TV FILM: Camp Rock 2 Details

The details of Camp Rock 2 have been revealed and hooray Nick Jonas is in the lead this time. As I said when the first film hit Disney, Joe did a great job (for a singer), but they would've had better ratings if Nick, who's considered the favorite, was in the lead. Demi Lovato returns, but Nick will be getting his own love interest, newcomer Chloe Bridges.


The talented 17-year-old is a professional pianist. The plot will focus on the discovery that their rival, Camp Star, stole all of the students and instructors, and during their quest to revive Camp Rock, Nick falls for the rival's daughter.

VIDEO: Beyonce's "Sweet Dream"

Aside from the bizarre, gold body armor at the end, the video isn't half bad. The beat is what's interesting. It starts off sounding—maybe because of the current musical climate—like a "Thriller" homage, while also sounding similar to another song she's recorded...that I can't quite remember the name of.

The lyrical content also had me hooked. I feel like it's perfect for Twilight. lol Is it just me?

"You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare / Either way, I don't want to wake."

Does that not sound like something Bella would say? lol

Oh and I can't finish this post without commenting on the odd dance style that she's adopted here. I feel like in certain areas the reel is being rewinded or fast-forwarded to seem faster than she can actually dance, and in other areas she just has a more violent rhythm that's like girly crunk. Maybe it's just me. Either way, I like it. It's a nice break from the "sexual" gyrations of Ciara. Check it out:

TRAILER: Diablo Cody's "Jennifer's Body": Megan Fox & Amanda Seyfried

I don't know which is funnier: the fact that after watching this film no boy will go within ten feet of Megan Fox or the fact that she's about to make Hayden Paneittere's attempt to go nude to sell tickets for I Love Beth Cooper look like she's unveiling her My Little Pony collection.

Diablo Cody follows up her heartwarming, hipster, romantic dramedy Juno with a horror comedy called Jennifer's Body. It's about a popular girl (Fox) who is possessed by a demon. She uses her sexuality to lure all types of boys to their doom. Who will stop her? Well, why her nerdy friend of course? And by nerdy I mean the equally unattainable Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia), covered up in hoodies and thick-rimmed glasses in an attempt to seem as average as Ellen Page. Uhhh, yeah fucking right! Luckily there are some funny boys, Adam Brody ("The O.C.") and Johnny Simmons (Hotel for Dogs and The Spirit) in the film to fill in where the ladies falter. However, Cody knows how to deliver on the funny, so really there are no worries there.

But will we watch is the question? I dunno. I really thought I'd be interested in watching boys being butchered alive for being horny perverts, but...not so much. You?

BOX OFFICE: Ice Age at #1, Transformers Reach $600 mil, and more

School's only been out for a week and children have already begun to rule the box office, giving Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs the #1 spot with a total of $67 mil in its first weekend. Not bad for a second sequel. But even though it nudged Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen down to the #2, it doesn't overshadow the fact that the metal smackdown has grossed nearly $600 million worldwide in just two weeks. In-sane! I'd recommend it though. The fight scenes, Shia screaming like a little girl, and newcomer Ramon Rodriguez as his roommate are worth the hefty ticket price. Another must-see is Public Enemies. Perhaps the 4th of July weekend wasn't the best release date, since it only grossed $41 mil for a movie boasting Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in the leads, but throw in a few rainy days and future DVD sales and it'll soon get the respect it deserves.

The Proposal maintains a steady position in the top 5 at #4 with $94 mil, while The Hangover settles at #5 with $204 mil. Up, Ice Age's main competition, descends to #6 with $265 mil, while Night at the Museum 2 teeters at #10 with $362 mil worldwide. Rounding out the top 10 are My Sister's Keeper at #7 with $26 mil, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 at #8 with $58 mil, and Year One already on its way out at #9 with $38 mil. Suffering the most in ticket sales this weekend was Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame, who failed to recreate the magic with her former costar in her third writing (and first directing) credit I Hate Valentine's Day, only grossing half a million dollars abroad. Ouch! She might start hating the fourth of July too.

