Laughs,
thrills will premiere on the silver screen
By Geronimo Rodriguez
Daily Cougar Staff
From a crime drama (High Crimes) to a racy
road trip (Y Tu Mama Tambien), this weekend's releases are worth your time.
In the
local area, the Angelika Film Center has
yet another treat in store for film lovers.
Photo courtesy of Twentieth
Century Fox
Ashley Judd (left) and Jim
Caviezel (right) star in the new drama High Crimes, which opens Friday.
High Crimes follows a successful lawyer,
Claire (Ashley Judd), whose life collapses when her husband, Tom Kubik
(Jim Caviezel),
is accused of committing a heinous crime
while serving in the military.
This is the second collaboration between
Judd and Morgan Freeman — the two also put their minds together to solve
the case in
Kiss the Girls.
The PG-13 thriller, which is based on the
novel of the same title by Joseph Finder, is directed by Carl Franklin
and also stars
Amanda Peet and Bruce Davison.
Director Barry Sonnenfeld's Big Trouble,
which follows how a bomb in a suitcase alters the lives of a slew of people,
is based on a
novel of the same title by Dave Barry,
the newspaper humor columnist.
From the trailers, this film resembles
another one of Sonnenfeld's films, Get Shorty. Sonnenfeld did well with
Shorty, but keep in
mind that Elmore Leonard, the excellent
pulp writer, penned Shorty.
The comedy, which is one of the films whose
release date was delayed because of the Sept. 11 attacks, stars Tim Allen,
Omar
Epps, Dennis Farina, Johnny Knoxville,
Andy Richter and Stanley Tucci and is rated PG-13.
Another comedy, National Lampoon's Van
Wilder, follows a college student's refusal to pay for his seventh year
and his love for the
college lifestyle.
The R-rated comedy is directed by Walt
Becker and stars Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid, Tim Matheson, Kim Smith and
Erik Estrada —
the former ChiPs star has a cameo appearance.
Tu Mama is the first potential sleeper
hit of the year.
The comedic drama follows two adolescents,
Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna), and their road trip
with an older
woman, Luisa (Maribel Verdú).
Director Alfonso Cuarón combines
an array of film techniques and ideas in the film, which has topped the
box-office record in Mexico
for a Mexican-made film.
The unrated film, which was written by
Cuarón and his brother Carlos, is in Spanish with English subtitles.
The Angelika has begun its second installment
of Sensational Cinema. It will feature 27 films, including limited-release
specialized
films, cinematic masterpieces, cult classics
and overlooked films. The second quarter of films begins this weekend with
The
Operator and Chain Camera.
Operator is the debut of director Jon Dichter;
he helms this psychological thriller about a Dallas attorney whose lavish
lifestyle
changes after he viciously insults a telephone
operator. The computer-savvy woman sets out to destroy everything he has
by
incorporating a meticulous plan.
The film, which has not been rated, will
run April 5-18 and stars Michael Laurence, Jacqueline Lim, Brion James
and Stephen
Tobolosky.
The documentary Chain captures the lives
of 10 high school students. Director Kirby Dick gave each of them a video
camera to
document their lives. After a week, the
cameras were given to 10 more students who then did the same.
The film, which was nominated at the 2001
Sundance Film Festival for the Grand Jury prize, has not been rated.
