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Posts with tag LuckyYou

Explosive International 'Iron Man' Teaser Hits Net

Filed under: Action », Fandom », Comic/Superhero/Geek », Trailers and Clips »

Almost two months after the domestic trailer for Iron Man popped up online, the international teaser has hit YouTube. This sucker is filled with all sorts of action and educational facts about changing trailers for international audiences. Apparently, they don't want beginning exposition, Robert Downey Jr.'s snark, and a build up to the explosions -- they want the big bang and Iron Man action right off the bat. Unfortunately, Black Sabbath doesn't get international love, which is a damned shame -- what's Iron Man without "Iron Man?" And finally, Gwyneth Paltrow gets more play overseas.


If you're an Iron Man fan, or a Paltrow fiend for that matter, you'll want to check this out. It's got a lot of the same scenes, but it focuses much more on the post-suit story instead of the lead-up to its creation. Tony Stark wants "to protect the people that I have put in harm's way!" Pepper Pots, meanwhile, is worried that he'll kill himself. It's the typical struggle between the desire to do good at the risk of oneself, and those that worry about the fearless hero. Sounds good to me.

Even still, the rest of the flick could be junk and I'd still see it. There's little Downey Jr. does that isn't, at the very least, decent. (Although I have no idea why he took a role in Lucky You; I've seen many people's faces contort in pain over memories of watching that.) But I still have one request -- they should make an "Iron Man" music video with RDJ as Ozzy for the DVD. That would be the perfect heroic cherry to this sundae.

[via Coming Soon]

Box Office Prediction: Will Spidey Beat Pirates?

Filed under: New Releases », Box Office », Hold the 'Fone », Box Office Predictions », Summer Movies »

Last week, our old pal bubba8193 triumphed against evilone1414 and rose to the top of the leaderboard, perfectly predicting the following box office top five:

1. Disturbia - $9.1 million.
2. The Invisible - $7.6 million.
3. Next - $7.2 million.
4. Fracture - $7.1 million.
5. Blades of Glory - $5.2 million

Oh, I could talk about how surprising it was for Disturbia to three-peat, or how even Nicolas Cage couldn't save a dud like Next (or maybe it's the other way around?), but why linger on last week when we're face-to-face with the first weekend of the summer movie season? Say hello, everyone. There's a teeny-tiny little movie launching on this most special day -- you may have heard of it.

Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 3Spider-Man 3
What It's About: Just when everything's going gangbusters for Peter Parker -- the city loves Spider-Man, he's got a hot girlfriend -- an alien black goo gloms onto him, turns his suit black and makes him think he's a badass. Meanwhile, three villains mobilize against him: Flint Marko, Uncle Ben's actual murderer, who escapes from prison and is molecularized into Sandman; Eddie Brock, a rival photographer who also gets infected with the goo and turns into the toothy, maniacal Venom; and Peter's old friend Harry Osborn, aka New Goblin, who's still intent on avenging his father's death.
Why It Might Do Well: Might do well? Really the question here is: Will it break the domestic record for biggest box-office opening ever? The figure to aim for is $135.6 million, the amount earned by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest last July. Spider-Man 3 faces much less competition than Pirates did, and it's opening on a record 4,252 screens; on the other hand, some of the earliest buzz from the blogosphere has been mixed. But Spidey is review-proof -- and at any rate, most agree that the action in this film is better than ever.
Why It Might Not Do Well: There could be a nationwide blackout. Aliens could land on Earth and insist that all theaters be dedicated to showing their home movies. The possibilities are endless, really.
Prediction: $138 million

Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana in Lucky YouLucky You
What It's About: Eric Bana plays Huck, a professional gambler who can't seem to hold onto anything -- love, money or his relationship with his father (Robert Duvall), a legendary poker player. Huck's attempts to get a seat at the World Series of Poker coincide with his meeting a cute, poker-ignorant singer Billie (Drew Barrymore) and warily reuniting with his estranged dad.
Why It Might Do Well: People who have no interest in seeing Spider-Man may head for this film, which was directed by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential). And those who love Eric Bana, poker and Vegas (I'm guilty and I'm proud) will find plenty to enjoy here.
Why It Might Not Do Well: There's a lot of poker in it. A looooot of poker, which the generally weak reviews have noted. And while Barrymore can headline a hit movie, she's just a sidenote to this story; Bana isn't a big enough star yet to drive crowds to the theaters. Oh, and also, um ... Spider-Man 3.
Prediction: $8 million

Review: Lucky You

Filed under: Drama », New Releases », Warner Brothers », Theatrical Reviews », New in Theaters »




Those who go to Lucky You expecting a Drew Barrymore performance that is, at long last, devoid of her half human/half sunflower kitsch will be disappointed. The role is more or less straight drama, but much like Bruce Willis has a writer on standby whose job is to inject "Bruceness" into the scripts he likes, someone seems to have shoehorned in a number of cutesy Shirley Temple-style comedy moments for Drew, and downgraded the maturity level of her character to late teens, as opposed to thirty-something. At one point, sitting beside her boyfriend Huck (Eric Bana) at the poker table, she tells him that it was only right that he lost a hand, since he won the last one -- the other guy should have a turn to win. Huck is a semi-pro whose lifelong attempt to chisel a living out of cards has left him broke, and the film opens with him pawning a family heirloom for a couple hundred bucks. You get a feeling from the start that Matt Damon and Ed Norton dream of this guy.

Hopes rise early on with a funny cameo from Robert Downey Jr. as a friend of Huck who runs some kind of one-man telephone scam. He keeps several cell-phones in front of him on a table and is continually picking them up and putting them back down like three-card monte. Once he makes it clear that he has no money to lend, Huck moves on and we meet some of his less colorful friends, including a compulsive (male) gambler who agreed to get breast implants if he lost a bet, and did just that. Charles Martin Smith is an interesting choice for a mobbed-up loan shark, but the film sort of lets his character die on the vine after one sharply-written early scene with Huck. It also becomes weirdly obvious early on that the film was intended to be titled Lucky Town, since that title makes more sense and since we hear an extended sampling of Bruce Springsteen's Lucky Town. Lucky You sounds more like a lost Matthau-Lemmon comedy from the early 70s.

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