Movie & TV News

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Jackass: Number Two (2006)

After smearing the world with all sorts of ridiculous crap, the original creators and cast of the MTV series are back at it again: significantly raising the stakes and lowering the bar, this installment in the "jackass" and "jackass the movie" series unleashes a spirited mess of absurdity as the cast and crew gets even more ugly around the globe.

Genres: Comedy, Adaptation and Sequel

Release Date: September 22nd, 2006 (wide)
Cast and Credits

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Stephen Glover, Jason Acuna
Directed by: Jeff Tremaine

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Jet Li's Fearless (2006)

Inspired by the story of a real-life icon, an action-drama set during the late 19th century when China is shrouded under increasing internal turmoil and the imminent threat of foreign invasion. The biopic is based on the life of Chinese Martial Arts Legend, Huo Yuanjia (1869-1910)--the founder and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation--who became the most famous fighter in all of China at...

Genres: Action/Adventure, Art/Foreign and Biopic

Running Time: 1 hr. 43 min.

Release Date: September 22nd, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and martial arts action throughout.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Jet Li, Betty Sun, Dong Yong, Shido Nakamura, Collin Chou
Directed by: Ronny Yu

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American Hardcore (2006)

Generally unheralded at the time, the early-80s Hardcore Punk Rock scene gave birth to much of the rock music and culture that followed. There would be no Nirvana, Beastie Boys or Red Hot Chili Peppers were it not for Hardcore pioneers such as Black Flag, Bad Brains and Minor Threat. Hardcore was more than music--it was a social movement created by Reagan-era misfit kids. The participants constituted...

Genres: Documentary and Musical/Performing Arts

Running Time: 1 hr. 38 min.

Release Date: September 22nd, 2006 (limited)

MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language including sex and drug references.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Adolescents (II), Bad Brains (II), Black Flag, Circle Jerks (II), DOA
Directed by: Paul Rachman

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Children of Men (2006)

A futuristic society faces extinction when no children are born and the human race has lost the ability to reproduce. England has descended into chaos, until an iron-handed warden is brought in to institute martial law. The warden's ability to keep order is threatened when a woman finds that she is pregnant with what would be the first child born in 27 years.

Genres: Drama, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller and Adaptation

Running Time: 1 hr. 54 min.

Release Date: September 29th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, language, some drug use and brief nudity.

Cast and Credits

Starring: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam
Produced by: Thomas Bliss, Hilary Shor, Tony Smith

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Flyboys (2006)

The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young American fighter pilots who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered WWI.

Genres: Drama and War

Release Date: September 29th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for war action violence and some sexual content.
Cast and Credits

Starring: James Franco, Jean Reno, David Ellison, Martin Henderson, Jennifer Decker
Directed by: Tony Bill

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Open Season (2006)

A 900-pound domesticated grizzly bear named and a scrawny, one-horned mule deer named end up stranded together in the woods during hunting season and it's up to the duo to rally all the other forest animals and turn the tables on the hunters.

Genres: Comedy, Kids/Family and Animation

Release Date: September 29th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG for some rude humor, mild action and brief lanuage.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Paul Westerberg, Gary Sinise, Jon Favreau, Patrick Warburton, Gordon Tootoosis
Directed by: Jill Culton, Anthony F. Stacchi, Roger Allers

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Iran Filmmaker Focuses on Love Not War

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- As Western leaders fret over Iran's nuclear ambitions and support of the Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, filmmaker Mani Haghighi offers a different take on his country with the story of four ordinary guys and one big rock.

"Men at Work" is a humorous tale of middle-aged buddies from Tehran who, during a skiing trip, discover an oddly shaped boulder atop a roadside cliff and struggle mightily to shove it over the edge.

Released this year, the movie was a hit during the just-concluded Traverse City Film Festival, where a third screening was arranged after two others sold out. During a panel discussion, Haghighi said his next picture will depict a melodramatic love affair.

Affairs? Male bonding ski vacations? That kind of stuff goes on in staunchly conservative, theocratic Iran _ and they make movies about it?

