If the creators of Metpix.com have thier way, than the answer is a resounding yes. Today Metropolis Pictures Entertainment issued a press release announcing the creation of the internet based movie theatre available at the company’s website, Metpix.com.

Though the theatre will be allowing independent film-makers and major studios to showcase, and be compensated for, their films for as short as a day or as long as a week, initially the theatre will be showing several works from controversial Baltimore film director Francis Xavier. The selections being offered include “Barry’s Gift”, “Johnny Come Lately”, “Night Cry”, “The Tango Dancer”, and his most recent film “Dodge City”.

More about the online movie theatre from thier press release:

“The theatre was conceived by Francis Xavier (Chief Executive Officer) and Mike Kureth (Chief Operating Officer) in June of 2007 after discussing the recent studio acquisition of “Johnny Come Lately”, “Night Cry”, and “The Tango Dancer”. In copyrighting and patenting this invention, Kureth and Xavier are now offering this service to other independent filmmakers and major studios for free. Any feature film approved by the panel will be available internationally and the producer/ director will be compensated for the ticket sales.

“‘The decision to decline our recent international distribution agreement of these films and allow other professionals to use this technology was made in effort of providing a service in the best interest of the filmmaker and customer,’ said Kureth who developed and designed the theatre using the latest technology from Adobe Systems, Inc. After a customer purchases a ticket in the store, the movie may be watched immediately online in the theatre in high resolution display at 864 x 486 (16:9 aspect ratio) or full screen mode for $1.99 to $4.99 a ticket via any operating system and internet browser. As technology advances, the site will be updated accordingly.

Within the next three months, all of the films from Metropolis Pictures Entertainment will be subtitled dynamically in 13 languages in the theatre as will the entire site be available in the same languages which include English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.”

For more or information, to view previews, or to start watching films right now go to metpix.com.

Director/Screenplay Writer Shane Black delivers one of the most enjoyable films I have seen in a long time with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Not only is the story of petty thief turned prospective actor/amateur detective Harry Lockhart(Robert Downey Jr.) entertaining and captivating, it is laugh out loud funny. Now, I’m not talking Airplane funny; I’m talking dry, satirical humor with just a touch of camp and slap stick. With the right amount of noir, and modern day action and murder, this film showcases a really smart story that doesn’t put down the viewer.

We meet Harry in New York as he runs from the police and into a screen test. This takes him to Los Angeles where he meets, and becomes the student of, Gay Perry(Val Kilmer) a private eye/acting coach. While in L.A. Harry hooks up with former class mate and life long crush Harmony(Michelle Monoghan). The couple, along with Perry, become entangled in a string of murder, mystery, and crazy twists.

Be not afraid of Shane Blacks past, credits include Lethal Weapon 1 and 2, Last Action Hero, and The Last Boyscout. This film is more grown-up and wittier than his past works. Any fans of deadpan humor with a little nostalgia mixed all up in your movie will enjoy this film.

I know what you guys are thinking, Phocks is reviewing a romantic comedy?  What the hell?  Well yes, I am, and I am glad that I went to see this movie because it was put together very well.

Ryan Reynolds has completely turned his career around as an actor.  When he burst on to the scene with his characters in movies like Van Wilder, and Waiting, it gave me the feeling that he was going to be this guy who does all these goofy slapstick teenage comedies and then fizzle out after a few years.  Now though, especially with this role, I think he is capable of doing so much more as his performance here really carried the movie very well.

Reynolds plays Will Hayes, a soon to be divorced father of his only child Maya (Abigail Breslin.)  Will picks Maya up from school one day only to find out that in school that day they learned about sex education.  Don’t worry, they address that its pretty creepy for 10 year olds to be learning about sex-ed.  This line of education makes Maya question Will on how he meets her mother, after nagging Will to death about it, Will gives in and tells the stories of him meeting 3 different women when he was younger and having Maya guess which one is her mom.

The story flashes back to the early 1992 where Will is shown leaving his home in Wisconsin to move to New York to work on the  Bill Clinton campaign.  His current girlfriend at the time Emily (Elizabeth Banks) does not want to come to New York with him, however Will convinces her to engage in a long distance relationship. Before Will leaves, Emily gives a package for Will to take to one of her longtime friends in New York a girl by the name of Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz).  Summer is a writer for a local magazine and Will takes a liking to her almost instantly.  Also when he meets Summer there is a small appearance by Kevin Kline in the movie and I thought he was great because Kline can really pull off the kind of character he was portraying.

