There’s no breaking of new ‘story’ ground with the Hangover 2. You saw the formula in the first and it’s on display here again. Waking up from a terrible bender minus a compadre and your memory. Moving through a series of raucous and rudely funny scenarios while attempting to piece together the previous night. Only this time, the crew has traveled around the world to sunny Thailand. Stu, the lovelorn dentist has flown to his fiancé’s hometown for a traditional wedding. Hoping to keep things simple, he organizes a simple all guys brunch which turns into what Mr. Chow describes as ‘a sick night b*tches!”

It’s easy to say the formula is the same, but it’ll surprise a lot to see a much better execution of the antics and even the wit (is that a poster of Macho Man Randy Savage in Alan’s room?). Even the Kanye West montage arrival into town is repeated for those who remember the original. Director Todd Phillips (Road Trip) has pieced together a sequel worthy of the title. Bradley Cooper (Limitless), Zack Galifinakis (It’s Kind Of A Funny Story), Ed Helms (TV’s Daily Show), and Justin Birtha (National Treasure) return as the wolfpack Phil, Alan, Stu, and Doug respectively. The real talent on display here is the return of Ken Jeong (TV’s Community) as Mr. Chow. I’ve never laughed so hard for, or at a character. Twice as zany as the original, and four times more gangster – he steals the movie hands down. Pulling in a strong second is Stu’s musical montage to the tribulations the crew faces while hunting down their friend. Billy Joel is somewhere smiling I’m sure.

Like the previous film, there’s a great mystery to solve, and just like the original, the clues are all around you if only you weren’t laughing at these idiots. I humbly admit that until they found the pieces on screen, I didn’t know – but it was great to re-realize what I had seen and how it all pieced the mystery together.

Hangover 2 is funnier than the original, dirtier than the last effort, and even more violent. Gunfire, the ladies of Bangkok (is it it Bangcock?), and one liners from pseudo-gangster Mr. Chow ‘I international criminal…everything always end in gunfire.’ Go see it for the same reason the prequel was so endearing. You’ll get a happy, healthy heaping of insane antics leaving you…hung over, again.

The Hangover, Part II is rated R for drug use and reference, nudity, strong language, and graphic violence.

In a summer of loud and mostly dumb movies, Joe Carnahan’s ‘A-Team’ is potentially the loudest and the dumbest, with the surprise hat trick of also being deliriously fun. That’s right, a mega-budget, popcorn actioner based off a terribly dippy 80’s television show actually delivers the summer fun.

Color me surprised to find an energetic cast playing up comic absurdity in a movie that feels like a pure collage of action scenes. Although, if I had truly be intuitive, I would have taken the hints from that ludicrous bit in the trailer where ‘Face’ (Cooper) is behind the controls of a tank that just fell from a plane, firing at enemy jet fighters headed his way. You look at that and either furrow your brow in determined seriousness, or you smile and chuckle. Carnahan somehow manages to sustain the bug-nuttiness of that sequence for nearly the entire duration of ‘A-Team’ and if you are the right kind of person, it will hit your pleasure centers pretty hard.

The film’s basic set-up isn’t exactly a narrative as much as it is a lifted template from the original television show, changing the origin of the team from Vietnam veterans to a commando unit who has just been framed for theft, and by extension, murder. If the plot sounds similar to this year’s earlier ‘The Losers’, then that’s because it’s largely the same one, even going so far as to feature a villainous CIA agent like Jason Patric’s Max.

The difference is down to emphasis. I enjoyed The Losers because of the way it pulled its cast together and allowed them to carry the film through the innate silliness in the story. A-Team is more interested in blocking off its stars as individual caricatures and piling on as many action scenes as one movie can contain, and to heck with pesky things like continuity, logistics or even gravity.

The thing is, that’s exactly the right choice for a movie based off The A Team. This isn’t a calculated spoof of the material, or a serious-minded revamp of something that didn’t take itself serious in the first place. Instead, this is literally a bigger, beefier, more expansive version of the thing that used to roll across our television sets back in the mid 80s. There are insane aerial stunts involving every kind of vehicle or transport imaginable, and half the time it also involves characters flying through the air like torpedoes, aimed at enemies who only exist to fire bullets at them. Carnahan uses a cinematography style that echoes Tony Scott, but here the erratic nature of the camera work only adds to the visual chaos up on screen.

The casting and acting in the film is what’s most likely to pull in the audience this weekend. I didn’t know what to make of the varied cast up front, but they all work in their respective places, and make this ‘A Team’ endearing enough that we aren’t looking back 20 years, comparing them, or simply dismissing them as we wait for Stallone and The Expendables to show up in Augst.  Liam Neeson as ‘Hannibal’, the gang’s cigar chomping, surly leader, is still channeling that focused grit that he displayed in last year’s Taken. I was bored with him in April’s Clash of the Titans remake, but the Neeson here has brought his a-game, and he makes each line the character says and every thing he does feel sort of iconic and even plausible in a certain way.