Haghighi smiled resignedly, saying he was accustomed to such questions from American moviegoers who don't realize his country has its cosmopolitan side and there's more to Iran than religion and politics.

"It shocks them. They just can't imagine that kind of lifestyle taking place in Iran," he said in an interview. "The image of Iranians that exists in their imagination is so fundamentally mistaken."

Guilty as charged, confessed Michael Moore, the gadfly documentary filmmaker and founder of the Traverse City festival. When screening "Men at Work" in New York, Moore said, he was jolted by the idea of Iranians going skiing and wondered, "What are you, like us?"

The picture _ and two other Iranian productions shown during the festival _ should remind U.S. audiences that despite political and cultural differences, "we're more alike than not," Moore said.

"Some of the best movies that have been made during the last decade or so have been these Iranian films," he added. "They tell beautiful stories, they're beautifully shot, they're adventuresome, they take these incredible risks."

"Men at Work" is the second feature film by Haghighi, 37, a Tehran native who earned philosophy and cultural-studies degrees in Canada. The first, "Abadan," was rejected by the Iranian Ministry of Culture _ apparently because of salty language.

But the ministry gave a thumbs-up to "Men at Work," which Haghighi hopes will appear in Iranian theaters later this year. Its U.S. distributor is Film Movement, which sells DVDs of award-winning independent and foreign pictures.

The differing treatment of his two works illustrates the dicey path Iranian filmmakers must tread to get past the censors. But Haghighi insisted it's not as hard to make good movies in his country as outsiders may think.

He noted that his U.S. colleagues have their own problems getting financing and distribution _ especially for controversial works. In contrast, it took him 12 minutes to secure the modest funding needed for "Men at Work" from his producer.

"I'm amazed at the sums you spend on your films," he told Moore and other U.S. directors during the panel discussion.

Haghighi acknowledged he couldn't get away with making an Iranian film like "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore's scorching polemic about the war in Iraq. But even if he could, he said, that's not his style.

"Iranians are by nature and by culture not as in-your-face and ... straightforward as Americans are," he said. "We prefer oblique approaches _ not simply because that's what we're forced to do, but because that's how we are."

Perhaps that's why some reviewers of "Men at Work" have read between the lines, describing the men's struggle with the intractable boulder as a political allegory. Fair enough, Haghighi said _ but they're taking creative license.

"I never made it as an allegory," he said. "I was actually trying to do the opposite, trying to ... make a straight story about four guys and a rock. I was sure that this way, it would inspire more interest and a more diverse set of interpretations. Which it did, by the way."

The film also deals _ obliquely _ with the characters' love lives. Haghighi said middle-class relationship struggles are a comfortable subject for him because he comes from that segment of Iranian society.

"I'm sort of bored and tired with the stories that have been told about poverty in the Third World. I think it ends up presenting an image that isn't very useful any more. It's crucial to show intelligence, affluence ... complex human dramas, not the simple stories about how we get the money for the well."

Haghighi does have strong political views and is no fan of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Discussing preparations to shoot his next film in Iran, he dryly told his Traverse City audience, "I hope you delay the invasion until I'm finished."

Instead of making ideological war films, he said he preferred to focus on ordinary people and keep the geopolitical conflicts in the background _ not to be escapist, but to appeal to viewers' common humanity.

"I hope I don't sound like a hopeless romantic but I think it's important to remind ourselves of beauty and love," Haghighi said. "We're not supposed to be thinking about killing and war all the time."

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School for Scoundrels (2006)

A down-on-his-luck meter reader enrolls in a confidence-building class so he can win the love of his dream girl. The class turns out to be something quite different once it becomes clear to the young man that his professor has set his sights on the same woman.

Genres: Comedy and Remake

Release Date: September 29th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Cast and Credits

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Heder, Jacinda Barrett, Michael Clarke Duncan, Omar Dorsey
Directed by: Todd Phillips

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Accepted (2006)

High school senior Bartleby "B" Gaines is on his way to scoring eight out of eight rejection letters from colleges, which isn't going to go over big with Mom and Dad. At least he's not alone in the exclusion. Several of his crew of outcast friends are in the same, college-less boat. So how does a guy facing a bleak career please his parents and get noticed by dream girl Monica? Simple. Open his own...

