Trailer Hitch
By Eric Hughes
July 1, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Diminished Capacity - Opens July 4th
What first appears as a rediscovering-your-roots/questioning-your-beliefs-type flick may just be an indie comedy gone bad. Diminished Capacity stars Matthew Broderick as newspaper editor Cooper, who after a severe concussion travels home to Missouri to rekindle old feelings for his high school crush, Charlotte (Virginia Madsen), while reacquainting himself with his senile Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda). Once all of that is introduced, the trailer - and likely the film itself - stumbles when the movie's main action is revealed: After uncovering a valuable baseball card, Rollie enlists the help of Cooper to get him to sell it, which leads the men and Charlotte to dive headfirst into the world of crazy fans and slick dealers at a Chicago memorabilia expo. Alda looks funny here, and it's a pleasure to see Broderick spending another memorable day in the Windy City, but even so, the film's plot is hardly captivating.
Grade: C-
Also expected to be released on this date: Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Love Story 2050, Tell No One, Holding Trevor, Kabluey
Kabluey - Opens July 4th
Since Diminished Capacity is a no-go, I urge you to check out the potentially funny, utterly amusing and definitely quirky comedy, Kabluey, starring Lisa Kudrow, Scott Prendergast and Christine Taylor. With one of the most bizarre trailers that I've come across since taking over this column nearly a month and a half ago, Kabluey is about the amazing adventures of Salman (Prendergast), a man who sports funky, alien-like apparel. In the trailer's opening, he is seen coming to the aid of his sister-in-law (Kudrow), who needs help taking care of her kids after her husband (and Salman's brother) is off fighting in Iraq. To help raise money for the family, Salman scores an easy job, in which he simply stands on the side of the road handing out fliers as a giant, playful-looking mascot. Once the suit appears on screen - about a minute in, no less - it decidedly stays there, showing the people (and all the harassment) Salman must endure on the job. Kabluey lands major points for originality.
Grade: A
Also expected to be released on this date: Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Love Story 2050, Tell No One, Holding Trevor, Diminished Capacity
Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Opens July 11th
Continuing this summer's popular superhero kick - Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk have already opened in theaters - Hellboy breaks a four-year silence from the silver screen with Hellboy II: The Golden Army. After absolutely loving a much smarter Iron Man, I must say Hellboy's sequel looks positively dumb with its stylized (for the sake of being stylized) visuals and cheap one-liners. In the sequel, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) obviously returns, and just in time as an ancient truce between the human world and that of invisible fantasy is broken, forecasting literal hell to erupt on Earth. All eyes then turn to Hellboy, who must take battle with a treacherous dictator and his unstoppable army of creatures. The franchise's first film didn't perform all that solidly - just $60 million in the States - and I foresee similar returns here. And with The Dark Knight opening just one week after this one, I have just two words for Universal: good luck.
Grade: D-
Also expected to be released on this date: Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D, Meet Dave, Death Defying Acts, The Stone Angel, August
August - Opens July 11th
A film about 2001's dot-com burst? Unless First Look Studios knows something that a baffled rest of the world doesn't, August lacks just as much timeliness as a film about The Warsaw Pact. Starring Josh Hartnett as young entrepreneur Tom Sterling, August is the story of Tom's struggles to keep his company afloat after the Internet's bubble burst. At the same time, Tom works to repair relationship wounds with his father (Rip Torn) and girlfriend (Naomie Harris). Alas, the drama does have one good (no, great) thing going for it in one David Bowie, who appears here as Ogilvie (yes, Ogilvie), an investor in Tom's company.
Grade: D+
Also expected to be released on this date: Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D, Meet Dave, Death Defying Acts, The Stone Angel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Elegy - Opens August 8th
Penelope Cruz has a busy summer in her hands, appearing here as a hot, young student (no way!) about a week before her other film, Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, bows in theaters. In this one, her good looks catch the eye of Ben Kingsley's character, David Kepesh, a critic whose life is thrown in disarray due in part to Consuela's (Cruz) sexual possessiveness. The preview is fairly conservative here, overloaded with bulky dialogue and really nothing more. Kingsley and Cruz indeed have chemistry, though. Elegy also stars the always-on-their-A-games Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson.
Grade: B-
Also expected to be released on this date: The Pineapple Express, Fly Me to the Moon, Hell Ride, Red
Mirrors - Opens August 15th
Fox bumps the seventh season of 24 to next year, so what does Kiefer Sutherland go and do? Well, for starters, he appears in the horror film Mirrors, itself a remake of a similarly titled South Korean movie. Though this one appears a bit sloppish, Hollywood has routinely proven time and time again that remakes of popular Asian screamers (The Ring, The Grudge) can turn out to be quite lucrative Stateside. In Mirrors, Sutherland stars as Ben Carson, the head of security at a department store struck with a series of unexplained deaths. Then one day, a disturbed woman who claims to have died in a fire that claimed the lives of some department store staffers tries using mirrors to get back into the world of the living. Sounds complicated, but it is what it is. Mirrors comes from writer-director Alexandre Aja, who was behind such "gems" like The Hills Have Eyes update and 2007's all-but-forgotten P2.
Grade: C
Also expected to be released on this date: Tropic Thunder, The International, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Star Wars: The Clone Wars