Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN

The most successful thing about this film is the marketing. Warner Bros. actually made me believe this film was going to be good. I saw director McG's CHARLIE'S ANGELS, I should have known better. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but he nuked the franchise. There are survivors and there is some hope for the future, but I suggest the producers hire the writers from STAR TREK and have this movie be the alternative timeline that we can all forget ever existed.

The story begins in 2003 with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington, upcoming AVATAR), a death row inmate that signs his body over to Dr. Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter, SWEENEY TODD) of Cyberdyne, who promises to give him a second chance at life. Skip forward to 2018. John Connor (Christian Bale, THE DARK KNIGHT) is a member of a resistance against Skynet, the artificial intelligence that has taken over the world with its killer robots. Marcus surfaces from a Skynet facility, knowing nothing of what has happened to the world. He ends up in a destroyed L.A. where he meets a teenaged Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, STAR TREK), the time-traveling hero of the first film and the father of John Connor. After a few action sequences, Kyle ends up captured by Skynet and Marcus ends up the prisoner of Connor, who hates Marcus's "big secret."

After Frank Capra made him a star in the Oscar-winning YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, Jimmy Stewart got a chance to play something a little different in this Western for director George Marshall. While the film does everything it can to give him equal billing with co-star Marlene Dietrich, he owns this film. No wonder Dietrich's bad girl falls for Stewart's sly lawman.

The town of Bottleneck is run by gamblers and thieves. Saloon owner Kent (Brian Donlevy, KISS OF DEATH) uses his dance hall girl Frenchy (Dietrich, THE SCARLET EMPRESS) to cheat men out of their ranches. And she does a good job of cheat men out of their pants. When the sheriff goes missing, the crooked mayor appoints the town drunk Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger, 1936's SHOW BOAT) to be the new sheriff. However, the new appointment gives Dimsdale a purpose, so he calls for the son of a famed lawman to help him clean up the town. That man is Tom Destry Jr. (Stewart). But when he shows up without any guns, he becomes the laughing stock of the community. Kent believes he has a new lawman in his pocket, but Destry is craftier than he appears.

Wow, this was a great weak for new trailers. Peeks at what looks like a powerful lineup of forthcoming films. We finally get looks at some potential Oscar contenders. There's a horror film I don't know yet if it's going to be great or total trash. Disney's return to handdrawn animation. And some interesting indies.

So Bad You Have to See It
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
Trailer
As I posted on Twitter, all I have to say is mega shark vs. giant Octopus vs. Debbie Gibson. And they throw in Lorenzo Lamas for good measure too.

Getting Buzzed
10) Burma VJ
Trailer
Burma is a closed society. So the way news gets out is via brave video journalists on the ground. This documentary captures their struggle to chronicle an oppressive regime.

Rian Johnson's BRICK is one of the most creative films of the new century. So my anticipation for Johnson's follow-up film, THE BROTHERS BLOOM, was quite high. While it isn't as fresh as his previous genre-bending high-school-set noir, this con man tale is just as entertaining and even more charming. This is mainly due to a sweet double love story at its core. One between a man and a woman and the other between brothers.

Stephen (Mark Ruffalo, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME) and Bloom (Adrien Brody, THE DARJEELING LIMITED) moved from foster home to foster home throughout their childhood. Bloom was a shy kid who wished he could interact with the other children better. So Stephen writes a con for Bloom to act out and Bloom blooms. However, after years of living a lie, Bloom wants something real. Yet he has a hard time refusing his brother who lures him back into one last job — conning the rich, eccentric heiress Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz, THE CONSTANT GARDENER).

The key to a great spoof is to understand what you are spoofing and love it. Screenwriters David Howard and Robert Green must love STAR TREK, because they nail every aspect of this send-up of the classic sci-fi TV series. This always felt like a film made by fans for fans.

"Galaxy Quest" the TV series has been off the air for some time now, but the fan base is still avid. The cast makes the rounds at conventions, most of them wishing they were doing something else. Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen, THE SANTA CLAUSE) was the star, playing Kirk-like Capt. Taggart. Sir Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman, ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES) was a Shakespearian actor before landing the role of the alien Dr. Lazarus. He has come to loathe his most famous line, "By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!" Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver, ALIEN) played Lt. Tawny Madison, who was best know for her low-cut uniform than anything else. Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub, TV's MONK) played Tech Sgt. Chen and takes everything in stride. Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell, 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU) was a kid when he was on the show playing pilot wunderkind Lt. Laredo, now he can't get acting work. The supporting cast resents Nesmith's diva attitude and his rapport with the fans.

Save the introduction this week. What's the word?

Losing Steam
Land of the Lost
Trailer
This remake of the 1970s TV series made my summer list, but with every new clip or trailer, I loose more and more interest. I've been defending Will Ferrell long after so many people gave up on him. I really hope this isn't just him doing his shtick in a fantasy world.

Getting Buzzed
8) District 9 (Aug. 14)
Trailer
Last week, Neill Blomkamp's DISTRICT 9 made the top of my Getting Buzzed list. This week, an updated version of the first trailer has hit the Net and we get to see what the aliens were saying and what they look like. It's only at #8 because you gotta give some others a chance.