It’s odd to see him sleepwalk through stuff like Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Kingdom of Heaven, and then come alive here. Nonetheless, he provides the gravitas needed to be the leader, and he centers the team, so that the other guys can do their thing as needed. Sharlto Copely is proving that he’s got more where District 9 came from, and although this is a completely different kind of character in a completely different movie, he approaches it with intention and invention. ‘Mad Dog’ Murdock is the loose, loose cannon of the team, and their pilot. Copley imbues him with a deep, squirming sense of nuttiness and he never feels perfunctory (although his character is certainly written as such) or predictable. I kept expecting Mad Dog to go off, muttering to himself, into the stratosphere and never return. Looking back on it, I think that was exactly the thing Copley was going for.

The last two members of the team, Face and B.A. Barracus, are probably the ‘highlight’ members of the group. Not so much because they bring extra epertise or more to the table acting-wise, but because in the original, their characters were the added flair that kept audiences tuning in. As it turns out, this version pushes Face to the foreground, probably because he’s Bradley Cooper and the universe has preordained that he become a star. For his part, Cooper isn’t doing much different than he’s done before, but Carnhan has a sense of how to use him, and he’s never grating. Quentin ‘Rampage’ Jackson, coming out of a fighter’s background, has to match the acting chops of Mr. T, which is admittedly, not hard. He does this, but he goes a bit further too. Jackson doesn’t have the experience of an actor, but he does understand showmanship, and he’s got that here. He’s not mugging for the camera or trying to steal the show. Instead he puts forth a gruff, likable performance that suggests he could, in the right circumstances, headline his own action picture.

Although this team isn’t meshing together as a whole, that doesn’t affect the film much. Most of the picture feels disjointed, so if we find ourselves shuffled among the main players as if being flung through the panels of a comic book, it’s never too disorienting. Truth be told, disorienting is actually something that A-Team seems to be actively aiming for.

In a summer that seems dead-set on reducing entertainments to their most pragmatic and mundane, I sortof cherished the insanity of A-Team, and I wasn’t even terribly disturbed by the fact that the plan at the center of the ‘story’ doesn’t make much sense. It’s been awhile since we have seen a director pull out big budget toys in service of a premise this bonkers. I’d cite last summer’s G.I. Joe, but even there, Sommers kept reminding us it all took place in a cartoon universe. There’s no denying that here, but Carnahan doesn’t have any signposts to inform you ‘Prepare for silliness’. He just opens up both barrels and lets you have it.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

The Hangover is easily the biggest surprise hit of 2009. The R-rated comedy, with a 35-million-dollar budget, was loved by audiences and, all-told, raked in almost $500 million at the box office, as well as over $150 million on home video. The film also won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy. After such a success, a sequel is guaranteed, right? It’s not that easy.

Although Warner Bros. had already commissioned a script for a sequel before the first was released, getting the cast to come back was not easy. After being paid roughly $300,000 each for the original, stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis made sure they were going to be well compensated for the next movie. Warner Bros. originally offered $3 million each, plus 1% of the gross, but the actors stood firm.

After six months of negotiations, Deadline reports that all three stars, as well as director Todd Phillips have signed on for the sequel. The actors will get around $5 million each, in addition to 4% of the gross, while the director will receive $10 million plus 10%, as well as a guarantee that he will earn at least as much as he did for the first – $50 million and still counting.

Principal photography is set to start November 1st, although it must work around both Helms’ “Office” and Cooper’s films’ schedules.

Right now, details are scarce, but, in an interview with Collider, Phillips denied rumors that the sequel would take place in Mexico or Thailand. He also said about the sequel that:

Sometimes movies do well but it’s just this huge flood of people go see them and then you know… this movie just kept going because people kept going back. That tells me that they love those characters and that tells me, not that the movie’s going to financially do better, but just that there’s love out there for these four guys. We can now put them through a whole new set of paces and people will want to see it. So for me, it’s really exciting.

Do you think The Hangover 2 can have the success of its predecessor? I’m sure many will go simply because they loved the first, but can the sequel really compare with the original? Most of The Hangover‘s success was people spreading the word, and going back to the theater with their friends. It will be successful, of course, but I don’t think that it can come to meet such a high precedent.

Five new stills have been released from the set of Joe Carnahan’s high-octane take on the iconic 80′s TV series.

