Posted Dec 2nd 2008 12:15PM by Peter Martin
Filed under: Action, Animation, Classics, Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New on DVD, Family Films, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie
White Dog
Samuel Fuller's follow-up to The Big Red One was shelved by Paramount Pictures before its scheduled release in 1982 because of fears that its premise -- a white dog has been trained to attack black people -- would stir up more controversy than box office. Fuller was understandably outraged; in his autobiography, A Third Face, he wrote: "The studio has used me as a scapegoat for their lack of determination and courage." The film, co-written by Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential), with a score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, later received acclaim when it was released in Europe but never received a home video release in the US and has rarely been seen here. Kristy McNichol plays an actress who adopts the dog; Paul Winfield is as an anthropologist who tries to reverse the training. The Criterion Collection DVD includes a featurette with Hanson, producer Jon Davison, and Fuller's widow, plus a print interview with the dog trainer and essays by J. Hoberman and Armond White. I'm buying, but even if you're not a huge fan of Samuel Fuller, you'd want to check it out. Rent it.
Step Brothers
Combining Will Farrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, and Mary Steenburgen under one roof, Step Brothers mines familiar territory with sharp timing and plenty of belly laughs. Mine is, admittedly, a distinctly minority opinion. Available on DVD (single-disc rated, single-disc unrated, two-disc unrated) and Blu-ray, with an audio commentary by Farrell, Reilly, director Adam McKay, and a score by Jon Brion. Other features include deleted scenes and alternate takes, a gag reel, 'making of,' and a couple of gag featurettes. Rent it.
Much more on Wanted, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian after the jump, plus Indies on DVD, Blu-ray Picks, and Collector's Corner.
Continue reading Spin-ematical: New on DVD for 12/02
Posted Dec 1st 2008 2:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Fandom, Home Entertainment, Trailers and Clips
Cinematical has received this exclusive clip from the film
Let Them Chirp Awhile, directed by Jonathan Blitstein, and starring a pretty impressive cast of indie talent like Justin Rice (
Mutual Appreciation), Brendan Sexton III (
Welcome to the Dollhouse), Zach Galligan (
Gremlins) and Anthony Rapp (
Dazed and Confused).
From the synopsis:
"Let Them Chirp Awhile follows three twentysomething artists as they juggle their careers, relationships and emotions in New York City. Bobby (Rice) is a struggling screenwriter who tries to get romantically involved with a woman by agreeing to take care of her dog. His friend Scott (Sexton III) is a depressed, womanizing musician with a sweet and innocent girlfriend while Hart, (Galligan) Bobby's nemesis, is a successful playwright whose campy play about 9/11 has won awards and a run at an off-Broadway theater. What begins as a quirky comedy about relationships and writer's block becomes a coming-of-age tale about competition and self-reliance among the "me-generation."
Let Them Chirp Awhile opens in New York on December 5 (Cinema Village), Chicago on December 12 (AMC Loews Pipers Alley) and Los Angeles on January 2 (Laemmle Sunset 5).
Posted Dec 1st 2008 10:40AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Scripts, Remakes and Sequels
I guess when two out of three films in a franchise are an absolute blast to watch, you kinda try to get behind the odds that a fourth installment will fall somewhere in the middle between awesome and please don't let me see that again ... ever. After watching
Beverly Hills Cop 3, I almost filed a police report convinced the filmmakers had committed some sort of crime against humanity. Now, with the next one, you'd think folks would have learned from earlier mistakes. Well, the fact that Brett Ratner is directing hasn't exactly bolstered anticipation -- but maybe the script is good ...
Speaking of,
Latino Review managed to snag a draft of
Beverly Hills Cop 4 (one they claim "the studio loves, but Eddie Murphy is not too keen on"), and they've slapped a C+ grade on it. Based on their description (which includes spoilers, so watch out), the flick looks to be a combination of the original
Beverly Hills Cop and
Hitch, with Axel Foley (Murphy) trying to figure out who killed one of his friends, all while helping his new, fat partner score with some girl he has a crush on. LR says it's a "pretty standard police corruption story", and it feels "like the writers took an Arnold Schwarzenegger script they had lying around and changed the details to make it a
Beverly Hills Cop movie. There's no fun in it."
Good news is the script will probably change before a final product is shoveled into theaters. What do you think a fourth
Beverly Hills Cop movie needs in order to be successful with fans of the series?
Posted Dec 1st 2008 9:03AM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Music & Musicals, Scripts, Remakes and Sequels
Remember that
Hairspray sequel that William Goss mentioned back
in July?
