Anchor Bay Films has send us information regarding their upcoming DVD and Blu-Ray release "Carjacked". The film starring Maria Bello and Stephen Doff will be hitting DVD and Blu-Ray shelves on November 22nd. DVD and Blu-Ray Features only includes a behind the scenes featurette.
Press Release:
Maria Bello (the upcoming “Prime Suspect,” Abduction) and Stephen Dorff (the upcoming November 11th release of Immortals, Blade) headline the Anchor Bay Films thriller Carjacked, premiering November 22nd on Blu-ray™ and DVD. Co-starring Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner, “Six Feet Under”), Catherine Dent (“The Shield,” 21 Grams) and Gary Grubbs (JFK, Ray), Carjacked is an unforgettable ride into suspense and terror! SRP is $26.98 for the DVD, and $29.99 for the Blu-ray™. Pre-book is October 26.
During a routine stop at a gas station, Lorraine (Bello), a vulnerable single mom, and her 5 year-old son (Connor Hill) are overtaken by Roy (Dorff), a vicious bank robber on the run. He forces her to drive to meet up with his accomplice who still has money from the heist. Possibly facing not only her death, but her son’s, Lorraine’s fight for survival summons up an inner strength and courage that she never thought she had.
Bonus features on both the Blu-ray™ and DVD include a behind-the-scenes featurette.
The film is produced by Daniel Grodnik (Powder, Bobby) and Eric Gozlan (Beautiful Boy) and directed by John Bonito. Written by Michael and Sherry Compton, who also are Executive Producers. Composer is Bennett Salvay, and Theo Van De Sande is Director of Photography. Executive Producers are Murray Rosenthal, Jonathan Rosenthal, Richard Iott and Michael Greenfield.
Showing posts with label Maria Bello. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maria Bello. Show all posts
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, John Hannah, Luke Ford
Directed by: Rob Cohen
Written by: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
What I liked about the first “The Mummy” (and to a lesser extent, the second one too), was that it was silly and fun. It wasn’t a good movie but it was good fun. The latest installment is not silly, good, or fun. Instead what director Rob Cohen has given us is a boring, patience testing dud of a movie that not only sucked all of the energy out of a sold out theatre but also, at times completely sucked out my will to live. Well, at least to live through the rest of the movie.
Though I had a host of reason not to like this movie, in retrospect, I should have known how bad this would be before I even set one soda sticky shoe in the theatre. How? Two words: Maria Bello. I have never liked Bello and after sitting through the full screen close-up of her ass in “The Cooler” (William H. Macy had a more youthful looking ass in that movie if you can believe it), I have been suffering a complete lack of interest in watching Bello do anything. My corneas are still in therapy and barely speaking to me.
One of the reasons “The Mummy” worked was because the cast was so likeable and goofy that they elevated the mediocre material so that it was kind of fun and charming. A bad movie can be a guilty pleasure if it has a good cast. And for me, Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and particularly John Hannah, made the first movie a guilty pleasure. So for me, the loss of Weisz was an especially bad blow to the third installment. The decision to replace the actress (rather than ditch the character all together) was ill advised. Replacing Weisz with an actress as bland and lifeless as Bello is just plain stupid. When you factor in the added bonus that Bello can not affect a believable or consistent British accent throughout the movie, one can not help but wonder if Cohen was intentionally trying to tank the franchise before they ever even released the movie.
If the miscasting of Evelyn O’Connell was not enough, then the inexplicable casting of Isabella Leong as son Alex O’Connell’s love interest was an even bigger blunder. Leong seemed slightly bucktoothed and had a voice that could grate granite. Leong’s voice kind of sounded like a 12 year old girl ADR’d the voice for the actress. It was sort of like watching a badly dubbed movie but only one person was affected. I don’t think that particular part of movie was meant to be funny, but it was the only thing I laughed at.
This brings me to the script. In the previous movies, even the most eye roll inducing of lines could elicit a chuckle from me because the movie was supposed to be silly. The “jokes” don’t cut it here. I haven’t felt such a disinclination to laugh since the premiere of “Cavemen” on TV last year. The story was a weird mix of fairytale, history, and Grandpa Simpson travelogue. If Abe were explaining the movie, I imagine he would explain the story something like this: “We would travel by plane through the mountains and then we’d hitch a riiiide with the Yeti to the pool of everlasting life. We called it Shangri-la. We wore thin cotton tights in the freezing snow, which was the fashion in those days, and we fought our way through the Styrofoam snow jungle to meet the cursed garden gnome emperor.” Suffice it to say, I really wish Abe Simpson had narrated the scenes rather than having to watch them play out on the screen as they were. Judging by this and the other items under Gough and Millar’s belts, someone needs to string them up by their fingers so that they are not able to write any more crappy dialogue.
