C
NICOLAS CAGE
 NATIONAL
TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS: Nicolas
Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Ed Harris, Helen Mirren, Harvey
Keitel, Justin Bartha, Alicia Coppola, Bruce Greenwood (Directed
by Jon Turteltaub; Written by Cormac Wibberly and Marianne Wibberley;
Buena Vista Pictures) If you saw 2004’s “National Treasure,”
you’re aware that in all of this world so far there has never
been a keener follower of clues and finder of lost, precious documents
than Benjamin Franklin Gates. Well, super-snooper Ben, once again
played by Nicolas Cage, is back on the job. This time, he’s
fixated on tracking down some missing pages from the diary of John
Wilkes Booth, the guy who gunned down Abe Lincoln. How come? Because
Ben has a sickening hunch that his very own great-grandfather may
have been in cahoots with the murderous Mr. Booth! Now
Playing
MICHAEL CAINE
 THE
DARK KNIGHT: Christian Bale,
Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Morgan
Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Anthony Michael Hall, Michael Caine, William
Fichtner, Eric Roberts (Written and directed by Christopher Nolan;
Warner Bros.) Batman (Christian Bale) and good-guy lawman James
Gordon (Gary Oldman) have got trouble, BIG trouble, right here in
Gotham city. And the biggest part of the big trouble is The Joker,
a lethal lunatic brought memorably to life by Jack Nicholson in
the 1989 Batman extravaganza. This time, the sicko is played by
Heath Ledger, the charismatic actor who recently died of an accidental
overdose of prescription drugs. If you flipped for “Batman
Begins” (2005), chances are that “The Dark Knight”
will please you, since it too has been helmed by that film's director,
Christopher Nolan, and many cast members are doing encores. Katie
Holmes, however, does not return as delectable Rachel Dawes. That
role, we’re pleased to say, has been inherited by Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Opens 7/18/08
STEVE CARELL
 GET
SMART: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway,
Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Bill Murray, James Caan
(Directed by Peter Segal; Written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember;
Warner Bros.) It all began in the fertile, funny minds of scripters
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The date was September 18, 1965, and
the premiering show--a weekly spoof about the misadventures of secret
agents--was called “Get Smart.” It starred Don Adams
as fumbling agent Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as his truly
smart partner, and it aired 138 episodes, ending on September 11,
1970. “The Nude Bomb,” a 1980 film returning Adams to
the role of Smart, turned out dumb, a bomb in the showbiz sense
of the word. But perhaps a new generation of moviegoers will get
the 2008 Smart, played by Steve Carell, a cinematic champ in “The
40 Year Old Virgin” and “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Anne Hathaway is Agent 99, the character first played to perfection
by Barbara Feldon but booted by the misguided packagers of “The
Nude Bomb.” Click
here to read about more new movie comedies. Opens
6/20/08
DON CHEADLE
 OCEAN’S
THIRTEEN: George Clooney, Brad
Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino, Bernie Mac, Ellen Barkin, Don Cheadle,
Andy Garcia, Elliott Gould, Casey Affleck, Carl Reiner, Scott Caan,
Shaobo Qin, Eddie Jemison (Directed by Steven Soderbergh; Written
by Brian Koppelman and David Levien; Warner Bros.) Danny Ocean,
the coolest, most mischievously macho crook we know, will be back
with his law-defying pals, and of course he will be played by the
peerless George Clooney. We won’t have the pleasure of Julia
Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ company this time around
the Vegas block, but we will have Al Pacino as a slick--but perhaps
vulnerable--manager of a trendy casino. To
read Guy Flatley's 1973 interview with Al Pacino, click
here; for Guy's 1973 interview with Elliott Gould, click
here. Now Playing
JULIE CHRISTIE
 AWAY
FROM HER:
Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Murphy,
Kristen Thomson, Wendy Crewson, Alberta Watson (Written and directed
by Sarah Polley; Lionsgate) At first glance, Fiona and Grant Anderson,
husband and wife for 44 years, appear to be leading a blissful life,
cross-country skiing during the day and cozying up at night in their
lovely country cottage. But they both know that Fiona, disoriented
by the onset of Alzheimer’s, may soon lose her husband, her
memory, and her very own identity. Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent
have drawn raves on the festival circuit for their performances
as the elderly Canadian couple, as has Sarah Polley, the gifted
star of Atom Egoyan’s “The Sweet Hereafter,” who
makes her screenwriting and directorial debut--at the ripe old age
of 28--with his adaptation of Alice Munro’s short story “The
Bear Who Came Over the Mountain.”
To read
Guy Flatley's review of "Away From Her," click
here. Now
Playing
GEORGE CLOONEY
 BURN
AFTER READING: Brad Pitt, George
Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich (Directed by Joel Coen;
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen; Focus Features) You’re not
really a top male star in today’s Hollywood until you’ve
played a hit man, something Brad Pitt did with aplomb in “Mr.
& Mrs. Smith,” wherein he was assigned the challenging
task of bumping off his wife, a spitfire who was hired to terminate
her husband (and we all know who played the feisty hit woman).
At any rate, it’s high time for George Clooney, Brad’s
prime competitor in the superstar sweepstakes, to play an ace assassin,
which is what he is doing on this playfully morbid Coen brothers
occasion. Who are his targets? Not sure, but one of them might well
be Ozzie Cox (John Malkovich), the former CIA agent who manages
to misplace the manuscript of his tell-all book about his days as
a spy. Another potential victim: Ozzie’s rabidly unfaithful
wife (Frances McDormand). And possibly there is a bullet waiting
for Brad Pitt, as a man of mystery who may be linked to Ozzie’s
mate, or even to Ozzie himself. Opening
date to be announced
WHITE JAZZ:
George Clooney (Directed by Joe Carnahan;
Written by Joe Carnahan and Matthew Michael Carnahan; Warner Independent
Pictures) Not all cops are the same. Some are good, and some are
bad. Dave Klein (George Clooney) is a good--well, mostly
good--cop making a buck the scary way on the LAPD vice squad in
the 1958, and he’s being set up for a calamitous fall by the
city’s police commissioner, a bad-to-the-core cop if ever
there was one. Will Klein outwit his boss? You can count on it.
Nor would you be wrong to count on a full tank of blood, guts, bullets
and octane in this adaptation of the James Ellroy novel, since writer-director
Joe Carnahan is the man who gave us “Blood, Guts, Bullets
and Octane,” the 1998 cult thriller, as well as 2003’s
police saga “Narc.” Opening date
to be announced
ESCAPE
FROM TEHRAN: George Clooney
(Directed by George Clooney; Written by George Clooney and Grant
Heslov; Warner Bros.) In the wake of the WMD blunder that started
the Iraqi War ball rolling, the CIA is in desperate need of an image
makeover. Perhaps it will get the p.r. boost it needs with this
real-life comedy-drama set not in Iraq, but in Iran. Co-producers
George Clooney and Grant Heslov are basing their screenplay on Joshua
Bearman’s investigative report in Wired magazine about the
astonishing 1980 rescue of six Americans in Tehran by CIA operative
Tony Mendez. Wacky as it seems, Mendez convinced Iranian officials
that he and his U.S. colleagues were actually Canadian filmmakers
with plans to shoot a major epic in Tehran. Not only did they manage
to fool the Iranians, but they also put one over on Variety and
The Hollywood Reporter, both of which did dead-earnest reports on
the making of the movie. As was the case with “Good Night,
and Good Luck,” the previous Clooney-Heslov collaboration,
Clooney is expected to direct and act in “Escape From Tehran.”
He sounds like the perfect Mendez to us. Opening
date to be announced
SACHA
BARON COHEN
 SWEENEY
TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET: Johnny
Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Timothy
Spall, Christopher Lee, Jamie Bower, Jayne Wisener, Laura Michelle
Kelly, Ed Sanders, Michael N. Harbour, Peter Bowles, Anthony Head,
Ian Burford (Directed by Tim Burton; Written by John Logan; DreamWorks
and Paramount) From “Edward Scissorhands” to “Ed
Wood,” Johnny Depp and his favorite director, Tim Burton,
have never been afraid to come across as creepy. Even so, it’s
a jolt to learn that their sixth collaboration will be “Sweeney
Todd,” the film version of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical
about the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, an ex-con who slashes the
throats of his customers in order to supply ingredients for the
succulent pies to be baked and sold by his equally demonic mate
(Helena Bonham Carter, whose casting surely had nothing to do with
the fact that she is the mom of Billy-Ray Burton, son of the film's
director). Sacha Baron Cohen, following the triumph of "Borat,"
is cast as Sweeney Todd's conniving rival barber. Sing out Sacha!
