This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in his Jedi robes and grabs his lightsaber, heading to the theater to see the 3D re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. While there, he faces a sea of estrogen as ladies of all type swarm into the multiplex to see Channing Tatum’s abs multiflex. After using his lightsaber to break through the wall of pre-Valentine’s Day ladies, he faces more obstacles with twentysomething dudes heading out to see Safe House and obnoxious families to see Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Fortunately for Kevin, he is able to dispatch everyone with his Rock-inspired “pec pop of love.” It was an early Valentine’s Day massacre.

If Hollywood has taught us anything about the CIA it’s that those bastards really can’t be trusted. The exception to the rule is that the lower the character is on the agency’s totem pole the more honorable and good they’ll most likely be. They’re naive idealists who have yet to be molded by the big, bad world into heartless, morally bankrupt pricks motivated by warped patriotism and self interest. Which brings us to Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), a low level agent stationed at the same, boring post for the last twelve months. He’s a “housekeeper” at a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, and every day he waits for a coded call alerting him to the imminent arrival of an incoming “guest.” The call finally comes when Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) mysteriously turns himself into the local US embassy after a decade on the run as an ex-agent turned traitor and killer. He’s moved to the safe house and immediately interrogated via water-boarding and harsh language. But when the inaccurately named safe house is attacked by a gaggle of heavily armed men Weston finds himself tasked with his guest’s safety and on the run from killers both foreign and domestic. The result is a film that offers no surprises in its story or character arcs but still manages to thrill with some stellar action sequences and two talented and charismatic leads. (That’s right. Two.)

On the eve of the Berlinale, Swedish director Daniel Espinosa joins us to talk about waterboarding Denzel Washington and the mind games of Safe House. Plus, we look forward to a few films to catch in Berlin, and it’s Matt Singer versus Alison Willmore in a Filmspotting: SVU showdown of Movie News Quizzing. Download This Episode

Back in May, the illustrious Matt Patches put together a list so honest, so compelling, so original, that I had absolutely no choice but to copy it almost totally wholesale to craft my own version. Patches’s list was comprised of eight films his previous girlfriends had forced him to watch that made him who he is today (the list was, of course, titled “8 Movies My Past Girlfriends Forced Me to Watch That Made Me Who I Am Today” because we here at FSR are nothing if we are not succinct). The list, while interesting on a purely cinematic basis, also said something surprisingly deep about the nature of relationships themselves – mainly when it comes to the all-important element of compromise. Patches, a gentleman and a scholar, found some compelling honesty in his consistently sweet tales of cinematic (and romantic) discovery. My list starts off with a film that made me realize my first boyfriend was possibly also interested in other men. That’s just the sort of list this is. Here are seven movies that seven different suitors all “forced” me to watch at different points in my (admittedly still young) cinematic life. More than any individual lesson each film taught me, together the list forms one giant reminder of what I love best about going to the movies – endless possibility. Take a peek at my list after the break, and then feel free to pipe in with any films that someone made you watch that ultimately changed your [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Argentinean director Juan José Campanella’s 2009 release The Secret in Their Eyes was a well-liked movie. It even won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Despite all of its accomplishments though, it had two fatal flaws at its center: it wasn’t in English and it didn’t have any big Hollywood stars. What were they thinking? Luckily those wrongs are now set to be righted, as Breach director Billy Ray is putting together an English-language remake for all of us to properly enjoy. That’s one of the big flaws taken care of, but what about the other? Twitch is reporting that Ray will be taking care of that problem as well, as the production has sent an offer to Denzel Washington to star. If he accepts, he will be taking over the role of a former legal counselor who sets out to write a book about a brutal murder/death/kill rape that happened earlier in his career and never got resolved. After that some hard-boiled detective stuff takes place. There are girls, mysterious guys in photos, and the matter of drunken partners to deal with. No word yet on who is going to play the girls or the drunken partner in this remake, but if Denzel accepts his offer I would imagine a mad dash to get cast alongside him will start taking place. Finally, The Secret in Their Eyes will get its chance at being a perfect film.

Man, sometimes these things just write themselves! Paramount Pictures has just sent over what will be Friday’s last gasp casting announcement before we all go home for the weekend and watch Unstoppable or The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 or something similar on a loop because, duh, that’s what weekends are for. And if that’s how you’re spending your weekends, have I got a treat for you! Denzel Washington is set to star in another film about mass transportation! Can we just get that Speed reboot going now, just to round out his resume? Washington will star in Robert Zemeckis’ Flight for Paramount, proving that no one knows how to steer things like Denzel. Written by John Gatins (who most recently penned Real Steel – man, this guy loves technology!), the film will star Washington as “a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a heroic feat of flying in a damaged plane, saving 98 lives on a flight carrying 106 people. While the world begs to embrace him as a true American Hero, the everyman struggles with this label as he is forced to hold up to the scrutiny of an investigation that brings into question his behavior the night before the doomed flight.” So it’s basically the story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger with a hefty dose of self-reflection and probably a bunch of awkward Today Show appearances and likely a big secret reveal round the hour and fiften minute mark? Eh, I could be on board for this one (see what [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Like sappy movies? Well then, have I got some news for you. Imagine a movie produced by Will Smith, written and directed by The Blind Side’s John Lee Hancock, and starring the one and only Denzel Washington. Can you comprehend the sheer force of drama that would be created from the perfect storm colliding of all these inspirational storytellers? You might not have to, because it might be happening; and in a film that suddenly makes my stupid storm metaphor seem to be in bad taste. Oh well, let’s venture on.

The upcoming Daniel Espinosa-directed thriller Safe House continues to fill out its cast. The film is said to be about a CIA safe house where criminals are detained, a young agent who acts as house sitter to the institution, and his attempts at moving a high profile criminal to another location once the house is under attack by a villainous organization. Denzel Washington was the first on board, playing the criminal who needs to get moved, and Ryan Reynolds signed up soon afterwards to play the young CIA agent. Now the rest of the cast is starting to come together as a start date looms. According to Deadline Kurpinova, Vera Farmiga has joined the cast, playing the CIA operative who supervises Reynolds’s character.  This choice was probably a no-brainer for the film’s casting agents as Farmiga has become something of a go-to whenever you need a slightly older, yet still attractive woman to play some sort of authority figure. Whether it be a doctor, or a successful businesswoman, or what have you, throw Farmiga in some business clothes and you’re good to go. Most recently she was seen in Source Code playing, you guessed it, a government agent. Say what you will about type casting, but Farmiga is a solid actress and playing these sorts of character roles is a great way to build a robust filmography and work with a lot of other great people. Plus, you have to appreciate the lady, because every time she gets cast in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

I’ve always found Robert Zemeckis’s films to be hit or miss. Lately he’s been pretty solidly in the miss category though. Sometimes it’s hard to remember he directed films like Back to the Future or Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Movies that were full of genre weirdness, but were undeniably mainstream because they had that certain Robert Zemeckis touch. It’s even kind of hard to remember that he made the movie with perhaps the most universal appeal of all time in Forrest Gump. It’s hard to remember because of the last ten years of weird looking, off putting, motion capture animation movies that he’s insisted on making. His next film was set to be another of those creepy exercises in something nobody ever asked for, this time a motion capture take on the Beatles classic Yellow Submarine, but then Mars Needs Moms tanked at the box office. Suddenly the hammer was put down on weird, experimental forms of animation, and that left Zemeckis scrambling to find a script for a live action film to direct.

When there’s a runaway train loaded up with a half dozen cars of molten phenol, which makes it a missile the size of the Chrysler Building, there’s only one person to call. Scratch that. There’s two people to call: Malcolm X and Captain Kirk. Only they can save the city of Stanton, Pennsylvania from being decimated by anything the size of the Chrysler Building. Grab your engineer’s hat, pull the air horn and knock back a few beers (after all, a train’s on rails, so it’s not really driving). Enjoy a drinking game that is really unstoppable. (Yeah, we went there.)

Every day, come rain or shine or internet tubes breaking, Film School Rejects showcases a trailer from the past. This trailer knows where it came from. Denzel Washington turns in a powerful performance as the most famous civil rights leader with a letter for a last name. In Spike Lee’s best film, a man rises up as a follower to become a leader, telling people that it’s time to stand up. Think you know what it is? Check out the trailer after the jump.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr is like a runaway train filled with toxic chemicals. He could derail and explode at any moment. And it’s a good thing Tony Scott isn’t making a movie of his life because there aren’t enough whip pans and helicopter shots to capture his awesomeness. While he raps Scott’s knuckles with a railroad tie, he also gets giddy over the beautiful Rachel McAdams and gives some props to the Brothers Strause for the effects in Skyline. And then he explodes, and all the toxic chemicals threaten to wipe out a small town in Pennsylvania.

The general consensus on Ridley Scott’s little brother Tony seems to be that he’s the lesser talent. All style, no substance, never met a tripod he didn’t throw to the ground and hump… he’s the rugged and rowdy to Ridley’s respectable and refined. The truth is though that both brothers are hit or miss in general, and when they go head to head the numbers actually favor Tony. In the six times prior that the two have released films in the same year, Tony leads 3:2 (1996 is a draw as the films were White Squall and The Fan, both of which left the audience as the real losers). Which brings us to 2010… one of them released a bloated, confused, and miscast film that removed the magic from a well known legend. The other directed Unstoppable. A cargo train in Pennsylvania is on the move… without a single person on-board. Human error sets the half mile-long train in motion, and soon it’s powering its way through everything in its path. Bad goes to worse when the train’s cargo is revealed to include dangerously combustible chemicals! And the emergency safety systems are inoperable! And a train-load of adorable children are on the tracks ahead! Also ahead are Frank (Denzel Washington) and Will (Chris Pine), two rail employees who’ve just met and already don’t like each other. Frank is an old-timer being forced to retire and Will is the young upstart groomed to replace him. Their train is heading straight towards [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

“It’s a great script and a great property,” an enthusiastic Robert Rodriguez told The Los Angeles Times when asked about the draft of Deadpool from Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The project, which is still slated to star Ryan Reynolds as the “merc with a mouth,” has been on and off the backburners at Fox ever since X-Men Origins: Wolverine released at the beginning of last summer. One thing standing in its way: Ryan Reynolds is a hot commodity. He’s just wrapped shooting on Green Lantern for Warner Bros., where the studio is already developing not one, but two sequels. But while Reynolds is not only wrapped up in Lantern, but about a half-dozen other projects, the likes of Rodriguez does present an interesting proposition.

Science Fiction is, sadly, not always seen as high art. However, there are some brilliant acting talents who have dared to slum it in the world of science fiction. Here’s the 15 most notable ones.

We’re spending all week celebrating war movies. Today we learn what happens when a group of men who have been marginalized by their country fight for it.

Kevin Carr sits his chubbiness down and sees if The Book of Eli, The Spy Next Door and The Lovely Bones can make the grade.

The Fat Guys suffer through the January Sewer, which is the weeks of the new year that hold very little hope for quality films. They haven’t seen anything this week, due to non-screenings and late screenings, so they talk about the upcoming Spider-Man reboot.

Following in the grand tradition of post-apocalyptic films featuring lone heroes on epic adventures, The Book of Eli features a man who takes thirty years to walk across America. Didn’t Forrest Gump make the same journey in under one?

Just in case you’ve been hankering for another ‘last man on Earth’ movie, here comes Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli.