Matt Damon’s first two “Bourne” adventures were a breath of fresh air for a stale action genre, even if they helped bring the Shaky Cam Era into the 21st century. But that third installment, 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum,” made it clear the franchise needed to end.

Nuthin’ doing. Hollywood simply found a new actor to take over.

Jeremy Renner,  the steely presence in “The Town” and “The Hurt Locker,” officially becomes the face of the franchise in this summer’s “The Bourne Legacy.”

No Damon, no worries if this clip is any indication. But we’re still looking for a reason to keep the franchise alive.

The new film finds another amnesia patient (Renner) who gets involved in a government program that reeks of inappropriate behavior. That’s being kind, and we’ll have to wait and see if the film offers up some sucker punches to conservative crowds.

For now, let’s enjoy the sublime supporting cast – franchise newbies Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz plus returnees Albert Finney, Joan Walsh, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn.

“Bourne” screenwriter Tony Gilroy takes over behind the camera, and while the trailer seems too pleased with its black bar visuals we don’t see as much hand-held camera works as in past installments.

That’s a relief. If you’re going to reboot a franchise, it’s high time to bring a new visual approach to the material.

So, where are the thrills, the chases and the heart-stopping revelations that usually accompany this doomsday scenario? And why can’t Soderbergh, an Oscar winner himself for the 2000 film “Traffic,” find the screen time to showcase all the Oscar nominees – and winners – in his cast?

The sound of a person coughing opens the film, and one of the first objects seen is a small bowl of bar nuts. Already, we’re dreading the kind of viral calamity about to strike courtesy of these small, deft strokes.

A married woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) arrives home from a business trip with a nasty cold, and before long she’s sprawled out on her kitchen floor, unconscious. Her husband (Matt Damon) rushes her to the hospital, but she never regains consciousness.

Did Soderbergh just kill off Chris Martin’s better half? (no spoiler here – we learn this in the film’s trailer).

From there, we get glimpses of how the virus which struck her down spreads. We see foreign cities with their population numbers emblazoned on the screen to highlight the stakes. We meet dedicated researchers (Kate Winslet, Elliott Gould), a compassionate Centers for Disease Control rep (Laurence Fishburne) and an aggressive blogger (Jude Law) who sees conspiracies all around him.

Every element a ripped from the headlines yarn demands is lined up for our approval, and for a while “Contagion” infects us to the core. But it’s s a thriller with few thrills, an impeccably acted disaster movie without the heart to go for broke. The movie hints at broad conspiracies, and then backs away from such accusations. For every villain there’s a hero following closely behind. It doesn’t condemn any quadrant of society but merely hints at the flaws in each. It’s dispassionate when it should be showing the fire in its storytelling belly.

It’s as if radio’s Fairness Doctrine were alive, well and applicable to feature films.

Winslet makes the most of her character’s muted story arc, while Fishburne summons every ounce of gravitas to play a man caught between personal and professional duties. Law is the live wire here, a muckraker out to spread the news that Big Pharma is up to its old tricks.

Marion Cotillard appears briefly in a subplot that adds nothing but confusion to the narrative.

It’s fascinating to see Soderbergh’s vision of societal chaos, and casting big stars to enliven small roles does make the subsequent epiphanies more profound. The filmmakers reveal just scientific jargon to keep the story’s structure sound, although a few whoppers rattle that foundation.

A-list directors rarely tackle material as pulpy as “Contagion.” And, after seeing Soderbergh’s approach to an epidemic epic, maybe we know why. Sometimes, a disaster movie should skip the nuance and just tell a darn good story.

The Blu-ray extras will do nothing to make you sleep any easier after considering the real-life implications of the film.”The ‘Contagion’ Detectives” talks to some of the experts who helped make the film as realistic as possible.

“They’re trained not to panic,” notes Cotillard of the men and women trying to keep our population safe behind the scenes.

“The Reality of ‘Contagion’” is a standard, albeit dense look at the film’s creation.

“It’s a matter of when, not if,” says Law regarding what the contagion experts told the crew about the possibility of a global pandemic like the one shown in the film.

Perahps the most innovative extra is “Contagion: How a Virus Changes the World,” an animated look at how something spreads so rapidly through our modern society. It’s goofy and fast paced, a darkly comic riff on a worst-case scenario that even mentions Bieber Fever to lighten the mood. The segment wraps with some proactive steps we can take to prevent a real-life “Contagion,” starting with the simple act of washig our hands regularly.

Just ask Kate Beckinsale, who told Entertainment Weekly regarding the 2008 elections – “And I was so shocked to see people admitting to being Republican on their front lawn!”

Now, The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Index feature suggests the reason Matt Damon’s “We Bought a Zoo” flopped was … wait for it … because Damon dared to critique President Barack Obama. [Link behind paywall]

The actor’s media slams of President Obama and ‘Bourne Identity’ writer Tony Gilroy probably didn’t help ‘We Bought a Zoo,’ which has disappointed at the box office.

When was the last time a major press outlet blamed the death of the movie star on said stars mocking the people who pay for movie tickets?

Had Damon insulted President Obama a few weeks after his inauguration – when his popularity was sky high – then that observation could have merit. But Damon respectfully disagreed with Obama’s accomplishments at a time when a new poll reveals people by a two-to-one margin are “afraid” of an Obama second term.

It’s just as silly to assume people even care that Damon trashed one of the minds behind the “Bourne” trilogy. That kind of inside baseball thinking likely doesn’t even dent the average movie goer’s mind.

“Tree of Life” grossed a pretty pathetic $13 million, “Happy Feet Two” grossed an abysmal $60 million, and “Moneyball” grossed only an okay $75 million. But in this market, where the concept of the movie star is all but dead, Brad Pitt was named the “top money-making star of the year.”

Number two was George Clooney who released two films this year that probably won’t gross $90 million combined.

Bosses at Quigley Publishing Company have asked theatre owners and film buyers to vote for their top 10 box office generators and this year exhibitors credited Pitt with bringing in more traffic than any other celebrity due to his acting and/or vocal appearances in Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and Happy Feet Two.

Coming in at number two was Pitt’s pal George Clooney for both The Ides of March and The Descendants, and last year’s winner, Johnny Depp, fell to third with The Rum Diary, Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Robert Downey, Jr., Meryl Streep and Ben Stiller, also placed on the list and in that order.

As if Hollywood didn’t already have plenty to be depressed about.

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As the story begins, Benjamin Mee  (Matt Damon) is referred to as “a writer who specializes in adventure.” His career as a journalist, however,  is sidetracked when he loses his wife six months before the story begins.

Ben eventually quits his job and decides to move his family to a new location, but his bid to buy a house turns into an adventure itself. He falls in love with a large semi-secluded home that comes equipped with a fully-staffed zoo. Although his brother (Thomas Haden Church) rejects the idea, Ben decides to buy the house/zoo and try to open up his very own animal kingdom.

Based on a true story and directed by Cameron Crowe, “Zoo” had a lot of potential. Crowe, who previously directed “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous,” has a knack for presenting idealistic individuals who face new realities when their lives change abruptly. “Zoo” is no different from that. As Ben grieves his wife, he’s also trying to balance raising children by himself and opening up a zoo.

It’s unfortunate, then, when the story takes a turn for the silly. A subplot involving Ben and Dylan (Colin Ford), his rebellious son, provides a perfect example of where this film derails. After the family moves, Dylan accidentally leaves a box of newly-arrived snakes open. In a plot device that has been seen on an endless number of sitcoms, the snakes find their way out of the box and they all seem to nestle at the Mee’s front door. If this plot device isn’t bad enough, the arguments that erupt between Ben and Dylan about this and other incidents are overtly melodramatic and nearly unwatchable.

Added to that is the overloaded plot that leaves little room for the development of any interesting relationships. In addition to the relationship between the father and son, “Zoo”  focuses on Ben’s burgeoning relationship with an overworked zookeeper, played by Scarlett Johansson. The story also finds room to include a relationship between Dylan and a local girl in town and Ben and an older tiger in the zoo. There are just too many different plots in “Zoo”, though, and the story gets lost so that when a payoff or a conclusion arrives, it doesn’t feel earned.

One of the few positive aspects of this film is Church, who is the logical brother who constantly questions his brother’s decisions. Church, who earned an Oscar nomination for “Sideways,” is an underrated actor who often settles for supporting roles. I wish this movie had more of a role for him here, but it’s too jam-packed to give this undervalued actor a real chance to shine.

Two’s company and three’s a crowd, but this movie—with its numerous storylines and underdeveloped relationships—feels like a zoo indeed.

Many of Damon’s peers have since bent over backwards – and then some – to explain away the president’s less than stellar tenure in the White House.

Damon isn’t having it.

The “Bourne Identity” actor shared his disappointment with the Hope and Change Meets Reality Tour earlier this year. Now, he’s at it again, teeing off on the president in the pages of Elle Magazine.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,’ ” Damon told the magazine. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”

Damon pointed to the Occupy Wall Street movement as proof that more needs to be done. “If the Democrats think that they didn’t have a mandate—people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off,” he said, adding, “Imagine if they had a leader.”

‘L.A. TIMES’ TO INSTITUTE PAYWALL IN FIRST QUARTER OF 2012

No one reads this rag now, but now by not reading we’ll save money. Nice.

PODCAST WITH ‘RISE OF THE APES’ SCREENWRITERS

The married screenwriting team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver talk about the five-year experience of making the film, from the germ of the idea straight through to production, and how they got started in Hollywood. No overnight successes in screenwriting. They also co-wrote “Eye for an Eye” and “The Relic,” two underrated favorites of mine.

Budding screenwriters should definitely give this a listen.

SIX ‘BASED ON A TRUE STORY’ FILMS WITH UNPLEASANT EPILOGUES

If we learned anything from How Stella Got Her Groove Back it’s that a 20-year-old is capable of having a mature and fulfilling relationship that’s not based on sex. This is still technically true for the real-life Stella, author Terry McMillan, who wrote the book on which the movie is based. See, her real-life Jamaican lover based their relationship not on sex, but on a love of getting the fuck out of Jamaica by any means possible, even if that meant faking interest in an American tourist twice his age. … But that fact alone isn’t why the couple is separating — as it turns out, Jonathan Plumber, the real-life Winston Shakespeare, is actually gay[.]

[…]

When Hinkley’s residents contacted Erin [Brockovich] about their concerns (“concerns” is a term that here means “money for our cancer bills”), they found that their one-time advocate was now unreachable. Once they finally received the money, they noticed that it was far less than they expected. That’s because the law firm, wanting more than the agreed-upon 40 percent of the settlement ($133 million), took an extra $10 million for “expenses.”

SPIELBERG OBVIOUSLY FEELING BURNED OVER ‘INDY 4′

Spielberg should be embarrassed:

Steven Spielberg won’t make a fifth ‘Indiana Jones’ movie to “prove any point”.

The filmmaker – who has directed all four of the previous installments in the franchise – does know many people did not enjoy the last movie ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, but would not work on further films just so he could win them round.

He told MTV News: “I would not make a fifth movie to prove any point. If we get a good story, I’ll make it. If George Lucas doesn’t think we should make any more, I’ll listen to him.

“I think audiences think we’re two for two. They love ‘Raiders’. They love ‘Last Crusade’. They don’t love as much ‘Temple of Doom’ or ‘Crystal Skull’.

“Temple of Doom” is fine, imperfect but very much saved by a truly magnificent third act.

“Crystal Skull” is excrement.

DENZEL WASHINGTON IN TALKS TO PLAY ‘THE EQUALIZER‘

Now that Paul Haggis is out, this is a great idea.

‘SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS’ REVIEW

A Game of Shadows is pure period action drama with a delicious camp twist (cross-dressing aside) that demonstrates Downey Jr has made Holmes as much a part of his nature, as Captain Jack Sparrow is to Depp’s. This alone will keep fans more than occupied throughout Ritchie’s second sleuthing romp – inflated run-time aside.

MATT DAMON TRASHES DIRECTOR OF NEW DAMON-LESS ‘BOURNE’ FILM

Bitter much?

In short, [Damon] was not a fan of the ['Bourne Ultimatum'] script. And in addition to calling out Tony Gilroy, he blames Universal for giving the screenwriter a sweetheart deal that only required one draft from him.

“It’s really the studio’s fault for putting themselves in that position,” Damon tells GQ. “I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left.”

“If I didn’t respect him and appreciate his talent, then I really wouldn’t have cared,” Damon said, referring to Gilroy. “My feelings were hurt. That’s all. And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t have said anything. This is between me and him. So saying anything publicly is f—ing stupid and unprofessional and just kind of douchey of me.

Damon? Douchey? Go on.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Starting Over (1979): This is a reminder of just how talented an actor Burt Reynolds is. A wonderful film, an intelligent adult romance (written by James L. Brooks) made for adults with a number of memorable scenes and more than a few big laughs that aren’t in any way contrived or cheap.

Reynolds intentionally and effectively underplays the role of Phil Potter, a hapless newly single man who can’t get over his unfaithful ex-wife (Candice Bergen), even though he knows the new woman in his life (Jill Clayburgh) is much better for him. Bergen is young and sexy and holds the key to Potter’s self-confidence. Clayburgh is average-looking, not-so-young, but faithful, intelligent, and caring.

Candice Bergen (playing it perfectly straight) singing those awful songs and Jill Clayburgh standing out in the freezing cold screaming, “I’m not a one-nighter!” (until her nose literally starts to drip) are stand out moments for both actresses who would end up with Oscar nominations.

Reynolds is the one who most deserving of a nomination, though. Two years after “Smokey and the Bandit,” Reynolds completely disappears into this role and garners huge laughs and enormous sympathy with nothing more than a look. The best scenes involve Potter’s support group for divorced men.  It’s a nice subplot with a touching, bittersweet ending.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

BLU-RAY PLAYER $69.99

TRAILER FOR ‘ROCK OF AGES‘

VINTAGE MOVIE MARQUEES: ‘THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK’ (1980)

TRAILER FOR NICHOLAS SPARKS ADAPTATION ‘THE LUCKY ONE‘

CINEMA TRENDS OF 2011: ESCAPISM, INVASION, SEQUELS AND RESENTMENT

‘RIDDICK 3′ CONCEPT ART REVEALS THE JACKAL

THE 10 BEST MOVIE SONGS OF 2011

POSTER FOR ‘GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE‘

FIRST OFFICIAL PHOTOS FROM ‘THE GREAT GATSBY‘

FATTY ARBUCKLE AND THE DEATH OF VIRGINIA RAPPE

ALEX PROYAS’ ‘PARADISE LOST’ DELAYED DUE TO BUDGET ISSUES

‘JERRY MAGUIRE’ STARS 15 YEARS LATER

DIRECTOR ELI ROTH AND NETFLIX TEAM UP FOR ORIGINAL HORROR SERIES

DISH MAY LAUNCH NETFLIX-LIKE STREAMING SERVICE

GREAT BUT FORGOTTEN: A BLOG DEDICATED TO MOVIES, BOOKS, ETC. THAT DESERVE TO BE LESS OBSCURE

THE 10 WORST THINGS HANNA-BARBERA EVER MADE

2011′S MOST BEAUTIFUL CELEBS

TOP 10 MAN’S LIFE MAGAZINE COVERS

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ‘MACGYVER’ SKILLS?

NEW ‘GHOST RIDER 2′ POSTER & EARLY REACTIONS

20 FACTS ABOUT ‘ABOUT A BOY‘

A LOOK BACK AT ‘DAMNATION ALLEY‘

CELEBRATING 60 YEARS OF ‘I LOVE LUCY‘

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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15

TCM:

8:00 PM  EST: Life With Father (1947) –  A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost. Dir: Michael Curtiz Cast:  William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor. C-118 mins, TV-G, CC.

TCM is loaded for bear with tomorrow’s schedule, but with a number of titles I’ve previously recommended. Regardless, this would still be my pick, a gentle, funny, and warm family story that I once watched three times in a single day. If you want to be transported to a simpler time and gentler place, movies don’t do it much better than this.

Another perfect offering for the kids. Beware, though, a young Elizabeth Taylor will surely steal your adolescent son’s heart and possibly ruin him for life in the process. Who could possibly compare?

Unfortunately, this is another one of those public domain titles where a decent DVD print seems impossible to find. Hopefully, someday, someone will do something about that.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter.

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Politico:

The video stars Kevin Spacey, Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Kristen Wiig, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as part of the foundation’s celebrity division, pumping out ideas like not breathing to save the environment. There’s even a cameo from Bubba at the end.

More here.

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“Contagion” begins on day two of the outbreak, where we see several people in cities across the globe fighting a mysterious disease that first comes across as the common cold or flu. The colossal cast illustrates how several health organizations around the world respond to the deadly virus, spreading just as quickly as the panic. From a sickly Minnesota wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her outraged husband (Matt Damon), the epidemic spreads to cities like Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, London, and Tokyo, which shows just how fast this virus could potentially wipe out the whole planet. The team consists of a CDC administrator (Laurence Fishburne), a scientist (Jennifer Ehle), a doctor (Elliot Gould), a researcher (Katie Winslet), and a military man (Bryan Cranston) who must all work together to keep the virus contained and to find a cure. The World Health Organization sends an epidemiologist (Marion Cotillard) to Hong Kong in hopes of figuring out where the source started. While all these higher ops are trying to figure out this ever-spreading problem, citizens must hide in their homes and fend for their lives.

Another addition to the cast is scum blogger Alan (Jude Law), who brings two distractions to the mix: that weird, yucky front tooth and the fact that he could have possibly found a cure to this viral mess. A favorite part in the film is when Alan tries to get his friend who writes for a San Francisco paper to publish his article and when she refuses, he walks out screaming, “Print media is dying!”

The film piggybacks the recent hysteria of the H1N1, also known as “swine flu.”  In this film, people cover their faces with masks, wear gloves, and wait in long lines to get vaccines, food, and other necessary items.  When these ends cannot be met, riots ensue and cities and towns are abandoned.

“Contagion” is fast-paced, mind-boggling, and eerie. Many of those emotions develop from its thrilling score composed by Cliff Martinez, who partnered with Soderbergh in other films like “Traffic” and “Sex, Lies, and Videotape.” Where the movie fails is making the audience truly care about the characters and their safety. A little more character development and reducing the size of the cast would have made this a thriller one worth purchasing on Blu-ray.

Overall, “Contagion” is a smart and fascinating thriller that could use a little more humanity.

Near the beginning of the story, a mother named Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a trip to Hong Kong and becomes sick in Minneapolis. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) isn’t concerned at first but when her condition begins to rapidly deteriorate, he brings her to the hospital. Soon afterwards, Mitch find out that Beth has died and learns that his son is infected as well. While Mitch seems to be immune to the virus, he watches firsthand as his family falls victim to it.

“Contagion” soon introduces a large group of characters who will be affected, either directly or indirectly, by the virus. Laurence Fishburne plays Dr. Ellis Cheever, the Deputy Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who is hired to create a cure for the virus.  The doctor sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to Minneapolis to investigate the roots of the rapidly-spreading sickness. In the meantime, conspiracy theorist Alan Krumlede (Jude Law) becomes obsessed with the virus after watching an online video of a man infected with it. Krumlede starts spreading rumors online about pharmaceutical companies working with the government in a grand scheme to help the companies earn a massive profit. The film’s cast is huge and also includes Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Elliott Gould, and John Hawkes.

Unfortunately, few of these characters are well-developed. With such a large cast, it feels like the script was more focused on the virus than the characters who are affected by it. When some of these characters eventually become infected, it’s difficult to care about them. With a smaller cast, this story could have worked a lot better because the filmmakers would have been able to better develop the characters early on. Instead, we’re introduced to characters who die off before we even care about them.

Halfway through, the story also takes a dramatic turn when it starts focusing more on Alan’s theories. The first half of the film is strong as it shows the virus spreading and the work being done to stop it.  In the second half, though, Alan seems to become a main focus of the story. His ideas feel like the rantings of a conspiracy theorist and slow down the pace of this otherwise interesting story.

“Contagion” starts with a simple idea: a deadly virus is spreading uncontrollably.   But then overwhelms it with too many characters and a bizarre side plot about government conspiracies. If it had focused on the medical community’s reaction to the virus and the spread of the disease itself, the story could have worked a lot better.

Director Steven Soderbergh knows how to make movies with a wide range of characters and he showed off that ability in films like “Ocean’s 11” and “Traffic.” However, the screenplay written by Scott Z. Burns does Soderbergh no favors. If the characters aren’t well-crafted in a story like this, the film doesn’t work as it should and that is the ailment that infects “Contagion.”