Severance

(2006, 95 min) A collection of office stereotypes from multinational munitions company Palisade Defence is on a team-building weekend in Eastern Europe. Their tour bus meets a fallen tree, blocking their progress. The driver, a local, refuses to take an alternate road leading to the same destination. So you know that the tree is no accident and bad things will happen if they take that path. But apparently none of these guys has ever seen a cheesy comedy horror slasher flick before. (Cheesy in a good way.)

They trudge through the Hungarian forest, viewing the circumstances through their own personal filters (middle-management claptrap, toadyism, drug haze, social ineptitude, nascent insanity, corporate conformity and — rarest of the rare — basic common sense). They find a building that they take as the company lodge, but uncover files that evidence its earlier uses: insane asylum, prison, Nazi torture chamber. Their internecine bickering turns to uneasy awareness of the forces around them, as they uncover some buried history about Palisade itself.

Unsurprisingly, these purveyors of sophisticated weapons of mass destruction find themselves on the receiving end of some rudimentary weapons of individual destruction. Methods of execution are varied and inventive, and there’s no shortage of blood. It’s totally derivative and hackneyed, but grudgingly redeemed by some pretty good performances, some clever ideas, some snappy editing and a total lack of pretension. If you can take the gore, Severance can be a guilty pleasure.

But I have to ask: It was a team-building weekend, right? Why didn’t they just join together and move the damned tree?

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

Box Office Predictions 6/8/07 - 6/10/07

David Gorgos: No matter how good a film is, the general public is going to prejudge it based on what came before. Mission: Impossible III, a terrific and well-reviewed action pic, was a disappointment at the box office because 1) Mission: Impossible II sucked, big time and 2) Tom Cruise went batshit crazy. This is a long-winded way of saying that while the cast of Ocean's Thirteen is still beloved, and early reviews are positive, Ocean's Twelve left a bad taste in the public's mouth. Expect a slight drop-off from Twelve's numbers, especially given the stiff competition. Kids love penguins, but animation releases have been fairly unpredictable this past year. Also with good advanced buzz, Surf's Up could either tank or be a smash. Since I'm a wimp, I'm hedging my bet somewhere in the middle with $7000 per screen. The first Hostel was a hit given its rough January release date; with no horror competition, the sequel should open a bit better despite all the blockbusters competing for space. And even against these strong openers, I expect Knocked Up to have a relatively small drop-off in its second week, a real test in its quest to surpass the huge total of The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

David Bleiler: George Clooney asked in the first Ocean’s Eleven, “You in or you out?” Expect a lot of “in” this weekend as the second sequel, Ocean's Thirteen, is back in Vegas and back in form. At over 3,400 theaters, this will see the #1 spot probably in the low $40 million range – great word-of-mouth could push it higher. The animated comedy Surf’s Up, with more cute, smart-alecky penguins, should do better than Barnyard but not as strong as either Happy Feet or Ice Age. Look for this in the low $20 millions. Of the holdovers, look for Knocked Up to have the best legs. On Monday, it actually beat Pirates for the top spot, suggesting its weekend drop will be small (25%-35%). Don’t look for horror flick du jour, Hostel 2, to surpass the original’s $19.5 million income unless bored teens tire of con men, pirates and one-night stands.

Our Predictions

Film	Gorgos	Bleiler
Ocean's Thirteen	$34.5 million	$42.5 million
Knocked Up	$22.1 million	$21.5 million
Surf's Up	$21.3 million	$22.3 million
Pirates of the Caribbean 3	$19.0 million	$20.0 million
Hostel Part II	$19.8 million	$15.0 million
Shrek the Third	$14.0 million	$15.4 million
Mr. Brooks	$5.2 million	$5.9 million
Spider-Man 3	$3.8 million	$3.8 million
Waitress	$1.4 million	$1.5 million
Gracie	$0.7 million	$0.9 million

Theater counts obtained at www.boxofficemojo.com

Content © TLA Entertainment Group

Ocean's Thirteen

(2007, 122 min) “You think we need one more?” Danny Ocean (George Clooney) asked Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) in Ocean’s 11, referring to the number of associates in their planned heist of three casinos. They could have easily been talking about the now-profitable film series itself, for after their convoluted exercise in grifting in Ocean’s Twelve, Danny, Rusty and the rest of the gang are all back in form and where they belong – Las Vegas – in Ocean’s Thirteen, an entertaining bit of whimsy, larceny and sleight of hand that won’t knock you out like the first film did, but will definitely keep you smiling. Good to have you back, boys.

The time is the present, and adding to the ever-changing Las Vegas skyline is casino mogul Willy Bank (Al Pacino), who with his new garish uber-casino has just scammed Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) both out of his land and a partnership in the casino that would have been worth millions. When Reuben suffers a near-fatal heart attack, Danny gets the crew together for a little revenge, Ocean style.

Danny first offers Bank a “Billy Martin,” a second chance (don’t worry, the jargon and expressions that kept you scratching your head in the first two films are here as well – and they’re still fun to try to figure out). Bank declines, of course, in such a stylishly nasty way as to make him an even more hissable villain than Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) was in the first film.

This sets the stage for the sting, including the now-familiar planning-of-the-plan, the preparation and the eventual execution of the con, which includes no less than guaranteeing that the new casino will hand out $500 million in winnings on its opening night, hitting Bank where it hurts the most – the bottom line.

Standing in their way is a new super-computer that is impregnable. It has the ability to monitor every single customer in the casino and gauge whether they are cheating or not. Hey, it’s the 21st century. Thrown into this mix are a funny running gag about an investigator for a prestigious hotel award suffering all sorts of indignities, and a subplot about a plan to steal diamonds, which involves a fake nose, a helicopter and seducing a “cougar” (in this instance, the ravishing Ellen Barkin).

Director Steven Soderbergh keeps the action sailing at a nice pace, and once again gives his ensemble lots of breathing room. Sure these guys can do this in their sleep, now, but no one is sleepwalking through this – the rapport is still fresh and the banter still amusing. Some of it we’ve seen before, but the plot twists are still unpredictable and the con still draws you in. The Vegas locations only add to the fun of it all, though Bank’s casino, unlike Terry Benedict’s which was actually filmed at the Bellagio, is a studio set.

All this unfolds under the neon-drenched glow of the new Vegas, but the ghost of old Vegas haunts quite a few scenes, including a surprisingly moving exchange between Danny and Rusty reminiscing about the old days. Back in the day, when a player shook the hand of Frank Sinatra, they were expected to adhere to a code. Both Willy and Reuben shook Sinatra’s hand; that Banks willingly violates that code makes his comeuppance all the more enjoyable. That Ocean’s Thirteen still adheres to its own code makes this third trek worth visiting yet again such an engaging group of old friends.

– David Bleiler

© TLA Entertainment Group

Pirates Fall Fast but Stay Afloat at #1

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 dropped a very big 61.5% from last weekend, bringing in $44.2 million, enough to stay #1 at the box office. David Gorgos came very close to predicting this fall ($45.6), while David Bleiler underestimated the drop ($55.7). Overall, the Two Daves each scored about 80% accuracy (quite respectable) with predictions for the weekend. What killed both of us was the debut for Gracie, which we estimated in the $2.8-$3 million range – it brought in a ghastly $1.4. Meanwhile, Dave B. correctly gauged the buzz around Knocked Up. Next week sees the debuts of the Clooney-Pitt action comedy Ocean’s 13 and the kiddie flick Surf’s Up.

The actual grosses for weekend June 1 thru June 3:

Rank	Film	Total
1	Pirates of the Caribbean	$44.2 million
2	Knocked Up	$30.7 million
3	Shrek the Third	$28.0 million
4	Mr. Brooks	$10.0 million
5	Spider-Man 3	$7.6 million
6	Waitress	$2.0 million
7	Gracie	$1.4 million
8	Bug	$1.3 million
9	28 Weeks Later	$1.2 million
10	Disturbia	$1.1 million

© TLA Entertainment Group

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

(2007, 168 min) After two box-office triumphs, Johnny Depp is back as Captain Jack Sparrow in the third (and last?) of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, setting sail once more – even a little thing like his death in the second film not stopping him. With this third film, Depp brings back his on-target, bravura portrayal of the fey-ish, not-so-cutthroat captain, and director Gore Verbinksi provides more amazing set pieces, effects and atmosphere that distinguished his first two films. So maybe that’s some of the problem with this admittedly enjoyable, overlong film: it’s just so much more of the same.

Filmed at the same time as the second Pirates film, the continuity is flawless – no one from actors to director to technicians have missed a beat. (It’s all up there on the screen: state-of-the-art special effects, jaw-dropping art design and costumes, another terrific score, great interplay between the cast.) No one, that is, except the writers, who have concocted such a convoluted good time that in addition to the pirates the audience needs a map just to keep track of what’s happening on screen.

The story begins with on-again, off-again couple Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) teaming up with resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in Singapore. In between fights with the locals and soldiers under the command of the villainous Lord Beckett of the East India Trading Co., they attempt to travel to the other world, Davy Jones Locker, to rescue Sparrow from the dead and return him to the land of the living so he can occupy the last seat of the pirate equivalent to the round table.

This chapter of the film is the most inventive, with the crew falling over a waterfall into the land of the dead and finding a nearly half-mad Sparrow (though how could you really tell?) hallucinating Captain Jack Sparrows everywhere (in a blatant rip-off of Depp’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s great Oompa-Loompas). Then they must figure out how to return from the underworld, which is one of the film’s best scenes. (The best scene in the film, which has to do with Lord Beckett and a slow-motion stroll across his ship, is miraculous in both its cinematic invention and execution.)

Their return to the land of the living, however, is beset with double-crosses that are impossible to keep track of, battles at sea which are difficult to determine who’s done what to whom, and prolonged scenes of Will and Elizabeth sparring – get it over with already.

But the film undeniably comes alive whenever Depp is on screen. Though the writers haven’t given him quite the sharp tongue and hilarious one-liners that were on display in the first (and let’s call it, the best) film, the actor never ceases to amaze as he relishes in his dainty debauchery of dastardly delights, creating after three films one of the most endearing screen characters in years.

It’s akin to the old saying that you’d pay to watch your favorite star read a phone book. Well, P.O.T.C.: At World’s End is almost like that. It seems to go on forever (168 minutes… what were they thinking?), it all becomes repetitive after awhile, but, oh, how it’s read.

– David Bleiler

© TLA Entertainment Group

Box Office Predictions 6/1/07 - 6/3/07

Here's a dirty little secret: While we work in the world of DVD and are pretty damn good about figuring out what a film's potential is on the home video market, we are simply atrocious at predicting the box office numbers. The Two Daves (as we're called at TLA) have been participating in the Box Office Derby at Boxofficemojo.com for a while, and we're lucky if we crack the top 100. And we're looking to change all that.

By sharing our thoughts with you, we are holding ourselves up to public ridicule and embarassment if we don't deliver. So we're going deep into the thought tank and pulling out our best guesses for the weekend. And feel free to share your picks with us as well. We want to become better at this. Really we do.

David Gorgos ("Godard" on the derby): Knocked Up is a terrific movie, preview audiences are loving it, and it's being labeled the "sleeper hit" of the year. Before you go investing all your Hollywood Stock Exchange dollars in it, keep in mind that a true sleeper is one that starts out slow but does steady and strong business in the weeks ahead. And without any big stars, that should be exactly the case here. With 2873 screens, I'm still predicting a strong opening of $23.3 million ($8100 per screen), which would be ahead of the opening of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. With Kevin Costner losing his starpower, Mr. Brooks should do similar numbers to Fracture, bringing in about $4500 per screen for $11 million. And I don't see any buzz for Gracie, which should do about $2900 per screen for $2.8 million. All the big movies from last weekend should see fairly strong drops of 50-60%, except for Waitress, which continues to add screens.

David Bleiler ("Dave B." on the derby): Even with an expected 50% drop from last weekend’s record (three-day) holiday opening, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 should remain at the top spot at the box office this weekend with well over $50 million. Of the new releases, Knocked Up, the newest comedy from The 40-Year-Old Virgin director Judd Apatow, should be the highest grosser as pre-opening buzz is already calling this the comedy of the summer. Kevin Costner and Demi Moore, who each haven’t had a big hit in quite a while, team for the serial killer thriller Mr. Brooks, and its opening should be comparable to other recent openings by the two stars. This season’s little film that could, Waitress, should see a small drop off from its impressive art-house run.

Our Predictions

Film	Gorgos	Bleiler
Pirates of the Caribbean	$45.6 million	$55.7 million
Knocked Up	$23.3 million	$31.5 million
Shrek the Third	$26.5 million	$26.6 million
Mr. Brooks	$11.0 million	$12.0 million
Spider-Man 3	$6.5 million	$7.3 million
Gracie	$2.8 million	$3.0 million
Waitress	$2.5 million	$2.2 million
Bug	$1.5 million	$1.5 million
28 Weeks Later	$1.1 million	$1.4 million
Disturbia	$1.1 million	$1.1 million

Theater counts obtained at www.boxofficemojo.com

Content © TLA Entertainment Group

Knocked Up

(2007, 128 min) Writer/director Judd Apatow, after the consistent brilliance of TV's "Freaks and Geeks," "Undeclared" and the big-screen breakthrough The 40-Year-Old Virgin, may have just proven himself to be the holy grail of comedy. Where Kevin Smith's dialogue is honest, profane yet unnaturally verbose, Apatow manages to make similar dialogue (and the occasional improvisation) sound familiar and organic. Where the Farrelly brothers juggle vulgarity and sensitivity, Apatow melds the two into a seamless whole. In fact, the only reason Ben (Seth Rogen), slacker, underachiever, stoner and slob, is so damn lovable is because he spits out every obscene observation that floats into his head. That same social shortcoming allows him to note his insecurities, vulnerabilities, and understandable inability to approach the gorgeous and upwardly mobile Alison (Katherine Heigl) in a nightclub.

Fortunately his equally baked friends (all Apatow regulars) prod him on, leading to a drunken night of inadvertent baby-making. Alison decides to keep the baby, creating a flip-flop of the conventional romance: The sexual climax was first, and they must almost force themselves to know each other and fall in love. A multitude of supporting characters provides ample opportunity for bouncing romantic ideas around, best displayed in reluctant husband Paul Rudd and explosive wife Leslie Mann. Behind those one-note descriptions are surprisingly deep characters that continually ring with truth.

The knee-jerk reaction to a 128-minute romantic comedy is that it's just too long. To that I ask, what would you cut from this perfectly paced movie? Ryan Seacrest badmouthing Jessica Simpson? The pointed music critcism ("Steely Dan gargles my balls.")? Rogen and Rudd tripping at Cirque du Soleil? The running gag about a beard-growing bet ("See you, Scorsese on coke")? A bouncer explaining the truth about the velvet rope ("I'm only allowed 5% black people, which means if 25 people are in the club, that's 1¼. I have to hope and pray for a black midget just to make quota")? Our best hope is that Apatow gets a development deal with HBO, where he can have the time and the freedom to explore similarly deep, truthful and profane characters as long as possible.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Zodiac

(2007, 156 min) During the 1970s, the San Francisco area was gripped by fear as an unknown serial killer who dubbed himself the Zodiac terrorized the Bay area. Officially unsolved by the police, the case was high profile and impossible to ignore. Zodiac, an adaptation of Robert Graysmith’s 1986 first-hand book giving a behind-the-scenes look into the investigation and a glimpse into a frightened city, is very much the same: a first-rate “high-profile” adaptation and totally impossible to dismiss.

Director David Fincher, who has orchestrated some bloody good work on the screen (Fight Club, Se7en), would be quite at home in detailing the gruesome killings in inventive cinematic flourishes – one shocking set piece after another. However, he has wisely chosen to blend a few genres – the police procedural, a newspaper investigation drama and a psychological thriller – to create an atmospheric, tense and gripping study in suspense rather than present a simple blood-and-gore horror-fest. Featuring great writing, smart direction, terrific performances and a hypnotic story of murder and the subsequent detective work that followed, Zodiac is more All the President’s Men than Saw, more Silence of the Lambs than Hostel. And that’s pretty good company.

The film opens on July 4, 1969, re-enacting the shooting of a young couple parked at a lovers’ lane. The editor at the San Francisco Chronicle receives a bizarre, cryptic manifesto from the killer, demanding it be published or more will die. And they do – the next killing is of a young couple by a lakeside; the scene is brutally efficient and, although there is hardly any blood spilled, it is one of the most gruesome murders ever conceived for the screen. Hitchcock is smiling somewhere.

The Chronicle’s new cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), happens to figure out the killer’s first puzzle, and thus begins his fascination with the case, his employment at the paper giving him access to much inside information. The lead detective on the case, Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), is nicknamed Bullitt by his coworkers, and for good reason as he was not only the inspiration for the Steve McQueen movie character but Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry as well. As the murders continue, the two men begin separate investigations that eventually collide. Though there are a few leads, the strain on the men is evident as each tries to piece together the identity of the killer.

Fincher has done a marvelous job at re-creating 1970s San Francisco. The speak is genuine (too many times in movies modern colloquialisms make their way in period pieces – not here!), the look is authentic. . . you can almost smell the seafood at Fisherman’s Wharf. Though running 156 minutes, the film is lean, tight and consistently keeps you involved. The great cast helps, too, at making this a spellbinding experience.

Gyllenhaal, who was so nuanced in Brokeback Mountain and dynamic in Jarhead, is no less effective here in a shrewdly observed low-key portrayal as the mild-mannered cartoonist. He is the film’s Everyman, and is the heart of the film. Ruffalo, who has such a natural charm to him, is the film’s conscience, and when he’s outraged, we’re outraged; when he grieves, we grieve. As the Chronicle’s lead reporter on the story, Downey steals the show from the splendid ensemble. Witnessing the wear and tear on the journalist leaves little doubt as to his outcome. Obviously, the Zodiac effected more lives than just his victims and their families.

Zodiac is probably Fincher’s most accomplished film to date, a real tour de force in storytelling and technique. That the crimes were never officially solved only adds to the immediacy of it all. We are witness to the best and worse impulses in man, and it’s fascinating stuff.

– David Bleiler

© TLA Entertainment Group

Cold Comfort Farm

(1995, 99 min) Do you like English movies? Well, if you don’t, do you at least like making fun of English people? Oh, good. I do, too.

Aren’t English people from the olden days (ie: before 1960) so funny, with their stuffiness and propriety and "tea" being "lunch" and "supper" being "dinner"? With their flats and petrol and lifts, their being permanently flustered (no, Hugh Grant didn’t invent it) and the men all calling each other "old boy"? With their nervous meetings and awkward goodbyes and lack of visible emotion? They’re so charming!

I had the privilege of having read the novel "Cold Comfort Farm" less than a week before watching the film version, so I can tell you for a fact that the movie perfectly captures the book in its entirety. I was extremely impressed. It didn’t make me laugh quite so much as the book did, being that I laughed two times instead of three. It is an old book, you know, not a David Sedaris pseudo-memoir, but it was great all the same.

Stella Gibbons, a moderately successful journalist and book reviewer, wrote "Cold Comfort" in 1932 and it was an instant hit. She went on to write dozens of other books, none of which were as popular. The book has the distinction of being a successful parody of a genre that nobody (especially in this country) really remembers, but it is clearly parodying something, which makes it work. The biggest names to come out of this genre were D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy and the Bronte sisters. Tragedy in the country life was the common thread between them…along with the subtext of nature representing sexual desires. Or something like that. The only thing I remember from reading "Wuthering Heights" in high school was that the moors were a metaphor for Heathcliff’s animal brutality, so that seems about right. In fact, one character, a writer, spends most of his time roaming around the countryside, pointing out how much the hills look like breasts.

The 1995 movie stars a young and surprisingly talented Kate Beckinsale (before she got hair extensions, tanned herself into a moccasin and married an animal-print-wearing Hollywood director), Joanna Lumley from "Absolutely Fabulous", Ian McKellan from X-Men and Stephen Fry from Wilde. They’re good too, except that McKellan could use subtitles. I wouldn’t have understood a word of his dialogue if I hadn’t already known what he was going to say.

One aspect of the book that the film ignores is that it was actually set in an alternate future timeline. Written in 1932 but taking place sometime in the '50s, Gibbons correctly guesses that World War II has taken place already (although she gets the continent wrong) and imagines the everyday use of video phones and personal airplanes. Most recent adaptations overlook this for obvious reasons.

The movie begins when Flora Poste (Beckinsale), having just nonchalantly attended her parents’ funeral and found out about her measly inheritance, decides to find extended family members to take her in. She chooses the Starkadders, despite their obvious backwardness, and goes to live with them at Cold Comfort Farm. The farm is a run-down, gloomy mess where the disheveled bunch is controlled by their matriarch Ada Doom. Ada inspires devotion through her apparent madness, supposedly brought on by a traumatic experience she had as a little girl when she "saw something nasty in the woodshed." Pretty much every Starkadder needs some major personal help. Seth, the aimless local stud whose only interest is the "talkies," knocks up the servant girl every spring; Adam, the 90-something farm hand, washes dishes with a twig; and Elfine, the free-spirited and beautiful teenager, just needs to get the hell out of there.

Flora sets about tackling everybody’s problems in her calm, efficient and orderly manner. She hopes that by successfully changing the Starkadders it will give her enough life experience to write a great novel when she’s fifty.

It’s a charming, quaint little story that’s also really funny. And by funny I don’t mean funny like the 40-Year-Old Virgin or watching Dumb and Dumber when you were fifteen, I mean the kind of funny when you’re not actually laughing but just kind of grinning inside. It’s a nice, pleasant feeling that may be unique to certain types of subtle humor. Or it may be the feeling you get when you realize you’re one step closer to completely forgetting having watched Love, Actually.

– Rachel J. Cox

© TLA Entertainment Group

The Hoax

(2007, 115 min) Clifford Irving's first few books were met with critical acclaim but they were not best sellers. He thinks he has the big one within his grasp with "Rudnick’s Problem" (a rip-off of "Portnoy’s Complaint"), when McGraw-Hill pulls the plug on the deal at the last minute. He had already spent the money.

It starts as a total bluff: In 1971, he tells McGraw-Hill he is working with the infamously reclusive Howard Hughes on Hughes' autobiography. He then begins the research, starting with a road trip with longtime friend Dick Susskind (Alfred Molina). Irving expects Hughes' eccentricities to work in his own favor. He forges Hughes' handwriting to create letters confirming that Hughes is working with him on this book. He starts to dress like Hughes while manufacturing bogus interview tapes, recreating Hughes' distinctive speaking style. He believes Hughes' exile to be so complete, he would never respond to the book if he even hears about it. Continents are traversed, Swiss bank accounts are opened, wife and mistress are handled, frauds are perpetrated. The confabulation becomes so byzantine and convoluted, the lies become so intricate and wide-spread, that it's hard to tell if Irving himself has lost the ability to distinguish fact from fiction. As he uncovers long-term connections between Hughes and Nixon, Irving's paranoia becomes as consuming as theirs.

This long con seems impossibly easy at first. Experts verify the forged letters and interview tapes as authentic, and McGraw-Hill opens the check book — even in the face of much skepticism from people who have had dealings with Hughes. Irving is outraged and indignant, vociferously proclaiming his work’s authenticity even in the face of denunciation by the "real" Hughes. But the writing (no pun intended) is on the wall.

Richard Gere and Molina are at the top of their game. Gere manages to make Irving simultaneously slimy and charismatic. Molina plays Susskind as endearing, befuddled and out of his depth. Director Lasse Hallström seamlessly weaves images from that era into the film, effectively conveying the temper of the times (look for a priceless snippet of newsreel footage showing Nixon speaking in support of a congressional bid by some guy named George Bush). The Hoax is action-adventure, mystery, intrigue, road trip and history; it's a wild ride. Based on a true story by a certified liar.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group