Genres:     Comedy
Running Time:     1 hr. 26 min.
Release Date:     July 4th 2008 (limited)
Distributors:     Regent Releasing
Starring:       Lisa Kudrow, Scott Prendergast, Teri Garr, Christine Taylor, Chris Parnell
Directed by:     Scott Prendergast
Produced by:     Sarah Feinberg, Nancy Stephens (II), Jeff Balis

Goofball comedies centered on weird characters are a blast when they find the right balance between irony and the bizarre without indulging in self-pity, as current masters of the genre Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) and Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) can attest. What these directors understand is that in order to make that type of humor work, characters need to have some kind of strength and that overplaying their ridicule might end up killing it.

For his full-length debut, writer/director Scott Prendergast used his own experience as a baby-sitter for his sister-in-law to build a film about a simple guy bordering on autistic who is at odds with some bratty kids. But the real center of the story is without a doubt this big blue mascot suit in which he dresses up for his day job. From giving away flyers on empty roads to awkwardly walking around and getting into fights, this grotesque suit is used as a gimmick to make us laugh, which initially works.

However Kabluey quickly turns into a one-joke movie once the element of surprise has passed, which is often the case when shorts are turned into features. You can’t even fall back on the storyline to make up for it, as male babysitters from hell have become somewhat of a clichй after multiple incarnations including tough guys Arnold and Vin Diesel.

If Kabluey were to pretend to be nothing other than an amateurish indie debut, you could probably cut it some slack. However, the fact that the cast features recognizable faces wasted in poorly written characters — including Lisa Kudrow playing against-type — makes Kabluey a shiny broken toy, a vanity project sunk in dorkiness.

Release Date: July 4, 2008
Running Time: 1:28
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Rosser Goodman
Cast: Brent Gorski Trevor
Jay Brannan Jake
Melissa Searing Andie
Eli Kranski Ephram
Christopher Wyllie Darrell
Writers: Brent Gorski
Official Website: http://www.holdingtrevor.com/

Trevor Holden has just witnessed his boyfriend Darrell overdose on heroin–again. And as his oldest friend, Trevor feels a responsibility to help Darrell in his latest attempt at sobriety, much to the dismay of his own best friends Jake and Andie. But when Darrell starts using again, Trevor is finally ready to call it quits. And just when he does, he meets the ever so charming Ephram. Simply being everything that Darrell is not immediately wins Ephram a number of points. As Trevor’s relationship with Ephram quickly progresses, it starts to put a strain on his friendships with Jake and Andie. Jake, the self-proclaimed sex-addict, is starting to worry a little bit about his past catching up with him, namely in the form of HIV. And Andie, who drunkenly ends her sexual dry spell with a one-night stand, realizes that Jake might have less to worry about than she does. Meanwhile, Ephram accepts a job thousands of miles away in New York City, and he wants Trevor to go with him. Now, what started out as Trevor’s own personal existential journey turns into a path that will lead everyone to what is most important: themselves.

- DIMINISHED CAPACITY (LIMITED)

- GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON (LIMITED)

- HOLDING TREVOR (NY, LA) Cast: Brent Gorski, Jay Brannan, Melissa Searing, Eli Kranski

- KABLUEY (NY)

Starring: Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Method Man
Supporting Cast : Mary Kate Olsen, Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen, Aaron Yoo
Director: Jonathan Levine
Screenwriter: Jonathan Levine
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

release date: 3 Jule 2008 (limited)

Sundance Review: ‘The Wackness’

Is it too early to declare The Wackness the best film of Sundance 2008? I mean, it’s only day two (or three, if you actually got here on opening day), but I have a hard time imagining a movie I am going to love as completely as I loved this one. To be fair, I’m predisposed to adoring The Wackness - it’s set in New York City in 1994, which was where and when I was living what might turn out to be the best days of my life. But even beyond that, I think the movie is just wonderful and is real, honest, hilarious and even a little bit touching. Let me reiterate: I really loved this movie.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8jLREfD1qE4

