DVD Review: Cedar Rapids

Ed Helms’ leading-man debut is a funnier movie than The Hangover Part 2. It’s smarter, too.

Dying is easy and comedy is hard, as the famous adage goes, and by extension of that same logic it’s virtually impossible to get dark comedy right. The wreckage of failed attempts includes the best and the brightest artists of every comedy era, and not a few dramatic creators as well. Dark comedy – black comedy, gallows humor, cringe humor – carries its own additional pitfalls besides the usual minefield of problems awaiting its gentler cousin. And when dark comedy fails, too often the results land with a resounding thud, victims of creative overreach or slipshod understandings of tone.

Cedar Rapids, the often pitch-dark new effort from indie mainstay Miguel Arteta, walks its dark comedy tightrope constantly in danger of falling one way or the other. Though ultimately it succeeds, the suspense of waiting for it to collapse under its own ambitious weight suffuses virtually every scene. You almost come to care about the movie itself as much as its conventional story or oddball characters, wondering when at any second its whole artifice will come crashing down. It never does, thanks largely to its cast.

A star is brown: Helms

Small-town man-child Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is sent by his boss (Stephen Root) at Brownstar Insurance to a regional convention after the agency’s alpha dog (Tom Lennon) dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Lippe isn’t ready for the responsibility, let alone the pressure of bringing home the convention’s “Two Diamond” award that the agency has secured several years in a row. But he goes anyway, propelled by his boss’ bullying. His wide-eyed, gawky enthusiasm, mixed with rustic suspicion for the dangers and promises of the titular “big city,” provide some of the film’s most unguarded moments.

The convention’s hotel (as uniformly cheerless, and cheerlessly uniform, as any of a million such places in America) and the people Lippe encounters there of course compel him to grow up emotionally and sexually. In particular, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of hard-partying, foul-mouthed policy “poacher” Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), comparatively straight-laced Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and the sultry, melancholy Joan (Anne Heche.) The quartet goof their way through the three-day conference while Tim readies his presentation to convention patriarch Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). Moral fortitude and honesty count for a lot in winning the “prestigious” Two Diamond trophy, and in assenting to his new friends’ temptations – including a fling with Joan – Lippe risks costing his company the award.

Artete works well within the small confines of the hotel, showing the confines of each blandly friendly space and how, especially given the inhospitable winter outside, even such slim diversions as hotel bar margaritas and overheated pools can offer a welcome distraction. It helps a lot that Phil Johnston’s script does right by its main character, shrewdly demonstrating Lippe’s fish out of water ups and downs: his new friends are a welcoming, non-judgmental bunch, a distant cry from the McJesus snobbery of his home town co-workers and neighbors – the same people, Lippe is decent enough to remember, that depend on him. Of course everything works out in the end, but not before plenty of debauchery and clean, if slightly mean-spirited, fun.

As a comic leading man, Helms’ strengths center on the same aw, shucks likability that’s served him more or less unwaveringly since his tenure on The Daily Show. Lippe is similar to The Office‘s Andy Bernard, more naive but less obtuse, with a greater vulnerability as a result. It’s tempting to thumbnail Lippe as Bernard freed of The Office‘s self-conscious repetition of character and story beats, but there’s more – a little more – to him than that. Helms makes him sympathetic but stops short of making him pitiable or charismatic.

He’s backed by, well, a dream supporting cast for this type of project. Reilly is a leading man trapped in the body of a character actor, and every one of his scenes tends to upset the tenuous balance Artete strikes between Lippe and his surroundings. In fact for much of the film’s first hour, the energy level rises palpably whenever Reilly’s motor- and foul-mouthed party animal comes onscreen. Comedies often rise or fall on the quotability of their dialogue; Reilly has most of the lines you’ll want to repeat to your friends.

The surprise performance, however, belongs to Heche as the otherwise content soccer mom who uses insurance conventions as a vacation from the staid security of her normal life. Heche is sexy, sad, and smart all at the same time, without resorting to vamping or overheated line readings to achieve said results. Her confession to Lippe about the normalcy of her life and the release of Cedar Rapids carries some of the film’s best writing, and her well-modulated delivery of the scene works as an oasis to the dark shenanigans displayed almost everywhere else. Heche’s career was swallowed years ago by the media’s provincial fascination with her sexuality; this performance earns her a shot at a larger comeback vehicle.

Making the most of smaller roles, Whitlock makes a charming straight man for the others, especially in a late scene in which he gets to spoof his role on The Wire. The prolific Root is hilarious as Lippe’s boss, and Smith brings the same imperial menace to Helgesson that he brought to all those years as That 70s Show‘s Red Foreman. Arrested Development fans may find themselves a little shocked to see Alia Shawkat, Maeby Funke herself, playing the hotel’s prostitute; the role allows her to say filthy things and look sultry, which for a career transition vehicle is possibly as good as it gets right now.

Cedar Rapids shouldn’t be confused for a great film, but it achieves its difficult ambitions while remaining entertaining, and it has the rare gift of growing in your memory after you leave the theatre. If its raunchy gags and sometimes awkward staging keep it from really developing into something approaching a classic modern dark comedy – Rushmore, to make a contemporary example, or Ruthless People - it’s trying for something riskier than the pot and potty humor that dominates too many modern “comedies” (Not least of which, obviously, The Hangover Part II.) It’s also, admittedly, refreshing to encounter a comedy that doesn’t bear Judd Apatow’s factory-pressed mixture of bittersweet nostalgia and stunted male growth.

