In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is Uwe Boll's 4-hour, 2-part "epic" that is now being advertised before Boll's latest release, Bloodrayne, is even in theaters. After checking the Internet Movie Database, I see that Boll has 6 movies releasing in the next 2 1/2 years. I guess when you half-ass every motion picture you work on, you can fit more of them into your schedule.

I used to rant and rave about the absurdity of studios who keep giving Boll financing to make wreteched videogame adaptations. I am done with that now. After watching the trailer for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, I am finally prepared to just sit back and accept Boll as this generation's Ed Wood. After all, whenever Boll releases a film, I make sure to see it. I have no hopes that he will ever produce anything of quality, I just want to watch the train wreck.

From what I can tell, In the Name of the King... features poor Jason Statham once again wasting his talents, Burt Reynolds looking embarrassed to be in the film, Ray Liotta also looking embarrassed, and Kristanna Loken just happy to be working. At times during the trailer, Statham seemed to be under the impression that this movie was actually titled In the Name of the King: The Transporter 3. He kicks, he punches, he does impossible acrobatics that result in several villains somehow getting kicked at once. But at least he looks like he's trying. John Rhys-Davies shows up, apparently unaware that this isn't a Lord of the Rings film. And Leelee Sobieski makes a brief trailer appearence as a young woman being seduced by the not-even-trying-to-be-in-character Liotta. Also, I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin last week, and thought it was absolutely hilarious. However, never once during that films did I laugh as hard as I laughed when I saw Matthew "Shaggy" Lillard trying to be a bad-ass in this trailer. Oh man, even the memory makes me giggle.

I wish I didn't have to admit this, but the action scenes do look pretty good. There is one particular shot as the camera sweeps through a forest while a battle ensues that really impressed me, because it appeared to be entirely live action, without any CGI. There is also another cool shot featuring a soldier being lit on fire and launched out of a catapult at the enemy. Maybe Boll is improving. Is that too much to hope, that Boll might be learning something about the basic fundamentals of filmmaking and storytelling with each 60 million dollar film he's allowed to make?

The Sentinal

Michael Douglas stars as a secret service agent who gets framed. Then there's running, yelling ("I'm being framed!" "The real assasin is still out there!"), and gun-pointing stand-offs. Also, there's Kiefer Sutherland and the not-as-hot-as-the-world-seems-to-think-she-is Eva Longoria. The rest you can probably fill in with whatever basic knowledge of a thriller that you may possess. There will be double-crosses, twisting twists, and probably a scene where the accused Douglas saves the president from the real assassin (once he stops being still out there).

If I need more sleep after watching Firewall, I'll watch The Sentinal.

Firewall

"Get off my plane!" Harrison Ford yells during the trailer for Firewall, a film where terrorists hold Ford's family hostage and demand that an evil dictator be released. Ford fights back, and the terrorists, who have underestimated Ford's abilities, run around and yell a lot. Oh wait, that's Air Force One. My bad. Firewall is completely different.

Here: in the above description, take the phrase "demand that an evil dictator be released" and replace it with "demand that Ford help them rob a bank." See, completely different film, which will surely contain the line "Get out of my checking account!"

Snore.

The Hostel

I'm biased on this one. I love horror movies, and I love director Eli Roth. Roth grew up on 70's and 80's horror films, and his underrated film debut Cabin Fever reflected those influences. Fever was funny, distusting and engaging. There were moments that made me squirm in my seat (the leg-shaving scene, for those who have seen it), and jokes that had me on the floor laughing. Tense, funny, and gorefilled. But not really scary. That was Cabin Fever's weakness. Sure, there were suspenseful scenes, but not scary ones.

In The Hostel, Roth is going to scare us.

The Hostel claims to be based on real events, which is an unnerving statement if you know the film's plot. In a Slovakian city, there is a place where, for the right price, a person can pay to torture and murder a person in whatever fashion they wish, no matter how sick. 3 American students go looking for this place, but end up on the menu rather than on the client list.

Recycled plot? Sure. But scary? Indeed.

The trailer is dark, wet, and bloody. There are flashes of the torture equipment, people bound to chairs, water-rotted walls, and the torturer wielding a bone saw. At the end of the trailer, there is an up-close, fullscreen shot of a dirty foot, and a pair of bolt cutters being positioned around the index toes. The screen goes black just as the bolt cutters begin to squeeze.

I am excited. Like Rob Zombie, Roth is making modern blood-and-gore films that don't shy away from the nastiest side of the genre. I'm sick of the watered-down PG-13 crap that passes for horror these days (The Grudge, anyone?). I need severed limbs and gallows humor. Quentin Tarantino is the executive producer of The Hostel, giving me all the more reason to look forward to this movie.

