Movies Daily by Zach Cannon

Each summer, the MTV Movie Awards or, The Award Show That Should Be Less Boring Than the Oscars But Aren’t, takes over Music Television for one night a thousand repeats, and is quickly forgotten. Honestly, I haven’t watched the MTV Movie Awards in years. They’re usually too slow with weak jokes and the only redeeming part of the whole thing is the hilarious spoofs. Originally, I was going to fill this post with the nominees, but I realized that was a bad idea because a) you can just find them here and b) I don’t think anyone really cares. While I was looking over the list, however, I noticed a category I hadn’t seen before: Best Summer Movie So Far.

Best Summer Movie So Far? Seriously? First, let’s define a summer movie.

Summer Movie: (n) – Typically a Hollywood film that comes out during the summer movie season. Usually has a large budget and grosses boat loads of money. If it doesn’t make boat loads of money, it is considered a “disappointment.”

And, just to clear up any confusion, lets define the summer movie season:

Summer Movie Season: (n) – The period from about the first weekend in May till Labor Day in which summer movies come out.

What was the first movie of this year’s summer movie season? Iron Man. When did Iron Man come out? May 2. That means when the MTV Movie Awards airs tomorrow, June 1, it will be less than a month into this year’s summer movie season.

So what are the nominees for Best Summer Movie So Far? The only five summer movies that have come out.  Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, Iron Man, Sex and the City and Speed Racer. I don’t know what MTV was thinking creating such a category. It might be to ride in the jet stream of a hit, or to give that hit some more press. Iron Man, Indy and SATC are the only true films in contention here and Iron Man will probably win, but the demographic that watches the MTV Movie Awards probably already saw all three of these films, so it won’t give them much of a boost, especially something like Iron Man, which, despite the legs it had in the box office, is now buried beneath Indy and SATC.

In the end, what’s the point? The award won’t really give much of a boost to any film nominated and people won’t tune in just to see which of the five big movies to come out in the last few weeks is going to win the category.  I supposed this is a rather pointless topic to write 500-words on, but it kind of encapsulates the MTV Movie Awards as what they are: pointless.

A handful of new red band trailers hit the net in the last few days and they’re worth checking out (if you’re over 18, of course). Well, actually, it’s only two red band trailer and one internet only teaser, but you get the idea.

The first two are available only through Apple and iTunes. I’m tired of the Apatow formula of putting adults with arrested development at the center of a movie and having them grow up by the end and I think the mini-genre he’s created around himself has pretty much run dry. Granted, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, his last producural effort was pretty funny. So, at first I thought the new Apatow-McKay-Ferrell-Reilly comedy Step Brothers would be same old same old, but the more I see of it, the funnier it looks. You can find the trailer here . Is it just me, or is John C. Reilly better than Will Ferrell in the doofus role and half as annoying to watch?

Next is the Coen Brothers’ follow up to No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading. Tonally, it’s completely different from NCFOM and seems more along the lines of The Big Lebowski It’s about a dimwitted gym employee (Brad Pitt) who finds a disk filled with CIA secrets. He and his wife/girlfriend/not sure (Francis McDormand) try to blackmail the agent who lost it (John Malkovich), and a handful of other people get involved in what seems like a espionage adventure gone way, way wrong. George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins also appear. Find that one here .

Then there’s the first teaser for Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which is about, well, two people who make a porno. The clip is short and doesn’t reveal much by way of story or plot, because I think the title pretty much sums everything up nicely. It does, however, give an idea of the chemistry between Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks and the comedy that will populate the film. It oddly reminds me of a Christopher Guest movie, just very, very dirty.

This weekend sees Sex and the City make a triumphant (?) return to pop culture. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, the film only has a 58% Tomatometer rating, and the general consensus reads, “Sex and the City loses steam in the transition to the big screen, but will still thrill fans of the show.” That pretty much captures the vibe the trailers had and, besides, with a run time of 2.5 hours, fans can’t complain too much; they’re getting a new half of the season of the show. Trying to nab all the guys who promise take their girlfriends to go see Sex and the City, but then get a ticket to their own movie down the hall is the creepy looking The Strangers. It ranks lower than SATC (44%), but poor quality doesn’t really affect the success of horror movies these days. (See: Saw, Hostel, The Grudge). Still industry estimates put one man, not four women, or three strangers, back on the top of the box office list this weekend: Indy.

While there wasn’t a whole lot of interesting news out of Hollywood today, there was a few piece of bad news. Here’s a trio of items that range from unnecessary to just plain stupid.

Brett Ratner is back to run sequel havoc on the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. As if the third one wasn’t bad enough, Ratner, the director of such sequel classics as X-Men 3: The Last Stand and Red Dragon, will work his magic on Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 4.

Elizabeth Berkley and Briana Evigan are going to be visited by a time-traveling bunny in S. Darko, the sequel to Donnie Darko. The new Darko takes place seven years after the first and centers around the visions Donnie’s sister has after running away from her family.

