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FOREIGN SEAT: The spring movies are on their way
Spring is here, the Oscars are history and the movie world is waiting for the two big pictures that will dominate the summer, Spider-Man and Star Wars: Episode 2 — Attack of the Clones (only George Lucas could get away with a title like that).
The thin sliver of weeks between the end of the winter releases and the arrival of the summer — which begins earlier each year — includes some long-delayed pictures, including Big Trouble, postponed due to 9/11. The potentially hot The Sweetest Thing, starring Cameron Diaz as a woman in pursuit of a runaway man (does this sound improbable?), was pushed from a winter date to mid-April. And The New Guy, now due in May, has been waiting since last summer for its unveiling.
Among the stars who will be vying for No. 1 spots at the box office in April and early May are Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman (teamed again), Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson (fighting it out), Sandra Bullock (back in law enforcement), Angelina Jolie (doing local TV) and The Rock (reprising his role in The Mummy Returns aka ‘The Scorpion King’). None of the vehicles for these stars looks like best-picture material, but as summer approaches, things begin to look up.
Among the stars who will be vying for No. 1 spots at the box office in April and early May are Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman (teamed again), Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson (fighting it out), Sandra Bullock (back in law enforcement), Angelina Jolie (doing local TV) and The Rock (reprising his role in ‘The Scorpion King’
Rather bravely, DreamWorks will go up against Spider-Man with Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending. And even more courageously, Universal will take on Star Wars with a London comedy starring Hugh Grant, About a Boy.
This brief time between a fairly terrible winter and the opening of blockbuster fantasy time will fortunately bring only one out-and-out dumb post-teen picture, Van Wilder. The long-delayed Deuces Wild, set in the world of youth gangs in ‘50s Brooklyn, sounds more promising. But it will arrive in a month of box office madness: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Lucas’ Attack of the Clones, which will serve as harbingers of the long, but maybe not too hot summer.
With the usual cautionary warning that the schedule is not cast in stone, here is how this brief, less than enchanted April and explosive early May look:
Big Trouble — Tim Allen and Rene Russo head the cast of this version of the best-selling first novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. The plot centers on a mysterious suitcase that brings together a divorced dad, an unhappy housewife, two hit men, a pair of street hoodlums, two lovesick teens, two FBI men and a psychedelic toad. Rounding out the cast are Omar Epps, Dennis Farina, Janeane Garofalo, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore, Stanley Tucci, Ben Foster, Zooey Deschanel and Johnny Knoxville.
High Crimes — Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, who scored together with Kiss the Girls, are together again. She plays a married, successful lawyer, whose world is rocked by a revelation. He plays a maverick attorney, a veteran of military courts. Jim Caviezel is the husband, a top-secret military op accused of a heinous war crime. Amanda Peet has a featured role under the direction of Carl Franklin.
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder — Ryan Reynolds plays the title role in this campus comedy about a bright slacker who refuses to go out into adult life and has spent seven years at his beloved school. Tara Reid plays the ambitious student reporter assigned to get the story on Van Wilder, a master party arranger and savior of the basketball and swimming teams.
The Sweetest Thing — Cameron Diaz lends her sexy star power to Christina Walters, who meets her perfect man one night while hanging with her best girlfriends, Courtney and Jane. Roger Kumble directs a cast that includes Thomas Jane as the guy, Christina Applegate, Selma Blair, Jason Bateman and Parker Posey.
Changing Lanes — A minor accident on New York’s FDR Drive escalates into road rage and then into a blood feud between characters played by Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. Toni Collette, Sydney Pollack, William Hurt and Amanda Peet are featured under the direction of Roger Michell.
Murder by Numbers — Sandra Bullock combines with the eclectic director Barbet Schroeder on this tale of a crime scene specialist tracking two young men who think they have committed the perfect crime in the manner of Leopold and Loeb.
The Scorpion King — The Rock throws his incredible bulk into a spinoff from The Mummy Returns, a sprawling epic of ancient days set 5,000 years again in Gomorrah, where an evil ruler is preparing to mow down all the nomads of the desert.
Life or Something Like It _ Angelina Jolie plays a Seattle television reporter, living the good life with her hot boyfriend and hoping for a shot at the networks. A homeless street seer (Tony Shalhoub) shakes her by dismissing her life as meaningless and telling her that death is just around the corner.
Jason X — Set 400 years in the future when Earth has become uninhabitable, the plot turns on the discovery of two cryogenically frozen bodies, of a beautiful woman and Jason Voorhees, at what once was Camp Crystal Lake.
Spider-Man — Sam Raimi, who showed his strong hand with a superhero in Darkman, now turns to a more whimsical comic book hero in a picture that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the web-slinger’s first appearance. Tobey Maguire plays Peter Parker, whose spider bite gives him great strength and an incredible ability to scale any surface. Willem Dafoe plays his nemesis, the Green Goblin, with Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Wilson, James Franco as Harry Osborn, Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben, Rosemary Harris as Aunt May and J.K. Simmons as Jonah Jameson, Peter’s boss at the Daily Bugle.
Deuces Wild — It is back to 1958 Brooklyn, the year the borough lost the Dodgers, for this look at youth gangs centering on the Deuces. Scott Kalvert’s portrait of growing urban unrest and violence features Stephen Dorff, Bred Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Vincent Pastore, Frankie Muniz, Balthazar Getty, Norman Reedus, Max Perlich, Johnny Knoxville and Deborah Harry.
Star Wars: Episode 2 — Attack of the Clones — George Lucas continues the early triology in the Skywalker saga with Hayden Christensen (the son of Life as a House) as Anakin as a teen-ager, and Natalie Portman returning as Amidala. Also back is Ewan McGregor as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin’s mentor as a Jedi knight. The plot centers on a conspiracy against Amidala, and Obi-Wan’s visits to two previously unseen planets. The cast includes includes the returning Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, with perhaps a ghostly glimpse of Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn, killed in Episode I, and more hi-jinks from the widely reviled Jar Jar Binks. The trailer promises spectacular action sequences.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service
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