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Life & Arts

Best bets for weekend lie with liars, meatballs

Instead of another teen thriller, a film depicting con artist,
Adult Swim stars sure to please audiences 

by JACOB BRISSE
The Dai1y Cougar 

Lies, voyeurism and Aqua Teen: That's what's in store for moviegoers this weekend. 

The Hoax stars Richard Gere as Clifford Irving, a small-time novelist who, upon hearing that his latest novel was declined, invented a story he knew would be a bestseller: the autobiography of Howard Hughes. With the help of his friend Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina), Irving researches everything known about the reclusive billionaire and fabricates the rest, then pitches the idea to McGraw-Hill with the notion that Hughes has given him his own personal memoirs from which to write the book. The publishing company is, of course, suspicious, but Irving's clever bluffs and Hughes' supposed insanity and hermetic lifestyle keep them guessing for as long as it takes to work a million-dollar advance out of their hopeful hands. 

Eventually the lies become too big to fake, and Irving's personal life disintegrates along with his 15 minutes of infamy (the real Irving did time for fraud). The film works in the idea that perhaps Hughes was pulling strings all along -- the information Suskind gathered named names in Washington, D.C., and perhaps fear of that information prompted the Watergate break-in. In a movie like this, it's never really safe to trust anything too much.

Next up is the strangely (read: stupidly) named Rear Window-esque teen thriller, Disturbia. Kale (Shia LaBeouf) is sentenced to house arrest after assaulting a teacher. Despite the comforts of girl-next-door Ashley (Sarah Roemer) and his overly enthusiastic friend, Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), Kale takes to window-watching to relieve the boredom. Soon he's obsessed with the idea that his next-door neighbor Mr. Turner (David Morse) is a serial killer. You can figure out the rest. 

All bets are off, though, for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. The producers are keeping the storyline under wraps. It tells the story of how Shake, Meatwad and Frylock came to be via death metal, Phil Collins and burning chickens. For those who don't get the TV show, this one's not for you, and it won't win over hordes of new initiates, either. For fans, though, it's a super-size helping of all that is Aqua Teen -- whatever that may be.

Also out this weekend is Perfect Stranger, the latest technology-savvy identity-switch thriller starring Halle Berry. When investigative reporter Rowena Price (Berry) learns her friend's murder is connected to advertising executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), she drops her journalistic endeavors, and with the help of Miles Hailey (Giovanni Ribisi), poses as a temp at Hill's office and an online flirt to get closer to the truth.

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