Movies: Lakeview Terrace and Ghost Town
By Erik Samdahl
I’ve been asked to cover this week’s Hollywood movie releases, and while I have the urge to recommend Ghost Town, which stars that funny British guy from "The Office" – since News:Lite is run by a bunch of funny British people – I have to go with Lakeview Terrace, which appears guaranteed to not feature a single British accent.
Of course, nationalities have nothing to do with my preference – Ghost Town looks mildly amusing even if utterly unoriginal as far as man-almost-dies-but-is-saved-but-now-can-see-annoying-dead-people-who-want-him-to-do-things-for-him kind of flicks – instead, the thought of Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Wilson (Little Children and Hard Candy) as two quarreling neighbors makes my blood boil.
Wilson, a white guy, moves into a new L.A. home with his wife (Kerry Washington), a black woman, and apparently his next door neighbor (Jackson) isn’t too fond of their interracial marriage or lovemaking in the backyard swimming pool. Samuel L. goes on to harass Wilson to the breaking point, the twist being that Wilson has nowhere to turn, since Samuel L. is a cop. That just ain’t right.
Lakeview Terrace probably wants to be Training Day and will come nowhere close, and may just have to settle for entertaining-thriller classification. Or, given its ominous September release date, it may have to settle for just a few dollars (or pounds, whichever you prefer) at the box office.
Of course, families can find their way to Igor, a CGI-animated flick about Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant (or some variation of that premise), and those looking for more crappy but raunchy Dane Cook humor can partake in My Best Friend’s Girl, Cook’s latest attempt to prove he’s really not that funny. Sadly, I sort of want to see this one, if not just to see Kate Hudson.
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Eirk Samdahl is a Seattle based marketing director and movie buff, he has been writing online about the latest big-screen goings on since 1998, check out his site FilmJabber
