Motherhood Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Here's a quick look at what's opening in limited release this weekend. If they're not playing where you live, keep an eye out as they make the rounds. And if all else fails, there's always DVD....

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning (pictured) is something of a prequel to Ong Bak, the Thai sensation from a few years ago. Tony Jaa, whose multi-discipline fighting skills are beyond impressive, plays a guy who fights a lot. Cinematical's Todd Gilchrist sums up the way many of us felt when we first caught the film at South By Southwest: The fight scenes are spectacular; unfortunately, the plot that holds them together is incomprehensible and takes itself too seriously. At Rotten Tomatoes, the critics are almost evenly split between yea and nay, with the only question being whether the awesomeness of the fights is enough to compensate for the dullness of the rest of it. Playing on 10 screens in New York, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C.

Antichrist is an art-house horror film from Lars Von Trier, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a grieving couple to whom some supernatural and terrible things happen. It's been appalling audiences since it premiered at Cannes this spring. The critics all seem to agree that it's repellent, grisly, unsettling, and hard to watch. Where they part company -- about evenly down the middle, so far -- is whether that's good or bad. Playing on one screen each in L.A., New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. It will also be available through some Video On Demand systems starting Oct. 28.

It looks like Brooke Shields is making her way back to the big screen, and this time she won't be getting saucy in The Blue Lagoon. After a decade away, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Shields has signed onto the live-action comedy Furry Vengeance. Actually, considering the title, it's probably good to note that this is a family film. There's no word on what role she'll play in the Brendan Fraser flick, which follows a real estate developer who gets a hard time from a band of raccoons. One -- What's the obsession with coons lately? Davey Crockett on the brain? Two -- It might be the usual Fraser fair, but the cast does boast Ken Jeong, Samantha Bee, and Dick Van Dyke as well.

Meanwhile, in the shadow of Parenthood heading to the small screen, THR also posts that Freestyle Releasing has picked up Motherhood, and will release it this October. This is the Uma Thurman/Minnie Driver/Anthony Edwards project that has Uma trying to pull together her daughter's sixth birthday party in the midst of "urban challenges." As the ed note pointed out in the post about her casting last year, "More Goose!" But there's also the perk of a practically fully female production. Katherine Dieckman wrote and directed it, and it's produced by Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon, Jana Edelbaum, and Rachel Cohen. They say: "From the outset, Motherhood has been a labor of love for us. As a collection of female filmmakers, we immediately took to the humor and honesty of the project."

Hopefully the labor is worth it!

Back in February, Uma Thurman surprisingly signed on to play Nanny in the upcoming film, Eloise in Paris, which is set to begin production this June in London, Paris, and New York. But before she begins filming that, Variety reports that the actress is quickly slipping another caregiver role into the mix -- a comedy by writer/director Katherine Dieckmann called Motherhood.

At least this flick will have her playing someone her age. (I still can't get over the fact that adapting Eloise's Nanny brought to mind thoughts of Uma.) She will star as "a harried mother of two prepping for her daughter's sixth birthday party as myriad urban challenges confront her," while Minnie Driver and Anthony Edwards will play her best friend and husband.

There's nothing like those pesky "urban challenges." Does someone steal the last package of fancy streamers or something? The shoot is scheduled to last 25 days, which gives her just enough time to wrap up before Eloise, and the film is said to be taking advantage of new Gotham tax incentives. While a fan of Thurman, I'm still wary of her comedic roles, so if you're like me, there's always The Life Before Her Eyes, which heads into limited release this week.

Ed note: Cinematical would just like to point out that it's awesome to have Goose back on the big screen. "More Goose!" we shall always shout from whichever rooftop will allow it.