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.

I've always been a sucker for killer croc movies. But, as Scott Weinberg so eloquently wrote in the recent past: "There's maybe one true 'classic' of the sub-genre (that'd be Lewis Teague's and John Sayles' Alligator, of course), and the rest of 'em are pretty much floating crap." Scott was ranting about the limited theatrical release by The Weinstein Co. (actually, their "dumping ground" subsidiary Third Rail Releasing) for Greg McLean's Rogue, which was limited to ten US cities.

So Scott (and most of you reading this) probably didn't get to see Rogue in a theater, but I did -- even if I had to drive 45 minutes to the only multiplex playing the dang thing. Me and the five (!) other people at that Friday night screening enjoyed a good old-fashioned suspense tale that played very well on the big screen. In a review I wrote for another site, I described it as "a taut and thrilling ride ... brimming with well-earned tension." Radha Mitchell stars as a tour boat captain on a river in the remote Northern Territory of Australia. She and a group of tourists end up being stalked by a killer croc "with an exaggerated sense of territorial possessiveness."

Rogue is out today in an unrated version on DVD. Dread Central got an advance peek and agrees with me that it's a good flick. The DVD includes an audio commentary by McLean, a 46-minute "making of" directed by McLean, and a gallery of mini-docs on the effects, the music, and the setting. Let's declare today "Killer Croc Day"!

Henry Poole Is Here Trailer


When Pearl Jam's video for "Jeremy" came out, I think I watched it a billion times -- one, because it was damn good, and two, because I was young enough to crush on the cute, doomed, floppy-haired star. Now Mark Pellington, who directed the video, is bringing us the Luke Wilson-starring Henry Poole is Here, and you can check out the trailer above.

Not surprisingly, there is great music, but I'm not so sure on this whole premise -- it's too "Jesus on toast" for me. Nevertheless, Wilson stars as Poole, a guy who finds out he has 6 months to live, retreats from his life, and sets on a course to die in suburbia with junk food and booze. But then his neighbor notices a heavenly face on his house's stucco. Miracles ensue, love with Radha Mitchell grows, and Henry finds a purpose in life.

Now the question becomes: Will Henry Poole find his own miracle, or will he end up like Jeremy?

The film hits theaters July 25.

Earlier this week, there was buzz that Radha Mitchell was joining the science fiction thriller, The Surrogates. Now The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed it, and reports two other actors added to the mix -- Ving Rhames and Rosamund Pike.

Based on the graphic novel by Robert Venditti, the film will focus on a cop (Bruce Willis) who lives in a future world. However, instead of getting a naked Milla and trying to save the world from one uglified Gary Oldman, he's in a world where people live out their lives through "perfect-looking" robotic versions of themselves. But then these robots or "surrogates" start getting axed, and the cop has to venture into the world, as himself, to find the killer. Mitchell is playing his cop partner, Rhames is playing "a charismatic cult figure who disdains the use of surrogates and tries to lead an uprising against the 'new world order,'" and Pike is playing Willis' wife.

According to Coming Soon, Radha Mitchell has joined the cast of Jonathan Mostow's sci-fi thriller, The Surrogates. The movie is based on the graphic novel from Robert Venditti and was adapted by the screenwriting duo of Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato. The bad news is that these guys have written some pretty crappy movies in the past. Hopefully, these two are better at adaptations than they are at original ideas.

In The Surrogates, Bruce Willis stars as a cop in a futuristic world where all human interaction is performed by look-alike robots called Surrogates. Not only do the robots do all the talking for us, but they're even better looking too (when it comes to Mitchell, though, the original is none too shabby ... so I can't imagine what they would do to make her even better looking). When someone begins murdering 'surrogates' right and left, Willis is forced to venture into the outside world for the first time to track down the killer.

This is a great week to catch up with a few indies that came and went quickly in theaters. Craig Zobel's Great World of Sound burst out of Sundance last year with positive notices -- check GreenCine Daily's roundup -- and our own James Rocchi named it one of the ten best of the year. The basic premise is that two music scouts go on the road in the American South to look for acts to sign. In James' original review, he described it as "funny and vital and tough." Magnolia's DVD includes an audio commentary and deleted scenes.

If Feast of Love had nothing else to recommend it, it would deserve recommendation as director Robert Benton's latest work. As Jeffrey M. Anderson commented, Benton's melodramas (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart, Nobody's Fool) "almost always hit home." Feast of Love "focuses on several couples in a Portland college community," he wrote. "These characters may live in a college town, but in love, everyone has something to learn." Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear and Radha Mitchell star. MGM's DVD looks bare, with just one feature evidently on board.

Director Allan Moyle returned to his roots (Pump Up the Volume, Empire Records) to make Weirdsville, in which stoners, Satanists and drug dealers commingle. In her TIFF review, Monika Bartyzel called it "fun, endearing, and quite fluid for a stoner comedy. It's also recognizably Canadian (the drug dealer is into curling), but still completely palpable for wider audiences." Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman star. Magnolia's DVD includes an audio commentary and 14 featurettes: behind the scenes, making of, and interviews.

