with his film career. Before LORD OF THE RINGS I only knew him as Master Chief John James from G.I. JANE (Shut up. It was watchable.) and HIDALGO only looks to further secure his place as a bankable commodity in the marketplace. There really isn’t anything else he’s slated to be in this year and, simply based on his performance in LOTR, this will be the only opportunity for a while to see if he can channel that same charisma riding a horse in the desert as he did riding a horse through Mordor.

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVESBy Christopher Stipp

February 6, 2004

STALE, FLAT AND WITH NO HEAD

I was all set to regale the splendor that was the Super Bowl and the trailers they put on display. For quite some time I was plotting and planning a Super Bowl edition of this column just to make room for all the additions. While some of you used your TiVo remotes like a furious thirteen-year-old trying to determine that yes, see, right there, it was Janet’s breast in full bloom, I was using mine to confirm that I had been ripped off this year. There were no new spots for SPIDER-MAN 2, nothing that might give a glimpse into I, ROBOT, (which you all should check out solely for its faux Web site. A marketing campaign not unlike A.I.), not even so much as a pity nugget showcasing THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

Of all the offerings this time around, though, only HILDALGO looked a fresh face among the tattered trailers that I, and the public, had already seen before. Out of seven trailers that ran during the game, Disney was responsible for four of them. Four. Where was my senseless violence, my crazily edited suite of unrelated scenes of an action flick? Where were the campaigns obviously designed to completely lie to me about what movies I should see this summer? Nowhere to be found, that’s where. It was the first time I used the word aghast to describe how I felt.

But, I am not going to let it get me down. I’m not going to turn my ire against anyone who should have known better and ponied up the cash to whore their summer blockbusters.

I’ll let you do it.

Were any of you disappointed by the fare that was given or were you happy with the warm plate of mediocrity that was served up? Were there any trailers you were expecting to see and had your hopes dashed by the cold reality of a talking donkey? Well, the donkey was a little funny, though, to be fair.

On an unrelated tip, I’d like your suggestions for trailers. Do I seem to be following a pattern of which trailers get some action? Would you like more artistic stuff? Foreign flicks? Is everything floating here on a nice Xanax cushion of delight? I may not use your idea, and may even ridicule you publicly for your obvious lack of taste in cinema, but you are the ones who read this thing. I know what I like, as you can see by this week’s varied selections, but I always enjoy hearing from you. And, as a compliment to everyone who has taken the time to scribble something out to me, kudos to most of you who seem to have an exemplarily grasp of the English language. It’s always refreshing to read a letter and not have to be Indiana Jones to decipher its meaning.

With that, let’s kick this week into nitrous overdrive and then give praise for this week’s clip of the week, DOGVILLE. It’s an odd choice, yes, but wholly deserved if you understand why I chose it. So, grab some truck stop speed and get reading.

THE VILLAGE (2004)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Howard, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, Judy Greer, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Pitt
Release: July 30, 2004
Synopsis: Set in rural Pennsylvania in 1897, this is the story of the small village of Covington, with only a population of 60, surrounded by woods inhabited by a race of “mythical creatures,” and the romance that blossoms between Kitty(Greer), the daughter of the town’s leader(Hurt), and Lucius (Phoenix), a young man. However the village becomes threatened when Lucius questions the policy of keeping Covington’s citizens completely confined to the village.

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Progonosis: Positive. There is something about M. Knight’s oeuvre of films that some people just don’t like.

Whether it’s because they allowed Bruce Willis to keep making films in Hollywood or because M. Knight’s took the thriller genre and gave it some new life, there are those that flippantly disregard his work as manipulative, slow, derivative, predictable, or that they downright “suck ass.” It would be mistake to make those assert those views, however.

M. Knight knows how to craft good film. I genuinely realize, and can say without feeling like a complete “˜tard, that I didn’t see the endings coming for either THE SIXTH SENSE, SIGNS, or, the comic book film in disguise, UNBREAKABLE. The risks he takes and the people he uses to help him create a mood, whether visually or sonically, have all done him a great service.

With the trailer here for THE VILLAGE, M. Knight is up to what he does best: creating an unbelievably odd situation, throwing unwitting, humanistic individuals at it, and see what becomes of it all. The shots that are shown here have weight. By that I mean there is a deliberate establishment of place and pace. It’s slow to reveal what’s happening here, but it’s doing what it is supposed to do. However, all that you get to see for any good deal of time in this thing is Joaquin.

I really wasn’t a fan of Joaquin when he first started to make films. He has that really really odd lip thing going on, looks like a Rumplemintz shot away from ending his own life and carries a very odd vibe about his person. With SIGNS, however, he was a genuinely empathetic brother to Mel Gibson and made me believe he has some talent. He was almost playing the same character in every film he was in, but SIGNS changed that rose colored view permanently for me.

With this trailer M. Night relegates Joaquin to the last literal seconds of this thing and that confounds me. With a supporting cast that boasts a couple of winners for those little, golden eunuch awards there is nary a frame of film to prove that Brody, Weaver or Hurt even exist in THE VILLAGE. Obviously, their absence was no accident, but with a few people already, publicly, giving the screenplay bad word of mouth, most commenting on its predictability, it is indeed a strange and curious thing to wonder what will coming next.

GODSEND (2004)

Director: Nick Hamm
Cast: Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert De Niro
Release: April 30, 2004
Synopsis: After their young son, Adam (Bright), is killed in an accident, a couple (Kinnear, Romijn-Stamos) approach an expert (De Niro) in stem cell research about bringing him back to life through an experimental and illegal cloning and regeneration process. When Adam comes back to them, however, he’s”¦different.

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Progonosis: Sa-Weet. This has elements of DAMIEN, THE EXORCIST, PROBLEM CHILD, and WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S written all over this mutha.

