Arts & Entertainment

Five good movies and one bad open today

By Andrew Beard
The Daily Cougar

Here is a list of the films opening today -- try and find the lame, nothing-but-sex MTV film: The Good Thief, Confidence, Better Luck Tomorrow, The Real Cancun, It Runs in the Family and Identity. Still donit know? The Real Cancun.

This film extension of The Real World is one of two MTV productions opening this weekend, but donit confuse the independent and edgy Better Luck Tomorrow with the raunchy Cancun. This is the pattern over at MTV productions. One week they release a masterpiece, like high-school comedy Election, and the next week they release Joeis Apartment.

Better Luck Tomorrow hopes to fall on the masterpiece side of MTV films, but it had a rocky beginning. Director Justin Lin tells the story of several over-achieving, Asian high school students who relieve stress by committing random acts of violence. The movie sparked a controversy when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Asian critics claimed he was merely perpetuating racial stereotypes. Lin disagrees, and his film features an all-Asian cast instead of the one token Asian who delivers spring rolls to the white guyis house.

The Real Cancun is a voyeuristic trip into the Spring Break world of alcohol and sex, so thereis not much worth talking about.

It Runs in the Family is probably the most intriguing film opening this weekend, with three Douglas generations collaborating for the first time. Michael, Kurt and Cameron Douglas are dysfunctional family members attempting to reconcile their differences in New York City.

Identity stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Ray Liotta in a whodunit thriller. Three strangers get stranded in a motel in the middle of nowhere. As the weather worsens, bodies begin to pile with no suspects.

The Good Thief is Nick Nolteis return to the screen after boozing landed him on the front pages of newspapers nationwide. In this remake of the 1955 French film noir Bob le Flambeur, Nolte plays a veteran gambler and crook trying to mastermind a casino robbery in the south of France. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with a French seductress who sidetracks his project substantially.

The final film opening this weekend, Coincidence sports a cast that includes Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Rachel Weisz, Edward Burns and Morris Chestnut. The story revolves around Jake Vig (Burns) as he attempts to run a scam. Unbeknownst to him, the man heis scamming is the henchman of a powerful kingpin (Hoffman). Garcia drops by as an FBI agent hot on his trail.

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