Luke is a pot dealer just about to graduate high school. He’s not a loser, but he’s not one of the cool kids. He only gets invited to the parties when they need more weed. Luke is also in a very strange form of therapy - he’s selling pot to his classmate’s shrink father, who is paying him in the form of sessions. The Wackness takes place over the summer between high school graduation and leaving for college as the lives of Luke and his therapist fall apart in major ways.Sir Ben Kingsley plays Dr. Squires, the shrink who is looking to recapture his youth by hanging out with the dope dealing kid. He’s a huge mess, taking bong hits in his office and a handful of pills when he gets home. Josh Peck, the fat kid from Mean Creek (he’s not fat at all anymore) is Luke, who is in love with Squires’ daughter, played by Olivia Thirlby, the best friend from Juno. Peck and Kingsley have terrific chemistry (both comedic and emotional), and the best scenes in the film are the ones where they play off each other. They’re great apart as well, though, and Kingsley’s performance in here almost makes you forget that he’s taken to doing Uwe Boll movies of late - even though he sort of seems to be imitating Harvey Keitel. Peck is just incredible, playing an Upper East Side white kid who is deep into hip hop (he discovers Biggie Smalls over the course of the summer) and he can play whole scenes with just his eyes. Peck’s in almost every scene of the movie, and you almost feel like he’s not in it enough - that’s how great he is.

The Wackness opens with a few too many references to remind you that it’s 1994, but once the movie gets going it settles into the period perfectly. It’s weird to think that a movie set when I was 21 years old is a period piece, and I wondered how many of the 90s jokes in the film (’When I’m with you I want to listen to Boyz II Men’) were lost on the older people in the packed screening room. Who cares, though? Writer/director Jonathan Levine perfectly captures the era and makes the New York of 94, the city that was just beginning to turn ino Disneyland, come to life.

Levine, who directed All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (a supposedly terrific horror film the Weinsteins bought, sat on and then dumped and which should be getting a release this year. I have a screener I have not yet watched - you can bet I’ll be rectifying that right quick) punctuates the general realism of The Wackness with flights of fancy moments, including a subway car rap video that makes for one of the best title shots of the decade. As a screenwriter he’s deft in the way he balances absurdity and reality; Dr. Squires is an epic fuck up and substance abuser who comes close to Hunter S Thompson levels, but Luke’s low key white boy energy balances it all out.

More than once the film seems on the verge of spinning out of control and crashing into maudlin sentiment, but Levine keeps it working. The one time when the movie actually appears to have gone over the edge into Good Will Hunting schmaltz (and the comparison is inevitable), Levine gives Kingsley a gloriously snotty line that deflates it all. There’s been a lot of talk about how the cynical, ironic generation would never be able to make movies that have heart, but The Wackness proves that they sure as hell can, and that you can walk out of a movie feeling good about the characters and where they end up without feeling manipulated or like you’ve been coated in cheese.

It’s worth noting that The Wackness - which as of now has no distributor, but that’ll be changing damn fast - has an incredible soundtrack of mid-90s hip hop. Whoever buys this movie needs to make sure they release a CD of this immediately; The Wackness could be the leading edge of a 90s revival.

There’s a lot more to say about this movie, including the wonderful supporting turns by Method Man as a Jamaican drug lord and - gasp! - Mary Kate Olsen as a Phish Head, but I’m pressed for time. I look forward to seeing this movie again when it gets released, and writing up a longer review. I’m really looking forward to all of you discovering and falling in love with this movie.

A Sony Pictures Entertainment release of a Columbia Pictures presentation in association with Relativity Media of a Blue Light/Weed Road Pictures/Overbrook Entertainment production. Produced by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Mann, Will Smith, James Lassiter. Executive producers, Ian Bryce, Jonathan Mostow, Richard Saperstein. Co-producer, Allegra Clegg. Directed by Peter Berg. Screenplay, Vy Vincent Ngo, Vince Gilligan.

release date: 2 july 2008

John Hancock - Will Smith
Mary - Charlize Theron
Ray Embrey - Jason Bateman
Red - Eddie Marsan
Jeremy - Johnny Galecki
Mike - Thomas Lennon
Aaron - Jae Head

An intriguing high concept is undermined by low-grade dramaturgy in “Hancock.” This misguided attempt to wring a novel twist on the superhero genre has a certain whiff of “The Last Action Hero” about it, with Will Smith playing an indestructible crime-buster in a pointedly real-world context. Although it will inevitably open very large, this odd and perplexing aspiring tentpole will provide a real test of Smith’s box office invincibility.
The central idea of Vy Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan’s script — of Smith’s John Hancock being an ornery, unwilling hero who escapes from his ordained role in life via booze and general cantankerousness — is amusing and plausible enough to sustain the first section of the film. What the writers and director Peter Berg do with the concept in the end, however, is nowhere near sufficiently thought out, and narrative illogic and missed opportunities plague the film increasingly as it cartwheels through its surprisingly brief running time.