Dying is easy, dark comedy is hardest, and ultimately Cedar Rapids is a damned funny movie with a cast full of people who should appear more than they do. Given a small release in the theatres last winter, it’s unmissable home video entertainment.

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Review: Cedar Rapids

Ed Helms strikes off on his own, into darker territory than you might expect.

Dying is easy and comedy is hard, as the famous adage goes, and by extension of that same logic it’s virtually impossible to get dark comedy right. The wreckage of failed attempts includes the best and the brightest artists of every comedy era, and not a few dramatic creators as well. Dark comedy – black comedy, gallows humor, cringe humor – carries its own additional pitfalls besides the usual minefield of problems awaiting its gentler cousin. And when dark comedy fails, too often the results land with a resounding thud, victims of creative overreach or slipshod understandings of tone.

Cedar Rapids, the at-times pitch-dark new effort from indie mainstay Miguel Arteta, walks its dark comedy tightrope constantly in danger of falling one way or the other. Though ultimately it succeeds, the suspense of waiting for it to collapse under its own ambitious weight suffuses almost every scene. You almost come to care about the movie itself as much as its conventional story or oddball characters, wondering when at any second its whole artifice will come crashing down. It never does, thanks largely to its cast.

A star is brown: Helms

Small-town man-child Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is sent by his boss (Stephen Root) at Brownstar Insurance to a regional convention after the agency’s alpha dog (Tom Lennon) dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Lippe isn’t ready for the responsibility, let alone the pressure of bringing home the convention’s “Two Diamond” award that the agency has secured several years in a row. But he goes anyway, propelled by his boss’ bullying. His wide-eyed, gawky enthusiasm, mixed with rustic suspicion, for the dangers and promises of the titular “big city” provide some of the film’s most unguarded moments.

The convention’s hotel (as uniformly cheerless, and cheerlessly uniform, as any of a million such places in America) and the people Lippe encounters there of course compel him to grow up emotionally and sexually. In particular, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of  hard-partying, foul-mouthed policy “poacher” Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), comparatively straight-laced Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and the sultry, melancholy Joan (Anne Heche.) The quartet goof their way through the three-day conference while Tim readies his presentation to convention patriarch Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). Moral fortitude and honesty count for a lot in winning the “prestigious” Two Diamond trophy, and in assenting to the group’s temptations – including a fling with Joan – Lippe risks costing his company the award.

Artete works well within the small confines of the hotel, showing the confines of each blandly friendly space and how, especially given the inhospitable winter outside, even such slim diversions as hotel bar margaritas and overheated pools can offer a welcome distraction. It helps a lot that Phil Johnston’s script does right by its main character, shrewdly demonstrating Lippe’s fish out of water ups and downs: his new friends are a welcoming, non-judgmental bunch, a distant cry from the McJesus snobbery of his home town co-workers and neighbors – the same people, Lippe is decent enough to remember, that depend on him. Of course everything works out in the end, but not before plenty of debauchery and clean, if slightly mean-spirited, fun.

As a comic leading man, Helms’ strengths center on the same aw, shucks likability that’s served him more or less unwaveringly since his tenure on The Daily Show.  Lippe is similar to The Office‘s Andy Bernard, more naive but less obtuse, with a greater vulnerability as a result. It’s tempting to thumbnail Lippe as Bernard freed of The Office‘s self-conscious repetition of character and story beats, but there’s more – a little more – to him than that. Helms makes him sympathetic but stops short of making him pitiable or charismatic.

He’s backed by, well, a dream supporting cast for this type of project. Reilly is a leading man trapped in the body of a character actor, and every one of his scenes tends to upset the tenuous balance Artete strikes between Lippe and his surroundings. In fact for much of the film’s first hour, the energy level rises palpably whenever Reilly’s motor- and foul-mouthed party animal comes onscreen. Comedies often rise or fall on the quotability of their dialogue; Reilly has most of the lines you’ll want to repeat to your friends.

The surprise performance, however, belongs to Heche as the otherwise happy soccer mom who uses insurance conventions as a vacation from the staid security of her normal life. Heche is sexy, sad, and smart all at the same time, without resorting to vamping or overheated line readings to achieve said results. Her confession to Lippe about the normalcy of her life and the release of Cedar Rapids carries some of the film’s best writing, and her well-modulated delivery of the scene works as an oasis to the dark shenanigans displayed almost everywhere else. Heche’s career was swallowed years ago by the media’s provincial fascination with her sexuality; this performance earns her a shot at a larger comeback vehicle.

Making the most of smaller roles, Whitlock makes a charming straight man for the others, especially in a late scene in which he gets to spoof his role on The Wire. The prolific Root is hilarious as Lippe’s boss, and Kurtwood Smith brings the same imperial menace to Helgesson that he brought to all those years as That 70s Show‘s Red Foreman. Arrested Development fans may find themselves a little shocked to see Alia Shawkat, Maeby Funke herself, playing the hotel’s prostitute; the role allows her to say filthy things and look sultry, which for a career transition vehicle is possibly as good as it gets right now.

Cedar Rapids shouldn’t be confused for a great film, but it achieves its difficult ambitions while remaining entertaining, and it has the rare gift of growing in your memory after you leave the theatre. If its raunchy gags and sometimes awkward staging keep it from really developing into something approaching a classic modern dark comedy – Rushmore, to make a contemporary example, or Ruthless People – it’s trying for something riskier than the pot and potty humor that dominates too many modern “comedies.” It’s also, admittedly, refreshing to encounter a comedy that doesn’t bear Judd Apatow’s factory-pressed mixture of bittersweet nostalgia and stunted male growth.

