NEW THIS WEEK:

BEERFEST (Warner Bros.)
Starring Jay Chandrasekar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Eric Stolhanske, Will Forte, Ralf Moeller, Mo’Nique, Eric Christian Olsen, Jurgen Prochnow, Cloris Leachman, Nat Faxon
Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar (Puddle Cruiser, Super Troopers, Club Dread, The Dukes of Hazzard) ; Written by Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske (Puddle Cruiser, Super Troopers, Club Dread)
Genre: Comedy
Rated R (for lots and lots and lots of beer drinking, plus lots of breasts and swearing, too; if this were anything less than an R, I’d be worried.)
Tagline: “Prepare for the ultimate chug.”
Story: Two American brothers (Paul Soter, Eric Stolhanske) go to Munich to bury the ashes of their grandfather at Oktoberfest, but once they get there, they discover the “Beerfest” games that pit competitors from all over the world in outlandish beer-drinking contests. After being humiliated, they return with three friends to represent America against the German team.
REVIEW

It’s been over two years since the Broken Lizard comedy troupe released the comedy-horror bomb Club Dread, which, tragically, opened against Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and bombed badly. Things are looking a bit better for the guys now, especially after Broken Lizard founder and director, Jay Chandrasekhar, was hired to helm Warner Bros’ remake of the television show The Dukes of Hazzard last year. He brought the rest of his comedy teammates along for the ride, and the movie was a big enough summer hit that Warner Bros. signed the Broken Lizard group on to make their next few films for them, and giving them a production deal to find new comedy premises for the company.

Beerfest is a more mainstream premise than Club Dread, because anyone who loves drinking beer--and that’s a lot of people—should find humor in the beer jokes. Even though Club Dread bombed, the Broken Lizards are somewhat of an institution at colleges, and many people know of them and their movies, particularly Super Troopers, than in years past. (Of course, colleges are out right now, which doesn’t help the movie build up interest among groups of guys wanting to go see it.) The Broken Lizards’ box office track record is a bit spotty, Super Troopers making $7 million opening weekend on its way to $18 million, before the flop that was Club Dread. Chandrasekhar brought in the guys to help rewrite The Dukes of Hazzard, and he also gave a prominent role to Kevin Heffernan, who appeared a few weeks earlier as a bus driver in Disney’s Sky High. The rest of the guys—Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Eric Stolhanske--haven’t appeared in too many non-Broken Lizard movies, but one can expect they’ll be in a lot more Warner Bros. releases if Beerfest is a success. Mainstream audiences unfamiliar with the Broken Lizards might not be very interested, regardless of whether or not it’s by the group who put together Dukes of Hazzard. (Linking the two in the ads in itself might be a very bad idea.)

Like with their last few movies, the Broken Lizards have brought in a bunch of ringers AKA real actors to help elevate the movie from being just about them. This time, they’ve convinced Academy and Emmy award-winning actress Cloris Leachman to play their great-grandmother, an even more eclectic role than her recent turn in James Brooks’ comedy Spanglish. (She’s also been a regular on the FOX sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle.”) They also convinced the very serious German dramatic actor Jürgen Prochnow of Das Boot and The English Patient to play the founder of Beerfest who is coaching the German team, which includes Saturday Night Live’s Will Forte. Another more obvious comedy candidate is urban comedienne Mo’Nique, best known as the host of “Showtime at the Apollo” but who has appeared in a number of urban comedies of varying success from 2004’s Soul Plane to her very own Phat Girlz, which made $7 million earlier this year (not bad for a movie that cost $3 million to make). Fans of Blanchard Ryan, the bikini-clad shark food Open Water, may be surprised to see her playing Kevin Heffernan’s wife, especially since she’s Steve Lemme’s girlfriend in real life.

Another reason for this movie’s existence is last year’s boom in R-rated comedies with the success of Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but they also have big stars, while Beerfest really doesn’t. Because of that, it may be facing the same battle fought by movies like 2004’s Eurotrip and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, both which opened more moderately but still didn’t make more than $7 million opening weekend. (The former opened in the spring, the latter during the summer, but both against stronger movies than Beerfest.)

Warner Bros is giving Beerfest the widest release of any Broken Lizard movie to date, putting it into 1,000 more theatres than their last two movies, maybe in hopes that the title alone will make it an easier sell to a wider audience than their last few movies. They may have waited a bit too long before getting a trailer out there, but anyone who sees the movie based on the trailer and commercials might be vexed by the fact that a lot of the funniest scenes aren’t actually in the movie. These days, more people are waiting to see movies on DVD, because they come out sooner and they offer a better bargain with unrated extras and deleted scenes. Beerfest seems like the type of movie that many people, including Broken Lizard fans, might wait until it arrives in DVD since it’s likely to be out by the end of the year. The other problem is that this just isn’t a very good weekend to release a movie since so many people go on vacation, rather than go to the movies.

