Written by Mitch Cyrus

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Hollywood must have guys (and some girls as well) in mind this week.  Knowing that a vast majority of sports fanatics are going to be way too busy this weekend watching the NCAA Tournament...often spending over eight hours each day doing so, there was absolutely no reason to release any decent movies this week.

Believe me; they aren’t.  So who is releasing more losers this week: Hollywood or the Cleveland Browns? (my wife, the diehard Brady Quinn fan, is going to get me for that one).

On the positive side, when you are ready to take a break from basketball Sunday night, there will be the next episode of “The Pacific” waiting for you.  As I had hoped, the first episode was nothing short of brilliant.  “Band of Brothers” had set such a high bar that I was afraid that this one might fail to meet such lofty expectations.  Another concern was they would take the exact same approach and tone as was done for Band of Brothers.  No worry on either account.

This is going to be a classic.

Mini Review – Green Zone

You might be thinking that the fact that I’m using the Mini Review section to talk about a movie just released last week to major hoopla doesn’t bode well for it.

And you’d be right.  Sort of.

The movie didn’t suck.  It just didn’t overly impress.

The good side is that even though it stars Matt Damon and is directed by Paul Greengrass, this is NOT a clone of a Jason Bourne movie (despite how the studio is marketing it).  Damon’s Roy Miller character is not the know-everything, kick-everyone’s ass character that Bourne is.  He is simply the Army Chief Warrant Officer leading a team throughout Baghdad in the immediate weeks after the fall of Iraq to the U.S.  He is hunting Weapons of Mass Destruction, and is getting frustrated on the fact that all his “rock-solid” intel regarding the location of said WMDs keep coming up empty.

When an Iraqi citizen tips off Miller about a meeting going on involving some of Saddam’s former insiders, Miller is drug into a confusing conspiracy as he attempts to chase down not only the Iraqi general listed as “the Jack of Clubs”, but also unravel the mystery of the false WMD reports.  Pulling at opposite sides of him are Greg Kinnear as a smarmy Pentagon bureaucrat and Paul Gleason as an old school CIA spook.

The movie works as an action thriller.  You know within 20 seconds that you are watching a Paul Greengrass movie, as the familiar jerky camera work and quick edits in action sequences hit you immediately.  The mystery itself plays out fairly well, and doesn’t really include any obvious cheats, and the action is edge of your seat intense.

The problem is that it just doesn’t quite connect with the audience on the storytelling and the characters.  Kinnear is obviously the bad guy, as is his Special Forces enforcer Jason Isaacs…but they can’t be too bad, as they can’t be shown as worse than the Iraqi insurgents. 

It seems like they tried too hard not to be controversial, seeing how almost every movie about the goings on the Middle East has failed.  And the blanding down of the characters sinks the movie to “average”

My rating – Bill Nelsen (2 ½ Footballs).  Worth a rent when it comes out on DVD.

News and Rumors

~ The fate of “24” remains up in the air.  On one hand, you are getting more and more hints from Fox that they won’t be picking up a ninth season.  On the other hand, word comes out today that if Fox drops it, NBC would be interested in picking it up.  The problem with that is as long as the TV show is going on, there will never be a “24” movie.

~ Tim Burton has decided that his next project is going to be a stop-action animation of the classic cartoon and TV series “The Addams Family”.  I cannot think of a more perfect director for this project.

~ Ian McKellen has blogged that “The Hobbit”, directed by Guillermo Del Toro and produced by Peter Jackson will finally start filming in July.  Maybe in the next couple of months we’ll FINALLY get some word about casting.  As it now stands, rumors still have Hugo Weaving returning as Elrond, Andy Sirkits as Gollum, and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel.

~ McG will attempt to revive his directing career in the wake of the bomb “Terminator: Salvation” with a movie based on a Rolling Stone true article called “The Girl Who Conned the Ivy League”.  Amanda Seyfried will star as a young woman who creates a false identity to run away from her own and then swindles her way into some of the most illustrious Ivy League schools.

~ Next up in the continue oversaturation of Vampire Movies and TV Shows; Sigourney Weaver as a Vampire Queen in Amy Heckerling’s comic horror film “Vamps”.  The movie will star Heckerling’s “Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone (she’s still around?) and Krysten Ritter as two beautiful vampires whose perfect lives are complicated by falling in love, jeopardizing their immortality.

Stupid Remakes and Sequels

~ Jennifer Lopez is set to make a remake of the “classic” Goldie Hawn movie “Overboard”.  Wow.  What’s next, a remake of “Rhinestone”?

~ Another attempt to make a viable movie out of a video game?  Guess so, as Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx are signed on to make “Kane & Lynch: Dead Men”.  If Mark Wahlberg can’t make “Max Payne” interesting, I have little hope on this one.

~ Final Destination 5.  Coming to a deserted theater near you!

This week's new movie releases: 

Repo Man

Starring: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga

Plot:  Set in a world where artificial organs are readily available for purchase, a man who makes his living repossessing organs from those who fail to make their payments first finds himself outfitted with a new heart, then forced to go on the run when he falls on hard financial times.

