Arts & Entertainment

New movies pack action and drama 

By Andrew Beard
The Daily Cougar

Two Hollywood power hunks hope to continue their string of good fortune this weekend, while a newcomer from the WB hopes to crash their party.

Colin Farrell, fresh off Daredevil and Minority Report, returns to the screen this weekend in the overdue Joel Schumacher film Phone Booth. 

Why is it overdue, you ask? Remember that sniper fiasco just before this whole Operation Iraqi Freedom stuff put the nation on orange alert (or is it yellow?)?

The story revolves around a phone booth (duh) in the middle of New York City. Farrell plays an arrogant publicist caught in a "I shouldnit have done that" situation. Before attempting to call his mistress (Katie Holmes), Farrell picks up the receiver to hear a disgruntled Kiefer Sutherland calling him all sorts of dirty names and threatening to shoot people. 

Naturally, Farrell blows off the threat, but he realizes the seriousness of Sutherlandis intentions after pedestrians get shot right in front of him. Forest Whitaker arrives shortly after the shenanigans to portray the stock Hollywood confused cop. The film also has an interesting background story: It only took ten days and twelve million dollars to make.

Vin Diesel and his muscles hope to outdo Farrell with A Man Apart, a revenge story with lots of explosions. Dieselis character, Sean Vetter, is emotionally unstable after a criminal mishap leaves his beloved wife dead. He decides to forgive the perpetrators and accepts a job teaching origami at a local community college. Oh, wait, no he doesnit. He teams up with newcomer Larenz Tate to enact revenge on half of Mexico. On the other side of the film spectrum, Amanda Byrnes hopes to bring loads of iN Sync-loving junior high girls into theaters this weekend to see her film debut What a Girl Wants.

The story, which takes a new heroic spin on deadbeat dads, follows Byrnes on her trek to London to find Colin Firth, her long-lost father (hold your breath for an emotional reunion), whois in a stereotypical breezy English castle with a bunch of tea-drinking Brits. Itis a good bet that Christina Aguilerais hit song "What a Girl Wants" will appear in the film at least 25 times.

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