Showing Out

Showing Out’s Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Just last month, director Joe Johnston’s remake of the 1941 classic The Wolfman was far from complete. Notoriously plagued with release date pushbacks and highly publicized creative differences between Universal Studios and its chosen directors (yes, there was more than one), The Wolfman came to the final showdown during the 11th hour of post-production. With the film in the can, Donna Langely, Universal’s production president, enlisted the help of a new editor early last month, a move that made headlines around the blogosphere as word got out that Johnston would cut his own version of the film and they would each screen to different audiences. Whichever film got the better test screening response would be the version that ended up in theaters. Though the world may never know who actually ended up winning the battle of the creative minds, the advance version of The Wolfman that played tonight in New York City showed no signs of post-production discord. In fact, it was quite the opposite: the version of The Wolfman headed for theaters this Friday is a blithe, hollow film devoid of any sort of character development or plot intrigue. But you guessed it - there’s a whole lot of gore. Thankfully.

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OK, so we all know that Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all-time and won the weekend box office for the seventh time this past weekend, but we know you can’t help but wonder how much the James Cameron film made on Imax screens (where, you know, it’s best seen). According to THR, Avatar grossed another $6.02 million from 179 domestic Imax screens and $4.3 million from 83 international Imax screens, upping its overall cume on Imax screens alone to $152.9 million. That accounts for a healthy portion of the $2.045 billion that the film has grossed worldwide since it was released last December, and we have a good feeling that the money pile is going to continue to grow - especially since we think we’re finally going to get around to seeing it this weekend (*ducks*).

What’s a gangster’s greatest fear? One would consider the fall of a dynasty, imprisonment or even death as the great looming shadow over any Capo’s daily life. But 44 Inch Chest posits a different source of terror for any Mafioso: infidelity. The film, directed by Malcolm Venville and written by Sexy Beast scribes Louis Mellis and David Scinto, suggests that the loss of material goods might send a gangster flying off the handle, but it’s betrayal by a loved one that can truly rock a man – mob affiliation aside – to the core.

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With any animated Disney film, the soundtrack is essential component to making the film thrive. If you take a stroll down memory lane, nearly every Disney animated fairy tale has boasted a timeless score that’s closely tied to the film, with classics like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and a host of others having an equally classic batch of tunes featured in the film and a few extras tacked onto the album release.

Though Disney’s latest animated flick The Princess and the Frog hasn’t yet been released on a national scale, listeners can get a taste for its musical counterpart with the release of the film’s soundtrack, which is almost entirely scored by movie composition master Randy Newman (the theme song “Never Knew I Needed You” comes courtesy of Ne-Yo). And while a Disney soundtrack really needs the visual counterpart to help thread the narrative together, the music stands alone as a lush, finely orchestrated collection of songs, peppered with New Orleans flair on some tracks and bits of ragtime, classical and pop on others. But as varied as it is, the soundtrack sure plays like it’ll fit right into the film itself - a sure sign the Disney might have another hit on their hands.

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Lil Wayne is a martian – you already knew that. But what you don’t know about Lil Wayne is enough to fill a hundred films, and The Carter Documentary, directed by Adam Bala Lough and presented by QD3, provides a glimmer of that insight. With a run time of an hour and change, the film plays like an intimate chapter of his life during the time around the release of his hit album Tha Carter III, featuring candid behind the scenes footage of Weezy F. Baby doing press, recording on his tour bus, performing live and features interviews with his daughter and his manager Cortez Bryant, ushering the viewer into the frenzied, confounding world of the man behind the music.

And what makes it wonderful is that it isn’t even close to sugar-coated: though Wayne chose not to participate in any sit-down interviews with the filmmakers, he allowed cameras to follow his every move, showing both the good (the passion and love of music) and the bad (the drug use and overall craziness) of Weezy’s life. While The Carter Documentary doesn’t lift the curtain on Lil Wayne, it does what all good documentaries should do: it lays the pieces out for the viewer to assemble his or her opinion, rather than dictating what it should be.

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A recent swarm of horror flicks scaring audiences to the core has been based on the same terrifying monster: the one you can’t see. Paranormal Activity, which has pulled in over $80 million on a $11,000 budget, plays with viewers’ expectations and heightens anxiety by promising some horrifying reveal which, of course, never actually happens. Viewers expect that they’ll get a good look at something unworldly, something far beyond human comprehension that might just jump off the screen and pop out from behind their coat rack when they go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The same goes for Olatunde Osunsanmi’s The Fourth Kind, a frightening work that explores alien phenomena that took place in Nome, Alaska almost ten years ago. But what makes this hit harder than something like Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project is that the filmmaker claims that it’s based on real events and shows archived footage of recounted tales from those that experienced abductions throughout the film. And though the footage may or may not be real (it’s debatable, even though it looks so intensely authentic), it still makes for one chill-inducing thrill ride.

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From the top of his Afro to the bottom of his platform shoes, Black Dynamite is the meanest jive talking soul brother ever to grace the silver screen. But badass characters alone do not a movie make. Director Scott Sanders’ mimicry of Blaxploitation is so on point you will swear you are watching a movie that came out in 1969, from the grainy film stock and jerky cinematography to the Curtis Mayfield-inspired soundtrack. The movie, a spoof of films like Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Dolemite, follows Black Dynamite’s quest for revenge after his brother Jimmy is killed. Along the way, he uncovers a paper trail that leads him to the highest levels of U.S. government and across the paths of genre archetypes ranging from a garishly dressed pimp (Cedric Yarborough) and a huggy bear-like hustler named Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson) to Kung Fu masters and Black Panthers. Stylistically, Black Dynamite is near perfect, but the film’s frantic pace proves unsustainable.

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Every decade or so, basketball sees a player with the potential to take the game beyond its limits. Dr. J, Michael Jordan, Shaq and Kobe Bryant are some of the superhuman players that paved the way for the current generation of ballers, with LeBron James leading the pack as a player with the potential to move basketball to an entirely new realm. But with all of James’ accolades and a career that’s been scrutinized since he was playing for his high school team, it’s easy to lose sight of his humble beginnings – especially when he consistently proves just how superior his abilities are. More Than a Game, a documentary that hits select theaters this Friday, shows that despite how far James has come, he couldn’t have gotten there without the help of his high school team, which serves as the focus of this inspirational documentary.

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Tyler Perry is back and ready to hit the box office hard again with his newest movie I Can Do Bad All By Myself, now in theaters everywhere. The film itself is based on one of Perry’s first plays, but substantially different from the original in terms of plot and character - with the exception of Perry’s famous character Mabel “Madea” Simmons appearing in the movie. With Academy Award-nominated actress Taraji P. Henson in the spotlight and powerful musical divas Mary J. Blige and Gladys Knight in supporting roles, I Can Do Bad is more of a musical than the typical Perry dramedy.

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Hollywood has churned out an unfathomable amount of romantic comedies over the past few years, all of them drawing from the same well in terms of plot, character type and circumstance. But never before has a rom-com covered the bases that Adam does. The film, which hits select theaters today, explores what would happen if a man afflicted with a form of autism enters into a relationship with a woman. The results are rocky and seldom heartwarming, and while the premise of the film is enough to put a smile on your face, watching the film might turn that smile into a firm grimace.

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