This week get down with Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of the man in black in Walk The Line, HBO’s second season of the critically acclaimed Deadwood, and Atom Egoyan’s steamy Where The Truth Lies. More 80’s cartoons today too, including volumes of The Real Ghostbusters and C.O.P.S.

Walk the Line
Deadwood: The Complete Second Season
Three… Extremes
The Real Ghostbusters: Vol. 1, 2 and 3
The Ice Harvest
Dog Day Afternoon: SE
C.O.P.S. - The Animated Series: Vol. 1
Where The Truth Lies
Pride & Prejudice
Lady and the Tramp (50th Anniversary Edition)
NewsRadio: The Complete Third Season
Charmed: The Complete Fourth Season

I’ve been hearing tidbits about author Douglas Coupland’s first feature film for a while now, and I’ve been clamouring for any sort of information or media I can get my hands on related to it. Coupland, who wrote the widely praised Generation X, is known for his ability to tap into the zeitgeist and deliver barbed commentary about the way we live. Everything’s Gone Green is a new screenplay not based on any one of his books, although it seems to touch on a lot of similar issues. Ryan is a twenty-something who is feeling frustrated with the world around him: he just lost his job, and his hippie friend has gone “capitalist”. He lands a job writing for a lottery magazine and after discovering how unlucky some of the lottery winners really are, he is tempted to make some quick cash through a money laundering scheme. The movie is directed by Paul Fox (The Dark Hours) and stars Paulo Costanzo, Steph Song and JR Bourne. It also features music by The Meligrove Band. Twitch Film dug up a recent segment on Movie Television that features some clips from the movie. Click to below to check it out (sorry, only available in crappy Realvideo!)

Those crazy kooks over at Microsoft sure know how to get the internet all worked up. Rumours are running wild this week that Microsoft is set to make a big announcement on Thursday, March 2nd, and a lot of people seem to think it will be (at least in part) a portable video game system. While it may seem like insanity to enter this playing field and square off against Nintendo and Sony (especially with Sony reportedly not doing as well as they had hoped with the PSP), Microsoft may have a few tricks up their sleeve. A video that recently “leaked” online shows a lengthy commercial for an intriguing flat-screen device that does much more than play games (although it most certainly does play games, including Halo). Microsoft claims that this video “is a year old and represents our initial exploration into this form factor, including possible uses and scenarios”. Interesting that they would make such an elaborate commercial for a prototype. At any rate, their mysterious teaser website over at www.origamiproject.com promises that we will learn more on 3.2.06, which is just a couple days away. Anyone care to place bets?

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)
Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov
Written by:Timur Bekmambetov, Laeta Kalogridis (screenplay), Sergei Lukyanenko (novel)
Starring: Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Valeri Zolotukhin, Mariya Poroshina

I can probably count the number of Russian films I have seen on both hands. In fact, I embarrassingly had to log on to the internet and search for titles as just two came to my immediate recollection.

The fact that I had not viewed many from this vast Eastern country probably led to my lack of excitement over Timur Bekmambetov’s flick, Nochnoy dozor (or Night Watch to those that don’t have a Russian to English translation book at the ready). I had seen the trailer and was mildly intrigued, but I didn’t hang on to any notion of the film satisfying my Saturday night void.

The first 15 minutes didn’t help either. Not since Gaspar Noé ’s Irreversible have I spent the opening sequences in a dizzying frenzy trying to figure out what the hell I was watching.

But then things started to get interesting. Vampires, shape shifters and a battle of good versus evil began to become more evident. The characters, lead by Konstantin Khabensky as Anton, are thrown at us quicker than Clint Eastwood’s draw hand back in the spaghetti western day and the special effects are edited with split second visuals that would put Michael Bay films to shame.

The story is actually a trilogy with parts two and three expected out over the next two years and involves a battle between the night and light watchers who have been battling for years waiting for the birth of the chosen one that will pick a side thus declaring a winner (have enough religious overtones for you?). So while we wait for the decision that will ultimately come in the later parts of the second or third chapter, Anton hunts down vampires, saves the world from something called a funnel and befriends a child that may just be the lucky person that gets to inny-minny-miney-moe a side.

While watching Night Watch I couldn’t help but think of how The Matrix must have translated and looked to people of other languages. Even in English, The Matrix was difficult to figure out and Night Watch did many things to remind me of the Wachowski Brothers’ trilogy. It has a complex plot, too many characters with too many quirks to keep track of and enough special effects to keep those sensory buttons in the old noggin firing every few minutes. But maybe the biggest comparison between the two films are the religious suggestions in the films, specifically being the fact that ‘The One’ will be sent to save or condemn us all.

I will not go as far as commenting that Night Watch is a great film, but it is very good. You won’t be bored and I bet that you watch it again just to try and figure the whole thing out. Besides, isn’t that what had us going back and a second and third time to see Matrix: Revolutions for? — Greg Roberts

Running Scared
Written and Directed by: Wayne Kramer
Starring: Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga

As the week-end approached, I had my choice of going to the dentist or seeing a Paul Walker film. I picked the dentist.

But as the day wore on, I began to break down. Maybe it was my yearning to find myself in a darkened theatre with a group of strangers and a big tub of popcorn that I in no way needed (just ask last years golf pants). But more likely, it was the drugs I was on thanks to all the dentist pulling and tugging that had my judgment impaired just long enough to throw down a couple of bucks to see Mr. 2 Fast 2 Furious.

Well, luckily, my impairment wasn’t so bad that I bought a ticket for 8 Below, but rather I found myself staggering to my seat to see Running Scared, a movie title that showcased Billy Crystal and the late Gregory Hines some 20 years ago.

Running Scared stars Paul Walker as Joey Gazelle, and Joey isn’t having a good day. Starting with a drug deal that goes south, Joey finds himself in a dramatic shoot-out between the sellers, the buyers and the masked men who bring their shotguns to crash the party. After the bullets are spread and bodies are piled up on top of each other, Joey is given the easy task to disposing of the firearms that were used in the apartment gunfight equivalent to the O.K. Corral.

But Joey seems to have another agenda and takes the gun home only to store it away downstairs while he attends to his wife and his overly active libido. Mistake. Big mistake. For later that same evening, the same gun is used in a shooting next door and Joey will now spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out who has the gun, how they got the gun, and most importantly as it is one of the larger pieces of evidence that links the events of the opening scene to the mobsters he associates, how to get the gun back.

Running Scared really tested my memory. I cannot recall an action film that had every character as a sleazy, violent prick. No exceptions. From the gangsters, to the corrupt cops to even the children that play such a pivotal part to the overall plot, everyone is about as likeable as the racism in Crash. There is not one likeable character amongst them, which is daring. For if you can’t have someone to root for during the movie, then why would you care if everyone dies?

The answer is, you don’t. In fact, that is part of Running Scared’s charm. It piles one despicable character on top of another as if to test the audience’s resolve. And each new introduction makes you want to jump into the scene and strangle the person yourself. These emotions culminate and fester until a very awkward scene with two child pornographers that is about as unsettling a moment as I can recall in some time.

Outside of all the negative character developments are the action scenes that couple as much violence and coarse language as Sarah Silverman’s routine in The Aristocrats. As we follow the gun from person to person, we get entertained with stabbings, shootings, ears being bitten off and the piece de resistance, Joey’s face being pummeled by slap shots from a Russian hockey player.

All this lead to my sheer exhaustion by the time the 122 minutes – and by the way, did it really have to be over two hours of my afternoon? – took me from credit to credit.

And when it was all completed and I could get back to the non-violent world that I inhabit on a daily basis, I was neither appreciative of what I just saw nor was I completely disappointed in the effort. Running Scared is in no way a film that I would pay to see again, but it was entertaining and did keep a pace that kept me interested during the experience. Paul Walker gives his best acting performance to date (although that is like comparing vomit and poo), but it is an improvement over anything he has thrown out at us in the past four years.

So there you have it. Can’t sit on the fence any more than a two and a half stars out of five. I would recommend then that you wait for the DVD release. That way you are closer to a shower and at the end of the film and you can lather off the dirty feeling you will have after seeing such deplorable characters being put out in front of you one after another. — Greg Roberts

Freedomland
Directed by: Joe Roth
Written by: Richard Price
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore, Edie Falco, William Forsythe

Thanks to the last couple of years in moviedom, I can assure you that Julianne Moore is about as apt a choice to babysit your child as is say… Freddy Krueger.

It was just months ago that Ms. Moore lost her child to aliens in The Forgotten and now - based more in a script of reality – she loses yet another youngin in the new mixed up drama/thriller Freedomland.

Freedomland stars Julianne Moore as Brenda Martin. Brenda is about as mixed up as cake batter. We first get introduced to her as she walks blocks to the nearest hospital and wastes copious amounts of time before revealing that she was carjacked and that her young son was in the backseat of the vehicle and is now somewhere in the hands of the black man who pulled her out of her car.

Enter one Lorenzo Council (the usually reliable Samuel L. Jackson). Lorenzo is the detective that gets assigned Brenda in the hospital and he stumbles when he hears the news about the missing child. In fact, his actions would be how Benny Hill might react to the same situation. He asks the same questions twice over and gets so excited that he needs a shot in order to calm him down and regulate his breathing. If this wasn’t sign enough that Brenda just got assigned the most inept cop to try and find son, just wait a couple of scenes and watch how Lorenzo doesn’t notice that there is a large red truck following him around – that is until such time as the plot requires the reveal.

So with the blind leading the blind, the story takes on many avenues. First, we get introduced to Danny Martin (Ron Eldard) who is both a cop and the uncle of the missing child. He quickly gets the men in uniform to scour the black neighborhood and has the power to set up barricades to ensure that the poor and impoverished are in a modern day lock-down. He beats up potential witnesses and runs interference to Lorenzo’s more tranquil and relaxed investigation.

Next, we get introduced to Edie Falco as Karen Collucci, a mother who lost a child herself and offers her counseling and organization skills to help in the search for the young boy. Her keen acumen leads a group of searchers to Freedomland – a forest on the outside of town – which in turn provides us with the pivotal reveal of the film.

I could ruin the reveal to you – and I should just to spare you from wasting your time and money on this dud – but what the hell, knock yourself out with the rental when it becomes available in about 5 weeks.

What I can reveal is that Freedomland is awful. A movie with Moore, Jackson and Falco directed by one-time studio boss Joe Roth (who comes off one of last years worst in Christmas with the Kranks), should have been on the must-see list. Instead, we have a movie that is so convoluted and disorganized that it is hard to believe that Richard Price took his own novel to produce this mess of a screenplay.

Hmmmmm. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the novel had so many characters and ideas that as screenwriter, Price didn’t know what to leave off while keeping himself happy while maintaining the integrity of the chapters. Who knows. All I know is that I don’t care.

Freedomland is a disaster. From beginning to end, it plays the race card unconvincingly whenever it wants and the big showdown between Moore and Jackson went on so long that I kept looking on the armrest for the converter to fast forward the scene.

Look for Freedomland to hit my Worst of List at the conclusion of the year. In the meantime, avoid at all costs. — Greg Roberts

A while back the Beastie Boys had a cool idea… what if we took a bunch of Hi-8 cameras and gave them to some random fans and asked them to record one of our concerts from their point of view? In October 2004, that’s exactly what they did, and the end result is a movie called Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That. It premiered at Sundance last month, and soon will have a special one-night screening across the U.S. on March 23rd. The DVD release is planned for sometime in the summer. MTV Overdrive currently has a trailer for the movie, and while it doesn’t give us much of an idea of what to expect from this unique film, it does a nice job of poking fun at those inane “In A World…” voice overs. Check out the film’s official site at www.awesomeishotthat.com, and also check out a live version of “Brass Monkey” via MTV as well.

Three… Extremes is a unique horror movie that features short films from 3 of the most well-known asian horror directors including Japan’s Takashi Miike, China’s Fruit Chan, and Korea’s Chan-wook Park. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it comes out on DVD tomorrow, but here’s the thing I didn’t know: Three… Extremes is actually the sequel to a 2002 horror anthology called simply “Three”. Lion’s Gate have just announced that they will soon be releasing this original movie on DVD under the name Three… Extremes II. Technically none of the short films are related in any way so I suppose it doesn’t really matter if they are reversed chronologically, but I’m sure it’s still bound to cause a bit of confusion. Three… Extremes II features movies from 3 directors that are slightly lesser known in North America: Peter Chan (Going Home), Ji-woon Kim (Memories) and Nonzee Nimibutr (The Wheel). Look for it in stores on April 4th.

There are many things I love about the internet, but one of the most unique and powerful elements about it is the fact that it levels the playing field and gives anyone at all the potential to have their 5 minutes of fame — especially washed up celebrities and musicians who want another 5 minutes of fame! Among the many celebrities who have found a new identity for themselves through blogging, we have Wil Wheaton, Tom Green, and now… MC Hammer? Naturally, my first reaction to an MC Hammer blog is that it is a fake (like that wonderful Dustin Diamond website). However, there are a lot of pictures of Hammer hangin out with his son that would be pretty tough to obtain if you weren’t actually Hammer. Not to mention those lengthy write-ups about love, baseball and “the maturation of hip hop”. Did I mention that he has a new album in the works? You can check out the video for the new song “Look 3X” from Hammer’s new home on the internet (linked below).

A couple weeks ago we marvelled over director Werner Herzog and his nerves of steel when he failed to flinch after being shot with an air rifle during an interview for the BBC. Now the time has come, we finally get to witness the event in front of our own eyes and it’s pretty damn hilarious. It almost seems fake, how completely calm and detached he is during the whole fiasco. “It’s not an every day thing, but it doesn’t surprise me to be shot at.” Check out the full interview at the link below and see the size of his welt… oh, and learn a few interesting tidbits about his movie Grizzly Man as well. He truly is one of a kind.