411 Movies Roundtable: June 2008 Part 1

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 06.03.2008

The 411 staff takes a look back at the month that was, and discusses the upcoming big releases in June!

Welcome to the monthly 411 Movies Roundtable. After a busy opening month of the summer blockbuster season, which saw Iron Man soar to new heights and some mixed reactions to the return of Indiana Jones (I haven't had the chance to see it yet so I'm reserving judgment for now), we're kicking things up a notch as we head into June. This month, Ed Norton gets the rage, James McAvoy discovers his destiny, and one solitary robot spends 700 years cleaning up the planet's waste. Apparently he didn't even make it out of my housemate's bedroom in all that time. Ba-zing!

This month's picture theme celebrates the big foreign-language release Mongol, which looks at the life of Genghis Khan, by taking in some other famous historical Asian warlords and leaders. Intellectual, certainly, but we need some sort of counterpoint to the brainless blockbuster season don't we! Ten "cleverness" points if you can name them all.

Let's get down to business...

Introducing this month's participants:

Movie reviewer Jeremy Thomas!

From "Furious on Film", Arnold Furious!

Reviewer and Dungeonmaster, Jeffrey "The Vile One" Harris!

Film reviewer and fellow 411 Gamer James McGee!

From "Alternate Takes", Shawn S. Lealos!

From "Casting Call", Jason Chamberlain!

411's resident B-movie guru, Bryan Kristopowitz!

Master of the Top 5, Trevor Snyder!

...and I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield!

The Month That Was

Jeremy Thomas

Biggest Winner of the Month: Iron Man, without a doubt. People expected a big movie, but few expected it to be as good and big as it was. It not only tore up the box office on it's opening weekend with almost $100 million, but it's had legs that can be called no less then amazing. After just three weeks, it's over $400 million worldwide, and is easily going to end up the most successful non-arachnid Marvel Comics movie ever made. Not bad for a hero that most of movie-going America was saying "Who?" to six months ago. Robert Downey Jr.'s career is officially back in perfect form, Jon Favreau is a hot commodity in Hollywood, and Gwyneth Paltrow is showing that even Oscar-winners can do comic book movies now and not look silly, unlike certain other actresses. *Cough*HalleBerry*Cough*

Biggest Loser of the Month: Go, go, Speed Racer...all the way to the front of the "fast-tracked to DVD" line. The huge-budget movie bombed in it's first weekend with not even $20 million, and then dropped a painful 60% to $8 million in weekend two. At this rate, it doesn't even look like it'll hit $45 million. I dare say that there hasn't been a big budget bomb this bad since Pluto Nash and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the latter of which sunk a studio. Clearly, I don't think this one's going to kill Warner Brothers...but it certainly has put a lot of egg on the Wachowskis' faces. Hopefully it won't be the death knell for the talented actors that ended up in this film, like Emile Hirsch. Regardless, I'm not disappointed to see this one bomb.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: I was tempted to rant up a storm about the continuation of Remake Hell (see Bad Lieutenant, Highlander, and more), but instead, I'll be positive and call it the announcing of more Marvel movie release dates. Marvel Studios has announced that Iron Man 2 will come out April 30, 2010; Thor will come out June 4, 2010; The First Avenger: Captain America (actually a misnomer, he was the fifth Avenger) comes out May 6, 2011, and the much-awaited-by-then The Avengers will come out in July of the same year. If they're all cast and made with the same seriousness that Marvel took with Iron Man, then all I gotta say is Make Mine Marvel! And Excelsior! And many other clichés that only Marvel Comics fans will get!

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: I seriously can't decide between Wanted and Incredible Hulk. Considering Hulk is probably just me still coming off the high of Iron Man, I'll go the other way and say Angelina hotness and curving bullets is my biggest anticipation.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Sort of a weak month for DVD...out of the options, I'll go with Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights. I'm a fan of stand-up, and I've heard very good things about this one. And Justin Long makes me laugh.

Classic Movie of the Month: With another Pixar movie coming out this month and the comic book overtones of the rest of my entry, I gotta go with The Incredibles. I saw what is probably Pixar's best film to date when my wife put it in a couple weeks ago, and I still love it. Hollywood's making sequels left and right, and we can't get Brad Bird enough money to do one for here? What the hell?

Movie Quote of the Month: "Remember the bad guys on those shows you used to watch on Saturday morning? Well, these guys are not like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you're children. They will kill you if they get the chance. Do not give them that chance." Elastigirl, aka Helen Parr (Holly Hunter), The Incredibles

Arnold Furious

Biggest Winner of the Month: Marvel. I was torn here because Indy and Iron Man made huge money and they were both very entertaining trips to the cinema. However Iron Man is the better film and I don't think there are many who will begrudge me saying that AND it's more important. Iron Man's success equals Marvel's first independent hit. They played a risky card by launching Iron Man with all their own money along with a reboot of Hulk the same year but it's paid off big time. At the time of writing Iron Man has made over $250M in the US alone. While Indy's opening weekend was huge it'll do very little to effect the careers of anyone involved (apart from perhaps Shia The Beef but he had a huge hit just last summer and is clearly on the up) while Marvel's massive win with Iron Man helped them to name the release dates of another 3 or 4 movies. It may have been less if Iron Man hadn't been such a huge success.

Biggest Loser of the Month: The Wachowski Brothers. It comes as no surprise whatsoever to me but the wheels have finally come off the Wachowski machine and I couldn't be happier. I've hated everything they've done since The Matrix. While they didn't direct V for Vendetta their screenplay was responsible for the source material's dumbing down. The constant stream of Matrix related crap is only now starting to die down. How much better would The Matrix be if it was just one movie? But then that wouldn't have made as much money would it? Speed Racer looks like a horrible mess and judging by the reviews, Richard Roeper aside, the critics agree and judging by the lack of money its taken at the box office so does John Q. Public. On the upside I look forward to it appearing in Peter Bielik's "Mr Floppy" column soon.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Being a mark for the books I'll have to go with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson announcing a trilogy of Tintin movies will be made. Considering all the shit Spielberg has lined up it might take a while to shoot and it may even suck regardless as they're trying to capture a slice of the past, which looking at Indy IV and King Kong I'm not entirely convinced either of them is great at anymore. But Tintin, dude! Tintin!

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: I never get this right, unless it's obvious, so I'll go with Wanted. The trailers have me hooked and James McAvoy as reluctant action hero could be the inspired casting choice of the summer. We'll see.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: No Country for Old Men… friendo.

Classic Movie of the Month: A Streetcar Named Desire. I saw this again on late night TV the other day. What a film! The point at which acting was quirky, unpredictable and LAAAAARRRGGEEE ended was when this movie came out. Brando is so intense and the film just oozes atmosphere. It's claustrophobic and sweaty and you feel like you're just off Bourbon Street while you're watching it. The main draw is Brando but Vivien Leigh also turns in her career best performance as a fading Southern Belle. I'd completely forgotten how nuanced her performance was to the degree where when she got older and more insane, what with the tuberculosis, she believed she was Blanche DuBois. Now that is method acting. Even director Elia Kazan who disliked her as an actress said she'd have crawled through broken glass to get the right emotions for the part.

Movie Quote of the Month: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" - Blanche as she's carted off to the nuthouse.

Jeffrey Harris

Biggest Winner of the Month: Iron Man with a bullet, shooting out the gates and setting the tone for the summer movie season with a rocket sized bang. Iron Man still remains the best reviewed and most successful movie of the year so far. Months ago, many debated if this film could reach $200 million, now it seems the US BO ceiling for this flick could be $300 million and beyond. The first solo effort by Marvel Studios definitely paid off.

Biggest Loser of the Month: Blow, Speed Racer, blow. Which is exactly what you did. The bad news is that this isn't putting a stop to the awful looking Dragon Ball movie. One would hope the Hollywood live action remake of AKIRA being kicked around would die as well.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Marvel's live action theatrical feature release slate for the next several years. Things for a lot of these movies were in a holding pattern to see how Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk would perform. Well Marvel Studios was quick to make the announcements right after Iron Man's dominant opening weekend. So the plan is Iron Man 2 and Thor in 2010. Followed by Captain America and The Avengers in 2011. Definitely ambitious moves, so let's see if they will pay off. We still have yet to see how the reboot of The Incredible Hulk franchise will do.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Iron Man without question. Screw old ass Indy. It's all about Tony Stark.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Volume 2. The second group of 13 episodes for the excellent new animated He-Man series that aired from 2002-2004 on Cartoon Network. This volume is the second half of the first season.

