Tropic Thunder topped the box office for the 3rd weekend in a row, pulling in $11.5 million. Debuting at second place was Babylon A.D., a sci-fi action thriller starring Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh, which earned $9.7 million dollars. In third place, the Dark Knight took in just over $8.7 million to break $500 million this summer. Slipping two places to fourth with $8.3 million was the comedy the House Bunny about an ousted Playboy bunny who becomes the house mother at a dysfunctional college sorority. In at fifth with $7.9 million dollars was Traitor a war-on-terror epic featuring Don Cheadle.

The year is 2012, the US economy has collapsed, creating a global recession and crime has become rampant. In response, the US prison system has been privatized and is now a money-making business. Corporations, looking for extra revenue streams, begin broadcasting death sports between convicts. The most popular is ‘Death Race’, a NASCAR-like race with armed and armoured cars, where five victories means freedom and losing means death. Reminiscent of the game Car Wars, the combatants fly around a track in souped-up cars fitted with armour, rockets, machine guns, napalm, and a variety of defensive weaponry. To pump up the audience, female inmates from another prison are bussed in to be ‘navigators’ in the Death Race.

Former race car driver and ex-con Jensen Ames (Jason Stratham) is framed for the murder of his wife and sent to Terminal Island. There, the warden (a mean spirited Joan Allen) tells him to race or rot in a cell for the rest of his life. The bonus, he will take the place of the most famous racer ever, Frankenstein. As Frankenstein had already won four races, if he wins this race, he will gain his freedom. He was actually killed in a previous race, but Frankenstein is a crowd favourite, so the warden is desperate to have him back. Since Frankenstein dropped out of the races, viewership has plunged and everyone is eagerly awaiting his return. All Jensen has to do is outlast seven other competitors, including his arch-nemesis Machinegun Joe.

Loosely a remake of Roger Corman’s 70s classic (Death Race 2000), about the only thing that is the same is the title. Gone is the US wide racetrack and the points for running over civilians. This movie is a testosterone fueled rush of cars, explosions and hot women. Joan Allen in particular plays the nasty warden very well. Stratham portrays essentially the same character he has several times (Crank, Transporter, etc), so you know what to expect. Tyrese Gibson doesa good job with the psychotic Machinegu...

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Quentin Tarantino stars in Sukiyaki Western Django




See a clip here;

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=48013

Tug Speedman (Ben Stiller) is an actor hired to star in an ensemble Vietnam war movie based on a best-selling book (Tropic Thunder), with two other huge stars, Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) and drug-addled funnyman Jeff Portnoy(Jack Black). Of course, with such huge egos, the production goes astray and the director is amiss on how to get it back on track. The author of Tropic Thunder, himself a Vietnam vet, suggests a trip into the jungle away from the luxury and personal assistants each one has. There, they encounter a drug lord and the fictional war movie suddenly becomes reality.

This movie is one of the funniest Stiller has made in a while. It starts out as a spoof of war movies and begins taking shots at Hollywood stars’ egos and the movie industry. There are tons of sight gags, like the fountain of blood from a wounded soldier to exploding cast members to the slaughter of an endangered species. The movie itself starts out with some of the best fake movie trailers ever made. Stiller’s Scorcher series are atypical of action movies, while Portnoy’s Farty Family is a rip off of Eddie Murphy fat suit movies. Lazarus’ Satan’s Alley has to be seen to be believed (and the cameo in it is downright hilarious too). By the end of the fake trailers, I w