Ellen Page’s characters always seem to be in some sort of peril. First she’s hunting down a suspected pedophile in Hard Candy. Then she’s being threatened with a mutation cure in X-Men 3. And then she was everyone’s favorite knocked up teenager in Juno. Now she’s naked on a bus, desperately searching for her missing younger brother.

I’m trying to think of something clever or witty or insightful to say about The Tracey Fragments’ trailer…but I’m coming up blank. It doesn’t necessarily look bad, but I’m not sure it’s really all that good, either. Perhaps I’ve just seen Ellen Page be snarky while in peril in an independent movie too many times and I’ve become immune to reaction. Hm…when do the trailers for the big summer films start coming out? I’ve never been so desperate to see some shit get blown up.

As for The Tracey Fragments, I’ll probably eventually RENT IT. I’m curious enough to know why she’s naked on a bus and if she ever finds her brother.

The Tracey Fragments will probably be rated R and opens in limited release May 9. (Official site)

Despite what my mother may say, I don’t think anyone could ever accuse me of being a film snob. I’ve liked some rather questionable, and some outright bad, movies. (When in college, I actually paid money to see Josie and the Pussycats in the theater, and I enjoyed it. True story.) I can even get behind a simplistic romantic comedy if it’s entertaining and offers at least one original idea. That being said, when it comes to My Sassy Girl, I’m going to have to SKIP IT.

First there’s the story; kooky girl meets uptight boy and shakes up his life. You mean like Sweet November? Or the TV show Dharma & Greg? Or maybe more along the lines of Garden State? Or even Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Or maybe it doesn’t even matter, since variations of this storyline have been done to death by a slew of better movies.

Then there’s the actors. Someone at some point decided that Elisha Cuthbert was more than a pretty face and let her star in movies, when she really should stick to roles like the leading lady’s best friend or the girl the leading man lusts after before he ends up with his true love. And then Jesse Bradford is that guy who did that one movie…or was it that other movie…well, he looks familiar, so I guess he was in something I saw at some point, but didn’t care enough to remember.

And then there’s the awful title. “My Sassy Girl,” seriously? Was “My Crazy Lady” already taken? What about “My Super Kooky Chick” or “My Impulsive Impudent Gal”? (And yes, I realize this movie is a remake, but plenty of remakes have had the good sense to adopt a title better than the original one.)

So while I’m sure this movie will have a charming moment or two, I’m going to have to skip out on watching mediocre actors tell a story I’ve already seen at least a dozen times. Maybe if I’m lucky, Josie and the Pussycats will be on cable and I can revel in watching a quality second-rate movie.

My Sassy Girl is rated PG-13 and opens some time in Spring 2008. (Official site)

While I’m not working on TrailerSpy, I actually make my living as a scientist. And on more than one occasion, I’ve heard my scientist friends exclaim that someone should make a movie about life inside the lab. And not some Hollywoodized movie about a horrible genetic experiment gone wrong, but an actual drama about what it’s really like to be a scientist working in the research world.

But whenever I’ve heard this proposal, my response has always been the same: “It’ll never happen.” And it’s not that there aren’t some interesting story-lines that take place in a real laboratory. It’s just that the realities of science do not jive with the realities of Hollywood. I mean, what’s the chance of Hollywood making a movie about a bunch of socially awkward, not-so-attractive intellectuals, grinding out experiments in relative solitude?

But then I saw this trailer for Dark Matter, and I’ll be damned if Hollywood hasn’t just made a movie about what it’s really like to be a scientist working in the research world. Granted, they’ve obviously taken a few creative liberties, and it’s obviously dramatized quite a bit. But in general, it really does look like a pretty realistic depiction.

And what I’m really impressed by is the fact that the lead-character is Asian. Granted, it’s based on a true story, but they could have easily changed the character to a European and then just taken a well-known Hollywood star, slapped a pair of glasses on him, and given him an accent. But instead, they made a movie about a very real phenomenon in science: an Asian immigrant who joyfully comes to America, only to work for an overly critical boss, who pressures them into spending 24/7 in the lab, at the expense of their both family’s and their own well-being (I’ve had more than a few co-workers who fit that description perfectly).

Since Dark Matter is going to have a limited release, I’ll probably just RENT IT when it hits DVD. But I am definitely very intrigued by this movie. And kudos to Meryl Streep for joining the cast and giving this movie some leveraging power. I doubt it would have even gotten its limited release without her.

Dark Matter is rated R and opens in select cities on April 11 (Official Site).

If you’ve ever looked at one of today’s overly pampered celebrities who has everything, yet never seems to have had a lesson in basic manners, and wondered, “What the hell is their problem?”, Flashbacks of a Fool may be of interest to you. The newly minted 007, Daniel Craig, plays a spoiled movie star getting on in years whose career is taking a nosedive and whose “friends” can no longer stand to be near. Ah, the joys of being a celebrity! During this career crisis, he goes back to his hometown for the funeral of a childhood friend, where he is forced to flashback to the days of his youth and revisit the choices he made then that turned him into the pompous ass he is now. Oh, and apparently Craig does a full frontal nude scene.

This looks like it could be a pretty good film (with or without Craig baring his junk), but unfortunately there’s no immediate plans to release this in US theaters. So I guess I’ll have no choice but to RENT IT.

Flashbacks of a Fool will no doubt have an R rating and it opens in the UK on April 18 (no word yet on a US release). (IMDB page)

Ewan McGregor is a dorky accountant who seems to be living nearly every guy’s dream: he’s befriended by Hugh Jackman and introduced to a sex club that gives him full access to kinky sex with a variety of anonymous, gorgeous women. The only rules are no rough stuff and no names are exchanged. Done and done!

And of course it’s all fun and games until someone goes missing and you’re the prime suspect. McGregor finds himself the center of a police investigation when one of the women he liaised with disappears, and when he names Jackman as the one who introduced him to the girl, it turns out Jackman isn’t quite the friend he claimed to be. Interesting…this will definitely be added to my RENT IT list.

Deception is rated R and opens April 25. (Official site)

It seems like Helen Hunt has been pretty much MIA from the Hollywood scene for a few years, and now she’s making her return by pulling double duty as both the director and star of Then She Found Me. At least she’s been busy during her downtime!

Hunt plays a middle-aged woman who’s life takes a nasty turn when she realizes her chances of having a baby are quickly dwindling, her adoptive mother dies, her husband (Matthew Broderick) leaves her, and her birth mother with boundary issues (Bette Midler) shows up (if I found out Bette Midler was my real mother, I’d be having a pretty rough time, too). But things start to look better when she begins a relationship with Colin Firth (from Broderick to Firth; talk about an upgrade!). And of course her life takes another dip when in a moment of weakness she sleeps with her estranged husband, and it leads to a pregnancy. Now Hunt needs to figure out how to make things work with Firth, how to incorporate Broderick into the life of their child, and how to deal with her new overbearing and oversharing mother. Sounds like fun. Or maybe it just sounds trite and predictable. I’ll have to RENT IT to find out.

Then She Found Me is rated R and opens in limited release April 25. (Official site)

I’m willing to bet that if you ask anyone who isn’t an avid movie-goer why that is, they’ll say something along the lines of, “There’s nothing original anymore. All the possible stories have already been told.” (Or possibly, “It’s too damned expensive,” which is also true). It’s because of this unoriginality in most new movies that I have to give movies like Mister Lonely major kudos. Even though the movie looks like something most audience members won’t be interested in (I’m anticipating seeing phrases like “too weird” and “pretentious indie nonsense” being thrown around), it’s got an original concept. And in today’s entertainment world, that’s saying a lot.

Mister Lonely tells the story of one man’s journey, and that man happens to live as a Michael Jackson impersonator (Jackson from the Thriller years, not Jackson the molester). He meet up with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, who takes him to live on a commune full of impersonators, where she lives with her husband (Charlie Chaplin) and daughter (Shirley Temple), and a slew of other pretenders (there’s a Madonna, a Queen Elizabeth, and a Sammy Davis Jr., just to name a few). They live as their characters 24/7 and put on a lavish stage show every night.

So are they all pathetic people hopelessly out of touch with reality? People with tragedies in their past, so they find it easier to live as other people? Seriously mentally disturbed people who honestly believe they are who they pretend to be? I don’t know, since the trailer sort of fizzles out after introducing the commune, but I hope these are the sort of things the movie delves into. I’ll definitely be adding this one to my RENT IT list.

Mister Lonely is not yet rated and opens in limited release April 30. (Official site)

Everybody loves a lovable loser, right? Then you’re probably going to adore Bill. Bill is middle-aged, overweight, suffering from a permanent bad hair day, working at a job he hates, and married to a woman who’s cheating on him with the douchebag local news reporter. But Bill has potential, and all he needs is a wise-beyond-his-years teenager to help him get his life together.

Which is exactly what Bill gets when he becomes a reluctant mentor to a prep school kid. His new teen buddy helps him shed some pounds, get a better ‘do, come into his own at work, and win back his wife by making her jealous with the omnipresent Jessica Alba. The story seems sort of weak, but the cast does intrigue me. Aaron Eckhart is Bill (and I hope is wearing a prosthetic belly), Elizabeth Banks is his cheating spouse, Timothy Olyphant is her new paramour, and Jessica Alba is…some pretty girl Bill likes (aka, the Alba standard role). Nothing groundbreaking going on here, but it looks entertaining enough for me to eventually RENT IT.

Meet Bill is rated R and opens April 4. (Official site)

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time (not that long ago) when divorce wasn’t the result of more than half of all marriages. Sure, people were still married to partners they couldn’t stand, still cheating, still abusing their spouses, and still generally miserable together, but they stayed together and bore the unhappiness. Because divorce wasn’t an option. It was a scandal and a humiliation, which seems crazy now, in a time when being sent to rehab is a status symbol. But there was a time when people would rather die than go through the disgrace of getting a divorce.

Or at least they’d rather just have their partner die.

In Married Life, set in the 1940’s, Chris Cooper is married to Patricia Clarkson, and having an affair with the much younger Rachel McAdams. I’m not sure in what universe Chris Cooper could get both Patricia Clarkson and Rachel McAdams, but whatever. When he decides to leave his wife for his mistress, he figures it’d be better to have her killed than humiliate her with a divorce. Enter Pierce Brosnan as the man to do Cooper’s dirty work…if he can keep his own hands off of McAdams, of course.

Married Life looks like it could be entertaining and darkly funny, plus I’m a fan of the four main players, so I’ll RENT IT when it’s out on DVD. And afterwards, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief that my father was decent enough to simply divorce my mother, rather than having her “taken care of”.

Married Life is rated PG-13 and opens in limited release March 7. (Official site)

I enjoy films about dysfunctional families and their various dramas. I also enjoy quiet independent films devoid of the usual Hollywood crap (car explosions, gratuitous violence or nudity, people who are too pretty to be real, etc). But I’m starting to wonder if the world of independent film is overusing the dysfunctional family hook. The main reason I wonder this is because I can’t seem to get into the trailer for Smart People, which has all the elements of a movie I’d usually be looking forward to.

Great cast: Dennis Quaid is a self-absorbed mopey college professor. Ellen Page is his overachieving high school daughter (sort of a snarkier Rory Gilmore). Thomas Haden Church is his lovable loser (adopted) brother. And Sarah Jessica Parker is his new love interest (as long as she stays away from any Carrie Bradshaw-like moments, she’s a pretty good actress).

Good pedigree: It’s from the same production team that did Sideways (a terrific movie).

Relatable story: A family that seems to have it all together on the outside, but is a crumbling mess behind the scenes. Dad is lonely, and kind of a pretentious jerk. Daughter is neurotic and doesn’t know how to just be a kid. Brother is the black sheep of the family, whose very presence is an annoyance, yet necessary to bring the family back together.

I guess what makes me somewhat ambivalent about Smart People is that the story is too relatable and too familiar. How many times have I seen the story of a family being brought back together by an unlikely agent? You Can Count On Me comes to mind. Maybe even The Family Stone. The trailer leaves me with a bit of a Little Miss Sunshine feel, too. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too critical and cynical, and I’ll eventually eat my words when Smart People has something new to offer when I eventually RENT IT.

Smart People is rated R and opens April 11. (Official site)