NothingButTheTruth Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Bride Wars
One minute, she's struggling with addiction and family drama in the winning Rachel Got Married. The next, Anne Hathaway was skyrocketing to the dredge, terrible marriage stereotyping, and wedding wars with Kate Hudson. Jeffrey M. Anderson said there's one worthy minute in the film, but the "rest of the time, for 88 out of its 89 minutes, it's a movie totally devoid of life." Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

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The Uninvited
One would think that a film with David Strathairn and Elizabeth Banks would be worth a moment or two, especially since they're not running to the horror/thriller genre every day, but as Jette Kernion said in her review in February: the story is weak, Banks' lines are "stilted and almost laughable," and Strathairn's performance "made me want to go home and put on one of his better movies to forget about his nearly wooden character in this one." That's enough reason to Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Martyrs
Movies that make Saw look like Sesame Street aren't the type I usually have in my queue, so I'll leave this entirely up to Scott Weinberg: "It may be one of the most ferocious horror films ever made -- but Martyrs is also quite effectively chilling and consistently disturbing ... frankly I think it's one of the most fascinating pieces of 'hardcore' horror cinema you'd ever want to see." Buy it ... if you have the guts.

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Nothing But the Truth
Another political drama in Rod Lurie's stable, Truth boasts the likes of Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda, Vera Farmiga, Matt Dillon, taking the Valerie Plame case and morphing into an amped up drama with intrique based around missile strikes on Venezuela. Eric Snider said from TIFF: "Still, for all its strengths, Nothing But the Truth falls under the umbrella of good but not great." Rent it.

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Also out: Frost/Nixon: Complete Interviews, What Doesn't Kill You (also on Blu-ray), While She Was Out

Trailers? Oh yeah, we got your trailers here.

Star Trek
Like a lot of people, I got my first glimpse of this one when it played with Quantam of Solace last weekend. While this will obviously play hell with Star Trek continuity, I am one Trek geek who is looking forward to the J.J. Abrams take on the franchise. It opens on May 8.

Astro Boy
Here's a teaser for the CGI animated adaptation of the classic anime about a robot boy built by a scientist to replace the son he lost. The trailer doesn't give us much to go on, but the impressive voice cast includes Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Donald Sutherland, Eugene Levy, and Nathan Lane. Things get cosmic on October 23.

Coraline
I find it odd that Neil Gaiman's name isn't mentioned in the trailer, since the film is based on his novella. Gaiman isn't a household name but I would have figured he was well enough known to catch a few people's attention. Nevertheless, this stop-motion animated feature from Henry Selick, the director of A Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, deals with a young girl who finds a pathway to a parallel world in which duplicates of her parents sport buttons for eyes. This deliciously creepy looking film will be in theaters on February 6.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
All of our favorite characters return for this third installment of the series, and this time it's in 3-D. The only one we see in this new trailer is Scrat, on the trail of not just another acorn but apparently romance as well. The one hits on July 1.

The political drama has a good friend in Rod Lurie, who makes intelligent, earnestly liberal movies that are meaty and watchable, if not always great. He has a thing for strong female protagonists, too. He was first noticed for The Contender, about a female vice-presidential candidate being grilled about her past, and he created the lady-president TV drama Commander in Chief for ABC. His latest, a spiritual sister to The Contender, is the arbitrarily titled Nothing But the Truth, in which thorny ethical dilemmas once again mess up the life of a woman.

She is Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale), a Washington D.C. newspaper reporter who learns that America's recent missile strike against Venezuela may have been unjustified. It was done in retaliation for that country's supposed involvement in an assassination attempt against the U.S. president, but Rachel has learned that a CIA agent filed a report indicating Venezuela was not to blame -- a report that the president ignored, ordering the military strike anyway.

Rachel's news story makes waves in Washington, not just for its damning evidence against the president, but for outing the CIA agent who made the report. She is Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga), the wife of an ambassador and supposedly just an ordinary soccer mom. Her undercover profession as a government spy is over now, of course; nobody wants a spy whose name has been plastered all over the news.

Now the question is which high-level government employee leaked Erica's identity to the press? A special prosecutor named Dubois (Matt Dillon) is appointed to find out; Rachel refuses to reveal her sources; Rachel is held in contempt of court and sent to jail; stubbornness and principle-upholding ensue.

TITLE: Nothing But the Truth
DIRECTED BY: Rod Lurie
STARS: Kate Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga, Alan Alda, David Schwimmer, Noah Wyle, Angela Bassett, Matt Dillon

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A political reporter (Beckinsale) writes a story about a government scandal, revealing the name of a covert CIA operative (Farmiga), and ends up behind bars when she refuses to divulge her source. The story parallels the real-life drama surrounding CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose status as a covert operative was outed after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times charging the Bush administration with manipulating intelligence information to justify a war with Iraq.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: A solid ensemble cast and a script written and directed by Lurie should keep this real-life drama firmly out of dreaded "movie of the week" territory. Alda, as the lawyer who fights to keep the reporter out of jail, should have plenty of opportunity for brow-knitting and dramatic courtroom scenes, and we can't wait to see Dillon's turn as the prosecutor who goes after Beckinsale -- his performance was the best thing about 2005's Factotum. We're loving seeing him reinvent his career as a solid indie actor.

Back to the TIFF Preview page ...

Back in July, Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Vera Farmiga, Edie Falco and Alan Alda were in talks for Nothing but the Truth -- Rod Lurie's upcoming political thriller. (If you remember, the movie parallels Valerie Plame's struggles.) They have all signed on, and now we've got another cast member that is, frankly, surprising. The Hollywood Reporter has listed Friends star David Schwimmer. Yes, Ross. Beckinsale is a journalist who exposes the agent and goes to prison when she won't reveal her source, and Schwimmer is going to play her husband. At first, he supports his wife's decision to remain silent, but as things progress, he "begins to resent her for choosing a principle over her family."

It sounds completely not-goofy, so will this be his chance to finally get some real cred? It's just such a strange choice... Sitting around the casting table, already having the likes of flipping Alan Alda, who thinks: "Hey, we should get David Schwimmer for the role!?" It's the sort of gig that many, many actors could fill in, so I would love to know what made them choose Ross. Maybe he can pull it off? But it isn't Schwimmer's only chance to prove himself. You might remember that he recently made a movie that sounds much more up his alley -- Run Fat Boy, Run. The teaser came out way back in February, and the Simon Pegg-starring comedy is finally premiering next month at TIFF, before it's released in October. What do you think? Does Schwimmer have it in him?

In just over a month, Rod Lurie is Resurrecting the Champ, he has got a remake of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs on the way and now he's gearing up to direct another script of his -- something more like The Contender and less like raping violence. The film is called Nothing but the Truth (get the reference?), and it's a drama about a Washington D.C.-based female reporter who outs a CIA agent and is sent to prison for not revealing her source. Now that should definitely sound familiar -- the film is paralleling the case of Valerie Plame, whose CIA agent status was exposed after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, wrote an opinion piece that criticized the Bush administration.

While the cast has not been finalized, a number of actors are in talks -- a collection of which would make a sweet pot of political drama. If all of the talks work out -- Kate Beckinsale would be the journalist, Matt Dillon would step up as the prosecutor, Vera Farmiga would be the CIA agent, Edie Falco would be the editor of the paper that publishes the story and as a wonderful cherry to the selection, Alan Alda would play the attorney trying to free Beckinsale from jail. That's more than enough to hook me, and I'd love to see more serious Beckinsale, free from the action and thrills. The question that remains -- will we get a commutation-gathering Scooter Libby in a sequel?