In Theatres
Your monthly guide to new releases
By Ingrid Randoja
AUGUST 7
G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA (pictured above)
The high-tech international military squad known as Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity (G.I.J.O.E.), led by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), is called upon to stop the evil Cobra Organization from destroying the world. The gung-ho squad is comprised of characters who appeared on the Saturday morning cartoon, and includes Channing Tatum as Duke, Marlon Wayans as Ripcord, Byung-hun Lee as Storm Shadow and Ray Park as Snake Eyes.
ADAM
Although Adam (Hugh Dancy) suffers from Asperger syndrome, it doesn’t deter him from holding down a job or having a nice apartment...but it does make dating difficult. His romantic life finally heats up when Beth (Rose Byrne) moves into his building and sparks fly.
THE COVE
This documentary has been making waves ever since it screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Director Louie Psihoyos assembles a team to infiltrate an off-limits Japanese cove where dolphins are slaughtered and their toxic meat is fed to local schoolchildren. Rolling Stone magazine referred to the doc as “a cross between Flipper and The Bourne Identity.”
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Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi
in Paper Heart
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PAPER HEART
Comedian Charlyne Yi co-wrote this faux documentary starring
herself as an avowed cynic who doesn’t believe in love. She travels
across America talking to people about the nature of love, and meets
actor Michael Cera (her real-life boyfriend). The two hit it off, and slowly a film about the fallacy of romance morphs into
a sweet love story.
JULIE & JULIA
Foodies have been starving for a movie to whet their appetites, and they get one with writer/director Nora Ephron’s look at the lives of two chefs: the legendary Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and novice cook Julie Powell (Amy Adams). The film cuts between the eccentric Child, who follows her husband (Stanley Tucci)
to France in the 1950s where she breaks ground studying to become a
female chef, and modern-day Powell, a woman whose search for meaning in
life leads her to replicate each and every recipe from Child’s seminal
tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Bon appetite.
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AUGUST 14
THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE
The adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller finally hits screens long after New Line acquired the rights to the book in 2003, and wrapped shooting back in 2007. Eric Bana stars as a librarian suffering from a genetic disorder that causes him to move back and forth through time. Rachel McAdams plays his heiress wife who has difficulties coping with her husband’s strange condition.
IT MIGHT GET LOUD
Guitar aficionados will feel as if they’ve died and gone to heaven watching this doc that brings together guitarists Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White to jam and share stories about their love for the instrument that rules their lives.
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Anne Heche and Ashton Kutcher in Spread
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SPREAD
L.A. gigolo Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) scores big when he moves in with rich older lawyer Samantha (Anne Heche), but he risks his sweet set-up when he falls for waitress Heather (Margarita Levieva), who’s playing hard to get.
A PERFECT GETAWAY
Ever been on vacation and met a couple that seems kinda off. You
know, they keep eye contact for a split-second too long, reveal way too
much personal information, or carry around an axe and try to kill you?
That describes the two couples that Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich)
run into while honeymooning on an isolated Hawaiian island, and the
psycho foursome is determined to dispatch the newlyweds. (Well at least
they won’t have to pay off the wedding.)
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DISTRICT 9
In this South African sci-fi thriller, aliens have landed on Earth and been relegated to third-class citizens living in the designated area District 9. It’s only a matter of time until they decide they’ve had enough and plan a nasty uprising.
PONYO
Legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) returns with another imaginative tale involving a boy and a goldfish princess who dreams of one day becoming human.
THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD
Will Ferrell and his friend and funnyordie.com cohort Adam McKay produced this comedy starring Jeremy Piven as salesman extraordinaire Don Ready, who brings his ruthless and immoral sales team to a struggling Arizona car dealership, where they promise to sell all the cars on the lot over the July Fourth long weekend.
BANDSLAM
Shy music geek Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) transfers to a new high school and agrees to help a band, led by sexy senior Charlotte (Aly Michalka), prepare for the local battle of the bands. But can he concentrate on the task at hand while carrying a torch for the moody Sam (Vanessa Hudgens)?
AUGUST 21
GOOSE ON THE LOOSE
This family pic has been sitting on the shelf for so long (it was
originally set to open in 2006) that you wonder if they had to restore
the print. Max Morrow stars as a boy who adopts a goose, which upsets his school’s principal (Chevy Chase), a meanie who plans to fatten up the beloved pet and cook it for Christmas dinner.
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Eli Roth and Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds
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INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Call it a “strudel western,” Quentin Tarantino’s
guts-and-glory WW II pic about a brigade of Jewish-American G.I.s, led
by Brad Pitt, who band together with resistance fighters, including a
Teutonic movie star (Diane Kruger), to carry out a suicide
mission against the Nazis. Expect lots of Tarantino-style dialogue — in
multiple languages — punctuated by explosive violence.
THE MARC PEASE EXPERIENCE
Even though it’s been 10 years since Marc Pease (Jason Schwartzman)
was a high school theatre star, he still dreams of his past stage
glories. He gets one final chance to tread the boards when his former
drama teacher, Mr. Gribble (Ben Stiller), returns to town to mount a production.
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POST GRAD
After graduating from college Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) couldn’t find a job, so had to move back into her parents’ (Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch) house. Now she hangs out mostly with her platonic pal Adam (Zach Gilford). And while Ryden’s mood brightens when she meets hunky next-door neighbour David (Rodrigo Santoro), Adam’s spirits sink knowing the girl he loves is slipping away.
SHORTS
“Be careful what you wish for...” could be the motto for director Robert Rodriguez’ (Spy Kids) fantasy flick about a bullied kid named Toby (Jimmy Bennett) whose life is turned upside down when he finds a rainbow-coloured space rock that grants wishes. First Toby, then his schoolmates, and then the adults get caught up in the wish-making madness.
AUGUST 28
THE FINAL DESTINATION
Death doesn’t take a holiday, especially when it comes to teenagers who escape a freak accident at a car race. The teens think they’ve avoided the Grim Reaper, but he hunts them down one by one to finish what he started — and in 3D no less.
H2
In the “breaking new ground” department we have metalhead-turned-moviemaker Rob Zombie reimagining a second film from the Halloween franchise. Zombie played nice — for Rob Zombie that is —
in 2007 when he gave us his scary, but not over-the-top, version of Halloween, but he unleashes his demons in H2, the blood-soaked sequel.
TAKING WOODSTOCK
Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s fascination with America is well known — he examined swinging ’70s suburban society in The Ice Storm, cowboy love in Brokeback Mountain and the Civil War in Ride With the Devil — so it’s no surprise he tackles one of the country’s most cherished cultural touchstones, Woodstock. Lee’s film, inspired by a true story, focuses on Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), whose desire to save his family’s rundown resort leads him to team up with Woodstock organizers to bring the music festival to farmer Max Yasgur’s (Eugene Levy) field.
SPECIAL EVENTS ON THE BIG SCREEN
METROPOLITAN OPERA SUMMER SERIES
Encore performances of the most popular operas from the 2008/2009 season:
Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini)
Sat., Aug. 8
12 p.m. EST/CST, 11 a.m. MST and 10 a.m. PST
La Fille du Regiment (Donizetti)
Sat., Aug. 22
12 p.m. EST/CST, 11 a.m. MST and 10 a.m. PST
WWE-PAY-PER-VIEW
SummerSlam
Sun., Aug. 23, 8 p.m. EST