ethan embry Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I have to be honest with you: probably the only reason I will watch the upcoming thriller Eagle Eye can be summed up in one word (well, possibly two): LaBeouf. Moviehole reports that the D.J. Caruso film currently filming in Chicago has added Ethan Embry to their growing cast. Eagle Eye was based off an idea by Steven Spielberg about "a young slacker whose overachieving twin brother has died mysteriously. When the young man returns home, both he and a single mother find they have been framed as terrorists. Forced to become members of a cell that has plans to carry out a political assassination, they must work together to extricate themselves". Spielberg had originally intended to helm the project but instead he headed off to work on Indiana Jones 4. Instead, the film has become a 'Disturbia reunion' with both director and lead together again.

If you watched a lot of teen flicks in the '90s, chances are Embry is a familiar face. Some of his credits include Can't Hardly Wait, Final Destination, Empire Records, and Disturbing Behavior. Now that he's all grown up, he has started to take on slightly "grittier" parts, most recently starring in Vacancy alongside Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson. In Eagle Eye, he will play agent Toby Grant, a government agent who is partnered with Rosario Dawson. The cast also includes Billy Bob Thornton, Michelle Monaghan (MI3), as a single mother on the run, and Madelyn Sweeten (who TV trivia buffs might recognize as Allie from Everybody Loves Raymond). Eagle Eye is set for release on August 8th, 2008.

You guys are growing up so fast, I hardly recognize you anymore!

-- Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase)

Before the Griswolds head out on yet another vacation, Clark speaks these words to his children, a sly (for this movie, anyway) jab at the fact that the Griswold kids have been played by four different sets of actors in four different films. He might as well have been speaking for the series itself. Watching this movie again for the first time since its theatrical release, I hardly recognize Vegas Vacation as a Vacation film. If European Vacation was a disappointment, Vegas Vacation is a crying shame -- a sad, laughless cash-in devoid of wit, charm, and signs that anyone is doing anything more than grabbing a paycheck. It's the kind of bad that casts a negative light on the good Vacation films that came before. In short, it sucks.

I still remember the day I went to see Vegas Vacation. At this time I had seen the trilogy (particularly the first and third entries) countless times, but Vegas would be the first I saw in a theater. I am not ashamed to say I was excited. Within about five minutes, I was slumped in my seat and was checking my watch. Why do the makers of movie franchises do this? If you've got a beloved property on your hands, why not put a little care into making each installment work? Just a little! It's not like they didn't have time; Vegas Vacation was released eight years after Christmas. Why sign off on such a lazy, unfunny script?

The first part of the Player 5150 recipe was two actors who made names for themselves among the teen demographic in the 90's, as Jessica Barnes recently reported. One was Ethan Embry, who went from the goofy, stoned Mark in Empire Records to becoming the poetic heartthrob Presten Meyers in Can't Hardly Wait, the film with all the Buffy actors and soon-to-be Six Feet Under stars. The other was Kathleen Robertson, who followed a stint on 90210 with a tri-relationship and time as an acerbic paralyzed girl.

Now added to the mix is Kelly Carlson. This isn't the girl who won big on American Idol (that was Kelly Clarkson). This is Kimber Henry, Dr. Troy's former-model, porn star and drug addict girlfriend who has found God on Nip/Tuck. She will star as the femme fatale assistant-with-benefits of a bookie played by Christopher McDonald, who you most likely remember as Happy Gilmore's nemesis, Shooter McGavin. Apparently, the title refers to a code used for "illegal gamblers who are in distress." I assume that 5150 is used as the code for Embry, the trader who gets in over his head with high-stakes gambling.

It is Carlson's job to collect the debt. However, The Hollywood Reporter reports that the bookie also wants to keep her from the violence of the business before discovering that she's good at it. I'm not quite sure how that goes together, but maybe he finds out she can hold her own before he sends her out there. Otherwise, it seems a bit contradictory.

Fresh off a pretty respectable performance in Hollywoodland, Kathleen Robertson has signed to star in the indie-thriller Player 5150. Robertson has climbed her way up from being a bad girl on Beverley Hills, 90210, through some regrettable film choices, but has managed to make successively better films each time out. Robertson also produces and stars in The Business for IFC, so there's no denying that she has come a long way from when I first saw her tempting Brandon Walsh, college man -- yeah, I watched way too much 90210 back then.

Variety announced that Robertson had signed on to the David Michael O'Neill film currently shooting in Los Angeles. The film follows a day trader and his fiancée who get caught up in high stakes gambling. The film also star's Ethan Embry -- who you might recognize from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, or maybe from reports of the actor being robbed at gunpoint and even waving around a gun of his own. Who knows? The news of the actor firing a gun at muggers might even give the movie a little boost of press. There is no word of release date but one of the many blessings of independent productions is that they tend to run a pretty tight ship, so we probably won't have to wait long to find out.

[via Empire Online]