The A-Team follows four veterans of the Iraq War, now fugitives after being framed for a crime.

The all-star cast includes Liam Neeson as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, The Hangover‘s Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck, UFC star Quinton Jackson as B.A. Baracus, and District 9‘s Sharlto Copley as “Howling Mad” Murdock.

The film also co-stars Jessica Biel and Watchmen‘s Patrick Wilson.

The A-Team starts tearing up theaters on June 11th.

For those of you who are here I am sure you know what you are about to see. For those of you who have no idea what this movie is, well “i Pity the Fool!”. The A-Team is a classic in the most classic way possible. The TV show that ran for an awesome 5 years during the 80s is held close to lots of fans. With this newest reincarnation of a classic, we can only imagine what they will do to our precious baby.

Here is a brief synopsis for you fools! (this is via wikipedia)

The A-Team is an American action adventure television series about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces who work as soldiers of fortune while being on the run from the military for a “crime they didn’t commit”. The A-Team was created by writers and producers Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell (who also collaborated together on Wiseguy, Riptide and Hunter) at the behest of Brandon Tartikoff, NBC’s Entertainment president.

Despite being thought of as mercenaries by the other characters in the show, the A-Team always acted on the side of good and helped the oppressed. The show ran for five seasons on the NBC television network, from January 23, 1983 to December 30, 1986 (with one additional, previously unbroadcast episode shown on March 8, 1987), for a total of 98 episodes.

It remains known in popular culture for its cartoon-like use of over-the-top violence (in which people were seldom seriously hurt), supposedly formulaic episodes, featuring the ability to form weaponry and vehicles out of old parts, and its distinctive theme tune. The show also served as the springboard for the career of Mr. T, who portrayed the character of B.A. Baracus, around whom the show was initially conceived.^[1][2] Some of the show’s catchphrases such as “I love it when a plan comes together”,^[3] “Hannibal’s on the jazz” and “I ain’t gettin’ on no plane!” have also made their way onto T-shirts and other merchandise.

Although not directly referenced in the series, the name of the show comes from “A-Teams”, the nickname for Operational Detachments Alpha (ODA). The US Army Special Forces uses the term ODA for their 12-man direct operations teams.

Enjoy the trailer below:

Let us know what you think. Does this ruin the original or has it been to long since you last saw/thought about it? Let us know in the comments below.

Our friends over at Gordon and the Whale spotted some outstanding news yesterday. The Hangover broke the record of the highest grossing rated R movie of all time. With that said, they broke yet another record and only a few weeks after the DVD and Blu-Ray hit the markets.  The Hangover DVD has become the number one selling comedy DVD of all time, with 8.6 million discs sold, including 1.5 million Blu-rays! That is huge news, for something that came absolutely out of left field, this movie is nothing short of a sleeper hit.

As Rusty points out:

How did this happen? I have a well-thought out, and of course, well-researched theory: because THE HANGOVER is awesome.

This movie made it onto my top 10 of 2009 and I wanted it to be number 1 on my list for many reasons. The main reason would be – it’s freaking hilarious! This movie is a sure laugh, unless you are dead. The re-watch of this film is great also, it doesn’t get worse but better on a second and third watch.

Stay tuned for info on the sequel to The Hangover here on Atomic Popcorn. Let us know in the comments below how you feel about this news, or even if you have seen this film.

Bradley Cooper, who shot to stardom in this summer’s The Hangover, has replaced Shia LeBeouf to star in Relativity Media’s Dark Fields.

Cooper will be playing a writer who’s down on his luck and manages to stumble upon a secret pharmaceutical drug designed to make a person smarter. The drug leads to the writer gaining financial and social success, but of course there’s always a catch. In this case, the drug has lethal side effects, including one that causes time to move in a stop-motion manner.

Dark Fields is said to be along the lines of Fight Club and The Game (both stellar movies, by the way) and, also like Fight Club, is based on a novel.

Alan Glynn’s book has been made into a screenplay by Leslie Dixon, the writer behind the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair. Dixon will also serve as producer of Dark Fields, with Tucker Tooley as executive producer and Neil Burger directing.

In 2006, I read about a film that was slightly different from anything I’d heard of before. Top directors such as the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant and Alfonso Cuaron were all making a series of shorts that would be threaded together into a feature. The short films all center around love in Paris. The film was appropriately titled Paris, je t’aime. Needless to say, the city of Poughkeepsie, where I went to school, was never even on the radar for Paris, je t’aime’s theatrical release. When I watched it on DVD, I was more than disappointed. I don’t know if something got lost in translation or if the short films were just lackluster. Three years later, the same concept has moved to a new city. New York, I Love You showcases the talents of top directors (Mira Nair, Allen Hughes and a surprise directorial effort from Natalie Portman). The subject for all the short films is love in the different boroughs of New York City. The filmmakers had two days each to shoot their respective shorts. This time, the results are a bit more rewarding. New York, I Love You is far from perfect but it is mostly enjoyable.

