Pride and Glory
Opening March 14, 2008
The family/fraternity of cops thing has been done before (Striking Distance, the Departed, Cop Land), but never with a title that so strongly invoked sports films. Ed Norton, who's boundlessly capable but due for a hit (commercial or otherwise), stars as conflicted cop, Ray Tierney, whose investigation into misdeeds, murder, and corruption within the department could lead him dangerously close to his brother (Noah Emmerich) and brother-in-law (Colin Farrell). The strong cast should buoy the familiar material. Thanks to In Bruges, Farrell has hopefully shaken the good-actor-in-bad-films tag. Also, Jon Voight should spruce up the thankless patriarch roll - he plays Tierney Sr. - and I've never seen Emmerich in a film I didn't like (though, I've only seen Beautiful Girls, the Truman Show, and the aforementioned Cop Land). Will there be Mexican standoffs and bravado? There had better be. -S.T.



Funny Games
Opening March 14, 2008
Funny Games director Michael Haneke, the man behind 2005's brilliant Caché, has made this film before. Here he remakes his own 1997 drama for an American audience (it has to be better than the shot-for-shot Psycho redux). Funny Games follows a family's less-than idyllic weekend in the country. Couple George (Tim Roth) and Anna (Naomi Watts) and their son are taken captive by a playful pair of young men (Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet) and subjected to a series of sadistic games. It's A Clockwork Orange meets Infinite Jest with a hint of Rohmer (Baumbach?). The jury is still out on Pitt, who bounds between realistic intensity (Last Days) and slouching DiCaprio impersonation (The Dreamers). Perhaps the Brady Corbet factor (I just made that up; feel free to use it for your master's thesis) will do for Pitt what it did for Joseph Gordon Levitt (see Mysterious Skin) and Evan Rachel Wood (see Thirteen). -S.T.



Run, Fat Boy, Run
Opening March 28, 2008
Boy, those Friends are sure trying hard to find life after sitcom-stardom. David Schwimmer tries his hand at directing with Run, Fat Boy, Run. Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) plays a chunky commitment-phobe named Dennis who leaves Libby (Thandie Newton), his pregnant fiancée, at the alter. He regretfully returns 5 years later and, in order to win her back from her new lover, Whit (Hank Azaria), he must prove himself a new man by running a marathon. Sure. Pegg is typically hilarious and Ross Gellar never misses, so… -R.T.