If you've read this far without losing interest, you'll probably want to see it, too.

The Benchwarmers

Oh God, it is never going to end, is it? The Benchwarmers is another Happy Madison production, that bastard production company that churns out low-grade comedy sludge at a pace only founder Adam Sandler can maintain. Movies made under the Happy Madison logo have ranged in quality from utterly horrific (Big Daddy) to only mildly hideous (Anger Management). The Benchwarmers, a Sandler-less mess starring his favorite pair of parasites (Rob Schneider and David Spade), will undoubtedly mark a new low point for the production company that strives to lower its standards with each subsequent film.

The Benchwarmers is about a trio of losers (Schneider, Spade, and the grossly overrated Jon Heder) who start up a business of playing against little league teams. Yes, 3 grown men play baseball against kids for a living. Oh, one can only imagine the hijinks that will ensue. Jon Lovitz is the man that pays them, because he wants them to beat all of the locals bullies so that his son will be more socially accepted.

Yes, that really is the plot. And I probably don't have to tell you whether or not the trailer contains scenes of a baseball striking testicles or a grown man being beaten up by kids.

The cast? I never thought I'd say this, but Rob Schneider appears to be the only stand-out. He more or less plays the straight man, and his usual wacky antics are not present (at least not in the trailer I saw). Spade is capable of playing 2 roles: smarmy sarcastic ass, or whining nerd. Here he plays the second. Badly. And Jon Heder apparently is playing Napolean Dynamite sans wig, as his voice and general appearance suggest no other difference.

So, if you liked The Animal, The Hot Chick, and Joe Dirt.......well, then I guess you couldn't be reading this review anyway. For those of us who can read good, don't watch The Benchwarmers.

Superman Returns

Man, I am disappointed. Superman Returns looks like more of the same Fantastic Four-esque superhero nonsense. And I'm almost positive we'll be able to buy the soundtrack well in advance of the film. All of the promise Bryan Singer showed us in X-Men 2 has been thrown away in favor of the flashy action sequences and crappy storyline. The trailer's voice-over, which sounded suspiciously like the voice of Alec Guiness' Obi-Wan, says some crap about the human race having great potential, and that Superman is here to help us realize it.

Bad, I tell you. Bad.

The only hope I have left for the superhero genre now rests with Christopher Nolan. Please God, let the next Batman movie restore my faith.

An American Haunting

Hot on the heels of The Exorcism of Emily Rose comes An American Haunting, which claims to be a story about the only human death ever attributed to a ghost. The story takes place in the mid-1800's, which instantly makes me question the validity of the ghost claim. If a death had been attributed to the supernatural in 1989, I'd be intrigued. Donald Sutherland is the dead man in question, and Sissy Spacek also plays a role which apparently requires her to scream a lot. The trailer was the usual mixed bag of objects levitating, doors slamming shut, and people running around panic-stricken. Nothing very compelling, nor very interesting. Spacek had a role in last year's The Ring 2, and now she is in this film. That woman is on a downhill slide that doesn't look to be stopping until she hits Carrie 3: Still Psychic. This movie should probably be avoided.

Munich

Within the story of the 1972 Olympic kidnappings/muders there lies a wealth of storytelling waiting to be mined by the right screenwriter: the planning of the crime, the small bits of trivia leading up to the crime (like when members of the American team helped the kidnappers climb over one of the security fences, thinking they had snuck out to get drunk and were now sneaking back in), the kidnapping itself, the ensuing stand-off, and the eventual botched rescue attempt that resulted in the death of the hostages. Handled correctly, it could be a masterpiece of emotionally-charged cinema. And who better to healm this feature than one of our best modern directors, Steven Spielberg?

I guess that movie will have to wait.

For Munich, Spielberg has chosen not to do a story about the hostages, but rather about the revenge that Israel sought on those who had planned/committed the crime. While not the cinematic meal I was hungry for, Munich looks like it will hold my attention well enough. Eric Bana leads the cast as an Israeli charged with tracking down those who were responsible for the tragic events in Munich and killing them off. No trials, no system involved. Just find them, and kill them. There's some generic moral dilemmas to be had, and because it's Spielberg the movie will probably end with a long trail of the Munich hostages' families laying roses on a monument, or Bana returning home to his perfect wife/child and realizing he has a good life and that the bad people are all gone.

While Munich looks well made, I can't help but wish it were more.

PS - Watch the Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September if you want to feel the real weight of this story.

