American Gangster is based on the real life story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), the number one importer of heroin into Harlem in the 1970s. Frank decides the best way to make a profit is to get rid of the middle man and deal direct with the source in South East Asia. The film follows Lucas’ rise in the underworld and the attempts of Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) to break his hold on New York.

Ridley Scott proves again that he’s a fine director no matter what period he chooses. It’s shot uncompromisingly and leaves no doubt to the kind of damage that can be done by heroin. He doesn’t lose control over a mammoth cast and keeps the focus on Lucas and Roberts with a steady eye. Washington and Crowe are pitted against each other extremely well without either really getting the upper hand.

There’s no doubting the 1970s America that’s shown in this movie. There is a real sense that New York continues on either side of the camera and we’re being treated to a snapshot. Partly that comes down to the set design but also costume designer Janty Yates (who one an Oscar with Gladiator) turns out another fine piece of work.

I thought Josh Brolin pulled out another good piece of acting as the crooked cop, Trupo. Add this to his performance in No Country for Old Men and he seems to be hitting the right notes. It’ll be interesting to see how he does as George W. Bush in Oliver Stone’s ‘W’.

As far as the story goes there was a sense that I’d seen it all before. The crooked cops, the valiant do-gooder, the violent king-pin. It might be a hangover from Washington’s role in Training Day or that there isn’t really a spectacular scene. There’s nothing wrong with a solid piece of story telling but I think this film needed something to jolt the audience out of their seats.

I definitely found myself flagging somewhere around the 2 hour mark. It’s not so much that I was losing interest but once it became apparent where the story was going there wasn’t enough substance to make me want to stick around. It’s a shame but I came away feeling that it was just a little bit too long.

There is an alternative ending that comes with the DVD but it’s nothing to get excited about – it’s an extra five minutes that was rightly left out of the cinematic release. With the normal version at over 2 and a half hours I didn’t try and track down the extra 18 minutes of footage in the extended version.

There are and will be better gangster movies than this but it’s certainly entertaining enough if you have longer legs that me. I don’t know how accurate the real life story is portrayed but it is a well worked flashback to the 1970s.

LOS ANGELES, May 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Rentrak Theatrical, a business unit of Rentrak Corporation (Nasdaq: RENT), today announced the weekend theatrical box office estimates for the weekend period of May 23 through May 25, 2008 according to the company’s Box Office Essentials(TM) theatrical box office data collection and analytical service.

The twelve estimated top producing motion pictures for the weekend, per data collected as of 9:30AM Pacific on Sunday May 25, 2008 by Rentrak Theatrical include:

     Rank Title:  Weekend Gross (# Locations )     
     1  Indiana Jones Kingdom Crystal Skull : $101,000,000  (4260)      
     2  Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian : $23,032,000 (3929)      
     3  Iron Man :  $20,147,000 (3915)      
     4  What Happens In Vegas : $9,000,000 (3188)      
     5  Speed Racer : $3,985,000  (3112)      
     6  Made of Honor : $3,400,000 (2393)      
     7  Baby Mama : $3,323,320 (2158)      
     8  Forgetting Sarah Marshall :  $1,665,510  (1078)      
     9  Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo :  $915,000  (750)     
     10 The Visitor :  $781,000  (270)     
     11  The Forbidden Kingdom :  $355,000  (487)     
     12  Young @ Heart :  $340,000  (212)

     Weekend of 05/23/2008 to 05/25/2008

About Box Office Essentials
Box Office Essentials provides each studio with password-protected, real- time, web browser-based and 24/7 access to data pertaining specifically to their movie release titles. A sophisticated toolset allows studio distribution executives to view and analyze the information at different levels of detail and across a multitude of attributes (by theatre circuit, DMA, time zone, etc.), enhancing their ability to make faster, and better informed decisions. Additional features include online school calendars (K-12 and college), interactive release schedule and 24-hour subscriber support.

About Rentrak Corporation
Rentrak Corporation, based in Portland, Oregon, is an information management company serving clients in the media, entertainment, retail, advertising and manufacturing industries. The company’s Entertainment Essentials(TM) suite of services is redefining media measurement in the digital broadband era. Entertainment Essentials provides customers with near- real-time, actionable insight into performance of content distributed over a wide variety of modern media technologies. Available by license or subscription, each Entertainment Essentials application allows executives to analyze detailed industry-wide and title-specific data to make decisions that enhance the bottom line and provide competitive advantage. For further information, please visit Rentrak’s corporate Web site at http://www.rentrak.com.


Contacts:    
Rogers & Cowan for Rentrak Corporation    
Sallie Olmsted     (310) 854-8124    
solmsted@rogersandcowan.com

Amanda Bartz     (310) 854-8151    
abartz@rogersandcowan.com

The team that could do no wrong in the 1980s (George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford) have reunited for the sequel that we never thought would happen - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  It’s been a long time since any of these guys have had a bona-fide hit, (the Star Wars prequels don’t count because most fans of the original films really don’t like them), but did they return to greatness with Indy IV?

Let me preface this review by stating that Raiders of the Lost Ark is my favorite movie of all time.  I’m also a huge Indiana Jones fan.  Despite this, I had relatively low expectations for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull due to the lackluster films that the guys mentioned earlier have made in the last 15 years.  Still, the Indy fanboy in my was pretty darn excited when the Lucasfilm logo appeared on the screen last night and the movie began.

The first half of the movie is the answer to the prayers of all Indy fans.  Action, drama, well-placed humor, nods to the previous films, and an older, but maybe not wiser, Indiana Jones.  I totally accepted Indy in 1957 and the storyline had me curious.  The intro of Mutt Williams, (played by Shia Labeouf), works well, too.

But, the second half of the movie was a bit of a let down.  The action/fight scenes are drawn out too long, the humor is overplayed, and the whole crux of the movie just doesn’t hold up to any of the previous films.  Cate Blanchett’s villainous Irina Spalko, is pretty lame, too, compared to the baddies in the first two films, but on par with Walter Donovan from the Last Crusade. Bottom line is that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has the weakest overall story of the four Indy films, and the mystery in this one is just so-so.

Having said all of that, it’s Indiana Jones!!! Go see this movie in the theater.  As with all of the previous Indy movies, it’s got a huge scope, and I liked a great deal about it.  First and foremost, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is back!  The best of Indy’s love interests from the movies, Marion could hold her own with Indy in Raiders, and she fares pretty well in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Harrison Ford has been in slump for the last 15 years, but he hits it out of the park here.  His portrayal of Indy is nostalgic and refreshing at the same time.

John Williams’ score is excellent.  He weaves elements from the three previous films into a new tapestry of music for the film and it does what all good scores do - it enhances, and becomes part of, the movie.

With one viewing of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I would rank it just about even with, or slightly better than, The Last Crusade, but not as good as Temple of Doom and nowhere near as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark.  But it’s a solid sequel that most fans of the series should enjoy.

It gets a grade of B/B-.

Thanks for reading.

Marc
Sideshow Movie Collectibles

With two Oscars under her belt, leading lady Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don’t Cry) seems like a pretty safe bet at the box office - or in this case for a DVD purchase.  As far as I was concerned, PS I Love You sounded like a fairly safe bet.  Swank plays Holly Kennedy, a woman who loses the love of her life, Gerry (Gerard Butler) to a terminal illness and she is unable to easily cope with the loss.  Before he died, Gerry wrote her a series of letters to help teach her the lessons he knew she’d most need help with in dealing with the loss and learning how to stand on her own two feet and move on.  The first message arrives on Holly’s 30th birthday in the form of a cake and, to her utter shock, a tape recording from Gerry, who proceeds to order her to get out and “celebrate herself.”

While the film is not a total loss, the biggest issue I had with the film is that it didn’t seem to entirely commit Swank’s character (or the storyline) to a specific enough mold for the audience to sink it’s teeth into.  At times it would start to ease into the feel of a romantic comedy, then suddenly shift gears back to the angst of loss.  Perhaps the notion was that grief is a very confusing emotion, but it shouldn’t be so confusing to the audience that we’re not sure which ride we’re on.  I personally wish they would have just picked one and gone all or nothing.  Make it a romantic comedy about moving on and learning how to let go - or make it a heart tugging drama about the pain of loss, coping and learning. 

That being said, the film wasn’t a total loss.  Lisa Kudrow does a great job as the best friend with some of the best lines in the movie.  Butler held his own, though the overabundance of ‘irish charm’ gets a little too gooey in spots.  Overall the acting was fine enough to keep me watching, the direction of the story seemed to cause the bumps. 

As long as you don’t have your heart set on some solid meat to sink your teeth in, and are willing to take it for what it’s worth, then you might be in like with this movie.   If nothing else, it does remind us all about remembering not to take the people in our life for granted.  That’s never a bad thing to have a nudge about from time to time. Unfortunately I think it missed the mark in terms of having you fall in love with it.   It’s fairly predictable and nothing special, but may make for a good enough viewing on a rainy day.