Why I Should See It: It’s a comedy about beer und bier ist gut!
Why Not: You probably won’t be getting any free beer when you go to the theatre.
Projection: $8 to 10 million this weekend and $22 million total.

HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS (New Line)
Starring Luke Benwald, Tom Cavanaugh, Kimberly Williams, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Adam Hicks
Written and directed by Bob Doleman (The Banger Sisters, writer of Far and Away)
Genre: Family, Comedy
Rated PG (for the fact that eating worms requires parental guidance that they may not want to freely give)
Tagline: “New Town. New Friends. New Menu.”
Story: On his first day at a new school, 11-year-old Billy (Luke Benward) challenges the school bully to try to earn the respect of his new classmates, and to keep from getting beat up, he takes a bet that he can eat 10 worms in one day.

Based on the award-winning 1973 novel by Thomas Rockwell, which was already made into a CBS TV movie in 1985, How to Eat Fried Worms is New Line’s second attempt this summer to turn a children’s book into a successful family film. Their previous attempt Hoot kicked off the summer as the first unmitigated flop, making less than half its $15 million budget in theatres. This time around, they don’t have the experience and support of Walden Media, a production company that specializes in adapting kids’ books into feature films.

They also don’t have even the second and third string actors like Luke Wilson and Tim Blake Nelson, with the only known face being that of Hallie Eisenberg, best known for the amusing Independent Film Channel promos from a few years back, and veteran TV actor Tom Cavanaugh. It also stars Clint Howard in a rare appearance in a movie not directed by his more famous brother, director Ron Howard. The film stars Luke Benwald, who appeared in last year’s Walden Media movie Because of Winn-Dixie, which was financially successful, making $32 million based on a $14 million budget, but he just isn’t a child actor that kids will know or want to go see. Likewise, the movie’s director, Bob Doleman, has made a number of movies including the Goldie Hawn-Susan Sarandon comedy The Banger Sisters, but has even less experience making family films than New Line.

On the one hand, the premise looks kind of cute, if maybe a bit too much like Disney’s failed Max Keeble's Big Move, but many parents might find the thought of a movie about eating worms in a variety of styles and dishes to be rather disgusting, so they probably won’t want to sit through a movie that might win the year in terms of gross-out factor. Then again, these same parents might be fans of the original book even if they’re kids never have heard of it, and there aren’t that many other choices for them to take the kids to except for Paramount’s Barnyard, going into its fourth weekend.

It probably won’t matter too much, because this weekend is usually the worst possible weekend to release a family film, since many families are away on vacation, while kids in some areas have already started school for the fall. New Line’s decision to release this in late August may be almost as weird as pushing Hoot back to the first weekend of summer, but they may just not know what else to do with it. After the disappointing showing of Snakes on a Plane last week, New Line’s worms-in-a-stomach movie will not do much to help their weak summer.

Why I Should See It: If you still have a fondness from childhood for Thomas Rockwell’s popular book.
Why Not: It looks f*cking disgusting with all these gross dishes made out of worms that are eaten by the film’s hero! YUCK!!!
Projection: $4 to 6 million this weekend and $15 million total.

IDLEWILD (Universal)
Starring André Benjamin, Antwan Andre Patton, Paula Patton, Terrence Howard, Patti LaBelle, Ving Rhames
Written and directed by Bryan Barber (OutKast’s music videos)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Musical
Rated R (for lots of nudity and lots of swearing. This is OutKast, after all, not the Wiggles!)
Story: During Prohibition Era ‘30s, in a place called Idlewild, Georgia, two stage performers from different backgrounds (André “Andre 3000” Benjamin, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton) struggle to make it in music while dealing with the rampant crime surrounding the local speakeasy where they perform.
REVIEW

If you look at the career of the artist formerly and currently known as Prince, you can see a very clearly defined point and then another one where his career started to take a downturn. Oddly, both involved feature films, released a mere two years apart. Purple Rain was a hugely successful movie that showed Prince as a popular chart-topping star, while its 1996 follow-up Under the Cherry Moon was more about him as an artist who felt that he could direct his own feature film.

