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Trailer Review: Rock of Ages - Pushing a Rock Up a Hill

Based on a Broadway play about a Hollywood club in 1987 and the front and backstage life of the rockers and fans around it, Rock of Ages revives - as if they were really dead - the monster rock classics from the eighties. This bad retro party looks like it was an open invite since a bevy of stars appear from Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Alec Baldwin dressed in clothes from the back of their closets.

But the guest that everyone wants to see is Tom Cruise, playing untouchable rock star (on the cover of Rolling Stone), Stacee Jaxx, a cowboy hat, no shirt wearing god. His concert is what's going to save the club and the movie. Say it aint so.

Cruise stops chasing something to give a freak-out performance, his second since Magnolia where he played an author giving lectures on how to seduce women. It was an over the top, hyperactive performance, that shocked everyone who saw it that the only thing to do was give him an Oscar nom to shake off the trauma.

If you want to listen one more time to music you've heard while getting a little too drunk, or experience Halloween early this year, be my guest. For the rest of us, stay sober.

Opening June 15, 2012, Verdict: Skip

Trailer Review: Musical Chairs - Get into the Groove

I find it kind of nice to see the recent popularity of dance in American culture. With our life moving rapidly online, dance forces physical interaction, and old-fashioned opportunities for romance. It also looks great on film. The Step-Up franchise capitalized on the trend and has spread across TV with Glee and Dancing with the Stars to name a few.

The trailer for Musical Chairs follows a typical plot line of an out of step male dancer discovering a girl and a dance floor for a new passion against the consternation of his family and friends.

What makes this film interesting is its direction by Susan Seidelman, who made one of the best pop films of the eighties, Desperately Seeking Susan. That movie introduced Madonna, but also gave a tour through the funky underground of New York City punk culture for a wider audience. It was a comedy of mistaken identity with a feminist center about differences in domestic and unmarried life. Seeing Madonna get into the groove in a downtown bar was one of the visual touchstones of the decade.

So it's nice to see Seidelman return to the streets of New York. Following a Bronx-bred Latino who mixes it up with a respectable dancer at a Manhattan studio, there's a lot of bridge and tunnel rivalry to keep them apart. But like Desperately Seeking Susan, the trailer skims across the diversity living in and on the margins of the Big Apple. From uptown to downtown, handicapped to the cross-dressers, Seidelman seems to be returning to the music of the streets, a boulevard open for everyone.

Opening March 23, 2012, Verdict: Wait for the Critics

Review: Nine - Light a Fire

The idea of taking Federico Fellini's "8 1/2" and making a musical about a director's affairs with women as the confusion for the lack of inspiration on his next movie is kind of pop genius. All movies need to be cast, and the struggle for attention is the excuse to get some of the biggest female stars on stage to seduce Daniel Day Lewis. It's a remake of a "Chorus Line" with divas. Directed by Rob Marshall who did "Chicago" this trailer is all about the women. Here's my impression of them: Kidman is cold, Hudson is boring, Cotillard is too timid, Fergie is vampy, Dench is a wit, Loren is classic. That leaves Penélope Cruz. Her entrance is when the sparks fly. Looking great on stage and funny in bed, she's a treat for the eyes and mind. She makes Lewis look like a worm.

This movie could collapse under the weight of overcasting. But the trailer feels light on it's feet. It certainly looks good in rich blacks that open up to the Italian sun. Marshall has a good instinct for keeping things on stage. The best hope is Dench's advice to create a film that makes people laugh. Stop being so serious.

Opening December 25, 2009, Verdict: Must See