It's all part of the plan...

The music is dope!

Here's the first trailer for THE WACKNESS, written and directed by Jonathan Levine (ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE). Right up front I'm gonna tell ya, I've met Jonathan, we hung out a bit, and I think he's a top notch guy, so yes, this is a plug. Shameless perhaps, but so what!? I havn't seen the film, and frankly the trailer doesn't blow me away, but it looks to have quite a bit of style, and the film kicked Sundance's ass this year.

Here's a synopsis:

In the sweltering summer of 1994, Rudy Giuliani is scouring New York City within an inch of its life, hip-hop is permeating white youth culture, and a pot-dealing loser kid, Luke Shapiro, is trying to figure out how to solve his parents’ insolvency, beat depression, and get laid before pushing off to college. Luckily he’s got a nifty deal with a psychiatrist, Dr. Squires, who trades him therapy sessions for weed. It happens that the oddball doctor’s marriage is crumbling, so the two—one in late adolescence, the other in late middle-age—embark on messy passages into new life stages. As Luke falls for a classmate who just happens to be Squires’s daughter, the summer heats up, and he follows doctor’s orders, learning to coexist with pain and make it part of him, rather than let it become his downfall.



Looks like we'll get a limited release in Canada on July 11th.

STREET KINGS review

I was going to write a straight ahead review for this, but I really just don't want to. Now usually I enjoy writing about films that I find to have 'questionable merit', but in this case I'm going to try something different. First off, here's a brief plot synopsis I stole from the internets:

Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is a veteran LAPD cop who finds life difficult to navigate after the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

So, rather than describe this film as the product of a stoner's retread of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, I present my seven helpful hints for a living the tough cop lifestyle:

1. When you wake up in the morning, always reach for your gun first, cuz you're a stone cold killer after all.
2. It's much easier to drink from those little airplane bottles of vodka while you're driving than a 40oz-er or a flask. Also, don't let a little vomit in the morning discourage you.
   
3. Dating a nurse is a great 2-fer, cuz you loves a good shoot out.
4. Sure, you and your co-workers might plant evidence to get the bad guys, but don't be surprised if your mates turn out to be 'really' dirty cops. (You might think this is a spoiler, but you'll be on board after the first 15 minutes of the film)
5. When someone gets shot, holding their hand dramatically is not as helpful as say trying to stop the bleeding or calling an ambulance.
6. Best way to gather information from a "perp"... yellow pages to the head!
7. Even if he really wants to, don't take your fresh faced new partner to kill the guys who killed your last partner.
   

Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do? If you're Jay Mohr, please lose that moustache, it's trippin' me out!
Also, Aidan from Sex and the City isn't very intimidating despite his facial hair, and Forest Whitaker needs to turn it down a notch.