Recent trailers: Jim Carrey goes bonkers for Joel Schumacher in the trailer for The Number 23 (Looks like MJ and LeBron have a lot to answer for), Steve Carell takes Carrey’s old job in the new teaser for Evan Almighty, and everybody — including Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Peter Berg, Ryan Reynolds, Common, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, and Alicia Keys — wants to kill Jeremy Piven in this look at Joe Carnahan’s Smoking Aces (I feel that way sometimes too.)
Tag: Joel Schumacher
Going Back to the Well.
In the Bad Idea film bin today, De Niro and Scorsese contemplate a Taxi Driver 2, Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs becomes a TV series, and Joel Schumacher is currently hard at work creating a “10th Anniversary Extended Director’s Cut” of Batman & Robin. Oof…is that really necessary?
Phantom Menaces.
Some recent trailers: Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Pete Postlethwaite, and Camryn Mannheim need to call the Super in the Ring-esque trailer for Dark Water, and Joel Schumacher channels Troy McClure in this overstuffed Batman and Robin-ish look at Phantom of the Opera. I know I’m probably in the minority on this one, but if forced to choose between neverending streams of brackish water and the incessant playing of Andrew Lloyd Webber showtunes, I’d take the former.
Captain Kinsey and the Phantom’s Treasure.
Several new trailers have emerged since the last update around here: Along with a new look at Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (looks bluescreen-ish, to be sure), Liam Neeson channels Alfred Kinsey, Joel “I tanked the Batman franchise” Schumacher goes after Phantom of the Opera, and Nicolas Cage, Sean Bean, and Helen of Troy undertake a search for political booty in National Treasure. Of these new three, I might pay money to see Kinsey.
The Trials of St. Veronica.
Caught Veronica Guerin over the weekend, and, well, frankly, don’t bother. I had hoped Cate Blanchett might make this project interesting, but this by-the-numbers Joel Schumacher schmaltzfest never rises above the level of a Lifetime channel movie of the week. It breezes through scene after scene of Guerin’s tough-as-nails-with-a-heart-of-gold interview style and the obligatory home v. work domestic squabbles like Scriptwriting 101, and never gives us a very interesting portrait of its protagonist, other than to cast her as some neglected patron saint of journalism. Similarly, the bad guys have become really bad — While the real Guerin took on a cannabis cartel, this film’s gangsters are trafficking in heroin, resulting in grim visions of needle parks, toddlers playing with syringes, strung-out teenagers prostituting themselves, and sundry other shocking evils that have little basis in Guerin’s real story. If anything, the film’s dependence on so many standard cinematic cliches is a disservice to the real Veronica Guerin, who was murdered by Dublin’s criminal element for exposing the truth to the light of day. Why obscure her tale and besmirch her ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty by stripping it of the character nuances and human complexities that separate the real world from dramatic convention? A sadly mechanical genre exercise devoid of anything but formula, Veronica Guerin is a missed opportunity and a shame.