Release Date: July 25, 2006

I can almost hear the inner monologue in Rob Corddry’s brain while preparing for this project; “Steve Carell was successful in a leading role. Jon Stewart has made some decent movies. Why can’t I do the same?” The only thing Corddry didn’t consider was the fact that he is not Steve Carell, nor is he Jon Stewart. But while he is not either one of those two gentlemen, he is the most recent member of The Daily Show’s cast to run off and make a movie, curtailing off of the immense success of the Comedy Central fake news show. Corddry’s project, a film called Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story.

In the afore mentioned blunder, I mean film, Corddry plays Bobby Dukes, a paintball player who was banned from the game for ten years because he cheated during a championship match. Exposed as a cheater, Dukes disappeared and went off to travel the world and find himself once again. Now after 10 years away from the game he loved so much, Dukes has returned to put together a team of misfits and take back the glory that was once lost. In a mock-umentary style, Corddry and filmmaker Brant Sersen take us deep into the competitive and frighteningly Deliverance-ish world of paintball in America to show us a tale of inner strength and redemption.

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Release Date: July 28, 2006

If Michael Mann has shown over the years that he has a lot of any one thing as a filmmaker, it has been that he has style; lots of style. His films are distinctive in the fact that they are so flashy. The gorgeous women, the fast cars, the pastel colors and flowing locks of hair that usually resonate from around the head of one of the films lead characters. All of this gets wrapped up into what we have come to know as a true Michael Mann film. Heat is the most notable and most stylish of Mann’s previous works, bringing us one of the best urban crime dramas of all time. With that same style in mind, Mann set out this year to bring back one of his most memorable (and pastel filled) works of television, Miami Vice, and bring it to the big screen.

To bring back such a moniker of pop culture could easily viewed as a risk for Mann, as the generation that originally followed Vice has moved on and crossed over into their old and cranky years (late 40s). This new Vice would have to be riddled with a different kind of flair, something that only a director like Mann can produce. So Mann set forth to give the story of Crockett and Tubbs a much needed upgrade, casting actors Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx to play the lead roles. In this go-round of Vice, the two undercover cops are deep into a large Columbian drug lord’s business trying to get to the bottom of an FBI operation gone terribly wrong. And you can only guess what happens as the heat turns up; beautiful women are involved (naturally), the two men are caught way in too deep (of course), and there is plenty of wavy locks of blonde hair flowing from Colin Farrell’s head during some of the most intense gun-fighting that we have seen since… well, Heat.

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Release Date: July 21, 2006

Writer/Director M. Night Shyamalan has made a pretty successful career out of making movies that are not always what they seem at first. He shocked his viewers with startling revelations at the end of each of his most successful films; The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village all had largely unexpected endings, which is one reason why he has gathered such a following. In short, these films were successful because we were always taken aback by some masterful plot twist that closed the film. Shyamalan’s latest film The Lady in the Water seems to be something similar. It seems to be a film with the potential to be another great addition to the M. Night Shyamalan portfolio. Unfortunately, just like his prior films, this one may not be exactly what it seems.

The reason that Lady in the Water seems to have such potential is that it fits into the classic Shyamalan mold; you take a few solid actors (in this case Paul Giamatti and Brice Dallas Howard), add them to a unique and interesting story, throw in some fresh cinematography and a eerie soundtrack and you have an instant hit, right? That is how it has worked in the past, and that is why this one is so difficult to take; because for all it has going for it, it just doesn’t pan out the way we think it will.

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Release Date: July 11th, 2006

Over the past few decades the money hungry mega studios of Hollywood have been thrusting feature after feature into our paths, all of which are made – as it seems – for the sole purpose of selling tickets and popcorn. Since the 1970s, which included releases like Jaws and Star Wars, we have become accustomed to what most critics call “The Event Film;” your standard holiday weekend release blockbuster. And for most Americans, these movies are what they associate with when they think about “good” movies. But most critics would disagree, saying that these films have become distended from the art form that was once looked at as bringing a compelling story to life on screen. And whether you agree that these event films can be considered art or not, the fact still remains that most American’s can be shrouded from seeing truly well made and moving films, or as I call them – modern works of art.

When I refer to a film as a work of art, I am talking about a film that is made to touch its audience with a great message, or display fantastic performances, or inspire us to think about our lives a little bit more. It is made for more than just money, but to impact people’s lives. The unfortunate part is that many of these films do not catch the mainstream popularity, and they are sentenced to finding their audience via a DVD release.
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Release Date: June 30th, 2006

niche: n. A special area of demand for a product or service.

I site the definition for the word niche because of the fact that it will be a very pivotal word in the description of the 20th Century Fox Release The Devil Wears Prada, and I will be using it often in this particular review. But before I go and slenderize this film by calling it a niche film, I must first elaborate on what I am talking about when I combine the words niche and film. When speaking of a niche film, I am referring to films that serve a very specific segment of society, and to illustrate this I will take two very successful 2006 releases and show the difference. Sometimes these segments of society can be very large slices of the populous, as is the case with films like Superman Returns, where the mass appeal was limited but success was built on a large and loyal fan base. Then you get a film such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, where a mass appeal spawned a very large turnout in theaters. And I while I do understand that not everyone who saw Superman Returns was a huge comic book nerd, the fact that it did not do as well as predicted only illustrates my point further.

The Devil Wears Prada is in it’s essence a niche film. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, a young plain Jane type from the Midwest who has traveled to New York and lucked into a job at the world renowned Runway Magazine. There she is tossed, almost against her will, into a world of fashion, backstabbing, and unfavorably high standards; all being orchestrated by the devil incarnate, Editor Miranda Priestly, played by the incomparable Meryl Streep. While Andy has very little interest in fashion and even less of a taste for doing the bidding of Miranda Priestly, she knows that success in such a job would undoubtedly allow for plenty of opportunities in the world of New York journalism. She sets forth to take on the task of working the job “that millions of girls would kill for” and finds out that in order to win the game at the top of the fashion world, she must make some changes to her own life. And making such changes could put some of her closest personal relationships at risk.

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Release Date: July 7, 2007

I often wonder to myself, “Why do people go to the movies? What really brings us back time and time again?” Over the years I have found myself drawn to three different reasons. Some people look to movies to provide some kind of insight, or to provoke deep thoughts. Others enjoy movies as an emotional experience; something that brings out emotions that would otherwise lay hidden beneath the monotony of daily life. But still, I believe that most people go to the movies just to get away from the real world for a while. We want to be able to get lost in a fantastic alternate reality and believe that the characters on screen are more than just figments of someone’s imagination. In fact, we go to the movies to experience films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Allow me to elaborate…

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Release Date: July 7, 2006 (limited)

You have to take it all in context; the seemingly philosophical rants, the overly drawn sense of paranoia, even the hallucinogenic environment. Such a euphoric state is usually the result of large doses of some mind altering substance formally known as a narcotic. While in such a state we are easily swept into an alternate version of our own reality, and it allows for us the opportunity to do things that we would not normally imagine ourselves doing. A similar euphoric state is created during the viewing of Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, which coincidentally is an intended effect.

Right off the bat we are hurled into a unique world of the future, where the nation’s drug problem is more than just a problem, it has become a plague. We are focused in on Orange County, where an undercover detective (Keanu Reeves) has assimilated himself into a small group of what he hopes to be people of importance in the dealing of a drug named Substance D. This group is made up of the philosophical and melodramatic Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), the spacey Ernie (Woody Harrelson), the completely over the edge druggy Freck (Rory Cochrane) and his lovely but frigid girlfriend Donna (Winona Ryder), all of whom seem to be mysteriously involved in something potentially big. As he follows his orders and dives deeper into the dark and unforgiving world of drugs he realizes that he is beginning to change along with those around him, and he must find a way to break through his own addictions and find his way to the root of the Substance D network.
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