Rudy Cahayadi

The Roger Corman-produced cult favorite DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) gets an update in this reworking from action director Paul W.S. Anderson (RESIDENT EVIL). In a role sure to please fans of his work in CRANK (2006) and the TRANSPORTER films, Jason Statham is Frankenstein, the fierce driver portrayed by David Carradine in the original. The script, also by Anderson, largely does away with the original\’s satirical elements in favor an increased number of breathtaking crashes and stunt driving. In 2012, the American economy has collapsed, and prisons have been taken over by corporations. Overseen by Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen), Terminal Island prison generates immense amounts of revenue with pay-per-view broadcasts of “Death Race,” in which inmates participate in an auto race where anything goes. New inmate Jensen Ames (Statham), who has been framed for the death of his wife, is chosen to take over the role of Frankenstein, the contest\’s recently deceased masked star driver. His chief competitor, Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson), unaware that a new man is behind the mask of his old rival, will stop at nothing to win. With Case, a sexy navigator from the nearby women\’s facility, and a trusty pit crew led by wise veteran Coach (Ian McShane), Ames has a good shot at winning. If he does, he\’s been promised his freedom—but the race holds more obstacles than he can imagine, and ratings are more important to Hennessey than being true to her word. <br><br>Loud, gory, and lightning fast, DEATH RACE is geared to the video game generation, right down to the graphics that appear onscreen during the race\’s TV broadcast. Once again, Statham creates a great hero to root for in a performance that rises above the copious stunts and visual effects. Allen, in uncharacteristic role, is suitably imposing as the steely warden.

After their hit THE EYE was remade by others, this time the Pang Brothers take the wheel as they revisit their first film together. In BANGKOK DANGEROUS, Nicolas Cage (NATIONAL TREASURE) stars as Joe, a hit man who goes to Thailand on a mission. The beauty of both the city and one of its residents distracts Joe, and he begins to take a young man under his wing, but his boss won\’t let the original goal be forgotten.

When the box office champ Ben Stiller\’s comedic performances aren\’t a variation on a soft-spoken, put-upon everyman with an eventual fuse, he\’s usually playing a full-blown absurdist monster with an apoplectic Napoleon complex. These bizarre creations usually adorn films in which the funnyman provides the supporting work (DODGEBALL, HEAVYWEIGHTS), but, whenever he\’s directing, he\’s free to build an entire filmic universe around his asinine, ludicrously funny, culture-skewering characters and premises. His ZOOLANDER (2001) bit at the entertainment industry with silly abandon, but Stiller has firmly set TROPIC THUNDER within the realm of sophisticated Hollywood satire. In it, a desperate director named Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) trying to make a Vietnam war movie drops his pampered actors into the heart of the jungle. Cockburn\’s stars include Stiller as an action hero who\’s starting to make bad career choices, Jack Black as an insecure low-brow comedy star going through heroin withdrawals, and Robert Downey Jr. as an Australian Oscar winner so lost in his “craft” he underwent a procedure to become black for his role. In the jungle, they remain under the delusion that they are still being filmed even after they encounter a dangerous gang of druglords. The film\’s basic premise has popped up several times since Hollywood\’s 1970s golden age in films such as THREE AMIGOS! and GALAXY QUEST. Where those films simply blanketed a classic Overconfident Bumbling Idiot comedy showcase with a pop culture lexicon, however, TROPIC THUNDER could have only been made, as on-the-nose at is, by people who have been working in the Hollywood system for years, making cutting observations along the way. Simply put, this raucous satire knows big-budget filmmaking, the delusional narcissism of actors, and even the good points of those actors–perhaps why they\’re celebrated–like the back of its hand.

MAMMA MIA became a Broadway smash when it hit Broadway back in 2001. With a story framed around the music of the Swedish pop band Abba, crowds loved its raucous, dance party vibe. Now it comes to the silver screen, with some truly delightful performances from the likes of Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. It is the story of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) a young woman living on a picturesque Greek island with her mother, Donna (Streep.) Together, Donna and Sophie run a ramshackle island inn, and they are in the midst of preparing for Sophie\’s wedding. As the wedding approaches, Sophie becomes troubled by the fact that she has never known her father. She was the result of one of her mother\’s summer flings, and her mother has never revealed her father\’s identity. When Sophie stumbles upon her mother\’s diary, she learns that there are three possible men who could be her dad. Without telling her mother, she invites all three to her wedding. When Harry (Colin Firth), Sam (Brosnan), and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) all arrive at the same time, Donna is of course shocked and overwhelmed by seeing her old lovers again after such a long time. She turns to her two best friends, Tanya (Christine Baranaki) and Rosie (Julia Walters), for their support, and vows to just get through the wedding and weekend. Meanwhile, Sophie spends time with each man, determined to learn the truth.<br><br>Major hijinks and confusion ensues, all amidst the utterly romance scenery, and the rather irresistible, swelling love ballads. Streep has a lovely singing voice, and to watch her throw herself into this whimsical role is truly a delight. She looks like she is having a ball, and it is hard not to shimmy along with her. Baranski reliably delivers an over-the-top showstopper, and Brosnan\’s tender singing voice makes his character all the more touching. The film strives to be a jubilant celebration of mother/daughter relationships and the love between good friends, and no matter how cheesy some may find Abba, it is hard to resist its many charms.

Comic actress Anna Faris (LOST IN TRANSLATION, SCARY MOVIE) shines in her starring turn in THE HOUSE BUNNY, a hilarious and heartfelt tale of female empowerment. As the film opens, Shelly Darlingson (Farris) is Big Bunny on Campus at Hugh Hefner\’s Playboy Mansion. With her 27th birthday approaching, Shelly eagerly anticipates fulfilling her dream: to be centerfold of the month. But when she learns that she\’s being booted from Bunnyland, Shelly finds herself with no family or place to call home. Desperate for both, she lucks across the socially inept sisters of the Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority. With no hope of attracting new pledges and the consequent threat of losing their sorority, the girls of Zeta take in the bubbly Shelly as their new “house mother.” Shelly immediately sets to work helping the Zetas bring out their inner glamazons, luring in boys while drawing the ire of rival sorority Phi Iota Mu. Shelly also catches the eye of Oliver (Colin Hanks), who forces her to realize that it will take more her Playboy Mansion ways to win over a good man. Plus, Shelly discovers that her social insights have transformed the Zetas into the very superficial types they once railed against. And when Hugh Hefner calls to offer Shelly her dream centerfold shoot, she must choose between returning to the family that loved her best and saving the family that needs her most. Faris (who co-produced the film) is a comic delight as Shelly, with a perfect blend of sexy charm and sweet-natured cluelessness. Supported by an excellent cast of fresh faces and seasoned veterans, THE HOUSE BUNNY is an irresistible tale of inner beauty and “sisters” sticking together.

Vin Diesel muscles his way from Eastern Europe to New York City in this post-apocalyptic thriller. The actor plays a mercenary who must take a package west in the midst of a crumbling world, but the package is more than it appears. French director Mathieu Kassovitz (LA HAINE, GOTHIKA) helms this film based on the novel BABYLON BABIES by Maurice G. Dantec.

With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman has been making headway against local crime…until a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker unleashes a fresh reign of chaos across Gotham City. To stop this devious new menace–Batman\’s most personal and vicious enemy yet–he will have to use every high-tech weapon in his arsenal and confront everything he believes.

Fans of the side-splitting spoofs of MEET THE SPARTANS and DATE MOVIE will get plenty of laughs from this film from directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The directors reunite with Carmen Electra, and their film also features Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, Kim Kardashian, and comedian G Thang.

When straight arrow FBI agent Roy Clayton heads up the investigation into a dangerous international conspiracy, all clues seem to lead back to former U.S. Special Operations officer, Samir Horn. A mysterious figure with a web of connections to terrorist organizations, Horn has a knack for emerging on the scene just as a major operation goes down. The inter-agency task force looking into the case meets with Carter, a veteran CIA contractor who seemingly has his own agenda and Max Archer, a fellow FBI agent. The task force links Horn to a prison break in Yemen, a bombing in Nice and a raid in London, but a tangle of contradictory evidence emerges, forcing Clayton to question whether his quarry is a disaffected former military operative — or something far more complicated. Obsessed with discovering the truth, Clayton tracks Horn across the globe as the elusive ex-soldier burrows deeper and deeper into a world of shadows and intrigue.

While it might sound outlandish to speak of THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS in the same sentence as CITIZEN KANE, in its own little neck of the cinematic woods the Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen comedy is perhaps just as groundbreaking. In fact, it\’s nearly impossible to think of another film that blends so seamlessly pitch-perfect stoner babble with high-octane action sequences. <br><br>Dale Denton (Rogen), a process server with a weed fixation, witnesses a murder and turns to his dealer, Saul (James Franco), for support. The murderer is actually Saul\’s main drug supplier, and because of Saul\’s access to some extremely rare high-grade pot (called Pineapple Express) the two are quickly tracked down and put on the run. Like all Apatow/Rogen vehicles, the movie deals with the theme of men succumbing to adulthood and all the adjustments they are forced to make in the process. However, unlike KNOCKED UP and THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS is just too wacky to offer any lessons. Still, there\’s more going on here than giggles and the munchies. Indie director David Gordon Green (SNOW ANGELS) brings a subtle auteur\’s touch to the proceedings, approaching the smoking scenes with his distinctively loose feel and giving the action sequences a wonderfully dated sheen that makes them look more like a fight from KNIGHT RIDER than the empty flash of 21st-century blow-‘em-ups. It is Franco, however, who truly steals this movie–he hasn\’t been this charming since his days on FREAKS AND GEEKS. There\’s only so many ways to play a stoner, but Franco puts his own endearing, lovable spin on the type, portraying Saul as a kind-hearted, well-intentioned yet hardcore dope smoker. Rogen and Apatow have proven themselves a nearly unstoppable juggernaut; here\’s hoping they bring Franco along on the ride a little more often.