When the world-famous Hancock reluctantly swings into action — he can fly at supersonic speed, lift any weight and is impervious to all weapons — his drunken recklessness invariably causes more damage than it’s worth. Although valuable to the police, Hancock has a bad name with the public for his destructiveness, impudence and all-around bad attitude; an adjunct to this is his foul language, which treads the very edge of PG-13 permissiveness and will no doubt catch many July 4 weekend kid-herding parents unhappily unaware.
As much in need of rehab as this week’s tabloid celebrity, the raggedly attired Hancock finds an eager savior in PR whiz Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman). Rescued from certain death by the rasty hero, Ray returns the favor by inviting him to dinner with wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and son Aaron (Jae Head) and announcing he’s going to remake Hancock’s image. The strongman’s first step will be to submit to rehab and anger-management training, along with some prison time (although Hancock resists wearing an actual superhero outfit because it’s too “homo”). What he shortly does to two tough-talking inmates in the pen crudely literalizes the taunt about sticking your head where the sun don’t shine.
Such vulgar goofiness is one thing in an Adam Sandler film, but doesn’t sit well in the rough-and-ready realism of Berg’s raw visuals, which grievously misapply hand-held jitteriness to material that demands more precise stylization.
The genre satire and numerous Will Smith moments, with the star throwing off the attitude-laden quips and looks auds expect from him, carry the first half without too much trouble, in anticipation of where the film will go from there.
Where it goes, unfortunately, is right down the tubes. All along, there’s something oddly hostile about Mary’s attitude toward Hancock, and at the 55-minute mark, a major revelation sends the story veering off into territory that feels unmapped even in the minds of the filmmakers. All the potential the premise seemed to offer is frittered away, mind-boggling gaps of logic come to the fore, and arbitrary plot devices serve to shortchange a story that could have gone in much more interesting directions.
Even in his derelict state, why would the presumably super-studly Hancock have no lady friends? Why would humiliated criminals ever think they could strike back at their nemesis? More broadly speaking, what about an invincible superhero who could take power into his own hands and become a self-appointed dictator who arbitrates on good and evil, sometimes to ill effect? Putting a character like Hancock in the recognizable modern world, rather than in a cartoonish context, creates all sorts of possibilities that are willfully ignored by the filmmakers, who instead have come up with a concoction that is both overwrought and severely undernourished.

That said, the effects are snazzy, even if they pass by quite quickly, and there’s enough going on to keep audiences watching, if not entirely happy. Smith, Theron and Bateman capably handle the main roles, but such is the skimpiness of the scenario that no further characters make any impact.

More than one option

* (Co) Sony Pictures Entertainment
* (Person) Sony Pictures Entertainment

More than one option

* (Person) Michael Mann
Director, Executive Producer, Story By
* (Person) Michael Mann
Location Manager
* (Person) Michael Mann
Actor
* (Person) Michael Mann
CGI Artist
* (Person) Michael Mann

More than one option

* (Person) Peter Berg
Director, Assistant Props, Teleplay
* (Person) Peter Berg
Best Boy, Electrician
* (Person) Peter Berg
Music
* (Person) Peter Berg
Actor
* (Person) Peter R Berg
* (Person) Peter Berg

More than one option

* (Person) Hancock
* (Person) John Hancock
Production Assistant
* (Person) John Hancock
Voice, Actor

More than one option

* (Person) Adam Sandler
Song, Song Performer, Executive Producer
* (Person) Adam Sandler

variety.com

HANCOCK - Sony/Columbia - Starring: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman

Weekend Estimates June 27 to June 29, 2008

Angelina Jolie’s action thriller Wanted had the best opening ever for an R-rated film released in June and the 6th best opening of all the time for any R-rated film, according to Variety.
But Wanted didn’t open at No. 1. WALL-E, the Pixar Animation tale about a robot, opened with $62.5 million in ticket sales, while Jolie’s assassin thriller Wanted raked in $51.1 million, the Associated Press reported Sunday.
According to the AP, WALL-E drew moviegoers of all ages.
“The real secret is they’re not children’s movies. They’re movies for everybody. Children absolutely adore them, but parents enjoy them on a different level,” Mark Zoradi, president of Disney’s motion-picture group told the AP.
Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, told the AP, “We knew WALL-E would be huge, but it’s not the same audience as Wanted.”
The same New York Times critic who dissed the Sex and the City movie gave Jolie a rave review.
“With her mean smiley-sneer and snug clothes, her heels and hieroglyphics, she cuts the kind of disciplinarian figure who can bring antsy boys of all ages to their knees or at least into their theater seats,” Manohla Dargis wrote.

http://www.usmagazine.com

Length: 97 min
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release Date: 2008-06-27

Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver

Directed by Andrew Stanton
Produced by Jim Morrison
Written by Andrew Stanton, Jim Capobianco

Visit the movie’s Official Site!

