The Education of Charlie Banks is a film Fred Durst directed back in 2007 which played the Tribeca Film Festival to mostly positive reviews. But even after Durst’s other movie The Longshots bombed ($21 million gross, estimated $30 million budget), Anchor Bay has decided to give Banks a release.

Plot Synopsis: Charlie Bank’s (Jesse Eisenberg) sheltered world at his Ivy League campus is shaken when Mick (Jason Ritter), an old acquaintance with a violent past, unexpectedly shows up at his dorm room. [/Film]

I think perhaps “Mick” is a metaphor for having your old rap-metal band with an embarrassingly misspelled name based on a game about jerking off with your friends haunt you while you try to become a respectable filmmaker. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Opening this weekend:

The Longshots
Yo, Fred Durst be directing and shit, B.  He wants you to respect him as a muthfuckin artist now, foo.  Ebert liked it. Listen to this glowing praise: "…realistically photographed by Conrad W. Hall," and "Even the signs Jasmine’s fans hold up look homemade, when a lot of teen sports movies seem to have employed sign painters."  Holy shit, man, settle down!  If you like it so much, why don’t you marry it.

Death Race
Once again, my impression of this movie: Blur! Cut! Smash! Rap rock guitars! Oh, ‘allo.  Moy name ees Jason Stafam.  Explosion! Face punch! Oof! Blur! Rap Rock!  Rightio, oy fink oy’ll taike me shir’ off now.  Gunshots! Blur! Impalement! Record Scratching!  Blur! Tits! Cut! Mohawk!  Gratuitous ass shot!  Guns n Roses!  Car stats! Pow!

The Rocker
Every supposedly funny thing in this trailer involved someone getting hit with something.  Every. Single. Thing.  But hey, at least they got a guy that looks like Jonah Hill to be in it.

The House Bunny
On the one hand, this looks like it could be sort of winning and cute like Clueless or Legally Blonde.  On the other hand… Colin Hanks.  Goddamn I hate that creepy mouthbreather.

Hamlet 2
Probably your best bet this weekend.  It’s getting good reviews and has potential, but the trailer is almost as full of bad slapstick gags as The Rocker.  All in all, I think I’ll spend my weekend being mesmerized by Usain Bolt’s crotch bulge.  Er, I mean, watching the Olympics.  (Seriously though, that’s abnormal, right?)      

"The new coach has a secret weapon."

He keeps it in his pocket – he’ll show it to you if you follow him behind the shed.  He doesn’t usually let people see it, but you’re special, you really toot his whistle.  Remember, this will be your little secret. 

Fred Durst has directed a film called The Longshots, starring Ice Cube, based on the heartwarming true story of the 11-year-old girl who quarterbacked her team to the Pop Warner tournament, the first girl ever to play in it.  Ice Cube plays the girl’s ne’er-do-well, former football player uncle who coaches her to success.  I can’t believe I just wrote that.  Even if that were the plot synopsis of a South Park episode I’d swear I was on mescaline.

Seriously, I didn’t just hear tinkling pianos and soaring crescendoes behind a movie directed by the former lead singer of a band named after a circle jerk game starring the writer of “Fuck Tha Po’lice”, did I?  Someone tell me I’m just really fucked up right now.  Preferably the movie voice-over guy.

(trailer after the jump)
Read the rest of this entry »

Dimension Films has acquired Janky Promoters, the first script Ice Cube has written since the Friday series (in which he collaborated with DJ Pooh).  Banking on its success, Cube took less money up front for a larger percentage of the back end [Ed. Note - musn't... make... borderline racist ass joke...].  Cube also plans to star.

"Janky Promoters" sets Cube and another actor as music promoters who get the chance to book a top-tier hip-hop artist into a midsized California venue. The pair are ill equipped for such a task and everything goes wrong. Film fits the urban niche that Cube has hit in the "Friday" and "Barbershop" series and films like "First Sunday."

They didn’t put parentheses around "urban niche" – I suppose that’s progress.

[Says Dimension head Bob Weinstein]: "This feels a lot like ‘Uptown Saturday Night‘ to me, a caper film where you have these music promoters who are slightly shady but are good enough guys that you root for them. This is going to be R-rated, and it appeals right to the core of Cube’s audience [because they love swearing, presumably]. He’s producing the movie, sharing in the funding, so it’s more complicated than previous deals we’ve made with Cube. He’s a brand, like Tyler Perry, and that’s the direction he’s headed in."…

Weinstein is already working out the details for an early summer start date that will factor in Cube’s promotion schedule for "The Long Shots," the Fred Durst-directed Dimension film that Cube just wrapped as star and producer.

Cube has a first-look Dimension deal and is also developing "Welcome Back, Kotter" as a starring vehicle. [Variety]

Not a single non-black comparison… Fred Durst directing… A Welcome Back Kotter movie… I think my brain just short circuited dursted.