Here’s the set up: Greggie Kinnear tapped that fine wife lady of his, Rebecca Romijn, and squeezed out a fresh and jolly ankle biter. Well, after the thing could walk on his own, they let him roam in the mean streets of the city. Of course, whenever you see a little boy walking by himself in a movie he will be kidnapped, crushed or allegedly picked up by a member of Michael Jackson’s entourage. Funnily enough, he’s hit by a car flying off a ramp of dirt which seems cinematically, if not oddly, well-placed for a direct hit. (I’m kind of disappointed they didn’t show that a la CLASS OF NUKE “˜EM HIGH). Well, after the accident they’re all bummin’ that they suck as parental figures and in walks Robert De Niro, a geneticist, who claims he can recreate their little boy right down to the pubes he didn’t yet have. They, of course, dost protest too little, say “what the hell” and do it anyway. Not literally, unfortunately, as Rebecca is impregnated with the fertilized genetic freak and, yea, it is good. That is until, da da dum, the boy starts to have wicked nightmares and starts to get freakier than a Girls Gone Wild lesbo cut scene. The Jeff Spicolli in all of us should say at this point, “Awesome. Totally awesome.”

In all seriousness, now, Robet De Niro needed to do something like this since his disgraceful “attempt” to once again channel his comedic shtick in ANALYZE THAT. He’s simply great at dramatic roles, when the writing doesn’t completely suck, and he shows those same flickers of hope he had when he did really well in, well, um, RONIN back in 1998. I am not even going to publicly state he needed a hit because Hollywood will allow him to work on whatever the hell he wants, whenever the hell he wants from now until he dies. Even then I am sure they will make something where it requires someone to be billed as Corpse #1.

Something else worth noting here is Greg Kinnear. He could easily be looked over by everyone else in America as that “dude who played a homo” in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, but man oozes a lo-fi energy that has brought most all of the other films he has done to a better level. From the wonderful AUTO FOCUS to NURSE BETTY this man is a quiet killer. Yes, I am excluding those hunks of bird crap SABRINA and DEAR GOD from the list as I believe it should be against the Geneva Convention to show those to anyone who isn’t allowed to immediately leave a room when it plays.

Rebecca Romjin is supa fine and that’s all you need really need to know about her.

This trailer presents all its major actors front and center, good, presents the storyline quickly, good, sets up the dramatic action, good, and doesn’t give away the effin’ ending, even better. Hopefully the fact that Nick Hamm hasn’t really directed anything this big should mean a thing, nor that the writer of this bad boy is being credited as being the powered pen who is bringing DIE HARD 4 to our silver screen. Sigh. MEETING THE FOCKERS starts filming this year, right?

INTERMISSION (2003)

Director: John Crowley
Cast: Colin Farrell, Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald, Colm Meaney, Cillian Murphy
Release: March 19, 2004
Synopsis: INTERMISSION is an urban love story about people adrift and their convoluted journeys in the search for some kind of love. When the desperately insecure and emotionally inarticulate John (Murphy) breaks up with Deirdre (Macdonald) to ‘give her a little test’ his plan backfires leaving her broken-hearted and him alone and miserable. Through chance and coincidence, their break-up triggers a roller coaster ride of interweaving escapades in the lives of everyone around them. Intermission presents a slice of life, the passage between breaking up and making up, exploring how our lives intersect, and the power we all possess to affect the lives of those around us.

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Progonosis: Positive. I’m Irish.

I love most things about Ireland: soda bread, claddagh rings, Dublin, Irish accents on freckled lasses, watching twelve year-olds staggering around city streets drunk after watching their team win a World Cup match in South Korea at ten in the fookin’ morning, and Guinness.

Colin Farrell is not something about Ireland I care much about.

I’ll go the distance with every Colin playa hata that reads this and will bag on his every career misstep, state the fact that he has been given plum roles to choose from and pisses most opportunities away like last night’s drunken bender, or pick on him because most believe he’ll be forgotten in ten years. It would be easy to do that. Saying he looks fairly amusing as a goon on a mission towards self-destruction and violent behavior is difficult because of the stigma around Colin, but it’s well deserved

INTERMISSION, however, looks like it may be a better pill to swallow. Starring folks from across the pond who have starred in 28 DAYS LATER, TRAINSPOTTING, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, WONDERLAND, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING and with Colm Meaney, a man who has kept himself busy with some sort of notable project nearly every single year since the early 90’s, this looks like the kind of import that you can get exited over while waiting, impatiently, for Weinstein and the rest of Miramax to get off their dead hands and asses and put out the most triumphant HERO and wicked looking SHALOLIN SOCCER sometime before the end of the decade. There I go digressing and using run-on sentences again.

There are multiple storylines crisscrossing in this trailer, if you can keep up with the brogue that’s being warbled out at an alarming clip, but it all “feels” very inviting even with Farrell at the film’s center. There’s a dash of romance, male-to-male fisticuffs, lots of running away from the coppers, a girl being made fun of for her thick man-stache, and a comedic snippet at the end showcasing the old car-on-a-fulcrum-leaning-over-a-ledge bit that’s always a crowd pleaser to those silly Europeans.

On both sides of the Atlantic there are comedies made that are worthy to be released onto an unwitting foreign populace and do well wherever they play, east or west. Sometimes we only get the best of what’s being produced and, while that can be annoying to some of us who would like a greater idea of what else is out there, small films like this look like the kind of fare that should be actively sought out. Even if it does have Colin Farrell in it.

KING ARTHUR (2004)

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast: Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Stephen Dillane, Hugh Dancy, Ioan Gruffudd, Stellan Skarsgaard, Ray Winstone, Valeria Cavalli, Charlie Creed-Miles, Joel Edgerton, Sean Gilder, Pat Kinevane, Ivano Marescotti, Mads Mikkelsen, Til Schweiger, Ray Stevenson, Ken Stott
Release: July 7, 2004
Synopsis: As the Roman Empire crumbles (circa 450 A.D.), the British Isles are thrown into a loose anarchy as errant knights are entrenched in years of territorial battle. Then, one king emerges to unite them, Arthur, with his concept of a Round Table of united knights.