To read about more
new movie musicals, click here.
Now Playing
JENNIFER
CONNELLY
 HE’S
JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: Ben
Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin
Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson,
Kris Kristofferson, Justin Long (Directed by Ken Kwapis; Written
by Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn; New Line Cinema) Smart, attractive
and variously driven young men and women meet, mix, meld and sometimes
split in exotic, erotic Baltimore. The star-studded story is based
on the self-help book by “Sex and the City” writers
Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo and is being directed by Ken Kwapis,
who deserves credit for his contributions to television’s
“The Office,” “The Larry Sanders Show,”
“The Bernie Mac Show” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”
Mention should be made, too, of Kwapis’ big-screen, big-flop
“License to Wed,” starring a spectacularly unfunny Robin
Williams as a man of the cloth who's determined to put Mandy Moore
and John Krasinski through holy hell before deigning to marry them.
To read about more
new comedies, click here; for Diane
Baroni's 1998 interview with Kris Kristofferson, click
here. Opens 8/1/08
DANIEL CRAIG
 DEFIANCE:
Daniel Craig (Written and directed by Edward
Zwick; Paramount Vantage) During Germany’s ruthless World
War II occupation of Poland, four brave brothers escaped their captors
and took refuge in a forest. Eventually, they joined a band of Russian
resisters in an effort to combat Nazis and free imprisoned Jews.
They succeeded to an astonishing degree, as this adaptation of Nechama
Tec’s non-fiction book will no doubt make clear. Daniel Craig
plays one of the four brothers, under the direction of Edward Zwick,
who demonstrated that war is never less than hell in “Glory,”
“Courage Under Fire” and “Blood Diamond.”
To read about more
new war movies, click here.
Opening date to be announced
RUSSELL
CROWE
 TENDERNESS:
Russel Crowe, Jon Foster, Sophie Traub, Laura
Dern, Michael Kelly (Directed by John Polson; Written by Emil Stern;
Lionsgate) A tough-but-sensitive New York cop (Russell Crowe) tries
to achieve the proper balance in his handling of a moody teen-ager
who may have murdered members of his own family while in an especially
bad mood and is now too close to comfort to a 16-year-old runaway
(Sophie Traub). The creepy lad is played by Jon Foster, the under-rated
actor who was excellent as the boy who surrendered his virginity
to Kim Basinger in “The Door in the Floor.” To
read about more new murderpix, click here.
Opening date to be announced
STATE
OF PLAY: Russell Crowe, Ben
Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Jason
Bateman (Directed by Kevin Macdonald; Written by Matthew Michael
Carnahan and Tony Gilroy; Universal) Brad Pitt and Edward Norton,
who had a jolly, violent time for themselves in “Fight Club,”
were primed for a promising re-match in this adaptation of Paul
Abbott’s hot six-hour British miniseries. But Pitt thought
the rewrite of Matthew Michael Carnahan's screenplay by Tony Gilroy,
Peter Morgan and others was the pits. So he took a walk. But who
needs Brad Pitt when they have Russell Crowe ready to roll? Here's
the deal: Investigating the death of politician Stephen Collins’
mistress, reporter Cal McCaffrey (Crowe) discovers evidence that
could prove the slick pol (Affleck) is guilty of murder. He also
discovers the surprisingly potent allure of Collins’ dumped
wife (Robin Wright Penn). Sounds like Kevin Macdonald, the director
of “The Last King of Scotland,” once again has plenty
of explosive stuff to work with. Opening date
to be announced
BODY
OF LIES: Leonardo DiCaprio,
Russell Crowe (Directed by Ridley Scott; Written by William Monahan;
Warner Bros.) Based on David Ignatius’ novel, this thriller
is categorized as fiction, but it sounds scarily true. A brilliant,
risk-taking journalist (Leonardo DiCaprio) covers the war in Iraq
all too thoroughly and, as a result, is seriously wounded. Back
in the states, his period of recuperation is interrupted by a forceful
CIA operative (Russell Crowe) who persuades him to travel to Jordan
in the hope of nailing a major Al Qaeda leader. The screenplay is
by William Monahan, who provided DiCaprio with a whopper of a role
in “The Departed.” Opening
date to be announced
BILLY
CRUDUP
 THE
GOOD SHEPHERD: Matt Damon, Angelina
Jolie, Robert De Niro, John Turturro, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin,
Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, Gabriel Macht, Tammy Blanchard, Oleg
Stefan, Timothy Hutton, Keir Dullea, Eddie Redmayne, Lee Pace, Vladimir
Mashkov, Patrick Wilson (Directed by Robert De Niro; Written by
Eric Roth; Universal) Matt Damon plays an uptight pioneer CIA agent
in this decades-spanning drama and Robert De Niro has the role of
his live-wire superior. Damon's neglected wife--and he mother of
his child--is played by Angelina Jolie. De Niro also helmed the
film—his first behind-the-camera gig since “A Bronx
Tale,” his directorial debut in 1993. To
read Guy Flatley's 1973 interview with Robert De Niro, click
here. Now Playing
FOR GUY FLATLEY'S 2002
INTERVIEW WITH BILLY CRUDUP, click
here.
TOM CRUISE
 VALKYRIE:
Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Patrick
Wilson, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Fry, Carice Van Houten, Eddie Izzard
(Directed by Bryan Singer; Written by Christopher McQuarrie and
Nathan Alexander; MGM/United Artists) Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg
was the passionately Catholic, marginally crazed Nazi who huddled,
somewhat tardily, with his fellow officers and hatched a plan to
bump off Adolf Hitler toward the wind-down of World War II. Not
only was he motivated by his deepening hatred of Hitler, but he
was totally turned off by the war itself, having lost his left eye
in a 1943 aerial strafing, plus his right hand and 2 fingers of
his left hand on the same occasion. But that was nothing compared
to what happened in July, 1944, when he planted a bomb under Hitler’s
conference room table. Some people were killed in the ensuing explosion,
but nowhere among them was Der Fuhrer. And that’s how poor
Von Stauffenberg came to face a Berlin firing squad later that month.
The question now is, who could possibly play the role of this unpredictable,
tricky, high-energy wannabe hero? And the answer, of course, is
that incomparably unpredictable, tricky, high-energy superstar Tom
Cruise. Adding to the promise of unpredictability and trickery is
the fact that the director and the screenwriter of the film, former
New Jersey high school classmates Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie,
are the guys who fooled us so masterfully in 1995’s “The
Usual Suspects.” Opens 2/13/09
THE HARDY
MEN: Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller
(Directed by Shawn Levy; Fox) Boys will be boys. And then, if they
pull themselves together and stop the kid stuff, they will be men.
That is precisely what happens to cut-ups Tim and Ben in this comic
updating of the “Hardy Boys” mystery series. What’s
the hook? It seems the lads had a silly falling out on their journey
to maturity and, in a huff, went their separate ways, never to co-sleuth
again. But then something shocking happened, so they’re back
together, pooling brains and brawn on a truly big, life-or-death
criminal case. And is that “The Hardy Men 2” we see
on the horizon? Opening date to be
announced
THE FEW:
Tom Cruise (Directed by Michael Mann; Written
by John Logan) Anyone who knew anything back in the 1930s knew that
Hitler was a major menace; yet America was officially neutral prior
to Pearl Harbor. This position of neutrality troubled Billy Fiske,
who had grown up in Brooklyn, won Gold Medals at the 1928 and 1932
Winter Olympics, attended Cambridge and--in 1939--fibbed about being
a Canadian citizen, thereby carving his way into The RAF. That’s
how the bravely impatient Billy got caught up in the Battle of Britain
and became the first American pilot casualty of World War II. If
you think the character of Billy Fiske is made to order for Tom
Cruise, you may be right. Tom is preparing to take flight as the
true-life hero under the direction of Michael Mann, who directed
him with impressive results in “Collateral.” The screenplay
is by John Logan, who penned Tom’s showy role in “The
Last Samurai.” "The Few" was once slated to be a
Paramount production, but since Tom is no longer in bed with that
studio, we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Opening date to be announced
PENELOPE CRUZ
 MANOLETE:
Adrien Brody, Penelope Cruz (Written and directed by Menno Meyjes;
Lolafilms) Adrien Brody, faced with monstrous competition for the
attention of Naomi Watts in “King Kong,” will presumably
have an easier time of it when he woos Penelope Cruz in this true-life
romance. Brody plays magnetic bullfighter Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez,
better known as Manolete, and Cruz takes on the role of sultry actress
Lupe Sino. To
read about more new biopics, click here.
Opening date to be announced
NINE:
Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Catherine Zeta-Jones,
Sophia Loren (Directed by Rob Marshall; Written by Michael Tolkin;
Weinstein Company) Who could forget “8 1⁄2,” the
stunning 1963 film in which Marcello Mastroianni, under the direction
of Federico Fellini, played a Felliniesque director who made more
women than movies? Certainly, composer Maury Yeston and dramatist
Arthur Kopit could not erase this classic from their memories. That’s
why, in 1982, they came up with a Broadway musicalization of it
starring the late, great Raul Julia as the womanizing auteur
on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The show, called “Nine,”
was successfully revived in 2003, showcasing the song-and-dance
skills of Antonio Banderas. And now, here comes the movie version
of the hit musical, directed by Rob Marshall, who gave us “Chicago,”
and starring Javier Bardem, one of the few actors now working who
could be ranked alongside Marcello Mastroianni. Penelope Cruz plays
his mistress, Marion Cotillard, who triumphed as Edith Piaf in “La
Vie en Rose,” is his shortchanged wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones
is an actress who greatly inspires him, and Sophia Loren will haunt
us as the ghost of his Mama. Opening
date to be announced
THE GOOD
NIGHT: Penelope Cruz, Martin
Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Simon Pegg, Danny DeVito (Written and
directed by Jake Paltrow; Inferno Distribution) Once he was a happy
member of a rocking British band, but now the musician (Martin Freeman)
merely writes background music for TV commercials, walks in a daze
around the New York apartment he shares with his neurotic American
live-in girlfriend (Gwyneth Paltrow), and daydreams about a luscious,
compliant seductress he has yet to meet. Best of all, when he sleeps,
this babe is always there for him, perfect in every playful way.
But what would happen if the dreambabe (Penelope Cruz) suddenly
popped up in his real, wide-awake life? You’ll find out if
you decide to spend the night with this first feature flick from
writer-director Jake Paltrow, Gwyneth’s ambitious kid brother.
Opening date to be announced
VICKY
CRISTINA BARCELONA: Scarlett
Johansson, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall (Written and
directed by Woody Allen) There was a time when Diane Keaton was
gloriously front and center in nearly every Woody Allen comedy or
drama. A bit later, the same was true of Mia Farrow. Now the working-with-Woody
thing is getting to be a habit with Scarlett Johansson, whose star
turns in his British-lensed “Match Point” and “Scoop”
will be followed by this maybe comedy/maybe drama. It was shot in
Barcelona and Asturias and deals with the amorous adventures of
a local lothario, his possessive girlfriend and two attractive American
tourists. Happily, Woody had the good sense to team Scarlett with
a pair of Pedro Almodovar’s finest players--Penelope Cruz
and Javier Bardem. To
read Guy Flatley’s 1978 Los Angeles Times interview with Woody
Allen, click here.
Opening date to be announced
LOS ABRAZOS
ROTOS: Penelope
Cruz, Blanca Portillo, Lluis Homar (Written and directed by Pedro
Almodovar; El Deseo) The innovative, emotional, challenging, never
cautious or dull Pedro Almodovar will shoot this Hollywood-style
film noir in Madrid and other Spanish locations. Almodovar told
Variety’s John Hopewell that the movie will be set in the
90s and today and will be reminiscent of Nicolas Ray’s “In
a Lonely Place” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad
and the Beautiful.” It will deal with “fate, the mystery
of creation, guilt, unscrupulous power, the eternal search of fathers
for sons, and sons for fathers.” Opening
date to be announced
JOHN
CUSACK
 WAR,
INC.: John
Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Dan Aykroyd, Ben
Kingsley, Ben Cross, Montel Williams (Directed by Joshua Seftel;
Written by John Cusack, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser; First Look
International) Something’s rotten in Turaqistan, and that
something is Brand Hauser (John Cusack), the hit man dispatched
to the war-ravaged Middle East nation by the former U.S. vice president.
What is Brand’s mission? To bump off the CEO of a company
that’s competing with the VP’s company for a spectacular
outsourcing military contract. Cusack, in a twist on his memorable
portrait of a professional terminator in “Grosse Pointe Blank”
(1997), is joined by sibling Joan Cusack, also doing a “Pointe
Blank” encore, this time playing the assassin’s nutty
assistant. Marisa Tomei is a relentlessly snoopy journalist and
Hilary Duff’s a shallow celeb who plans to wed it wealthily
in Turaqistan. Opens 5/23/08
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