Tim McGraw Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Let's get this out of the way: I'm no Sandra Bullock bully. I know, I gave her crap for looking all too perky in her long-delayed rom-com All About Steve (which is currently scheduled to bow on September 4th instead of last March, after The Proposal did well by her and The Hangover put co-star Bradley Cooper in a more recognizable realm). But she seems terribly content to play it safe, merely bantering with Hugh Grant or Benjamin Bratt or Ryan Reynolds, with diversions into dramatic territory either little-seen (Infamous, Loverboy) or little-loved (Premonition).

The most prominent exception to that streak would have to be Paul Haggis' Crash, and while I don't think that Bullock is so scheming as to put herself in another Oscar-baiting melodrama out of hopes of continuing that glory to more... individual ends, I hardly think it's coincidence that The Blind Side is the based-on-a-true-story tale of Bullock helping an oversized, undereducated minority teen who in turn makes her a better person. Yahoo! has the trailer; we've included it after the jump.

There may be trouble with the on-set paradise between Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn in Four Christmases, but for the film as a whole, things just got kookier. The Hollywood Reporter says that old Vaughn friend Jon Favreau has joined the mix, along with Tim McGraw and Dwight Yoakam. Yeah, not exactly the two names that I expected to follow. But it gets even better. McGraw and Favreau will play Brad's (Vaughn) brothers called Denver and Dallas. Talk about feeling on the outside -- not getting another Texas name like Austin or something. Anyhow, they're "siblings who delight in tormenting their brother" over the holidays.

As for ol' Yoakam, he'll play "Pastor Phil, the overly zealous partner of Brad's new wife Kate's (Witherspoon) mother (Mary Steenburgen). He persuades the young couple to act in his church's nativity play, one of the many chaotic events during their visits to different sets of parents." Okay, now considering my own history with the holidays, and other people I know, one or two house/party visits makes for a hectic holiday, let alone visiting four different parents and acting in a nativity play. Hopefully all of this craziness stays on the comfortable side of comedy, and doesn't become a Meet the Parents sort of film where stupid character decisions leads to just as much discomfort as laughs. Still, this is sounding like it could actually be some Christmas fare that's worth the time.

In this day and age of over-the-top CGI animation and stop-motion technology, how refreshing it was to take my daughter and her friend to a Saturday morning screening of Flicka. There's no CGI in Flicka, no nifty special effects, no cool characters destined to end up as toys in kiddie meals at your local fast food restaurant. Flicka is one of those family films I might have seen in my own girlhood: A simple story about a misfit girl, an unwanted horse, and a father who doesn't see that his daughter is more like him he wants to admit.

This adaptation of the 1941 Mary O'Hara book My Friend Flicka is an updating and reworking of the classic tale. The basic elements of the story remain the same, but in the 2006 version, the role of young Ken McLaughlin (played by Roddy McDowell in the 1943 version of the film) has become Katy McLaughlin (Alison Lohman), a high school student who spends most of her time at her stuffy Wyoming boarding school daydreaming about her family's ranch and horses. Katy, the only daughter in a long line of male ranchers, is a bit of a rebel; she doesn't finish her history final exam because she's convinced the teachers only want to her to parrot what they've taught in class, not hear what she really thinks. Unfortunately, Katy's failure to pass the exam means the headmaster wants her to repeat the entire year -- and with her family already sacrificing financially to send her to a private school, this is bad news.