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Progonosis: Pray For Goodness. When you see the words “From Jerry Bruckheimer”¦” it can do one of two things:

1. You run screaming from the theater, decry that bastard’s notion of what he and buddies Michael Bay or McG consider film, clutch your two-disc collector’s editions of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and CITIZAN KANE close to your body and try to rock yourself to sleep while reciting a small prayer wishing Jerry to be infected by dust mites and hope that they eat away at his black soul.

2. Realize the films he produces are really only a crapshoot, has helped to bring some benchmark action movies into our lives (not to mention the infectious Amazing Race on TV) and that all one can do is hope for the best with the cast that’s given the material.

Johnny Depp proved to be the killer app that shoved PRIATES OF THE CARRIBEAN into the fiscal stratosphere. That film could have drifted into a box office disaster maelstrom and capsized without so much as a peep if Johnny hadn’t channeled the spirit (c’mon now, we all know Keith should have been dead decades ago) of Keith Richards. There wasn’t so much play given to Kiera Knightly or Orlando Bloom, the other “more bankable” stars of the film, but Depp’s character had that certain something that took a mediocre plot, hell, it based on an amusement ride at Disney and made a great summer movie. However, as a side note, if they ever think to adapt It’s a Small World I have no problems sabotaging or publicly firebombing all attempts at production.

The trailer here for KING ARTHUR looks like it could be a spectacular addition to the summer season. The landscapes that are on display in the opening sequence are breathtakingly lush and I guess, from what director Antoine Fuqua knew about life circa 400 A.D., pretty friggin’ smoky. Crap, I mean it is everywhere in this thing. Simmer down, would you, with the fog machine. Aside from that there is an annoying scroll of words that follow every word from the announcer chatting this thing up. Are they trying to rake in some dollars from the deaf set? Believe me when I say this thing is not starting off on the right foot.

Next, we get introduced to Clive Owen who should be doing a lot more projects in this country and it’s great to see him in this role. If you haven’t seen CROUPIER or his subdued performance in GOSFORD PARK then I couldn’t begin to explain why he owns your attention. Kiera gets some time as a lady enamored with Clive’s machismo reputation and that is when the action begins to steamroll (always a fan of fire arrows. They just look cool.) as we’re all reminded that Antoine “the badass who brought your white ass to experience TRAINING DAY” Fuqua directing this film.

After that, there is a peek at Merlin the wizard, who really looks like he should be playing Moses with the pose he’s aping, and then there’s more fire in the form of balls and miscellaneous crap they could find to ignite. I do declare that this movie is going to be a hit with every fan of Whitesnake’s video catalog.

When a trailer goes into what I think of as its schizophrenic video clipping, really fast montages of unrelated but quick moving sequences behind thick drum and bass beats, it’s where you can literally add up scenes that might be interesting and there are a lot of them here. From Kiera getting wicked with a bow and arrow to Clive wielding a mega sword that will most likely harm a lad or two, this trailer appears to do everything a movie like this should. Whether or not the entire film will be any good or be able to sustain itself beyond its style on display here is yet to be determined. That Whitesnake contingent, though, should bring in, at least, a couple hundred dollars.

DOGVILLE (2004)

Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, Paul Bettany, Blair Brown, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Jeremy Davies, Ben Gazzara, Chloë Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgård
Release: April 2, 2004
Synopsis: The beautiful fugitive, Grace (Nicole Kidman), arrives in the isolated township of Dogville on the run from a team of gangsters. With some encouragement from Tom (Paul Bettany), the self-appointed town spokesman, the little community agrees to hide her and in return, Grace agrees to work for them. However, when a search sets in, the people of Dogville demand a better deal in exchange for the risk of harboring poor Grace and she learns the hard way that in this town, goodness is relative. But Grace has a secret and it is a dangerous one.

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Progonosis: Sublimely Positive. I like Lars von Trier.

I was first introduced to the man by his work on BREAKING THE WAVES by way of video and then on the big screen by DANCER IN THE DARK. The latter film, regardless of your feelings toward Bjork, and I really didn’t have a good one, is a wonderful symphonic ballet of song, movement and passionate storytelling. With that being said, and based on the trailer, I want to see what he can do with Nicole Kidman in DOGVILLE. She is capable of coming through in the clutch and looks great in the hands of the man who has been absent from the screen since 2000.

I’ve liked Nicole Kidman, I think, longer than I have most any other actress in Hollywood. I say I think because I’m not sure who else I would’ve liked more as an eight year-old, it was a full year before GHOSTBUSTERS, after seeing BMX BANDITS.

To some of you saying “huh?” I have no explanation. To those in the know and who have seen this tour de force of Huffy bikes, crazy crooks, Australian accents, and a water slide (yum”¦water slide), you need no more insight on the topic. I think that movie can be credited as to why I’ve never forgotten her name when I’ve heard it. Ever. I was blown away by bits and pieces of her abilities in TO DIE FOR, THE HOURS, MOULIN ROUGE!, and even THE OTHERS.

When this trailer opens, with von Trier’s signature video camera work in full effect, you get a whole lot of Kidman’s face.

It’s everywhere.

It can all be forgiven as this trailer is a delicate presentation of the story, characters, the conflict, and its ability to hide where the film’s going to go next. What is slightly distracting, but I guess necessary for a film of this diminutive size, is the scroll of how every critic found this movie to be, in summation, a wet dream the likes of which you only wish you yourself could have had as a boy of thirteen. The critical “buzz” will help to get the movie played in some theaters that might not have otherwise carried it. In the trailer, as well, you get to see a sliver of Lauren Baccall, James Caan and Paul (hope for moderately ugly men everywhere to score their own Jennifer Connelly) Bettany. Lars von Trier is an accomplished director whether you think it is European hype or that it’s a need for artsy fartsy folk to be enamored with someone who can hold a camera. He hasn’t failed yet at creating wonderful visual stories, but there is always the possibility the Kidman charm could lose it luster. The eight year-old in me doesn’t think so, but then again I am biased.