Genres: Comedy

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, sexual material and drug content.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Justin Long, Blake Lively, Lewis Black, Adam Herschman, Jonah Hill
Directed by: Steve Pink

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The Illusionist (2006)

Eisenheim (Edward Norton) is a stage magician who amazes the audiences of turn-of-the-century Vienna, drawing the attention of Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). When the Prince's intended, Sophie von Teschen (Jessica Biel), assists the magician onstage, Eisenheim and Sophie recognize each other from their childhoods -- and a dormant love affair is rekindled. As the clandestine romance continues,...

Genres: Drama and Adaptation

Running Time: 1 hr. 50 min.

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and violence.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marsan
Directed by: Neil Burger

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Material Girls (2006)

Ava and Tanzie Marchetta have it all. The heiresses to a multi-million dollar cosmetics company, the girls approach life as one big party. But when a scandal involving one of their products emerges, the girls are left penniless, homeless, and seemingly helpless. They could, of course, take the easy way out and listen to the board of directors who want to sell the company to their biggest competitor,...

Genres: Comedy and Drama

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG for language and rude humor.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Hilary Duff, Haylie Duff, Anjelica Huston, Brent Spiner, Lukas Haas
Directed by: Martha Coolidge

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Snakes on a Plane (2006)

When a young man witnesses a brutal mob murder, it falls to FBI agent Neville Flynn to escort his charge safely from Hawaii to Los Angeles to testify. But in an act of self-preservation, the crime boss facing prison smuggles hundreds of poisonous snakes onto the commercial aircraft in a crate timed to release its deadly cargo halfway over the Pacific. Flynn, along with a frightened flight crew and...

Genres: Action/Adventure, Suspense/Horror and Thriller

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: R for language, a scene of sexuality and drug use, and intense sequences of terror and violence.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Nathan Phillips, Rachel Blanchard, Julianna Margulies, Todd Louiso
Directed by: David R. Ellis

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10th and Wolf (2006)

Based on the true-life accounts of FBI Special Agent Joseph D. Pistone, otherwise known as "Donnie Brasco," the story of Marine Sgt. Tommy Santoro, who in 1991, thought he had left behind his family's ties to organized crime. Returning home to South Philly, he faces the biggest moral dilemma of his life as he reconnects with his brother, Vincent, and cousin Joey, who both have become something he vowed...

Genres: Drama, Thriller and Crime/Gangster

Running Time: 1 hr. 50 min.

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (limited)

MPAA Rating: R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, some drug content and sexuality/nudity.
Cast and Credits

Starring: James Marsden, Giovanni Ribisi, Brad Renfro, Piper Perabo, Brian Dennehy
Produced by: Suzanne DeLaurentiis, Jeff Williams (II), Leo Rossi

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Factotum (2006)

Henry Chinaski considers himself a writer, and on occasion writes. Mostly he quests for the booze and women that sidetrack and seduce, rather than inspire greatness. When he falls for Jan, the soulful connection fails to save either from their self-destructive ways, and the relationship totters between earnest connection and reflective loathing.

Genres: Drama, Adaptation and Biopic

Running Time: 94 min.

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (limited)

MPAA Rating: R for language and sexual content.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Matt Dillon, Marisa Tomei, Lili Taylor, Didier Flamand, Karen Young
Directed by: Bent Hamer

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Trust the Man (2006)

A 'dramady' about rich white New Yorkers and their relationships, how they have so much time on their hands that they can't help but get into trouble and jeapardize the only thing that really matters to them. Love.

Genres: Comedy and Drama

Release Date: August 18th, 2006 (limited); September 8th, 2006 (wide)

MPAA Rating: R for language and sexual content.
Cast and Credits

Starring: Julianne Moore, David Duchovny, Billy Crudup, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eva Mendes
Directed by: Bart Freundlich