Weekend Movie Forecast: Balls Vs. Babes

Another Will Ferrell sports flick will inflate this weekend, capping off a nationwide “Funny or Die” promotional tour that brought him to Radio City Music Hall Sunday night. The movie is Semi-Pro, which stars Ferrell as Jackie Moon, owner of the 1976 Flint Michigan Tropics, a team in the maverick ABA basketball league. To keep his career alive against all odds, Moon initiates off a series of increasingly desperate publicity stunts to attract fans – behavior that does sound awfully familiar.

The supporting cast is promising, with White Men Can’t Jump’s Woody Harrelson and Blades of Glory vet Will Arnett, but expect the critical backlash against Ferrell to amplify (Village Voice: "semi-funny"), while your college-age siblings quote the dialogue incessantly. Here’s the trailer, which has its moments but isn’t quite as funny as this imaginary interview with Will Ferrell. (Sample: All you ever do is play an idiot who shows off his sloppy body. Do you think America will ever get tired of that? Will: Absolutely not. American film-goers are total idiots.)

Also opening tomorrow is the Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson bodice ripper, The Other Boleyn Girl, adapted from a bestselling novel about the 16th Century Tudor court. Portman and Johansson play the legendary Boleyn sisters, Eric Bana is Henry VIII, and Variety’s Derek Elley calls it “sexy,” with a “fast-moving final act of plot reversals and rolling heads.” And Christina Ricci stars in Penelope, a cutesy modern-day fairy tale about a cloistered socialite (Ricci) who’s stuck with a pig nose thanks to an aristocratic ancestor’s curse. The Village Voice deems Ricci “appealingly human,” the movie “faintly touching.”

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Ramin Bahrani's Willets Point-set film, Chop Shop, which is playing at Film Forum. About an 11-year-old street orphan who lives over an auto-body shop and dreams of a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, the NY Times' A.O. Scott found "lyricism" in its "unsentimental, soulful appreciation of the grace that resides in even the meanest struggle for survival."

Also, the Sunshine Theater has Burning the Future, a documentary about West Virginians fighting the coal companies who have poisoned their ground water and raped the mountains. (You can wash that downer down with a midnight screening of Scarface at the same theater.)

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Arts and Events on February 28, 2008 3:39 PM

Comments [rss]

sergal

Hello dear ladies and gentlemen!

I would like inform you that Scarlett Johansson (actress) actually is a clone from original person, who has nothing with acting career. That clone was created illegally by using stolen biological material. Original person is very nice (not d**n sexy), most important - CHRISTIAN young lady!

I'll tell you guys more, those clones (it's not only one) made in GERMANY - world leader manufacturer of humans clones, it is in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, North Bavaria, Mr. Helmut Kohl home town. You can not even imaging the scale of the cloning activity. But warning! Helmut Kohl clone staff 100% controlling all their clones spreading around the world, they are very accurate with that, some of them are still NAZI type disciplined and mind controlled clones, so be careful get close with clones you will be controlled as well. Think wise..

Apparently those clones are very actively shown on your website. This is just a warning, because original person is not happy about those images and video, rumors and etc., in that way it would be really nice if you try slow down that ''actress'' career development on your magazine, original Scarlett's parents will really appreciated that. Please do that, do not wait until FBI agent give you a call with questions. Please remember that original family did not authorize any activity with stolen biological materials, no matter what form it was created, it all need to be return back to original family control to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. If you ignore warning after this message, there can happen law suit..

Original Scarlett is not engage, by the way!

Her close friend Serge G.

P.S.

H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 5, 2003. After discussion, it was passed on February 27 by a vote of 241-155. It now moves on to the Senate for consideration. This bill makes it unlawful for any person or entity to perform or participate in human cloning, or to ship or receive embryos produced by human cloning. The penalties are imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines of $1 million or more.

These now join other nations as diverse as Norway, Australia, and Germany, which had already added cloning for any purpose to their criminal code. And in Germany where it carries a penalty of five years imprisonment they know a thing or two about unethical science.

JenChungsBaby

Choice of Natalie Portman or Scarlett Johansson? I'd throw Portman overboard faster than you can say Queen Amadala.

Jen Chung

bornbrednewyorker - stop bragging about seeing the great films of the 70s in theaters! But I will say that I did have a good discussion after seeing No Country for Old Men.

Whenever I read how there were great repertory houses and revival houses back then, giving NYers a chance to see all old works as well, I also get sad. But at least there's Netflix.

bornbrednewyorker

I remember when people would get excited for the new Hackman, Deniro, Hoffman or Pacino film but that was back in the 70's when great movies were actually made, people would actually go to a theater and not talk and tickets and concessions were actually affordable.