The Weekly Movie Pulse

Archive

Welcome everyone to the first edition of this here new Weekly Movie Pulse, you might remember me from What a Tease! a few months back or my DVD reviews. Here I’ll be covering all the news that comes out during the week along with some pimps for my fellow movie zone brethren. I have no clue what to name the column so to those reading this (all five of you) read through and then send me an e-mail with some suggestions and then maybe some ideas on what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you’d like to see. What ever it is I want to hear about it, help me help you.

Columns
ML Kennedy is still Contradicting Popular Opinion, this week he faces off against Zombedies. He brings up Shaun of the Dead, Idle Hands and My Boyfriend’s Back along with a whole lot more so give it a read.

Brad has another column focusing on the Academy Awards in this weeks Mondo Culto taking a look at the cult films that were and weren’t nominated through out the 78 years of the award show. You can read part 1 Here.

Rob took a look at The Lady From Shanghai in this weeks instalment of R0BTRAIN’s Bad Ass Cinema. Never heard of it but his review has moved me to add it to my Blockbuster Online Queue.

Movie Reviews
Travis pulled double duty reviewing The Matador and Nanny McPhee. No surprise about McPhee as it look abysmal from the first time I saw the trailer, but I still refuse to believe The Matador is as good as many are saying it is.

Kubryk reviewed The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada a film I’ve been interested in ever since Jones was going to be directing. I’ll have to check it out when/if it ever makes its way around here. And last week he wrote a review for Big Momma’s House 2 which everyone seems to agree is a horrible film, except ofcoarse the movie going public who made it #1 last week.

Mike is calling Something New the first genuine surprise of the year and just about every other review around has the same sentiment. This seems like a great Valentines Day film so who knows, maybe it’ll be a dark horse and be the #1 film for the week. He also checked out Annapolis last week, he then challenged Roger Ebert to a duel after reading Ebert’s review of the film.

Tom makes a valid point about When a Stranger Calls when he mentions *69 in his teaser, I mean seriously does that just not once pop in to your head when some one calls threatening your life?

DVDs
ML Kennedy apparently likes to inflict pain upon himself when he forced himself to not only watch The Net 2.0 but actually review it to. Looks like Showtime now has something to fill that crucial 4 am time slot.

Scott reviewed Supercross this week and I won’t spoil what he says for you, but it’s not pretty. Except for the cast who are exceptionally pretty. He also was able to write up a review of the latest double dip of 13 Going on 30 by Sony which seems to be the exact same disc only with a cute quirky title, because not enough studios are doing those already… Lastly for Kubryk this week is a review of The Thing About My Folks, even if it does have Peter Faulk in it I’m not going anywhere near anything that has Paul Reiser in it.

Travis took a look at In Her Shoes which looks like nothing more than a chick flick, he says it was good and I trust him so maybe I’ll add it to my queue. He also took a look at the Red Eye DVD a movie I’ve been wanting to catch for a few months now, so read both and find out why you should check them out too. He has another review for the Lord of War: Two-Disc Special Edition yet another film I’ve been dying to see, but why does it say maple on the spine of the DVD case?

And here I am knocking the films others reviewed when I had the pleasure to check out The Man, Sueno, The Escapist, Daltry Calhoun and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride only two of which are worth your time.

Tom put together a review of the Roger Corman classic Death Race 2000 which is one of the many soon to come releases of Corman’s films since Buena Vista acquired the rights to his library. What’s Tom think on the movie? read the review and find out.

Last but certainly not least Rob gives you all an advance review of The Weather Man DVD which doesn’t make it’s way to stores for two more weeks so enjoy the sneak peek. Also from Rob we have a review of Dune: Extended Edition which we’re also running a contest for which you can enter here.

So there you have it, a few titles worth taking a look at if you’re thinking of renting some flicks this weekend.

News
It figures the week I get to write this there is damn near no news to talk about. Oh well I’ll see what I can do with what I have to work with and next week if there’s no news I’ll roll out an early Oscar predictions column. Speaking of the Oscars, there’s a poll in the readers forum that you can vote in for who you think should win for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting roles, Animated Film and more. Right now there are some interesting results along with a few obvious ones. So follow the link register and vote then hang around for a while and maybe post a little, the forum isn’t all that bad.

Terrence Howard’s Star Continues to Rise in 2006

Terrence Howard is in final talks for the lead role in the new sports drama P.D.R. (Philadelphia Dept. of Recreation) based on the real life story of Philadelphia swim coach Jim Ellis. The story will be about Ellis’ fight to build a swim team in one of Philly’s toughest neighborhoods of the 70’s. I’ve always like Terrence Howard, and last year really made him breakout for many others to see his talent so him getting more high profile roles is fine by me. Never heard of the story this is based on but does anyone else find it funny that both Howard and Giamatti both of whom were in Big Mamma’s House have Oscar nominations this year while Martin Lawrence put on the padded suit again for a sequel?

