June 2010 Archives

I didn't think I was going to laugh in a good way, but this Twilight movie is the best and most enjoyable of the three.  

Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are back, and they need to come to some sort of compromise.  She wants to become a vampire to stay with him forever, and he wants her to marry him first, because he's old school.  

So, while they keep talking about how Bella is heading off to the University of Alaska (you can see Russia from your dorm room!), Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is trying to stop Bella from changing into a bloodsucking, soulless, cold as ice vampire (and, somehow, wears a shirt for at least 20 minutes before showing up like The Amazing Shirtless Matthew McConaughey, who would have ripped his shirt off in the first 5 seconds, this Taylor kid has alot to learn). 

Rumor has it this will be appearing before showings of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse this weekend, but check it out here without having to wait.  Step aside Bella, Edward and Jacob!  Harry Potter is going to rock your world, and he doesn't have to take off his shirt to do it.

 

Join me Wednesday, June 30 at 7 PM as The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and The National Archives Foundation presents the winners of the 37th Annual Student Academy Awards.

Past winners include Spike Lee, South Park's Trey Parker, Robert Zemeckis and more, so get ready to see the up and coming directors and writers who will be making your favorite movies. 

I had a chance to see the winners, and you don't want to miss it.  You'll enjoy a night of comedy and drama that can give Twilight, Toy Story and The Karate Kid a run for their money.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. The doors to the building will open 30 minutes prior to the start of the program. Use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue.

It's almost like the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring hooked me up to a lie detector, pumped me full of truth serum and asked me which movies I want to see this summer!  Starting July 2, all of my dreams, and hopefully yours, come true.  

Forget about those remakes of The Karate Kid and The A-Team, all of the greatest 80's movies are playing at the AFI's 4th Annual Totally Awesome films of the 80's series, including The Empire Strikes Back, Fletch, Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Back To The Future, Uncle Buck, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, The Lost Boys, Star Trek III and more!

Most of you have only seen these movies on your TV, and the rest of us haven't seen them on the silver screen in decades.  It's a chance to see the movies that made you love movies, or share some fantastic memories with the kids.  Teach them why you have been searching car auctions for a DeLorean. 

Watch for me in my Member's Only jacket, going up to ladies saying, "What's happenin' hot stuff?"
 
 

The Friends of Adam Sandler Jobs Creation Program is in full swing in Grown Ups.  With this movie, he might have created more jobs than Bush and Obama combined.

Cyrus is a movie caught in some weird, in between place that makes the viewer feel a bit icky inside.

Just when you thought the 3D craze had reached the stage where Hollywood studio executives need an intervention, producer Don Hahn revealed Disney is working on 3D conversions of Beauty and The Beast and The Lion King.

When it comes to exploiting an idea and driving into the ground out of pure greed and opportunism, Disney has no peers.  This is the company bringing you Step Up 3D this summer and produced the DVD releases of sequels to Cinderella, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Bambi and more.  It's a craven strategy to suck every dollar out of your pocket by disguising it as manufacturing/sharing childhood memories with your family.   

However, this new plan may top them all.

If Beauty and The Beast 3D or Lion King 3D do well, how long is it until we get Cinderella 3D, Snow White 3D, Bambi 3D and more?  I'd like to think someone has come up with a good reason why the 3D conversion of these movies will help enhance our experience or make the artist's vision come to life.  I know.  I choked on my popcorn typing those words. 

Some of my favorite movie memories are seeing films like Snow White and Cinderella with my family.  They are great films without any new bells and whistles added.  The films don't need tricks to appeal to any generation.  This has been proven for decades.  


 

No couch jumping.  No rants about psychiatry.  Are you sure this is a Tom Cruise movie?

If The Karate Kid remake can be a big hit AND a good movie, maybe there is some hope for another 80's classic. 

Footloose is coming back to the big screen, but who is going to play Kevin Bacon?  Today, Paramount Pictures announced newcomer/nobody/fresh face Kenny Wormald will be dancing through the barn with his iPod (you know they have to replace the Walkman in this update). 

Who is Kenny Wormald?  He is a dancer who has appeared in videos for Prince and Madonna, as well as shaking his groove thang in the movies Clerks 2 and You Got Served.