What does this have to do with Idlewild? Well, let me tell you, because the musical crime drama starring the two members of multi-platinum hip-hop group OutKast falls somewhere between those two movies, so it either will help bolster their popularity or it could start a downwards trajectory after jumping the shark a bit with their “can’t escape it” hit single “Hey Ya!” This long-delayed movie is their first output since their 2003 double album “Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below”—actually solo efforts from Andre 3000 and Big Boi packaged as one album—topped the charts and sold over 11 million copies.

Since then, Andre Benjamin has made a career for himself as an actor in movies like last year’s comedy sequel Be Cool with John Travolta and in Jon Singleton’s hit crime-drama Four Brothers, which topped the box office last August. His OutKast partner and sometimes collaborator Antwan Patton AKA Big Boi hasn’t done as many movies, but he did appear in the drama ATL this past January, which made $21 million despite a rather moderate release.

Joining them on this experiment/adventure are a number of top African-American actors including Ving Rhames, who kicked off this summer by appearing in Mission: Impossible III, his third appearance in the franchise, but who may be best remembered for a “love scene” in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. More importantly, it stars Terrence Howard, who is still riding high after his Oscar nomination for Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, as well as appearing with Andre Benjamin in Jon Singleton’s Four Brothers and co-starring in the SAG award-winning ensemble cast of last year’s Oscar winning drama Crash. Although this movie is all about OutKast, Howard is building up quite a following from his roles in urban-centric dramas and his presence should certainly raise the bar on the acting of the movie.

Making a musical feature film like Idlewild is something that only top artists have the opportunity to do, but just because a recording artists sells a lot of records, it doesn’t mean their fans will go to see them in a movie. Just look at the career of Mariah Carey, whose first movie Glitter was a disastrous bomb five years ago, and last year R ‘n’ B star Usher’s In the Mix only made $10 million just one year after he had three singles in the Top 100, a feat only done twice before, by the Beatles and Bee Gees.

Although Idlewild’s humor and music will appeal to fans of OutKast’s records, people might be put off by the ‘30s setting and the gangster storyline, which doesn’t really have much to do with their music. Then again, while OutKast’s popularity has increased to include a wide range of people young and old, they still have a huge African-American following who hasn’t had a movie with a predominantly black cast since Tyrese Gibson’s Waist Deep ($9.4 million opening in 1,000 theatres), which would have appealed more to guys.

Idlewild was made in conjunction with HBO Films, looking a bit like a follow-up to their hit movie “Lackawanna Blues,” before Universal Pictures came on board to give it a theatrical release. Originally, the movie was supposed to come out in the spring, but it was then moved back to the late summer, supposedly to coincide with the completion of their long-delayed seventh album. It’s definitely not a coincidence that their new album, which bears the same title, hits streets just a few days before the movie in hopes that people who buy the record will then go see the movie on Friday, something which did work with Purple Rain, but oddly, Universal is giving the movie a very moderate release into less than 1,000 theatres, maybe in hopes of targeting the group’s strongest fanbase, like in their hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. It’s a bit of a risk on Universal’s part since this is one of the worst weekends to release a movie, but this should be the top choice for those who have been waiting for the band’s latest project and wanting to get out of the late summer heat.

Why I Should See It: OutKast is one of the most innovative musical groups to come out of hip-hop.
Why Not: As we saw with Prince, being a talented musician and songwriter does not always translate into being a respected actor and filmmaker. There also aren’t nearly enough new songs from the duo, who barely appear together in the movie.
Projection: $5 to 7 million opening weekend; $18 million total.

INVINCIBLE (Walt Disney)
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rispoli, Kevin Conway
Directed by Ericson Core (debut feature from the cinematographer of The Fast and the Furious and Daredevil); Written by Brad Gann (Black Irish, whatever that may be)
Genre: Sports, Drama
Rated PG (for this being Disney, not Touchstone, so no sex or bad language)
Tagline: “Dreams are not lived on the sidelines.”
Story: In 1976, Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), a 30-year-old Philly bartender, shows up for an open call for the Philadelphia Eagles by their new coach Dick Vermeil(Greg Kinnear), and though he never even played football in college, Vince was able to get on the team and live the dream of every football fan.
Mini-Review: Many of the tried and true sports drama cliches are firmly in place, but this really isn't too bad a directorial debut from video director Ericson Core, who takes what could have been a bland and depressing tale and turns it into something both nostalgic and inspirational. A lot of its drive comes from compilation CD soundtrack of '70s classic rock tunes, but it also has a strong cast and writing that surpasses its retro feel. Wahlberg does a decent job, as does Kinnear, who you almost expect to tell his team to "win one for the Gipper," and Banks brings some fun to what would have been a predictable romantic interest role. In the end, a couple weak moments don't do much to hinder a film that, like Papale, has its heart in the right place. Rating: 7/10