Dying is easy, dark comedy is hardest, and ultimately Cedar Rapids is a damned funny movie with a cast full of people who should appear more than they do.  See it  in the theatre if you can, but don’t miss it on home video.

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Sour Christmas, Part Two

Continuing our list of a dozen movies and TV shows to help you skip the holiday cheer.

“So bolt the door and hit the floor…”

Christmas is just three days away, and we’re still not feeling it.  Just the same, or maybe because of it, here’s the rest of the dozen movies and gone-too-soon television shows that we recommend as smart, funny, honest, and wickedly creative – in other words, everything the holiday season is not.  They’re all available on DVD, and they all make perfect ways to escape from holiday celebrations into something that better fits a sour mood

A couple of days ago we published the first half of the list here, but the total listing remains (as always) in no particular order of importance. Where possible, we’ve included video that was available on YouTube when we looked for it.

Thank You For Smoking (2005) – Smug, blithely amoral tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhardt, never better) juggles raising his tween son (Cameron Bright) with romancing a journalist (Katie Holmes) and pitching cigarette product placement into Hollywood films. Opposing him are a yokely U.S. Senator (William H. Macy) and… well, pretty much the entire world.

Writer-director Jason Reitman (Up In The Air) adapts Christopher Buckley’s novel with fierce comic wit and timing, and the leads get a giant boost from a supporting cast full of ringers – Macy, the great J.K. Simmons, Maria Bello, David Koechner, among others. It’s the kind of film that at first you think you shouldn’t laugh at, then admit you can’t help yourself.

The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – Struggling, bottom-feeding New York press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) lives at the beck and call of cynical, world-loathing newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Hunsecker, who despises Falco and the whole world besides, can make or break Falco’s clients – and, by extension, Falco too. Hunsecker offers him the chance to get his clients real publicity, but only if Falco will sabotage the jazz guitarist (Martin Milner) currently romancing his sister (Susan Harrison).

By and large, the mainstream films of the 1950s aren’t known for their character depth or social commentary, but like Elia Kazan’s A Face In The Crowd (released the same year) Alexander Mackendrick’s film has dozens of barbed comments to make on the media, public image, and moral hypocrisy; consider it Mad Men from the time of Mad Men.

Gone Baby Gone (2007) – Ben Affleck’s directing debut adapts Dennis Lehane’s novel about a pair of romantically attached detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) pulled into helping the search for a young girl kidnapped from a poor neighborhood. But the investigation ends unhappily, and the couple drifts apart. Months later, a second kidnapping raises nagging questions about the first, complicated by police treachery and the girl’s own conniving, possibly complicit mother (the superb Amy Ryan, in an Oscar-nominated performance.)

This was one of the first films SBR reviewed, and it still holds a warm, if dark, place in our film memory. Read our complete review here.

 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – A film lover’s dream movie, George Roy Hill’s loose, self-assured take on the two real-life train robbers still sets the bar for all things masculine cool. Pursued by a crack team of investigators to the remote hills of Bolivia, Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) continue their life of crime even though the stakes are higher and the authorities deadlier. Times’s running out for the two gentlemen bandits, largely because their era of frontier freedom is ending.

In the meantime the pacing is sharp and the performances perfect, as in this following scene where Butch confronts a mutinous member of his Hole In The Wall Gang (Ted Cassidy.)

Point Blank (1967) – You always hear about how the 1960s was a decade of change yet Lee Marvin remained the biggest badass on the planet throughout, as this John Boorman (Deliverance) pseudo-homage to French New Wave proves again and again. Here he’s cast as Walker, a thief and enforcer double-crossed and left for dead by both his partner (John Vernon) and wife (Sharon Acker).

But he recovers, and with help from a mysterious benefactor (Keenan Wynn) begins to take apart the criminal syndicate that his ex-partner now represents. Walker wants revenge and no more, no less than the $93,000 that was his take of their last heist. He’s helped, in her kitten-with-a-whip Sixties way, by his wife’s sister (Angie Dickinson). If any of this sounds familiar, Mel Gibson remade the film with 1999′s much weaker Payback.

Arrested Development (2003) – We’re still parsing out how good this dark comedy actually was, seven years after its debut.  A labyrinth of in-jokes, meta-humor, recurring gags and brilliant character beats formed the structure of the Bluth family’s saga in Orange County, as storylines of infidelity, coming of age, treason, and so much else moved them from episode to interconnected episode.

The show nominally centered on straight-laced son Michael (Jason Bateman, kicking off his career comeback) but included more than a dozen regular and recurring performers including Portia de Rossi, Jeffrey Tambor, Will Arnett, Michael Cera and David Cross. All three seasons are on DVD, and lately IFC has put reruns heavily into its nightly schedule.

Happy holidays. We’ll return once next week, to close out the year with its last installment of Miscellaneous Debris. Be safe on the roads and take care.

-  Michael Kabel  

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Night Flights, July 2010 Edition

Reviews of seven films we watched by staying up too late at night.  

You probably haven't seen this film. You should.

Here come the dog days of summer. With the second half of the season only beginning to arrive this weekend, there’s been a lot of time to catch up on films that either previously escaped our attention or that we finally managed to track down and watch. A couple of them we were lucky to find. Once we started looking for off the beaten path and little-remembered films on the cable movie channels, we quickly came to appreciate how lucky we are that some of them get aired at all. Staying up all night to see them was just the enabling excuse.  

