MAIN PICKS AND MISSES

Sex and the City (Pick)
Leatherheads (Miss)
Run Fat Boy Run (Miss)
Deception (Miss)
Pathology (Miss)

INDIES ON DVD
Foot Fist Way, Mother of Tears

BLU-RAY
Sex and the City, Leatherheads, Deception, The Godfather, LA Confidential, Blow, Madagascar, Shrek the Third

COLLECTOR'S CORNER
The Godfather collection, High School Musical 2: Collector's Edition, LA Confidential Special Edition

In a development noted on several horror sites, not the least of which are Shock and BD.com, it appears that Lionsgate is indeed opening the oft-shuffled adaptation of Clive Barker's The Midnight Meat Train on roughly 100 screens this Friday. However, all currently-posted showtimes are at second-run theaters -- otherwise known as dollar theaters, although it never seems to be that cheap anymore, not even on Tuesdays.

In my neck of the woods, one theater has it booked for two evening shows a day, for an engagement that I'm willing to bet will last only one week. The last time I remember a first-run film being shown at this theater, it was the Weinsteins' Feast, although that usually neglectful studio did so as part of a clear strategy to boost general awareness of that movie before its DVD release a month later (and wouldn't you know it, that wasn't a bad flick at all).

Despite all the fuss between Barker and the studio and the frequent release date changes, Scott saw it at Comic-Con and really dug it, and he doesn't seem to be alone among the genre gurus, which leads one to wonder just why Lionsgate would go to such curious lengths to so poorly fulfill a contractual obligation when it seems that fans might, y'know, actually turn out and pay full price to get the grisly goods. (On the flip side, at least it'll hit more cities than Pathology or Rogue did when they were similarly dumped.)

What do you guys think? Are you still interested in catching the film, and if so, do you find yourself inconvenienced by this odd distribution tactic?

Yesterday, Scott posted a terrific month-by-month report card looking back the 2008 movie scene from the halfway point. With the interval between theatrical and DVD release dates shrinking steadily, a lot of the movies from January through June are either already available on DVD, or soon will be. For your consideration, here are what I consider to be seven underseen, underexposed, and/or unfairly overlooked gems from the year to date. Something to consider next time you log on to Netflix.

In no particular order:

1. Charlie Bartlett - I'll clamber out on a limb and call Charlie Bartlett the most valuable movie for young teenagers this decade (despite its R rating). Most films for kids and teens unthinkingly implore them not to worry about being popular -- do your own thing! Don't worry about what your peers think of you! Good advice in the abstract, maybe, but completely detached from reality for most school-age kids, who have to, you know, go to school, and eat in the cafeteria. Charlie Bartlett is smart enough to realize this. Rather than imploring kids to "be themselves," it wants to say something about what the ones who are actually popular should do with their popularity. For once, it's a movie with a message aimed not at the misfits but at the leaders: the kids who are smart, charismatic and capable; the schoolyard trendsetters and tastemakers. It powerfully suggests the importance of using that influence for good instead of evil. Oh, and it's bright, sincere, and very funny, with a downright miraculous performance by Anton Yelchin.

In an age ruled by wussy PG-13 horror and sterilized action, the world cried out for a hero. And behold, for it has found one; actually, it has found two. Their names are Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor -- usually credited as just "Neveldine/Taylor" -- and they have come to rescue us from the gutless, joyless, cynical genre films that seem to top the box-office more and more often with each passing year.

So far, Neveldine/Taylor have but two credits to their name: the deranged Jason Statham actioner Crank, and the screenplay for last weekend's twisted, frightening "medical" thriller Pathology. (Here I must respectfully dissent from my co-blogger Jeffrey M. Anderson's thoughtful negative review of the latter.) They've developed a clear m.o. -- gruesome, over-the-top violence, unhinged sexuality, frenetic plotting, a conscious disregard for plausibility -- and a certain contingent of filmgoers are eating it up with a spoon. I don't blame them: movies that don't pull their punches are pretty rare, and it's easy to love these two simply for having the fortitude to go balls-to-the-wall.

Yet another movie withheld from press screenings, Pathology isn't exactly a horror movie, though it does contain a good amount of gore. It inspired me to coin a new subgenre: "secret underground club of life and death" movies. In these films, two or more young people get together and use logic and intellect to cut through the dreary, soul-deadening reality of life and get closer to something more metaphysical, usually involving death or sex or both. Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) is an early example, in which two students kill a man for sport, and then throw a dinner party with the corpse hidden in the very center of the room, just to see what it would be like. Other examples might include Flatliners (1990), Crash (1996) and Fight Club (1999). (Am I forgetting any?) Unfortunately, in conjuring up these other examples, Pathology quickly collapsed in comparison.

On the surface, Pathology sounds like it could be an ABC Movie of the Week: A group of medical students challenge each other to commit a murder that the others cannot detect once the victim is on the autopsy table. OK, a nifty enough premise, but here's what tells me Pathology won't be your typical medical thriller: It was written by the lunatics who gave you Crank -- plus the flick has been rated R for, and I quote, "disturbing and perverse behavior throughout, including violence, gruesome images, strong sexual content, nudity, drug use and language." Zow! I bet the MPAA had a ball with this flick!

Directed by German first-timer Marc Schoelermann, Pathology arrives via MGM on April 18. (Fair warning, horror freaks: It looks to be a limited release affair.) And if you'd like to check out A) the old trailer just for a reminder, and B) a new teaser trailer that's so ... weird ... I just had to watch it twice to figure out the perspective, click right here. I could embed the teaser here, but I don't want any complaints about the clip's F-bomb, so instead I'll point you towards our friends at The Movie Blog, who've seen a nice hunk of footage from the flick and seem pretty psyched about it!

Plus hey, the flick stars Milo Ventimiglia and Alyssa Milano, so there's some eye candy for both genders.

CHUD is reporting that Michael C. Hall (star of Six Feet Under and Dexter) has signed to play the bad guy in the techno-thriller, Game, for Crank creators Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. The film is "set in a dystopian future of implanted nano-devices, where the ultimate online simulation environment is humans remote-controlling other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming. The lead character, played by Butler, is a worldwide sensation, and the top-ranked warrior in a game called "Slayers." With his every move tracked by millions, he battles to regain his identity and bring down the entire system". Hall will play the game's creator and head honcho and is described as the "guy pulling the strings". Now it could just be me, but that sounds like one heck of a cheesy premise -- yet the addition of Butler and Hall could maybe help raise the quality of the material, if only slightly.

Neveldine and Taylor are also behind the upcoming thriller Pathology starring Milo Ventimiglia from NBC's Heroes, headed for theaters on November 30th. Plus, there is still the promise of a sequel to Crank -- although it seems there has been more talk than actual progress on that particular project. Butler had signed on for the film back in May, and he is currently working on Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla and the fantasy film, Nim's Island -- followed by a role in the Untouchables prequel, Capone Rising, so there is no shortage of work coming his way. Hall is still hard at work on Showtime's Dexter, but I would guess he has plenty of time since that's what a season hiatus is for. Game will be produced by Lakeshore and is tentatively scheduled to begin shooting this January.

Slight morsels for you:

• So we've been filling you in on the upcoming Terminator 4 sequel, which last had rumors of an Arnie return. Now the folks at JoBlo say that Nick Stahl is considering a return in the role that Edward Furlong made famous. (He is part of the "option package" for upcoming sequels.) I'd be surprised if he didn't. We've been robbed of Carnivale, and he's already wrapped up the other films on his docket -- Quid Pro Quo, Ferris Wheel and The Speed of Thought.
• I've finally got some more news for you on Zach Braff's upcoming flick, Andrew Henry's Meadow. In March, there were rumblings that he would be penning an adaptation with his brother, Adam, and Barry Sonnenfeld was in talks to direct it. In an interview with VH1, he's now saying that Cory Edwards will be directing the film, which Braff describes as "if Terry Gilliam had directed The Goonies." It will be his first live-action movie, so I'm curious to see how he deals with the outcast kids who team up to save their parents, like Erik described here.
• Finally, there's more cast to add to the upcoming thriller that Jessica Barnes told us about last month, Pathology, which stars super-absorby hero Milo Ventimiglia. He, Alyssa Milano and Lauren Lee Smith will be joined by Keir O'Donnell, who was one of the Clearys in Wedding Crashers, Michael Weston whose last feature role was the dysfunctional dumpee in The Last Kiss and Mei Melancon, who was Psylocke in X-Men: The Last Stand. The film will get shopped at Cannes, and I'm sure someone will pick it up. What studio can refuse a bunch of young actors starring as medical students who make a game to see who can commit the perfect murder?

Even though it looks like feelings were pretty mixed when it came to the action flick Crank, it seems that there were enough fans out there interested in a sequel about our adrenaline-challenged friend. Movie Blog spoke with Crank's writer/directors Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine about the possibility of a sequel while they were doing an interview for Movie Blog's Uncut about their upcoming thriller Pathology. When the topic strayed to Crank, Taylor had this to say: "There will be a sequel to Crank yes. Prepare to Crank again. And you know the 'is it a sequel or prequel' question... IT'S A SEQUEL. We're not selling out and going prequel. We are picking up where the last movie left off." This makes you wonder exactly how they are going to pull that one off, considering how the first film ended.

Since this was just a small aside in a larger interview, there are not many details about the proposed movie, namely if Jason Statham would be returning. Statham is signed on for not one, but two heist movies in the next year, including the sequel to The Italian Job -- The Brazilian Job, and a true-life heist movie titled The Bank Job about one of Britain's great unsolved crimes. Since Taylor and Neveldine are going to be busy for the foreseeable future with Pathology, it might be a while before they can get around to figuring out how to bring their hero back from the dead.

For fans of the TV show Heroes currently suffering from withdrawal until it's return on April 23rd, they can at least content themselves with some casting news for one of the stars. Variety reports that Milo Ventimiglia, has signed to star in the thriller Pathology for Lakeshore and MGM. The story centers on a group of medical students who devise a competition to see who can commit a crime that even their fellow pathologists could not figure out. First-time feature director Mark Scholermann will helm the picture, and the cast includes Lauren Lee Smith; fresh off the horror flick Trick 'r Treat (produced by Bryan Singer), and Alyssa Milano.

For the few, and I mean very few people who are not watching Heroes, Ventimiglia plays Peter Petrelli, the younger brother in a family with "superpowers." He had some big-screen experience last year, playing the son of Rocky in Rocky Balboa, but he is probably most recognizable as the "Rogue-esque" superhero on the NBC hit. Pathology is set to start production this May and is aiming for a fall release, just in time to cash in on some season premier buzz -- although after the last episode, I'm curious to see if he even makes it to next season.