A friendly little T-Rex wants to play in Jurassic Park (Universal)

The Stone Late Night Movies closes out its 2008 season with a T-Rex sized epic, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park on Wednesday September 24 at 8:00pm at the Stone World Bistro & Gardens located at 1999 Citracado Parkway in Escondido. But since watching this film outdoors and with beer readily available might lead to some rowdiness, art director Mike Palmer has decided to screen the film with the "rifftrax" or "commentary" by Mike Nelson (of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame) and Weird Al Yankovic! Since the dinosaurs were the main attraction for me, this sounds like a perfect way to watch the film.

The outdoor venue at Stone World Bistro.

The new trailer for Bond 22, Quantum of Solace recently came out so I had to put it up. This new trailer reveals more plot and lets us see a little more of the characters that will be in play in this latest James Bond outing. This trailer promotes the new release date of November 14. Can't wait to see how Daniel Craig handles his second outing as 007.

Robert DeNiro and AL Pacino are New York cops in Righteous Kill (Overture Films)

Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro are two of my favorite actors. They both appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974) and it was tantalizing  because each one's scenes brushed up against the other although the two actors never shared screen time. (DeNiro played the young Vito Corleone in flashbacks and Pacino his adult son Michael.) So close and yet so far! Then came Michael Mann's crime thriller Heat (1995) in which Pacino and DeNiro played cop and thief. But again it was mostly a tease because the two only acted together in one scene. So the potential fireworks from having these two acting dynamos perform together still felt untapped. Now Righteous Kill (opening September 12 throughout San Diego) comes along and promises to have them onscreen together for most of the film. Could this finally be the movie I've been waiting for? Building my hopes is that writer Russell Gewirtz penned the twisty Inside Man, but raising a red flag is director Jon Avnet, the man behind the disastrous 88 Minutes.

You can also listen to our discussion of Righteous Kill from the KPBS Film Club of the Air.

Nicolas Cage plays a hit man in Thailand in Bangkok Dangerous (Lionsgate)

Bangkok Dangerous (opened September 5 throughout San Diego) is one of a growing number of films that studios choose not to screen for critics. Bangkok Dangerous is a remake of the 1999 Thai film of the same name, and it's once again being directed by the Hong Kong born twin filmmakers Oxide and Danny Pang. Watching the Hollywood remake, though, was like watching a wild bird get its wings clipped and then placed in a cage. It was just so sad.

Emily Mortimer is an American abroad in Transsiberian (First Look International)

Transsiberian (opening August 29 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) is a kindred spirit to the recent Tell No One (still playing at Landmark's La Jolla Village Cinemas). Both films present themselves as thrillers with crimes, cops, deceit, and innocent victims fueling their tense and occasionally violent narratives. But the real and somewhat disguised core of both films is the marital relationship of the main characters. Tell No One was an obsessed love story dressed up as a thriller about murder and deception while Transsiberian is a film about a marriage under pressure despite its trappings as a tale of drug trafficking and international intrigue.

In case you haven't heard, the latest Harry Potter film (The Half-Blood Prince) has been postponed until 2009. Since Harry vacated the highly coveted just-before-Thanksgiving November 21 open date, the eagerly anticipated vampire film Twilight moved up and so too has Bond 22. The latest Bond film will now bow on November 14. So with the change of release dates, I thought that was a perfect excuse to post up the trailer for Quantum of Solace. I can't tell you how excited I am about Quantum of Solace. I have been a Bond fan since I was a little kid. I played the Goldfinger soundtrack so many times that I drove my parents insane! But after Sean Connery left the franchise I have been sorely disappointed with the actors playing Bond -- until Daniel Craig. The 2006 Casino Royale kicked ass and Craig was a hot, sexy new Bond. Quantum of Solace supposedly picks up right where Casino Royale left off, and based on the trailer it looks to maintain the same high level of gritty action and intensity.  It's so great to once again eagerly look forward to 007's next adventure, something I couldn't do for the four decades when Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan were playing the role. So here's to Bond 22, may it be as good as it's predeccessor... or maybe even better. The only bummer is that I now have to wait an extra week to see it. The release date change also means they can't do the clever trick with the O's and 7 in the title at the end of the trailer for the release daye. Trailer is courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Jason Statham gets behind the wheel of the remake Death Race (Universal)

For a moment it seemed like the off screen drama surrounding Death Race (opening August 22 throughout San Diego) might be more interesting than the onscreen action. The Hollywood remake of the 70s B-movie Death Race 2000 was hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit from writer Adam Stone claiming that the upcoming redo of the 1975 Roger Corman production is based on a script he pitched to director Paul W.S. Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt. Stone was attempting to prevent the film's release only days before it was meant to hit theaters. The tension and build up around whether the film could open or not may prove more compelling than the story we end up with on the screen. But if I was Stone I might want to distance myself from this new Death Race and its lame script.

View this you must if a fan you call yourself... Yoda in the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Warner Brothers)

Depending on how you look at it, George Lucas is either expanding his Star War franchise to please a rabid fan base or he's milking his one good idea yet again to exploit its popularity. The latest entry is the animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars (opening August 15 throughout San Diego), which -- in the SW chronology -- takes place somewhere between Episodes II and III, and continues the timeline of the short interstitial animations that ran on Cartoon Network back in 2003 that were known as Star Wars: Clone Wars ("The" has been added to "Clone Wars" for the theatrical release). An animated series of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is set to follow.

The cast of Tropic Thunder (Paramount)

I remember Monty Python's John Cleese stating on a talk show that people need to be offended - often. Well Tropic Thunder (opening August 13 throughout San Diego) seems to have already struck a sensitive nerve as protests are already rolling in about the film's use of the word "retard" and it's depiction of a mentally handicapped person. The film also has the potential to offend with white actor Robert Downey, Jr. essentially donning "blackface" to play an African American character. But those are only the two most overt offenses in a film ripe with political incorrectness. Others who may want to line up at the complaint department are gays, priests, obese people, Vietnam vets, Asians, animal lovers... umm, let's see, who did I leave out? But before you decide to join any of the boycotts or protests, consider this, the real butt of all the jokes is Hollywood as writer-director-producer-star Ben Stiller nibbles at if not outright bites the hand that feeds him.

Tropic Thunder opens today throughout San Diego. My review will be up later today. In the meantime, enjoy this featurette about the cast. Ben Stiller serves as writer, producer, director, and star, while Robert Downey, Jr. plays a balck man. He what? That's right, Downey essentially dons "black face" to play an Austrailian actor playing an African American soldier. That's just one of the gags that push the bounds of political correctness to its possible breaking point. Take a look at the video and see if you find it funny or offensive. Featurette is courtesy of Paramount.