The Screening Room

According to Hollywood Reporter (via MSNBC.com), everyone's favorite period heroine and Tim Burton-muse may take a turn in one of 2009's Hollywood blockbusters:

NEW YORK - Helena Bonham Carter could soon be joining the battle between man and cyborg. The British actress is in talks to board Terminator Salvation, the fourth installment in the franchise kicked off by James Cameron in 1984. Roles in the new film have been kept under wraps, but insiders described the Bonham Carter role as small but pivotal.

Read the rest of the article here.

This would not be her first foray into Hollywood territory -- she starred in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The early reviews of The Dark Knight are trickling in, and word is that Heath Ledger's final performance is one to remember him by. Los Angeles area critics got an early press screening Thursday night (luckies) and the best-supporting-actor campaign has already begun.
David Germain of the Associated Press writes, "With his final full film role, Ledger delivers what may be remembered as the finest performance of his career ... At times sounding like a cross between tough guy James Cagney in a gangster flick and Philip Seymour Hoffman's fastidious Truman Capote, Ledger elevates Batman's No. 1 nemesis to a place even Jack Nicholson did not take him in 1989's Batman.
The Dark Knight comes out July 18, aka, not soon enough.

• Wall-E (A)
• Wanted (A-)
• Savage Grace (C)

Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, who directed the heavily Texas-flavored Drive-In Movie Memories in 2001, has some exciting news about his latest project, Dear Zachary, a documentary that had people weeping openly at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin earlier this year. Dear Zachary has been acquired by the MSNBC cable network as the debut film for its newly formed MSNBC Films division, which Mr. Kuenne describes as "a platform through which they will be presenting provocative and award-winning films on television, while also supporting films during their festival run and theatrical release." (Read on by clicking the link below!)

Photo: Kurt Kuenne with Zachary Bagby, who's featured prominently in Dear Zachary

'Smart' move
Get Smart's $38.6 million opening changed the course of a couple of recent trends. First, it showed that Steve Carell can open a big summer movie after the disaster that was last year's Evan Almighty. And second, it continued the winning streak of successful TV show adaptations on the heals of Sex and the City (and following a string of dreadful attempts prior to that).

I can't say much about the strange and wonderful Wall-E before the movie opens Friday or the Disney people will hunt me down and take my first born. But I can recommend catching up on a couple of sci-fi classics to get you in the mood (and perhaps help things make a little more sense).

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which Hal, the ship's computer brain, decides to take things into his own hands (and shows a remarkable grasp of lipreading). Stupid humans. What do they know?

2. Metropolis (1927), the silent slice of dystopia in which the masses are all-too-easily placated - until they decide not to be.

Sorry. That's all I got for now. (Except that the photo is courtesy of Disney/Pixar).

Dinosaurs were long gone by the time 10,000 B.C. rolled around, but that doesn't keep the dimwitted 10,000 B.C. from laying a huge dino egg at video stores everywhere today. Flee this one as if a herd of giant dodo birds were bearing down on you.

Starting this week, the Nasher's Friday Night Films series is free. That's adding to a pretty impressive list of free screenings, such as the Get Reel summer movie series (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is tonight's selection). There are also options in Plano and Frisco.

For other low-cost movie options, you can check out a roundup here.

We like lists. We must like lists; magazines and organizations keep pumping them out and the hunger still isn't satiated. So, as part of a 1,000th issue stunt called The New Classics, Entertainment Weekly has worked up a list of the 100 best movies of the past 25 years (including a Pulpy No. 1, at right).

Should you care? Not really, but the random, arbitrary nature of such beasts is always good for a few arguments. Anyway, where else would you discover that Titanic is ten notches better than GoodFellas, or that Schindler's List eats Jerry Maguire's dust?

Check the list and share your beef. (Photo courtesy of Miramax).

I've heard from a number of readers unhappy with the fact that my review of The Happening gives away a crucial plot point, including one guy who thought I wrote the headline. (For future reference, that's the copy editor's job). They say I have violated the unwritten spoiler code of conduct. Here's why I disagree. Just in case, stop reading here if you don't want to know something that's revealed about 30 minutes into the movie. (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

Both The Love Guru and Get Smart have been savaged by critics far and wide. Yet you'll find that both movies got the same not-so-bad B- grades in today's paper. (I did Love Guru, while Tom Maurstad handled up on Get Smart).

What gives? I can't speak for Tom, but the most important thing I can say about The Love Guru is that it made me laugh. It made me feel slightly ashamed for laughing. It sometimes made me wonder why I was laughing. But laugh I did. I can blame my inner eighth grader, but I can also admit that I went in with very low expectations, knowing that Mike Myers specializes in a sort of juvenile carpet-bombing humor. I got a slightly better version of what I anticipated - better than the last Austin Powers movie. Yes, I groaned through many of the gags, but plenty of them tickled me, and there's something to be said for a film that knows its limitations (The Love Guru barely bothers to tell a story). Plus it only lasts 88 minutes. Nothing makes a critic's heart sing like a movie that checks in at under 90 minutes. (Love Guru photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

• Get Smart (B-)
• The Love Guru (B-)
• Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (B-)
• The Unforeseen (B+)
• Mongol (B+)
• Jellyfish (B+)
• Mother of Tears (C-)
• And When Did You Last See Your Father? (C-)

As any movie fan/geek knows, Criterion editions are the ones to own.

And now Western lovers can join in the fun. Criterion will release its first Western this month, Anthony Mann's The Furies. It's available for pre-order now through Criterion.com.

Synopsis from Criterion: In 1870s New Mexico Territory, megalomaniacal widowed ranch owner T. C. Jeffords (Walter Huston, in his final role) butts heads with his daughter, Vance (Barbara Stanwyck), a firebrand with serious daddy issues, over her dowry, choice of husband, and, finally, ownership of the land itself. Both sophisticated in its view of frontier settlement and ablaze with searing domestic drama, The Furies is a hidden treasure of American filmmaking, boasting Oscar-nominated cinematography and vivid supporting turns from Judith Anderson, Wendell Corey, and Gilbert Roland.

Special Features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer


• Audio commentary featuring film historian Jim Kitses (Horizons West)


• The Movies: "Action Speaks Louder than Words," a 1967 television interview with director Anthony Mann


• A rare, 1931 on-camera interview with Walter Huston, made for the movie theater series Intimate Interviews


• New video interview with Nina Mann, daughter of Anthony Mann


• Stills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes photos


• Theatrical trailer


• PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by renowned critic Robin Wood ans a 1957 Cahiers du cinéma interview with Mann, as well as a new printing of Niven Busch's original novel

The Love Guru and Get Smart will face off in a comedy smackdown this weekend, but this also shapes up as a battle between Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show over which is the better comedic farm team these days. In one corner, Love Guru is the brainchild of ex-SNLer Mike Meyers. In the other is former Daily Show coresponant (and current Office star) Steve Carell. Over the long haul, this is of course comparing apples and oranges as SNL has a much longer history and a wider cast of characters to chose from. But in terms of recent production, I'm going to have to go with The Daily Show on this one. In the last few years, it has spun out Stephen Colbert and Carell, two of television's biggest stars. And it has provided reliable side men like Rob Corddry and Ed Helms.
Which is not to say that SNL has performed poorly of late. Tina Fey has become the funniest woman on television with 30 Rock while boosting the profiles of fellow SNLers Tracy Morgan and Chris Parnell on the show. And Kristen Wiig is really making a name for herself with small but juicy roles in films like Knocked Up and Walk Hard. But the show has had its share of misses, too. Andy Samburg flooped big with last summer's Hot Rod while fellow graduates (Horatio Sanz, for one) have just drifted off into the ether. If there's a tie to be broken here, looking again at this weekend's movies provides the breaker. When Meyers needed to fill a couple of key roles in Love Guru, he didn't dredge the usual SNL pond for the Rob Schneiders and David Spades of the world. Instead, he picked current Daily Show corespondant John Oliver and the previously mentioned Stephen Colbert. That's a pretty strong indication of where the top talent resides.

Watching the Celtics take care of business against the Lakers over the last week got me thinking about He Got Game, the Spike Lee movie featuring the smooth shooting stroke (and surprisingly adequate acting chops) of one Ray Allen. Even though I was rooting for the Lakers (whaddya want, I'm from Cali), I was happy to see Allen, a class act for years, get his. I'm also happy to say the movie gets better every time I see it. (Photo courtesy of AP)

Indiana Jones is so not like wine.

He does not get better with time. Indiana Jones is a classic, dirty, superhero type and I'm as big a fan as any 8-year-old who wishes they had a whip and didn't have to bathe.

Spoilers below!

What goes on inside Eddie Murphy's head? Find out Wednesday as a 15-foot-tall explorable version of it will make an appearance outside Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. The event is part of the Meet Dave tour, publicizing the movie in which Mr. Murphy plays a human-shaped spaceship piloted by tiny aliens. The head will be parked on Nolan Ryan Parkway before the Rangers game with the Atlanta Braves beginning at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free (though you'll have to pay to park).

Questions at the top
Is The Incredible Hulk a hit? It's tough to say after one weekend. On the plus side, it finished first with $55 million. But it should be pointed out that 2003's The Hulk opened at $62.1 million and quickly fell off from there. It's looking like it will take a few more weeks to know for sure which way The Incredible Hulk will lean.

It may be the most famous (infamous?) advertisement ever, and it's still an incendiary piece of short filmmaking. Now Tony Schwartz, the man behind the Lyndon Johnson campaign's Daisy ad, is dead at the age of 84.

You think today's political spots have shock value? Here's a one minute clip that essentially says "If you vote for Goldwater you're asking for a mushroom cloud." Brass knuckles stuff, in the form of a child with a daisy.

Fun stuff over at EW.com: A rundown of the 22 best twist endings. (22? Sure, why not). You'll find plenty of obvious ones: Bruce Willis' recognition of his death in The Sixth Sense, Charlton Heston's unfortunate discoveries that Soylent Green is made of people and the Planet of the Apes is good ol' Earth. But what about Citizen Kane? No love for Rosebud? We're talking about a guy's childhood here.

Got a favorite twist? Bring it on.

Looking back at my review of The Happening I realize I didn't merely dislike the film. It actually made me angry. It made me bang my head against the back of my seat before I left the theater. It made me feel like this guy on the right. Why such a visceral reaction?

Part of it has to with the film's pace, a slog into nowhere and nothing. But there's also something about squandered potential that makes me want to go all Hulk. In this case that goes for a premise that goes to pot and a filmmaker with talent coming out of his pores - and an inability to harness it without drowning in pretension.

Grrrr.

I have yet to meet a kid who doesn't love Kung Fu Panda. So, the box office bonanza of this funny, good-natured animated flick doesn't surprise me. Now I wonder what kind of an impact it's having in the kid-packed Pitt-Jolie home with Angelina Jolie voicing one of the lead roles as Tigress? Let's face it, with the possible exception of Shark Tale, where she played the bad girl fish competing for Will Smith's affections, there really aren't many films by either one of this power couple that the kids could really see...(yes, I remember Pitt in the animated Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, but how many other people do?)

Did you see The Incredible Hulk at the midnight screenings? What did you think? And M. Night Shyamalan returns to the big screen - are you going, or did lose faith after The Lady in the Water? (I lost faith about 20 minutes into Unbreakable, but to each his/her own.)

• The Incredible Hulk (B)
• The Happening (C-)
• The Singing Revolution (B+)
• Flight of the Red Balloon (B)
• Roman de Gare (B)
• The Promotion (C)

Summer movie season is in full swing, with a new big blockbusters rolling out each week. But for every crowd-pleasing Iron Man that sends you back for a second viewing, there are those films that send you running to get your money back. So tell us: which past (or present) summer blockbusters had you not only wishing for your $8.50 back, but those two hours of your life.

Read more: Looking back at summer blockbuster bombs

If you're ready to make your big screen debut, Samsung Mobile Fresh Films is looking for a couple of teenage actors plus a fortysomething actress to play a mom in a production filmed with an all-teen crew. Auditions will be held Sunday from 1-5 p.m. at the Staybridge Suites, 7880 Alpha Road, in Dallas. For more information, go to www.fresh-films.com.

As you probably know The Incredible Hulk begins sneak-peak screeenings late tonight (click here for a mini review and theater info). The film not only packs in references to the original comics, but also to the old TV show starring Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby. Stop reading if you don't want to know about some of the best in-jokes. Keep going if you do. And look for the full review tomorrow at guidelive.com

Exclusively from the Associated Press:

Paul Newman, the legendary actor and philanthropist, is battling cancer, his longtime neighbor and business partner said Wednesday.

Newman, 83, has recently appeared gaunt in photos, and dropped plans to direct a play in his Connecticut hometown. Writer A.E. Hotchner, who partnered with Newman to start Newman's Own salad dressing company in the 1980s, said the actor told him about the disease about 18 months ago. He did not specify what kind of cancer, but said Newman is in active treatment.

"I know that it's a form of cancer," Hotchner told The Associated Press. "It's a form of cancer and he's dealing with it."

Newman issued a statement late Tuesday that he's "doing nicely" but didn't specifically address questions about cancer. A call was placed to his spokesman Wednesday seeking comment.

Read the rest of the article here. And share your thoughts, favorite films and favorite roles. below.

A 1-2 punch
The little kids beat up on their teenage counterparts over the weekend as the animated Kung Fu Panda earned $60 million, easily besting the PG-13 You Don't Mess with the Zohan's $38.5 million. Those two impressive openings pushed the overall weekend revenue 32 percent higher than the same weekend in 2007.

Metro reporter Tawnell Hobbs witnessed an odd scene today--Gary Coleman wrestling someone in a taco costume, apparently for a movie. More on that here. I have to wonder who won, Gary or the taco?

Update: An alert reader points me to some info on the movie in question, called A Tribute to Big Red, here.

If you have been scouring the Internets for a copy of Love Letters of Great Men, the book that Carrie and Mr. Big read while lounging in bed in the Sex and the City movie, you can stop now. It doesn't exist. The Associated Press reports that online retailers have been flooded with requests for the book, but the closest thing to it is a title originally published in the 1920s called Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day. Don't be surprised if some smart publisher quickly jumps on the Love Letters of Great Men title -- that's just a fortune waiting to be claimed for the editor who can get there first.

The saga continues. A bunch of readers wrote in after I wrote a column in Saturday's GuideLive about Sacha Baron Cohen's appearance at a TV studio in Carrollton. Before the taping on May 28, audience members had no idea who it was. The idea was that his identity would remain secret during and after the taping. But a bunch of people recognized him. One woman wrote in, telling me she's part of a home-schoolers' "e group" and that one of her friends belongs to a church choir "e group." Both groups got targeted. You see, the host of the talk show was "Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion model" and the groups being targeted are, evidently, believed to be homophobic, at least by Mr. Cohen and his Hollywood production company. It's obvious, the woman told me, that based on who got the vaguely worded e-mail, asking them to join the studio audience for a new "talk show," that they were targeting conservative Christian groups in North Texas. Can't wait to see the movie.

Photo: Sacha Baron Cohen

If you didn't make it out to the AFI Dallas International Film Festival this spring, the organization is offering a second chance to see its best films.
AFI Dallas will begin a four-week series on Thursday that showcases the "Best of the Fest." The free event will take place each week at the Studio Movie Grill in Dallas at Royal Lane and Central Expressway. Audience members will have the chance to enter a drawing for a variety of prizes, including passes to the 2009 festival.
Thursday's screenings include:
Fields of Fuel -- The winner of the Current Energy Earth Friendly Award, this documentary looks at U.S. dependence on foreign oil and offers a plan to solve the problem. 5:30 p.m.
Amal -- When a rickshaw operator in New Delhi allows a man to skip his fare, both of their lives are changed. 7:30 p.m.
Shorts winners -- Winners of the festival's shorts program screen. 9:30 p.m.
For more information, go to www.afidallas.com.

So The Incredible Hulk screened Tuesday night at the North Park. Screening started at 7:30 (or thereabouts). But the line to get in started at about 4 p.m., this after the frenzy for the early Iron Man screening prompted publicity folks to do a second showing later that night. Moral of the story: If you want to check out an advance screening of a superhero movie you had best get there in time to beat the fanboys.

We'll have a sneak peak review Thursday in the paper and at Guidelive.com. One side note: I watched the Ang Lee Hulk again when I got home last night. That is one loopy movie, and not just because The Hulk looks like Gumby. All that Oedipal mumbo-jumbo? The 'roided-up attack dogs? Weird, wild stuff. Suffice it so say that the new film is, well, different.

Here's a random movie niblet for all fans of Steve Carell, who stars in Get Smart (opening June 20): he played goalie for his hockey team at Dennison University. (That's in Granville, Ohio if you were wondering). What was the hardest part of the gig? Keep reading.

Things get very interesting about halfway through.

I'd recommend that Batman ditch the gray tights for an all-black ensemble, but other than that, this is one heck of an amateur production.

According to Billboard.com:

NASHVILLE -- Country super group Rascal Flatts will appear and perform in the upcoming Hannah Montana movie, which is currently filming in Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Bucky Covington, an "American Idol" alum, and new artist Marcel, both labelmates with Rascal Flatts on Disney-owned Lyric Street Records, will also appear in the movie.

Disney's "Hannah Montana: The Movie" is scheduled for release in 2009 and stars Miley Cyrus and her father, Billy Ray Cyrus.

sandlerOn my way to a preview screening for You Don't Mess With the Zohan last week, I wondered what kind of crowd shows up for an Adam Sandler movie these days. His original fans who were with him through his Saturday Night Live Days and his early comedies (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, etc.) -- a.k.a., people like me -- have probably grown out of his brand of humor by now. The moviegoers in his wheelhouse -- probably 13-22 year old boys -- are mostly too young to remember those early days of the early '90s.
As it turns out, that missing piece for them in the Sandler canon isn't impeding their understanding of his work, as the house was full of people who fit that demo. I suppose you can attribute that longevity to the fact that he's never really been out of the public eye for any extended period since he first burst on the scene. He's starred in a comedy vehicle in at least every other year since 1995's Billy Madison. That's going on 14 years now -- 14 years of reliable box office punch. In the last 10 years, he's starred in eight comedies that have topped the $100 million mark. When you can essentially deliver a $100 million film every year, you're gonna be around a long time.
And I guess what it really goes to show is that there will always be 15 year-old boys willing to pay for his brand of humor.

• Kung Fu Panda (B+)
• You Don't Mess With the Zohan (C+)
• Stuck (B)
• The Duchess of Langeais (A-)
• Reprise (B+)
• Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (B+)
• The Children of Huang Shi (C)
• The Foot Fist Way (C)

For cinephiles, the online universe just expanded a bit. The Museum of the Moving Image, an institution dedicated to film, television and digital media, has launched a new Web site called Moving Image Source. The site contains articles by film scholars, research tools, an international calender of film events and other useful information. I was lucky enough to attend a fellowship at the museum in the spring, and if you are ever in New York, it really is worth checking out. Yes, it's out in Astoria, Queens -- but in reality that was just a 25 minutes subway ride from midtown. And if you like Greek food, you will have hit the motherload out there.

The abundance of movie Websites (and the completeness of IMDB) have made the mammoth-size VideoHound a bit obsolete. Apparently the Hound folk have realized this too: There's now a brand new VideoHound site that promises the same kind cross-referencing bliss as the big book. Check it out here.

Today's New York Times has a story about why Dallas audiences may see the new film Baghead before folks in L.A. or New York do:

LOS ANGELES -- On June 13, Sony Pictures Classics, one of New York's wilier distributors of independent films, plans to open its little comic thriller "Baghead" with a splash.

But not in New York. And not here.

The movie will show first in Austin, Tex., where its writer-directors, the brothers Mark and Jay Duplass, got their filmmaking careers in gear. Then "Baghead" will probably move on to Dallas, Houston or, maybe, Portland, Ore. -- cities that, in the words of Tom Bernard, the co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, "tend to connect with what's new and different."

Seems like we saw a trailer for Baghead recently at the Angelika Dallas, so I won't be surprised if it shows up here soon.

Abigail Breslin, nominated for an Oscar at the ripe old age of 10 for Little Miss Sunshine, will make an appearance at the American Girl Store at the Galleria on Wednesday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. She's in town to promote Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which opens in Dallas on June 20 before expanding on July 2. At 6 p.m., she'll attend an event at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Library in Fort Worth.

Between Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and the upcoming Shutter Island (currently being film by Martin Scorsese), Dennis Lehane has become the most popular novelist to adapt for the movies. I sat down with him for a half hour Sunday afternoon at Book Expo in Los Angeles to talk about his new epic novel The Given Day, and I had to ask him: do you ever write novels with movie adaptation in mind?

The e-mails began circulating last Wednesday. An invitation was being sent to anyone who wished to join the audience of a new TV talk show being taped in the Dallas area that night. The precise address was on International Parkway in Carrollton, near Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. Anyone who agreed to participate would get $40. So, I told my 23-year-old son about it. Ted recently moved to Dallas and is looking for a job. Soon after he got there, he thought he recognized the host, who, in his words, was trying hard to provoke people. My son now believes the so-called talk show host was none other than Sacha Baron Cohen, who must have been filming a new movie. (Please click below to read more!)

Photo: Sacha Baron Cohen during his Borat period

So I finally caught Sex in the City Saturday night -- along with a full house of women in stiletto heels, and a few VERY supportive male companions (like my husband). The Cosmopolitans and bottles of wine were flowing with the laughter at the Studio Movie Grill in Plano. Afterwards, analyzing what I had liked about it, I felt that no one said it better than Ruth Pennebaker in Sunday's New York Times. The writer, a cancer survivor from Austin, says what moved her was the way Carrie and her friends were there for each other. While Carrie's character describes her story as being about seeking love (and really great fashion), it is at its core more about the friends that see you through life's travails as those loves sometimes break your heart.

Going all the way
Sex and the City shocked Hollywood by racking up $55.7 million on opening weekend, nearly double the industry estimates. In doing so, the fab four knocked Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of its perch as it earned $46 million.