The Screening Room

The summer movie season is wrapping up, which can mean only one thing: fall movie season!

Usually lthis means that summer's blockbusters give way to the studio's grand hopes for Oscar nominations. But this year? Maybe not so much, or so says Media Critic Tom Maurstad:

Traditionally, summer was the hot season of big movies, full of action and special effects, while fall was the cool season of small movies, full of stars and award-winning acting and filmmaking. But this looks like the year that Indian summer hits Hollywood, turning fall into a second summer of big, noisy films.

Read the rest of what Tom has to say here, then check out his top 10 picks for the season. Not enough? That's okay; we've got the whole season staked out for you.

So now tell us: Which films are you looking forward to? The Coen Brothers return with Burn After Reading? Finding out just what a Quantum of Solace is? Wondering if Twilight will be just as angst-ridden as Stephanie Meyer's book? Let's talk movies!

Maybe its just me, but it seems like a bad sign -- or at least par for the course -- that the three biggest end-of-summer flicks weren't screened in advance for critics. Why, it's almost as if the studios wanted Babylon A.D., College and Disaster Movie. to slip under the radar! That said, just wait and see if all three of those don't find a spot in the box office top 10 by Monday morning. Did you catch any of these films? Am I right or wrong?

• The Traitor (C)
• Babylon A.D.
• In Search of a Midnight Kiss (B+)
• Transsiberian (B)
• A Man Named Pearl (B)
• Hamlet 2 (C)
• College
• Disaster Movie

Relax, everyone -- this one isn't going to scare you the way No Country for Old Men did.

The Associated Press says that sibling filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen previewed Burn After Reading at the Venice Film Festival. It's a spy satire with an all-star cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and John Malkovich.

Read all about the premiere here.

If you were planning on seeing Vin Diesel's big summer movie this week, you might want to rethink your movie choice. At least, that's what the director thinks:

French director Mathieu Kassovitz, who cradled and loved his Babylon AD project for 5 years, is mad as hell at Fox. Citing terrible management, budget shenanigans, bad producers and partners, Kassovitz says making the futuristic tale starring Vin Diesel was a hideous ordeal. What went so wrong with Babylon AD that its own director and star call it "terrible"?

In the film, Vin Diesel plays Toorop, an ex-mercenary who is getting paid to transport an important girl from one end of the globe to another, while dodging enemy fire and hiding from the oppressive government. But according to Kassovitz, it should have been so much more. He worked on a project whose main point was to focus on refugee trafficking in a gritty tomorrow, as well as political issues like censorship and a declining educational system.

Read the rest of the post here.

So: Another case of an evil studio sucking the life and creativity out of a project to make it more marketable? Or a director with auteur visions for his Hollywood popcorn flick? Does this whole thing make you more or less likely to see the movie?

It doesn't sway me from my "maybe I'll catch it someday on Showtime" plan. If anything, it provides a little vindication for my belief that if the studio thought it was a great blockbuster, it would have come out earlier in the summer. And if it was a big think piece, it would find a home this fall. But the end-of-summer dead zone? Not a good sign.

Via io9

'Thunder' clap
Proving once again that all publicity is good publicity, Tropic Thunder remained atop the charts for a second week, pulling in $16.3 million to push its total to $65.6 million. The film has been dogged by those offended by its treatment of the mentally handicapped, but the protests don't seem to have affected its earning potential.

Exit Speed, an action movie filmed primarely in Coppell and Carrollton, will have its red carpet debut Tuesday night at the Studio Movie Grill on Centrail Expressway and Royal Lane. Walking the carpet will be cast members of the film including Lea Thompson, plus Bob Hudgins of the Texas Film Commission and Janis Burkland of the Dallas Film Commission. The film was produced by Sally Helppie, a Dallas lawyer who is president of Sabbatical Pictures.

Such an embarrassment of Jewish film riches. Just two nights before the 12th Annual International Jewish Film Festival opens with the affecting Sixty Six, a story inspired by a real-life bar mitzvah, 3 Stars Cinema is presenting a different kind of story, Praying with Lior. It's an award-winning documentary about a boy with Down syndrome and his journey to study for his bar mitzvah.

It's a one-night only showing Thursday, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Angelika Film Center. Tickets are $9 and are available here.

