This weekend features the box office battle Chris Rock vs. Chris Rock. He's an inmate in both, though in one he's locked inside an animated zoo and the other he's in a prison surrounded by two-dimensional characters. No matter which comes out on top, they'll both be the bitch of Star Wars.
The Longest Yard:
It isn't the season for football movies, not even high concept retreads with a lot of star power. Besides, Sandler has already done football. He's also done hockey/golf and baseball (sort of). He does get to play a little basketball in The Longest Yard at least, but I'm really waiting for the moment that he starts coaching a bunch of loser kids. Maybe he can do the field hockey movie I've been waiting for. I see him coaching a bunch of teenage girls. I don't know why.
I mean, as long as he's not playing the loveable moron of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, films that had an original, at times odd, sense of humor and instead is pairing up with Chris Rock doing conventional jokes, he really should go to the bottom of sports comedy barrels.
Madagascar:
It has been ten years since the embarassing Don Bluth animation The Pebble and the Penguin and time for those adorable little flightless birds to be cool again. Between Madagascar and the documentary March of the Penguins (aka The Emperor's Journey for those who were at Sundance) 2005 is the year they regain status as the cutest aquarium and zoo attraction ever invented (yes, invented. you think God made such a creature?). Penguins are entertaining in whatever form the cinema presents: as muppets (The Muppets Take Manhattan); as giant hallucinations (Billy Madison); with battle gear (Batman Returns); and as Dick Van Dyke's dancing partners (Mary Poppins). No depiction is better, however, than the conniving robber penguin of the Wallace & Gromit short The Wrong Trousers. The penguins of Madagascar are reminiscent of that Nick Park classic and it was wise for Dreamworks to feature them in the trailer despite the fact that they are not the stars.
Unfortunately 2005 is also the year of the zebra and we saw how they fared with Racing Stripes. I wish that Sean Penn had voiced the character after his brilliant line about the two-toned animals in last year's The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
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