The FilmJabber Movie Blog

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrives in theaters shortly, which means that Lucasfilm and Paramount are back at it releasing everything Indy in anticipation. With re-release DVDs of the original three Indiana Jones movies coming soon, April 29th brings The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change to DVD in a massive box set in vein with Volume One and Volume Two.

Like the previous two box sets, Volume 3 is packed with special features, movies and so on and so forth. George Lucas and the crew spared no expense making these box sets, even going as far as to re-edit the original television show, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, into feature-length films. Whether that’s a good thing, maybe not.

This final box set comes with 10 discs, seven Indiana Jones movies and, according to the box, over 15 hours of special features and over two dozen documentaries. Needless to say, I don’t have the time and willpower to watch everything before writing this review.

A fan of the show growing up, I always enjoyed the the stories involving teenage Indy (played by Sean Patrick Flannery) a lot more, for obvious reasons. The stories are more adventure-filled, a lot less sappy and generally more interesting. While the original TV show mixed together the stories of super-young Indy and teenage Indy on, generally, an episode-by-episode basis and earmarked those episodes to shots of a really old Indiana Jones, these box sets have recut the episodes, made them more chronological and removed the old Indy altogether. The result is several feature-length movies that, while able to focus a lot more on a specific plot line, aren’t nearly as cohesive as they should be.

To make hour-and-a-half-long movies, Lucas had to splice and dice two or three stories together to make one, and the result is often a meandering one. Take Tales of Innocence, for example (coincidentally the first movie I watched on this box set). The first half is about Indy trying to identify a traitor in his crew during World War I and his ultimately tragic love affair with a local woman. It’s pretty exciting and entertaining, aside from a few slow minutes. Then, suddenly, the story switches gear and Indy and several new characters travel to investigate the disappearance of a group of soldiers, only to find that one of the missing commanders has somehow turned into Lord Dracula. This story is fine, too – and also plays into the mystical element that is found in all of the theatrical releases more so than most of the World War I plots – but is clearly not a part of the same movie.

To save time, money and effort, and to appease fans, I would have just left the episodes as they originally were, but we’re stuck with these feature-length re-edits which are good enough. A lot of people had probably forgot that there were dozens of additional hours of Indiana Jones goodness available, and it’s nice to see this high quality show get some renewed attention.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume III: The Years of Change is available to own on April 29th. Did I already say that?

Based on Friday box office estimates, Baby Mama, the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy, declared victory over the stoner sequel Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

Baby Mama earned $6.28 million on Friday compared to Harold and Kumar‘s $5.7; while I’m no box office expert, given the kind of comedies each of those films are, that is probably enough of a gap to keep Baby Mama the winner through the weekend.

I’m not too surprised, as Baby Mama plays to a more general audience, whereas Harold and Kumar targets a younger crowd. Baby Mama didn’t look all too good to me, but, then again, Tina Fey pulled off Mean Girls so anything can happen. As for me, I went to a sold-out showing of Harold and Kumar last night – you can read my movie review here.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall came in third with $3.4 million, while newcomer Deception, which most people haven’t heard of despite starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman, earned a paltry $760,000.

These numbers come from BoxOfficeMojo.com.

Check out the funny new movie trailer for the movie Hancock, starring Will Smith. Smith plays a bitter superhero who causes about as much damage as he does help people. Hancock really does look like another winner for Smith, as it looks like it should offer the perfect blend of comedy and action. Surprisingly, this film has been flying under the radar, but the buzz is bound to catch up at some point.

Here’s the new Hancock movie trailer:

The new movie trailer for the upcoming sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is online in all its glory. The trailer is pretty good, having great setup with its slowly intensifying drum roll and more ominous visuals. Overall, the movie looks darker than its predecessor – and in fact one of the characters even makes note of that – which is a good thing.

Unfortunately, I got pumped up about the last Chronicles of Narnia and it ended up being underwhelming. Ultimately, the movies are still more geared towards children, which means these previews that show savage battles and intense fighting will not be nearly what they appear to be. What also concerns me is the lack of attention the trailer gives to the acting, most notably that of Ben Barnes, who plays the title character. He only gets one credited line in the trailer, and it’s a rather painfully delivered, “I am Prince Caspian.” I hope the line is just taken out of context, but I am not impressed.

Anyway, here’s the Prince Caspian movie trailer:

Eva Mendes is pretty scorching hot, I must say. She’s also starring in the 2009 Frank Miller film The Spirit. Thankfully, Lionsgate has recently released a picture of Eva Mendes in Frank Miller’s The Spirit. Wearing a tight, skin-kissing outfit. And cleavage.