Del Toro sets out to make a “Killing”

Guillermo Del Toro is set to direct New Line’s futuristic fantasy-thriller Killing on Carnival Row. The story is set in a Victorian city inhabited by humans, faeries, elves and vampires, with a detective pursuing a serial killer. I love Del Toro, while Mimic and Blade II aren’t all that great when looking back at them now, his use of visuals is what makes him so appealing to me. Just look at Hellboy, what he did with that movie was one of the funniest experiences I had in 2004. But I’m wondering how this is going to interfere with his supposed attachment to direct Halo and Hellboy 2. The plot of the film seems right up Guillermo’s alley so it’ll be interesting to hear about this as things move along with it.

Resident Evil 3 is Really Happening?

Because so many people were just begging for a part 3… I’ll admit that the first Resident Evil is a guilty pleasure of mine and is the only Paul W.S. Anderson movie I like that isn’t named Event Horizon but RE: Apocalypse was so bad I can’t imagine why they are moving forward here. There wasn’t a single part of that movie that made me want a part 3 (unlike the end of part one which was bad ass). Titled Resident Evil: Extinction the movie is going to start production some time this year with Russell Mulcahy signed on to direct and Milla Jovovich plans to reprise her role. Russell Mulcahy is a guy I’ve never heard of but his filmography seems to be mostly TV work outside of the first two Highlander movies but lets face it even an A list director couldn’t make RE:3 good.

(Insert Witty Brokeback Mountain Joke Here)

Adam Sandler and Kevin James are near a deal to take the title roles in the long-developed gay marriage comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. The story will be about two straight firefighters that pose as a gay married couple in order to qualify for their department’s domestic partner benefits. Boy it didn’t take studios long before hopping on the “gay movies are awesome” bandwagon huh? Don’t get me wrong I’m glad to see that gay films are being taken serious and respected around the business but now we’ll have studios producing what ever gay scripts are put on their desks. Notice how the film has long been in developmental stages and all of a sudden it’s being made? Sandler and James could make a nice comedy duo and James seems like he’s transitioning from TV to film effortlessly.

Cary Grant is Rolling Over in His Grave

The Revolution Studios remake of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is now planned to be the sequel to Are We There Yet?. Columbia has stated that after the sequel to Big Momma’s House did good at the box office they wanted to greenlight a sequel as soon as possible. Since Cube was already planned to star in the remake of Mr. Blandings they just assumed it would be easy to re-write it in to a sequel. Honestly Columbia nobody wants to see this so why tarnish a classic comedy just to try and see if lightning strikes twice? It was the second highest grossing film you had last year… that’s not something to gloat about! I’m equally shocked that there were plans to remake Mr. Blandings in the first place, it’s a Grant classic and it’s very rare to recapture the tone mood and flow of an original film, especially comedies. Well they can have fun watching this blow up in their faces when it gets released.

Curous George Will Hock Your Merchandise at the Right Price

The new Curious George film has integrated Volkswagen, Dole bananas and the U.S. Postal Service into the movie which I believe marks the first time for an animated feature, or atleast the first time news outlets deemed it news worthy. Product placement in a cartoon, I’m not sure how to feel about this one. In one way it seemed inevitable that companies would find a way to get their stuff put in to as many films as possible but I hate to think of the precedent this could create. I can only imagine the meeting went something like this, “Does it have anything to do with the plot? No. Can we put it in anyways without looking obvious? Yes. Great lets roll with it then.”

Another Religious Movie… Great…

New Line may have found a director for their film Nativity which will look at the life of the Virgin Mary before the birth of Christ and will follows Mary and Joseph’s life before the birth of Christ as their love, faith and beliefs are tested. Reading this you just know there’s either going to be tons of praise or venomous hatred from the religious right so either way expect this to make a whole lot of bank at the box office. I blame all of this on Mel Gibson, ever since The Passion came out studios have been trying to ride his coattail to controversy and high box office receipts. If this ever gets off the ground expect Pat Robertson to go off on some type of tangent about it.

Ben Affleck Needs Money

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will star onscreen together for the first time in seven years when they appear in a new real-life legal drama. The pair will play lawyers battling to overturn a murder conviction in the untitled movie. Seeing the two back on screen together will be nice although it seems like Affleck begged Damon to do another film with him in hopes to make audiences like him again. Matt and Ben have good chemistry together so even if it’s bad they should make it bearable. So unless this looks more interesting before it comes out wake me up when The Bourne Ultimatum comes out.

Told you it was a boring week for news.

New Releases in Theaters
– Curious George
– Final Destination 3
– Firewall
– The Pink Panther
– London (limited)

On Store Shelves This Week
– 13 Going on 30 “Fun & Flirty” Edition
– Bambi II
– The Best of Youth
– Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Anniversary Edition)
– The Cary Grant Box Set
– Daltry Calhoun
– Doom
– Elizabethtown
– Eros
– Just Like Heaven
– MirrorMask
– The Net 2.0
– The Richard Pryor Collection
– Ryan’s Daughter: Two-Disc Special Edition
– The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Two-Disc Special Edition
– Waiting…
– Wallace & Gromit – The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

And that’s it for me this week, don’t forget to send those e-mails.

Currently residing in Washington D.C., John Charles Thomas has been writing in the digital space since 2005. While he'd like to boast about the culture and scenery, he tends to be more of a procrastinating creative type with an ambitious recluse side. @NerdLmtd