Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Evan Almighty the New God

Newly elected to Congress, the polished, preening newscaster, Evan Baxter, is the next one anointed by God to accomplish a holy mission--walking in the footsteps of Bruce Almighty. Evan leaves Buffalo behind and shepherds his family to suburban northern Virginia. Once there, his life gets turned upside-down when God appears and mysteriously commands him to build an ark. But his befuddled family just can't decide whether Evan is having an extraordinary mid-life crisis or is truly onto something of Biblical p

Must watch the Day Watch

A man who serves in the war between the forces of Light and Dark comes into possession of a device that can restore life to Moscow, which was nearly destroyed by an apocalyptic event.

Rush to see the Trailer of Rush Hour 3

LAPD detective James Carter and Chinese Chief Inspector Lee travel to Paris to battle a wing of the Chinese organized crime family, the Triads.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Nancy Drew From a Novel to a Movie

Nancy Drew follows the title character and her father Carson to Los Angeles on one of his business trips. There they stumble across evidence about a long-unsolved crime involving the mysterious death of a beautiful movie star. Nancy's resourcefulness and personal responsibility are put to the test when she finds herself in the middle of the fast-living, self-indulgent world of Hollywood.






















Universal Studios to Create a Harry Potter Resort




Dont join in the Hostel(2) its more Scarier (Review of Hostel2)

For some reason sequels always seem to get a bad rap. Yet if you really take the time to examine the sequel, specifically as it implies to genre films in the Sci-Fi and Horror vein, more often than not the sequel is far superior, in terms of story, character development, gore and suspense/thrills, to the original. Of course a lot of sequels simply suck, too.Trying to nail down why some sequels succeed and some fail is tough. One could say that some succeed due to the injection of new blood (different screenwriter, different director, different actors) which often brings a fresh, new approach to the familiar material. Yet just as many sequels done by the original team of creators have succeeded as those done by a new team and vice/versa. Basically, we could sit here and argue the merits of each for hours, but the simple fact remains, some sequels fare better because of new creative blood and others fair better thanks to old blood. You just never can tell.With Hostel: Part II the original creator is back on tap. This would be director/screenwriter/producer Eli Roth, who has actually improved upon the first Hostel film, delivering more gore, but more importantly delivering a more streamlined, and dare I say, mature spin on the slasher genre. He joins the ranks of George Miller and Sam Raimi as a wild genre director who takes his initial concept and builds upon it, giving us more refined bits of the first film, but put through a meat grinder and made a bit more palpable. Hostel was ground chuck, Hostel: Part II is top sirloin.

To be quite frank, I was not a fan of Roth's first youth hostelling exploitationer, feeling that it was a little trite, a little forced, and basically hell-bent for providing shocks over substance. Needless to say when news of Hostel: Part II came down the pike I immediately went into cynical shock, thinking that Roth and company were just out to make another quick buck bringing some half-assed schlock and awe to the Cineplex in an attempt to further placate the masses with sub-standard horror fare. Watching the dismal Turistas recently didn't do much to assuage these fears.Yet a surprising thing happened on the way to the house of slaughter: Roth completely upped his game, improved upon the original by leaps and bounds, and actually made a believer out of this crusty old nub. Following in the tradition of such classic sequels as The Devils Rejects, Evil Dead 2, and Road Warrior Roth wastes no time sinking into familiar territory, giving the audience a quick fix jolt of gore and suspense right out the gate. From there he shifts tones and goes straight to romantic Italy where three young ladies—the obnoxious hottie (Bijou Phillips), the cute and meek (Lauren German) and the geek (Heather Matarazzo) -- are studying abroad. Naturally they decide to take a break from school and head off to Prague for a weekend of debauchery. As can be expected, their plans shift a bit and they end up at everybody's favorite Slovakian hostel. You know what happens next…or at least you think you do.Part of the allure of Hostel: Part II is that for most of the film you are fairly certain you know what's going to happen. When a hot foreign chick shows up and befriends the trio on their way to Prague you just know that she's part of the whole slaughterhouse cadre. Or is she? When hot Slovakian hunks pop up and begin to seduce members of the trio you just know that they're part of the bulldog tattoo posse. Or are they? Basically, Roth tosses so many red herrings at you and hopes that some of them stick and some flop away. The result is that he invariably and very slyly sucks you into a sense of familiarity that gives you a false sense of "Hey, I know what's going on." What ends up happening is that more often than not you are turned slightly on your head. Sure, a lot of what you guess will happen eventually does happen, but it's delivered in such a smooth manner that even when you've figured something out it doesn't feel like a letdown when it actually happens.

