Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) movie

Also Known As:     South of the Border

Production Status:     In Production/Awaiting Release

Logline:     Mitzi, a pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua accustomed to riding in a purse goes to a spa vacation in Mexico with her owner, but when she gets lost she is forced to find her way back home.

Genres:     Action/Adventure and Comedy

Release Date:     October 3rd, 2008 (wide)

MPAA Rating:     PG for some mild thematic elements.

Distributors:     Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Production Co.:     Mandeville Films/TV, Smart Entertainment

Studios:     Walt Disney Pictures

Filming Locations:     Mexico

Produced in:     United States

Starring:      Drew Barrymore, George Lopez, Andy Garcia, Piper Perabo, Manolo Cardona

Directed by:     Raja Gosnell

Produced by:     Steven Nicolaides, John L. Jacobs, David Hoberman

GO  BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA Undersized lapdogs make me grumpy even when they don’t talk, wear pink booties and shop Rodeo Drive.

So I came to Beverly Hills Chihuahua with poison pen at the ready — only to be won over by the exuberant charms of Raja Gosnell’s comedy about a snobby, privileged Chihuahua named Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore) and her similarly spoiled-rotten 90210 dog ­sitter (Piper Perabo). The twosome grow some backbone when they get lost in the bowels of Baja, where the pooch must be rescued from the clutches of Mexican dogfight wranglers.

If the studios are finally going to make their mark on Latino audiences, they could do a lot worse than this wicked satire on Beverly Hills pet excess, with its sharp script, a fun performance by Jamie Lee Curtis as Chloe’s overindulgent owner, and a mostly Spanish-speaking cast that includes Andy Garcia as a clapped-out police dog, Cheech Marin as a cunning rat who’s after Chloe’s Harry Winston collar, and George Lopez as a Chihuahua from the wrong side of the tracks who loves Chloe. This being Disney, wholesome character-building messages abound, but for once they’re freshly spun as cautions against stereotyping both ethnic and canine.

And if, having seen Beverly Hills Chihuahua, your children grow up without the desire to turn their pets into idiot fashion accessories or extensions of their own shopaholic fantasies, so much the better. (Citywide) (Ella Taylor)

An American Carol movie

An American Carol movie

Also Known As:   An American Carol

Production Status:     In Production/Awaiting Release

Genres:     Comedy

Release Date:     October 3rd, 2008 (wide)

MPAA Rating:     PG-13 for rude and irreverent content, and for language and brief drug material.

Distributors:   Vivendi Entertainment

Production Co.: Mpower Pictures

Filming Locations:  Los Angeles, California, United States

Produced in: United States

Starring:       Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Trace Adkins, James Woods, Jon Voight

Directed by:     David Zucker

Produced by:     David Zucker, Steve McEveety, John Shepherd

Back in the ol’ underclassmen days at college I befriended a number of budding garage band music artists who were always happy to give me their home-burned CDs that were destined to take them to high places. They all sucked. Every song. I keep these little mementos as a reminder some people shouldn’t have dreams. Of the many terrible qualities of these songs is their piercing ability to stick to your psyche long after you’ve tried drinking the memories away.

One of the many songs still stuck in my head eight years after I heard it for the first and only team is a nice little number entitled “Sick of America” by some liberal student I knew. Much like the title, the song was an endless predictable rhyme about how other nations are more fun than America. I’ll even admit other nations have their charms and youth should be spent exploring the world and expanding horizons. It doesn’t mean the song doesn’t suck.

I mention all of this only because I’m reviewing the latest David Zucker film “An American Carol.” The movie targeted America haters and reinforced an idea that had been in my head for a long time; if you’re sick of America, leave.

It’s a rare treat for me to be invited to a movie premier, and the pre-screening party didn’t skimp any expense. A modern version of the Andrews Sisters calling themselves “The Liberty Belles” (Apparently they’re USO regulars) danced and sang onstage while the open bar attracted my interest. Three hours of partying and it was time to get to the movie theatre.

08-08-08 movie night

It’s not only the day for great 2008 Summer Olympics opening in Beijing, some new summer flicks are also opening this Friday. A film to everybody’s taste, that’s what I think of this Friday’s movie premieres.

Elegy starring Ben Kingsley (Wackness) and Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) is an adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Roth’s short novel The Dying Animal. The movie also stars Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson, and Peter Sarsgaard.

Elegy is a story about a celebrated college professor (Kingsley) who finds his life in upheaval after he begins a romance with a young beautiful woman (Cruz). With humanistic warmth, wry wit and erotic intensity, Elegy explores the power of beauty to blind, to reveal and to transform.

As critics say, Elegy is a “gorgeous looking film with a wry and clever script.” Cruz’s “ability to appear as if she’s actually thinking and responding organically to each situation” is highly praised. As for Ben Kingsley, he’s “the most formidable and convincing of all the good actors who have adorned the middle-aged-professor films.” Generally, the film is described as one “thoughtful filmgoers can’t afford to miss.”

Well, in case you’re more into sports films on Friday night, you can watch true-story-based The Perfect Game, the story of a team of poor boys from Monterrey, Mexico, who became the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series in 1957. It was a perfect game, the only one in championship history.

And one more true-story based premiere. This time it’s not about sports but wine. Bottle Shock is the story of the early days of California wine making featuring the now infamous, blind Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has come to be known as “Judgment of Paris.” In this film Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman, 29 Palms) is struggling to create the perfect chardonnay at his vineyard.

The film reveals America’s initiation into and contribution to vinification, along with the brave and enterprising people who love nothing more than to bottle it.

Beer for my horses is a comedy about two best friends who work together as deputies in a small town. When girlfriend (Claire Forlani, Meet Joe Black) of one of them got kidnapped by a drug lord, they decided to defy their boss, Sheriff Landry, and chase the kidnappers down. They head off on an outrageous road trip to save the girl.

And here’s also something for big grindhouse fans. Quentin Tarantino produced Hell Ride reminds of the days of spaghetti westerns and tells the story of two biker gangs. Writer/director Larry Bishop stars as Pistolero, head of the Victors, a group of badass bikers who are out to avenge murder of one of their members by the rival gang, 666ers.

According to some reviews, the pulpy dialogue preceding the violent eruptions bears the mark of Tarantino. Well, we’ll see. Larry Bishop made a twisting, multilayered tale of revenge, loyalty, and brotherhood that is brought to life by a superb ensemble cast of Dennis Hopper, Vinnie Jones, Michael Madsen, and David Carradine. In the words of Comanche, one of the heroes, “The road to hell is paved with anything but good intentions.”

Movies >>

Pineapple Express movie- Date release 6 August 2008

The Pineapple Express

Genres: Action/Adventure and Comedy
Release Date: August 6th, 2008 (wide)
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, drug use, sexual references and violence.
Distributors: Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by David Gordon Green.

Starring: Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny R. McBride, Amber Heard.

I won’t get into the precise reasons, but my friends always seem to think I’m going to LOVE the next big “pot comedy.” They chuckle and assume such silly things despite the fact that the only real pothead comedies that I truly enjoy are Up in Smoke, Next Movie, and a large portion of the Harold & Kumar misadventures. Frankly I’m of the opinion that most pot comedies feel like they were written by someone very stoned, and let’s just say that writers don’t always do their best work when they’re extra-baked. (They might THINK their stuff is hilarious, but usually it’s not. That’s just the weed talking.) Oh, you’ll definitely find a few cannabis-caked giggles in Half-Baked, Grandma’s Boy, and Smiley Face — just not enough to sustain a whole movie, if it’s me you’re asking.

So it is with much pleasure, enthusiasm, and recently-applied Visine that I offer you Pineapple Express, which just may be the Casablanca of Pot Comedies. Or perhaps it’s more like When Ultra-High Harry Met Super-Stoned Sally, but either way Pineapple Express showcases some of the funniest “weed culture” insights since the arrival of Richard Linklater’s fantastic Dazed & Confused — which I wouldn’t call a full-bore “pot comedy,” but it sure isn’t shy about passing those joints around. Best of all, while Pineapple Express will absolutely appeal to both the casual and committed pot-smokers, it’s also just a very funny buddy comedy / action flick parody that comes bearing the very unique stamp of director David Gordon Green.