Oh, Christopher Nolan, say it ain't so! Admittedly, movie rumors (particularly casting rumors) are a dime a dozen on the Internet, where tales spread like wildfire -- or like a high school grapevine:

The 62-year-old singer and actress is reported to be in talks to play Catwoman opposite Christian Bale in the third Batman film from British director Christopher Nolan.

The Oscar-winner will join a cast that includes Johnny Depp as The Riddler as she plays the whip-carrying burglar. The character has also been played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry.

Continue reading at Telegraph.co.uk.

Time will tell whether to believe this or not. Personally, I think anyone -- or anything -- is a step up from Halle Berry's turn as the iconic figure. But I'm having a hard time seeing how this choice fits in with Christopher Nolan's Batman-verse.

I hear that a cult legend is dead. Sho 'Nuff, the shogun of Harlem, was Bruce Leroy's nemesis in the classic movie, Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon. Now he's no more.

Julius Carry was the actor who played the prettiest, baddest, mofo lowdown around this town - Sho 'Nuff! He coined one-liners, like "Kiss my converse!" And every time he asked his entourage, "Who's the baddest?," we all chimed in - "Sho' Nuff!"

It might not have been the deepest movie, or employed the most talented actors. But it had a time and place for my generation. In the mid-1980s, when black kids were watching Kung-Fu flicks and re-enacting the scenes afterward, we finally had a movie for us. Sho 'Nuff and Bruce Leroy had us all wishing we had the glow.

Maybe, like Bernie Mac, this will all be rumor and he's just laid up in a hospital somewhere. Then again, Bernie still died.

Here's a YouTube video to one of the best scenes:

— Tiara Ellis

If you were planning on heading out to the Angelika for a movie tonight, don't. The theater is closed to the public as it hosts the premiere of Drive and Deliver, a documentary about professional truck drivers. That film screens at 6 p.m., though I'm not sure how to get tickets. Maybe you can find out here.

This made my day.

Via Dubious Quality.

• Death Race (B+)
• The Rocker (D+)
• Elegy (B)
• Frozen River (A-)
• The House Bunny (B-)
• The Longshots (C+)
• I.O.U.S.A. (B)

Finding it hard to resist belting out "The Winner Takes It All" or dancing to "Dancing Queen" with Meryl Streep at Mamma Mia!? Resistance is futile and actually detrimental at a new sing-along version of the hit movie opening Aug. 29 at AMC NorthPark and Cinemark Legacy in Plano.

It's part of a limited national release for this cleverly plotted cornucopia of ABBA songs, boisterously performed on a lush Greek island and which despite the scoffing remarks of some (mostly males, ahem!), has already scored more than $320 million worldwide.

Cool thing is, with the words on the screen, you don't have even brush up on the lyrics (as if you didn't know them all). Well, that takes care of our plans for Labor Day weekend...

And if you will be away for Labor Day weekend, look here to find out your closest sing-along location.

I.O.U.S.A., a documentary that inspects the financial troubles facing the country, officially opens on Friday, but a special presentation of the film will be shown Thursday. After the screening, a panel discussion featuring Warren Buffett and other financial leaders will be shown via satellite. All screenings will be held at 7 p.m.; for a list of participating theaters, go to www.fathomevents.com.

Down goes Batman! Down goes Batman!
It took a fake army platoon to do it, but The Dark Knight was finally taken down last weekend. Tropic Thunder, the Ben Stiller-directed tale of actors shooting a war movie who find themselves involved in real combat, took in $25.8 million in its first weekend, besting Batman by $9 million.

Over on the Dallas City Hall Blog, Dave Levinthal has an interesting post on the topic. Dallas Film Commission director Janis Burklund suggests that the two venues would make great places to blow up in a movie.

You've got to see this. If you missed Street Kings in theaters, it's your chance to see Keanu Reeves (!) go all punisher on screen. Yep, the same Keanu Reeves that isn't known for any kind of explosiveness as an actor. But he has no choice when surrounded by a fiery, mustached Forest Whitaker and a scary, barely recognizable John Corbett in "Street Kings," released Tuesday.

From the moment the film starts, you know something's very wrong with every character in the movie. And you'll also be a little distracted by playing a game of "Hey, it's that guy!" as each cop is introduced. These cops consider themselves judge, jury and executioner. (The movie doesn't do a thing to help The Los Angeles Police Department's reputation.) Internal Affairs is snooping around, of course, but the investigation is rapidly going nowhere because as Forest Whitaker's character says late in the film, "We're all bad." And, by that time, you'll have to agree.