Wormald won't be going it alone.  He'll be joined by singer/dancer/thief of my heart Julianne Hough and the awesome Dennis Quaid. 

Before you start to cluck the tongue and ridicule the whole enterprise, keep in mind it the movie has been written and will be directed by Craig Brewer - the same man who taught us it's hard out there for a pimp as the writer of Hustle & Flow. 

When Toy Story 3 was receiving positive reviews from every person who has an opinion about movies, myself, Roger Ebert, and several others had the same reaction. 

What did Armond White think? 

No, we weren't waiting for the greatest movie critic in the business to weigh in with ultimate authority.  We all know he's a pitiful, attention grabbing, contrarian whose opinion has lost almost all credibility.

When I grow up, I want to be George Clooney, not George Costanza.

Check out the trailer for George's new movie, The American, where he plays an assassin waiting to get his next assignment.  Scheduled to be released in December 2010, just in time for the Oscars. 

 

At the grand old age of 24 years old, TV and movie star Amanda Bynes has decided to retire from acting, and announced it on her Twitter page this weekend.

While starring in the TV shows All That, The Amanda Show and What I Like About You, Bynes emerged as a child star with great promise, even drawing comparisons to the greatest of comedic actresses. 

She made a moderately successful transition to the big screen in What A Girl Wants and Robots, but quickly started fading into the background as a supporting player in 2007's Hairspray.

Bynes is scheduled to appear in the 2010 movie Easy A, but, according to her statement, the young actress has grown tired of the profession, and indicates she might be up for writing and directing.   

Will she be back after taking some time off?  Maybe.

Will she be back after getting a temp gig making copies and getting coffee for the boss?   Yes. 

Or, she can completely retire, buy an RV, and move to Florida. 

The only people who deserve to see Jonah Hex are Hitler and the CEO of British Petroleum.
 

Woody (voice by Tom Hanks), Buzz (voice by Tim Allen), Jessie (voice by Joan Cusack) and the whole gang are back, but we have to wonder how long it will all last.

Their owner, Andy (voice by John Morris), is all grown up now and heading off to college, which means the toys are preparing for storage in the attic, or, even worse, being thrown out with the trash.  These are the worst of times for a toy.

Check out the first Smurfs movie trailer right here, or go to http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-the-smurfs-get-real-in-first-trailer.html when this video becomes disabled.

Will the Smurfs movie be a classic like Toy Story?  Or, a horrifying mess like Alvin and the Chipmunks?  After seeing this trailer, I am leaning towards Chipmunks. 

Oh No!!!!!  Don't ruin the Smurfs!!!!!

If you haven't been to the Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival in Silver Spring, what are you waiting for?  This is your chance to see the Oscar winners and nominees before they hit theaters.

Oh My! Oh My!  Oh My!  Behold the power of Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan as The Karate Kid demolishes The A-Team at the weekend box office.

The Karate Kid scores $56 Million in an opening weekend haul no one predicted.  Seriously, if someone uncovers some Nostradamus prediction that this re-boot would boot the TV-based action film in the booty, I am going to call baloney! 

The A-Team brought in $26 Million, which isn't horrible, but in Hollywood, everyone will be talking about how this movie was trounced by the little movie no one expected to be this big. 

Shrek Forever After keeps bringing in the green with another $15.8 Million this weekend to bring its total box office take to $210 Million in the United States and $284 Million worldwide. 

Get ready for The Karate Kid 2 where Jaden and Jackie Chan have to go to an international tournament in Toronto to take on a new nemesis - Justin Bieber!!!!! 

 

With 80's remakes The A-Team and The Karate Kid being rolled out into theaters this week, it makes me get a bit nostalgic and imagine I am a teenager again, hanging out at Skate Estate, wearing my Whitesnake t-shirt, and getting rejected by teenage girls (These days, I hang out at Rumors wearing a nice sport coat and get rejected by ladies in their 20's and 30's.  The more things change, the more they stay the same). 

Will this version of The A-Team destroy your memories of the original?  No.

It's time for Will Smith's kid to learn all about nepotism, exploiting a previously cherished classic and marketing the heck out of it to make a massive amount of money.  Let's just hope it doesn't have the same stench of death Wild Wild West did for poppa when he tried the same back in the 90's.  