The Fountain

Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) is back! And to no one's surprise, The Fountain looks ...stylish. And at just over a minute, that's the only thing I can positively guess about the film from watching the teaser trailer. The trailer gives the vague impression of a quest for the fountain of youth, and it seems to span several centuries. And it stars Hugh Jackman, who at times looked suspiciously like his Van Helsing character, which does not bode well. Beyond that, it was just a rapid-paced collage of gorgeous images which presumably will eventually be linked by a plot. Then again, that's what I thought when I saw the trailer for Jet Li's The One. However, Aronofsky is a master craftsman, and the flashy visuals are sure to distract us even if the movie ends up sucking.

Underworld: Evolution

Didn't Bill Nighy die in the 1st movie?

Underworld: Evolution looks just like Underworld. There's Kate Beckinsale looking hot in tight black vinyl & leather, brandishing weapons. There's Scott Speedman looking like he's thinking really hard about something all the time. There's werewolves jumping around and growling while vampires hiss at them. There's Bill Nighy being evil...even though he died in the 1st film.

Nothing about this movie looks any different from the first one, save for the presence of some Dracula-ish person who is supposed to be the first vampire ever which, according to the trailer, means something bad to someone (probably the audience). Even the song played in the trailer was a remix of the song played in the first Underworld's trailer. So if you liked Underworld and prefer spending $9 on a movie ticket instead of $2 on a DVD rental, go ahead and see Underworld: Evolution. You probably won't notice a difference.

Final Destination 3

Did we really need a 3rd Final Destination movie?

If you've seen the first 2 movies, you know what to expect from this one. Final Destination 3 features a lot of complex death sequences puntuated by what will most likely be minimal character development and rehashed plot. James Wong, the director of the first Final Destination, is back as director, but doesn't look to have brought any of his talent along with him. The CGI in the trailer was of direct-to-video quality, and none of the actors were recognizable. All the better, because there's no point in wasting even marginally-talented WB actors if they are only to serve as fodder for the death scenes. A scene of a giant rollercoaster crash might be interesting to watch on the big screen, but nothing else in the trailer seemed worth any more than a cheap video rental.

Slither

Slither has 2 current trailers: a red-band internet-only trailer, and the usual theatrical trailer. Both start the same way. The names of about 10 "classic" horror films (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, ect.) float across the screen. Then comes the trailer's most genius moment: the voiceover says "These films all had one thing in common" followed by the flashing text "They were all made for sissies." (the red-band trailer substitues the word "sissies" with "pussies"). What follows in both trailers is a collage of grotesque scenes involving mutant slugs and splattering blood/slime (with the red-band trailer being the more graphic).

Slither is a gross-out horror film starring Nathan Fillion (aka Capt. Malcolm Reynolds), who brings to the film the same dry humor he showcased during his stint on the ill-fated (but amazing) TV series Firefly, and most recently on the film based on that show, Serenity. Joining him is character actor (and horror film veteran) Gregg Henry, who has the trailer's best line ("I've never seen anything like it, and I watch Animal Planet all the time!").

The film marks the directorial debut of screenwriter James Gunn, who wrote 2004's remake of Dawn of the Dead, as well as a slew of Troma movies. His gross-out visuals and sick humor will undoubtedly turn Slither into a cult classic, though I don't hold out much hope for mainstream success. Too bad, because the trailer promises good fun to those who can stomach the gore.

Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek will slip under the radar for most people. I've seen three trailers for it so far. Two were international trailers for the UK and Australian releases, and the third was the internet-only trailer for its US release. All three contain about the same footage, with the US version containing about thirty seconds more. All three are effective.

Wolf Creek is based on a series of real abductions/murders that took place along a particular highway in Australia from 1989 to 1992. For the film's sake, the mythos of those abductions are compressed into one story taking place in 1999, which is undoubtedly why the film uses the loose tagline "Based on Actual Events."

The trailer shows a group of college-aged young adults taking a long road trip to explore the Australian countryside. When their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they are offered help by a local farmer. They hook up their car to his truck, and he tows them...somewhere. They are soon imprisoned and tortured. It is strongly suggested in the trailer that at least one protagonist gets fed to wild dogs.

The tone of the trailer is a little too close to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and will probably turn off American audiences who are sick of seeing remakes. Too bad, because closer observation will reveal Wolf Creek to be much darker and terrifying. Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a family of raving psychopaths, whereas the villains of Wolf Creek appear to be perfectly sane, just sadistic. Plus, it looks like the movie will take a lot of time establishing the characters before thrusting them into perril. In a horror film, a little character developement goes a long way. Wolf Creek also appears to be beautifully shot, with the early scenes of Australia looking bright and beautiful and the latter scenes of imprisonment harsh and dirty, but not overly dark as most American horror films repeatedly do.

I have high hopes for this film based on its trailers.

Romance & Cigarettes

Here's a quick cast rundown:

James Gandolfini
Susan Sarandon
Steve Buscemi
Kate Winslet
Mandy Moore
Eddie Izzard
Mary Louise-Parker

Are your pants soiled with joy yet? No? Here, let me throw one more name at you:

Christopher Walken

Think I'm done dishing out the goods? Onto this pile of happiness let me toss another gem:

Directed by John Tuturro

And.....it's a musical.

On paper, and in the trailer, this could be an amazing film. I hope it can live up the to standards created by its ingrediants.

Looking For Comedy in The Muslim World

Albert Brooks' films have a certainly sense of humor to them. If you're a fan of his humor, you love his movies. If you're not, then there's always a National Lampoon's movie somewhere on the New Releases shelf at your nearest Blockbuster to tide you over.

Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World stars Brooks as a man who gets sent to Pakistan to find out what the Muslims consider humorous. This information, it is thought, will be somehow helpful to the current U.S. president and his poor foreign relations with the Muslim countries.

As an actor, Brooks plays his usual fish-out-of-water role. But as a storyteller, he manages something that American cinema can rarely accomplish: he portrays the Muslims as intelligent, competant, cooperative, humane people. Muslims are so often villified by our movies that we have a hard time remembering that they are just as human as us. If Brooks can keep this up for the whole film, it should shape up to be a very funny, very progressive American comedy.

Ellie Parker

I really like Naomi Watts.

I liked her way back when she was a sidekick in Tank Girl. I liked her when she was making absolutely no sense in Mulholland Falls. I liked her as she displayed her full acting chops opposite Sean Penn in 21 Grams. And even in the dismal Ring Two, she alone stood above the material.

I like her.

Ellie Parker is going to make me fall in love with her.

Ellie Parker is shot entirely with a handheld digital video camera. Not the digital cameras used to film the Star Wars prequels, Sin City, or even 28 Days Later. No, I mean the $400 cameras you can get at Best Buy. The audio is not mastered, but is the audio picked up on the camera's built-in, tiny microphone.

The movie is shot like a mockumentory but without actually being a mockumentory. The camera(and its tiny microphone) follow the life of Ellie Parker (Watts), a struggling actress trying to make a career for herself. She fails auditions, gets fed advice from people who can't make it themselves, and emotionally breaks down. Watts plays the character very candidly, and does not appear to be wearing make-up through most of the trailer. And for once, she's using her real Australian accent.

There is a wonderful clip in the trailer where Watts and her actress friend have an acting contest to see who can cry first. I watched the trailer a second time just for that clip.

I take back my previous statement. The trailer alone has made me fall in love with Naomi Watts.

PS - For the time being, the trailer can be downloaded by clicking the hyperlink below.
Download Here

The Libertine

The Libertine is a film about poet John Wilmot (also known as the Earl of Rochester), who led a debaucherous lifestyle and caused lots of controversy in 17th century France. Johnny Depp stars as Wilmot, and the supporting cast includes John Malkovich and Samantha Morton. There's an added bonus for fans of the UK sitcom Coupling, as the film also features supporting parts for actors Jack Davenport and Richard Coyle.

The tone of the trailer reminded me of the film Quills, which was about the Marquis De Sade. Wilmot's lifestyle will probably received most of the film's focus, and his relationship with the French government will probably be put on the back-burner, serving more as a way of moving things along. I'm sure this movie will have Depp's name being thrown around come Oscar time, but overall I was very unimpressed. Malkovich appeared to be playing his standard monarch role, and Morton was as interesting to watch as staring at wallpaper. The whole plot just seemed rote.

Depp can certainly carry a film, but I can't help but feel he (and Wilmot's debaucherous habiots) will be the only thing worth watching when The Libertine hits cinemas (on Christmas Day, no less).

Bloodrayne

Bloodrayne is directed by Uwe Boll.

I first became aware of Uwe Boll when I saw the trailer for the Boll-directed The House of the Dead. The trailer contained lots of "bullet-time" shots of zombie fighting. It didn't look like a great film, but I thought it would be a fun zombie movie with cool action sequences.

I was dreadfully wrong.

When I saw the trailer for Boll's Alone in the Dark, I didn't think it looked very good, but I figured I'd watch it anyway because it couldn't possibly be as bad as The House of the Dead, right?

I was horribly wrong.

After suffering through Tara Reid's worst film (this should clearly illustrate just how bad it was), I found out Boll was being given more money to film Bloodrayne, his third videogame adaptation. "I bet this will be his worst film yet." I thought to myself. Then I saw the trailer.

I am so right this time.

The Bloodrayne trailer fails on every level. The editing is bad, the cast credits are displayed in weird groupings (and contained two "with" credits, the first of which was the second name in the cast list!), the music is sub-porn quality, and all the "acting" on display would make even William Shatner embarassed.

This will be Uwe Boll's worst film.