Conversely, all the twists and turns are logical. Never once do you go "WTF?" when something happens to a character. On this level Roth is near genius as all too often in these types of films there's a twist that makes nary a lick of sense no matter which way you slice and dice it. As with the original Hostel Roth tosses in little hidden verbal cues here and there which make watching the sequel very much like unfolding a psychotic cinematic version of Where's Waldo?, except the payoff is much, much, much bloodier and much, much, much more demented.The other major tweak that Roth has done to this film is that he's more or less tossed any of the forced humor of past endeavors (think that over-the-top hillbilly shtick from Cabin Fever and the over-the-top street urchins from Hostel) to the wind, letting it flutter away in favor of more restrained and subtle (at least for Roth, which still isn't that subtle) asides of twisted wit. Granted, familiar characters are still in place delivering dry moment of goofiness (the desk clerk at the hostel, the devilish Our Gang orphans, etc.) that flow well within the context of the film and actually capture a much more accurate assimilation of those creepy Euro thrillers and chillers from the '60s and '70s with rich tongue-in-cheek appreciation.

Hostel: Part II isn't so much a horror film as it is a gore soaked thriller. In this way Roth has more or less done what James Cameron did with Aliens. Rather than remake the claustrophobic horror of Ridley Scott's Alien Cameron went straight for the gonads with an extreme action film. Here Roth has ditched the "horror" of the first film in favor of a more exact sense of modern noir and creepiness, serving up a disconcerting slow burn instead of a mallet-to-the-head shocker (don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of shocking gore in Hostel: Part II, it just comes in spaced out waves). The bottomline with this sequel is such: any horror flick steeped in Giallo tradition (with slight forays into the whole Spanish/West German lesbian vampire sub-genre) that brings Dawn Weiner back from the dead only to get sliced and diced in some over-the-top Grand Guignol fashion is pretty damn bueno; in a sick-and-twisted sort of way, mind you, but damn bueno all the same.




Batman Returns as the Dark Knight

The sequel to Batman Begins. Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as The Joker.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Its RUSH HOUR in AUGUST

Chris Tucker returns to the big screen after a six-year absence as he reunites with the all-star team of co-star Jackie Chan, director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, Hannibal), and writer Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2, Catch Me If You Can) to deliver the third installment of the blockbuster Rush Hour franchise. Arriving in theaters on August 10, 2007, Rush Hour 3 sees the beloved action comedy duo of Tucker and Chan reprising their roles as LAPD Detective James Carter and Chinese Chief Inspector Lee respectively. This time around, the two must travel to Paris to battle a wing of the Chinese organized crime family, the Triads. Rush Hour 3 is being produced by Ratner, Jay Stern, and Arthur Sarkissian and executive produced by Roger Birnbaum (Memoirs of a Geisha) and Jon Glickman (The Pacifier).



Resident Evil Extinction sep21


Resident Evil: Extinction is again based on the wildly popular video game series and picks up where the last film left off. Alice (Milla Jovovich), now in hiding in the Nevada desert, once again joins forces with Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) and L.J. (Mike Epps), along with new survivors Claire (Ali Larter), K-Mart (Spencer Locke ) and Nurse Betty (Ashanti) to try to eliminate the deadly virus that threatens to make every human being undead…and to seek justice. Since being captured by the Umbrella Corporation, Alice has been subjected to biogenic experimentation and becomes genetically altered, with super-human strengths, senses and dexterity. These skills, and more, will be needed if anyone is to remain alive.