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVESBy Christopher Stipp

January 30, 2004

SUPER SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY

The greatest news this week is not what was or was not nominated for an Academy Award. I couldn’t care less. Okay, I actually do care but seriously, not more than my anticipation for what trailers are going to run this Sunday during the Super Bowl. If any of you geeks remembers the Super Bowl from two years ago, it was the first time we all got a good look at Spidey and felt how agonizing it would be to wait until May to finally see him in action; or how STAR WARS: EPISODE I gave us all hope until Jake Lloyd and Jar Jar delivered a monkey punch to our collective admiration for George Lucas. This is a great time to see the big budget blockbusters that we’re all going to get suckered into seeing this summer. I’ve got my trusty TiVo at the ready and hope to recount some of the surprises that pop up this Sunday. As usual, I hope you all utilize the link below and e-mail me to say what you thought of the mix of goodies the studios are whoring for the amount of money ($2.3M for :30) spent on advertising their pet projects. Speaking of which, I must take a moment to give props out to all my peeps out there who wrote in this week with their own thoughts about the nature of trailers in today’s marketplace.

Here are a couple of highlights, capturing some of the more common responses (many of you out there were very angry SOBs when it came to this subject.), from the populace:

“I’m 55 years old…Trailers fashioned in the 50’s were a bit more honest about the goods they were hawking. They didn’t give away the plot. However, even back then, I don’t think the audience was given much credit for being very sharp”¦.A good trailer should whet your appetite enough to get your butt into that theater seat on Friday [and] shouldn’t use the snake oil approach that Guber embraces.” — Jim L.

“That line from Guber about Hollywood being in the ’emotional transportation’ business is useless crap. Of course they’re in the emotional transportation business, but if Hollywood’s going to show me a trailer it should give an accurate map of where they want to transport me to!” — Buck T.

There were more, heavily worded, thoughts but I will be demure enough to keep those comments to myself, but I do hope some of you write in this week with what you thought of the offerings that will run this Sunday. I will, however, be ignoring any messages that say Terry Tate as I, too, hope they bring him back for another round of office football.

So, without further ado, let me crack open a sixer of Schlitz and start this week’s column. This week’s favorite trailer honors go to ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. It’s trippy, cool, smooth and if you get a good look at the poster, you would be hard pressed to deny that the woman is not, in fact, Kate Winslet, but a very fine-looking Elizabeth Shue circa ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.

KILL BILL Vol. 2 (2004)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu, LaTanya Richardson, Michael Jai White, Woo-ping Yuen, Samuel L. Jackson
Release: April 16, 2004
Synopsis: The second film in the two-part “Kill Bill” series, the first being Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Uma Thurman is going to “Kill Bill,” in Quentin Tarantino’s latest film about a former assassin betrayed by her boss, Bill (Carradine). Four years after surviving a bullet in the head, the bride (Thurman) emerges from a coma and swears revenge on her former master and his deadly squad of international assassins, played by Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox and Michael Madsen.

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Progonosis: Positively Enamored. Simple.The trailer is mostly in black and white, consisting of a single shot of Uma driving a convertible — it only divulges one brief color clip from the film starring David Carradine and Michael Madson. That’s it and it’s great.

Uma, however, speaks directly to the camera, makes a tongue-in-cheek comment of what populist reviewers summarized her role in the film as being, and ends the whole thing on a very nice note: that she is going to kill Bill. She even gives us a wink. Simple, clean, no-nonsense.

I used to joke that some people are either evolutionary predators or prey based on how their eyes sit on their face. Some have savage ocular cavities positioned front and center, but some, like Uma, have the kind of eyes that seem to give her thirty percent more vision for anyone who tries to creep up on her, trying to remove her from the food chain. She was my example, my thesis. But watching her in this clip make me feel like, yes, she captures the killer vibe that I don’t think any other kind of woman could have harnessed.

Some other initial impressions I have of the trailer is that it doesn’t give us any real good peek at what is going to be coming in April, but the who the hell cares? The first one was filled with enough chop-sockey, blood, blades, babes, great writing and dialogue, more blood, and enough homages that the whole film was like one big thank you letter to the masters that came before Quentin. It really doesn’t matter here what Tarantino put up on the screen to whet anyone’s appetitive.

But that’s what makes this a great trailer.

Since trailers are trying to sell something, and because KILL BILL VOL. 1 was so finely crafted, as evidenced by the amount of fanboys who are still drooling from its effects, VOL. 2 has already been bought, emotionally, by everyone who saw the first. However, what about those who didn’t see the first one who need to be sold on the second? Quentin seems to be replying with, “tough shit.” Get out to your dollar theater or wait until it’s released on DVD on April 13th, but only then, if you liked what you saw, will you see why this trailer doesn’t have to give away anything to anyone.

I’m feeling, though, that the suits above will put some pressure on Quentin or that Quentin himself will release another trailer filled with some more snippets from the film, but it’s great the way it is right now.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (2004)

Director: Luke Greenfield
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert, Timothy Olyphant, James Remar, Chris Marquette, Paul Dano
Release: March 12, 2004
Synopsis: Eighteen-year-old Matthew Kidman (Hirsch) is a straight-arrow over-achiever who has never really lived life, until he falls for his new neighbor, the beautiful and seemingly innocent Danielle (Cuthbert). When Matthew discovers this perfect “girl next door” is a one-time porn star, his sheltered existence begins to spin out of control. Ultimately, Danielle helps Matthew emerge from his shell and discover that sometimes you have to risk everything for the person you love ““ as he helps her rediscover her innocence.

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Progonosis: Eager Beaver. Okay. I’ll be honest. I may actually pay to see this one. Apart from having Elisha Cuthbert in the flick, this film has a director whose last directorial outing was Rob Schneider’s THE ANIMAL, and has a couple of writers who have done work on things like SAVING RYAN’S PRIVATES, Mad TV, and KEEPING THE FAITH. Quite a pendulum going on here.