A love letter to science-fiction films of old with a modern environmentalist message, WALL-E is another winning confection from Pixar, the folks who have made an art out of wrapping adult themes in childish whimsy and coming out with movies that please both elements. Starring a box shaped little robot with more than a passing resemblance to E.T., WALL-E is quite possibly the cutest Pixar hero ever, despite the fact that he’s a trash compactor with eyes. A story centering on a wordless robot could be cold and uninviting, but not in Pixar’s capable hands. Never has a robot been this compassionate: WALL-E’s got heart.

The story of the film is deceptively simple. WALL-E (Waste Allocator Load Lifter - Earth Class) is the last of his kind, a robot created by the Buy-N-Large Corporation to clean up the piles of trash left on Earth by the conspicuous consumption of human beings. The humans themselves have evacuated the now-toxically trashed Earth for a Eden-like spaceship habitat called the Axiom (also created by BNL corp.), where they spend their days sipping meals out a cup and reclining on floating easy chairs. Though all his robotic compatriots have long since compacted their last, WALL-E continues plugging away at his job in an endearingly human way. He wakes up each day to the chime of a Macintosh starting up (score for the iFolks! Thanks Steve!) and heads out for another day among the trash heaps. He brings a battered coolie along with him to save the things he likes: a ping-pong paddle, a plastic dinosaur toy, a light bulb, a small seedling saved in an old boot. He ends each day in his home, watching an old video tape of Hello Dolly! - an important motif throughout the film.

Things change drastically for WALL-E the day EVE shows up. She is slick and futuristic and quite obviously a girl; WALL-E falls in love almost immediately. It turns out EVE has been sent from the Axiom to scan the earth for signs of habitable life. Their convincing courtship is done completely without dialogue, quite a feat for sound designer Ben Burtt who found a way to make ambient noise into recognizable words for WALL-E. Trying to impress the coolly modern EVE, WALL-E shows her the seedling he found, at which point EVE goes into a hibernation state and awaits the return of her spaceship. WALL-E, of course, cannot abide by his beloved EVE’s status and hitches a ride into space to save her.

A bit disturbingly, all the humans on the Axiom have regressed to babyhood (enormously fat, with chubby extremities and little bone density) after 700 years of living up in space and drinking their meals through a straw. It seems that this may have been the aim of the BNL Corporation, who have instructed the ship’s Computer Auto (Sigourney Weaver) to never let the humans return to Earth, even if it is found to be habitable once again. Though WALL-E’s only aim on the Axiom is to find his beloved EVE, he finds himself wrapped up in a race to save the seedling he collected on earth from the treacherous tentacles of Auto. Along the way he meets a variety of robots, each with their own supposed job, all of which are related to cleaning up. It becomes clear that human consumption is what has trashed the earth and is now trashing Outer Space as well.

Though he is tiny and relegated to the dirtiest of the dirty jobs, WALL-E truly understands how to find value in sullied things and how to create magic out of useless objects. He is more human than the humans in that way and slowly, without preaching (he can’t even talk), WALL-E begins to show them how to regain what they have lost through sloth and over reliance on technology. It’s an environmentalist film, but also a poignant homage to simple joys in this era of iPods and digital everything.

Half of what is so enchanting about watching WALL-E, as in all Pixar films, is seeing how the filmmakers have created a working universe in which to play. There is no skimping here, no visible shortcuts. WALL-E himself has a million ways to express his emotions, from compacting into a box when he feels shy to wiggling his binocular-like eyes in awe when he first beholds EVE, all of which are related to physical, realistic components. That allegiance to authenticity allows the film to send its narrative to fantastic heights without seeming over the top or phony.