(Photo of Keanu Reeves by Merrick Morton)

As you've no doubt heard by now, the 6th Harry Potter movie has been pushed from its original date of Nov. 21 to July 17, 2009. Apparently, that memo didn't get passed on to Entertainment Weekly, who features the wizard on the cover of its fall movie preview.
Now, working on a publication with deadlines, I understand how these things can happen -- you expect one thing and then someone pulls the rug out from under you after your deadline.
But you don't expect it to happen when you share a parent company with the cover story. Time Warner Inc. owns both Entertainment Weekly and Warner Bros., the studio behind the Potter franchise. Seems like an inter-office memo might have been appropriate in this case. Anyway, just passing that along so you don't feel like your company is the only one that doesn't get the word out to you on important news.

Ping Pong Playa, which I wrote about in yesterday's paper, opened the Asian Film Festival of Dallas on Thursday night at the Magnolia Theatre. Afterward, everyone headed across McKinney Ave. to The Fish for a little opening night revelry.
In town for the event was Jimmy Tsai, who plays the lead role, C-Dub, in the film. To watch him on screen, you'd never know that it was his first film, or that he's not even an actor by trade. His primary job is serving as an accountant for Cherry Sky films, which produced Ping Pong Playa.
As you might expect from someone making a jump like that, he was bathed in a very happy to be there glow last night, happily mingling with festival goers and posing for pictures. It looked like a gig he could get used to.
"I'm mostly a behind-the-scenes guy," he told me last night at the party. "But if something else in front of the camera comes along, I'd be crazy not to pursue it."
If Ping Pong Playa does well when it is released in September, those offers may come knocking.

Less than 24 hours after Warner Bros. pushed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from this fall to July 17, 2009, Disney swooped in with a replacement to fill the void. Nov. 21 is a coveted date this year as it is the Friday before Thanksgiving -- a primo release date. With that day's big family film out of the picture, Disney announced today that Bolt, about a TV-star dog voiced by John Travolta, would fill the gap.

• Vicky Cristina Barcelona (B+)
• Fly Me to the Moon (B-)
• Tropic Thunder (B) (opened Wednesday)
• Mirrors
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars (C+)
• Henry Poole is Here (B)

Change your plans, fangirls and boys. The Associated Press reports that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been moved from Nov. 21, 2008 until next summer, July 17, 2009. According to the story, Studio President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn says the studio has had success with past summer Harry Potter releases, including the fifth movie.

So that's another eight months until Lord Voldemort's dark past gets to the big screen. What do you think? Will this keep you from seeing the movie? Is it all a ploy? Were you all set to get your Harry Potter fix just before the holiday season kicked off?

Wanna see The Dark Knight or Pineapple Express for free?

Your old cell phone, unwanted tires and broken kitchen appliances can be exchanged for movie passes this weekend in Dallas.

The Dallas Summer Recycling Roundup takes place Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at three locations.

This is one of four annual roundups the city hosts and serves as an opportunity for residents to discard unwanted items that normally are not part of curbside pickup. Dallas residents with valid identification can exchange unwanted items for two Cinemark movie passes while supplies last.

Continue reading.

Climbing toward history
Stop me if you've heard this one before: The Dark Knight collected $26 million last weekend to finish first, this time holding off the stoner comedy Pineapple Express by $3 million. Along the way, it advanced to the No. 3 spot on the all-time domestic box-office chart with $441.5 million, about $20 million short of second place Star Wars.

Support? System Down, a documentary exploring the short comings of the country's child-support system, will screen Thursday night at the Angelika Film Center in Plano (7205 Bishop Road). Following the film, audience members are encouraged to stay and discuss the topic further. Tickets are $8; for more information on the film, go to www.supportthemovie.com.

You know, appeasement never works.

We keep throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at George Lucas, hoping each successive windfall will be enough to convince the man to finally retire from butchering his own youthful successes.

And every time, Lucas just gets a little chubbier and comes back for more, adding a Jar-Jar Binks here and an embarrassing crystal skull over there, counting his fortune and looking more and more like a Caucasian Wookiee with each passing year.