It’s no lie that the teenage comedy has been languishing in some very murky box office excitement lately. If you take a look at what Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard or Sarah Michelle Gellar have been up to on the silver screen you would have a hard time convincing me that are all destined to turn a professional corner someday and actually produce something that won’t be direct-to-video and sit alongside Antonio Sabato Jr. or Kari Wuhrer’s career at your local Blockbuster.

What we have here in THE GIRL NEXT DOOR might actually be something worth seeing judging by that large R sitting on the bottom of its website. There are countless dusty hits from the eighties with some of your average no-name actors that I believe still have some funny left in them (REVENGE OF THE NERDS and PORKY’S come to mind very quickly) and maybe it’s because of the preponderance of salacious, adult situations (reading between the MPAA lines: whole lotta nudity) that really did it for me as a young “˜un of 15. That’s why this movie may be a touchstone for some young prepubescent hornball. These kinds of films, if they deliver on the goods and don’t show up empty handed, have their place and can do well for themselves as long as they have some plot, humor (high brow or low brow, doesn’t matter) and have just enough of that je ne sais quoi (boobs) to actually sustain it for a full ninety minutes plus. Also, and this is simply an honorable mention, you have Timothy Olyphant from GO who seems to be reprising the same role as a psychotic nutcase and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

However, the tagline in the trailer “always know if the juice is worth the squeeze” is a little clunky and awkward. I think “always know if Elisha Cuthbert is worth hitting it” would be the better angle. The answer, immediately, would be a resounding yes to all the adolescent boys who will be sneaking into the theater, after buying a ticket to see THE PRINCE AND ME, to see this one on March 12th.

THE DREAMERS (2003)

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Cast: Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel
Release: February 6, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis: Left alone in Paris whilst their parents are on holiday, Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt), a young American student, to stay at their apartment. Here they make their own rules as they experiment with their emotions and sexuality while playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games. Set against the turbulent political backdrop of France in the spring of 1968 when the voice of youth was reverberating around Europe, THE DREAMERS is a story of self-discovery as the three students test each other to see just how far they will go.

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Progonosis: Positive. I don’t mean to bring it down a notch but now, since the ten of you who are now reading this column, judging by the e-mail that is simply crushing my inbox, might actually be interested in films that are just outside of the mainstream I’d thought I would pass this along for your perusal.

Set against the backdrop of 1968 Paris, France, and all the things that were swirling around in the world at the time, from the worries of communism, the Vietnam War, to the massive student protests that were unfolding in the streets, this movie follows a young American, Michael Pitt, of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH fame, who is studying abroad and gets involved with a brother and sister who are, um, real close; just think Angelina Jolie with her odd-looking, manservant brother and how close they came to actual on-screen coitus at times.

What is interesting about this trailer is that even though this is coming from the same man who brought us LAST TANGO IN PARIS, and who forever obfuscated my perception of the uses of butter, it challenges the viewer with some fairly heavy imagery, intricately threaded storylines and a subtext that would make any Freudian befuddled. It is at the same time gorgeous and repellant to view.

It looks fabulous.

Now, some of you enjoy the slam and blam approach to mainstream fare and may be turned off by the movie’s heady themes, but after watching this tightly packed trailer, and reading some of the advance reviews from Sundance, I would recommend this picture for those looking for something new, fresh, and outside the lines of one’s own comfort zone.

The trailer blatantly confronts basic tenets of most people’s values (thou shall not sleep in the nude with thine own sister), but THE DREAMERS looks like it could give a good cleaning to everyone’s cinema calibrator of what defines good film and great film. Even though the trailer skeeved me out a tad, I love that this two-dimensional trailer is making me feel something real. That alone is a lot more than I can say about a majority of tripe out there that passes as a good night out at the theater.

THE LADYKILLERS (2004)

Director: Joel Coen
Cast: Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, Irma P. Hall, Ryan Hurst, Tzi Ma, Stephen Root, J.K Simmons, George Wallace, Jason Weaver
Release: March 26, 2004
Synopsis: Tom Hanks teams up for the first time with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen for this retelling of the critically acclaimed 1955 comedy, THE LADYKILLERS. Hanks stars as Goldthwait Higginson Dorr III, Ph.D., a charlatan professor who’s assembled a gang of experts for the heist of the century. The thieves: experts in explosions, tunneling, and muscle, and the critical inside man. The base of operations: the root cellar of an unsuspecting, church-going little old lady named Mrs. Munson (Hall). The ruse: the five need a place to practice their church music. The problem: it quickly becomes evident that Dorr’s thieves lack the mental capacity to do the job. The bigger problem: they have all seriously underestimated their upstairs host.

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Progonosis: Positive. Say what you will about Marlon Wayans but the man turned in some great work on one of my always top ten distinguished titles, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, and on my other list which I keep crumpled under my mattress for movies that still make me giggle but would be blasphemy to publicly endorse, MO’ MONEY. The guy is funny and has proven himself with the SCARY MOVIE franchise no matter what your feelings are concerning the film’s welcome factor after its third installment. He’s no Eddie Murphy circa 1984, but really, Eddie only had five good years before the writing was on the wall, and in large letters: What the hell happened to the funny, Eddie? Marlon is good and he only looks better with Tom Hanks looking like a screamingly funny throwback to a forgotten southern era.

On first glance you would think that this new movie from the brothers Coen had crafted another period piece. Not that it would have been a bad thing, mind you, because the Coen’s skewed view of modern life (RAISING ARIZONA, FARGO, BLOOD SIMPLE) is always a pleasure to indulge in.

As Tom Hanks plays up his obviously crooked character, and as the other players are introduced, the movie has to work to set itself apart from the classic English comedy that starred Alec “Obi” Guinness and Peter “Strangelove” Sellers nearly fifty years ago. And it does it very well.

The trailer is delicately pieced together with the plot’s set up, which is Hanks’ intentions to rob a riverboat casino, going on to describe the specialized abilities of all the players who are going to help (since the advent of OCEAN’S 11 isn’t there a good all-in-one thief for hire anymore?) and, the most important when trying to sell a comedy, the physical slapstick that is sure to follow. If I do have one gripe about the trailer it is the use of Irma Hall near the end of it. For those who have not seen the greatness that is NOTHING TO LOSE, which isn’t for those keeping track, the trailer for that film featured Irma giving a good smack to Martin Lawrence (something that should be done more often. Maybe that would knock a little funny loose in him as well.) for uttering something untoward in front of her. Well, she does it again in this trailer to Marlon who says something untoward in front of her. If anything it is a mild annoyance that the device is not only used again to sell a different movie, but, also, that it’s being done by the same woman. Whether it’s something that Irma does really well, and was accentuated as such, I have no idea. The trailer showcases, wisely, Hanks, who looks like a delight to watch for his mannerisms alone and the Coen’s have yet to seriously make a misstep with their work (as long as you don’t look too harshly upon THE HUDSUCKER PROXY).

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

Director: Michel Gondry
Cast: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, David Cross
Release: March 19, 2004
Synopsis: Joel (Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), to have Clementine removed from his memory. But as Joel’s memories progressively disappear, he begins to rediscover their earlier passion. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to escape the procedure. As Dr. Mierzwiak and his crew (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood) chase him through the maze of his memories, it’s clear that Joel just can’t get her out of his head.

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Progonosis: Positive. Some trailers live up to being a gold standard for promising, and delivering, great things. TRUE ROMANCE, PULP FICTION, SPIDER-MAN, and FIGHT CLUB, regardless what you thought of them, did their jobs perfectly. What made them great was that it either set up the story with such hidden excitement that it gave you no inkling, at least to those, like me, having little brain power at all to see forests for trees, what kind of ending awaited in the last reel.There is no greater sin in trailer creation than letting an audience see every money shot you have in your cinematic arsenal because it will only lead to bad word-of-mouth and will kill the film. What is really special about ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is that it doesn’t give you much as it does in setting up the wonderful possibilities of what this movie can possibly hold.

Coming from Michel Gondry, a director who is most well-known in music video circles (yeah, I had no idea that they still made ’em either) for his work with the overrated, overexposed, over easy White Stripes, the solid Foo Fighters, and the thrilla from Iceland-a, Bjork, and based on a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman the trailer bleeds images that this could be a nice pleasure trip. What stands out, starkly, is the approach the first trailer takes. An infomercial as an initial promotional device for a movie, burning away a good third of the trailer’s time, could be seen as a risky move. Confusing an audience would be one concern but it works so well and helps a great deal in explaining, vaguely, what is going to happen with Jim Carrey. Jim is in no need of a hit as his last movie, BRUCE ALMIGHTY, scored a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office, but too bad it sucked. I did not like THE MAJESTIC for its sentimental Capra-crap and don’t even jump start me into how I feel about THE GRINCH.

But I’ll be honest here: I am excited to see Jim in this movie.

There is something very alluring and attractive about Jim’s character, to say nothing of the attractiveness of Kirsten Dust cavorting in her skivvies (hell, I’ll camp out and get my advance tickets now just based on that). He appears to be a normal man who just happens to live inside the body of the person who gave us the testosterone fueled man-lady Vera de Milo and I honestly believe that just by watching him in the trailer. On top of that you throw Tom Wilkinson, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo (who is also cavorting around in his Fruit of the Looms as well), Elijah Wood and David Cross into the blender and you have the makings for a lot of potentially fabulous performances or an a-list train wreck simply waiting for opening weekend to jump the track. Either way, they’ve got my money.

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES TRAILER PARK

By Christopher Stipp

January 23, 2004

Trailer Nature

In AMC’s very informative weekly program, SUNDAY MORNING SHOOTOUT, which you all should be watching if you care at all for a weekly insiders peek at the business of moviemaking, hosts Peter Guber and Peter Bart recently dished for a bit on the cinematic value of movie trailers.

Old guard Peter Bart commented that recent movie trailers for him were “noisy,” “aggressive,” “they misrepresent the film,” and that they all “look alike.” Bart longed for the time when movies such as GONE WITH THE WIND had trailers that were artistic and “gave an honest taste” for the film you could expect.

The relatively young(er) Guber countered with the notion that trailers are designed to “get butts in seats,” are a “critical element for the whole campaign” for a film, and that effective movie trailers “connect, emotionally,” with an audience. He reiterated a few times, and it bears repeating here, that Hollywood is in the, “emotional transportation business, not the information business.”

Being reminded that movie trailers have been around since 1912 is a nice way to segue into the idea that trailers serve a vital role in cinema. For better or worse, if you are a contemporary studio, you have exactly less than two minutes to either persuade or con an audience into seeing a movie that might have been in development for years.

Since I received a suffocating deluge of mail welcoming me to the Park here, all four of you, I open the floor for some feedback about what you think works better: slick and shiny or slow and substantial? Do you think trailers influence whether you see a film personally? Is it just the lemmings of the earth that are spellbound by a pound of dog crap wrapped in a cute box? This discussion, I’m sure, could go either way, but I’d like to see what’s on your minds. And yes, before you ask, I too was fooled into thinking THE JERKY BOYS was going to be a fun night out with my friends based on its trailer and, upon the movie’s completion, was barred from ever choosing a film again. I’m still bitter that I was duped by such a heartless, soulless, empty movie.

Drop me a line at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com.

P.S. The trailer for JERSEY GIRL hit last week and it is most definitely my pick of the week. Hop to it and read the review before you check out the trailer, unless you’re illiterate, in which case just click on all the blue things on this page. You’re bound to click the right one sooner or later.

SPARTAN (2004)
Director: David Mamet
Cast: Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, William H. Macy, Johnny Messner, Alexandra Kerry, Tia Texada, Kristen Bell
Release: March 12, 2004
Synopsis: Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) is a career military officer working in a highly secretive special operations force. A man hardened by years of brutal service, he is respected by his peers and elders in the world of espionage. When Scott is recruited to find Laura Newton (Kristen Bell), the daughter of a high-ranking government official, he is paired with novice Curtis (Derek Luke), who becomes his protégé. Working with a special task force comprised of Presidential Advisors, the Secret Service, FBI and CIA, Scott and Derek stumble upon a white slavery ring, which may have some connection to Laura’s disappearance.

