Fancast Holiday Preview: November 2008

By Andy Hunsaker, Fancast Movies
*all release dates subject to change, because movie distributors do that kinda thing

November 7:
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Soul Men [watch the trailer]
The late greats Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes left us with a great comedy to remember them by. Mac and Samuel L. Jackson star in Malcolm D. Lee’s Soul Men, a comedy about two R&B singers called The Real Deal who haven’t performed in 30 years, and VH-1 wants them to reunite. Trouble is, they had a pretty severe falling out, and it’s going to take a hell of a lot of trials and a hell of a lot of tribulations to get them back on stage and in fine form. Director Lee got hit hard when his star Mac died in the same weekend as Hayes, who has a cameo role in the film, and he spoke openly about it. The fact that Bernie’s gone gives the film a weight and heart that might not have otherwise been there, given the themes of getting old and staring down death.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa [watch the trailer]
Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen, Andy Richter and Cedric the Entertainer are all lending their voices to the sequel to the animated hit Madagascar. In the first film, a quartet of spoiled animals from the Central Park Zoo - Alex the Lion (Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Rock), Melman the Giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippopotamus (Pinkett-Smith) along with a kooky cabal of penguins - find themselves inadvertently transplanted to the island of Madagascar surrounded by lemurs, and life out of captivity is one heck of an adjustment. In this one, the gang finally has a plan to make their way back to New York, in a plane to be piloted by those precocious penguins. Of course, the best laid plans of zebras and giraffes often go awry, and the plane winds up crash landing in the wilds of Africa, leading them back to the homelands to truly discover their roots. It’s a treat to hear Bernie Mac voicing Alex the Lion’s long-lost father as well.

Role Models [watch the trailer]
f you haven’t seen David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer, you should have by now, if only to see Christopher Meloni at his insane best. You’ll also then understand why you should check out his re-teaming him with Paul Rudd. Of course, the new project might look a bit more mainstream than the quirky 80s summer camp parody, but since the current comedy movie climate is mostly about taking mainstream concepts and making them better than they usually are, a movie about guys bonding with troubled kids and learning how to be men can be a lot more fun than one might expect. Rudd plays Danny, a surly energy-drink pitchman who hates his job and everything else, while his partner Wheeler (Seann William Scott) is, well, free-wheeling and generally loves everything, including dressing up like a minotaur to sell sugar-water. When Johnny Law strings the pair up for some vandalism charges, Danny’s ex (Elizabeth Banks) gets them community service instead - meaning they have to act as Big Brothers for a couple of ne’er-do-well kids. Danny is paired up with a nerdy fantasy-loving McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, proving he can get work beyond Superbad) while Wheeler gets the impossible brat Zak (Tajh Bellow). They hate it at first, but grow to not hate it so much. A trite story in the wrong hands, sure, but it’s most certainly in the right hands.

Limited Release:

Repo! The Genetic Opera [watch the trailer]
It’s the future, a darkly gothic one, and there is a catastrophe afflicting humanity - a massive epidemic of organ failures. Thanks to a biotech conglomerate called GENECO, people can get replacement organs to preserve their health at a premium, but they had better not default on their subsequent payments. Functioning organs are highly valuable, and they’re subject to repossession if the terms of the agreement aren’t met. Internal organ repo is a gruesome business, and in Repo: The Genetic Opera, you can see just how ugly things can get in this new world, with soaring musical accompaniment. Starring Alexa Vega (Spy Kids), Anthony Head (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Paul Sorvino, Sarah Brightman and Tobin Bell of Saw, the film is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who helmed Saw II, III and IV, so it lies firmly within that bloody horror genre in which he’s built his career, while still being starkly different.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas [watch the trailer]
A highly-acclaimed tale about a young boy named Bruno, whose father’s (David Thewlis) position with the Nazi regime puts him in near proximity to a concentration camp, and in his childish explorations, he befriends a boy named Shmuel on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. You just know that it’s a story that’s going to shatter your heart.

House [watch the trailer]
Yes, this is a scare flick, but no, this isn’t a remake of the 1986 William Katt horror/comedy of the same name, or it’s sequel which gave us the great John Ratzenberger line “I’ve seen enough tragedy and disaster to make you want to upchuck in your shorts.” No, this time around, it’s an strange concept - the Christian horror movie. Two couples locked into a house and forced to kill one of their number to save the rest by a psycho who claims to have killed God. Is it possible to make a successful fright film that ends in hugs and prayers?

JCVD [watch the trailer]
Jean-Claude Van Damme is playing himself. The star of countless action movies in the late 80s and early 90s. A man with no career now save for shoddy straight-to-video roles that he often loses to Steven Seagal and a custody battle with his wife. When he retreats to his hometown of Brussels, Belgium, he gets caught up in a bank heist hostage situation, and the media circus that forms outside is convinced he’s so desperate for money that he’s responsible for the crime, so he’s got to find a way out of it. An unbelievably meta concept and a hell of a ballsy move that’s gotten people talking about the Hard Target in a whole new way - namely as an actual actor.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell [watch the trailer]
A powerful documentary about how a large group of women in Liberia managed to peacefully end a bloody civil war in their nation, by physically surrounding the peace talks and preventing the negotiators from leaving until they had reached an agreement.

The World Unseen [watch the trailer]
The first of two dramas about forbidden lesbian affairs from director and novelist Shamim Sarif and starring Sheetal Sheth and Lisa Ray as the star-crossed lovers in question. This one is set in a South Africa in the midst of apartheid, where rebellious Amina (Sheth) runs a cafe that doubles as a haven for social outlaws, and her encounter with Miriam (Ray), a traditional married mother, draws them both together, leading Miriam to question herself and the restrictive circumstances around them both.

November 14:
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<emQuantum of Solace [watch the trailer in HD]
Following up on the mind-blowing, franchise-changing events of Casino Royale is the next installment in the 007 saga, picking up from the moment the last film left off. James Bond (Daniel Craig) just had to watch Vesper Lynd die, and while he’s dealing with his burning desire for revenge, he uncovers a massive new conspiratorial organization run by Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric in a role far removed from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Perhaps the darkest Bond film yet… and there’s been more than twenty of these things.

Limited Release:

Slumdog Millionaire [watch the trailer]
Also emerging as an award favorite is Danny Boyle’s latest, telling the twisty tale of Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from Mumbai, India. He is one question away from winning the grand prize on India’s version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” only to be arrested for suspicion of cheating. So this street kid has to give his life story, and the reason he knows the answer to each question is revealed in the telling. Critics are falling all over this film, and it’s no surprise. Boyle is a hell of a filmmaker.

The Dukes [watch the trailer]
Robert Davi and Chazz Palmintieri are partners in a huge 1960s band called The Dukes who have fallen on hard times - hard enough that they’ve decided to forego all the crappy day jobs they’ve been working to make ends meet to try to pull off a gold heist from a shady dentist’s lab. Of course, as with most capers, things go to hell in a handbasket. Are The Dukes badass enough to come out the other side intact?

November 21:
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Twilight [watch the trailer]
The romantic vampire movie might be coming back in a big way. Twilight centers around a girl named Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who, upon being transplanted from Phoenix to the Pacific Northwest, meets someone startlingly unique by the name of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Their relationship deepens quickly, to the point where she does not forsake him when she realizes he’s actually a vampire. Thankfully for her, Edward is a vegetarian of sorts - he and his family refuse to drink human blood. Yet the closer Edward gets to his soulmate Bella, the closer he gets to losing control, which isn’t helped by the arrival of Laurent (Edi Gathegi) and James (Cam Gigandet), enemies of the Cullens who are hunting for Bella relentlessly. Based on the youth novel by Stephenie Meyer and directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Twilight hopes to be the next Harry Potter franchise in terms of look, tone, feel and demographic. You can find out for yourself if it succeeds.

Bolt [watch the trailer]
Bolt (John Travolta) is a dog who stars in his own super-adventure television show, not unlike Rex The Wonder Dog. The trouble is that he believes his own hype and that he actually has superpowers. So when he accidentally finds himself in New York instead of Hollywood, the adventure begins to get himself back to his owner and co-star Penny (Miley Cyrus). Along the way, he runs into a reluctant companion in Mittens the cat (Susie Essman) and a gung-ho partner in Rhino the Hamster (Mark Walton). Let’s see if we can’t forget all the creepy commercials that end with the hamster whispering “there’s a guard - I’m going to snap his neck.”

Limited Release:

I Can’t Think Straight [watch the trailer]
The second of Shamim Sarif’s forbidden lesbian love stories to hit theatres this month. Tala (Lisa Ray) is a feisty Jordanian Palestinian Christian in the midst of planning her wedding. Leyla (Sheetal Sheth) is a shy British Indian Muslim who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali. When they meet each other, they form a strong bond of attraction immediately, which throws both of their lives into chaos.

November 26: Thanksgiving Weekend
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Australia [watch the trailer]
One of the Academy Award favorites for this year is Baz Luhrmann’s colorful epic starring native Aussies Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It’s the kind of lush romance Luhrmann is famous for, if you remember Moulin Rouge (as if anyone could forget it). Set in the northern country just before World War II, it’s the story of English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) who inherits a sprawling ranch, and has to reluctantly unite with a rugged cattle driver (Jackman) to protect her new property from English barons trying to take it from her. While driving their herd across the outback, they’re stunned to witness the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese, just months after their assault on Pearl Harbor.

Four Christmases [watch the trailer]
Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon are Brad McVie and Kate Kingsberry, a happy couple who have made an agreement to vacation for the holidays somewhere tropical instead of spending time with their families. Both of their parents have split up, which means they’d have four households to visit for Xmas, and they’d just as soon avoid the hassle. That is, until their flight is cancelled and their families see them on the news and invalidating all their excuses. Thus, they have to suck it up and endure Brad’s mom (Sissy Spacek), who is dating his former best friend, his father (Robert Duvall) and his harrassing Ultimate Fighter brothers (Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw), her father (Jon Voight), her mother (Mary Steenburgen) and her sister (Kristin Chenoweth), whose baby starts to get Kate thinking about the future.

Transporter 3 [watch the trailer]
The Transporter movies are kick-ass fun that can’t be ignored. Jason Statham stars as Frank Martin, a ridiculously great driver who takes money for getting shady things from one place to another, no questions asked. Except when he has to ask questions. This usually leads to situations where he has to kick five guys asses with a fire hose and his jacket.

Limited Release:

Milk [watch the trailer]
One of the major Oscar contenders for this awards season is expected to be Gus Van Sant’s Milk, which tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office back in 1977. Sean Penn is melting into another great performance, with Josh Brolin being appropriately ominous as Dan White, Milk’s fellow city supervisor who eventually becomes his murderer. Penn’s Into the Wild star Emile Hirsch is back with him again as well, and James Franco is playing his partner Scott Smith.