Trailer - 'Grease' Sing-A-Long Re-Release

Paramount was supposed to have Footloose in theaters this summer. Why the studio is still holding firm with the remake at this point is beyond me. Director and star defections, two delays, now it's skipped to who knows when. It's lost its luster. Sometimes it's better to fold early than get mauled at the end of the hand, you know?

About the only good that has come out of this mess so far is that the studio has decided to fill the summer musical void by re-releasing one of the all-time crowd pleasers in the genre, 1978's Grease. There's a slight alteration, though: This is the sing-a-long version, similar to what happened with Hairspray a few years ago. The difference might be that every woman under the age of 45 knows every word to every song in Grease. So, because it's a one-time thing (a two-week limited engagement), this might actually do some good business. I don't know if the subtitles featured in the trailer are the way they'll appear in the film, but it might be more helpful than following the ol' bouncing ball. Grease returns to theaters on June 25th in Los Angeles, with a roll-out to follow in July.

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Movie Review - 'From Paris With Love'

From Paris With Love Starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers Directed by Pierre Morel Rated R

What a shame that From Paris with Love decides halfway through that it wants you to take it seriously. Because you can't. Not at all. And if director Pierre Morel took a cue from his star, John Travolta, and went strictly for the ridiculous, this could have been fun. Look at it this way: The title is tongue-in-cheek, Travolta is as unbridled as he's ever been (which usually doesn't serve him well), and there's not much of a story going on. So why not play to the limited strengths the film has? Better to be a good bad movie than a bad bad movie, after all. There are simply too many regrettable habits in From Paris with Love that the film shouldn't have even bothered trying to fix them. It begins with the dialogue and extends to what little character development that shows up, and when those two things are afflicted, there's pretty much no hope for anything else. So Travolta does the smart thing: Distract the audience with such a laughable character that the crowd doesn't notice what's really going on. It's like very loud, irritating sleight of hand. Why the film takes a turn for the consequential is just beyond me. Travolta plays a CIA agent named Wax. Naturally, he's the best at his job. How absurd is that? I wouldn't let a guy like that wash my windows, much less work intel for our government overseas. Wax punctuates his conversations with pop culture references, though I suspect that's mostly unconscious as far as the character's concerned. I do wish Travolta had overruled the filmmakers to exclude a tip of the hat to his "Royale with Cheese" speech from Pulp Fiction, but otherwise, it's not a bad affection.

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Video - 'From Paris With Love' Red Band Clip

You know the clip probably isn't safe for work when you can't even print its title without very likely offending people. Welcome, then, to this restricted clip from the new Travolta flick, From Paris With Love.

It's the new film by Taken director Pierre Morel, and I don't mind telling you it doesn't look nearly as good as last year's Liam Neeson flick. Part of that is a rather familiar combination of sources - good cop/bad cap, lots of explosions, and all set in a European world capital - and part of it, frankly, is Travolta. I just don't know who keeps whispering in his ear that he can play these laughing tough guy roles. He's usually OK in other stuff and embarrassing in movies like Swordfish and Face/Off. But they keep hiring him to do it, so maybe that's where the blame should lie. His co-star, Jonathan Rhys Myers, appears to be playing a deer caught in Travolta's headlights, which really isn't a good counter balance to a scene-chewing Vinny Barbarino. So we'll see if it plays out better than the pieces seem to be fitting together. Here's a brief glimpse:

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The Latest Trailer for 'From Paris With Love'

A second trailer for From Paris with Love has been slapped together, and it's only slightly different from the first one. They've thrown in a few snippets from the current schedule of TV commercials, too, so if you've seen those, this won't have a lot to offer.

On the flip side, maybe you're asking what From Paris with Love is. Well, it's the movie that proves what a bad idea it is for John Travolta to shave his head. Big, big melon on that Sweathog. Beyond that, it looks like a fairly typical rough-and-tumble cop/by-the-book cop movie set in Europe, like Rush Hour 2 without racial stereotypes at every turn. So you've got the ol' oil-and-vinegar cop combo, lots of explosions, and what could be a breakthrough for Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who I thought would have had that advantage after Match Point. Oh, and this movie has really cool posters, for what that's worth.

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Disney Puts 'Wild Hogs 2' Back in the Garage

Disney's Rich Ross can not be described as a yes man in his short tenure as the studio's new chairman. Since taking the reins in October, Ross has already restructured the company's expansive marketing (which might explain why I don't get as many free DVDs, huffed the writer), and he pulled the plug on a major project, McG's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo, favoring instead a remake of the studio's The Black Hole.

Last weekend, we wrote that Ross swung the ax at a new Robin Williams-Diane Keaton comedy in the wake of slow performance by Old Dogs. But there's someone else in Old Dogs, and now John Travolta has lost his next PG-rated comedy at the studio. In an unexpected move, Ross has canceled the sequel to one of Disney's most successful start-ups in the past five years, the Travolta buddy pic Wild Hogs. While that movie wasn't good, it wasn't offensively bad, and it made Disney a ton of money. But the opportunity to find another quarter-billion in worldwide receipts was not enough to overcome Ross' doubts about Travolta as a box office draw after Old Dogs has only drawn $42 million in over three weeks.

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