The Screening Room

• Zack and Miri Make a Porno (B-)

• Trouble the Water (A-)

• RockNRolla (B)

• Happy-Go-Lucky (B+)

• August Evening (B)

• The Haunting of Molly Hartley

File this under: Skeptical:

From Yahoo! movie news:

Joaquin Phoenix, who turned 34 years old just yesterday, stunned E! Online reporter Jason Kennedy with the announcement that he would be retiring from acting. The two-time Oscar nominee stated this on the red carpet at a Monday benefit for the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, a charity founded by Paul Newman. Phoenix said that Two Lovers, his upcoming romantic drama with Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw, will be his final on-screen role. "This will be my last performance as an actor. I'm not doing films anymore... I've been through that. I've done it... I'm dead serious."

Read the complete story

Apple.com has the new trailer for the third film in the Underworld series, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which opens Jan. 23. Here's the synopsis:

The third film in the franchise delves into the origins of the centuries-old blood feud between the aristocratic vampires, known as Death Dealers, and the barbaric Lycans (werewolves). A young Lycan, Lucian (Michael Sheen), emerges as a powerful leader who rallies the werewolves to rise up against Viktor (Bill Nighy), the cruel vampire king who has persecuted them for hundreds of years. Lucian is joined by his secret lover, the beautiful vampire Sonja (Rhona Mitra), in his battle to free the Lycans from their brutal enslavement.

So... basically, it's a prequel? With how the feud started? I'm all in, but really: If you've seen the first two films, don't you already know how this is going to end? Didn't we see it all in Michael's visions in Underworld: Evolution?

But more importantly, this brings me to a topic we were tossing around last week: How often is the trailer better than the film? Seriously, there is an ART to creating a good trailer. I blame good editing and Blur's "Song 2" for getting me to pay $8 for Starship Troopers. How many times have you been disappointed when the movie you came to see wasn't as good as the trailers that preceded it?

So tell me: What film do you think failed to live up to the promise of its trailer?

Okay, this? This is cool:

"B-Movies Shot in Big D" is the theme for a two-day film festival next week at Southern Methodist University.

Admission is free to the screenings, each of which will be introduced by a member of SMU's cinema-television department. The event, presented by SMU's Fondren Library and Friends of the SMU Libraries, is from 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday in Dallas Hall's McCord Auditorium.

On Wednesday, festival-goers can see Logan's Run and The Amazing Transparent Man. Thursday's offerings will be Mars Needs Women and Gas!, or, It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It.

For more information, call 214-768-4397.

Some sci fi geek I am; I thought Logan's Run was totally shot in Fort Worth. It was, but according to good ol' IMDb, it was shot in a LOT of places around our beloved metroplex.

South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival announced the first round of confirmed speakers for 2009: writer/directors Todd Haynes and R;chard Linklater in conversation together, an appearance by founder and vice president of IMDb Col Needham; and longtime Stanley Kubrick producer Jan Harlan. The festival is March 13-21, 2009, in Austin.

Continue reading for details on each speaker from the press release.

• High School Musical 3: Senior Year (B+)

• Pride and Glory (D+)

• Saw V (not screened)

• Changeling (C)

• Passengers (not screened)

• Filth and Wisdom (B)

• Ashes of Time Redux (B)

High School Musical 3: Senior Year doesn't even open until midnight tonight, but word is already buzzing about the talent that can keep the franchise going now that stars Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Corbin Bleu have officially "graduated."

Keep an eye on the high school "juniors" introduced in the film, Matt Prokop, 18, and Justin Martin and Jemma McKenzie-Brown, both 14, especially as the Wall Street Journal reports that the Disney Channel has ordered a fourth movie ( the decision has not been made whether it will be released on T.V. or in theaters).

So, what do you think? Tell us if you would see a High School Musical 4 with these teens as the new leads?

I'm also wondering if they're holding out the possibility of Ashley Tisdale's Sharpay returning. The drama teacher does say that Sharpay may be coming back to help her in the drama department...Good idea -- or not?

Check our our review and more HSM 3 coverage here. And don't forget to stick around for some funny outtakes during the credits.

• W. (C)

•Rachel Getting Married (A)

• The Secret Life of Bees (B+)

• Max Payne (D)

• What Just Happened (D+)

• Sex Drive (C-)

• Flow: For Love of Water (A-)

• Call and Response(B-)

I'm conflicted.

The new Star Trek movie is basically the Trekkie version of Batman Begins, where we get to watch Kirk and Spock and the rest in their youth.