View Trailer

The BeerBuzz: Not good buzz coming out for this one.  While some people like the concept, most are disappointed in the delivery.  For me, the plot itself is just a little too outlandish for anything other than over-the-top satire.  Pretty much just a slasher movie.

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The Bounty Hunter

Starring: Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler

Plot: A bounty hunter learns that his next target is his ex-wife, a reporter working on a murder cover-up. Soon after their reunion, the always-at-odds duo find themselves on a run-for-their-lives adventure with a bunch of New Jersey heavies in pursuit.

View Trailer

The BeerBuzz: The people behind “Repo Men” should be grateful to be coming out this week, as the really vicious barbs from the critics are being saved for this irritating, unfunny movie totally devoid of chemistry, plot, or charm.  What the hell is with both Aniston and Butler?  They are both way to talented to keep appearing in crap like this?

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Starring: Several nerdy kids whose parents will probably steal their salaries from them, leading them to vie for the title of the Next Corey Haim

Plot: Greg Heffley uses the journal his mother forces him to keep to plot his middle-school survival.

View Trailer

The BeerBuzz: Evidently the comic this was adapted from was a pop-culture phenomenon at one point.  Guess I was out of the country that year.  In any case, the movie adaptation is getting almost no publicity as it seems the studio has no idea how to push a movie about middle-school.  I can’t see an audience for this at all, and think this will bomb horribly.

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The Ghost Writer (nationwide expansion)

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Kattrall

Plot: A ghostwriter hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy.

View Trailer

The BeerBuzz: Out of the movies listed here, this is the one that I’ll probably actually see.  Very, very good reviews on this political thriller.  Of course, major controversy with it as well, not due to the script or actors, but just because it’s directed by the notorious Roman Polanksi

 March 23^rd DVD Releases:

The Blind Side  – The big one of the week, especially coming off from Sandra Bullock’s well deserved Best Actress award for her portrayal of Leigh Ann Touhy, an upper class Southern woman who takes a homeless African-American kid into their home, where he becomes a highly recruited offensive tackle.  Well worth the rental.

Men Who Stare at Goats – This movie is not going to be for most people.  I really like the screwball comedy with George Clooney as a former member of a special group of Army “psychics” searching for his mentor while accompanied by an unbelieving reporter.  But most will probably find it just a little too weird.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox – I am wanting to rent this Wes Anderson animated tale of a notorious fox now trying to settle down with his family.  George Clooney and Meryl Streep are amongst the many talented stars lending their voices to this film that never quite caught on with the adult audience it was aimed at.

Brothers – Another film on my Netflix queue, with Tobey Maguire as a presumed dead Iraq War veteran coming up to find that his wife, Natalie Portman, had developed a relationship with his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) when she thought he was dead.

Everybody’s Fine  – You normally don’t see Robert De Niro’s name associated with a film that bombed, but this tale of a widower trying to bounce across country to reconnect with his adult children didn’t even make $10 million at the box office.

Calendar Watch  

Next Week Hot Tub Time Machine, How to Train Your Dragon

Upcoming Biggies (click on the hyperlink to view the available trailers).

Clash of the Titans – April 2 – Re-imaging of the campy Harry Hamlin sword-and-sandals film from the 80s.  The trailer looks intriguing, at least

Nightmare on Elm Street – April 30 – Jack Earle Haley (“Watchmen”) takes over the Freddy Krueger role.

Iron Man 2 – May 7 – Downey Jr. is back, this time dealing with Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) and Black Widow (Scarlet Johannson).

Robin Hood – May 14 – Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe in what is supposed to be a more “historic” account of the legendary hero.

Shrek Forever After – May 21 – 3D entry into the series that is seemingly the only way Michael Myers or Eddie Murphy can make any money

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – May 28 – Might this finally be the first video game that translates to a huge hit at the box office?  Depends on whether or not you can buy Jake Gyllenhaal as an action hero.  Why not?  It worked for Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey Jr.

The A-Team – June 11 – Based on the campy TV series…but the makers of this film are trying to sell it more as an action film with no camp.  With Liam Neeson playing Hannibal Smith as their leader, they may have a chance.

Toy Story 3D – June 18 -  It looks like a big year for 3D films in 2010.  In this one, Buzz, Woody, and the rest of the toys are dumped into a day care after Andy grows up and goes to college.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – July 2 – More Wussy Vampires!  I can’t wait! (sorry…sarcasmectomy isn’t scheduled for a few months yet).

Inception – July 16 – Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page in a Christopher Nolan sci-fi mind bender that looks to be in the mode of “Momento”

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – July 16 – Live action remake of the Disney classic short, starring Nicolas Cage.

Salt – July 23 – Angelina Jolie as a CIA operative accused of being a Russian spy.

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps – September 24 – Oliver Stone brings Michael Douglass back as Gordon Gecko, teaming him with Shia LaBeouf in a film that looks to be quite different in tone than the last one.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I – November 19 – Part One of the final book about Harry, Hermione, and Ron.  This one (and I’m sure the last one) will be in 3-D.

Tron Legacy – December 17 – Might be the most anticipated Holiday release of this year.