FEBRUARY, 15

ON THEATRES NEXT WEEK

1-THE TOWERING INFERNO

Action / Disaster

The Cast: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Sharon Stone, Dennis Quaid, Jessica Biel, Andre Benjamin, Ariel Gade

The Director: John McTiernan
The Screenwriter: Bill Cougan

The Plot: Doug Roberts (C.Owen) is an architect specialized in skycrappers. His greatest project is the Duncan Tower, a 1800 feet high building set in San Francisco, developed by Duncan Enterprises. Roberts arrives to San Francisco for the opening ceremony of the tower, where he meets his fiancé Susan (J.Biel).

As the party is beginning, Roberts gets a call from the Tower utility. In routine checking of the building’s generators, a power surge has blown out a circuit breaker – and unknown to everyone the surge blows out another circuit breaker on the 81st floor…

The party goes on in the Promenade Room on 135th floor. Roberts miss the party as he goes examining the wiring and find things to be in worse shape he could have imagined. Security cameras have detected smoke. There’s what seems to be like an small fire going on, so Roberts calls the fire department. When he informs Duncan (D.Quaid) about it, Duncan decides the fire won’t spread and that the ceremony can go on.

The fire department arrives leaded by chief O’Halloran (D.Washington), who has a distate for architects because they insist in building sckycrappers beyond security limits. Despite this antagonism, Roberts and O’Halloran agree on insisting Duncan to evacuate the Promenade Room and he reluctantly accepts. But it is too late. A gas line ruptures and explodes detonating more fires around the building and reaching the main elevator banks. One elevator with a crowd of partiers stops on the fire floor and the blaze engulfs them. It’s panic.

Duncan’s wife, Liz (S.Stone) - a high class lady, cynical and semi-alcoholic, that hates her husband - will become an unexpected hero when the elevator she is going in also stops and almost fall at 87th floor. She will take care of a deaf kid (A.Gade) and, as she notices that fire is coming up, decides to run away with her through the stairs trying to reach on time the building’s roof. They will get to survive to another gas explosion that shatters the stairway before arriving on the 135th floor, where they must find a way through a fire door sealed shut by construction cement.

Pyne (A.Benjamin), a waiter at the party, and Susan also become heroes as they lead some partiers trying to escape from the Promenade Room and also reaching the roof through the air condition corridors as the stairway has fallen under the gas explosions.

As fire has spread all over the building and gas explosions go on, the only way to evacuate the building is with helicopters landing on the rooftop helipad. Duncan and O’Halloran are there to help to evacuate. But as the first helicopter tries to land a panicking group of partiers rush to the chopper and it has to swerve out of the way and promptly crashes. One of them is Duncan, trying to save his life, who dies in the helicopter crash. Now, with the crashed helicopter on the helipad, no more helicopters can land there anymore.

Roberts hears a noise and notices that Liz and the deaf girl are behind the sealed door and finds a way to open it and rescue them. O’Halloran gets to activate a gravity break on the outside elevator, so twelve people can at least get to the ground. Liz and the girl are selected by Roberts to get into that elevator. But things go wrong. More explosions tear the elevator off its track and throw Liz into a fatale fall, forcing also O’Halloran to climb down to it in a risky effort to help a helicopter to wrench the elevator from its track and place it on the ground with the survivors, the deaf girl included.

Meanwhile, Susan, Pyne and his group arrive to the roof. Susan and Roberts meet there and they listen together the grim truth: the only hope left is to explode the building’s water tanks on the roof, as they hold one million gallons of water, to extinguish the fire. With no other choice, O’Halloran and Roberts set to work planting explosive charges. Then, everyone gets into the building as flames are getting to the roof from the outside, secure themselves and pray.

Roberts, O’Halloran, Susan and Pyne will survive to the wild flood.

Stark’s Comment: Can the ‘disaster genre’ work nowadays the way it did in the 70’s? Not so sure about that. An uncertain release: it can be either a decent blockbuster or a surprising flop.


2-OMEGA

Drama / Political

The Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Gene Hackman, Jude Law, Kevin Spacey, Katie Holmes

The Director: Paul Greengrass
The Screenwriter: Marcus Trax

The Plot: The nation of Kuristan in the Soviet Block. A small nation, unimportant to the world until the revolution came and otherthrew the communist government with a democratic one. Three years on and the fledging government led by the President (T.L.Jones) is facing problems. There are rumours of instability, which is a fact his Secretary of Internal Affairs (K.Spacey) is at a center of a web of lies to find himself become President soon. The Americans are pressuring the government to hold democratic elections, the American Ambassador (G. Hackman) speaks often of it even so much as to start talks with the Secretary of Internal Affairs about possible arrangements. The nearby nations, some of which still communist, and China all have an interest about this government failing and communism returning to Kuristan and spys lie in the government waiting. One such spy is a desk secretary (K.Holmes). She is attached to a Junior Minister for Agriculture (J.Law) who finds himself being drawn into this tangled mess.

As he becomes involved he sees the collapse of the President, a great man in his eyes, and he stands in the way through his small actions to join the Secretary of Internal Affairs only to betray him one he reaches the presidency so that Kuristan will really be the country it can be.

A political drama about power, and how it corrupts.

Stark’s Comment: A different kind of movie. It’s fun and exciting to try new things. But a kind of fable or metaphor about how power corrupts is not an easy to sell product. Will moviegoers be interested in conspiracies in a fake ex-russian republic?


3-T.Y.M.: THE INFERNO REVENGE

Sci-Fi / Action / Comedy

The Cast: Brendan Fraser, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Alba, Thomas Haden Church

The Director: Ivan Reitman
The Screenwriter: Joey Stark

The Plot: ‘T.Y.M.’, the secret US Government agency that fights against any kind of evil spirit living among us, is back. Time has passed and now Brendan Fraser has become the new director of ‘T.Y.M.’, while Jennifer Love Hewitt is his closest – in all senses – collaborator. To their surprise, Jessica Alba, who used to work for T.Y.M. a few years before and left to join the Secret Service, returns to the agency asking to join it again. Fraser very much welcomes her, as she used to be one of its best agents.

But since Alba’s return, everything seems to go wrong. All the agency’s missions against evil entities fail. Fraser is pressured by the Government and decisions about closing the agency due to its failures may be taken soon. And Jennifer discovers something really worrying: there could be a relationship between the return of Alba and all the failures.

Fraser and Jennifer investigate that hint and they get to a scary conclusion: Alba is not Alba. I mean, it is her. But her body and brain have been possessed by the most evil entity of all the evil entities that have ever existed: Inferno (T.H.Church).

Inferno, a demon, leader of a supernatural band with a wide repertoire of evil spirits, was supposed to have been destroyed by Alba a few years ago. But he wasn’t. He is back. And he is looking for revenge against T.Y.M.

Both to rescue Alba from the possession and to definitively end up with Inferno, Fraser and Jennifer will have to get into the Third Universe, a parallel reality where Inferno lives and from which directs all his servants on Earth. There, they will face all kind of dangers before succeeding and finally sending Inferno where he deserves to be: Hell.

Comedy, ghosts and adventure are back with T.Y.M.

Stark’s Comment: I must confess I’m very fond of this franchise. The first ‘T.Y.M.’ movie was one of the earliest CMP’s releases… when we were young and innocent. So going back to it is kind of a nostalgic look at the past for me. If things go right, it should work without surprises.


MOVIES IN DEVELOPMENT

YEOMAN: Another replacement from the original Wild Cards movies. Eva Green (‘Powerhouse’) will be Chrysalis, the character played by Angelina Jolie in the two first episodes of the saga. Jolie was offered to be in this spin off but she considered her part too secondary in the storyline and rejected it. Producer Matt Kubrick and Harry Stark have chosen McG to direct the movie in his first work for the Studio.

THE LOLLIPOP MAN: Harry Stark and Kate Beckinsale have reached an agreement after she was fired from ‘HF’ by Michael Bay. She will co-star this comedy with Ben Stiller and the Studio won’t have to pay her the salary agreed for ‘HF’. That way, Beckinsale will get paid a higher salary than it should be for this one to compensate her.

THE HOLDERS: Past Season, Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott worked together in ‘The Guardians’. The movie made a wonderful box office: 160 mill. The experience was so gratifying for them that both have decided to work together again in this enigmatic thriller written by David Makalaster. Spielberg will produce while Scott will direct again.

IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES: After the relative disappointment of ‘Goths: A Love Story’, Emma Roberts has rapidly joined this shooting to play Patrick Dempsey and Famke Jansen’s daughter. Some talents will make their debut in CMP with this one: Isla Fisher, Alexander Gould and Jesse James.

NO MORE BUSH!: An appealing addition to this mockumentary’s cast: Sasha Baron Cohen joins Will Ferrel and Steve Carrel in his CMP’s debut. Director Rob Reiner has only said that Sasha will play not only one but two characters, keeping the secret about their identity. And two ‘serious’ talents will also be there: Morgan Freeman (‘Dead Man’s Song’, the Space Quest saga) and Kiefer Sutherland (also seen in the Space Quest saga, among many other CMP’s productions) will give it a try to wild comedy. One more surprise: Reiner has also announced that one of CMP’s most wanted stars will make a cameo.

GAME BOY 2: WARLANDS: George Lucas and Robert Zemeckis return with the sequel of the megahit written by John Daws. ‘Game Boy’ mixed live action and animation in an epic adventure where well known characters mostly from console games shared with Daniel Radcliffe a fantastic adventure. It became the top 2 Worlwide Gross CMP’s movie ever. So the sequel will look to repeat that major success.

LITTLE TIN GODDESS: David Lynch is already shooting this strange dark drama about the relationship between a nice lonely man, played by Steve Buscemi, and the statue of an ancient goddess. Ashanti has been chosen to play the exotic goddess in what promises to be one of the most peculiar and daring projects of the Season.

SYNDROME 2 & 3: The same way CMP did with ‘Uncommon Valour’ or ‘Space Quest’, the Studio has decided again to shoot simultaneously two sequels of the Matt Kubrick’s zombie adventure ‘Syndrome: Paradise Lost’. The first movie wasn’t as successful as expected, with a box office of 78 millions. But Stark hopes to make it better with the sequels. The second episode will be released this Season while the third one will wait until Season 7 to see the light.

BLINK: More names to be added to the cast: GMA Winner Dakota Fanning (‘Carousel’ was her latest CMP’s movie), Philip Seymour Hoffman (‘Dr. Jones and the Sword of Faith’) and Forest Whitaker (‘Taurus 3’, ‘Home’) join Christian Bale and Hillary Swank in this Josh Collins’ drama based on the casualties that brings to a group of characters the raping and killing of a girl.

POMPEII: Finally, James Cameron’s ‘Pompeii’ has become one of the most expensive productions ever for CMP. The reconstruction of the ancient roman empire city both digitally and in real settings in Spain and CMP’s Studios in Los Angeles together with the complex shooting of the destruction of it all under the Vesuvius’ lava have increased wildly the movie’s budget. Pompeii’s production budget has ended up close to the costs of the Star Wars’ movies or ‘Game Boy’. So Stark is pretty worried as it will have to make a huge box office if CMP wants to have some net gains.

New section. From now on, movie critic Nathan Bigsby will share with all of us his opinions on the upcoming CMP’s movies.

The Towering Inferno: I can't wait to see this! Jessica Biel and a building on fire with a bunch of people inside? What’s not to like? Who cares if it's a remake of a bad campy movie. It can only be better! Did I mention it has Jessica Biel in it? yummy yummy!!!!!

Pompeii: the last movie he made for CMP was pretty good, but it seems like whenever he veers away from what he does best it seems to be a snoozefest. Titanic anyone? He better hit this out of the ball park if he wants to make this movie a hit. They fired Wolfgang Peterson because of production problems, James has a hard job ahead of him to fix this mess.

Yeoman or how to milk a franchise! This franchise started out as a dud but then Wildcards 2 and 3 were a success so what do you do when a character is popular in a franchise? well spin him off into his own movie and hire a argorn to kill a bunch of people on screen. I will say that there is a high chance the movie will be a good time.

No More Bush: I can't wait to see this movie, it'll probably be controversial and that is usually a good thing and it is being made by the people that made another funny movie for the studio.

Omega: yawn! a boring political movie oh boy that usually means just alot of yap yap yap while I check my watch to see how much longer I have to sit through this.


THE PREMIERE PIC

Another CMP's event. Premiere of 'The Towering Inferno' in the city where the story takes place, San Francisco. Here are some of the stars from the movie: Clive Owen and two beautiful ladies, Sharon Stone and Jessica Biel.


A LOOK AT… TOMMY LEE JONES

There’s something about him. Tommy is one of those guys that fit in any kind of movie and any kind of character. Thanx to ‘Men In Black’, the industry discovered that, besides that tough face, hided a great comedian and that opened up his acting range to all kind of genres. And that’s exactly what he does in CMP: jumping from one genre to another and showing us why he deserves a place in the A-league of movie stars.

THE TEMPTING DIAMOND (Ivan Reitman, B.O.: 10 mill.): Jones made his CMP’s debut in a comedy about an elder band of robbers leaded by Bill Murray. Ivan Reitman was returning after his amazing success with ‘The Mogulers’, and the cast was appealing enough to expect a hit. But it severely flopped…

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (Tom Hanks, B.O.: 122 mill.): Looked like an uncertain pitch. A story about life in a circus in the 1920’s wasn’t exactly a sure bet. But Hanks’ directing talent made the miracle and the movie became a major hit. Jones played a cop in this CMP’s classic written by Marcus Trax.

CASUAL DAY (Andrew Bergman, B.O.: 50 mill.): Return to comedy. Matthew Perry has proved to be a pretty profitable comedian for CMP (remember also ‘Singles’ and ‘King Of The World’). This was another vehicle for him, together with Eva Longoria. Jones played Eva’s father. Not very challenging for him.

AN AMERICAN STROLL (Ang Lee, B.O.: 75 mill.): Jones’ most interesting character in CMP: a village cop waiting for the death of his 103 years old mum to marry his true love, Michelle Pfeiffer. Bradley wrote this story full of a bit surreal characters and Jones made a wonderful job playing one of them.

OMEGA (Paul Greengrass, awaiting release): First lead character for Jones in CMP. The President of an ex-soviet Republic. A man with principles and believes. A quality project and a risky bet, as it is not the kind of mainstream story. Jones has the perfect chance here to give as his best as an actor.

TALK OF THE TOWN

It seems like Matt Kubrick wasn’t very happy with the critical reception to his latest horror proposal, ‘Blood Beach’. Here is what he has recently said in an interview: “Some times I don't think they all seem to understand what a throwback is. Blood Beach only got one positive review, he's the only one that got it!. It seemed alot like alot of people just didn't get it. They complain it was so cliche! It was supposed to be cliche! Me and Eli Roth pretty much recreated an 80s slasher flick, everything was done on purpose to try and take you back to a different time when the slasher reigned supreme at the box office. If you go into a movie like this expecting a masterpiece then you're going to see it for the wrong reasons. A slasher flick is about two things: blood and naked flesh.”

Alan Smithee’s debut postponed: Variety has revealed a peculiar inside story about ‘Goths: A Love Story’. When presenting his screenplay to Harry Stark, Matt Kubrick said CMP’s President that he also wanted to direct the movie. Also, he asked for the recent GMA Winner Shia Leabouf to star it. But Stark forgot about it. He hired Norman Jewison as director and Haley Joel Osment as the lead star ignoring Kubrick’s requests. When Stark realized what had happened, he apologized to his good friend Kubrick and offered him to turn ‘Goths’ into an Alan Smithee’s movie. Luckily, Kubrick accepted the apologies and kept his name in the movie’s credits as screenwriter.

And one more about Kubrick. Harry Stark has publicly expressed his congratulations to Matt Kubrick wishing him best luck in his new tv adventure. Kubrick has confirmed that his new business won’t affect his work as writer, producer and director for CMP.

Comedy Club in CMP?: Stark met recently with a group of comedy stars (basically the cast from ‘Lieutenant USA’ together with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy). CMP’s President wants to strengthen the comedy genre in the Studio so, according to internal sources, he announced them his intention to involve regularly a group of talents in comedy productions. So new projects involving Steve Carrel, Will Ferrell, Zach Braff or Owen Wilson can be expected soon.

Regular parnertships: Some CMP’s authors are beginning to create stables and regular collaborations with certain stars. The most notorious case is the David Mamet / Johnny Depp / Marcus Trax trio, which have already worked together in the critically acclaimed ‘Smoke Signals’, ‘No Evil’ and ‘Parody Of Arts’. But that’s not the only partnership. John Daws and Daniel Radcliffe are becoming another estable society too. After their reunion in ‘South East’ and ‘Game Boy’, they will be working together again in ‘Game Boy 2’ and an upcoming drama this Season.

And another regular team: James Bradley will work together again with Wes Anderson in another upcoming project. They made together ‘Bill and the Rocket Man’ and ‘Fools Game’. In their new movie (which they like to define as ‘fables’), are expected to be seen again other members of this partnership: Paul Giamatti and Kate Winslet.

Ultraman redefined: Steve Connors is already working in the third Ultraman’s episode. But he will have to introduce important changes in the franchise. As soon as the project was announced, both Pamela Anderson and Beyonce Knowles stated that they do not have any intention of working again in an Ultraman movie.

SALT & PEPPER

SALT

MICHAEL BAY & WILL SMITH: Both have ‘the Midas touch’. Any pitch they get involved in becomes a hit. They have become a guarantee of success for CMP. In fact, Stark never doubts to greenlight any project with their names in it. Smith will return soon to CMP as one of the voices in ‘Game Boy 2’. Bay is considering the offer made by Stark to screenwriter Steve Connors to develop a sequel of ‘Westworld’.

PEPPER

HARRY STARK: According to some internal sources, Harry Stark has taken some wrong decisions lately that have affected the box office breakdown of two recent CMP’s movies, ‘Blood Beach’ and ‘Goths: A Love Story’. About ‘Blood Beach’, a CMP’s executive has said anonymously: ‘Stark still thinks that Halloween is the perfect date to release a horror movie. Last horror movies releases have proved that wrong. We told him to make a try with Christmas or even 4th of July, but he insisted on Halloween against our advice. So ‘Blood Beach’ became another horror movie unnecessarily flopped’. And about ‘Goths’, same executive said that Stark didn’t really believe much in the movie. In fact, he decided to limit its release to only 2000 theatres, when he had the option to release it in at least 3000. Also, he decided to choose Valentine’s Day as its release date together with other wrong marketing options. The result? The movie lost 900.000 dollars (not too much) when it could have easily been a profitable release with a little more help. Maybe Stark should listen more to his Executive Board.

WHAT HAPPENED WITH… SANDRA BULLOCK?

New section. Some stars had a promising beginning or a successful run in CMP and then suddenly disappeared. While almost every CMP’s author ask for Kiera Knightley, Colin Farrel, Scarlet Johansson, Bruce Willis or Claire Danes (and let’s add here the most wanted talent lately, the GMA Winner Shia Leabouf), other stars seem to have been forgotten although they proved once they could be profitable for the Studio. We will remember here some of those - fairly or unfairly - forgotten names.

Sandra Bullock starred and produced ‘The Women Club’ in the first CMP’s Season. The dark comedy about a group of avenger women looking for revenge against men was directed by another forgotten talent, Mimi Leder, and co-starred by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon. It made an outstanding 164 million box office. So Sandra proved to be both a worthwhile star and producer. But that was it. Since then, sweet Sandy has never returned to CMP.