When was the last time Denzel Washington made a bad movie?

Sure, “The Book of Eli” had its flaws, and “The Manchurian Candidate” couldn’t live up to its source material, but few actors churn out as many consistently watchable movies as Washington.

The actor’s latest project looks like more of the same, and that’s a pretty darn good thing.

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In “Safe House,” Washington plays a rogue CIA agent teaming up with a newbie (Ryan Reynolds) to smoke out … well, it’s clear there’s been some double crossing going on.

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Come July 3, 2012, Andrew Garfield will be forever known as either the Amazing Spider-Man or the sap who ruined a perfectly good reboot.

Can the British actor, who previously appeared in ‘The Social Network’ and ‘Never Let Me Go,’ spin a web, any size, that catches thieves, just like flies? And what about Henry Cavill, another relative unknown tapped to play the lead in ‘Man of Steel’ hitting theaters in 2013?

Sometimes looking into an actor’s past can reveal plenty about their future prospects. And, in the case of those cast in superhero franchises, there’s a lot riding on just how heroic they can appear on screen.

So let’s recall how other actors prepared for their super close-ups and what happened once they tugged on those unforgiving tights — or, in the case of George Clooney, poured themselves into an uncomfortable cod piece.

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Be sure to head go listen to this week’s HomeVideodrome podcast!  This week Jim and I discuss Morgan Spurlock’s desperate need for attention, movies about eating, the turd that is Green Lantern, and how rad Jet Li movies are.  So head on over and give it a listen!

The week we have one of the best movies of the year coming to Blu-ray, Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life.’ I was hoping for a Criterion release of this, but I’ll take what I can get (rumor has it a longer cut is on the way). The only special feature to speak of is a making-of that features appreciations of Malick’s work from great filmmakers like David Fincher and Christopher Nolan, which should be worth checking out for that alone. Seeing ‘Tree of Life’ on the big screen was damn near a religious experience, I have a hard time imagining that it has the same effect at home, depending on the set-up you’re watching it on.

‘Tree of Life’ divided audiences; I went to see it twice in the theater, and both times I saw a handful of people walk out, usually during the bit with the dinosaurs. Friends who went to the theater to watch it reported seeing the same thing. Malick has become far less conventional as a filmmaker as his career has progressed, getting more and more abstract with each film. In ‘Life,’ it appears the man has almost abandoned narrative altogether, making for a film that is far less accessible than, say, ‘Badlands.’ Also, having names like Brad Pitt and Sean Penn on the poster may given some people the wrong idea as to what sort of a movie ‘Tree of Life’ is instead of having a cast simply made up of unknowns.

Regardless, it’s audacious filmmaking that hits on massive themes and deals with small, everyday events on the most enormous scale imaginable. The story of the movie has a small coming-of-age tale at its heart, but it places the theme of personal loss in the context of the very miracle of life itself. It’s a film that tugs out deep emotions in the most gentle manner possible, never resorting to cheaply manipulating the audience. If you connect with it, it’s a film that will haunt you long after you see it.

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Last weekend, your choices of new movies at the box office came down to watching apes try to act human in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and watching grown human men try to act like apes in “The Change-Up.” Actually, some of the behavior these guys wallow in would be an insult to apes, as “The Change-Up” traffics in some of the grossest, laziest, most self-indulgent bad behavior and horrid tastelessness of just about any mainstream film I’ve ever seen – and I’m no prude: “There’s Something About Mary” and “Animal House” are among my top five favorite movies.

The premise of “The Change-Up” alone seems like a copycat of the slew of body-switching comedies that flooded theaters in the late 1980s (“Big,” “Like Father Like Son,” “18 Again,” “Dream a Little Dream,” and “Vice Versa,” to name a few). And to add to the sense of laziness, it stars Jason Bateman in what’s starting to appear to be his Movie of the Month Club, playing an uptight corporate lawyer who can’t seem to get a promotion — virtually the same character he played just a month ago in “Horrible Bosses.”

Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds reverts to the crude shenanigans of his breakthrough film “Van Wilder” in playing a constantly stoned slacker whose idea of a big break is landing a role in a soft-core porn flick. One wishes immediately that both they and the filmmakers – who are talented in the R-rated comedy genre, as Jon Lucas and Scott Moore created the first “Hangover” and David Dobkin directed “Wedding Crashers” – had followed their own title and attempted to create a film that relied more on clever writing and reinventing the body-switching subgenre than just attempting to push the envelope until it’s torn wide open and shredded to pieces. (more…)

The Green Lantern Corps may be the “keepers of peace, order and justice in the universe” but that doesn’t mean that they’re worth making a movie about. The Corps is featured prominently in the new film “Green Lantern,” which unsuccessfully tries to blend the story of Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a reckless pilot, with a story about the Corps itself. It often feels like there are two separate stories in “Green Lantern” but neither of them is particularly interesting.

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The story starts out with a lot of unnecessary exposition about the Corps, a group of different species that work together to preserve peace. For fans, the exposition might be interesting but for non-fans, it just sounds silly. Unfortunately for the Corps, a new threat has recently emerged that threatens its existence. That threat takes the shape of a worm-like dark cloud that destroys its enemies with a single glare. Early on, a prominent Green Lantern is attacked by the cloud but he escapes the attack in a spaceship and crash lands on Earth.

In the meantime, Jordan spends his time on Earth flying planes and trying to live up to his father’s legacy. Like “The Green Hornet” who was featured in a terrible movie earlier this year, Jordan loves spending his time sleeping with different women and leaving them in the morning. That lifestyle changes when a “ring” from the alien spacecraft that lands on Earth chooses Jordan to become a member of the Corps.

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Opening Green Lantern in the same month—or the same galaxy—as X-Men: First Class was probably a scheduling necessity, but it forces a ruinous comparison. Capably adapted from one of the bazillion storylines in DC’s 70-year-old Green Lantern comics series, the new movie has some promising sci-fi elements and a pair of normally appealing stars. But the picture is slathered with so much CGI goop that at several points it’s indistinguishable from a Saturday morning cartoon show. Very soon you start wondering why you had to leave your living room to see it.

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The movie begins in deep space with a riot of digital hubbub (pricelessly silly in big-deal 3D). We meet the Guardians of the Universe, a council of wizened Yodas ensconced on very high stools (which amusingly recall the much more amusing Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension). The Guardians have divided the galactic vastness into thousands of separate sectors, all patrolled by an interstellar police force called the Green Lantern Corps, each member of which is armed with a super-powerful green ring and a glowing green lantern with which to recharge it when the super-power runs low. We also make the acquaintance of a rather amorphous evil entity called Parallax—a destroyer of worlds and so forth. When Parallax attacks a Green Lantern patrol ship, the captain is forced to ditch his craft on the nearest reachable planet, which turns out to be Earth. Wounded and dying, he recruits a local human, Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), to take up his ring and lantern and join the Corps. As a bonus, Hal also gets to wear a bright green super-suit with built-in muscles and a tiny green mask.

Hal is a brave, handsome, and of course headstrong test pilot in the employ of Ferris Aviation, where he’s maintained a years-long touch-and-go relationship with the boss’s daughter, Carol Ferris (Blake Lively)—a test pilot herself, naturally. Since considerable time is devoted to this underpowered romance, it’s unfortunate that Reynolds and Lively—such engaging actors in other films—never really warm to each other here. But then they’re given little assistance by the dialogue. Carol laments that proud loner Hal has always been “scared I was getting too close.” Changing into his flight suit, Hal says to her, “Let’s get these pants off and fly some planes.” Smooth.

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[Editor's Note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there's been an Internet. Therefore it's no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.]

Brace yourself, because Buried is the feel-good movie of Fall 2010!  It’s full of action, laughs, romance and important lessons in why America was awful for freeing 37 million or so Iraqis from a genocidal dictator who liked to feed them into meat grinders.  Hey, if your idea of fun is watching a guy in a little box for 91 minutes, brother, your ship has come in!

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If you’re anyone else, I’m guessing the only way you would ever pick this movie to wreck your Friday night is if the alternative was Pauly Shore’s big-budget romantic comedy comeback with Katherine Heigl or some pinko documentary on global warming where Michael Moore has a full-frontal nude scene.  And even then it would be a close call.

I guess Ryan Reynolds, who stars as the world’s hunkiest truck driver, did this low budget, American-Spanish-Australian indie because he wanted a role where he could somehow stretch himself in new directions. The dude is a movie star, he looks like a Greek god and he’s married to Scarlet Johansson. What’s the “new direction” that leads to his life being better?  If I were Ryan Reynolds, I’d be all about keeping a death-grip on the status quo – “Yeah, that’s a nice Oscar, dude, but look what I’ve got waiting for me at home dressed as a naughty cheerleader. . . have fun polishing your statue,  loser!” (more…)

What’s not to love about Hollywood? They know exactly what the American people are looking for in a thriller: negative commentary about a war we’re  presently engaged in. And it’s not just that we American moviegoers are absolutely panting for yet another artistically bankrupt anti-Iraq commentary that will make no money, it’s that patriotic Americans everywhere also love to see an ongoing war and those fighting it criticized at every opportunity — especially through the all-powerful medium of the motion picture.

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These Hollywoodists sure have their finger on the pulse of  We The People and those of you still willing to argue about how this industry is driven as much by profit as ideology, may do so in the comments….

AICN: [emphasis mine]:

This is the pure fiction story of Paul Conroy, a truck driver in Iraq whose convoy is ambushed, and who wakes up in a coffin, buried alive. I went to the public screening of this one, and director Rodrigo Cortes gave a lively introduction where he questioned the psychological state of any audience wanting to see an hour and a half film of a man in a box. Then he brought out what he described as “The entire cast of BURIED: Ryan Reynolds!” …  (more…)

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Actor Ryan Reynolds at HuffPo:

I didn’t grow up in Louisiana, and I can imagine those who did are even more passionate about cleaning up this mess than the rest of us. I grew up in Canada, where we have a similar tragedy being carried out right now: the ancient boreal forest in Northern Alberta is being destroyed to collect dirty tar sands oil. Oil that generates three times the global warming pollution as regular crude. As a result, entire ecosystems and indigenous communities are being devastated.

When you see what’s happening in the Gulf and the boreal, you realize we’re willing to stop at absolutely nothing in order to get our fix. And it seems to me like it’s time we recognize we have a problem. A major, major problem. (more…)

“Two Weeks Notice” hit theatres way back in 2002, which means a full seven years have passed since Sandra Bullock’s starred in a vehicle built around her that’s been at all appealing. And yet, she’s such an endearing star and the rare one whose private behavior has yet to diminish her public goodwill, that you can’t help but root for her. Unfortunately, when it comes to choosing projects all the goodwill in the world can’t change the fact that she needs better management.

Well, maybe she’s found some.

On paper, “The Proposal” sounds like more of the same; another concept-driven, fish-out-of-water romantic comedy. And that it is, but thanks to a solid script and winning performances from Bullock and co-star Ryan Reynolds, this coming weekend offers one of the better romantic comedies of the last few years.

“The Proposal” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but built around the expected are a number of entertaining, very well written and performed scenes which create a believable central relationship you root for. The laughs are consistent, and though some are milked from contrived situations, most are earned honestly through realistic reactions from well-developed characters. Beneath it all beats a heart of the best kind; the kind that sneaks up on you in the end as if to say, “Who knew I cared this much?” (more…)

Rebooting Bond with Daniel Craig was Bold. Christopher Nolan’s Reinvention of Batman was genius. But some thought it was overly-ambitious, even audacious, to attempt to restart the Star Trek franchise. It has begun to pay off already for Paramount Pictures, and there will dividends for years to come.

A shiny new Enterprise is luring in a new generation of STAR TREK fans

J.J. Abrams is officially the Lazarus of movie directors as his all-new Star Trek has gone “Boldly Gone Where No Star Trek Movie has Gone Before.” With a cast of relative unknowns, the 42-year-old has resurrected a franchise that had been killed by insular “nerdyness” and timid imagination. The Gene Rodenberry creation didn’t so much bomb as it died slowly over a period of years. First, the 2002 movie Star Trek: Nemesis starring the Next Generation cast disappointed with a meager $43.3M domestic. Then, the final TV series Enterprise, which starred Scott Bakula, was not embraced by core fans or broader audiences and was canceled after four seasons, ending May 13, 2005.

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Several sources at competing studios have told me that J.J. Abrams’ all-new reboot of Star Trek (Paramount), which debuted last night at 7pm at many of its 3,849 locations, may have grossed as much as $6.5M-$7.5M. Studio honchos are “locked down tight” about actual numbers, but that is in the same ballpark as Transformers (Dreamworks/Paramount), which grabbed $8.8M in its previews starting at 8pm on Monday, July 2 during the summer of 2007. (What portion of ticket sales fall into Thursday and what percentage fall into Friday will likely be an open question even after final numbers are in.)

William Shatner (left) with Captain Kirk 2.0 Chris Pine

Keep in mind that Paramount never changed its Star Trek marketing to promote the 7pm Thursday start, so the opening night audience was likely heavy on Trekkers or Trekkies (not sure which term is “politically correct” anymore). So this was a “soft” opening and what amounts to a night of word-of-mouth screenings. Keep in mind that Transformers premiered during the summer when kids are more available while Star Trek has made its premiere during the school year.

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The all-new J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek (Paramount) will win the second weekend of the Hollywood Summer Box Office season by at least a couple of light years over Fox’s fast-fading X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but some of the astronomical numbers I’ve seen floating around in the blogosphere are very over-heated. Make no mistake, this movie will open extraordinarily well, but it’s not going to play out as a typical front-loaded blockbuster. Moviegoers need time to shake off the disappointment of the final TV series Enterprise (starring Scott Bakula and canceled after four seasons) and the disastrous 2002 final film Star Trek: Nemesis ($43.3M domestic). It will take time for a new generation of fans to discover the magic of Gene Rodenberry’s vision of the future through Abrams’ magical lens.

As of Wednesday night, Star Trek is cruising with 94% Fresh (positive) reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics are slinging some seriously glowing hyperbole.

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In my Final Weekend Tracking column posted on Wednesday, I predicted that X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) would reach $92M on opening weekend, despite soft reviews (now only 38% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). My first fearless forecast of the 2009 summer blockbuster season appears to be close to dead-on (missed by only 5%).

Star-turned-producer Hugh Jackman has scored his second-biggest opening ever and, easily, his biggest as a solo star. Wolverine has mauled the competition with a massive $34.75M opening day (including $5M or so in Thursday midnight sales). That could translate to a 3-day of $86.8M, getting Hollywood’s most lucrative season off to a spectacular start.

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The great thing about a sequel is that it has a built-in audience. The problem with sequels is that, as the numbers after the title go up, so does the production budget. Very hard to know for sure, but sources have told me that the production budget for X-Men was in the $75M range. X-2: X-Men United may have had a budget of about $110M, while the cost of X-Men: The Last Stand was, in all likelihood, as much as $210M. Why doesn’t it make sense to just churn out X-Men 4?

Look at these numbers.

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Hollywood execs seem to be waking up to the power of women at America’s multiplexes. The success of He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) and this weekend’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) can be traced to Meryl Streep’s witty riff on the tyrannical Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada in the summer of 2006. Prada opened to a $27.5M weekend on its way to a $124.75M domestic cume (Streep also earned an Oscar nomination).

Then in July of 2007, New Line grabbed an almost identical $27.47M with the opening weekend of the female-skewing Hairspray, translating to $118.87M domestic. Also Enchanted, starring Amy Adams, was a hit for Disney over the holidays reaching $127.8M domestic.

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