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Progonosis: Positive. “You’re gonna leave your life or you’re gonna leave the information right in this room.”David Mamet’s double speak is in full swing in the trailer to his new movie SPARTAN. His signature dialogue is back and while some may find the language “odd” or somehow not natural, Mamet’s way of talking is really a litmus test: you either react to or repel away from it.Val Kilmer, a refreshing choice for a role like this, gets a lot of time in the two minutes that this movie sets itself up and it’s good to see that he seems to handle himself well with Mamet’s work. William H. Macy also gets a little play in the trailer (Is there anything that he isn’t in these days?) and it’s a comfort to see him here. Macy has proven himself more than able in STATE AND MAIN to use Mamet to his theatrical advantage, but I did ask myself why there is no sign of Mamet staples Ricky Jay or Rebecca Pidegon.

HEIST was the last film Mamet both wrote and directed. That movie, while masterfully executed, did not get the kind of fiscal reward it should have received. STATE AND MAIN, his movie before HEIST, only grossed around seven million dollars. While SPARTAN has a mainstream “thriller” feel, hopefully that will be enough to get people to see one of the best writers working in Hollywood, or theater, today. Knowing his earlier work and seeing the trailer, it’s certain that this film will have all of Mamet’s markings. What isn’t certain, though, is what Ma and Pa Moviegoer will think when they realize quickly that this movie isn’t going to be spoon-fed pap.

This is a good trailer with enough Mamet to whet a fan’s appetite and will be a welcome counter-programming diversion to AGENT CODY BANKS 2, which opens the same weekend.

STARSKY AND HUTCH (2004)

Director: Todd Phillips
Cast: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Snoop Dogg, Vince Vaughn, Carmen Electra, Molly Sims, Amy Smart, Juliette Lewis, Chris Penn, Fred Williamson, Brande Roderick, Jason Bateman
Release: March 5, 2004
Synopsis: In Starsky & Hutch, the origins of the charismatic crime-fighting duo David Starsky and Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson are explored when these undercover Bay City detectives are partnered for their very first assignment. Ben Stiller plays the tightly wound Detective David Starsky who is thrown together with Owen Wilson’s easygoing Detective Ken Hutchinson on a high-stakes case. Platinum-selling rapper and actor Snoop Dogg plays their savvy street informant Huggy Bear. Vince Vaughn also joins the cast as Reese Feldman, a smooth-talking entrepreneur with an eye towards the future.

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Progonosis: Positive. Word association time!Ben Stiller. Owen Wilson. Snoop Dogg. Vince Vaughn. Chris Penn. Amy Smart. Carmen Electra. Jason Bateman. Juliette Lewis. Todd Phillips.Hopefully all of these names will mean box office bling for Warner Bros.

Coming off his much deserved accolades for OLD SCHOOL, Todd Phillips is coming back with a remake of the 1975 classic series, Starsky and Hutch. Packed with enough talent, eye candy, and a great cameo from Will Ferrell, this could be a mainstream trifecta for the young director who seems to have a sharp knack for comedy.

The first third of the trailer sets up the relationship with Owen and Ben and establishes their characters very well. While it’s a good opening, and even elicits a few giggles, it only gets better from there.

With some “Sweet Emotion” playing in the background, all the other players are introduced with some funny send-ups of seventies style much to the thanks of Snoop.

The trailer captures the feel of the era with its hair, dress, and its cinematic funkiness. For all the right reasons, Ben and Owen’s dependability to be comedic when necessary, Phillips’ track record, and a good supporting cast, STARSKY AND HUTCH sells itself well by quickly setting itself up and then leaving you with the sense that this will be a film you will be making time to see. Ben and Owen have some great chemistry that exudes through the screen, but it’s Ben at the end of the trailer that, not since Shields and Yarnell, finally makes miming funny without an ounce of irony behind it.

THE PERFECT SCORE (2004)

Director: Brian Robbins
Cast: Erika Christensen, Chris Evans, Bryan Greenberg, Scarlett Johansson, Darius Miles, Leonardo Nam, Tyra Ferrell
Release: January 30, 2004
Synopsis: Six high school students band together and develop a plan to heist the SAT exam in order to prevent the test from unfairly defining who they’ll become. Each in the group has his or her own set of circumstances that leads to the conclusion that the only way to truly decide one’s own fate is to beat the system.

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Progonosis: Negative. “No matter what happens, when you get outta that room you’re still gonna be you, man. No test is gonna change that.”Well, thank you MTV for saving me my $8.50.The creative brainiacs who cobbled together this trailer must have been so cognizant that a flick from a guy who was a producer on VARSITY BLUES and a writer who brought us OUT COLD (Yeah, me neither…) thought it wise to give us the whole movie from start to finish in two and a half minutes.

If you dare click on the link you will get, first, a rundown of all the players, their motivations, intentions and struggles as disenfranchised youths, and then, second, get a glimpse of how they are going to “stick it to the man” by stealing a copy of the SAT before realizing, in the end, that hey, it is just a test after all. You have six different students (a jock, a popular girl, a burnout…It’s almost too embarrassing to even write this with a straight face. Wasn’t this formula ditched at the same time New Coke was being called the first sign of the apocalypse?) who band together for a common goal: trying to explain to the audience why Scarlett Johansson is in this movie. Rent being due was all that I could think up. The trailer shows the standard aptitude for direction in a genre movie like this and, thanks to hearty dollops of dialogue, what kind of writing you can expect or be disappointed by.