Adam Shankman had signed on to direct the sequel, and the master of the perverse (and creator of the original),
John Waters, was going to whip up a story to send out to writers. Looks like things are on schedule -- according to
EW, Waters has finished scheming up the sequel, and they're now hunting for a writer.
Basically, Waters has handed over "an outline and some ideas" for the film that will ultimately become the next instalment of Tracy Turnblad as she heads for the "next era of music," the '60s. "That period was superpolitical, it was a time of serious change. We're trying to track, in a comedic way, the historical elements" says Shankman. This will include the British Invasion, which consumes Link (played by Zac Efron in the remake).
On the plus side: Waters schemed up the outline. On the negative side: Waters isn't writing the meat of the script. Will a Waters outline be enough? I'm not so sure.
Posted Nov 29th 2008 3:02PM by Matt Bradshaw
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Trailer Trash
Time to kick back, have a turkey sandwich and dig into some post-Thanksgiving movie trailer goodness.
The Ugly Truth
Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler star in this romantic comedy. Butler is an abrasive, chauvinistic TV personality and Heigl is his romantically challenged producer. The story looks fairly predictable and this one is going to have to rely heavily on the charisma of the cast. The release date is April 3.
What Doesn't Kill YouCrime drama starring
Mark Ruffalo and
Ethan Hawke as childhood friends from Boston whose life of crime puts a strain on their personal lives. This looks reminiscent of other Boston-based crime flicks like
The Departed and
Gone Baby Gone, but looks like it has a passion all its own. This will be one to watch for and it goes into limited release on December 12.
New in Town
A fish-out-of-water comedy starring
Renee Zellweger as a Miami businesswoman who relocates to Minnesota in the middle of the Winter. Having witnessed a Minnesota Winter firsthand, I can sympathize.
Harry Connick Jr. plays the flannel-garbed, rough-around-the-edges hunk she falls for. This could be fun, and it comes out sometime in 2009.
Continue reading Trailer Park: Things Get Ugly
Posted Nov 28th 2008 5:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Casting
We know him as the man who made the radios go wild with "Achey Breaky" hearts, and he who holds the loins that made Miley, but could
Billy Ray Cyrus soon become that tough action spy?
The Hollywood Reporter posts that Cyrus,
George Lopez,
Amber Valletta, and
Katherine Boecher have joined
Jackie Chan's upcoming comedy
The Spy Next Door. Chan plays a man who helps out his neighbors by babysitting their children. In a twist of bad luck for the guy, one accidentally downloads a code and he must protect the tykes from secret agents. They're lucky Kenneth from
30 Rock wasn't the babysitter... Lopez is "a CIA agent who might not be all the he appears," Cyrus is an agent as well, Valletta is mom, and since we're in spy-land, there are Russian shoes that will be filled by Boecher.
I think it's safe to presume how this will turn out. But what about the family of Cyruses? Will this lead to co-starring father-daughter gigs? Will anyone believe Cyrus is in the CIA? Sound off below!
Posted Nov 28th 2008 3:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Comedy, Romance, Sony, Movie Marketing, Trailers and Clips
The trailer for
The Ugly Truth, the romantic comedy starring
Gerard Butler and
Katherine Heigl is up at the
film's official website. The premise of this film sounded downright terrible -- a television producer is forced to deal with a chauvinistic correspondent, who decides to teach her what men want so that she can find love, with the pair discovering "an unexpected result" along the way. Could that result be ... love? Yeah, probably.
But you know what? The trailer's not half bad, and it really does seem like an updated and raunchier
Pillow Talk. Plus, it's rated R, which gives me a lot of hope that it could be something akin to a Judd Apatow movie. I really expected a lot of PG-13 chauvanism, not lessons on how to sexily eat a hot dog, or Butler using the phrase "ladygarden."
Maybe I'm just a sucker for a Butler movie after all. I slagged him off a bit
last week, but he's just so darn charming, even when he's being a total sleaze. Then again, 2 hours of him saying things like "Get on a Stairmaster!" might be an emotionally unpleasant experience. I like escapism in my movies. If I wanted to hear guys saying that kind of stuff to me, I'd just go to a Denver bar and wait ten minutes. It'd be cheaper than a movie ticket.
The Ugly Truth opens April 3rd, 2009.