Football season is just weeks away and in their efforts to stay ahead of the curve with their signature sports dramas, Walt Disney Pictures is giving football fans a movie to whet their appetites. This one is based on a little known true sports story from the ‘70s, and Disney certainly has the credentials to pull this off after opening so many strong sports dramas from 2000’s Remember the Titans starring Denzel Washington, which made over $115 million during the fall football season, to Dennis Quaid’s 2003 baseball movie The Rookie and the 2004 hockey drama Miracle. They’ve really only faltered once with last year’s The Greatest Game Ever Played about a little known golf rivalry from the early 20^th Century. Returning to football after six years is a smart move, and being about a football fan who got a chance to play professional football seems like the type of premise that football fans can get behind, much like baseball fans did with The Rookie.

More importantly, this movie stars Mark Wahlberg, an actor who has yet to appear in a sports-related movie. It’s a good move for him to be in a movie like this, because he already has a strong male following, and the story’s ‘70s setting will remind his fans of when he played Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. This type of movie can also give him a chance to show off his dramatic acting skills, presuming he still has some. (Check out this week’s Star Spotlight to learn more about Wahlberg’s illustrious career.)

Co-starring with Wahlberg is movie mainstay Greg Kinnear, whose last sports movie was the 2005 remake of Bad News Bears, before appearing later that year with Pierce Brosnan in The Matador. This weekend, he has another high-profile movie in theatres, Fox Searchlight’s Little Miss Sunshine, which expands across the country this weekend with strong word-of-mouth behind it. This means that Kinnear will probably have two movies in the Top 10 this weekend, something which doesn’t happen too often. It also stars Elizabeth Banks, a great actress who has appeared in lots of different movies from last year’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin—she was the slutty chick from the bookstore--to James Gunn’s horror comedy Slither. She’ll also be returning as Betty Brant, Peter Parker’s third choice on the sidelines, in next year’s Spider-Man 3.

Invincible director Ericson Core seems like an unknown quantity, although he’s been the director of photography on many action movies, so maybe a sports premise like this might allow him to do something interesting with the football action.

The good news for Disney and Wahlberg is that football movies tend to be the strongest box office draws in terms of sports-related movies. Some of the more weighty recent ones include Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday, currently still his highest grossing films since Platoon. A few months before Disney had a hit with Remember the Titans, Keanu Reeve starred in the football comedy The Replacements, which made $44 million, and two years ago, Universal had a solid hit with Friday Night Lights starring Billy Bob Thornton ($20 million opening; $60 million total). Obviously, football fans like seeing movies about football, and Disney has made sure that sports fans know about the movie by running regular commercials on ESPN. The movie also has the benefits of a PG rating, which might make it one of the only choices for the over-50 crowd as well as fathers looking for something to see with their sons.

If nothing else, Invincible should find a strong audience in Philadelphia this weekend, and Vince Papale's story might be inspirational enough to keep itself going through Labor Day weekend. It probably won't have much of a shelf-life once The Rock’s football drama Gridiron Gang opens in three weeks, though.

Why I Should See It: Mark Wahlberg makes his first sports drama and it’s set in the ‘70s just like Boogie Nights!
Why Not: There have been way too many sports movies in recent years, and does anyone believe that Mark Wahlberg could be a football player?
Projection: $12 to 14 million this weekend (enough to be #1); $45 million total

THE QUIET (Sony Classics)
Starring Camilla Belle, Elisha Cuthbert, Shawn Ashmore, Edie Falco, Martin Donovan
Directed by Jamie Babbitt (But I’m a Cheerleader); Written by Abdi Nazemian, Micah Shraft
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rated R (but, that’s for Edie Falco’s topless scene. Elisha and Camilla keep most of their clothes on)
Tagline: “Isn’t it time everyone hears your secrets?”
Story: After the death of her parents in a car crash, a deaf and mute teen girl named Dot (Camilla Belle) moves in with the family of the mean cheerleader Nina Deer (Elisha Cuthbert). At first, she’s tormented by the popular girl, but Nina soon finds that she can confide in Dot with all of the dark secrets about her family, since the girl can’t hear her or tell anyone.

