Trailer Hitch

By Eric Hughes

July 1, 2008

I didn't know The Hellboys were a band...well, choir.

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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




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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


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