The different segments of the film all bleed into one another as most are, in some way, related to another. The short films are parts of a whole rather than their own entities. One of the challenges I found most rewarding was figuring out the overlap between stories. The film opens with Justin Bartha and Bradley Cooper (of Hangover fame) awkwardly sharing a taxi. Both characters, despite sharing this scene, would be the focus of their own respective narratives. The film is full of moments like this. Drea De Matteo, a woman grappling with the fallout from a one-night stand in Allen Hughes’ segment, appears in Mr. Riccoli’s drugstore (which plays an integral part in Brett Ratner’s short). The overlaps make the entire film fun and engaging.

The shorts themselves are largely hit or miss. For example, Jiang Wen’s segment about a pickpocket (Hayden Christensen) attempting to woo a beautiful young girl (Rachel Bilson) only to be thwarted by her much older and strangely sinister boyfriend (Andy Garcia) leaves much to be desired. By the time the short finds some traction, its already time to move on. Christensen, as per usual, gives a flat and uninteresting performance. Garcia, even though he’s a veteran, can’t save this segment. On the opposite front, my favorite puzzle piece is actually the Brett Ratner directed story of a boy (a superb Anton Yelchin) dumped and left dateless right before the prom. His pharmacist, Mr. Riccoli (James Caan is genius in the role) lends his handicapped daughter, played by Olivia Thirbly, out for the prom. I won’t give too much away because the twist at the end of the short is brilliant. Seeing Yelchin and Thirbly, who, in my opinion are two very talented and very underrated young actors, sharing screen time is electric. Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively also appears, for a few appropriate seconds, as Yelchin’s ex. The segments either work or they don’t. Given that each is only a few minutes long, there’s not much room for middle ground.

Lets talk about Ethan Hawke. Hawke, the likeable actor and failed novelist, has been largely out of the spotlight for some time. He appears in Yvan Attal’s segment as a womanizing writer who hilariously pursues a high-end call girl (Maggie Q). Hawke, out of all the characters in New York, I Love You, has some of the wittiest and quickest dialogue to work with (Attal also co-wrote the script). Hawke makes the absolute most of the material as it plays to his exact off beat strengths. As he follows the beautiful Maggie Q around, his pickup lines are nothing short of literary and his delivery is spot on. I credit Hawke for bringing the words on the page to life in a performance that will certainly be classified as a comeback. So many times, good dialogue is wasted on poor acting. When good dialogue meets good acting, the results are a joy to behold to say the least. Hawke is one of the best parts of the entire film. Another surprise performance comes from somewhere I least expected it. Shia LaBeouf has rarely gotten to show any acting chops. He has been too busy running away from space robots or chasing down alien heads with Harrison Ford. In LaBeouf’s segment, directed by Shekhar Kapur and written by the late Anthony Minghella, he plays a crippled bellhop at a very ritzy hotel. He shares almost all his screen time with Julie Christie. The two play off each other extraordinarily well. LaBeouf nails a role that not only calls for him to use a believable accent but to also merely hint at the pain his hunched character must endure while carrying suitcases up numerous flights of stairs. Not only does he nail it, but he also holds his own with Julie Christie, who proves why she is nothing short of an icon. Hawke and LaBeouf are two of the film’s pleasant surprises.

I found Joshua Marston’s segement, centering around two senior citizens struggling, on their anniversary, to get back to the place they first met, dragging most of the time. Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach, who play the seniors, do a fine job but something about the story doesn’t fit. The only purpose it seems to serve is to offer some age-range variety to counteract the many stories centering on young and middle aged characters. I found myself wishing there was more to Shunji Iwai’s short about a composer (Orlando Bloom) and his mysterious over-the-phone muse (Christina Ricci). The premise is promising but, again given that each piece is only given a few minutes, the payoff seems abrupt and unsatisfactory. Bloom, in full on grungy artist mode, is excellent (especially considering he is playing off of a phone rather than another human being). When Ricci finally does show up, the chemistry just isn’t there.

Overall, New York, I Love You is worth checking out. I enjoyed seeing the work of directors I had heard of and some that I hadn’t. The myriad of actors and actresses that are given screen time gives the film a very particular pace that, at times, borders on manic. LaBeouf and Hawke are at their best. New York, I Love You, if for nothing else, is a welcome breath of fresh air in the oft-stale multiplex world.

Rating: ★★½☆☆