Read the full article »

I just watched the teaser trailer for the upcoming Frank Miller film The Spirit, which was released yesterday. The Spirit has the same visual style as Sin City, which means that all of the fans who have been waiting for a Sin City sequel will at least be somewhat satisfied with something from the same vein.

I have no clue what The Spirit is about, but the visuals look pretty neat. The question will be: can Frank Miller, on his own, do what was clearly done by Robert Rodriguez before? The teaser trailer isn’t amazing and certainly doesn’t captivate the way that long Sin City ComiCon teaser did for us a few years earlier. The visuals are there, but not much happens to make us really excited for the film. I’m sure the next teaser will be a little more action packed, but here, all we get to see is some dude jumping around. There’s no real sense of seediness or suspense, and that’s a problem.

Still, for something to whet people’s appetites, it’s good enough.

Here’s The Spirit teaser trailer:

Charlie Wilson’s War is now on DVD (well, as of a few hours from now). The movie, which stars Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts, really didn’t do that great in theaters despite the cast, the writing talent (Aaron Sorkin of “The West Wing” fame) and timing. One can attribute its modest failure to many things, including the fact that it is one of many flops in 2007 having to deal with the Middle East, or that it just didn’t look that good in the previews.

Thankfully, Charlie Wilson’s War was one of the surprising delights of the holiday season, as the movie is hilarious most of the time and meaningful the rest. Hanks, about the last person you’d expect to play a cocaine-snorting, womanizing senator, does a pretty good job, though it’s Hoffman who steals the show as a bitter CIA agent. Roberts is disappointing, though she doesn’t have much to work with given her character.

You can read my full Charlie Wilson’s War movie review here.

As for the DVD, there’s not much here, and one wonders whether this is in anticipation of a 2-Disc Collector’s Edition sometime in the near future. There are only two notable special features: “The Making of Charlie Wilson’s War” and “Who is Charlie Wilson?”

The making-of is mildly interesting, though it has a lot of talking heads all complimenting one another. The most interesting aspect is the look at the real Charlie Wilson, who tells the filmmakers to do depict him as sleazy as they want to – he won’t deny using drugs or having sex with prostitutes. Nice. That’s the honesty we want to see from our politicians!

Unfortunately, by the time I got to watching “Who is Charlie Wilson?”, all of the interesting facts and interview pieces had been used up in the previous featurette. A lengthier, independent documentary would have been much more interesting than a quick summary made for the DVD.

Ultimately, the movie makes it worth the purchase, but if you are a bonus features kind of guy, the Charlie Wilson’s War DVD is not for you.

The second independent film I’m featuring this week is The Horror Vault, a cheerful comedy about two young people in love, frolicking in the flowers, snow and gentle summer breeze. Or, maybe, it’s a compilation of several short horror films inspired by Tales from the Crypt, Masters of Horror and Creepshow.

Here is a description of these tales of insanity and terror:

• “When John Met Julia” is a modern twist on Romeo and Juliet, except everything goes a bit wrong…for poor John anyway. Written and directed by Kim Sønderholm, starring Claire Ross-Brown (Love Me Forever, Pistoleros) as Julia and Kim Sønderholm (Craig, Brutal Incasso) as John.
• “Delusion” is a black/white 50ies style of horror drama, directed by Mark Machillo, starring Jonaton Trent (Alone with her, Slaughter, Fashion Victim), Heather Tom (The Bold and The Beautiful, The Young and The Restless) and many others.
• “Alone” is a story about being all alone in a sorority house on a dark night. Written and directed by Kenny Selko, featuring Mandy Amano (Ghosts of Goldfield, Coyote Ugly), Jerod Edington (Ghost Month, E.R) and Guy Nardulli (Jekyll, House M.D).
• “Mental Distortion” is a story about Pete, waking on on his floor, about to do a gruesome find. Directed by Kim Sønderholm who also plays Pete, supported by Maja Muhlack (One Hell Of A Christmas, Westbrick Murders) and Barbara Zatler (Craig, Hellride).
• “Dead To The World” has english actor and director Russ Diaper (Deadly Pursuit, The Demon Within) take a stab at the Ted Bundy legend from a new perspective. In supporting roles are Paul Kelleher (Meatcleaver Massacre, Moonlight Murders) and Joyia Fitch (Midsomer Murders, The Last Hangman).
• “Disconnected” directed by David Boone and Josh Card is a black and white little threat of the absurd – dark humor and crude and explicit torture mixed in one.
• “Echoes” by Gabriel Dowrick, the australian addition about a man, waking up, tied to a bed in what seems to be a nursing home, knowing little of what is going on.
• “The Demon” by Thomas Steen Soerensen is the story about a man chased by his own ghosts and desires, which is about to explode as he picks up a young pretty woman hitchhiking at the side of the road, coming seemingly from nowhere. Or is she?
• Finally, “Retina” by JP Wenner starring Rachel Grubb and Heather Amos, is a black and white and extremely absurd and nihilistic story about… Well – you’re the audience – you decide!

The Horror Vault is arriving on DVD soon, supposedly within the next couple days, and can be purchased at http://www.thehorrorvault.net/

Note: I have not seen The Horror Vault and am merely making readers aware of this release. I cannot speak to whether it’s any good or not, but hopefully it is!

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed unfortunately didn’t completely flop over the weekend, as the documentary earned $1.2 million on Friday for an estimated weekend box office gross of $3.7 million (according to Box Office Prophets).

Why did I want Expelled to flop? The Ben Stein documentary is apparently about allowing the teaching of intelligent design (i.e. creationism) into schools. I haven’t seen the movie, so I hate that I’m jumping to conclusions the way that religious groups jump on films they think they might find distasteful, but so goes it. If the movie is about free speech and whether creationism should be allowed in public schools on those grounds is one thing, the marketing seems to be catering to the religious group, which makes me think otherwise.

I’m sorry, but evolution is only a theory because it hasn’t been completely proven – it is not a theory because there are glaring holes in it. I’ve had discussions with otherwise intelligent people who claim that evolution isn’t real, but it is the most common sense, obvious thing when you think about it. If I had kids, there would be no way I would allow my children to learn that it’s a possibility that we just popped into existence one day in our current form. It’s just prepostrous.

At the same time, I would encourage them to have an intelligent debate about one versus the other, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about teaching creationism in schools. The only reason creationism has been renamed “intelligent design” is to make it sound like it is halfway intelligent.

In other Friday box office news, Forbidden Kingdom will steal the weekend with an estimated $20 million, the best ever opening for Jet Li and the best non-Rush Hour opening for Jackie Chan. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I saw last night, will make approximately $16 million. 88 Minutes died on arrival, and will earn about $6 million.

Yes, Scarlett Johansson is replacing Emma Watson in the final Harry Potter movie. Warner Brothers said, “We felt, as Hermione Granger reaches a proper age, that she needed to have more curves and sex appeal. Scarlett brings that to the table.” Reports are also coming in that the ending of the series will be modified: Hermione and Harry will actually end up together, as will Ron and Ginny.

Interesting.

Wait, what? I think I got something wrong here.

Oh. Emma Watson is replacing Scarlett Johansson in Napoleon and Betsy, a film that The Hollywood Reporter says is “a period drama being written and directed by Benjamin Ross.”

The movie is about a British noblewoman (now: young noblewoman) who is trapped on the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon is being kept in exile. She falls in love with the French conquerer.

Watson is replacing Johansson because, apparently, the role has skewed younger, making it more appropriate for the 18-year old Harry Potter star to be cast as Betsy rather than a luscious vixen who is known for her sex appeal. Of course, Johansson is only 24 years old (younger than me!).

Personally, I have to wonder if Emma Watson is going to end up becoming hotter than Scarlett Johansson. She has a different look, certainly, but she’s quite a looker. I feel comfortable saying this now that Ms. Watson is of age.

Every once in a while, I receive a request to review or feature an independently produced film that has been made. I don’t have a time to review a bunch of movies that will probably never be seen by the vast majority of my readers, but after receiving several requests in the last week, I figured I’d do some quick blog posts about them. I’m probably opening a can of worms here, but I figured I’d give these films some free PR. Note that I haven’t seen this movie so am making no statement about how good it is, but I respect independent filmmaker’s attempts to promote their movies.

Nemesis is about a rapper who isn’t actually a rapper. I’m not huge into street films or rapper films, but Nemesis has a pretty neat concept: a young man rises to fame as a rapper named Nemesis, but his name, street creed and everything else is fictionalized. A creation of the record label with the sole purpose to sell records, the man now known as Nemesis finds himself in an awkward position. To sell records, he must prove his badassedness, but to do so, the record label fabricates a feud between him and his childhood friend. As the feud spirals out of control, the young rapper must make a tough decision as to whether he should continue doing what he’s doing or give up this false persona that is causing so much harm.

I described the movie pretty poorly, I think, but you can read the full synopsis here.

So the movie has an interesting twist to the rise-to-fame-street-thug model, though what probably interests me the most is actress Suzie Abromeit (pictured here). She’s… quite good looking.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead was released on DVD on April 15th, so I’m a few days behind on my DVD review. The movie, as you probably don’t know, is about two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who, after some rough times, decide to commit an armed robbery. Their target of choice? Their parents’ jewelry store.

As one might suspect, their robbery goes horribly wrong and the two find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game against the police, their consciences and even each other. Oh, and they’re both sleeping with the same woman (Marisa Tomei, who spends most of the movie walking around naked).

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a pretty good movie. It’s a pretty decent crime thriller, with good performances and a good story. It’s unique in that it blends family drama with an increasingly dark crime story, though what it lacks is the big twists that really could have taken it to the next level. However, since this blog post is about the DVD and not about the movie itself, you can read my full Before the Devil movie review here.

The DVD, unfortunately, gives little reason to buy this good-but-not-great movie. While I would still recommend a rental, the DVD only offers three special features:

• A theatrical commentary with Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman and director Sidney Lumet. I can imagine this commentary is quite good, but since I never listen to commentaries, I have not made the exception here.
• A making-of featurette, which is about as interesting as watching a sack of coal get transformed into diamonds over a thousand years. It’s more promotional than anything else and really doesn’t offer much insight into the creation of the movie.
• The theatrical trailer. Whoopdy-do!

The Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead DVD is really a lackluster product from ThinkFilm. Even though the movie was never really considered a wide release, I was expecting something a little more substantial in terms of a DVD package.

The movie is still worth it, but those looking for bonus features won’t be satisfied with this release.

Have you ever fantasized about the babysitter? Maybe just a little? I’m not a father and I don’t have kids, but I have to imagine one or two over the course of time has been tempted by a young beauty. A couple have probably given into their temptations, too. However, I can’t imagine too many have found themselves caught up in an illegal prostitution ring started by a high school girl looking to pay for college, and who will do anything to cover her tracks.

That’s the plot of The Babysitters, the upcoming film that opens in early May. I wouldn’t say the girls in the movie are steaming hot, but they’re good enough… who knows, maybe even more realistic.

I’ve added the new (very hot) movie poster, an image gallery and… the Babysitters movie trailer:

The new movie trailer for the upcoming Kate Hudson movie My Best Friend’s Girl arrived today, and it looks awfully a lot like… How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The only difference is that in this movie, Dane Cook is trying to lose Hudson as fast as possible, and Dane Cook is no Matthew McConaughey.

In reality, I like the concept for the movie. In what could also be described as a reversal of Good Luck Chuck, Cook plays a guy who gets paid to act like an ass some ex-girlfriends will run back to the boyfriends they just dumped. Jason Biggs plays Cook’s best friend who, after being dumped by Hudson, hires Cook to work his “charm” on her. Naturally, the two fall in love, putting Cook in a very precarious position.

The movie trailer isn’t particularly funny (it ones again features Dane Cook tripping in front of a girl!), but it looks harmless enough. Here’s the My Best Friend’s Girl movie trailer:

I’m starting to feel and sound like a bitter old man. Nothing seems to please me of late, other than driving around Green Lake in Seattle and admiring all of the beautiful female joggers that were out in storm today. So, maybe it’s just me, but does the new title for the new X-Files movie suck or what? And when I say “suck,” I mean really, really suck?

The new X-Files 2 title is The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I don’t care if it’s a theme in the show or what not, but I Want to Believe is just a stupid, stupid, stupid name for a movie. Maybe it could work for some kind of kid’s movie about a little girl and her pony who goes to Heaven, but as the title for a sci-fi horror-thriller? No, thank you.

Any movie title, especially one belonging to a sequel, that contains a colon in it should have the ability to be referred to by it’s subtitle. Are you going to say, “I’m going to go see The X-Files: I Want to Believe?” No. Are you going to say, “I’m going to go see I Want to Believe?” No, unless you’re mocking the title. What are you going to say? “I’m watching X-Files 2, biotch!” The thing is, movies with subtitles should be able to be referred to by said subtitle and not sound corny as Hell. The Phantom Menace? Revenge of the Sith? Attack of the Clones? OK, maybe that last one shouldn’t be used as an example.

My point is… I Want to Believe is just a really lame title. I love The X-Files, but Chris Carter has made a laughably bad marketing move here that could hurt the movie’s broad appeal.

And please don’t write back, “But 3:10 to Yuma has a colon in it!” You know what I mean.