Jamie Babbitt, who directed the 1999 lesbian comedy But I’m a Cheerleader about a cheerleader sent into deprogramming after outing herself as a lesbian to her parents, is back with another difficult movie, this one involving sex, murder and incest. The Quiet is a return to film for the controversial director, having spent the last few years directing shorts and TV shows like “The Gilmore Girls.”

Oddly, it’s also a vehicle for hot young actress and the movie’s executive producer Elisha Cuthbert, who got her big break on the FOX show “24” before appearing in movies like 2004 The Girl Next Door and last year’s House of Wax, both which had pretty disappointing showings at the box office. For this movie, Cuthbert has teamed herself with a number of stronger actors like Edie Falco of “The Sopranos” and another hot young actress in Camilla Belle. Belle appeared in Alfonso Cuarón’s A Little Princess way back in 1995, and was cast ten years later opposite Daniel Day Lewis in the indie The Ballad of Jack and Rose last year. Earlier this year, she starred in Screen Gems’ hit remake of the horror movie When a Stranger Calls. The movie also stars Shawn Ashmore, who’s best known as Iceman from the X-Men movies and who has been making his mark as a dramatic actor in recent years.

The movie is a difficult thriller in that it deals with dark family secrets of a sexual nature, and while it doesn’t veer too far away from Babbit’s previous high school based movie, it’s doubtful that this will really be of much interest to the guys who are into either Cuthbert or Belle. Maybe the movie will appeal to young women, though the R-rating will keep the teens out of this one. The film was picked up by Screen Gems after playing at a certain film festival last year, but it’s being released by Sony Classics in New York and L.A. this Friday with plans to expand it into more cities on September 1.

Why I Should See It: To drool over Camilla Belle and Elisha Cuthbert for almost 100 minutes.
Why Not: Without giving it away, you’re not the only one drooling over them, and it’s pretty creepy if you ask me.

STAR SPOTLIGHT: Mark Wahlberg

Almost 15 years after leaving the Funky Bunch behind, “Marky” Mark Wahlberg has a thriving career as an actor and box office superstar, though it’s been a rough ride for the former recording artist. Coming from out of the shadow of his older brother Donnie, one of the New Kids in the Block, Mark spent his youth as a petty criminal before his brother shepherded him into a career as a rapper and dancer, leading to the 1991 hit “Good Vibrations” as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

After appearing wearing nothing but his undies in a few Calvin Klein ads, Wahlberg was pulled into the world of acting with roles in small movies like Renaissance Man and The Basketball Diaries. When he played a bad boyfriend in the 1995 thriller Fear, he started being taken more seriously as an actor, and his starring role in P.T. Anderson’s porn drama Boogie Nights furthered Wahlberg’s credibility as a serious dramatic actor. For his next movie, he led the ensemble action film The Big Hit in 1998. It was the #1 movie in its late April opening despite making less than $11 million its opening weekend.

The next year, Wahlberg teamed with actor George Clooney for the first time when they played Iraqi soldiers in the David O. Russell’s Three Kings, a decent sized hit, then they reunited for Clooney’s next project, the big budget summer blockbuster The Perfect Storm, directed by Wolfgang Peterson. That would become Wahlberg’s first significant blockbuster hit by grossing $180 million. Shortly after, Wahlberg was hired by Tim Burton to star in his Planet of the Apes remake, which made $68 million its opening weekend becoming Wahlberg’s second consecutive $180 million hit, although it was very poorly received by the fans due to the lame ending.

Wahlberg next appeared in the Clooney-produced rock drama Rock Star, teamed with Jennifer Aniston, but it did very little business in its early September opening a little over a month after Planet of the Apes. His next movie, a remake of the 1963 thriller Charade directed by Jonathan Demme was an even bigger flop, grossing just $5 million in moderate late October release.

At this point, one might assume that Wahlberg’s career had hit a slump, but he returned to action movies and remakes (his third) in the summer of 2003 with The Italian Job, which became a sleeper hit, grossing $100 million. After a side trip into the ensemble cast of David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, Wahlberg headlined John Singleton’s action-drama Four Brothers with Tyrese Gibson and Andre Benjamin, another substantial hit for the actor, opening at #1 with $21 million. Most recently, Wahlberg has been keeping busy by executive producing the hit HBO comedy “Entourage,” which was loosely based on his own life in the limelight.

His new movie Invincible is a smart career move because it’s set in the ‘70s, much like Boogie Nights, and it involves the popular sport of football, something that will go over well with Wahlberg’s male fans. He will continue what should be a strong year by starring in Martin Scorsese’s remake (another one!) The Departed.