The following seven films are presented, as always, in no particular order of importance. Wherever possible we’ve included trailers or excerpts.  

Black Dynamite (2009) – You’re forgiven if this rowdy, knowing homage to and parody of the blaxploitation genre escaped your notice. Given a microscopic two week theatrical release last year, it’s now a can’t-miss on DVD. When the brother of kung fu master Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) is killed by the mob, the former CIA operative and Vietnam veteran vows to clean drugs off the streets. Along the way he foils a government plot and confronts his nemesis The Fiendish Mr. Wu on Kung Fu Island, culminating in a White House showdown that’s too crazy to spoil here. Proudly dumb and giddily cheap, it’s the best kind of satire – the kind that loves its source material enough to know how to laugh at it and celebrate it at the same time.    

The following trailer is NSFW, and hilarious:  

  

Zombieland (2009) -  After a vaguely explained contagion turns most of the world into flesh-eating zombies, a band of survivors including a redneck warrior (Woody Harrelson), a nebbishy college student (Jesse Eisenberg), and a pair of con artist sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) make the most of their post-apocalyptic existence, including taking over Bill Murray’s house, spending a dream day at an amusement park, and trashing a cheesy souvenir shop.  It is the gory end of the world as they know it, and they feel… fine, at least.

Eisenberg is the main character but Harrelson  is the star, elevating the script’s already manic, cynical edge a step further: it’s a blast to see Mickey Knox kill zombies, and Harrelson knows it, all but cackling through every scene. As for Stone, if she’s not a major star within the next two years we’ll probably never forgive the industry. Except for some minor plot holes the film is nasty, cathartic fun all the way around, and a neat sabotaging of the too-popular zombie trend.  

  

Adventureland (2009) – The biggest problem with Adventureland is trying not to think of it as Zombieland but without the zombies (but with Ryan Reynolds and Kristen Stewart). Like that other film, this one stars Eisenberg as a sensitive soul haltingly  falling in love with a girl out of his depth (Stewart) with an amusement park for the backdrop.  

Except that’s about where the similarities end. Writer-director Greg Mottola’s follow-up to Superbad is smarter and more melancholy than that exercise in snark, with better performances from the cast and a more considered worldview. In part this is helped by the bittersweet nostalgia for its 1987 setting, even if like Steven Soderbergh’s recent The Informant! that setting isn’t ever completely realized. Eisenberg’s performance is perhaps too similar, but Reynolds and Stewart both stretch themselves somewhat in their weary turns; Bill Heder and Kristen Wiig emit their usual low-key charm as the park’s managers.  

  

Nothing about this poster does the movie any justice.

Better Off Dead (1985) – A film Gen X’ers probably ought to revisit at least once every couple of years, Savage Steve Holland’s surreal, brazen spoof of teenage angst and self-loathing has actually aged a lot better than some of John Hughes’ work from the same period. That Holland accomplishes this with demented cartoon vignettes, musical numbers featuring claymation hamburgers and copious drug humor only makes the film that much funnier.  

If you don’t already know the plot: Morose teenager Lane Meyer (John Cusack) pines for the girl who dumped him (Amanda Wyss) while engaging in a tentative romance with a French foreign exchange student (Diane Franklin) and preparing to ski race their high school’s uber jock bully (Aaron Dozier). But really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg for Meyer and his weird family, as Holland’s script goes ten funny directions at once. Probably required viewing for anyone between the ages of thirty five and forty, it’s a bona fide cult favorite.  

  

Slattery’s Hurricane (1949) – Meant partly as a comeback vehicle for Veronica Lake (that didn’t happen) and based on a story by Herman Wouk (The Winds of War), this undercooked melodrama tells the story of a WWII fighter pilot (Richard Widmark) recounting his life’s mistakes while flying into the eye of a hurricane off the coast of Miami, mistakes that include any number of indiscretions including adultery and drug smuggling. Director Andre De Toth (Crime Wave) handles the potentially confusing structure easily, and Widmark is excellent as always.  

Still, the film never really amounts to much, lacking suspense as much as depth of characterization. The drug smuggling elements, which all but sit up and bark for attention, get particularly short shrift. Finally, fans of the period will likely enjoy the balmy cinematography that handsomely shows Florida just before its takeover by the tourism industry.  

  

Call Northside 777 (1948) – Based on actual events, a jaded Chicago newspaper reporter (James Stewart) writes a puff piece about a charwoman’s eleven-year struggle to free her son (Richard Conte) from prison, following his conviction for murdering a police officer. The public goes wild for the story, encouraging the paper’s editor (Lee J. Cobb, who may have been born chewing the end of a cigar) to assign the reporter to dig deeper into the case. The son maintains his innocence, which in time the reporter first comes to believe and then champions to the state pardon board.  

Though not entirely a film noir (as its inclusion in Fox’s Film Noir DVD library suggests), under Henry Hathaway’s (Kiss of Death) direction the  film makes for completely arresting viewing until its last few minutes, with Stewart in particular but Cobb and Conte (who would face off, one year later, in the sublime Thieves Highway) all giving rock solid performances. The conclusion, however, almost sinks everything, thanks to a fringe worth of dangling plot threads and a voice-over apologia to the Establishment.  

 

Shadow of a Doubt (1948) – Hitchcock’s unique perspective is a taste we’ve never acquired. So this film, sometimes considered his best, nevertheless left us somewhat cold, despite its unmistakable power and depth. A sociopathic killer of rich widows returns, one step ahead of two dogged cops, to the suburban California home of his sister (Patricia Collinge) and niece (Teresa Wright), and their ostensibly perfect family.  At first adoring and devoted, in time - and thanks to a very proper wooing by one of the cops (Macdonald Carey) – the niece comes to resist and finally oppose her uncle’s growing malice, risking her life as a consequence. 