Posted Nov 28th 2008 10:10AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
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Just the other day I was chatting with a friend about movie franchises, and for some reason
Police Academy came up. (Now I remember -- the Arizona Cardinals' running back is named Hightower!) I was of the opinion that we were totally due for a reboot of the entire
Police Academy franchise -- with maybe a passing of the torch sort of thing between some old cast members and new ones. They could update it, modernize it -- maybe throw in a few young, fresh names (I could totally see Jay Baruchel starring in a role) and have some fun.
Cut to today:
The Sun had a chat with
Steve Guttenberg recently, and it looks like a new
Police Academy flick is totally in the works. He says, "We are doing a new movie and it is going to be great fun. A script is being written and so far it is really great, everyone from the original movies who is still around will return." Guttenberg also said that both
Kim Cattrall (
Police Academy) and
Sharon Stone (
Police Academy 4) have been asked to return, but neither has "said yes yet." I'm a big fan of the series (or most of it, at least), and so hopefully they've got something tasty cookin' in the oven.
For Guttenberg, however, one sequel just ain't enough. He notes, "Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and I are looking to make another
Three Men And A Baby movie. It's called
Three Men and A Bride. The script is pretty much written and we are really keen to get that made. We're very hopeful." Hey, more power to them ... although, in 2009 (or 2010, 2011), I'm not sure how well a film starring Ted Danson, Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg would do at the box office? Iffy on that one. You?
[Thanks Jim]
Posted Nov 27th 2008 4:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Thrillers, Casting, Deals, Scripts
While the Material Girl gets back to single life, her brother is getting ready for the big screen.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that Madonna's brother
Christopher Ciccone will make his feature directorial debut with a new teen thriller called
Twist. The script was written by
Jay and Karyn Milner, and while no plot details are being released, you can get a taste of the stories they write by clicking on their names -- it's the usual fish-out-of-water stories with strange and dangerous twists. Considering the name of this project, I think it's safe to say that this will be no different.
THR also reports that
Maurice Kanbar (
Hoodwinked producer) is gearing up for an indie with
Daphne Zuniga called
The Scene. Aside from
reliving her days as Princess Vespa, Zuniga is producing and starring in the black comedy, which is adapted from
Theresa Rebeck's (
Gossip) play about the "Manhattan party circuit and entertainment industry."
While I wish this meant something of the Whit Stilman oeuvre, this is more modern. Zuniga will play a cynical talk show producer who meets a chameleon social-climber played by Heather Gordon. What happens after that, we'll have to wait and see.
Amy Glazer is directing, and this should be a bit of an intimate affair since
THR says that sets have been built IN Kanbar's home. Talk about cutting costs!
Posted Nov 27th 2008 1:32PM by William Goss
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Independent, Sundance, Trailers and Clips
You know, I was content with thinking that blax-ploitation send-up
Black Dynamite was merely a very creative fake trailer (we've included the red-band version post-jump, just to stay safe). But every indication seems to suggest that
Michael Jai White's funky fight against The Man is a feature-length affair -- and one that's been accepted to the next Sundance Film Fesitval to boot.
I don't care if
Grindhouse didn't make much at the box office, because the world is still better off for having that film (or those films) in it, and I can't help but think there's room on our '70s throwback shelf for a little African-American TNT. Those feeling the vibe might want to check out
the official website for a soulful theme that would do Isaac Hayes proud, some fittingly bad-ass posters and anything you might want to know about the film and its influences.
So, without further ado, help yourself to some NSFW goodness after the jump...
Continue reading 'Black Dynamite' Trailer, for All You Jive Turkeys
Posted Nov 27th 2008 10:32AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Romance, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Trailers and Clips
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Okay, maybe I'm being a bit tough on the film and the trailer. After all, it seems every few years we need one of these films -- the kind that reminds us how hard it is to connect and communicate with the opposite sex. Or do we? Maybe it's the star-studded cast that's turning me off, then, or maybe it's just that I feel like we've been down this road time and time again; relationships are tough, we know, and they're painful, unfortunately -- so does throwing in a blackberry joke and a few lines of dialogue about MySpace make it all seem fresher?
Anyway, there's a new trailer out for the rom-com
He's Just Not That Into You (in theaters February 6), which itself is based on a
book full of relationship advice and not a real, solid story -- and so what you get is pretty much what you see in this trailer: A mish-mosh of different romantic situations and people (ie: pretty famous faces) looking for advice from other famous faces. "Should I call? When should I call him back?" I don't know, didn't we decide this, like, 37 movies ago? Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Justin Long and Scarlett Johansson star. Check out the trailer below, and let me know if I'm being too rough on this one.
