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Opening this week
Prison inmates compete in ‘Death Race’ while a has-been drummer gets a second chance at fame
Compiled by LEE CLARK ZUMPE
Article published on Monday, Aug. 18, 2008 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/081808_lemovies-01.jpg) |
| Photo by MELINDA SUE GORDON. |
| Anna Faris stars in Columbia Pictures’ comedy “The House Bunny.” |
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PINELLAS COUNTY – A number of new movie releases will hit theaters Aug. 22, including the following:
“Death Race” – In the very near future, the world’s hunger for extreme sports and reality competitions has grown into reality TV bloodlust. Now, the most extreme racing competition has emerged and its contestants are murderous prisoners.
Tricked-out cars, caged thugs and smoking-hot navigators combine to create a juggernaut series with bigger ratings than the Super Bowl.
The rules of the Death Race are simple: Win five events, and you’re set free. Lose and you’re road kill splashed across the Internet.
Action star Jason Statham leads the action-thriller’s cast as three-time speedway champion Jensen Ames, an ex-con framed for a gruesome murder. Forced to don the mask of the mythical driver Frankenstein, a Death Race crowd favorite who seems impossible to kill, Ames is given an easy choice by Terminal Island’s ruthless Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen): Suit up and drive or never see his little girl again. Rated R.
“The House Bunny” – In Columbia Pictures’ comedy “The House Bunny,” Anna Faris charms as Shelley Darlington, a Playboy Bunny who teaches an awkward sorority about the opposite sex – only to learn that what boys really like is what’s on the inside.
Shelley is living a carefree life until a rival gets her tossed out of the Playboy Mansion. With nowhere to go, fate delivers her to the sorority girls from Zeta Alpha Zeta. Unless they can sign a new pledge class, the seven socially clueless women will lose their house to the scheming girls of Phi Iota Mu. In order to accomplish their goal, they need Shelley to teach them the ways of makeup and men; at the same time, Shelley needs some of what the Zetas have – a sense of individuality. The combination leads all the girls to learn how to stop pretending and start being themselves. Rated PG-13.
“The Longshots” – Ice Cube, star of “Are We There Yet? Are We Done Yet?” and “First Sunday,” leads this family comedy, a heartwarming story of the first and only girl quarterback in Pop Warner football history. Curtis Plummer (Ice Cube), a down-on-his-luck former high school football star, turns his niece Jasmine (Keke Palmer) into the quarterback of the local team, the Minden Browns. With Curtis as the new team coach, the team of misfits wins its way to the Pop Warner Super Bowl and he small city of Minden is animated with team spirit, town pride and glory. Rated PG.
“The Rocker” – Robert “Fish” Fishman, the drummer for an ‘80s hair band, was living the rock ‘n’ roll dream ... until he was kicked out of the group.
Now, 20 years later, the desperate rocker joins his nephew’s band, A.D.D., finally reclaiming the rock-god throne he’s always thought he deserved – while taking his much younger bandmates along for the ride of their lives.
Rainn Wilson from “The Office” trades his paper company desk job for rock ‘n’ roll fame, taking on the role of a big, sweaty, out-of-control – and sometimes naked – drummer who gets a second chance at rock superstardom. He’s joined by Christina Applegate (“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”), Jeff Garlin (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Josh Gad (“21”), pop star Teddy Geiger and Emma Stone (“Superbad”). Rated PG-13.
“I.O.U.S.A.” – Opening in limited release is Roadside Attractions’ humorous, provocative and ultimately inspirational look – one that is also consummately non-partisan – at a passionate two-man crusade to halt America’s impending financial meltdown.
The movie examines an enemy of epic proportions facing the United States: the national debt.
This story follows former U.S. Comptroller General Dave Walker and Concord Coalition executive director Bob Bixby, who travel like town criers across America on what they call a “Fiscal Wake Up Tour.” Town by town, they’ve been arming citizens with information about how the country got into a sticky financial mess, why America must act right now to stop it, and what can be done to begin to free the nation from the stranglehold of this colossal debt. Rated PG.
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Article published on Monday, Aug. 18, 2008
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