04.14.2009 | By Jack Rico |
Rated: R for some scenes of sexuality and nudity.
Release Date: 2008-12-10
Starring: Bernhard Schlink, David Hare
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.thereader-movie.com/
04.14.2009 | By Jack Rico |
Rated: PG-13 for language, some sexual material and teen partying.
Release Date: 2009-04-17
Starring: Jason Filardi
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: www.17againmovie.com
Go to our film page
I wanted to like ‘17 Again’ for its nostalgic teen flare, but the script and dialogue were so inept and appalling, not much can be extolled from it. So many things went awry that scrutinizing the film at lengths would be a time-wasting process. The ensemble did an okay job, enough to collectively salvage some dignity from the movie. Nevertheless, whatever I say is insignificant since the main ticket buyers for this teen film will ignore my every word. They will swoon over Zac Efron for a few weeks, then on DVD a few months later until eternity.
The storyline is somewhat intriguing – what would you do if you got a second shot at life, as your former 17 year old alter-ego? Many questions would arise, but for argument’s sake, we’ll follow the film’s plot… 39 year old Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry), a has-been high school basketball star, is dealt a miserable hand at being a credible dad. But Mike is given another chance when he is miraculously transformed back to the age of 17 (Zac Efron) to recapture his best years, and bring his family together.
The premise may catch an ear or two, but it is the execution of the story which is unfathomable. Director Burr Steers doesn’t have a clue of what story development is. Perhaps 17 Again’s biggest travesty, is its inability to fabricate a better story to explain how an adult transforms into a teenager. In the movie, a janitor with magical powers just happens to show up and morph him. Moreover, his former teachers, friends and wife, who should recognize Perry as a young Efron, are fully oblivious to this miracle. No explanation, no reason, no care. One tends to understand that plausibility in thee types of films are inconsequential, but for it to be this blatant is just negligent and wreckless.
In spite of these glaring issues, parents and other adults could succumb to the nostalgia of the films storyline. Noteworthy is Zac Efron, who is a likable actor that masks a lot of the movie’s deficiencies. His looks also camouflage his limited range as an actor. Hopefully, he will develop into a better thespian with time and work. Overall, kids and Zac zealots will enjoy and indulge in this zany 80’s feel teen flick.
04.14.2009 | By Ted Faraone |
Rated: PG-13 for some violence, language including sexual references, and brief drug content.
Release Date: 2009-04-17
Starring: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.stateofplaymovie.net/
Go to our film page
There is something about seeing a bloated overweight, unkempt Russell Crowe that makes one cringe – and put down that black and white cookie. He’d have done well to follow Shelley Winters’ famous advice about playing fat roles. However, Crowe’s weight is not what goes awry in “State of Play,†a crime thriller from helmer Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotlandâ€), although being fat does not add much to his character as Cal McAffrey, a reporter at the “Washington Globeâ€.
Â
Until the final reel, “State of Play†(based on an eponymous BBC Television series), has all the makings of a well made film noire: Bad weather, dark lighting, ominous music, more plot twists than a back road in Connecticut, and corruption in places high and low. Why, there are even three murder attempts in the first reel, two of them successful. Until the final reel the storyline fits together like a well crafted jigsaw puzzle. It has an excellent cast: Helen Mirren as foul-mouthed newspaper editor Cameron Lynne, Ben Affleck as philandering congressman Stephen Collins, Robin Wright Penn as his wife, Jeff Daniels as the House Majority Whip, and Jason Bateman as a sleazy, not too bright PR man, each playing his part to perfection. Rachel McAdams is convincing as a newspaper blogger who earns her reporting stripes solving a string of four seemingly unrelated murders in a buddy-film subplot opposite Crowe.
Â
Pic opens with a drug addict running from a gunman (Michael Berresse) who catches and kills him. He also shoots a pizza delivery man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then the mistress of Congressman Collins, whose committee is investigating the “mercenary†private army on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, dies mysteriously underneath the wheels of the Washington Metro. All roads lead to a vast conspiracy with 30 or 40 billion Dollars at stake for the company hoping to profit from the privatization of homeland security at its center. Crowe’s McAffrey is hot on the trail as dead bodies pile up. He is also dispensing PR advice to his college roommate, Affleck’s Collins. Subplots appear to spin out of control but each peels a layer from pic’s onion – until the final reel, that is, when a surprise ending both confuses audiences and leaves unresolved the biggest plot element, the conspiracy and the company at its center – is it real or a red herring?
Â
Blame in this case has to be shared. Screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, and Billy Ray deserve a major chunk. But many a bad screenplay has been fixed in the edit room. Take that, Justine Wright. And one has to ask just how much control Macdonald had over the final cut. At 127 minutes, it’s not as if the picture had to be fleshed out to feature length. It coulda been a contender….
Â
“State of Play,†distributed in the US by Universal, carries a PG-13 rating, largely due to Mirren’s lines. Other than that there is little objectionable for children. But not even adults have a chance of making sense out of it.
04.14.2009 | By Mack Chico |
For those of you who are still interested in H2, Rob Zombie’s follow-up to his execrable remake of Halloween, Comingsoon.net have bagged the first look at one of Michael Myers’ many looks in the upcoming film.
‘One of…?’ We hear you cry. ‘Many looks…?’, we hear others yell. And the answer is, ‘yes!’ Apparently this time Myers (the returning Tyler Mane) will be sporting some different looks throughout the film – including a maskless little number which we hear he pulls off beautifully – as he hunts down his sister, Laurie Strode.
For now, though, today’s first look sees Myers sporting his classic Bill Shatner mask – albeit a more bloodied, torn and burned version than we’re used to, which indicates that a)things aren’t going too well for the slash-happy psycho, and b) he’ll probably ditch that thing at some point.
Rob Zombie has called it a wrap on H2 and is celebrating the occasion by releasing your official first look at Michael Myers in the film. The writer/director stresses this is “one of the many faces Michael 2009.” This comes shortly after fans learned this week that Myers will be shown in various guises (sometimes maskless).
H2 is set for an August 28, 2009 release.
04.12.2009 | By Mack Chico |
Those old parts Universal threw into the Fast & Furious machine churned out new cash and lots of it. Though you might expect the studio to be sitting back and counting their increasingly growing pile of loot, the gears are in motion to ride the franchise into another installment.
Universal confirmed today to E! News that a sequel to Fast & Furious is already in works. That could mean two studio execs shooting the breeze at the urinals or intense boardroom discussions. Either way there’s no doubt Universal wants to extend their winning streak while the going’s good.
The studio was forced into addressing the sequel after Paul Walker proclaimed during an interview this morning to MYfm’s Valentine that he and Vin Diesel are “without question” coming back for more.
Walker even went as far as to throw out a location, “This was supposed to be it (re: Fast & Furious) There wasn’t supposed to be the open-ended closing like there was. When I first read the screenplay, I was like, ‘Man, look what they’re doing.’ But without question, with the way things opened up, Vin and I will be coming back, we’re making a fifth one, and we’re going to Brazil, that’s it.”
With the studio’s bulging economy-defying checking account lets see those streets lined with Brazilian supermodels. There’s an extra $5 million at the box office alone.
04.12.2009 | By Mack Chico |
“Hannah Montana: The Movie” opened as the top film over the Easter weekend, taking in $34 million in ticket sales at theaters in the U.S. and Canada.
“Hannah Montana,” from Walt Disney Co., displaced the action film “Fast & Furious,” which fell to second with $28.8 million, box-office researcher Media By Numbers LLC said today in an e-mailed statement.
Sales rose 61 percent to an Easter holiday weekend record of $130.2 million from a year earlier, the third straight weekend of year-over-year gains for Hollywood studios. For the year to date, box-office revenue is 17 percent ahead of last year, and attendance is up 15 percent.
“‘Hannah’ had a gigantic Good Friday, when kids were out of school, it didn’t do as well on Saturday or Easter Sunday, but this was well above expectations,” said Steve Mason, a film analyst with BigHollywood.com, in a telephone interview. He had expected the movie to earn about $25 million.
In “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” a spinoff from Walt Disney Co.’s “Hannah Montana” television show, Miley Cyrus plays a teen-age star who returns to her hometown to escape the pressure of stardom. Cyrus’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, co-stars.
A 3-D concert film, “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour,” took in $70.6 million worldwide last year, according to Box Office Mojo. The film had $31.1 million in sales during its opening weekend.
‘Fast & Furious’
“Fast & Furious,” from Universal Pictures, is the fourth in the series about illegal street racing. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, stars of the original “The Fast and the Furious,” return for the first time since the original film to reprise their roles. Diesel made a cameo appearance in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” in 2006.
NBC Universal is a unit of General Electric Co.
In “Fast & Furious,” an undercover cop played by Walker joins forces with Diesel’s character, a former convict. The first three films generated $334.2 million at theaters in the U.S. and Canada, according to Box Office Mojo LLC. The film was expected to take in $32 million in its second weekend, the estimate of Gitesh Pandya, the editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com in New York.