About the only thing I did like were some of the special effects. The transformation from human to terra cotta warrior was neat, as was the galloping terra cotta horses. But a few bits of eye candy can not begin to make up for the other hour and a half of frustration and boredom. If I had wanted to spend my Friday night anxious to jump out of my skin and run screaming from the room, I would have gone on a date. As it was, there I was in my favorite place in the world and resenting every minute of it.
Should you see this movie? No. God, no. A white hot thousand suns of no to that. In fact, given the choice of fighting the undead Dragon Emperor or watching the movie about him, I’d rather kick him in the shins and go a round with him. As awesome as Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li are, the five minutes we see them doesn’t even make this movie worth the effort. It just makes me a little sad.
Though I had a host of reason not to like this movie, in retrospect, I should have known how bad this would be before I even set one soda sticky shoe in the theatre. How? Two words: Maria Bello. I have never liked Bello and after sitting through the full screen close-up of her ass in “The Cooler” (William H. Macy had a more youthful looking ass in that movie if you can believe it), I have been suffering a complete lack of interest in watching Bello do anything. My corneas are still in therapy and barely speaking to me.
One of the reasons “The Mummy” worked was because the cast was so likeable and goofy that they elevated the mediocre material so that it was kind of fun and charming. A bad movie can be a guilty pleasure if it has a good cast. And for me, Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and particularly John Hannah, made the first movie a guilty pleasure. So for me, the loss of Weisz was an especially bad blow to the third installment. The decision to replace the actress (rather than ditch the character all together) was ill advised. Replacing Weisz with an actress as bland and lifeless as Bello is just plain stupid. When you factor in the added bonus that Bello can not affect a believable or consistent British accent throughout the movie, one can not help but wonder if Cohen was intentionally trying to tank the franchise before they ever even released the movie.
If the miscasting of Evelyn O’Connell was not enough, then the inexplicable casting of Isabella Leong as son Alex O’Connell’s love interest was an even bigger blunder. Leong seemed slightly bucktoothed and had a voice that could grate granite. Leong’s voice kind of sounded like a 12 year old girl ADR’d the voice for the actress. It was sort of like watching a badly dubbed movie but only one person was affected. I don’t think that particular part of movie was meant to be funny, but it was the only thing I laughed at.
This brings me to the script. In the previous movies, even the most eye roll inducing of lines could elicit a chuckle from me because the movie was supposed to be silly. The “jokes” don’t cut it here. I haven’t felt such a disinclination to laugh since the premiere of “Cavemen” on TV last year. The story was a weird mix of fairytale, history, and Grandpa Simpson travelogue. If Abe were explaining the movie, I imagine he would explain the story something like this: “We would travel by plane through the mountains and then we’d hitch a riiiide with the Yeti to the pool of everlasting life. We called it Shangri-la. We wore thin cotton tights in the freezing snow, which was the fashion in those days, and we fought our way through the Styrofoam snow jungle to meet the cursed garden gnome emperor.” Suffice it to say, I really wish Abe Simpson had narrated the scenes rather than having to watch them play out on the screen as they were. Judging by this and the other items under Gough and Millar’s belts, someone needs to string them up by their fingers so that they are not able to write any more crappy dialogue.
About the only thing I did like were some of the special effects. The transformation from human to terra cotta warrior was neat, as was the galloping terra cotta horses. But a few bits of eye candy can not begin to make up for the other hour and a half of frustration and boredom. If I had wanted to spend my Friday night anxious to jump out of my skin and run screaming from the room, I would have gone on a date. As it was, there I was in my favorite place in the world and resenting every minute of it.
Should you see this movie? No. God, no. A white hot thousand suns of no to that. In fact, given the choice of fighting the undead Dragon Emperor or watching the movie about him, I’d rather kick him in the shins and go a round with him. As awesome as Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li are, the five minutes we see them doesn’t even make this movie worth the effort. It just makes me a little sad.
SHATTERED (a.k.a. BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL) (2007)
DIRECTED BY
Mike Barker
STARRING
Pierce Brosnan - Tom Ryan
Maria Bello - Abby Randall
Gerard Butler - Neil Randall
Emma Karwandy - Sophie Randall
Claudette Mink - Judy
3 Howls Outta 4
The perfect family: husband & wife, 2.5 kids, the house with the white picket fence - most of us try very hard to have that kind of life once we settle down. But what happens if a stranger just steps into our lives and threatens to take that away because of some deep, dark secret you've been keeping? Would you do everything in your power to reveal your secret to save the people you love, even if it might cause you to lose them at the end? Or does the secret mean more to you than your family? In the straight-to-DVD released SHATTERED, distributed by Lions Gate, you may be bound to find out while experience many twists and turns before you get the answer.