Like all previous Pixar films, the meaning of WALL-E is deeper and more profound than the merchandising opportunities found therein. It’s a love story, yes, but it’s also a story about staying true to your own heart in the blandly evil face of authority. It’s a tale about saving the small things and cherishing the world you live in, no matter how imperfect its surface might seem. Andrew Stanton, who won an Oscar in 2004 for Finding Nemo, has certainly earned his place in the pantheon of animation pioneers, but with WALL-E, he has taken not only the art of animation, but the art of storytelling to new, unimaginable heights.

As a bonus, Pixar have affixed a Looney Tune-y short about an arrogant magician and his hungry rabbit to beginning of the WALL-E. Presto! is pure Looney Tunes and a fitting appetizer to the lovely film to follow.

http://cinemablend.com

This week begins with a whimper as Monday box office results reveal that last week was better. Despite two new debuts from high profile actors, top 10 box office had combined receipts of $17,716,720, down 14% from last Monday’s $20,586,002. There are two reasons for this. The first is that this week’s openers are not as strong as last week’s openers. And the second is that last week’s openers are dying faster than Dane Cook’s career.

Get Smart finished in first place for the fourth consecutive day and, barring something unforeseen, will keep this streak alive until it falls to third place on Friday. The Steve Carell comedy earned $5,119,453 yesterday, which is a total representative of 85% of The Incredible Hulk’s business last Monday, $6,010,045. I say this as a point of reference for making the statement that Get Smart had a much better first weekday than Hulk. The explanation is that the spy spoof earned only 70% of the weekend box office of its comic book counterpart. Closing the gap this much percentage-wise is not wholly unexpected given Hulk’s now-proven lousy legs, but it’s one of only three true positives in yesterday’s top ten.

To my surprise, one of the other positives is The Love Guru, the Mike Myers comedy rejected by North America en masse. The film follows up on a dreadful $13.9 million opening weekend with $2,649,125. This may not sound like much, but it is representative of 19.1% of its initial three-day total. For comparison’s sake, Get Smart is at “only” 13.2% of its weekend number, a performance we have already described as good. Now, I want to stress that it’s a trick of box office mathematics for smaller films to have better hold-over in terms of percentage declines, as has been discussed on the site many times. A $40 million opener is not the same as a $100 million opener in this manner nor is it the same as a $14 million opener. There is a tiering system at work, but even allowing for this, a 19.1% holdover on Monday is strong for almost any title. I hate Myers as much as the rest of you do, but this is a positive after a week of negative press for him. Of course, it’s also far too little, far too late.

The final positive in the top ten is the impressive staying power of Kung Fu Panda. After falling only 34.2% in its second Monday last week, the title performs even stronger at the start of week three. A decline of only 27.2% gives it a running total of $158,861,401. It should be around $169 million by the weekend, meaning it has switched from a possibility to beat Madagascar to a strong likelihood. And, on a personal note, I highly recommend the movie to all of you, particularly the readers who are also parents.

In terms of last week’s openers, we chronicled their plight all of last week. The data points all added up to hefty weekend declines, and the prophecy was fulfilled when The Incredible Hulk fell a stiff 60% and The Happening fell off a cliff with a 66% drop. Both films continued their disappearing acts with Monday box office. Hulk dropped 56% to $2,649,125, mirroring its Ang Lee predecessor. That title fell 60% on its second Monday to $2.461 million. In terms of where both films were at after the same time frame, 11 days, The Hulk was at $103.1 million while The Incredible Hulk stands at $99,704,555. If we account for box office inflation, 2003 Hulk is 22% ahead of 2008 Hulk in terms of actual tickets sold.

Daily Box Office for Monday, June 23, 2008
Rank Film Distributor Daily Gross Weekly Change Running Total
1 Get Smart Warner Bros. $5,119,453 New $43,802,933
2 Kung Fu Panda DreamWorks $3,030,526 - 27.2% $158,861,401
3 The Incredible Hulk Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios $2,649,125 - 55.9% $99,704,555
4 The Love Guru Paramount $1,789,785 New $15,696,915
5 The Happening Twentieth Century Fox $1,297,044 - 58.6% $52,046,539
6 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Paramount $1,027,200 - 31.2% $291,988,244
7 You Don’t Mess With the Zohan Sony/Columbia $1,011,662 - 54.1% $85,320,080
8 Sex and the City New Line Cinema $931,268 - 39.1% $133,384,037
9 Iron Man Paramount $552,947 - 23.3% $305,369,088
10 The Strangers Focus Features $307,710 - 52.7% $50,067,445
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations