Movies This Week: April 23, 2010

After initial estimates pegged “How To Train Your Dragon” as last weekend’s box office winner, final returns crowned “Kick Ass” as king by a karate chop. “Clash of the Titans” dropped to fifth from first in an uncharacteristically topsy turvy shuffle that bucked historical trends and ruined forecasts. I blame the volcanic ash. This weekend’s entries have some good, some bad, some weird, and one that has all three. Will “The Losers” win out? Will J. Lo’s Back Up Plan be at the forefront of moviegoers’ minds? Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? These questions will never ever be answered (until Monday).

The Back-Up Plan
Just when you thought J. Lo finished her run in rom-com bombs, this baby bump of pratfalls and poisonous delusions comes storming down the pike. J. Lo is 40, people.  Jennifer Aniston is 41. I’m concerned about not being married by the time I reach 30. Not to sound like an ageist, but what’s going on here? I’ve had concerns about available women in their early 30s – psychotic? overbearing? bipolar? promiscuous? – but early 40s? Okay, so maybe you’re divorced, widowed, separated, in a coma or cryogenically frozen for 20 years, but outside of those legitimate reasons, why should I even for a second believe you’re not out of your goddam mind? Don’t even think about saying “late bloomer” or “haven’t found the right guy yet.” That’s no excuse. My voice didn’t drop until halfway through sophomore year in high school and I still get death threats on Facebook. If you care, Lopez plays an unmarried woman who gets artificially inseminated, then meets a really sensitive hunk who could probably bang half of Manhattan in one week, falls in love, and becomes conflicted over telling him about the baby. 9 out of 10 guys would bail when she spills the beans, but THIS guy… has a fetish. Seriously, why’s he doing this? That said, I’d totes have J. Lo’s crack baby.

The Losers

Is this the year of exiled mercenary teams? A-Team, The Expendables, and now The Losers. Look, I’m as big an advocate for teamwork as anyone else and I get the irony of loners banding together, but let’s not kill the genre before it has the change to get off the ground, hmm. The Warner Brothers shoot ‘em up follows five members of an elite U.S. special forces team betrayed, abandoned, and left for dead. At least, they weren’t convicted of crimes they didn’t commit (*cue guitar riffs and black windowless van with signature red stripe). Seeking revenge on the enemy they once called a colleague, they team up with a sexy operative (Zoe Saldana who’s now tabbed to be the female lead in every male skewing title fore the rest of the year) for a suicide mission in the Bolivian jungle. Jeffrey Dean Morgan‘s in this piece and he definitely won me over in The Watchmen as The Comedian, even if he’s a doppelganger for Javier Bardem. Movie idea – Javier and Jeffrey battle Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson in “Doppelganger.” Rated R for immature content.

Oceans

I never saw, “Earth” but judging by what I’ve heard from friends, it’s worth seeing in IMAX theaters. I still don’t understand how that baby bird falls from the heavens and just bounces up off the leaves unharmed. No warning or disclaimer or anything. Steve-O or Johnny Knoxville does that shit and 18 kids die in Iowa trying to imitate it. What I’m trying to say is, “Come on, baby bird. Think of the impressionable children.”  This Buena Vista documentary “explores the oceans of the Earth’s surface and the mysteries that lie beneath” namely Michelle Pfeiffer uncovering Harrison Ford’s affair. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, the picture took four years to shoot in over 50 locations. James Cameron’s all, “Pfft, I could do that… on five times the budget, too!”

Boogie Woogie

GILLIAN. ANDERSON. ALERT. While Captain Californication sexifies anything with a coochie, Agent Scully has laid fairly low since X-Files ended in 2002. Outside of the two X-Files movies, Gillian’s most notable part came in How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, in which she played a cunning publicist representing Megan Fox’s character. Here,  she plays one of many players in the international art scene. The film premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June and stars Amanda Seyfried, Heather Graham, and Gemma Atkinson. Amanda is solidifying herself as the coolest actress ever as she now has a make out session with Megan Fox and a red hot all nude sex scene in Chloe under her nonexistent belt. Don’t forget she also had that awesome scene from 2007′s Alpha Dog. I haven’t seen her in Mamma Mia but my guess is there’s got to be double dildo action or at the very least nipple clamps? Plus, Heather Graham is 40? Shut your mouth! Is she like Richard on Lost or something? Early word says she has a lesbian scene in this cinematic adventure and you can watch it here. On a completely unrelated note, my friend has a book called, “The Art of the Fart.” I wonder if it makes a cameo in this movie.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird
inspired by Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, this South Korean action adventure premiered at Cannes in 2008 and won an Asia Pacific Screen Award for cinematography while also receiving a nomination for achievement in directing. Newsflash, if you don’t want to spoil your viewing of this movie, DO NOT READ THE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY. Like, no heads up whatsoever, they just tell you the ending. I understand it’s been in theaters for almost two years but that was halfway around the world. In other news, I’m suing Wikipedia. WTF.

Paper Man

FilmDrunk.com’s Vince Mancini wrote an article recently on the 10 Movie Premises That Could Use A 10 Year Moratorium and guess which premise is on his list? That’s right, superheroes. Not only is the genre overplayed, producers are recycling the same actors to play different superheroes over and over again. Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he’s scheduled to play The Green Lantern, and in this comedic drama from MPI Media Group, he plays The Man of Looseleaf whose only weakness is water… and sharp objects… and maybe unruly kids making airplanes or spitballs. Actually, he’s “Captain Excellent” an imaginary friend of failed middle-aged novelist Richard Dunn (Jeff Daniels). While trying to overcome writer’s block, Richard befriends Abby (played by Emma Stone cold fox), a high school girl mature beyond her years. Lisa Kudrow plays Richard’s wife

Best Worst Movie

This documentary about Troll 2, the best worst movie ever made, is directed by Michael Stephenson, Troll 2′s child “star”. The film debuted at South by Southwest and made the rounds of the festival circuit. It won Best Feature Documentary as voted by the official jury and the audience at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in September 2009. In a nutshell, an Italian director cast a real-life dentist and a bunch of Utahites… Utahnians… peeps from Utah and paid them in high fives to make the follow up to Troll in the summer of 1989. I’m 99% sure they traded handies for costumes. Nearly 2 decades later, Troll 2 has developed quite the cult following in part because of a corn-on-the-cob sex scene (Dane Cook stole THAT one, too? JK, Sufi), pudgy-potato-sack clad midgets, and a peculiar plot about evil vegetarian goblins attempting to transform a young boy’s family into edible plants. If Hollywood’s doling out green lights remakes, hand one out to that craptastic gem. Btw, there’s a troll 3. Boo-yah.

Behind the Burly Q

This documentary about one of the most popular forms of live entertainment in 20th Century America comes from First Run Features and is written, directed, and produced by Leslie Zemeckis. Leslie’s also done a fair amount of acting having appeared in Sex Files: Pleasure World, The Sexperiment, and Sex Files: Double Identity. I don’t want to say typecast or anything but just as they say in the writing world (“write what you know”), Leslie probably has an above average knowledge base for the ol’ in-and-out. Who better to helm this project about cockteases and blue balls than the woman who played Roman’s Girlfriend in 1994′s “Jailbait“. For those not in the know, burlesque is like stripping without showing any nips or poo-nanny. The first girl to expose those parts must’ve caused looting and severe soliciting.

Accidents Happen

This dark comedic drama from Image Entertainment was originally set to shoot in Connecticut but ended up lensing in Australia. The story follows a clumsy teen (who isn’t Ashlee Simpson) and his accident-prone family. The film had its world premiere last year at the Tribeca Film Festival and stars Academy Aware winner Geena Davis who doesn’t play the clumsy teen (how meta would that be!) but certainly makes one sexy Na’Vi.

Cheech and Chong’s Watch This

The Weinsteins got high on the idea purportedly pioneered by Mark Cuban and decided to release Cheech and Chong’s first film in forever (1990) on DVD, in theaters, on VOD/PPV, in your bong, on your coffee table, in your grandmother’s urn, in that lil’ pocket of your North Face jacket, and up your butt on the same day, 4/20, the pot smoker’s national holiday. You can find out more info on their Facebook profile, Twitter profile, and MySpace page. The pic features a mix of comedy skits and madcap misadventures with that car from the Stephen King novel, which became a movie. If you need a description, then you probably are not in the target demo. Smoke up and enjoy, dude.

In My Sleep

This edge-of-your-seat thriller from Morning Star follows a young man Marcus (Phillip Winchester) who struggles with a rare sleep disorder which makes him do things in his sleep which he cannot remember the next day. Marcus’ nighttime wanderings land him in serious hot water after he learns he committed adultery and possibly murder. I have the same problem and, to my knowledge, I haven’t killed anyone… yet. I did kill it on the dance floor last month, though. Sleptmoonwalked all over the NY metro area. Film also stars the original voice of Meg Griffin, Lacey Chabert, as Marcus’ knife. The Hollywood Reporter had nothing but kind words for this exploration of the human psyche, but they haven’t seen anything until they’ve seen me threaten imaginary giant spiders in my bedroom.