Swing Vote movie review- date release 1 august 2008

Swing Vote movie

Genres: Comedy
Release Date: August 1st, 2008 (wide)
Distributors: Walt Disney Pictures
Starring: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci
Directed by: Joshua Michael Stern
Produced by: Ted Field, Terry Dougas, Kevin Costner

Ashirley Temple movie camouflaged as political Capra-corn, Swing Vote has one lively satiric idea in its midsection: With a presidential election to be decided by a lone, unbathed New Mexico redneck (Kevin Costner, starting out with a Billy Bob Thornton impression and gradually assuming his familiar persona), the candidates produce TV spots with content dictated solely by the media-besieged drunk’s ill-informed, tentative interviews. The Republican incumbent (Kelsey Grammer) pledges support for gay marriage, surrounded by a gaggle of queer cops, firemen and soldiers; the Democratic challenger (Dennis Hopper), convinced the swing voter is pro-life, walks through a playground as kids disappear in puffs of smoke, vowing to curb abortions. Then the movie goes right back to its timid, colorless approximation of an electoral pageant that serves as mere backdrop to its trailer-home domestic treacle.

Twelve-year old Molly (proficient, automaton-like Madeline Carroll) is caretaker, mother and spouse to Costner’s laid-off, lazy dad Bud Johnson. A civic-minded monomaniac, she warns him on Election Day to vote “or I’m leaving you”; he doesn’t, she tries to cast a ballot in his place, and the subsequent contrivances find her using the 10-day run-up to Bud’s “revote” as a battle to complete his rehabilitation as citizen and father. Partying through the shower of perks (poker on Air Force One, a white-trash banquet featuring his newly-paroled Willie Nelson cover band) lavished on him by rival campaign Machiavellis (Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane), Bud—whose name is the most shameless of the movie’s product placements—is bound, after 110 minutes of moronic indulgence, to make a sobering reassessment of his failures and fateful choice before a national debate audience in the penultimate scene. Cynics of all stripes crumble before the tears and perorations of all-powerful Molly, including the local news reporter (Paula Patton) whose ambition and sinister tactics will be chucked at the 11th hour.

It’s a hard call as to whether Swing Vote’s mirthlessness is more oppressive than its insulting idea of Costner’s loser as the working-class salt of the earth, or if its dishonesty takes the prize. Bud professes great “respect” for the two whorish pols who’ve been lying to procure his decisive vote; Costner’s Field of Dreams Everyman would’ve told them to fuck off, voted third party and let the House of Representatives decide the election. (Molly has a throwaway line during the opening credits about the major parties’ abandonment of the poor, and that’s the last note hit in that key by Jason Richman and director Joshua Michael Stern’s script.) An inflated, dumbed-down variation on the 1939 John Barrymore vehicle The Great Man Votes, Swing Vote is as tired as its stunt of casting a dozen cable-news blowhards as themselves. Replacing its father-love syrup with genuine election-year vinegar would be change you could believe in, or at least stay awake through.

Midnight Meat Train – movie release 1 august 2008

Midnight Meat Train

Release Date: August 1, 2008

Main Cast Bradley Cooper, Brooke Shields, Vinnie Jones
Supporting Cast     Leslie Bibb, Roger Bart, Peter Jacobson, Barbara Eve Harris
Director Ryuhei Kitamura
Screenwriter Jeff Buhler
Distributor     Lionsgate
Official Site     http://www.lionsgate.com/midnightmeattrain

Easily the best Clive Barker adaptation since the first Hellraiser film, Ryuhei Kitamura’s The Midnight Meat Train is so absolutely a “horror fans only” experience that I’m not surprised that Lionsgate wants to give it only a cursory theatrical release before dumping it into DVD. I do not mean that as a knock on the film. As a matter of fact, this is certainly one of the most effective horror films of the year — but man, oh man… it would be a really tough sell on 1,200 screens. It’s kind of an unfair catch-22 where certain horror movies are concerned: if you “go dark,” dabble in grimness, and don’t cater to the under-18 crowd, then there’s a good chance your “hardcore” horror movie will debut on DVD (at best) or, like The Mist and The Ruins, arrive in theaters very quietly.