Speaking of magic, Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes label are putting together a film version of — this is not a joke — Ouija. Yes, Ouija, the board game. The movie is being billed as a supernatural thriller, but plot details are being kept under wraps. While transferring pre-existing things that shouldn’t be movies into movies worked for Pirates of the Caribbean, I can’t see it working at all here. If the film industry keeps coming up with any more ideas like this, it’s all going to topple down like a game of Jenga.

Sharon Stone is no longer welcome in China. Last week at Cannes she pondered if the earthquake in China that’s left 65,000 dead was karma for the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibetans. China’s UME Cineplex chain now will not show the actress’ films, calling her comments “inappropriate.”

Even though they’re disappearing from newsrooms, TV critics are appearing on your TiVo. TiVo has struck a deal with the Chicago Tribune and their critic Maureen Ryan to offer her daily TV picks. As it stands now, the service is only available to Chicago-area subscribers, but TiVo is trying to make deals with other publications.

Hollywood has almost avoided another strike, this time one that would be even more debilitating than the writer strike. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers reached a deal with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and will now return to talks with the Screen Actor’s Guild. Talks between AMPTP and SAG fell through earlier this month and the AFTRA deal puts increased pressure on SAG to make their own deal before the June 30 deadline. Unlike the WGA strike, an actor’s strike would end production immediately on almost anything currently being filmed.

Rumor has it Tobey Maguire will be replaced by one of two William Millers. Fans of Almost Famous will recognize Patrick Fugit as the writer at the heart of Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical tale, but those with a close eye will also recognize Michael Angarano as the kid who played the young William Miller who learns he’s a year younger than he thinks he is. Sony apparently is eyeing potential replacement for Maguire should they recast and go forward with Spider-man 4 and 5. Fugit and Anganaro are at the top of their list, but no offers have been made to anyone yet.

Perhaps as a preview of what’s to come this weekend, Sex and the City is already making a few million overseas. Carrie Bradshaw and company have pulled in $4.8 million in the United Kingdom and France. But if you do head to the movies this weekend, beware the price of popcorn. Rising food prices are making the concessions stand and the box office more expensive. Read all about the matter here .

In an effort to boost its DVD sales, Warner Bros. is going to release supplements to Watchmen on DVD five days after the initial release. The DVD will feature the Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood portions of the graphic novel. Four months later, Watchmen will come out on DVD, and then another DVD will come out with Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchmen edited together.

The marketing for The Incredible Hulk is getting into full swing and Marvel is trying everything short of erasing the memory of Ang Lee’s 2003 version. Last week a handful of clips from the flick hit the web. You can find them here, here and here . A handful of movie sites have also recently talked with the director and sat in on the editing. You can read those articles here , here , here and here .

James Cameron promises his next film, Avatar, will be unlike anything ever experience before and that all of his future films will be in 3-D. Some details on the plot and the technology behind the film can be found here.

And, finally, not to finish on a sad note, but director/actor/producer Sydney Pollack has died at 73 from cancer. He directed such classic films as Tootsie and Out of Africa, produced everything from Sliding Doors to HBO’s Recount, and even acted (and excellently at that) in Michael Clayton, The Sopranos, Will and Grace and Tootsie, just to name a few. While I haven’t seen enough of his work to write a formal celebrity-style obit, you can read the one that ran in the New York Times here.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone, especially George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The two bearded ones made a killing this weekend at the box office and not just at home. Five-day estimates for Indiana Jones have the film making $151.1 million dollars domestically (fifth biggest five-day gross in history) and $146.5 million overseas. That’s nearly $300 million the world over and counting.

Of course, Iron Man is still going strong, making $20 million this weekend. Outside of the addition of Indiana Jones, the top pretty much looks exactly like it did last weekend. Here’s the full list:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: $101 million
2. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: $23 million
3. Iron Man: $20.1 million
4. What Happens in Vegas: $9 million
5. Speed Racer: $4 million
6. Made of Honor: $3.4 million
7. Baby Mamma: $3.3 million
8. Forgetting Sarah Marshall: $1.7 million
9. Harold and Kumar…: $0.9 million
10. The Visitor: $0.8 million

While full weekend box office figures won’t be out until late tomorrow, the numbers are already in for Thursday through today. Indy isn’t the record-breaking hit that some people predicted it would be, but it’s still raking in the dough. Since midnight Thursday, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has made $126 million. That’s $101 million for Friday-Sunday, placing it tenth on the all time list of opening weekends, just above Iron Man. The two flip-flop on the list of top Saturday grosses; Iron Man is barely above Indy as number 8 with $37.35 million to Indy’s flat $37 million.

If Indy makes enough money tonight, it could pass Spider-Man 3’s opening weekend record of $151 million, even though Indy cheats a little because he had fives days to reach the top and the web slinger only had three. Either way, Dr. Jones, has proven this weekend that even in old age, he’s healthier than John McCain and can still make a hit.

Apple has the first two trailers for the much-anticipated De Niro-Pacino flick Righteous Kill. The two play partners on the NYPD who investigate a series of murders of notorious criminals. Because that’s too simple, or too similar to TV’s Dexter, the killer also leaves four-line poems that justify the killings. The trailers indicate that the killer could be a cop, while the synopsis on Apple hints that it’s all connected to a case from years ago and the partners may have put the wrong man behind bars way back when. GASP!

The film looks interesting, if not a little formulaic, like the kind of film that you’d catch on USA a few years after it’s initial release, but wouldn’t really rush to see in theaters. Judge for yourself and watch it here .

An interesting note: Pacino has said he took the role because he wanted to work with De Niro and the two look like they have good chemistry together. It might be worth seeing just for their team-up; they share more screen time together in just one of these trailers than they did in all of Heat and Godfather: Part II combined.

Oliver Stone has found his Cheney. The semi-retired Richard Dreyfus, likely trying to keep anyone from remember his last film as Poseidon, will play the Vice President for the upcoming Bush biopic W.

Warner Bros. issued a press release today to announce the beginning of production on Terminator 4. It provides a little news about the plot:

In the highly anticipated new installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that Hugh Hefner has deemed Robert Downey Jr. his choice to play himself in the biopic about the Playboy founder. The brilliant (that’s sarcasm) Brett Ratner is attached to direct.

If Uwe Boll isn’t forced to stop directing because of the online petition against him, he will take a break from genre films and make some serious movies. True story. Seems the director wants to prove his critics wrong and he will helm “two improvised films aimed at the arthouse crowd.” The first, Stoic, is about the true rape, torture and assisted suicide/murder of a prisoner in Germany. The second, Janjaweed, will focus on the Sudan genocide.

Those who’ve already caught Indiana Jones this weekend have probably already seen the trailer for David Fincher and Brad Pitt’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but for those who haven’t here is the Spanish trailer for the film. The footage is the same, though the introductory narration is obviously in a different language. The movie doesn’t look much like anything Fincher has done before – it reminds me of a darker, more interesting Big Fish – but it still looks mighty cool.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is fun. I think it would be impossible for any Lucas-Spielberg-Ford collaboration not to be at least that much. It picks up 19 years after the last one. Since we last saw him, Indy has fought in World War II (and became Colonel Jones in the process), operated as a spy, and helped the U.S government clean up some kind of crash in Roswell.

It’s because of that last job that a bunch of Russians kidnap Dr. Jones and take him to an enormous familiar-looking warehouse in New Mexico called Hangar 51. They’re looking for a boxed-up corpse found at the crash site in Roswell. Leading the Russians is Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), a psychic Commie interested in a whole new kind of psychological warfare.

The whole affair brings some G-Men down on Indy and he loses his job as a professor. He’s just about to leave town when Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf, who is plenty cool because he dresses like Marlon Brando from The Wild Ones and says shit. Twice.) comes to him looking for help. Some guy nicknamed The Ox (John Hurt) the two know is lost in South America and Mutt’s mother has been kidnapped while looking for her.

His mother’s name: Marion Williams. Indy says he doesn’t know her, and if you’ve never heard of Indiana Jones before, you might not know who she is either. But, for everyone else, we all know Marion Williams can only be Marion Ravenwood, former love interest of Indy from Raiders of the Lost Ark. As for who the father of Mutt is, I’ll try not to spoil it, but this is a Spielberg film, and one of his trademarks is the use of bad or absent fathers and, well, Indy ran out on Marion when they were supposed to get married years ago….

Figure it out yet? Of course you have, it’s obvious, and so is so much of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Maybe I’m biased because I’ve watched a few too many late-night specials on the History Channel so I know a bit about the real crystal skulls, but even if you’re completely new to the things, it’s not hard to figure out the conclusion and how they fit into South American history in the movie.

And even if you do figure it out yourself, at least the movie should be fun to see how Indy and Co. will solve the mystery and save the world this time. But Spielberg, Lucas and screenwriter David Koepp first set up a so-so plot (Indy and Mutt go to South America to find The Ox and Marion and return a crystal skull to the fabled City of Gold, a.k.a El Dorado) that’s bogged down by silly asides (expressive gophers, swinging monkeys, Indy surviving a nuclear bomb test inside a projectile lead refrigerator) and an ultimate lack of much danger.

There is no real villain in the movie, just the predictable double-crosser and a would-have-been-cool-if-they-didn’t-humanize-her Irina. Worse, there’s no mystery Indy can’t solve because they’re all already solved for him. Rather than uncovering the location of lost cities or overcoming strange curses, Indy easily deciphers — and then he and Mutt explain incessantly — the mad ramblings of Hurt’s Ox, whose own time searching for the Crystal Skulls has left him insane. Then he takes down the Russians and everyone lives happily ever after.

There are a few things that make the movie worthwhile though and the man in the fedora is right on top of the list. Ford may be 65, but he’s still spry and he still sweats humor and charisma. LaBeouf proves further that he has some chops and is well on his way to becoming the next Tom Hank/Harrison Ford/Insert Hollywood-everyman-type here. He and Ford have excellent chemistry and their rapport is energetic and the two of them together might be reason enough to have more Indiana Jones movies. Some sequences, like the long three-car chase/fight through the jungle, and Indy and Mutt battling graveyard ninjas, are exciting, though somewhat hampered down by subpar CGI. Go to the theater to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for any of these reasons, but don’t expect to find a real treasure.

Grade: B