Posted Nov 26th 2008 5:22PM by Matt Bradshaw
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Box Office Predictions
The vampire romance
Twilight kicked serious butt with the fifth biggest November opening in history. Last week's other newbie,
Bolt, took a somewhat disappointing third place with
Quantam of Solace outselling the Disney feature by a mere half million. Here's the top five:
1. Twilight: $69.6 million
2. Quantum of Solace: $26.7 million
3. Bolt: $26.2 million
4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: $15.6 million
5. Role Models: $7.3 million
This week, a historical drama, a holiday-themed comedy and an action sequel are vying for your Thanksgiving weekend box-office dollars.
Australia
What's It All About: Set in the months after Pearl Harbor,
Nicole Kidman plays an aristocratic British cattle rancher with
Hugh Jackman playing a cattle driver who helps drive her herd across hundreds of miles of Australian outback.
Why It Might Do Well: The cast is definitely a plus and Kidman and Jackman appear to have good chemistry.
Why It Might Not Do Well: 47% rotten at
Rottentomatoes.com suggests a less than bright future for this one.
Number of Theaters: 2,600
Prediction: $17 million
Four Christmases
What's It All About: When a couple played by
Reese Witherspoon and
Vince Vaughn find their vacation flight has been canceled, they are forced to visit all four of their divorced and remarried parents on Christmas Day.
Why It Might Do Well: The holiday season is almost here, so the Christmas angle may appeal to some.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The plot has a been-there-done-that feel, Vaughn appears to be playing the same character we've seen him do countless times before, and
Rottentomatoes.com gives it 23%.
Number of Theaters: 3,200
Prediction: $26 million
Continue reading Box Office: Transporting Christmas to Australia
Posted Nov 26th 2008 1:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Casting, Sundance, RumorMonger
One of the big questions that has plagued cutie funny guy
Michael Cera is whether he'll be able to find a career outside of his bumbling, awkward, mild-mannered roles. While that question is currently left unanswered, we
will get to see if the guy on the screen is the same guy backstage.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that he's part of a "semi-secret" project called
Paper Hearts. Why semi-secret? This sucker, which is being described as part-documentary and part-scripted comedy, has already been made and will debut soon at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. It seems this new film will follow his real-life relationship with
Charlyne Yi (the stoner girl from
Knocked Up, who you can see above), and like his recent
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, be greatly influenced by music.
I can't imagine how they'll meld the real and the fictional, but it should make for an interesting experiment. Will this secrecy pay off and help
Paper Hearts explode during its debut in Park City? Or will it succumb to the woes of other struggling indie films? Stay tuned!
Posted Nov 26th 2008 12:20PM by William Goss
Filed under: Comedy, Warner Brothers, Theatrical Reviews
Last November, Warner Bros. released
Fred Claus, a Christmas-set comedy pairing up lead Vince Vaughn with Rachel Weisz.
This November, New Line released
Four Christmases, a Christmas-set comedy pairing up lead Vince Vaughn with Reese Witherspoon.
Mere coincidence, you might ask, despite the fact that New Line is owned by Warner Brothers, not to mention the shared initials of both the titles
and the actresses playing the love interests? Perhaps, but happenstance loses my vote when the best one can say for
Four Christmases is that it's a marginally better holiday romp than the likes of
Fred Claus.
Continue reading Review: Four Christmases
Posted Nov 25th 2008 7:15PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Movies We're Thankful For
There are only a few movies that I can watch over and over again, and
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is one of them. I've always had an affinity for Will Ferrell, to the point of being baffled when I encounter someone who doesn't find him funny at all, and
Anchorman is his greatest cinematic achievement.
It's my go-to DVD when I'm in need of comfort food. If I'm feeling a little under the weather, or if old man trouble has been knockin' at my door, I just pop in
Anchorman to help chase the blues away. The antics of Ron Burgundy, Brick Tamland, Champ Kind, Brian Fantana -- not to mention Veronica Corningstone, Ed Harken, Tits McGee, James Westfall, Dr. Kenneth Noisewater, and faithful ol' Baxter -- always cheer me up. Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.
There was even one day this summer when I felt like Ron Burgundy! It was in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave in Portland, and I was showing a visiting friend all the sights of downtown when we stopped at the legendary
Voodoo Doughnut for a treat. Needing a beverage to wash it down, I got a small carton of milk -- milk goes great with doughnuts, right? -- and instantly thought of Ron Burgundy. There I was, walking down the street in 102-degree weather, slurping milk, some of it dribbling into my beard. "It's so damn hot! Milk was a bad choice!"
Happy Thanksgiving, Channel 4 News Team. And you stay classy, Ron Burgundy.
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