Classic Movie of the Month: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hey it got me in the mood for Crystal Skull. There really are few movies quite as perfect as Raiders.

Movie Quote of the Month: "Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative."

James McGee

Biggest Winner of the Month: In a ridiculously crowded month of blockbusters, Iron Man took me completely by surprise. I expected decent business, but nothing special. Instead, it was a box-office juggernaut that immediately paved the way for a host of other projects, including the potential geek-gasm that is The Avengers.

Biggest Loser of the Month: I truly feel sorry for the Wachowski brothers. To say Speed Racer was a critical bomb would be a gross understatement. This movie was absolutely savaged by most reviewers. Maybe they should stick to producing other people's work (a la V for Vendetta), because they're starting to look like one-hit-wonders in the director's chair.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: In the wake of Iron Man and its mind-numbingly cool post-credits Easter Egg, Marvel laid out long-term plans for The Avengers. Despite some disturbing early rumors (Triple H as Thor? Mathew McConaughey as Captain America? Please, no!), this project has all the makings of "Biggest Movie In the History of the World. Ever." Let's hope it all stays on track, and doesn't go the way of Justice League.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Hands down, The Happening. I am a shameless M. Night fan boy. He became a critical whipping boy after Lady in the Water (which, for the record, I loved), but what do reviewers know? (Hey, wait…). Anyway, I'm also a huge fan of Marky Mark (would that make me a "Marky Mark mark?"), so I'm positively giddy about this one.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Anything but Witless Protection. Larry the Cable Guy must not be allowed to go on making movies. BREAK THE CYCLE!

Classic Movie of the Month: Well, it's a classic in my mind, so I'm going with Saved! It's smart , funny, thought-provoking, and despite what you may have heard, it treats Christianity with a lot of respect. It isn't anti-religious so much as it is anti-hypocrite.

Movie Quote of the Month: "I am FILLED with Christ's love!" - Hillary Faye, after throwing a Bible at Mary's head, Saved!

Shawn S. Lealos

Biggest Winner of the Month: Iron Man - No brainer. I would say 90% of the film going population had no idea who Iron Man was. The one's who do would go see the movie regardless. So when the movie passed the $250 million mark, it had to be a huge success for Marvel. It is closing in on $500 million worldwide and has insured that Marvel has protected itself from at least one flop (The Incredible Hulk?) in the future. It also paints a bright future for Thor, Captain America and The Avengers. As a comic book geek, I am very excited!

Biggest Loser of the Month: Speed Racer - Whether it is due to the limited appeal of the original anime series or, as I believe, due to the poor marketing strategy, the Washowski brothers return to directing is a huge failure. Chances are good it will not make its budget back theatrically, with a worldwide take that is still a ways short of $100 million. It might be a hit on DVD, but this movie was made for the big screen. It was nothing less than a major failure.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Sydney Pollack (1934-2008); I know he has not been directing movies for awhile, but he has still been holding down the fort as far as getting intelligent movies made over the last decade. The man who directed Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie and Out of Africa was also responsible for getting movies such as Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Quiet American, Cold Mountain and Michael Clayton made as a producer. Hollywood has lost a great spokesman and visionary.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: After a big May, June seems to be of lighter fare. There are a number of movies I am interested in seeing including The Love Guru, Kung Fu Panda and The Incredible Hulk. The one I want to see the most is the new Pixar flick Wall-E. I am almost completely sold on it and want to see an amazing Pixar picture to finally finish washing the taste of Cars out of my mouth.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Burn Notice Season 1 - This television show was one of the most fun experiences of last year. I originally watched due simply to the fact that Bruce Campbell was in it, but it completely won me over by the season finale. Great stuff and I can't wait to watch it straight through with no interruptions.

Classic Movie of the Month: Lawrence of Arabia - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a GREAT SUCCESS at the box office. It has almost hit $300 million worldwide and that is amazing for one weekend. It was my prediction for the box office king, and that looks to be proving true. Now, go watch one of the movies that made Steven Spielberg decide to make Raiders of the Lost Ark in the first place. It is a three hour movie, but it flies by and is worthy of the praise heaped upon it. If you like Indiana Jones, you should love Lawrence of Arabia.

Movie Quote of the Month: "They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only need to fire once. That's how dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far."

Jason Chamberlain

Biggest Winner of the Month: Robert Downey Jr. He continues to churn out quality performances and with the smash success of Iron Man, he has cemented his arrival (or return) as a bonafide leading man. Not only that, but it seems clear he has left the demons of his past far behind him. Keep up the great work sir!

Biggest Loser of the Month: Warner Brothers and the Wachowski brothers for Speed Racer. And me, because I really liked the movie! But nobody seems to agree with me, since the flick has utterly tanked at the box office, and who knows the ultimate damage it will have on the Wachowskis. It's a shame, because personally I'd have liked to have seen a sequel where Racer X reveals his true identity. Doesn't look like we're going to get one now though.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: The Hobbit is rounding into shape nicely (for a film that hasn't been written yet, I mean), and I read with great interest the ‘Unexpected Party' chat that PJ and GDT did recently. With due respect to Christopher Tolkien, I hope he fails in his attempt to stop the film from happening because it's a truly epic story that deserves the big screen treatment. Two more Middle Earth films. Hell yeah!

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: Being the comic book nerd that I am, I've got to go with the Hulk. Hulk smash, Jason buy ticket!

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Jumper – Didn't get a chance to see this while it was in the theatre and I'll at least give it a rent when it hits DVD.

Classic Movie of the Month: The Mummy (1999). With the long awaited (by me) arrival of the third film this summer (featuring Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh!) it inspires a look back at the original ‘update' of the classic horror movie. Brendan Fraser is pretty cool as a poor man's Indiana Jones, and Rachel Weisz just melts in your mouth. Too bad she passed on the new one.

Movie Quote of the Month: "I just wanna go the distance." – Rocky Balboa sets his goal for the big title fight against Apollo Creed in Rocky.

Bryan Kristopowitz

Biggest Winner of the Month: It's a tie between Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau, and everyone involved with Iron Man and Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas with Indiana Jones 4, as both have proven to be huge, gigantic, mega box office hits. Both flicks have helped get the summer movie season off to a relatively good start.

Biggest Loser of the Month: The Wachowski brothers, as their live action version of Speed Racer (a movie that I liked quite a bit, by the way) tanked at the box office. And it tanked badly. In fact, it's still tanking right now as we speak. I hope the flick eventually finds an audience because it is a sight to behold.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: The confirmation that Guillermo del Toro will be doing The Hobbit the deaths of Sydney Pollack and Harvey Korman, and, well, the tanking of Speed Racer and the relative tanking of the second Narnia movie. May had quite a bit happening in it.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: The Incredible Hulk is a must see, as is M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. Both Get Smart and The Love Guru look funny. And WALL-E looks like a blast.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: June 17th sees the release of the second season of Jericho, which is a must have for everyone (well, it should be), Disney is releasing The Sword in the Stone: the 45th Anniversary Edition and the great Burt Reynolds sitcom Evening Shade finally hits DVD. I'm going to assume that it's also going to show up on TV Land soon enough.

Classic Movie of the Month: Collision Course (1989). This is, of course, the buddy cop comedy featuring Jay Leno as a Detroit detective and Pat Morita as a Japanese cop who have to team up to find a stolen engine prototype. I don't remember why exactly the prototype was stolen, but, really, will you care? Not really. Because all you're really interested in is the buddy cop shenanigans Leno and Morita get into. And, for the most part, it's all good and funny. Although you'll completely understand why Leno didn't do much acting after this flick.

Movie Quote of the Month: Diane: "How would you characterize The Great Gatsby"? / Thorton: "He was, uh... great!"
Sally Kellerman (Diane) and Rodney Dangerfield (Thorton Melon)- Back to School (1986)

Trevor Snyder

Biggest Winner of the Month: We all knew Iron Man was gonna be pretty huge, but I don't think anyone expected it to be this huge. For instance, who would have thought that it would end up being (as of right now) the best reviewed film of the year? It couldn't have happened to a better flick, though, as it lived up to the hype in every possible way, and has finally made Robert Downey Jr. the star he always should have been.

Biggest Loser of the Month: On the flip side, I kinda expected Speed Racer to under-perform at the box office, but holy crap! I saw the flick, and I dug it, so I have a hard time understanding the incredible beating it took. Personally, I think most of the negative attitudes I have seen towards the film are a little unfair, and I still believe this movie will eventually find a larger devoted following on video, most of whom will regret not seeing it on the big screen when they had the chance. Until then, though, this thing got spanked.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: Marvel laying out their slate of upcoming films for the next few years means geeks like me know exactly which weekends we'll be totally marking out for. Plus, it's nice to see the Marvel Studios experiment immediately paying off, as we are now building to an Avengers film that could just be the biggest comic book movie of all time.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: I guess this is the slow month this summer, huh? Mongol looks pretty bad-ass from the footage I've seen, but I'll give the honors to WALL-E. I've never seen Cars, but apart from that one Pixar has never let me down, and from the looks of things it doesn't look like this one will break the trend.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: Ehhh, a pretty weak DVD month here, which is at least good news for my wallet. I am looking forward to this upcoming Tuesday's release of The Machine Girl, an over-the-top Japanese action flick that just looks completely insane (seriously, go check out the trailer…great stuff!), and next weeks WWE 3-disc career retrospective of The Rock. But the only DVD I'm legitimately excited for is Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, the second of the four new Futurama films, which hits on the 24th.

Classic Movie of the Month: I just recently re-watched Night of the Creeps, an excellent ‘80s horror comedy from Fred Dekker (the director of Monster Squad), and surprisingly enough, it totally holds up. James Gunn's Slither was essentially one giant homage to this flick, which also concerns alien slugs that crawl into your mouth and turn you into a zombie. It's too bad there's still not an official DVD of this one, or else I'd tell all of you to go out and rent it right this minute.

Movie Quote of the Month: The following exchange between Night of the Creeps' heroic Detective Cameron (Tom Atkins) and a sorority sister, the film's best moment:
"I got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here."
"What's the bad news?"
"They're dead."

Owain J. Brimfield

Biggest Winner of the Month: Marvel Studios, whose stock has risen immeasurably with the success of Iron Man (and deservedly so, it's the first movie I've seen in ages that has entertained my girlfriend as much as me, so for that alone it deserves all the plaudits it gets). With the announcement of a slate of movies over the next few years leading up to an eventual big-screen outing for the Avengers, it's never been such a good time to be a Marvel fanboy.

Biggest Loser of the Month: The Wachowski brothers, whose relentless refusal to do any press whatsoever at least worked in their favor when they didn't have to defend the tanking of their latest effort, Speed Racer. I wouldn't have been surprised if the film had merely put in a disappointing performance, but it's received roundly mediocre reviews and audiences have stayed the hell away from it, and I have to say I didn't anticipate that to quite the extent it's shown. I believe that puts the Wachowskis at one decent movie out of four this decade, so they really need to shape up and salvage their reputation.

Biggest Movie News of the Month: I'm going to go with a little-seen news story this month, as some test audiences for The Dark Knight reportedly baulked at a scene in which Heath Ledger's character, the Joker, pretends to be dead and lies in a bodybag. Because, you know, Heath Ledger died recently. By golly, but people are sure as hell stupid. Do they really have that much trouble differentiating between fact and fiction? Do studios really care so much about the reactions of some dumb hicks in the audience that they'd change the film just so's not to offend them? That's disgraceful. There's no reason any serious filmmaker should even consider using test audiences (with a possible exception made for improv-comedies of the likes Judd Apatow and co. put out), and kudos to Chris Nolan for apparently flipping the bird and keeping the scene in the film anyway.

Your Most Anticipated Movie of the Month: I'm torn between The Happening and WALL-E, but I'll side with the latter simply for the fact that I know I'll make the effort to go and see it on the big screen where I'd be happy to wait for Shyamalan's latest on DVD. It looks like a new chapter in Pixar's domination of the animated movie world, and has the potential to be one of the finest family sci-fi movies yet made.

Recommended DVD Release of the Month: American Dad! Volume 3 has just turned up on my doorstep, so I'll be watching that with the missus for the next week or so. It's still arguable as to whether or not this is better than Family Guy, but it's certainly more solidly structured and has a better satirical mind. But such observations are trivial, all I really care about is that the show makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl.

Classic Movie of the Month: The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer's intricately woven crime thriller from the mid-90s that still has everyone talking about that glorious climax where everything that the film has been building up unravels before your eyes in one deft stroke. Masterful.

Movie Quote of the Month: "How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?" - Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) fears the mythical crimelord Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects

CONTINUE TO PART II!