America the Beautiful – Movie release August 1 2008

Release Date:August 1, 2008 (NY; LA release: August 22)
Studio: First Independent Pictures
Director: Darryl Roberts
Starring: Gerren Taylor, Eve Ensler, Julianne Moore, Anthony Kiedis, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton
Genre: Documentary
Official Website: AmericaTheBeautifulDoc.com

The United States of America is known for being one of the wealthiest nations on the planet with the most opportunities for its citizens. In 2004 alone, Americans spent $12.4 billion (yes, billion!) on cosmetic surgery. With such an abundance of wealth, why are Americans so discontent?

In almost 40,000 media messages a year, youthful Americas are being told that, unless you look like supermodels and rock stars, you’re not good enough for anyone to love. This is a message that too many people are buying.

At the heart of “America the Beautiful” is the story of Gerren Taylor, a teenager who went from being an innocent 12 year old girl to being one of America’s next top supermodels. As she and her mother head down the windy road to stardom, viewers watch the dichotomy between Gerren’s adolescent struggles and her adult “rights of passage” on the catwalks of Marc Jacobs, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger and other top designers. Her tumultuous quest acts as a mirror to the American psyche, and it becomes apparent how the same beauty that could jump-start her career could ultimately destroy her young life.

Friday showtime

A recluse, two lazy middle-aged step-brothers, and a couple of special agents will be a great company for the July 25 Friday night. These are main heroes of Friday big movie premieres. Pick the one you like most and get ready for the show time!

The truth is still out there though it’s been 6 years since we saw Mulder and Scully last. The X-Files: I Want to Believe is the second full-length movie about FBI special agents fighting against the governmental conspiracy and the world of paranormal activity around.

Besides Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, the sequel includes Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, and rapper Xzibit as an FBI agent. The main plot secret is whether Mulder and Scully are finally together. There are mysteries that cannot be solved…

The rest of the flicks are not that spooky.

Henry Poole is Here is a comedic drama about a disillusioned man who goes hiding in placid suburbia only to discover he cannot escape the forces of hope.

Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) returns to the middleclass neighborhood where he grew up to live in indulgent isolation. But his neighbors don’t leave him along, and the whole thing gets even worse when his stucco wall is seen to have miraculous powers.

The flick looks into the unexpected wonders of the everyday: faithless man finds hope, a hopeless man finds love.

Step Brothers shows us equally lazy and spoiled, rich feuding middle-aged step-siblings (Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly) in this summer comedy about how these guys don’t get along after their parents tie the knot.

They’re forced to live under the same roof and share each other’s lives, and eventually they tear the family apart. Now it’s up to these immature, overgrown boys to bring their parents back together again.

American Teen (2008) – release 25 July 2008

Starring: Hannah Bailey, Megan Krizmanich, Jake Tusing, Colin Clemens, Mitch Reinholt
Director: Nanette Burstein
Studio: Paramount Vantage
Rating: PG-13 (For some strong language, sexual material, some drinking and brief smoking-all involving teens.)
Genre: Documentary
Release Date: July 25, 2008 (Limited)

AMERICAN TEEN is the touching and hilarious Sundance hit that follows the lives of four teenagers – a jock, the popular girl, the artsy girl and the geek – in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, and the struggle to make profound decisions about the future.

Filming daily for ten months, filmmaker Nanette Burstein (ON THE ROPES, THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE) developed a deep understanding of her subjects. The result is a film that goes beyond the enduring stereotypes of high school to render complex young people trying to find their way into adulthood.

Baghead movie release 25 July 2008

Main Cast       Ross Partridge, Steve Zissis, Jett Garner
Director     Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Screenwriter     Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Distributor     Sony Pictures Classics
Trailer     Click Here for Trailer
Official Site     http://www.bagheadmovie.com/

Imagine something Blair Witch Project-y, but that was also mostly comedic.

Then, sort of, you’d have Baghead. Four struggling writers/actors (played by a bunch of, you guessed it, struggling writers/actors) spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods determined to write their own movie starring themselves. Relationship dynamics are explored via the majority of the dialogue, but things take a turn for the weird when a mysterious person with a paper bag over their head begins to make various appearances during the weekend. Is this a horror/comedy, or a comedy/horror?

Written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass (no, you haven’t heard of anything they’ve done, either), Baghead has been making the festival rounds, premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and was picked up for limited release by Sony Pictures Classics.