cheryl hines Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The first thing everyone seems to mention about Serious Moonlight is that its screenplay is the last one written by the late Adrienne Shelly. Actress Cheryl Hines, who had a role in Shelly's film Waitress, is making her feature directorial debut with the dark comedy, which stars Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton. The movie opened Austin Film Festival this year. It sounds like a sure-fire comedy, but unfortunately it just left me with a headache.

Serious Moonlight focuses on a married couple, Louise (Meg Ryan) and Ian (Timothy Hutton), who are supposed to meet in their country house for a rendezvous, but both arrive a day early. Louise wants to surprise her husband, but finds out that he also has a surprise: he's leaving her. She refuses to accept this, and ends up cracking him on the head with a vase, binding him with duct tape, and refusing to let him loose until he comes to his senses and realizes how much he loves her and wants to stay with her.

The murder of Adrienne Shelly was obviously not just a devastating loss to her friends and family, but to the people who followed her work eagerly from her early days as a star in Hal Hartley movies like The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. (By the by, Trust is only available on VHS, and I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one rushing to buy it on DVD.) She was also just getting back into writing and directing after taking a break for a few years; Waitress, which she wrote, directed, and also acted in, had just been accepted to Sundance when she was murdered. (Read Jeffrey M. Anderson's take on the movie and her murder.)

Through the efforts of her husband Andy Ostroy and friends and costars like Cheryl Hines and Keri Russell, Waitress was shephered through the festivals, inevitable press days, and release. Ostroy also began the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, which was created to "support the artistic achievements of female actors, writers and directors who are either working on current short and feature film projects, new productions, or are seeking to transition from acting to writing and directing."

Among the many sad things about the 2006 murder of writer-actress-director Adrienne Shelly was the fact that she left behind a screenplay that was apparently intended to be her next film, after Waitress, which she finished just before her death. The acclaim Waitress received from critics and audiences throughout 2007 gave Shelly's husband, Andy Ostroy, even more reason to keep her spirit alive by producing the film, and now audiences will have a chance to see it.

The film, Serious Moonlight, premiered at Tribeca in April, and now indieWIRE reports that it's been acquired by Magnolia Pictures, which will make it available through its video-on-demand system in November and release it theatrically in December. Cheryl Hines, who co-starred with Shelly in Waitress and is best known for her work on Curb Your Enthusiasm, directed the project, her first feature film.

Part of me completely forgot we were getting a double bill from director Sam Mendes this year (though, technically, it's last year and this year, but regardless it feels like we're getting two films from the man during a very short period of time). Once again Mendes returns to themes of family with Away We Go, however unlike Revolutionary Road, you probably won't have a desire to off yourself when the credits begin to roll.

What intrigues me most about Away We Go is its cast. Mendes went from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to a bearded John Krasinski and a pregnant Maya Rudolph. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, it's just an odd pairing. The chemistry looks to be there, though, and the supporting cast is pretty fantastic with three power women leading the way in Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney and Catherine O'Hara. Oh, and Jeff Daniels squeezes himself in there too.

Watching the trailer, this doesn't feel like a Mendes film. It sorta gives me this ultra indie, hippie-ish Noah Baumbach funny (yet tender) dysfunctional family vibe (it was written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, so maybe that's where it's coming from). Yes, I dig it ... though I'm hoping its charm turns out to be unique, and not just another piece off the Little Miss Sunshine gravy train. Watch it below and let us know what you think. Does it have potential? Away We Go hits theaters in limited release on June 5.

I've always found it tricky to navigate the indie world by trailers alone. Many mundane trailers taint great films, and many decent trailers leave the nagging question: Is it cute in two minutes, but falls flat at an hour-plus? Armed with a great review and the solid trailer above, I don't think we'll have to worry about that with Bart Got a Room.

Unlike the hordes of teen comedies where the kids all look "perfect," the lives seem more Clueless than real, and it's all thrust into the mainstream pop mindset -- a habit that really must die -- Bart Got a Room sets snarky realism against a far-from-flashy South Florida backdrop. There's the obligatory teen trauma: Getting a date for the prom, but as Erik said in his Tribeca review last year: "It's not complex, it's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks, but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun."

And you've gotta feel for a kid (Steven J. Kaplan) who can't find a prom date when the school loser (Bart) can -- which only leads mom (Cheryl Hines) to secure a hotel room for the kid in extreme pity, while dad (William H. Macy) goes on and on about sex. The film hits theaters on April 3.

For those folks out there who've been dying to see a) Lindsay Lohan in a new movie and/or b) Lindsay Lohan fake a pregnancy in order to keep a job, then you simply must watch the new trailer for Labor Pains. (Too bad this sucker couldn't hit on Labor Day! HA! Not funny.) We've told you about the flick before; in it, Lohan plays a secretary who's about to be fired when she suddenly decides to say she's pregnant in order to stay employed. Hilarity ensues when she needs to keep it up -- going so far as to create a fake belly and take on pregnant woman activities, such as lamaze class.

The trailer claims the film is still in post production, so one imagines this is just a little teaser to whet your appetite. Directed by Lara Shapiro, Lohan stars opposite Cheryl Hines, Chris Parnell and Luke Kirby. The trailer voiceover definitely gives it a nice direct-to-DVD touch, and the comedy seems targeted toward the teen-to-pre-teen crowd. Not exactly the perfect follow-up to I Know Who Killed Me, but I'd say La Lohan is heading in a slightly more watchable direction. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think. Will this make it to theaters?

It's too bad that more movies don't have the courage to explore faith and spirituality in a direct way; studios are usually too worried about appealing to all religions -- and all pocketbooks -- to be very specific about the subject. The other reason is that it's difficult for Hollywood movies to wrap up their neat, bow-tie happy endings with everything resolved, since the idea of faith is based on lack of proof, lack of finality. One of my favorite movies is Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, which uses an unconventional, off-kilter visual scheme to document some exciting, endlessly fascinating arguments: which side is God on and what does He really want with us? The new Henry Poole Is Here bucks the trend with the appearance of a "miracle" in the life of its ordinary, everyday character. Does it raise any interesting, life-changing questions? Sadly, no. The film is too bored and lackadaisical with its subject to change much of anything. It's too uninspired to be inspirational.

Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) is a man with "movie disease." This means that he's going to die, and he'll have absolutely no symptoms until he does. Sometimes "movie disease" comes with a cough, but not this time. Sometimes "movie disease" has a name, like "brain cloud," but not this time. In preparation for the dark day, Henry buys a house in his old neighborhood, loads up on booze, doughnuts and pizza and waits. Meanwhile, his nosy neighbor Esperanza (Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza, from Babel) brings him tamales and pokes around his backyard. (Her late boyfriend used to live in the same house.) She notices that a badly done stucco job has produced a water stain, and that the water stain looks a bit like a familiar guy with a beard. The picture even produces a drop of blood.

Imagine you're a filmmaker and you've got this cockamamie story about astronaut chimps that just won't go away. You don't have much money, but the story involves lots of technology and outer space effects. What do you do? You could use your imagination and shoot in darkness with lots of odd angles and perspectives, like Mario Bava's sci-fi masterpiece Planet of the Vampires (1965). But that would raise all kinds of questions about how to present the chimps. You could do a hand-drawn animated cartoon, something like Persepolis, for comparatively little money. But that would expose the fact that you really don't have much of an idea. So you decide to make a big, computer-animated film, make it fast, fill it with annoying jokes and hope no one notices how cheap and unfinished it looks. But what you don't do is open it three weeks after the astonishing WALL-E so that everyone notices the difference.

Space Chimps comes from the folks who brought you the universally despised animated film Happily N'Ever After (2006), and although I didn't see the earlier film, I'm told Space Chimps represents something of an improvement. Regardless, everything here has a kind of mechanical sheen rather than organic textures, and it feels like something closer to Tron than a cartoon about monkeys. Then comes the story: Ham (voiced by Andy Samberg) is the grandson of a famous chimp astronaut, who actually went into space. The younger Ham works at the circus, getting himself shot out of cannons. In the film's opening scene, he rockets toward the moon and reaches out for it, disappointed when gravity's pull inevitably begins dragging him back toward Earth.

... But will she remain onboard long enough to actually start shooting? Since the film begins production on June 9, La Lohan only has four days to fudge it up. (I think I know who's getting an extra prayer at meal time tonight!) Yes, according to Variety, Lindsay Lohan will star in Labor Pains, rescuing the film from "limbo," along with Nu Image/Millennium Films Overnight Productions. Capitol Films were originally set to finance the flick, but they've had money issues as of late (remember the whole "Nailed situation?").

Starring alongside Chris Parnell, Cheryl Hines (who's doing a TON of film work these days), Luke Kirby and Connie Britton, Lohan will play a publishing house assistant who fakes a pregnancy so that her "nasty" boss won't fire her. Seems like an odd premise for a film -- kinda Devil Wears Prada with a twist of ... fake pregnancy? Producer Rick Schwartz gave this nugget of a quote: "I didn't know Lindsay before this, but we looked each other in the eye three months ago, and she has done everything I could have asked."

Note to everyone else in the world: Look Lindsay in the eye and she'll fulfill your every wish and command.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for the film Space Chimps (click to enlarge), fresh from one of the primates that brought you Shrek. Featuring a voice cast that includes Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Stanley Tucci and Patrick Warburton, Space Chimps follows Ham III (Samberg), the grandson of the first ever chimp in space, who's recruited by a scheming senator (Tucci) for a dangerous mission to help thwart a powerful tyrant (Daniels) from taking over an alien world. Of course, Ham III will have a little help from his friends along the way. You can scope out the first trailer for Space Chimps over on Moviefone, then buckle yourself in and prepare to go bananas for Space Chimps when it touches down in theaters on July 18.