On a positive tip, Scarlett Johansson is in it and that gives it some redemptive qualities for some of you younger folk looking for a great way to waste some time on a Friday night before heading to Craig’s place, ’cause his parents are out of town, and having a kegger with all your friends. The cast boasts some of the finest talent working in teen targeted movies today (VAN WILDER, NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE, SWIMFAN, SHE’S ALL THAT, SUMMER CATCH) and I seriously believe this will do well for itself in this niche.

Now, I could be wrong. It’s not likely, but I could be. If, after you see this movie being pimped heavily on MTV, especially TRL, and you decide it is worth a matinee or full-price admission, I’ll give it a go. Maybe it’ll change the face of teen comedy as we know it. It’s not likely, but I could be wrong.

VAN HELSING (2004)

Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Will Kemp, Kevin J. O’Connor
Release: May 7, 2004
Synopsis: Stephen Sommers brings Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) to life, the legendary monster hunter born in the pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In his ongoing battle to rid the world of its fiendish creatures, Van Helsing, on order of a secret society, travels to Transylvania to bring down the lethally seductive, enigmatically powerful Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) and joins forces with the fearless Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), out to rid her family of a generations-old curse by defeating the vampire.

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Progonosis: Excited. Kate Beckinsale is a MILF on the loose in this new cinematic brouhaha about how great she looks even though it is only the late 19th century. Oh yeah, this film also gives Hugh Jackman a front-and-center role in a vehicle to star as the movie’s titular, brooding, yet dashingly good-looking, leading man who is out to kill some of Universal’s most highly trademarked characters.Right away, the trailer establishes the mood of the movie: dark, cold, and wet. There are sweeping views of some great sets and it has an overall muddied feel to the place in which all the events unfold. Jackman’s garb and Sommers’ cinematic style here is reminiscent of BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF and that’s not a bad thing. Sommers had a finger in the movie crapfest that was THE SCORPION KING, but he does get very high marks for following up here, directorially speaking, THE MUMMY RETURNS (which was quite enjoyable) with a movie that looks just plain fun from start to finish.There is usually some mystery involved when trailers present the object of desire for fanboys trying to gleam a look at the movie’s bad guys which here, collectively, are the Wolfman, Frakenstein, The Mummy, and even Dracula (All Rights Reserved). Summers wisely puts them all out on the table to see because that is what is going to put people in the seats. Not that Jackman and Beckinsale are a great draw, but you can’t help but be excited that all these characters are going to be sharing the same screen in an explosion of dumb fun.

And this is only the first few seconds of the trailer.

There are flourishes of gadgets, pomp and circumstance, and lots of Hugh getting grimy with monsters of all kinds. Sommers’ direction, at times, takes pages from the Bruckheimer playbook, but if it’s done well, and the snippets here do show promise, this could be a nice franchise for Universal. Honestly, Jackman has the kind of screen presence, as evidenced in X-MEN, X2, and even SWORDFISH, that begged for him to have a chance to carry a movie. Of a lot of newcomers to the screen, he has the chops, both acting and mutton, to do it.

The extended scene at the end of the trailer is a nice touch to add a little suspense of “what is going to happen to the busty and bad-ass Kate Beckinsale?” generating some interest in what, hopefully, could be another hit for Sommers. As long as The Rock stays hidden, and there aren’t too many numbing stretches of dialogue, there could be a couple good reasons to see this film.

Jersey Girl (2004)

Director: Kevin Smith
Cast: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Liv Tyler, George Carlin, Jason Biggs, Stephen Root, Raquel Castro
Release: March 19, 2004
Synopsis: Ollie Trinke (Affleck) is at the top of his game. A smooth Manhattan music publicist, Ollie has just married the love of his life (Lopez) and has a child on the way. It’s a perfect life that is tragically upended when he suddenly finds himself a single father unqualified for his new role. Before long, Ollie’s big city lifestyle clashes head on with fatherhood. After losing his job, he’s forced to move back in with his father (Carlin) in the New Jersey suburb where he was raised. With the help of a beautiful young friend (Tyler) who opens him up to love again, and the daughter (Castro) who gives him the courage to keep going, he begins to realize that sometimes, you have to forget about what you thought you were and just accept who you are.

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Progonosis: Positive. This movie just has to suck, right?How else can one think about a film that has seen its release date shift more often than a ballplayer’s cup infested with crabs?Movies are a strange thing and sometimes when things like a delayed release happen, it could mean that the studio is trying to find a date when they can, not unlike a hillbilly looking to unload an old couch on a highway overpass at three in the morning, bury a movie when no one else is watching and simply hope someone mistakes it for quality merchandise. It can also mean that there are just some unseen variables that happen along the way that makes a release date impossible to make.

After seeing the trailer I am confident, and hopeful, it was the latter. How else can you explain the charisma that Affleck has in this trailer? Unlike most of America that claims to be “up-to-here” with news and exposure to the man, I think he is still wonderful to look at when he is doing his thing. He has a genuine vulnerability that comes across as something endearing, not annoying or false.

Now, we barely get a look at J. Lo and we all get the point that something very tragic happens to the lady, probably much to the delight of her detractors. It almost feels like it’s a forced plot point given away needlessly simply because of outside goings-on that have nothing to do with the film as a whole. It’s unfortunate, but I digress.

George Carlin is back in a Smith flick starring as Ben’s dad and good for him. The movie is about Ben having to cope with life as a single dad and, dammit, why should he get any sympathy from his father? Because it’s George “Effin” Carlin, that’s why.

What’s interesting to note about this trailer is that while Ben is shown trying to cobble together a semblance of life as a single dad, trying to raise a spunky daughter, Kevin Smith is behind the lens orchestrating the tenuous ground of the rom-com battlefield, one hopes, without making it too saccharine sweet. With Liv Tyler in the mix, a wonderful foil for Affleck, it all cumulates in what looks like a solid film.

This could go down the road of your average chick flick, but Smith’s signature style of creating great dialogue around wonderfully fleshed out characters prove that the odds are in his favor to buck that notion. Why did the suits sit on this like some Willy Wonka golden egg? Judging by the trailer, I wouldn’t have the first idea on how to answer that question.