For as good as Cotten and Wright are – and they’re virtually flawless – the script drags, due in part to an overstuffed cast (the two younger children are largely superfluous) and an at times mawkish depiction of middle class American life. An explanation for the elder Charlie’s profound evil, given as a sweet reminiscence, seems half-hearted and a little unsophisticated. Nevertheless, the menace that lingers around the corners of every scene is never less than palpable, and Cotten’s control of his performance is masterful, as the scene below demonstrates. 

 

With the exception of Slattery’s Hurricane, all of the above films are available on DVD. We’ll be back next week. 

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Our June 2010 Movie Guide

Some of the biggest releases of the year’s biggest movie month, and our over/under analysis about them. 

The month of June, maybe more than any other, represents excitement for the future. It’s the first month of summer vacation, the first true month of the summer season, and the favorite time to get married. It’s also, of course, the biggest month of the movie year, in which the studios roll out some of their biggest releases, the better to take advantage of the seasonal movie crowd. Actually going to the movies in the summertime is as much of an American tradition as habit; we look forward to going to the movies in June because that’s when the biggest movies come out. 

June 2010 promises some truly big films, even though each comes with its own problems and reasons for skepticism. The following seven are a random sampling, not meant to show the entirety of any release schedule so much as what’s already got our attention. 

We say that about some of our ex-girlfriends.

Splice (June 4) – The creepy, slick advertisements for this genetic engineering-gone-wrong thriller show us just enough of the lab-created hybrid creature to get our attention, even if the poster gives its apparance pretty much completely away. More enticing for us is the casting of Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley (our college crush after her surly turn in Go, way back when) as the scientists bringing the monstrously exotic Dren to life. Ramping up the chic horror factor, the film’s directed by Vincenzo Natali, who made a stir sometime back with his low-budget mindfuck Cube, while Guillermo Del Toro serves as executive producer. 

We hope the film will be: exactly what Natali has claimed, an intelligent look at the consequences of a rapidly emerging science. We’re afraid it will be: Vacuous, over-stylized fluff, much like Del Toro’s own Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Watch the embedding-proof trailer on YouTube here. 

Get Him To The Greek (June 4) – A record company intern (Jonah Hill) struggles to get a washed-up, debauched rock star (Russell Brand) from London to Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre in seventy-two hours. Awkward, but hilarious, hijinks presumably ensue. Brand reprises the role he played in 2008′s Forgetting Sarah Marshall; Hill, who also appeared in that film, does not; Nicholas Stoller directed both. 

We hope the film will be: A pleasantly surprising, deft satire of the music industry that’s more about character than vulgar gaggery; a modern-day My Favorite Year, though that seems like a long shot.  We’re afraid it will be:  Shrill mugging from two actors too quick to fall back on familiar shtick. Overall, we’re expecting this summer’s Year One.  Watch the embedding-proof trailer on YouTube here. 

The A-Team (June 11) – An elite group of soldiers looks to clear their name with the U.S. military after getting framed for a crime they didn’t commit. This adaptation of the beloved 80s television series, co-written and directed by budding action auteur Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces), updates the group’s tour of duty from Vietnam to the Iraq War. Liam Neeson plays team leader Hannibal Smith, with Bradley Cooper as Face, Rampage Jackson as B.A. Baracus and Sharlto Copley as Howling Mad Murdock. Jessica Biel and Patrick Wilson co-star. 

We hope the film will be: A throwback to the action films of the TV series’ decade, which relied on elaborate stuntwork and a blistering pace to wow audiences. Its inspiration was big, dumb, well-executed fun; the movie should live up to that unpretentious tradition. We’re afraid it will be: something that doesn’t. 

 

Toy Story 3 (June 18) – When their owner leaves home for college, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the gang are shipped off to a daycare center, where they must survive a whole roomful of rambunctious kids. Pixar mainstay Lee Unkrich returns to direct, with a screenplay by Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine). 

We hope the film will be: Even half as entertaining as the first two installments of the franchise. Still, we’re skeptical. Pixar hit their first true misfire with last year’s Up, and if the trailer below is any indication this time around the emphasis is on sentimentality and slapstick noise over true whimsy and smarts. We’re afraid it will be: an indication that Up‘s mawkishness and mean-spirited violence were only the beginning of a trend for the formerly infallible studio. 

 

That the poster takes pains to hide Hex's scars is a bad sign.

Jonah Hex (June 18) – Wild West drifter and sometime bounty hunter Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is offered a deal that he can’t refuse: in exchange for clemency from the multiple warrants on his head, the U.S. Army wants him to kill the terrorist (John Malkovich) planning to unleash an army of undead upon the Earth. Megan Fox co-stars as Hex’s prostitute love interest and sidekick. Warner Bros has the same sequel hopes that have become standard operating procedure for comic book movies. 

We hope the film will be: At least somewhat faithful to Hex’s DC Comics adventures in the 70s, but we doubt it: the original Hex was a pretty transparent Man With No Name/Outlaw Josie Wales… ahem, “homage” who proudly wore his Confederate Army uniform and killed without hesitation. The zombie aspect to the plot is also pretty disappointing. We’re afraid it will be: Another misbegotten comic-to-screen-adaptation that went off the rails when they changed too much about the subject matter. Judging by the trailer, they changed everything that wasn’t nailed to the ground. 

 

Cyrus (June 25, limited) – A recently divorced man (John C. Reilly) romances a lovely, lonely single mother (Marisa Tomei), only to encounter resistance from her teenaged son. Mumblecore auteurs Jay and Mark Duplass make their (by and large) mainstream crossover, including their trademark frenetic camerawork and reliance on improvised dialogue. Catherine Keener co-stars. 

We hope the film will be: another smart character showcase for Reilly and Tomei, who besides their higher-profile roles have been creating quieter but much more substantial work in smaller pictures for going on two decades. We’re afraid it will be: yet more hipster piffle along the lines of Greenberg.  The trailer alone reminds us of any number of other works, ranging from films including Punch-Drunk Love, Step-Brothers and The 40 Year Old Virgin to at leat one plot thread from probably every family melodrama ever put on television. Still, a film like this is all about performance, and we can see the chemistry between the two stars already. 

 

Knight and Day (June 25) – When a secret agent (Cruise) crosses paths with a hapless civilian (Diaz), he’s forced to drag her into the hunt for a battery that may contain the source of unlimited energy. An international chase ensues, putting them at odds and in alliances with any number of competing groups. 

We hope the film will be: another throwback. These kinds of big-star, big-stunt spectacles used to be the norm for summer movie seasons, back in the 90s heyday of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Gibson. Nothing wrong with that; after all, you shouldn’t need a comic book collection to want to go to the movies. 

We’re afraid it will be: an effort by two fading stars to shore up their careers with a proven formula (see also Killers, the Heigl-Kutcher variation on this same theme arriving June 4.) Director James Mangold’s last effort, the Russell Crowe vehicle 3:10 To Yuma, was deplorable largely because of its dependence on threadbare plot tropes. 

We’ll be back later this week. Thank you for reading.

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Miscellaneous Debris, May 2009 Edition

Our monthly miscellany of news we like to talk about.

Happy Memorial Day! The weather’s far too nice here to sit in a move theatre, so we’ll likely be heading to the theatres only to check out Terminator: Salvation, and then most likely a late show. (We don’t have to get up.)

With the summer movie season already well under way and the networks presenting their upfronts, there’s a lot going on worth talking about. Especially for television, with at least one network debuting a record number of shows in the fall, the news is thick and deep. The following list only represents some of the news items popping up around the Intertube this week, so we’re sure there’s plenty more to report. Still, this stuff caught our eye, and anyway you’ll have more fun getting outside and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine anyway. The Internet in all its time-wasting glory will be here when you get back.

Coming soon to theatres?

1. Steven Spielberg announced plans this week to produce a biopic based on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Some King family members are already up in arms about the deal, saying they weren’t consulted on the negotiations. In the meantime, we’ll also continue waiting for Spielberg’s long-awaited bio of Abraham Lincoln, starring Liam Neeson in the role of the Great Emancipator. Rumors of that film have circled since Dreamworks got the rights back in 2001. Neeson, having pulled off the sleeper hit of the year with Taken, says he’s still eager to get into the role.

2. On a completely different subject, we have to repeat how much we’re looking forward to Moon, July’s indie sci-fi effort about an astronaut miner (Sam Rockwell) facing replacement just as his long, lonely tour on the lunar surface draws to a close. There’s never a bad time for smart science fiction, especially those rooted in near-future concepts and especially character-driven performances like this one. (We can’t help but think of Stanislaw Lem’s novel Peace On Earth every time we watch the trailer.) At any rate, we’re hoping the small-scale effort, directed by newcomer Duncan Jones, isn’t completely overshadowed online by the already-percolating hype surrounding New Moon, the sequel to Twilight, set for release this November. We previewed Moon last month, but here’s the trailer once again.

Raise the Green Lantern: Trucco

3. Good news and no-news (which is still good news, according to an old saying) for fans of comic book movies. This week reports swirled that Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and Thor director Kenneth Branagh had selected Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek) to play the titular Norse god of thunder. The next day reports circulated that British actor Tom Hiddleston (Wallander) will play his villainous half-brother Loki. Over on the DC Comics side of things, there’s still no word on casting for the Green Lantern movie, despite filming scheduled to begin in September. As a suggestion to help speed things along, we suggest Michael Trucco (Battlestar Galactica) to play Green Lantern Hal Jordan. He’s a good actor and he looks the part, for whatever such virtues factor into how those decisions are made.

4. One of the (count ‘em) ten new shows announced by ABC for their 2009-10 season this week, Flash Forward has Next Big Thing written all over its expensive-looking trailer. Based on a novel by Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer and developed for television by screenwriters David Goyer (Batman Begins) and Brannon Braga (Star Trek: Enterprise), the network hopes the ensemble drama will serve as a “companion” series – and eventual successor, no doubt – to Lost,which begins its final season starting next January. Flash Forward depicts the aftermath of a mysterious event that causes the world’s population to black out for two minutes and 17 seconds, during which everyone gets a glimpse of their future. The ensemble cast includes Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare In Love), Courtney B. Vance (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Sonya Walger (Lost), John Cho (Star Trek), and Peyton List (Mad Men).

5. Since we’ve championed the film at least once before for release on DVD and/or Blu-Ray, we’re very excited to announce the Peter Yates’ 1973 crime classic The Friends of Eddie Coyle saw its home video premiere this week – as a Criterion Edition, no less. Among the cool extra features is a reprint of Rolling Stone magazine’s profile of star Robert Mitchum, from the time of the film’s shooting. Apparently Mitchum, already a legendary Hollywood rebel, researched his role as a desperate low-level gunrunner by hanging out with Boston ganglord Whitey Bulger, the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character in The Departed thirty-three years later.