Third place’s “Monsters vs. Aliens,” the 3-D animation feature from Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc., earned $22.6 million in its third week. The movie, which is about a group of monsters called on to battle invaders from outer space, features the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Rainn Wilson and Stephen Colbert.
‘Observe and Report’
“Observe and Report, which debuted in fourth place with $11.1 million, stars Seth Rogen as a mall security guard who longs to become a real police officer. He gets to try out his sleuthing skills when a streaker targets the shopping center. The film is distributed by Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros.
The Nicolas Cage thriller “Knowing” earned $6.67 million for Summit Entertainment LLC in fifth place. Cage stars as a professor who decodes a document, left in a 1958 time capsule, that has foretold the world’s worst disasters, including some yet to come. Rose Byrne co-stars.
Here’s a complete look at the weekend’s top-grossing films based on Friday-Sunday estimates as compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
04.12.2009 | By Mack Chico |
The South Bronx is getting ready to raise the curtain on a first-of-its-kind public high school dedicated to film studies.
The Cinema School is set to open its doors in a new building on the grounds of Monroe High School in September.
The program, which will follow a conservatory-style curriculum, has drawn funding from JPMorgan Chase Foundation and has the support of industryites including Spike Jonze, Catherine Hardwicke, Spike Lee, David O. Russell and Whit Stillman, who have been involved in shaping the program. Gotham Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not surprisingly a big supporter of the school, whose inaugural class will consist of 80 freshman students.
The school was founded by former social worker Joe Hall and indie producer Rachael Horovitz (HBO’s “Grey Gardens,” “About Schmidt”).
“It’s the perfect extension of my day job,” Horovitz said. “It can take years to develop a script, and the filmmakers I’m working with can come in and teach at the school.”
The Cinema School is in part an outgrowth of the nonprofit Ghetto Film School org, a film training program Hall founded in the Bronx in 2000. Hall’s program and students attracted industry attention, including Horovitz, who wanted to see the program expand into an accredited, year-round high school. Evan Shapiro, prexy of the IFC and Sundance Channel cablers, serves as chairman of Ghetto Film School’s board and is also involved in the Cinema School.
Horovitz recruited a deep-pocketed benefactor for the school in JPMorgan Chase Foundation veep Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne, who deals with the bank’s arts and culture portfolio. Jennings-O’Byrne persuaded the Foundation to donate $110,000 to the Ghetto Film School. Of that donation, $35,000 went to fund the planning of the high school, and $75,000 bankrolled the Ghetto Film School’s final project, shot by students on location in Uganda.
Jennings-O’Byrne sees the outlay as the beginning, not the end. “We have plans to donate more,” she said. “We now have a new proposal in from them. We haven’t decisioned it, but we want to stay in the game.”
The Cinema School, in new buildings on the campus of Monroe High, is also part of a push by the New York City schools to open more facilities with special curriculum focusing on specific disciplines. Katherine Oliver, head of the Mayor’s Film Office, noted that the Cinema School would feed one of New York’s growth industries, film and TV production, and would help open doors for students who might otherwise struggle to break into the film biz.
“It gives a lot of inner-city kids a chance,” Oliver said.
The city has helped Hall and Horovitz secure funding for amenities like extra editing equipment that a standard public-school budget doesn’t provide. Horovitz says she wants the school to be able to afford better film screening equipment by the time classes start in September.
“We’re sharing the building with another school, and our goal is to have a stand-alone school — to really be able to have production facilities.”
As for the filmmakers themselves, most won’t be teaching full course loads, but many have donated time and resources to the school simply because they like the idea.
Peter Becker, prexy of cineaste homevid distrib Criterion Collection, is helping the school’s teachers design the curriculum. Becker said they’re wrestling with how to “create a film literacy program that doesn’t feel like homework.”
Hall and Ghetto Film School attracted the attention of helmer Russell, and his support became a gateway to other high-profile supporters.
“David said, ‘Come by and see me when you’re in L.A.,’ ” Hall said. “So we went to L.A. pretending we had other people to see. As we were showing him a short our students had done, he said, ‘I should be on your board.’ “
Stillman said the Cinema School program would go a long way toward ensuring that younger generations have an understanding of filmdom’s history.
“There’s a generation growing up that has never seen a Preston Sturges film,” Stillman said, with alarm in his voice.
04.10.2009 | By Jack Rico |
Rated: R for pervasive language, graphic nudity, drug use, sexual content and violence.
Release Date: 2009-04-10
Starring: Jody Hill
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://observe-and-report.warnerbros.com/
Go to our film page
Observe and Report is a bizarre film whose laughs are rooted in shock comedy. This is highlighted by the last 5 minutes which will either culminate with your fascination by the scene or by you heaving at the person next to you. The choice will be yours. I’m curious to know which one you will pick. Nevertheless, the laughs aren’t as frequent and the storytelling process is nowhere in sight.
This movie comes at the heels of January’s surprise hit “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” – coincidence? It was written and directed by Jody Hill, whose underground hit “The Foot Fist Way” who brought an exploration of a main character who is reprehensible, delusional, and foolish.
Seth Rogen stars as a bi-polar mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt who is called into action to stop a flasher from molesting his “mall crush†(Anna Faris) and turning shopper’s paradise into his personal peep show. But when Barnhardt can’t bring the culprit to justice, a surly police detective (Ray Liotta) is recruited to close the case.
The cast is top notch, but perhaps the one who stands out most is comedy princess Anna Faris (Scary Movie, The House Bunny). Getting laughs is hard to do and she manages to make me laugh out loud in every scene she is in. Mexican-American actor Michael Peña, known for his dramatic performances, is another one who provided perhaps me with the loudest laughs halfway through the film. His character, Dennis, was undeniably underused. His screen time barely hits ten minutes, but he was a scene stealer from the very moment he was on.
What I can promise you is that you will laugh at this film, it is just a matter of whether you will feel right doing it. The director, Hill, takes perverse pleasure in getting laughs at whatever costs as he pushes the boundaries of what is funny and what isn’t.
04.9.2009 | By Jack Rico |
Rated: G
Release Date: 2009-04-10
Starring: Daniel Berendsen
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/hannahmontanamovie/
Go to our film page
‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’ is Miley Cyrus’ second big screen film. She’s a little bit older, wiser and experienced, yet, she has not reached her prime and thus, we are witnesses to someone experimenting in film and making mistakes with an innocuous sensibility. Unfortunately, for us adults, who are aware of the mundane, we cannot ignore the mediocre acting and tween-filled soundtrack. Undoubtedly, Hannah Montana: The Movie will appeal to Cyrus’ core audience, but the chances of this sanitized, prepackaged effort crossing over to anyone else is zero.
Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus) struggles to juggle school, friends and her secret pop-star persona; when Hannah Montana’s soaring popularity threatens to take over her life – she just might let it. So her father (Billy Ray Cyrus) takes the teen home to Crowley Corners, Tenn., for a dose of reality, kicking off an adventure she would want her audience you to enjoy.
The storyline is pretty elemental. It’s written for 7-to-11 year old girls and knows its target group. Likewise, the acting is unimpressive but what the performers lack in skill they make up for in energy and charisma. Miley Cyrus is extremely likeable, although she shows little in the way of discernible range. Unlike other teenage actresses like Dakota Fanning and AnnaSophia Robb, she lacks depth. The weakness of Cyrus’ voice is amply displayed; one might have incorrectly assumed the filmmakers would employ some kind of electronic enhancement to strengthen the vocals. Her potential is not in films and neither in music (I had the chance to see her in 2008 in a multiple artist concert, musically she hasn’t shown much). She might not make it past the teenage years with a prosperous career. I hope I’m wrong.
Hannah Montana: The Movie, sets out what it was meant to do – make a big screen project for tweens and their friends. Unless you or your youngsters are BIG fans, this is better left for video watching at home… on a Sunday… when perhaps no one is around. Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret.
04.9.2009 | By Mack Chico |
Al Pacino, who has long been interested in tackling the character of Napoleon, is on tap to play the French emperor in a screen adaptation of Staton Rabin’s children’s book “Betsy and the Emperor.”
GC Corp., the venture capital fund headed by Adi Cohen and Joseph Grinkorn, has picked up rights to the project that had been held by the Bob Yari Co. GC, which will secure financing, has assigned “Betsy” to Killer Films, with plans to begin filming in late autumn.
John Curran (“The Painted Veil”) is attached to direct from a screenplay by Brian Edgar.
Producing are Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler as well as Zvi Howard Rosenman, Colleen Camp and Fonda Snyder. Cohen and John Wells will serve as exec produce.
Killer, Curran and Pacino are repped by CAA. Rosenman, Snyder and Rabin are repped by Lynn Pleshette for this project, and Camp is repped by Gersh.
 Go to our film page