Darn it!  They made a good movie!

Michael Douglas stars as Ben Kalman - a very famous car dealer who suffered an infamous fall from grace.

Now, he spends his days plotting a major comeback with a can't miss new dealership, and spends his night trying to bed every woman he possibly can (play on playa).
 

With the remake of The Karate Kid hitting theaters this week, the original Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio has sensed a chance to grab the spotlight again.  And it's funny!

Check out this mockumentary about Ralph Macchio's "comeback bid". 

Not Safe For Work.  Rated R.  Lots of cursing.

Lindsay went to a party after The MTV Movie Awards Sunday night, and her court issued SCRAM bracelet, which monitors her for alcohol intake, went off! 

OK, it didn't light up like a Christmas Tree, but, like a tattle tale little brother or sister who catches you sneaking in after curfew, it ratted her out!     

Lindsay says she has not been drinking, but the judge in her case had a meeting with the prosecutor and Lohan's lawyer.  The judge heard both sides, and decided Lindsay is a wanted woman, again. Bail is set at $200,000, but is this the final straw?

What can cause her SCRAM device to send such a report?  According to TMZ, she could have been drinking, could have missed a specified time to be near the device's base to retrieve data, or the strap was cut. 

If you didn't watch The MTV Movie Awards on Sunday, here's the special Twilight:Eclipse scene premiered at the show. 

The A-Team, The Karate Kid, Toy Story 3, Red Dawn, Sex and the City 2, Shrek 4, Step Up 3D.  Yes, we have reached the saturation point for sequels and "re-imaginings", but two movies were announced this week that could cause riots at your local cineplex. 

Are you ready for Three Men and a Bride?  Didn't throw up a bit in your mouth after reading that one?  Try Brett Ratner's Snow White!!!!!!!!

Remember when talking animals used to be funny?  

It was back in those amazing, fanciful, wondrous days before The Chronicles of Narnia had talking animals fighting holy wars and Beverly Hills Chihuahua made our four legged friends vapid and vacant.  Those holes Marmaduke is digging might as well be graves for the words, "talking animals are funny."  I proclaim that movie commandment to be no more.

Russell Brand is back as outrageous, hedonistic rock and roll star Aldous Snow.  After the massive failure of his latest CD, and fresh from being dumped by his superstar girlfriend, Snow is on a binge of sex, drugs and rock and roll, but a young fan has an idea to bring him back into the spotlight for all of the right reasons.
 

Splice has inspired me to roll out a new feature that has been percolating in my head for several years. 

Sometimes, we see a movie and need to talk about The End.  It can be the most important part of the film, making you love it or hate it for eternity, but, as critics, we never get to talk about it.  Until now. 

After Splice has been in theaters for a few weeks, and everyone has had a chance to see it, we'll talk about The End, because you won't believe where this one goes. 

Those of you who stayed until the very end of the credits for Iron Man 2 saw Thor's mighty hammer, but here is the rest of the outfit. 

Avengers fans can also check out mock ups of Captain America's duds here.

Paul McCartney might have been rocking the East Room, but there was plenty of action outside of the White House on Wednesday as actress Q'orianka Kilcher was arrested in a protest of Peruvian President Alan Garcia, who was visiting. 

Kilcher chained herself to a fence surrounding the White House, and had a black goopy substance poured on her by her mother, who joined in the protest. 

The actress, best known as Pocahontas in the Colin Farrell movie The New World (seen by about 5 or 6 of us who read this posting), is a political activist with concerns about policies regarding the indigenous people of Peru.  She must return to DC on June 9 after being accused of defacing public property.        

The highly anticipated follow up to the wildly successful Lord of the Rings trilogy is looking for a new director after Guillermo del Toro chose to walk away this weekend. 

The venture is an odd three way project between New Line, Warner Brothers and MGM.  The hold up?  MGM, who holds the rights to The Hobbit, is up for sale, which is impacting decisions during development, when to start shooting, approving the script and more.

del Toro has no shortage of work, which is why he decided to move on this weekend, and producer Peter Jackson says The Hobbit will make it to the big screen, so let's see what happens.  Making the target date of December 2012 is less likely with each passing day.