Meanwhile, Star Trek retired from the top 10 after 9 weeks with $374 mil worldwide, while Sam Mendes' Away We Go dropped out with a respectable $6 mil from only 500 theaters. Next week, Sacha Baron Cohen brings his public displays of humiliation to a climax when Bruno hits theaters; Hayden Panettiere ("Heroes") sheds her self-respect when she uses her naked body to seduce teenagers into seeing the adaptation of I Love You, Beth Cooper; and the comedic indie Humpday takes bromances to the next level.

TRAILER: Matt Damon's "The Informant!"

First off, I can't believe Matt Damon gained weight for a comedy! That's practically unheard of. Um ok, that said, I wasn't too sure about the plot, especially since the trailer doesn't do too good a job of laying out the details, but as it progressed, I started to see the humor in it.

Damon plays the vice president of an agri-business that's performing unethical practices. It's like Michael Clayton meets Burn After Reading, except funnier. lol I mean, think about it. What if the FBI needed an informant, but the informant was really really really dense? That opens the door for some pretty hilarious moments, from narrating their day on their hidden microphone to testing the recording device hidden in their briefcase in the middle of a board meeting. He's...sooooo special.

Expect plenty of funny supporting actors, like Tony Hale ("Arrested Development"), Scott Bakula ("Quantum Leap"), Patton Oswalt ("The King of Queens"), Melanie Lynskey ("Two and a Half Men"), Joel McHale ("The Soup"), and many more.

BUZZ: Duff & Garcia on "Gossip Girl," Amy Adams + Wahlberg, and more

TV NEWS
• Christian Slater scored another series after his NBC spy thriller "My Own Worst Enemy" fizzled last Fall. He'll be replacing British actor Rupert Penry-Jones as the lead of a new ABC mystery drama "The Forgotten." It's about "a group of amateur detectives led by a former cop (Slater) whose 11-year-old daughter was kidnapped three years before."

• Hilary Duff will appear on "Gossip Girl" for a few episodes as a celebrity student who rooms with Vanessa and flirts heavily with Dan starting Oct. 5th. Also, the CW threw Joanna Garcia a bone after her series "Priveleged" was canceled, giving her a three-episdoe stint on "Gossip Girl" as an evil Southern Miss America-type, who has a political agenda that involves Nate.

• Callum Blue ("Dead Like Me" and Princess Diaries 2) will play General Zod in "Smallville."


FILM NEWS
• I was truly amused when I read the plot to a new family comedy called Relativity: "The story centers on a close-knit family that comes together for the parents' 30th wedding anniversary only to have their adult children stumble upon the family secret - they're all adopted." I was even more interested when I discovered that it's being produced by the guy behind Dan in Real Life, a really sweet dramedy. I feel like the characters in The Family Stone, however, would've been really good in this.

• Amy Adams is going to scuff up her good girl reputation when she joins the cast of Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale's boxing film The Fighter. She'll "play Charlene, a gritty bartender and former college high-jumper from Massachusetts who ends up dating" Walhberg's character.

• I like to think of director Tommy Wirkola's next film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters as a "where are they now?" sequel to the fairytale. Apparently, if you're hunted and abused by a witch as a child, you grow up to be a witch hunter. Taking place 15 years after their kidnapping, the film has been dubbed an action/horror movie with dark humor.

TRAILER: Couples Retreat: Vaughn, Favreau, Bateman, and more

Four couples go to a tropical island to fix their relationships:

Malin Akerman (The Watchmen) + Vince Vaughn
Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) + Jason Bateman
Kristen Davis (Sex and the City) + Jon Favreau (I Love You Man)
Faizon Love (Just My Luck) + Tasha Smith (Why Did I Get Married?)

It was co-written by Favreau, Vaughn, and Dana Fox (The Wedding Date and What Happens in Vegas). It looks pretty funny, but hopefully the second trailer will be funnier.

FILM REVIEW: Public Enemies

Let me start off by saying, I don't know a damn thing about the 1930s bank robber John Dillinger. But that's okay, because hardly anyone does. We, the audience, are encountering this famous gangster for the first time. The mystery of why anyone decided to do a biopic about him is what attracted us all...or me at least.


Dillinger's Bravado
Once I started watching this crime thriller, I was waiting for what I like to call the cheek-to-cheek: that moment when a character does or says something that brings a smile to my face. It's that moment when you make a connection with a character—either of worship, respect, affection, or what have you. John Dillinger is a man who inspired the cheek-to-cheek on more than one occassion. Because of this, my friend and I began a heated debated on whether he was more badass than Jesse James. After seeing the The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford—and nearly being bored to death by it—I voted heavily in favor for Dillinger. He was a man of action and adventure just like Jesse. He was a man of morals and was a gentleman towards women just like Jesse. He was even good with a gun and capable of holding his own in a shoot out just like Jesse. So why do I favor Dillinger over James? Because on more than one occassion he was shown staring death in the face and snickering mischievously to himself. He was as fearless as an outlaw could be, and in every scenario--from fielding press inquiries while being hauled off to jail to wooing the girl of his dreams. While his attempts at flirting with Billie, a coat check girl, may be considered barbaric, since he practically ordered her to be his girl, his self-confidence was pretty impressive, considering how uninterested she seemed. lol


The greatest proof of his bravado, however, were in two specific scenes. The first occurred when he was talking logistics of a bank job in a crowded movie theater. Suddenly, his face appeared on the screen and the lights went up. The audience was instructed to search for him by "looking to their left and looking to their right." He didn't move his head one bit, and slowly as the camera crept towards him, he began to grin uncontrollably. The suspense slowly killed me but excited him. An even better scene was towards the end when he literally walked into the police precinct where the task force that was created to hunt him and his boys down was located. He strolled past their desks, eyed their evidence-covered bulletin boards, and even stopped to ask the officers crowded around a radio what the game score was. Fearless.


Johnny Depp & Christian Bale
Bringing these characters to life and embodying personas from a different decade is a considerably difficult task. Since I'm accustomed to Bale being front-and-center, it sort of annoyed me how little screen time he was given. However, he did a good job of expressing the tug-of-war such a man like Detective Melvin Purvis would experience in having to be brutal enough to hunt a gangster down, but cautious enough to retain his humanity. The inner turmoil was visible in every facial expression he possessed. Depp had a harder task. Making a bank robber with a tommy gun lovable isn't an easy one. But the subtle grins of triumph and his obvious yearning for Billie (Oscar-winner Mario Cotillard) brought him to a level that the audience could relate to. He was even a little funny. My favorite sarcastic line he uttered was when Purvis asked Dillinger, "What keeps you up at night?" and he responded, "Coffee." It made him less of a money-grubbing bottom-feeder and more of an enterprising man in search of adventure at any price.

As for the creative licenses that each actor took in trying to create these period characters, I found myself hearing and seeing a little Obama in Bale's performance, and a smidge of Brad Pitt's inaudible Snatch character in Depp's. I really don't know which one's weirder. Luckily, neither was too distracting.


Michael Mann's Writing and Direction
The man behind Ali, Collateral, and Miami Vice unsurprisingly did an impeccable job of capturing the period. It was a time when banks feared men in suits and not masks. But what impressed me the most was how he kept you in suspense. Sure, a movie about a bank robber constantly on the run is bound to be suspenseful, but I believe there were certain scenes purposefully added to raise your heart rate. Besides the scenes where he simply waltzed into danger, there was another that's a perfect example of this. After being arrested, Dillinger escapes with the help of a cellmate. He steals the fastest car in the precinct and manages to drive away from it without alerting the soldiers who have camped-out around the jail in order to prevent anyone from breaking him out. Once he's down the street, he stops at a red light, which just so happens to be right next to a crowd of armed soldiers hanging out on the corner, drinking coffee. One of them gives Dillinger a look and we're shown the red light once again. Dillinger grips his gun and we're showng the red light again. The soldier doesn't recognize him, but he looks rather suspicious. By this point everyone in the theater is thinking the exact same thing, "OH MY GOD! TURN GREEN ALREADY!" Once it changes and he's free to drive away, we still don't breath until Dillinger does. It's at this point that the bond between this antihero and the audience is solidified. We've been through the trenches right alongside him and we're rooting for a happy ending.

