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Biohazard and crime scene clean-up is a growing niche industry, says Amy Adams’ character Rose in SYLVIA director Christine Jeffs’ dramedy about just that subject. For a single mother, the pay is good and she gets to tell former classmates that she’s a business owner instead of a plain old maid. The blood and brain matter is just the drawback.

Rose is trying to make more money to send her son Oscar (Jason Spevack, HOLLYWOODLAND) to a private school. She recruits her slacker sister Norah (Emily Blunt, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA) to help. As first they know nothing about the dangers and regulations of what they are doing, but the kind man named Winston (Clifton Collins Jr., CAPOTE) at the supply store helps fill them in. And soon their in biohazard suits and getting better and better clients.
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The second trailer just builds the buzz for The Wolfman’s spring release.

It was a light week for trailer buzz. THE WOLFMAN was the biggest thing to hit the Net, unless you count the bootleg versions of the new three minute-plus AVATAR trailer, which was gone in 60 seconds. Other than the big spring horror flick, there were a few of interesting indie pics to consider.
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Osamu Tezuka is considered the godfather of anime. Astro Boy is one of his legendary creations. Now Imagi Studios, who brought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to CG animation, attempt to bring this classic to a new generation. This of course is a film that different audience members will bring different perspectives to because it is based on such beloved source material. For me, I can’t claim to be an ASTRO BOY expert, so I come to this film with a rudimentary knowledge of the material. For me, this version of the tale was an entertaining and often charming animated adventure.

The story is set in a world where the well-to-do live in a city in the sky, while others live on the ground, which has become a trash dump for old robots from Metro City. Toby (Freddie Highmore, FINDING NEVERLAND) is the son of Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage, GHOST RIDER), a brilliant robot maker. When his father is set to unveil a new “peacekeeper” robot to the president General Stone (Donald Sutherland, THE DIRTY DOZEN), Toby sneaks into the demo. An accident leads to Toby’s death and the distraught Tenma creates a new high-tech robot in the likeness of his son with the boy’s memories and all. But when Astro turns out to be different than Toby, Tenma casts him off and he ends up on the planet surface where he runs into a group of orphans led by Cora (Kristen Bell, TV’s HEROES) and watched over by the robot obsessed tickerer Ham Egg (Nathan Lane, THE BIRDCAGE).
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Vampires are hot these days. Family friendly fantasy is hot these days too. So Darren Shan’s THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN series seems like a good choice to make the jump to the big screen. In the hands of director/co-writer Paul Weitz and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL writer Brian Helgeland it becomes a captivating world of fantasy creatures and bizarre freaks.

Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia) and Steve Leonard (Josh Hutcherson, BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA) are best friends, but Darren’s parents don’t like their son’s bad influence. One night, the two sneak out to see a freak show where they meet Mr. Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly, CHICAGO), a centuries old vampire with a colorful, but deadly, pet spider, Madam Octa. This intrigues Darren, an arachnid-phile, and Steve, a troubled young man yearning to be a vampire. Darren steals Mr. Crepsley’s spider, which bites Steve. So to save his friend, Darren agrees to become Crepsley’s vampire assistant in exchange for the antidote.
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Throughout AMELIA, I kept thinking of a lot of other very good biopics like MILK and WALK THE LINE. Sadly for Mira Nair’s film, I was thinking how they portrayed similar plot elements so much better. AMELIA doesn’t ride high on the overcoming odds elements that Harvey Milk’s film story does, nor does it have nearly as a captivating love story as Johnny Cash and June Carter. But it tries to.

Hilary Swank gives another fine performance as Amelia Earhart. Right at the start, we are thrust into her big first flight as a passenger over the Atlantic. The stunt flight was promoted by top PR man George Putnam (Richard Gere, CHICAGO), who quickly becomes Amelia’s lover and then husband. But as the many speeches Swank gives on the subject Amelia needs to be free and that drives her to a love affair with aeronautics pro Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor, MISS POTTER).
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The World Series is nearly upon us so This Weekend’s Film Festival gets into the baseball spirit with the best baseball films of all-time. It’s an eclectic mix of films, some are in Little League, some are in the minors, some are in the majors, and some are simply in a field in Iowa. Some of the films deal with the directly and some deal with it in a bigger sense. But one thing all the films have in common is a respect for the game. Lets play ball!
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Werner Herzog’s remake of F.W. Murnau’s silent classic isn’t interested in telling an accurate version of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, nor a straight remake of Murnau’s shadowy vampire masterpiece. Herzog takes the plot of the 1922 film, the character names from the novel then adds his own plot twists and jumbles them all up. What he produces is a horror film is the classic sense of the term, and leaves us haunted and disturbed.

Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz, DOWNFALL) is set to travel to Transylvania to sell Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski, AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD) a house in Germany. His wife Lucy (DRACULA purists must get over the name flops), played by the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani (ISHTAR), doesn’t want him to go, because she has a foreboding feeling. Harker’s travels to see the Count are long and arduous. When he meets Dracula, he finds himself in the presence of a rat-like man whose ghostly skin is almost as unsettling as his strange behavior. When the vampire sees a picture of Harker’s wife, he signs the deal right away. There is a wonderful dinner awaiting him in Wismar.
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In 1919, the game of baseball was much different than it is today. John Sayles’ wonderful chronicling of the 1919 Black Sox scandal captures how different it was. Players were stars, but they didn’t get the astronomical salaries of modern players. They didn’t live in a bubble of celebrity, owning homes among their fans. One thing that was the same was the players had a limited window for their careers, so the needed to earn enough to support their families after baseball was over. There were not sportscaster jobs waiting as a back-up. Combine these factors with a notorious greedy owner, and you have the conditions for gamblers to get the players to take a dive.

Sayles, who based the film on Eliot Asinof’s novel, lays out the conditions for why the legendary White Sox players took money to throw the World Series with attention to detail and pathos. The team was being hailed as one of the best ever. The team owner Charles “Commie” Comiskey (Clifton James, SILVER STREAK) never gave them the respect they deserved, nickel and diming them whenever he could. Family man pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn, GOODNIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.) was in line to receive a $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games, so Comiskey benched him for the last two weeks of the season. With cheapskate moves like that, one isn’t surprised by the animosity of players like Arnold “Chick” Gandil (Michael Rooker, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER) when embracing the gamblers’ offer.
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Director Stephen Frears is no newcomer to the sexual-charged period dramas, having directed CHERI star Michelle Pfeiffer in DANGEROUS LIAISONS. For her previous collaboration with Frears, Pfeiffer received an Oscar nomination and she deserves one for this collaboration as well. Pfeiffer’s brave and radiant performance and Frears delicate direction make this film something special.

Based on the novels by Colette, Pfeiffer plays an aging courtesan named Lea de Lonval. She is friends with another aging courtesan named Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates, MISERY) only because courtesans can’t be friends with regular folk because they only want to talk about one thing and that gets boring. Madame Peloux has a son named Cheri (Rupert Friend, 2005’s PRIDE & PREJUDICE), a 20-something lothario whose mother hopes Lea can make a real man out of him. Lea has known the boy since he was born, but a client is a client. Cheri, whose real name is Fred, was given his nickname (meaning darling) by Lea, who he has idealized his whole life.

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One of the most anticipated films of 2010.

There’s not a great deal of new buzz this week, but certainly the debut of the full TOY STORY 3 trailer has fans excited about 2010. In one small 2009 awards season news, there will be one less Oscar contender in the mix. Indie distributor Apparition has pushed Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE to 2010 so it can focus its support on the wonderful BRIGHT STAR and the upcoming THE YOUNG VICTORIA.

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