Posted on September 21st, 2006 at 9:44 pm by Editor
Welcome to Now Playing, your weekly preview of new movies opening this weekend. This week Johnny Knoxville and his wacky group of stunt junkies with Jackass Part Two, Sean Penn and Jude Law are All The Kings Men and Jet Li is Fearless and James Franco is a Flyboy.
All the King’s Men (PG-13); Wide release
An idealistic southern politician, Boss Willie Stark, who appeals to the common man whilst effectively playing dirty politics, slowly becomes corrupted by the system.
Starring: Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini
Feast (R); Wide release
A motley crew of strangers find themselves trapped in an isolated tavern and must band together in a battle for survival against a family of flesh-hungry creatures.
Starring: Eric Dane, Navi Rawat, Krista Allen, Balthazar Getty, Diane Goldner
Flyboys (PG-13); Wide release
In 1914, The Great War –WWI–began in Europe. By 1917, the Allied powers of France, England, Italy and others were on the ropes against the German juggernaut. Some altruistic young Americans disagreed with the war. They volunteered to fight alongside their counterparts in France; some in the infantry, some in the Ambulance Corps. A handful of others had a different idea: they decided to learn how to fly. The first of them–a squadron of only 38– became known as the Lafayette Escadrille. This is their story. Forced to abandon his family’s ranch, Blaine Rawlings finds his future in a newsreel chronicling the adventures of young aviators in France. At a small train station in rural Nebraska, William Jensen promises to make his family proud. In New York, spoiled Briggs Lowry embarks on a trans-Atlantic passage. Meanwhile, in France, black expatriate boxer, Eugene Skinner, vows to repay his debt to his adopted racially tolerant country. Together, these American boys arrive at an aerodrome in France, eager to learn how to fly. What they didn’t realize was that they were about to embark on a great, romantic adventure, becoming the world’s first combat pilots.
Starring: James Franco, Jean Reno, David Ellison, Martin Henderson, Jennifer Decker
Jackass: Number Two (R); Wide release
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.
Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Stephen ‘Steve-O’ Glover, Chris Pontius, Preston Lacy
Jet Li’s Fearless (PG-13); Wide release
The son of a great fighter who did not wish for his child to follow in his footsteps, the bullied Huo Yuanjia resolves to teach himself how to fight–and win. Years of training enable him to ace match after match in his home region of Tianjin. But as his fame as a martial arts master grows, so does his pride. After an ill-advised fight leads to another master’s death, members of Huo’s family are slain in revenge. Grieving and ashamed, Huo wanders the country in shock. Near death, he is rescued by women from an idyllic village, and is offered simple kindness and generosity that help him heal and regain his equilibrium over a period of several years. Huo realizes that the future of martial arts lies in sportsmanship and not brutality, and he rejoins society to apply what he has learned. Returning to Tianjin, Huo takes steps to come to terms with his past and restore his family’s name. His evolving, graceful Mizong (Missing) Fist method of fighting brings Huo renewed success, and he forms the progressive Jingwu Sports Federation. Taking note, duplicitous members of the Foreign Chamber of Commerce engineer a Shanghai tournament pitting Huo against four fighters, each representing the major foreign powers in China. Huo commits to the bout and faces off against, respectively, a British boxer, a Spanish swordsman, a Belgian soldier and a Japanese martial artist. What happened that day in 1910 has never been, and will never be, forgotten in China.
Starring: Jet Li, Nakamura Shido, Jon T. Benn, Collin Chou, Anthony De Longis
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