Mann also did an amazing job with capturing powerful moments. In one scene, he successfully breaks out a few of his boys, but one of them roughs up a guard too much, distracting everyone and before you know it, the oldest escapee gets shot. Dillinger tries to get him to the car, but he ends up being dragged as he slowly dies. He never lets go of his hand as long as his eyes stayed locked with his. We watch as they slowly lose life and Dillinger slowly loses his grip.

I'm not quite sure if this film has a moral or even if it's worth searching for one, but Dillinger lived by a code of life where he believed that it should be lived to the fullest in any way you should desire. Purvis thought that Dillinger should turn himself in because his friends were dying, but he didn't understand that it was because they died that he felt the need to live even more—and to live his way and no one else's.

Should you watch it?
This isn't an explosions-filled summer blockbuster, but there's plenty (and I do mean plenty) of shooting for the action-lovers. There's a sultry love story for the romantics. And there are little doses of humor for the chucklers. It isn't a Godfather-type gangster flick. It's more 3:10 to Yuma than The Assassination of Jesse James. So if that's what you're in the mood for, I'd recommend it.

BOX OFFICE: Transformers at #1, Hurt Locker's Critical Acclaim, and more

Woa! $112 million! Unfreaking believable. I'll be adding to that load this Tuesday when I watch Shia, Megan, and the rest of the humans battle alongside the Transformers for what I hear is a kickass alien robot war. This 4th of July weekend could be a record breaker for both Michael Bay and the film industry in general. In other box office news, The Hurt Locker, an indie war drama starring Jeremy Renner ("The Unusuals") and Anthony Mackie (Notorious), opened in four theaters with rave reviews and a decent $144,000. This could mean big things for Renner, whose star is shining bright despite his minor accomplishments. Cameron Diaz's adaptation My Sister's Keeper didn't fare as well with the critics, but it came in at #5 with $12 mil. Considering people don't normally jump at the chance to see depressing dramas in the summer, that's not bad.

The Proposal stayed strong at #2, reaching $69 mil. It's amazing what Ryan Reynolds' naked body can do for Hollywood's pocket. The Hangover continues its reign at #3 with $247 mil after only a month. Year One isn't down for the count just yet. It may have slid to #6, but it's managed a hearty $32 mil in two weeks. Not bad for such an odd premise. Several films retired from the top 10 this weekend: Land of the Lost with $49 mil, Terminator Salvation with $323 mil, and Imagine That with $14 mil. Away We Go, however, moved into the top 10, grossing $4 mil.

This 4th of July weekend, the adults can go watch the crime thriller Public Enemies, drop the kids off to see the animated Ice Age sequel, and occupy the teenagers with Nia Vardalos's (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) romantic indie I Hate Valentine's Day.

TRAILER: Ashton Kutcher's "Spread"

I could've sworn Ashton Kutcher was done with the mid-20s slacker roles, but I guess he decided to squeeze one more in before he was too old to. In the indie rom-com Spread, he plays a bedhopping playboy with a loaded sugar mama (Anne Heche). He can have any girl he wants, buy anything he wants, and do anything he wants...except when it comes to a beautiful diner waitress who refuses to take his shit. If he's the poker champion of Nevada, then she's the poker champion of the world. He can never call her bluff and the girl's got game for days. She has him waiting at the phone for a callback. Whipped!!

You've probably already seen the manwhore-turned-monogamous bit more than once (i.e. Good Luck Chuck, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, etc.), but this film stars the criminally under-utilized Sebastian Stan ("Kings") and the sultry seductress Margarita Levieva (Adventureland), so it's at least worth the rental fee.