I had planned to do this lineup in conjunction with the home entertainment release of THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON for some time. It seems fitting that in the same week Roger Ebert posts a poignant blog entry on mortality. Aging is a curious thing, and each of us handles it in different ways. Certainly circumstance plays a roll in how we will view the closing of our lives, but perspective is very important. "You're only as old as you think you are" is a very true statement… most of the time. In This Weekend's Film Festival, some age differently then others. Some age bitterly. Some forget who they were and don't see who they have become. Some forget about limitations and embrace an innocent love of life. Some simply find a new lease on life when the days are most precious. I hope you enjoy this contemplative and entertaining lineup that contains thrills, thoughts and ends with passion.

The X-MEN franchise got too big to handle on the screen, so Fox decided to make individual origin movies about the characters as a way to trim down blooming budgets. Sounded like a great idea — more time to focus on developing the beloved characters properly. Now we get the first in a proposed series and its bloated with too many characters, none of which we care about at all — even its central character. So now we know why Fox was so worried when a rough cut leaked out on the Internet, they didn't want anyone to see it before they plopped down their money. They were just taking a cue from real life wolverines, which cover up their messes.

The film begins with a prologue when Logan, aka Wolverine, (Hugh Jackman, X-MEN) was young. He discovers that his father isn't really his father and that Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber, THE PAINTED VEIL), is his brother. The brothers are virtually immortal and fight in every war from the Civil to Vietnam. Gen. William Stryker (Danny Huston, THE CONSTANT GARDENER) comes knocking and wants to recruit the boys into a special unit. A trip to Africa sours Wolverine's taste for bloodshed and he goes AWOL. Years pass and Logan has settled down as a lumberjack and gotten himself a pretty girl named Kayla (TV's TRUE BLOOD). When Sabretooth finds their Canadian retreat, things don't turn out good for Wolverine's love and he decides to take up a new offer from Stryker to bond his bones with an indestructible alloy that will allow him to kill his brother.

When Aristomenis Tsirbas' 3-D CG feature won the grand prize for features at the Ottawa International Animation Festival over acclaimed films such as WALTZ WITH BASHIR and SITA SINGS THE BLUES, I was surprised and eagerly awaited a chance to see this indie production. I believe the Canadian crowd in September 2008 connected to the anti-Bush administration themes within the film. For certain, TERRA, as it was known then, has ambitions larger than a typical animated action flick, but does it rise above the trappings of a typical animated action flick? Yes and no.

Taking the premise of H.G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS and flipping the roles, TERRA tells the story of a peaceful alien species that is about to be annihilated by an invading force of humans. Mala (Evan Rachel Wood, THE WRESTLER) is a young Terrian who likes adventure, but lives with her protective father Roven (Dennis Quaid, FAR FROM HEAVEN). When the humans invade, her father is abducted. To find answers, she saves the life of a crashed pilot named Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson, IDIOCRACY) and his loyal robot assistant Giddy (David Cross, GHOST WORLD). When they venture back to the human ship, Jim is lauded as a hero by General Hemmer (Brian Cox, X-MEN UNITED), whose resemblance to George W. Bush is about as subtle as a hammer. He is a warmonger who uses Jim's brother Stewart (Chris Evans, FANTASTIC FOUR) as a pawn to force Jim to choose between killing all the Terrians or dooming his own species.

This remake of the Korean horror flick A TALE OF TWO SISTERS not only adapts the original for English-speaking audiences, but also tightens the story to its essential elements. Craig Rosenberg, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard are all credited with adapting Ji-woon Kim's script. What seemed like a labyrinth in the Korean tale is very straightforward in the U.S. version. This quality is both bad and good depending on your point of view. Having seen the original, the good outweighs the bad.

Anna (Emily Browning, LEMONY SNICKET) has just been released from the hospital after a suicide attempt. Her mother died in an explosion and now her nurse Rachael (Elizabeth Banks, W.) has moved into the house with Anna's father Steven (David Strathairn, GOOD NIGHT. AND GOOD LUCK). Anna's sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel, THE GRUDGE 2) suspects her father's new girlfriend of all kinds of devious things. Soon Anna starts seeing the ghost of her dead mother and a trio of children. What really happened the night of the explosion?

Mental illness, personal rights, personal responsibility, homelessness, the crumbling newspaper business — these are the issues circling this biopic on Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez and homeless musical prodigy Nathaniel Ayers, who is possibly schizophrenic. In real life Lopez won accolades for his columns on Ayers. He wants to help, but what is the best thing to do for Nathaniel?

Lopez (Robert Downey Jr., IRON MAN) meets Ayers (Jamie Foxx, RAY) in a park playing a violin with two strings. In their first rambling conversation, Ayers mentions that he went to Julliard and Lopez's journalism ears are piqued. Ayers did indeed go to Julliard, but something happened and over the course of the film we learn how Ayers went from the poor neighborhoods of Cleveland to Julliard to the streets of Los Angeles where he lives unaware of reality from moment to moment.

I first saw Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD in college and was struck by its dark look at the Hollywood Dream. Now years later, having lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, the film cuts to the bone. One sees William Holden's character Joe Gillis driving the streets of Hollywood, a few of the buildings are the same, but everything around them are different. When it comes to the tale of a fledging writer and the aging movie star, the types are the same today only the trappings around them have changed.

Gillis has had some minor success as a writer, but he's now behind on his rent and about to have his car repossessed. By happenchance, he blows a tire and pulls into what he assumes is an abandoned mansion off of Sunset Blvd. Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson, GREED) is waiting. Her and her dutiful butler Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim, THE GRAND ILLUSION) believe he is a mortician come to deliver the child's casket for Norma's dead monkey. It's a perfect scene to introduce the eccentric star. And when Gillis recognizes her and says, "You used to be big." She replies, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."