Cinematical

How do you follow films like The Transporter and Transporter 2? Um, you hire non-stop bad-ass Jason Statham to star in Transporter 3? (Yep.) The third entry in the hyper-kinetic action series comes from Lionsgate (whereas the first two came from Fox) and of course the producers found a way to get Mr. Statham back for Part 3 -- AND they found a way for him to fight with his shirt off. (Marketing class tells us this brings females to the theater.)

The first film dealt with an oddly superhuman courier who is forced to kick much ass when he's double-crossed by some villains. The second film ... pretty much the same, although the action bits were upgraded from slightly absurd to full-on Looney Tunes. Part 3? Yeah, our favorite "package" deliverer is forced to go on a mission, only if he wanders too far from his car, a giant wrist-bomb will go off. Apologies to my film professors, but that's just enough of a plot to get me interested in an action movie.

Transporter 3 opens on November 26, and LG has just released the final trailer. Here it is, and thanks to TrailerAddict.com for hooking us up with the embeddables:

(We first caught Joe Swanberg's "Nights and Weekends" at Austin's SXSW Film Festival, but since it's opening in limited release this weekend, we're reprinting our review from last March.)

By: Erik Davis

Nights and Weekends marks writer-director Joe Swanberg's fourth consecutive film at the South by Southwest Film Festival, and it's quite possibly his strongest work yet. Here, Swanberg co-directs and stars alongside girl-next-door-with-an-edge Greta Gerwig – and the two play a couple struggling through the highs and lows of a long distance relationship. What we see is what we don't see, if that makes any sense, as Swanberg and Gerwig consciously chose not to hand this one to the audience on a silver platter. Case in point: There's really no narrative at all. One would think a film with no narrative would be the equivalent of recording you and your significant other watching TV on a Friday night – cuddled up, chitter chatter with a pause for a snack here and there.

On the surface, Nights and Weekends is just that – a regular night (or nights) with regular people who talk just like us or them or your friend with the huge crush on that guy we all kinda know. But look a little deeper and Nights and Weekends is so much more than "just another 'Mumblecore' flick about confusing relationships and missed opportunities." Swanberg and Gerwig do a tremendous job tapping into everything we love about our relationships, as well as everything we hate – and they do this with moments, glances, kisses and tears. No score. No set pieces. No set up and payoff. In an interview the morning after the film's world premiere, Swanberg told me that's exactly how he remembers his own life: as random scenes, conversations or smiles – a mixed fruit basket of love, lust, fear and disappointment.

All Hallow's Eve is approaching once again, and my favorite part of the holiday is all the corresponding movies that turn up on television and in theaters. October is already over a week old, so it's time to get into a Halloween frame of mind.

The Unborn
When I last saw Odette Yustman she was one of several New Yorkers fleeing for her life from a large beastie with nasty pointy teeth in Cloverfield. The Unborn has her facing a different kind of evil, specifically the spirit of her twin brother who died in the womb, or perhaps it's an evil entity that hoped to enter the world through him (it's a little hard to tell). There are some nightmarish visuals on display here, and the crawling thing with its head twisted around both sticks with me and makes me wonder if it's an homage to the spider walk scene in The Exorcist. The often cool Gary Oldman also stars and the film is written and directed by David S. Goyer, so I think there's something good and creepy here.

Just Buried
Not a horror flim this one, but rather an extremely dark comedy. Jay Baruchel (who I will always remember as the Led Zeppelin loving nerd from Almost Famous) plays a young man named Oliver who has inherited a funeral home troubled by a fierce competitor and a lack of business. The plucky young female mortician in his employ insists he can't shut down the funeral parlor and the two embark upon a path to drum up business and squash the competition by causing a few untimely deaths. Could be a nice slice of morbid fun here. Check out Scott's review of the film.

The Uninvited
A young woman returns home from a stint at a mental hospital following her mother's untimely death, to find that her father has a new girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks). There's also a ghost who is apparently trying to tell our former mental patient heroine that the girlfriend killed the last family she lived with. This is a much darker role than I'm used to seeing Banks play, and she seems to handle it well. This is a remake of a South Korean film called A Tale of Two Sisters (Janghwa, Hongryeon) which was once recommended to me but has languished in my Netflix queue for several years. The trailer has some creepy moments and I'll probably check this one out. Here's Eric Snider's take on the trailer.

Let the Right One In
If you're going to attempt a vampire movie these days then you damn well better do something different with the idea, and it looks like the people behind this Swedish bloodsucker opus are clear on that concept. A bullied 12 year old boy finds both friendship and a tool for revenge in his new girlfriend who happens to be a vampire. Scott caught this one at Tribeca and penned a pretty strong recommendation, and the flick will be playing on October 24 in New York City. Sadly, the rest of us are going to have to wait for the eventual DVD release.

House
No, it's neither that 80s horror flick starring William Katt or that doctor show on the Fox Network. This House is a horror flick in which two couples find themselves trapped in a remote house and stalked by a lunatic calling himself the Tin Man. This one seems to meld classic slasher stuff with elements of slaughterfests like Hostel and Saw, none of which really appeals to me, and the cast isn't particularly interesting. I think I'll let this one slide.

New this week on AOL Moviefone:

• Paul Blart: Mall Cop - Kevin James plays a man who finally gets his dream job as a working in mall security. Check out the trailer right here:
  
  
  
• The International - Clive Owen plays an interpol agent targeting corruption in the world's largest banking institutions.
• Passengers -Anne Hathaway stars as a grief counselor who suspects foul play when the plane crash survivors she is working with begin to disappear.
• Valkyrie - Tom Hanks Cruise stars in this historical drama about a plot to assassinate Hitler.
• Fears of the Dark - Animated horror anthology. Here's the preview:
  
  
  
• Bedtime Stories - Adam Sandler is a Dad who finds the bedtime stories he's been telling his kids are becoming reality.
• Notorious - Biopic of rap star Notorious B.I.G.
• The Pleasure of Being Robbed - Indie film about a young woman and her elaborate acts of theft.
• I've Loved You So Long - A woman returns to her family after fifteen years in prison.
• Hank and Mike - Two recently fired Easter Bunnies find that changing careers is tougher than they thought.
• Talento De Barrio - A Puerto Rican youth must choose between a life of crime and musical supestardom.

City of Ember was the surprise closing-night film at Fantastic Fest, but I found out about the surprise a little early (which is always fun). I was able to see the film earlier in the week so I could interview director Gil Kenan, who showed up in Austin with surprise guest (to me, too!) Bill Murray for the closing-night festivities. Kenan has directed a pair of entertaining and visually stunning family-friendly features, the Oscar-nominated animated film Monster House and now the City of Ember adaptation, which opens in theaters on Friday. Not only that, but Kenan landed both of these projects right after he graduated from UCLA, where his short film The Lark won him a lot of attention. We talked about what he's done to make City of Ember as beautiful a film as it is, and how he found such compelling lead actors. He's currently linked to a new Robert Zemeckis production, Airman, and we took a minute to discuss that too. Check it out after the jump.

She may have been Lost, but it looks like the redheaded Rebecca Mader has found a path and a sexy on-screen husband. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Mader is in final negotiations to play the lead female role in the super-wacky sounding Men Who Stare at Goats. That means she gets to play wife to Ewan McGregor's Bob Wilton -- a reporter in Iraq who meets a man (George Clooney) who says he's a "former secret U.S. military psychic soldier who was reactivated after 9/11." The plot is so very strange, and most likely destined to be awesome. But that's not all -- the film is also getting Stephen Lang, fresh off Avatar and Public Enemies.

In the what-if area of cinematic news: With a Ghostbusters sequel on the way, Bill Murray told MTV that he thinks a woman should be in on the action. That's not a bad idea at all, so the big question is: What funny woman out there can bring on the laughs AND kick ghostly ass? (Editor's interjection: Jenna Fischer.)

Meanwhile, the Fame cast has now come together, according to THR. Unlike star Thomas Dekker, who has made a name for himself through Terminators and Heroes, this is a big cast of unknowns -- Kristy Flores, Paul Iacono, Paul McGill, Naturi Naughton, Kay Panabaker, Kherington Payne, Collins Pennie, Walter Perez and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle. You can hit the link to find out who they're going to play, and in the meantime, wonder who Debbie Allen will be this time around. Rumor has it that she'll pop up in the film, but not as Lydia.

And Danny Glover is getting rusty. THR posts that he's headed to the future and lending his voice to Agent Crush, which you can learn all about at the film's website. He'll be Major Rusty Gibbons. And finally, a last bit of little fluff: Jude Law is growing his 'stache in preparation for Sherlock Holmes!

It's football season, which means it's also the season for at least one heartwarming and inspiring movie about the sport. This year the film comes from Universal -- The Express, a biopic of Ernie "The Elmira Express" Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, back in 1963. However, the movie divides its time between Davis and his coach at Syracuse University, Ben Schwartzwalder, and shows the ways in which the two characters changed one another (for the better, natch).

The movie opens during the notorious Cotton Bowl game of 1960, when Davis (Rob Brown) was a running back on the Syracuse University team that played The University of Texas, which had not yet allowed black varsity team members. It's a rough game, but Davis is handling himself until all hell breaks loose ... and then we flash back to Davis's childhood in the 1940s and see how he learned to handle nasty racist situations even at an early age. He's stubborn and he's speedy, and eventually decides to use those assets to strive for his goal of playing professional football. His idol, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, advises Davis to play for his alma mater Syracuse because Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is such an excellent head coach. But Davis encounters difficulties in the ways Schwartzwalder handles the black team members. The coach's primary goal is to avoid "trouble," so they're warned away from the white female students, and worse yet, at certain Southern games they're not allowed to score touchdowns. The real action culminates when the film returns to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas.

A few weeks back I received an early copy of the Iron Man SE DVD, and although we all griped a little bit about the lack of an audio commentary -- I'm pretty sure the fans are still happy with that purchase. So now let's try it again, only instead of Iron Man, we'll be picking through the 3-disc Special Edition of Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk. And while it's definitely a good package (provided you dig the film), here's one simple warning right out of the gate: The third disc is nothing more than a "digital copy" platter. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see the big appeal of "digital copies." Why the hell would I want to overstuff my hard drive -- when I have the DVD sitting right here??

Anyway, the Special Edition has lots to recommend it, and the main feature is certainly something to see -- doubly so if you happen to have Blu-Ray. (I do not.) Even better the second time around, The Incredible Hulk is a simple yet very well-made action adventure flick in which a fugitive scientist must avoid the military while trying to get a powerfully monstrous alter-ego out of his system. Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt, and Tim Roth bring an excellent air of professionalism to "yet another" superhero movie, and while it might not have been the Action Event that Iron Man was, I think it's safe to assume that Marvel and the fans were pleased with the big green semi-sequel as well.

So on disc one we get an audio commentary with Leterrier and actor Tim Roth, as well as six deleted scenes that run about 14 minutes total. The deleted footage is mostly early (Brazil) stuff and a few villainous rants between Hurt and Roth. (All good cuts if you ask me.) As far as the commentary goes, it sounds a lot like a cool Brit and an enthusiastic Frenchman talking about their action movie. I'm only about fifteen minutes into the chat-track, but it's pretty amusing stuff...

Read on for the Disc Two delights.

Welcome back to another installment of Insert Caption -- the game President Bush would love to play ... if only he knew how to find the internet. Zing! Last week we asked you to "go long" for a photo from the new movie The Express, and score you did. Congrats to the three sports who managed to cross into our funny zone. (Get it -- instead of end zone, I said funny zone? Heh ... wait, why aren't you laughing?)

1. "Staring Contest? This is no Staring Contest....This is FOOTBALL!" -- Darren C.

2. 'Coach: Why aren't you playing up to your obvious potential yet?
Player: Because we haven't had the requisite training montage yet!" -- Matt B.

3. "Damn ... Did you hear about O.J.?" -- Chaz K.

See full image and all captions


I'm a little afraid of the captions we'll be receiving this week, in honor of the new Oliver Stone flick W. (in theaters October 17), though I'm sure our readers will show a little {cough} respect with their captions. Based on the life and times of our current president (who'll be leaving office in just a few months), W. stars Josh Brolin (as W.) and a whole slew of all stars as some of our most favorite political heroes. The candidates behind our three favorite captions will spin away with one W. poster, one W. t-shirt and a set of six W. shot glasses. Sound off below ...



Read the official rules for this contest

A long time passed since 10 Things I Hate About You hit the big screen. Julia Stiles got Bourne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has become a powerhouse on the indie scene, and Heath Ledger ... we know what became of him. I'm guessing that his death and reminiscing moments about his work is what inspired this next piece of news: Ace Showbiz reports that ABC Family is going to make the Shakespeare-inspired film into a television series, with the film's director, Gil Junger, signed on to helm the pilot. In it, Kate and Bianca Stratford will face "their new high school environment." I don't know if that means freshman hitting the big leagues, or the girls moving to a new zip code, but I can only hope that they come up with a new love interest for Kate. There's only one Patrick Verona.

Hater has been on a long road to production, but it looks like the time is finally here. Almost a year ago, Guillermo del Toro had signed on to direct the adaptation of David Moody's novel. But then the Hobbit swept him away and left Hater director-less. Have no fear, Moody fans, the pic is back on track. Variety reports that the director of The Orphanage, Juan Antonio Bayona, will helm the feature when it kicks into gear next year. So, if you liked the one-two producer-director punch of del Toro and Bayona, this should be a treat!

Hit the jump for a few exhibition news bits for the next few months.