Stone Age tools: Black, Cera

6. Have you seen the latest ads for the Judd Apatow-produced, Harold Ramis-directed Year One? So much of this film demonstrates so much of what annoys us most about modern American cinema. A full decade after his distracting turn in the otherwise charming High Fidelity, Jack Black is still doing the same cocky buffoon shtick he’s done in virtually every role since. Likewise co-star Cera, bringing George-Michael Bluth’s amiable timidity to yet another paycheck. Because we know Ramis co-starred in Stripes that same year, we know he’s old enough to remember History of The World Part I and Caveman, both 1981 efforts that covered the exact same lowbrow ground. Here’s hoping that Ramis’ upcoming Ghostbusters 3 will offer better comedy. Failing that, his remake of Meatballs. Yes, Hollywood is remaking Meatballs. You’ve been warned.

7. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the Skeet Ulrich contingent of our readership, so as a shout to them we want to mention Armored, the September release directed by Nimrod Antal (Vacancy) about a group of armored truck drivers attempting to steal $42 million from one of their own vehicles. Columbus Short (Cadillac Records) leads a cast full of man’s men, including Ulrich as well as Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Jean Reno (The Professional), Matt Dillon (The Outsiders) and Fred Ward (Tremors). Nothing closes out summer like a good, gritty neo-noir, and this one, with hints of both Criss Cross and Reservior Dogs, looks to fill that position this year.  A second film with an almost-identical concept is also currently in production, this one starring Eric Bana (Munich) and directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job).

8. Finally, we were saddened this week to learn of the passing of Wayne Allwine, who supplied the voice of Mickey Mouse for thirty two years, from complications of diabetes. He was 62. A lifelong Disney employee, Allwine was only the third voice actor, after Walt Disney and his mentor Jimmy MacDonald, to portray the mouse in movies, television shows, and at the various Disney theme parks. A native of the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, Allwine joined the Disney corporation in 1966, starting in the company mail room before working his way up to sound editing such films as Splash and Three Men And A Baby.  His widow, Russi Taylor, has provided the voice of Mickey’s sweetheart Minnie Mouse since 1986.

We’ll return next Wednesday with a review of Terminator: Salvation. Have a great holiday weekend and be careful on the roads.

- Michael Kabel
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Eight Major Releases Open Today

Cowboys, talking chihuahuas, hipsters in love, sports legends, tragic inventors, gay muslims and even more coming to your local cineplex.

Eight major releases open nationwide today. That’s a lot of films all at once, especially for October. And just like it should be, there’s something for every taste. What follows below are only the briefest of concept summaries and also some trailers. The links click through to blog entries where we’ve already given some of the movies a lengthier consideration.

Appaloosa (Expanding from limited release): Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen play traveling gunfighters hired by a dying frontier town to stand up to a despotic rancher (Jeremy Irons). Renee Zellweger is the woman standing between the two friends. Harris also directed, and early reviews from its limited release have been for the most part positive. Harris and Mortensen’s previous onscreen collaboration, A History of Violence, was a near-perfect smart bomb of a movie two years ago; seeing the two play partners in this film will likely offer plenty of intelligent action fun.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua:  We sat through a trailer for this bit of fluff last summer and our eyes are still mad at us. Live action but with plenty of celebrity voices and creepy talking dog CGI animation, it tells the story of a – Jesus God – rich chihuahua from Beverly Hills who gets lost while on vacation in Mexico and has to find her way home. Drew Barrymoe voices the dog out of water Chloe, while an Argonauts of Latino actors - Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, Paul Rodriguez, Luiz Guzman, Placido Domingo, and George Lopez – fill out the cast. A 90s-era Taco Bell commercial of a kid’s movie, of which there’s not a lot out right now.

Blindness: A kindred spirit of sorts to 2006′s overrated Children of Men, Blindness stars that film’s Julianne Moore as a woman who retains her sight after an epidemic of “white blindness” breaks out in her home city. The afflicted are moved into a concentration facility and left to fend for themselves with minimal assistance, and of course society and any sense of moral restraint break down. City of God’s Fernando Meirelles directs this adaptation of Jose Saramago’s best-selling novel, but early reviews and a chilly reception at Cannes have been less than brilliant. Reportedly unrelenting in its bleak depiction of human depravity, it’s the kind of movie where one wise old inmate (Danny Glover) wears an eye patch. Get it? Of course you do.  

The Express:  There are now officially enough “true stories about overcoming the odds of racism/poverty through playing sports” movies to constitute a genre unto themselves. Ernie “The Elmira Express” Davis was the first black football player to win the Heisman Trophy, and though his pro career was cut short by leukemia his college record was an early rallying point for the Civil Rights Movement. Sports-movie veteran Rob Brown (Coach Carter) plays Davis, while Dennis Quaid plays Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder, who was – naturally – a surrogate father on and off the field. Previews have been exactly the same as all the other films of its stripe.