Paramount recently released some new images from the film, and this ensemble shot of the fashionable, hunky crew leaves me with a sinking feeling. Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an underwear model for The Gap!

On the other hand, there are some actors I very much like in that shot. You've got Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz scowling in the background as Scotty, while Karl Urban (Eomer from The Lord of the Rings) is almost unrecognizable in his blue shirt and puffy hair as Bones.

And Leonard Nimoy will apparently have a cameo as "Old Spock."

I'm still expecting this to stink, but there's a glimmer of hope.

See all the new shots at TrekMovie.com

Staff Writer Michael Granberry talks with actor Dennis Quaid about his latest film, The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, which reflects on the racism of the 1950s and 1960s in Dallas and elsewhere.

Have you seen The Express? Do you think Dallas was fairly portrayed in the film?

Mark Caro at the Chicago Times points out:

When the economy goes to the dogs, moviegoers follow. That's the apparent message of Beverly Hills Chihuahua's weekend box office triumph over the explosive, topical thriller Body of Lies.

I haven't seen either film, but I will (abashedly) admit: I saw the trailer for Chihuahua before The Women, and it looked really funny/cute. I don't expect it to win any awards, but sometimes, all you want is to be entertained for 90 minutes. And after its second week at the top, I've got to think the Drew Barrymore-voiced puppy achieves that.

So what do you think: When the going gets tough, which films get you going? With the economy tight, and that $8 admission looking like a movie ticket vs. 2 gallons of gas, what's going to get you to a movie theater? Or what films do you turn to from your home collection?

From ETonline.com:

The Iron Man will soon have a new best friend! Don Cheadle will replace Terrence Howard as the superhero's best friend, Jim Rhodes, in 'Iron Man 2,' says The Hollywood Reporter.

Read more.

From the Associated Press:

Hospital officials say 37-year-old French actor Guillaume Depardieu has died from complications linked to a sudden case of pneumonia.

The son of French movie star Gerard Depardieu had been hospitalized since Sunday night, said officials at the Raymond-Poincare de Garches hospital in the western suburbs of Paris.

Depardieu acted in more than 40 films, including The Duchess of Langeais, which opened in Dallas in June.

From Reuters:

Oliver Stone's film portrait of President George W. Bush was always going to be controversial given the director's liberal leanings.

So Stone decided to open "W." in U.S. theaters less than three weeks before Americans select their next president -- a calculated move aimed at prodding voters to think about the past eight years and the future.

The movie is part drama, part satire, yet the director of "JFK" and "Nixon" argues it is no hatchet job on Bush -- and so far, critics agree. The final verdict awaits the October 17 debut for one of this fall's most widely anticipated films.

Read the full story

• The Express (A-)

• Body of Lies (C+)

• Girl Cut in Two (B+)

• Loins of Punjab Presents (B+)

• City of Ember (B+)

• Billy: The Early Years (C)

• Quarantine (B-)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- A cable channel is working on a television movie about a teenager from Alabama who went missing in Aruba in 2005 when she was on a graduation trip.

"The Natalee Holloway Story" is going to be based on a book by her mother, Beth Holloway. The Lifetime Movie Network has started preproduction. The movie will focus on the mother's efforts to find out what happened to her daughter.

The 18-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen leaving a bar in Aruba with a Dutch college student and two Surinamese brothers. Extensive searches have found no trace of her.

Tanya Lopez, Lifetime's senior vice president for original movies, says in a news release the movie will raise awareness about how to keep children safe.

NEW YORK (AP) -- You may want to try this at home.

Suresh Joachim of Toronto, and Claudia Wavra of Germany, claim to have broken the world record for continuous movie watching, after seeing 57 films in 123 hours in a plastic-glass house in New York's Times Square.

A Guinness World Records spokesman said it appears the non-dynamic duo have broken the record but said it will take two weeks to officially verify.

The attempt began Oct. 2 when eight challengers started watching "Iron Man." After 72 hours, only two remained. They watched "Thelma and Louise" until the end on 3:10 p.m. Tuesday.

Susan Sarandon, a star of that film, dropped off the final film.

The rules: Each movie had to be viewed until the last credit rolled, and competitors couldn't divert their eyes from the screen. They were allowed 10-minute breaks between movies.

Ah, October. When the leaves change color, and cooler temperature prevail. Or at least, in parts of the country that aren't Texas. So I've heard.

But one thing you can count on, wherever you are, is studios and TV stations rolling out their collection of horror/thriller/slasher films.