Now all we're left with is a collection of defiled memories and surplus McDonald's commemorative cups.

I say enough.

This latest act of naked aggression must not be allowed to stand:

Lucas sat down with AP Television at his Big Rock Ranch outside San Francisco, where he said he didn't pay much attention to the reception from critics and fans to "Crystal Skull," a sci-fi adventure set in the 1950s. But he definitely sees a future for Dr. Jones. A fifth movie is certainly a possibility.

"The franchise really depends on me coming up with a good idea," Lucas said. "And that series is very research-intensive. So we're doing research now to see if we can't come up with another object for him to chase ... hopefully we'll come up with something."

I don't care what it takes. We shall fight Lucas at the multiplex, we shall fight at Netflix and Blockbuster, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength on pay-per-view, we shall defend our sacred childhood films, whatever the cost may be.

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, Indiana Jones 5 is released, then in God's good time, Harrison Ford will simply be too old to make Indiana Jones 6.

An organization of disabilities groups is planning a full-scale boycott of Tropic Thunder ahead of its Wednesday release, according to The New York Times. The offending portion of the movie concerns a mentally challenged character that Ben Stiller's character played in a previous movie (still with me?) in an attempt to land an Oscar.
Do the groups actually have a bone to pick? I saw the movie at a screening last week, and I can see why someone would be offended. Any time you play a disability for a laugh, you run that risk. That being said, the butt of the joke is not the mentally challenged but the actors who take these parts in an attempt to show what range they have.
The question then, becomes: Is the joke worth the tangential harm caused to these groups? If the movie makes a ton of cash, I have a feeling DreamWorks will feel it was worth it. If the boycott leads to Tropic Thunder's early demise, then DreamWorks may wish it would have been a little more sensitive.
With the hunger out there these days for comedy to push the boundaries with each successive film, I would bet on option A.

Landmark Theatres Film Club is offering a little extra incentive to sign up by the end of the month. Anyone who wants to take part in the free club -- basically an e-mail blast of screening information, filmmaker appearances, etc. at the Inwood and Magnolia Theatres -- will be entered into a drawing to receive CDs, DVDs, books, movie passes, stuff like that. You can register for the club here. At the very least, you'll know what's going on at those theaters.

Bernie Mac, 50, died today of complications from pneumonia, according to the Associated Press. Share your memories of the actor-comedian here.

Somehow, amid all of the blockbusters, several compelling docs have managed to creep onto screens. One of them (Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World) unfortunately leaves screens Thursday, but two more deserve our attention.
The first is American Teen, which opened last week at the Dallas and Plano Angelikas. It's one of those docs for people who don't think they like docs. The film follows five teenagers in Warsaw, Indiana, and it has such a narrative structure to it that if you didn't know going in that what you were witnessing was real, you would think you were just watching a feature film. I don't know if it's the best doc I've seen all year, but it's certainly the one I had the most fun watching. And if nothing else, it has a nice soundtrack.
The other documentary, hitting screens on Friday, is Man on Wire. Full disclosure: I haven't seen this one yet. But from everything I've read, it sounds like white-knuckle filmmaking at its best. The movie follows Philippe Petit, a French daredevil who attempted to walk a tight rope between the newly constructed World Trade Center Towers in Manhattan in 1974. Now, you can argue that hearing from Petit in the film lowers the potential splat factor a bit, but just looking at the movie poster makes my palms sweat.
The bottom line to all of this? If you are tired of your Hellboy IIs and Mummys, etc. there is other, more interesting stuff on screens during these dog days of summer.

Pineapple Express was by far the funniest thing I have watched all year!

Seth Rogan (Dale Denton) and James Franco (Saul Silver) are hysterical together and Danny R. McBride (Red) adds the icing on the cake.

I want so badly to talk about the best parts and lines but I don't want to give anything away. I will say that the movie is much more graphic than I expected. Body parts are lost and you will get a close up of the whole thing.

Go catch Pineapple Express and let me know what you thought of the movie.

He may now be one of the biggest brands in Hollywood, but Judd Apatow is still thinking small. In a recent phone interview, the creator of the TV cult classic Freaks and Geeks said that little, 18-episode, one-season show is never far from his thoughts.

According to CNN.com:

Robert Redford did it, so has Robert De Niro; now the latest actor to start a film festival is Tilda Swinton.

The Oscar winner's extravagantly titled "The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams" will be held in a rented ballroom in her home town of Nairn in northern Scotland at the end of August.

Swinton decided to create (and pay for) a festival that would, "run 8 1/2 days, that would be a six out of 10 on the grunge scale, that would serve home-made cakes and fish finger sandwiches, whose tickets would be £3/£2," according to the Ballerina Ballroom website.

Unlike the market-driven mania of, say, Cannes, the festival will not centre on premieres; rather a selection of Tilda and her friends' favorite films from throughout cinema history.

Continuing reading here.

Taking up residence
The Dark Knight just won't budge, as the year's biggest hit held on to the top spot for the third consecutive week. It's the first move to accomplish that feat since National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets stayed on top the last two weekends of 2007 and the first one of this year. Of the new releases, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor fared the best with $40.5 million.

There's still time to enter the Angelika Film Center's Baghead contest. Contestants can enter a photo or video of the most creative baghead, either you or someone else, to angelikasubmissions@gmail.com by 11:59 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 7.

First places snags $100 in Angelika Cinemoney and a spot on the Angelika Blog. Second and third place get $50 and $25 in Cinemoney, respectively. (Cinemoney can be redeemed for movie tickets and concessions.) Wanna know more? Visit www.angelikablog.com.

Baghead, which opens Friday, is a tongue-in-cheek horror story that centers on a stalker who inflicts terror by lurking around in a brown paper bag.

Kevin Smith won an R rating from the MPAA appeals board today for his movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno. The film, which comes out Oct. 31, centers on two friends (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) who decide to make a homemade sex tape to sell in an effort to dig themselves out of debt.
Had the film been saddled with the kiss-of-death NC-17, as it was originally rated, it would have to have been edited, because it's doubtful distributor The Weinstein Co. would want to lower the film's potential earnings with the rating. Most major movie chains won't even bother with NC-17 movies.
And while we're on the subject of Zack and Miri, it seems worth pointing out that Elizabeth Banks will play both an amateur porn star and First Lady Laura Bush in the same month as Oliver Stone's W. will also be released in October. Now THAT's range.

In celebration of the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, there'll be a Saturday (Aug. 9) screening of the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars. Scotoma Events is showing 25 episodes from the 2003-2005 seasons and hosting a costume contest. It's happening in conjunction with APOTAC's Comic, Toy, & Collectibles Swap Meet in Grand Prairie at Logos Youth Center, 121 N. Center St. It starts at 11 a.m.

Fifteen Dallas teens had a week to cast, produce, shoot and edit Saturday, their entry in Samsung Mobile's Fresh Films contest. The script and music were created by teen winners from separate competitions.

Watch the video: Trailer promotes Dallas teens' entry

Read the story

Watch the films at Fresh-Films.com

CLICK HERE TO VOTE at Fresh-Films.com. Voting ends at 3 pm.m. Wednesday.

According to MTV.com:

While Bernie Mac remains in the hospital under treament for pneumonia, his rep slammed widespread media reports that the comedian is in very critical condition.

Read more.

Brendan Fraser has given us reason to believe that he can do both small films (The Quiet American, Gods and Monsters) and big blockbusters (The Mummy series, which sees its third installment open today).
But one thing that is indisputable is that the guy is a master at acting against the green screen. When he was in town promoting Journey to the Center of the Earth earlier this summer, he talked about that ability -- a skill that the more I think about it is probably more difficult than is given credit.
"I've been told that I have the unusual ability to be able to buy into the fact that there's something that's not there, believe that it is, and give a performance that feeds the CGI artists so that they can put in their electronic elements -- be it a creature or a mummy trying to rip my head off or a tiny bird or something like that," he said.
Eric Brevig, the director of Journey and a special effect ace in his own right, agrees.
"He's brilliant at being able to do stuff which other actors sometimes are not good at, which is in his imagination, he sees these things that are not there at the time they are being shot, and its his belief that you as an audience member see it on the screen and then you believe it. And I don't think you can teach that."
So think about that when you are out watching Fraser fight off some sure-to-be-CGI mummy this weekend.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (D)

American Teen (B+)

Swing Vote (B)

The Last Mistress (B)

Midnight Meat Train (not screened)