Some new trailers for films I likely won’t see: Orlando Bloom, Bill Paxton, and Bobby Cannavale face trouble in paradise in the new trailer for Haven, Brian De Palma and James Ellroy return to their respective wheelhouses with Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, and Hillary Swank in the true-crime thriller The Black Dahlia (not to be confused with Hollywoodland), Buffy faces the Case of the Haunted House in this look at The Return, and Napoleon Dynamite takes on Billy Bob Thornton (with Todd Louiso, Horatio Sanz, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Ben Stiller in tow) in the new frat pack venture, School for Scoundrels. Ok, I might catch Dahlia for the Ellroy/Eckhart factor, although I’ve been burned by too many bad De Palma flicks of late. Snake Eyes, Mission to Mars and Femme Fatale, anyone?
Tag: Brian DePalma
Clobbering Time?
Lots of fanboy speculation on the web today…The Fantastic Four is still looking for a director after losing Peyton (“Bring It On“) Reed, and apparently the short list includes Steven Soderbergh and Sean Astin. According to this Astin Q&A, both could bring George Clooney to the table as Reed Richards, which is great casting. I like Naomi Watts as the Invisible Woman, but she’s going to be busy with PJ’s Kong, and I could see Soderbergh going for one of his regulars, like Mary McCormack. Orlando Bloom as The Human Torch also works, although it could just as easily be Paul Walker or some other pretty-boy. And The Thing…well, I’d expect he’d be CGI, but you’ll need a Ben Grimm. Vin Diesel? Gary Sinise? I always thought the space-ship sequences in Brian DePalma’s otherwise-terrible Mission to Mars would’ve made a great intro to FF, with Tim Robbins (Reed Richards), Connie Nielsen (Sue Richards), Jerry O’Connell (Johnny Storm), and Sinise (Ben Grimm). At any rate, if FF does go to Soderbergh, let’s just hope he doesn’t pull an Ang-Lee.
Another Movie Night.
After having fun with last week’s triple feature, I threw another movie catch-up-a-thon last night. (I should do this more often…I’ve been neglecting the joys of renting lately.) I still vividly recall one night in the summer after high school, when I was working at Blockbuster and could partake of 10 free movies a week, that I was staggered by Reservoir Dogs, Glengarry Glen Ross, One False Move, and A Midnight Clear, all seen for the first time. That’s the kind of evening you hope for, but, suffice to say, last night didn’t quite measure up.
Full Frontal: Although it shows (very)-occasional flashes of promise and gets better as it goes along, this film about film was sadly chaotic, self-indulgent, and boring. I found the first forty minutes or so to be almost unwatchable, particularly the scenes of Blair Underwood and Julia Roberts struggling with their quasi-improv Rendezvous. As the various plot strands come together, the movie finally establishes some momentum (and the film v. life message gets ever more heavy-handed), but too little too late. As far as actors go, the standouts were David Hyde Pierce as a depressed cuckold and Nicky Katt as Hitler in The Sound and the Fuhrer. In fact, the best scenes of the movie were of Hitler (a) breaking up with Eva Braun (“I’m just really into my work right now”) and (b) checking his pager (“#%$@ Goebbels again…Thinks it’s a toy. ‘Getting a haircut’…what an asshole.”) And I would have liked to see more of blonde Julia – her scene with the assistant had more life in it than the rest of her performance combined. But, all-in-all, this film is a pretentious waste of time. After Out of Sight, Traffic, and The Limey, Stephen Soderbergh took a big step backward with this bad boy.
Femme Fatale: Oh Lordy, this flick is terrible. Can’t say I’m a huge Brian DePalma fan, but I rented this ’cause I’ve heard from a number of people that it was a return to form for him. And I suppose it is, if by return-to-form you mean Mission to Mars and Snake Eyes. (Ebert gave this movie four stars, suggesting once again that the man might be on crack.) The first fifteen minutes or so, involving a Cannes jewel heist replete with illicit sex, surveillance cameras, and anorexic supermodels (De Palma clearly has a David Kelley problem when it comes to women) comes off as the type of well-made, trashy, and self-derivative suspense flick I expected from De Palma. But, almost immediately thereafter, it runs off the rails, and ends up [[Spoilers, not that it really matters] being his nonsensical version of Vanilla Sky. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is a trooper about it all, I suppose, but there’s nothing she can really do…this film is bloody awful. To paraphrase Marcy Playground, I smell sex and cameras…but mama, it surely was a dream.
Jackass: If you’ve seen the ads, you probably already know whether or not this film will appeal to you: You’re either going to find it hilarious or repellent (or probably both). I was sickened and disgusted, and there were times I was laughing so hard that Berkeley thought there was something wrong with me. Although I generally thought the Knoxville stuff was funnier than Steve-O’s fratboyisms, Alligator Tightrope may just be the dumbest, most nightmarish and cringe-funny thing I’ve seen all year. (I also thought they made a tactical mistake going to Tokyo, since I’d assume Japanese television audiences are even more attuned to bizarre stunts than we are.) Truly sick, twisted, and depraved, but, I have to say, it redeemed the evening.
Anger Management: (I saw this this morning.) Whatever Jackass‘s many many faults, at least Knoxville & Co. go for it. Much like the equally disappointing Old School (and, I suspect, Bruce Almighty), Anger Management takes a potentially hilarious premise and completely ruins it by trying to be an all things to all people feel-good film. I still think Happy Gilmore is a truly funny movie, but at this point I’ve gotten kinda sick of Sandler’s nice-guy-in-an-angry-body (or vice versa) schtick. Jack Nicholson brings nothing to the table, most of the cameos are groan-worthy, and the prodigious comedic talents of Luis Guzman and John Turturro are completely wasted by lousy writing. And then there’s the resolution, which was so sickeningly saccharine that I thought I’d need anger management myself by the end. Yet another watered-down mainstream Hollywood comedy in what now seems like an endless string of ’em. Memo to the studio heads: When it comes to the funny business, don’t try to make me a better person. Just make me laugh.