More Articles By Buzz McClain

• World Combat League: Season One
  ECHO BRIDGE Street: March 4 Prebook: now > Hard-hitting, non-stop action gets this Chuck Norris production off the mat. It's something out of a B-action movie: Six athletes trained in combat martial arts and representing major city teams score points by knocking out opponents using fists, knees and feet. More
  
• Music Within
  MGM/FOX Street: April 8 Prebook: March 12 > Wheelchair-bound Michael Sheen steals the show in this drama about those with disabilities. Ron Livingston brings his droll sincerity to the role of Richard Pimentel, the real-life Vietnam vet deafened in combat who returned home to then combat discrimination of the disabled, eventually leading to the groundbreaking Americans With Disabilities Act. More
  
• The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
  FOX Street: March 18 Prebook: now > Stylish and engrossing fantasy adventure fills the Harry Potter void for tweens. In this fantasy offering based on one of Susan Cooper’s five The Dark Is Rising gothic novels that were published in the ’70s, 14-year-old Will (Alexander Ludwig) discovers he’s an Old One, one of a dwindling number of “Protectors of the Light,” ... More
  
• Little Playdates: Little Friends
  PORCHLIGHT Street: Feb. 26 Prebook: now > Gentle kids-at-play series may have beneficial impact on children with autism. This 30-minute series of activities exposes babies and toddlers to other young kids who are pleasantly busy on the screen with toys, games and pets while familiar songs—“Do Your Ears Hang Low,” “Ring Around the Rosie” and “Down By the B... More
  
• Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
  SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: April 22 Prebook: March 25 > Fitfully funny theatrical version of Canadian TV show may finally find U.S. audiences. Here’s the theatrical version of a long-running, pseudo-doc-styled Canadian cult TV series that centers on alcoholic, pot-smoking petty criminals living together in a mobile home community in Nova Scotia. More
  
• Hitman
  FOX Street: March 11 Prebook: now > Fox makes over-the-top gunfest portable with an easy download feature. A bulked-up Timothy Olyphant (HBO’s Deadwood) brings assassin Agent 47 to life—and a triple-digit number of victims to death—in this fast-moving actioner based on the Eidos first-person shooter videogame. More
  
• The Final Inquiry
  FOX Available now > European sword-and-sandal production pits Romans against Christians. This film offers a new twist on the stale Biblical sword-and-sandal genre. In 35 A.D., a Roman legion is sent to the Holy Land to investigate the rumored resurrection of Jesus as the reason behind the ongoing rebellion against the Empire. More
  
• The Haunting of Rebecca Verlaine
  MTI Street: March 25 Prebook: Feb. 26 > Copious splatter effects meet J-horror spooks in another Ittenbach gorefest. Low-budget maestro Olaf Ittenbach (The Burning Moon, Premutos) mashes together outrageous, if clichéd, splatter effects with the somewhat subtler devices of Asian horror to create a ghost story that will frighten few but will entertain anyone willing to see over-the-top,... More
  
• Ben 10: Race Against Time
  CARTOON NETWORK/WARNER Street: April 8 Prebook: March 4 > Heavily merchandised Ben 10 is positioned to capture boys’ imaginations—and their parents’ disposable income. When this live-action spin-off of Cartoon Network’s popular animated series Ben 10—which finds 10-year-old Ben (Graham Phillips) saving the world from the evil alien Eon—aired in November, ... More
  
• The Cellar Door
  MONTEREY Street: April 8 Prebook: March 11 > Grim little shocker could break out beyond the “torture porn” audience. In this oddly compelling effort, James DuMont plays a doughy, balding, unlikely suburban monster in starched pajamas who abducts gorgeous Michelle Tomlinson for the usual psychotic reasons (he has a wedding fetish and wants her corpse as his bride; he has done thi... More
  
• Them
  DARK SKY/MPI Street: March 25 Prebook: Feb. 18 > French cat-and-mouse thriller based on a true story delivers intense chills. The common fear of a random and violent home invasion is explored to the nth degree in this thriller, based on a true story. Them is basically an extended cat-and-mouse chase through a darkened Romanian chateau and musty catacombs as someone pursues school teacher Ol... More
  
• Experiment
  MTI Street: March 4 Prebook: now > Amnesiac assassins raise interesting questions in this effective, low-budget film. Proof that a small budget ($250,000) goes a long way in Eastern Europe (in this case, Prague), this sci-fi thriller looks bigger than its production costs and uses its ancient surroundings as an effectively cold backdrop. More
  
• National Lampoon Presents The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell
  NATIONAL LAMPOON Street: Jan. 29 Prebook: now > Inept comedy crosses the titular threshold. Kids these days. Give them a camera and a bit of a budget, and they blow it on an amphetamine-driven, post-apocalyptic farce that takes place on a beach—coherency be damned! This Beach Party is a series of jagged comic set pieces, which barely connect to the jumbled jigsaw of a story about the ... More
  
• Rendition
  NEW LINE/WARNER Street: Feb. 19 Prebook: Jan. 15 > Oscar winners abound in this little-seen Traffic-style drama. Stunningly photographed, convincingly acted and smartly written and directed by Gavin Hood (whose last movie, Tsotsi, bought home the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2006), Rendition offers several parallel stories that tackle a controversial issue: the torture of suspected &... More
  
• Swingset Mamas: Sing, Dance and Swing
  These Mamas deliver a creative kidvid that’s bright and melodic. Street: Jan. 8 Prebook: now Conceived in 1999 when childhood friends Lizzie Swan and Marlowe Bachmann both became mothers and shared with each other songs they wrote for their newborns, The Swingset Mamas here offer a 15-song collection of tunes geared for toddlers to second graders. More
  
• The War Bride
  QUESTAR Street: Jan. 15 Prebook: now > Wonderful WWII drama is carried by Pushing Daisies star Anna Friel. Occasional melodramatic potholes in this World War II period romance are overcome by the charismatic energy of leading lady Anna Friel, who plays Cockney lass Lily, who’s wooed and wed by Canadian soldier Charlie (Aden Young) at the height of the Nazi bombing of London. More
  
• Storm Warning
  WEINSTEIN/GENIUS Street: Feb. 5 Prebook: now > French nymph Nadia Fares scores in this chilling revenge thriller from Down Under. Who knew there were depraved hillbillies in Australia? A stylish combo of Deliverance, Straw Dogs and I Spit on Your Grave, Storm Warning boasts a trio of ghastly villains that verily defines Dimension Extreme (as if Dimension needed more extremities). More
  
• All In
  MTI Street: Feb. 5 Prebook: Jan. 8 > MTI gets lucky with this Vegas poker drama. It was a long shot, but the combination of family drama, medical school tensions and Las Vegas poker tournaments turns out to be a winning hand—maybe not a royal flush, but certainly three of a kind. Dominique Swain carries the load as Ace, the poker prodigy in med school who spends her nights in casinos ... More
  
• Lake Placid 2
  FOX Street: Jan. 29 Prebook: now > Scenery-and-cast-chewing crocs scare few, munch many. This seven-years-later sequel asks the comic-horror question: “Do crocodiles eat cheese?” Because if so, there’s enough fromage in this goofy, cliché-exploiting creature feature to keep its prehistoric-sized crocs fed for months. More
  
• Adrift in Manhattan
  SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: Jan. 22 Prebook: Dec. 18 > Dramatic and erotic star turn by Heather Graham will draw fans. There are larger themes at work here—the ability to see, or at least perceive, is the common element—and for very patient viewers who enjoy character studies that are slow to unravel, the aptly named Adrift will be savored. More