PIRATE Being REVIEWED


Having been largely ambivalent toward the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films, I had few specific expectations going into At World's End -- the series' finale. That's not to say I had low expectations, mind you; Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest were passingly entertaining and professionally executed, if nothing else. But even with Johnny Depp back at the helm and director Gore Verbinski guiding the voyage so to speak, doubt remained as to whether the series could eventually join the ranks of classic franchises. Sure, as a bullet point in pop culture, its position is assured. But as an integral part of movie history -- Depp's iconic turn as Sparrow notwithstanding -- the only legacy that Pirates seems poised to leave is the distinction of it being the first major series about seafaring swashbucklers to succeed financially.
And while Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End does indeed satisfactorily tie up all of the loose ends introduced in the other two installments, a fitting finale for what has become one of the most successful trilogies in recent history, there is little in its labyrinthine plotlines and countless character developments to earn it the timeless appeal that has secured the likes of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings their classic status in the annals of cinema.
Part of the reason for this is the fact that At World's End feels in a lot of ways like a pastiche of other sequels. At the end of Dead Man's Chest, Depp's Jack Sparrow succumbed to an untimely demise at the hands of the Kraken -- a setback a la Han Solo's carbon storage at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Enlisting the help of a resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) contact Chinese pirate Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) to help them retrieve Sparrow from Davy Jones' Locker for an overdue meeting with the legendary Lords of the Brethren Court. (Imagine the Tatooine sequence from Return of the Jedi with Knightley in the slave bikini instead of Carrie Fisher and you have the right idea.)

- Walt Disney PicturesBefore a deal can be struck, soldiers working for the East India Company attack Sao Feng's stronghold, effectively announcing the intended reign of the ruthless Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) over the seven seas. As Will and Elizabeth soon discover, Beckett also controls Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and the Flying Dutchman, and intends to use the ghost ship as a not-so-secret weapon to destroy all those who oppose his rule. With Beckett, Davy Jones and the Dutchman in hot pursuit, Will, Elizabeth and Barbossa strike out to rescue Sparrow from limbo, reunite the Brethren Court, and hopefully preserve the anarchic rule of piracy over the seas for years to come. (Insert Lord of the Rings-esque terrain-crossing montages and Matrix: Revolutions-style visual flourishes here.)
Much mention has already been made about this film's complicated and occasionally confusing storylines. Everything fits neatly together by the end of At World's End, much less the franchise as a whole; it's really more a matter of understanding exactly what's happening in the moment versus what it means later. As Verbinski acknowledges, many of the sequences -- the big set pieces that cost the most money -- were scheduled without being scripted, and as a result the movie does sometimes feel like a chess match between grand masters staged for an audience of checkers experts. But even dispassionately immersing oneself in the script's combination of Greek mythology, pirate lore and screenwriter's contrivance, there ultimately is very little that is too complex or unpredictable to throw off most viewers.
Unlike Dead Man's Chest, which felt overstuffed with Kraken encounters and at least one sequence that was completely unnecessary (cannibals, I'm looking in your direction), the scenes in At World's End all seem to have a purpose, or at the very least relate to the overall story. And while fans and critics turn the majority of their attention to Depp's captivating scenery-chewing as Sparrow, most of the real credit for the series' success must go to Verbinski. Particularly during the rain-and-windswept finale, where ships are colliding, swords are clashing, and more swashes are buckled than one can count, he manages to keep all of the various stories straight, much less the languages of emotion and action clear.
- Walt Disney PicturesAfter completing three of these movies, The Weather Man, The Ring and The Mexican, Verbinski is fast establishing himself as a top-tier studio helmer. As much because of his versatility as his lack of clear directorial identity, the filmmaker seems well-suited to inherit future (or present) franchises because he can keep tight reins on each series' individual landscape without redressing it too dramatically; in other words, he is an expert at rendering summer movie spectacle in film language that even the slowest audiences can understand. (Plus, he puts a monkey in pants and a hat, which is always worth at least a half of a star.)
Overall, however, At World's End does not surpass the previous two Pirates movies, even if it does answer virtually every question brought up in all three films and satisfy the demands of its position as "trilogy closer." Moreover, it certainly does not elevate the franchise to cinematic "mythology." Though the film and the series as a whole is full of iconic moments and exciting set pieces, there is little here that will languish in moviegoers' memories for decades to come -- except, again, as a temporary standard-bearer for blockbuster action, or perhaps a reminder of some other legitimately timeless movie franchise.
Ultimately, it's beautifully acted, expertly directed, and all-around well-mounted, as a sequel, franchise finale, or even general summer tent pole flick. But don't expect it to redefine your hierarchy of all-time favorite film series or provide a new reservoir of movie quotes for water-cooler conversations. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is the third installment in a series of films that inspire temporary entertainment and enjoyment but leave little if no lasting impression. And it absolutely sustains that legacy, even if it doesn't live up to any others.

Friday, May 18, 2007