It's a little slow going in the theaters, where the first such offering, Quarantine, opens this week. (Don't be fooled by Girl Cut in Two. It's not what you think.) And of course, you still have Saw V to look forward to. Here are some TV offerings to keep you occupied until then:

• AMC offers up its first annual Fear Fest.
• TNT provided me with ample warning to avoid the channel this weekend with its "three chances to watch" The Ring.
• Turner Classic Movies will rock out 48 Hours of Horror! later this month.
• Fox Movie Channel take the campy route on Halloween with Frightening Flicks.
rror/schedule.do">Masters of Horror series.

Now its your turn: Seen any commercials for spooky-dos we should keep an eye out for? Or better yet: What freaky flick keeps you awake at night? Which ones do you make sure not to miss when autumn rolls around?

For me? It's The Ring, hands down. Seriously - I can't walk past my turned off TV late at night without wondering if that creepy little girl is going to crawl out of it.

SMU journalism student Christy Vutam got the chance to chat one-on-one with actor Simon Pegg, star of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which opened this past Friday. Check out the video at SMU's Daily Mustang.

Empire presents its picks for the top 500 movies of all times. The online version is pretty spectacular, and if you want a hard copy, you can pick from 100 different covers (although it looks like some are starting to sell out).

It's definitely worth clicking through, and I could easily waste most of today reading it all. Here's the top 11:

11. Raging Bull
10. Fight Club
9. Pulp Fiction
8. Singin' in the Rain
7. Apocalypse Now
6. Good Fellas
5. Jaws
4. The Shawshank Redemption
3. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
2. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
1. The Godfather

Seriously - is there any "greatest film" list that The Godfather *doesn't* top? So what do you think? Agree or disagree?

On the surface, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is about young love, about Michael Cera's Nick and Kat Dennings' Norah realizing, over the course of a crazy night, that they belong together.
But behind, under and all around that love story, the movie is about a lot of things and one of them is the transcendant power and importance of music and the singular manifestation of that power and importance in the homemade mix. As the movie's title reflects, that manifestation has gone through technology-driven re-formatting -- what used to be a mix tape is now a mix disc or even a digital playlist. But while the packaging has changed, the songs, as an intimate expression of self, remain the same.

Our good friends Victor Godinez and Andrew Smith have some movies-related news over on the tech blog:

Iron Man director says Blu-ray version has already outsold all previous Blu-ray movies

Netflix video streaming to Macs by year's end

From the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- James Earl Jones, who has voiced some of entertainment's most memorable characters, will receive the 2008 Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

SAG President Alan Rosenberg called Jones "a vocal presence without peer" and lauded his TV, film and stage work.

"His long and quiet devotion to advancing literacy, the arts and humanities on a national and local scale deserves our appreciation," Rosenberg said Thursday.

Read more.

• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (B+)

• Blindness (D)

• Religulous (B-)

• Appaloosa (C+)

• Beverly Hills Chihuahua (C+)

• An American Carol (F)

• How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (C+)

• Flash of Genius (C+)

• Battle in Seattle (C-)

• Allah Made Me Funny (D)

When Paul Newman died last week, his two-time co-star Robert Redford issued this statement:

"There is a point where feelings go beyond words. I have lost a real friend. My life - and this country - is better for his being in it."

In the new issue of TIME magazine, Mr. Redford has written a personal tribute to Mr. Newman. In it, he says:

I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in and out of the hospital. I knew what the deal was, and he knew what the deal was, and we didn't talk about it. We talked about what was on our minds: the election, politics, what needed to be done. Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words.

And in related news, Turner Classic Movies will air a 24-hour Paul Newman movie marathon on Sunday, Oct. 12. Hud, Cool Hand Luke and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are among the films on the TCM schedule.

Reuters reports:

Film director Spike Lee has set off a storm in Italy with a movie about black American soldiers fighting alongside Italian partisans in World War Two.

Surviving members of the resistance to the Nazi occupation of Italy have taken issue with Miracle at St. Anna ahead of the film's Italian release on Friday, distributing protest flyers and accusing Lee of distorting history.

Lee has said he wanted to set the record straight about the role played by black U.S. soldiers in the war. The film is based on a novel by James McBride and focuses on the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division which helped liberate Italy in 1944-45.

At the heart of the dispute is the film's depiction of an infamous 1944 massacre in the Tuscan town of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, where Nazi troops rounded up and killed 560 civilians.

Read the rest of the story

Miracle at St. Anna opened in Dallas on Sept. 26.