Will finds life on the Clinton campaign trail to not be exactly what he was hoping for and has some funny situations with his boss Gareth being played by Adam Ferrara.  Also working in the headquarters is April (Isla Fisher), who Will also takes a liking to almost instantly.

So Will tells the story to Maya about the trials and errors of his ways with the 3 ladies until eventually Maya figures out which of the three ladies is her mother.  Its also got a few other surprises in the movie that I do not want to get into here because it would probably spoil a lot of the movie, but I am telling you that this is worth seeing.  Very well done in my opinion.

8/10

Important: I am a Beatles fan, my views on the Beatles will come out in this review.

Across the Universe is a visually stimulating musical set in the tumultuous Vietnam Era. Using Beatles songs, director July Taymor relays a typical Hollywood love story with Jude(Jim Sturgess), a dock worker form Liverpool, and the innocent American girl he falls in love with, Lucy(Evan Rachel Wood).

After an initial meeting, Jude moves to New York with Lucy’s brother Max(Joe Anderson). Lucy’s fiance dies in combat in Vietnam, she moves to New York, and falls in love with Jude. The two love birds experience total love then the eventually falling apart and separation when Jude is deported back to Liverpool. But don’t worry, like any predictable love story, they do get back together at the end in a spectacular musical number.

Along with the main story, there are several different sub plots involved in the movie. The most outstanding was the love affair between JoJo(Martin Luther) and Sadie(Dana Fuchs), a guitar player and singer; respectively. JoJo comes to NY by way of the south after the death of ???(we are never really told) a young boy, during a violent altercation between civil rights protesters and National Guardsman. This, too, follows the typical meet, fall in love, separate, get back together kind of story line.

Interspersed in the story is, of course, many popular Beatles songs. The music is the backbone of this movie, and the real only selling point. The arrangements brought new light to many of the classics, such as a somber rendition of “Let It Be” performed during the civil rights altercations and resulting the funeral of the young boy. At times, though, I felt that some scenes and characters were there just to justify the song making an appearance in the film. Prudence(T.V. Carpio) is a shining blunt example of this.

Prudence, a lesbian from the mid-west, sings “I Want to Hold Your Hand” while pining for a straight cheerleader, then hitches to New York. Next we see her she is crawling in through a bathroom window(Get IT!?!), and then quickly falls for Sadie, who is obviously involved with JoJo. Next, Prudence locks herself in a closet and the cast serenades her with “Dear Prudence” in an attempt to lure her out. That is essentially the whole role of Prudence in this film. She was there for two songs and a waste of a good 15 to 20 minutes.

Though the story is stale and over done, the acting was good as well as the singing. The visuals and effects were bright and well done, but at times seemed forced, including unnecessary scenes with a lot of dancing, singing, and animation. All in all I found it hard to enjoy this movie because of the diversions of unnecessary characters and scenes. The music was great, though, and I will be investing in the soundtrack.

I know a few months back when the teaser came out for Rambo all the big time action movie lovers got excited. You could just tell from that short little bit that this was going to be a no holds barred ass kicking movie and I can honestly tell you that it definitely delivers!

The movie starts with our hero living in peace in Thailand. Basically his life now is going out on his custom motorboat and capturing snakes for a local snake charmer. Pretty exciting way to live huh?

Enter 5 members from a church in the good old US of A. They explain that they were told to find Rambo and ask for boat transport up the river so they can provide aid to the people in war torn Burma.

Now before I move on I want to explain how Stallone tries to really bring out the horrible violence that goes on in Burma. He does it in a way that had me twitching when some of the acts of violence, rape, and downright cruelty towards people of all ages does that. It was definitely an eye opening experience.

After a lot of begging, Rambo gives in and takes the group into Burma and drops them off with only one little incident and returns home. Of course, the group giving aid is soon captured during a violent raid by the military.

Days later Rambo is tasked by the leader of the groups church to go find the group since they have not reported back for a couple of days. Yes, thats right, now might be a good time to bring up that the writing of this movie is pretty shady, but really who came to see this for good writing? Not me! Oh, and the leader of the church also has a small mercenary team with him to assist Rambo. There, the silliness is just about over.

Rambo and his band of troops embark on their trip to rescue the prisoners and let me just say the final 30 minutes of this movie is the most INTENSE bunch of action that I have seen in a movie in a long time. What I really like though is that they really go into detail about what happens to someone when they take a Barret Sniper rifle round to the head, what happens when you get blown up, its in GREAT detail. Its just special effects being used in its finest. Its a truly great job.

Overall, this is a very typical run of the mill action movie. The writing is below average at best, the other characters don’t really grip you in a way that makes you care anything about them, and Stallone does an admirable job (especially for a man who is 60) of bringing back the Rambo character almost the exact same way he was left years ago.

I recommend if you like action movies to go see this movie, its not too long at about 100 minutes and you will walk out of the theater feeling satisfied. I am going to give it a 7 out of 10.

For a while, the Justice League film was being fast-tracked to production to make an early 2009 release–Warner Bros. has hit the brakes.

The official story is that the script, penned by Kieran and Michele Mulroney, needs tweaking. This is the biggest obstacle due to the WGA strike, which has no end in sight. Also, the budget is soaring out of control and the holding pacts with the lead actors are nearing expiration.

Adam Brody (The O.C.) was set for the role of the Flash, with rapper Common tagged for the Green Lantern. Lesser knowns Armie Hammer, Jr (yes, the Armand/Arm and Hammer Hammers) as Batman (!) and Megan Gale (eye candy) as Wonder Woman.

No one is talking “scrapped” but really…do they think they can resurrect this? Everyone knows Christian Bale is Batman. Why even try?

There’s still a chance at picking up production for the Fall this year, which would push the release to 2010…but they probably can’t plan that far ahead.

If you don’t mind the spoilers, you can run on over to www.hollywoodchicago.com and check out the Star Trek movie teaser trailer. (no pictures, just a play-by-play description)

While there isn’t really anything new on this production, the fansites are running rampant with photos of the Crew out and about at the Cloverfield premiere in LA last night, with JJ Abrams.

The official Paramount site is still “coming soon” but has a nice little splash page with some basic descriptive way down at the bottom:

Cast: John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoë Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, with Eric Bana and Leonard Nimoy

Synopsis: From director J.J. Abrams (“Mission: Impossible III,” “Lost” and “Alias”) and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (“TRANSFORMERS,” “MI: III”) comes a new vision of the greatest space adventure of all time, “Star Trek,” featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no man has gone before.

Frankly, I’m not that into Star Trek, but I’d buy a ticket to watch Simon Pegg brush his teeth, because he never disappoints.
So go see it, if only to keep him working.

Sorry Gillman, this movie has nothing to do with Bret Hart, you can stop reading now. As for everyone else though…..

If you know me personally, you will know that I am a bit of a video game junkie. I spend a few hours a day when I have free time rotting away those precious brain cells that I am going to need sometime down the road for something way more important. That being said, I have never played the “Hitman” video games that this movie story line was taken from.

The movie, directed by Xavier Gens who is making his USA big screen directing debut and is produced by Vin Diesel……yes let that sink in for a minute. The role of “Agent 47″ was originally supposed to be his, then Jason Stathams, but then they finally settled on….

Timothy Olyphant whom I loved in “The Girl Next Door.” Of course in that movie he was playing as an executive in the porn industry, so to say that this role here was a bit more of a step forward for him is an understatement. Olyphant’s character “Agent 47″ is a cold blooded killer. He kills who he is told to kill, no questions asked. The movie does little to explain the background of “Agent 47″ only showing a montage during the opening credits showing a bunch of kids getting bred to be assassins.

The movie is set in Russia, where “Agent 47″ is seemingly tasked by his agency to kill the President. Of course to make the movie interesting, things are not all as they seem and “Agent 47″ finds himself in the middle of a big time international incident, which is where co-star Dougray Scott (You all probably remember him as the bad guy from Mission Impossible 2) who plays an Interpol Agent who has been tracking “47″ around the world trying to catch him and bring him to justice. Also you have Robert Knepper who plays the head of the Russian Secret Police.

The lead actress in the movie is a girl who is new to me, Olga Kurylenko plays Nika, a Russian callgirl who does her deeds for the President and because of that knows a little too much about the Russian president, and becomes a target of the government just like “47″

The writing of this movie had me confused at some parts, it was just so fast paced that I felt that some things could have used a lot more explaining. It was pretty clear though that common sense was put on the backburner slightly in order to give you a plethora of LOUD explosions, gun fights,knife fights, and bloody execution style killings. Which is all well and good for some people, but forgive me for not liking a little bit more of a story to be told about characters in movies. Especially the main one, that hurt the movie in my opinion.

Overall “Hitman” is a definite action movie, if you like fast paced run and gun shoot em up movies please go see it. For me though I was a little let down by the writing. I truly feel this could of been a lot better had some scenes of the movie been explained a little better and not ended so quickly. Not a bad movie, just not great either.

6/10