Flash of Genius: Ever felt sorry for the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper? You likely will after this Greg Kinnear-led character piece about inventor Robert Kearn’s three decade legal struggle against the Ford and Chrysler corporations. Basically, he invented the intermittent wiper, an important safety device on all modern cars, and the car companies cheated him out of the profits. Lauren Graham and Durmot Mulroney co-star. Even though early reviews are middling, Kinnear’s role has Oscar written all over it, and his performance might get him the award he’s deserved at least once already.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People: Simon Pegg heads this based-on-truth story of British writer Toby Young’s attempts to fit in at Vanity Fair magazine. The trailer has its funny moments, mostly based on Pegg’s undeniable comic timing, but the film’s “The Devil Wears Prada But With A Guy” conceit may not quite deliver, despite a supporting cast including Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson, Kirsten Dunst, and Transformers vixen Megan Fox. We like Pegg, and it’s always fun to watch Bridges vamp as the bad guy, but if the whole movie is just Pegg’s wanker schtick this could be a great example of where the trailer has all the funny moments.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: A conventional romantic comedy fashionably attired in indie duds, this Manhattan adventure directed by Peter Sollett (Raising Victor Vargas) features rising star Kat Dennings (The 40 Year Old Virgin) and possibly-over-already Michael Cera as two teens who fall in love during and after a punk concert in the East Village. The script is based on the popular novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, though Cera’s character was reportedly rewritten considerably to meld with his screen persona, and the ending was also changed. Early reviews are lukewarm, and if it flops you’ll likely hear all kinds of smart analysis about how Juno was just a fluke after all. Alexis Dziena (Broken Flowers) co-stars.

Religulous: Social and political provocateur – and proclaimed atheist – Bill Maher examines the worldwide phenomena of religion in this documentary directed by Larry Charles (Borat, Seinfeld). Maher’s roving adventures include trips to a Christian-themed amusement park in Florida, an Islamic gay bar in Amsterdam, and an interview with a United States Senator who believes in creationism. Maher and Charles used the fake title “A Spiritual Journey” and did not identify Maher as its host when soliciting the film’s interviews. Get ready for some people to get pissed off. I just hope it plays in Tennessee.

Monday we’ll have a review of whatever film we decided to see first. (It won’t be Beverly Hills Chihuahua.) Have a good weekend.

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Preview: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Will hipsterism reach its tipping point this Friday?

For every musical trend with its own fashion sensibility, for every lifestyle or “movement” that surges along for a few years on the momentum of its own hype, Hollywood inevitably comes up with a film that wants to encapsulate its energy, its attitude, or just provide its members or fans with some demographic-specific entertainment. The irony is that because of the movie industry’s sluggish pace, as a result of the time involved in getting a film made and into theatres, or even just due to low social acuity, such films often arrive as the trend in question is petering out, becoming de facto signposts for the ends of their respective “eras.” 

Not that that’s ever stopped movie studios from trying. The Disco fad of the 70s had films like Roller Boogie and Can’t Stop The Music; the teen pop trend of a decade ago shat out On the Line, starring Lance Bass and Joey Fatone of N’Sync, and Crossroads with Britney Spears. The Grunge/alt rock scene of the early 90s had Cameron Crowe’s Singles (not a bad film in its own Wiffle Ball kind of way) as well as Empire Records. Even early rock and roll had all those schlocky Elvis fantasies. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist may not herald the curtain call for hipsterism, but it sure as Hell looks the part.

Joined at the hipster: Dennings, Cera

Loosely based on the young adult novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the film’s concept is just precious enough to earn admiration in undergraduate screenwriting workshops: High schooler Nick O’Leary (Michael Cera) is asked by Norah Silverberg (Kat Dennings, The 40 Year Old Virgin) to pose as her boyfriend for five minutes while the two hang out at a concert by Nick’s band The Jerk Offs. Norah, it seems, has a crush on Nick by virtue of the mix discs he made for his ex-girlfriend Tris (Broken Flower‘s Alexis Dziena) after she broke up with him, though Norah has never actually met Nick in person. Friends conspire to put the two together, if only to help Nick mend.

What happens next is, despite its indie window dressing, no more and no less than standard romcom fare. The two share a manic, “magical” night adventuring through the streets of Manhattan, meeting interesting “characters” and growing closer as the evening unfolds. It’s a night to remember, the kind that only happens in movies and the kind that happens all the time – in movies.

Appropriate: Baruchel, Dennings

This isn’t to say the film can’t succeed with snappy direction or the reportedly palpable chemistry between its two charming stars. Cera, the poster child for emo sweetness after Arrested Development and Juno, plays to his strengths as the lovesick Nick. Kat Dennings, all pale skin and flowing dark hair, is no doubt the image of how countless post-adolescent girls visualize themselves as they head off to college. But there’s a nagging fog of self-consciousness about the whole production, like a private school kid trying too hard to fit in at a crosstown bar.  With its soundtrack already available on iTunes (featuring The Jerk Offs) and producer credits that include the Weitz Brothers (the American Pie saga), any claims the film might make to true indie cred appear at best compromised from jump. Even the titular characters’ names are too-cute perfect, more likely inspired by apparel at Target than any awareness of Dashiell Hammett.

In all likelihood Nick and Norah is probably benign, well-dressed studio confectionary, and considering it as such is just as harmless: imagine how dated it’ll look in five years. But if hipsterism is frequently taken to task as only a superficial attitude without any true substance – a “repertoire of meaninglessness,” to quote Christian Lorentzen – then what is a movie that attempts to co-opt the meaningless and superficial? Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist opens October 3.

 

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

What Are These Five Actors Thinking?

Career intervention for five performers we’re worried about.

Hindsight is 20/20. Anyone can look back on the careers of actors and do a passable postmortem, pinpointing with reasonable accuracy the choices that led to their stagnant careers. