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Selling for Simpson
Some stores reward their best workers with raises or prime parking spaces. The top seller at the fictional Super Club warehouse store in Employee of the Month (PG-13) gets to date Jessica Simpson. There's a job her ex-husband Nick Lachey won't be applying for.
Simpson takes a second stab at movie stardom after The Dukes of Hazzard didn't do the trick. Her boots were made for walking on screen and on the soundtrack, but critics and audiences mostly walked all over her performance. Perhaps Simpson is just trying to out-do pop music rival Britney Spears by starring in two movies.
Employee of the Month casts the blond dumbshell as Amy, a new Super Club cashier who will only date winners of the sales competition. That bodes well for Vince (Dax Shepard, Zathura: A Space Adventure) who has 17 of those prizes. Something about Amy inspires slacker Zack (Dane Cook) to work harder, creating a messy love triangle on aisle 9.
Simpson and Cook reportedly were romantically involved during production as her marriage failed, leading gossipers to believe they would be the next "Vaughniston," or "Bennifer." Now they're "just good friends," which in show biz means it's over. At least they could have stuck it out until the movie opened, as smart publicity hounds do.
Employee of the Month was screened too late for Weekend. A review will be published Friday on Page 2B.
- STEVE PERSALL, Times film critic
Prelude to a 'Massacre'
The 2005 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was cool enough for another round with the homicidal hulk Leatherface, still crazy after 32 years. Rather than remaking the campy 1986 sequel - hey, Dennis Hopper's still working - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (R) details how a child abandoned in a trash dumpster grew into a memorable murderer.
Don't expect deep, Dr. Phil psychoanalysis. The real reason for this movie to exist is that lining up photogenic people to be slaughtered by familiar sociopaths still makes money.
This time, the victims-to-be include two friends (Taylor Handley, Matthew Bomer) on a road trip before shipping out to the Vietnam War. Of course they take a couple of hotties (Jordana Brewster, Diora Baird) along for the ride. After an auto accident, they're "rescued" by the local sheriff (R. Lee Ermey) who's part of an inbred clan of cannibals living on an abandoned farm. Even a prequel won't stray much from the grisly formula from there.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning wasn't screened in time for Weekend.
- S.P.