When the production for The Code gets into swing this month in Bulgaria, there will be more than a Morgan Freeman thief-like mentor and a younger Antonio Banderas crook. Variety reports that Radha Mitchell has signed on to star with the duo in the upcoming caper drama, which will be brought to us by director Mimi Leder and screenwriter Ted Humphrey. Unfortunately, they're not saying what her role is. Will she play Banderas' wife? Someone in the Russian mob that Freeman's character owes? The person the duo will rob to get that money? Who knows.

Mitchell made a name for herself in films like Phone Booth and Finding Neverland before heading Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen's dual-story movie trek. Now she's got a handful of movies on the way that definitely hit some different themes. First up is a B movie named Rogue, which has her taking a cynical American writer on tour of the Outback when they get attacked by a crocodile and end up in some sort of horrific Gilligan's Island scenario. After that she goes back in time for The Children of Huang Shi, a period drama about journalist George Hogg who saved a group of orphaned kids, with help from a nurse and partisan fighter, during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937. Then things get lighter with Luke Wilson's Henry Poole is Here, and then darker again when she co-stars in The Seed -- about a "killer [who] returns from the past, forcing a young detective to return to a case that took her mother's life years before."

No director alive can make family melodramas as brilliantly as Douglas Sirk once did, but I'd suggest that Robert Benton comes the closest. Though filmmakers continue to grind out weepies by the truckload, it's extremely difficult to find that exact thread between heavy and hammy, perhaps even more difficult than making a funny comedy. Weepies generally tell depressing stories, about death, disease, failed romances, unrequited romances, estranged romances, etc. The trick is not to make the film itself depressing. Most directors make the mistake of shooting the material head-on, which has the effect of bludgeoning the audience rather than coaxing them in. Part of Sirk's genius was his timing; he made his best films in the 1950s when you couldn't show everything. He used his skills, his palate of colors, space and the elements, to suggest, rather than tell, his stories.

Admittedly, Benton isn't as visually astute as Sirk, but he's a good writer, good with words and characters. He has lots of different kinds of films on his resume -- he's often attracted to crime stories -- but his melodramas almost always hit home: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), for which he won a Best Director Oscar, Places in the Heart (1984), and Nobody's Fool (1994). Even his previous film, The Human Stain (2003), worked on a basic, emotional level, though critics generally dismissed it because of its failure to live up to Philip Roth's novel and its mismatched casting of Wentworth Miller as a young Anthony Hopkins. Benton's new movie has less of a pristine literary pedigree, and so perhaps it will go down easier.

I apparently like Luke Wilson more than Erik, who recently told us about the actor's role in Henry Poole is Here, but I have to agree that the Vacancy star is at his best when surrounded by a good ensemble. Well, some of the other cast members of Henry Poole have just been announced, and so far it looks like Wilson will be supported well. The first, Radha Mitchell, is actually signed on, while the second, Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza, is still in talks ("advanced" talks). Though neither actress is who I would initially have in mind for a comedy, even one actually described as a dramedy, they are each talented enough for me to have faith in their capability for humorous performances.

Not much is really known about the plot of Henry Poole, which was written by Albert Torres, but a good guess for Mitchell's role is the love interest for Wilson's character. This part could be the fiancee that he breaks up with when he discovers he has six weeks to die, or it could be a new romantic pursuit, possibly one of the neighbors who disrupt his plan to wallow in seclusion for the rest of his short life. Hopefully Barraza will not ruin her Oscar-nominated reputation by appearing as a Mexican stereotype. So far, Henry Poole, which director Mark Pellington says is about a hopeless man who finds hope, makes me think of Joe Vesus the Volcano meets The 'burbs. As great as that combo sounds, though, Wilson is not quite the next Tom Hanks (even if you think Old School is Wilson's Bachelor Party and My Super Ex-Girlfriend is his Splash). Not even I like Wilson enough to give him that much credit.

Without going into too many embarrassing details about my misspent youth in eyeliner, let's just say I am pretty familiar with the 'Gothic lifestyle.' As a result, I've spent way too much time watching vampire movies, and now it looks like there's another one to watch. Fangoria is reporting that sources have confirmed that a film based on the life of Elizabeth "Blood Countess" Báthory is finally set for production. The story of the 15th century Hungarian countess who supposedly bathed in the blood of virgins to stay eternally young has been the source of plenty of vampire stories but there has never been much attention paid to the slightly less glamorous -- but no less gruesome historical story. Bathory was believed to have tortured and murdered over 600 young girls over the course of her life and was never brought to trial for any of her crimes.

It was almost two years ago when rumblings first surfaced about a Bathory film to be directed by Julie Delpy, who will also star, but there hasn't much solid detail about the project until now. According to Fangoria, the cast now falling into place would also include Ethan Hawke (I'll avoid the obvious Before Sunrise vampire joke), and Vincent Gallo. Supposedly, the film is set to start shooting this summer in Eastern Europe. If this project moves beyond gossip and into the production stage, it won't be the first Bathory film to hit screens this year. Juraj Jakubisko will be directing a "feminist" telling of the story. If Delpy's project continues inching forward at the same pace its been moving over the last two years, Jakubisko's film might be the only one we get.