Cinematical Seven »

It's been a long weekend in New Orleans. I traveled over here for reasons that have nothing to do with Mardi Gras or football, and ended up sucked into a weekend where the main -- the only -- activity in this city had to do with the Superbowl and parades. Oh, yeah, there was also a big mayoral election, but it rated only a small banner on the newspaper's front page above a giant photo of Drew Brees.

I've always felt New Orleans deserves better movies than the ones in which it's portrayed. In movies and on TV, "New Orleans" rarely strays from the French Quarter, which is about a foot away from swamps and Cajuns, where everyone talks in hideous accents and eats nothing but gumbo and beignets. Doesn't anyone realize that New Orleanians sound like they're from Brooklyn, not Georgia? The police force is nothing but corrupt, and the city is riddled with prostitution and drug lords. Also, Mardi Gras occurs practically every weekend.

But even though those stereotypes abound, the last couple of years have been good for "The City That Care Forgot" in feature films. I liked both The Princess and the Frog and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, admittedly for entirely different reasons. And while I wasn't much enamored with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for the most part I liked the way the city of New Orleans was portrayed in the film. I've found seven feature films set in the New Orleans area for you to enjoy -- I didn't include the 2009 movies mentioned above because they're not on DVD yet (though Ben Button is). I do believe the New Orleans Saints have never appeared in a film, but I suspect that will change fairly soon.

Today we're bringing back some of our favorite Superbowl Sunday posts. Here's one from Scott Weinberg originally published in 2008.

Ah yes, Super Bowl Sunday. And the Philadelphia Eagles are not involved. Sigh. I suppose I can try to create some sort of vested interest (nice to see an NFC East team in the big game, plus "David & Goliath" is always fun to watch), but the truth is that I'm mostly looking forward to all the new movie commercials. Don't get me wrong; I freaking love (American-style) football, but the Super Bowl seems more like pre-packaged spectacle than an actual gridiron battle. (Give me an Eagles / Redskins game any day!) And so, logically, my thoughts turn to movie-land...

Ask someone to name a great baseball movie and you'll get nine different answers. Ask someone to name a great (American-style) football movie and you'll get nine puzzled expressions. But while the NFL waits for something as lyrical as a Natural or a Field of Dreams, there's definitely some solid football flicks out there. And by "football," I mean "not soccer."

Any Given Sunday (1999) -- It's garish and indulgent and more than a little scattershot, but Oliver Stone's pulpy exposé of the American Football Machine is pretty undeniably entertaining.

The Longest Yard (1974) -- Long before it became a flat vehicle for Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, The Longest Yard was a rough, tough, and admirably gritty prison/football flick from Robert Aldrich. Try watching the two flicks back-to-back and you'll plainly understand why (and how) most remakes suck.

The release of a new Nicholas Sparks movie (Dear John) serves as a reminder that audiences love a good cry. It's true -- as much as we enjoy romances where our heroes end with a kiss as they look forward to their bright future, we're even more enamored with romantic movies where the lovers are doomed, doomed, doomed.

Here are seven fine examples of romantic tragedies, films in which the main characters don't get what they want, maybe never will, and no one leaves the theater whistling a happy tune:

Titanic
James Cameron's epic saga may turn into a kick-ass action flick in its last act, but the movie's heart belongs to its heroes, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet). Cameron presents a fairly cliched tale of class-difference love with so much elegance, charm and wit that it feels like he's treading new territory. It also helps that his two leads are spectacular actors. In classic romantic tragedy style, we know from the outset that the lovers won't end up together -- yet we root for them anyway.

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
A rare film that goes in so many unexpected directions that it leaves the audience breathless with tension, delight, and anticipation, Michel Gondry's masterwork is stunning not only for the performance he draws out of Jim Carrey, but for his deft hand at making concrete the nebulous inner worlds of emotion and memory. With Kate Winslet, again, as the object of desire, Eternal Sunshine is another film that ends on a melancholy note, but it couldn't have ended any other way.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when John Travolta stopped doing it for me. I wouldn't peg it during his famously rock bottom years (roughly between 1983's Stayin' Alive and 1994's Pulp Fiction, AKA the Look Who's Talking Years), but rather sometime in the past few decades, when Travolta decided he wanted to stretch himself by going increasingly, well, batshit crazy onscreen.

For the record, I'm no Travolta hater. He's excellent in earlier films, as Danny Zuko in Grease, Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (and even in the aforementioned Stayin' Alive), and Bud Davis in Urban Cowboy. The man's proven his talent and shown his range over the years, which is why it's particularly disappointing to see him hamming it up in films like the recent Wild Hogs and Old Dogs, two comedies that both star Travolta, have titles that coincidentally rhyme, and feature grown men getting hit in the crotch in their respective trailers.

But broad and painfully unfunny comedy is only one hallmark of the type of film John Travolta has become known for in recent years. The other is arguably worse: Travolta has somehow become Hollywood's go-to actor for over-the-top bad guy roles. The kind of roles that make you say "WTF?" as you sit in a darkened theater staring at the scenery-chewing, gleefully unpredictable one-man circus on display. The kind that might call for Travolta to shave his head, grow a goatee, shoot first and spout witty one-liners later, have sex with prostitutes, and act like he just does not give a f***, which is exactly what he does in this week's buddy-spy action-comedy, From Paris with Love.

Sadly, Live Wire Travolta no longer feels fresh. And whereas it used to amuse me, I now only feel a faint tingle of something – is it nostalgia? - coupled by an overpowering sense of sadness for what used to be. So take a trip down memory lane with me to explore seven of Travolta's most wacky, wild, and crazy roles and figure out when exactly he went from kooky to creepy.

The latest big studio romcom is about to land in our laps with When in Rome. It has the requisite lovey dovey elements: The earnest wishes for love, slapstick hijinks, siblings having all the romantic luck, ineligible suitors, grandiose displays of affection... You get the idea. It's all right there in the trailer (although I do find myself chuckling at that dark dinner clip).

There's nothing new about the typical romantic comedy, but this one does inspire me to wish about a world that could be. What if Kristen Bell's cinematic career wasn't filled with romantic turmoil, but rather fare that would make Veronica Mars proud? Instead of the wish-stealing, retreating couples, and kidnapped spouses, what if we got roles that continued to make Bell a name of note? She's the Nancy Drew-esque star who, under the hands of Rob Thomas, inspired Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon to appear on the show. Critics and fans heaped praise on her performance as the teen detective, but as the show was axed, so was the same magic.

However, I think it's still there, waiting to be tapped. In honor of Ms. Mars and Bell's potential, here are seven roles I'd rather see her in. Check them out and weigh in with your own picks below.

Last weekend, Scott Stewart's apocalypse film, Legion, seemed to strike a chord with audiences, delivering just what the trailers promised -- B-movie angel-on-angel action. Although our Peter Hall didn't agree, writing: "The trailers may have you thinking that Legion looks silly and stupid but in a good way; a kind of cinematic junk food. It is not. It's worse than that. Legion is the cinematic equivalent of a Styrofoam cup. It's an empty container as easily disposed of as it is manufactured and just begging to be tossed in a junk yard."

Nevertheless, who knew there was such a big demand for Paul Bettany, Action Hero? He certainly doesn't look very threatening -- wingless, gaunt, and oh-so-British -- but I can think of seven more angels so wimpy they make Michael Landon look like Sonny Landham.

I think we are all pretty sick of video game movies these days, and whether this is because most of them suck, I couldn't tell you. But like it or not, there is a never ending supply of lazy executives who look no further than their home console for inspiration. But that is a rant best left for another time, because today's Cinematical Seven is all about the movies that aren't based on video games, nope, these are movies all about the cult of gaming.

If you watch enough movies centered on the world of video games you start to notice that a theme emerges: the desire and the peril of getting trapped in your favorite game. Granted it's a theme that isn't much of a leap considering that since the dawn of the gamer, there have been worried parents, teachers, and clergy convinced that those pixels are the work of the devil, and what better place for a cautionary tale than the movies? But, it's not all doom and gloom and there are also stories of how a gamer can save the world -- there really is something for everyone at the movies.

After the jump are seven movies that delve into the pros and cons of gaming...