PLOT
Abby (Maria Bello) and Neil Randall (Gerard Butler) seem to be the perfect married couple. They have a beautiful daughter (Emma Karwandy), a big house in Chicago, and enough money to go away on vacation for a weekend. However, that perfection begins to flaw when a stranger named Tom Ryan (Pierce Brosnan) enters their lives, taking them hostage and threatening to murder their daughter, who an associate has kidnapped. For about 24 hours, Tom keeps the couple at bay, torturing them and making them do things they don't want to do but need to in order to save their daughter. Eventually, the whole thing is leading to Tom wanting Neil to kill someone for him - in exchange for his daughter's life.
REVIEW
SHATTERED, which was known as BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL [a reference to Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot"], is probably the best straight-to-DVD feature distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment so far. This pretty entertaining thriller/mystery was definitely made for the movie theatres, but something must have happened along the way for it to end up straight on a disc. It's too bad because this film has a lot of star power, who bring good performances to make an implausible situation actually seem believable.
SHATTERED is a hard film to review. It's the kind of film that if you really dig deep and talk about certain aspects, it may spoil and ruin the experience for someone who hasn't seen it yet. I don't want to do that, so I won't talk about the story and the characters. I will say that the film is very heavy on twists and turns until it reaches its resolution. Yes, this is very common in most modern thrillers these days but the twists actually make the film and are actually quite entertaining. I won't say whether the resolution is satisfying or not [I liked it personally], but it'll definitely make you think.
The direction by Mike Barker is very good. The film starts off very slow but picks up once Brosnan is introduced, and it pretty much doesn't let up. It builds and builds and builds as the films tries to trick you with things you may or may not have seen coming. Nice use of angles, lighting, and close-up reaction shots truly benefit the film's visual style. You're never bored and the cinematography by Ashley Rowe is beautiful. Barker truly tries to get the viewer emotionally involved with the characters, making us wonder what we would do in their shoes. The morals of people are questioned here and I thought the visual did a good job making that clear.
The acting is very good here as well. The acting by Pierce Brosnan especially, who dumps everything that was suave and cool as James Bond, and pretty much plays an immoral character who suffers from sociopathic tendecies for reasons I don't want to bring up right now. Brosnan has done great work as of late in recent films and this one is no exception. It was kind of weird seeing him as the antogonist since he's known for his good guy roles. Also, his accent was either Irish or Scottish, and didn't sound as British as Bond's. Just an interesting character change for the actor that I appreciated. Maria Bello and Gerard Butler also do well as the supporting cast, as their characters were pretty much going through the emotional wringer most of the film. Bello is solid as always and is quite believable in her performance. Butler had an issue with his accent with me, as I wasn't sure if he was American or European or what. His accent going in and out and it took something away from his performance. But for the most part, he convinced me that was capable of more than just being Lara Croft's sidekick, a phantom of an opera, or a spartan.
I also had issues with some of the twists. While I enjoyed them, I thought that the resolution really didn't explain their plausibility enough. It seemed like some were shot one way and by the end, shown at a completely different angle that didn't match to what was shown before. But then again, you gotta make your story work. Sometimes bullshit is a nice easy way out.
THINGS I'VE LEARNED WHILE BEING TAKEN HOSTAGE BY THIS FILM
1. If you wake up at the middle ofthe night and your husband is not in bed with you, he's either working hard, screwing a younger version of you, or working hard screwing a younger version of you. Either way, you're not too important in his life.
2. Don't be a handsome smug executive who acts innocent while stealing other people's opportunities at the same time. It will only bite you in the ass later on. Believe me, people have learned from the Amanda Woodward Epidemic of the 1990s.
3. Abby can't get enough of Neil. I guess she's just another in a line of women who really want to see if he's really the King of Sparta. Lucky bastard.
4. Abby wanted a younger nanny to take care of her daughter, Sophie. Has she not learned from Sienna Miller or Uma Thurman? Read the tabloids, girl!
5. Tom Ryan took Abby and Neil hostage. I guess losing the James Bond gig left him shaken, not stirred.
6. Tom Ryan claims to be God. Yeah, because DIE ANOTHER DAY was so heavenly...
7. If you tell a woman to do something, she'll do the exact opposite. And people wonder why the divorce rate is so high? All us men want is for a woman to listen to them. Is that so hard?
8. Does stress bring the ugly truth out of people?
Yeah, I guess.
That answer is....
::biting nails::
....
::shaking and sweating::
...TRUE.
9. Tom Ryan is getting annoyed by Neil's "big dick pride". How does he know about the size of his manhood? Look, I know Europeans are very comfortable with sex, but that's just a little weird...
10. Tom Ryan is making Neil's life a living hell. Maybe if Neil had kicked Tom into that big bottomless pit, none of this would be happening!
THE FINAL HOWL
SHATTERED is a pretty good thriller that deserved the silver screen treatment. Hell, if PERFECT STRANGER could get it, why shouldn't this much better film? Good-to-great performances, nice direction, a pretty entertaining story with nice twists and turns - I dug this film. It's far from perfect but it does enough well to be worth a watch. I wouldn't buy SHATTERED but I'd definitely rent it. You could do a lot worse with your free time than by watching this film.
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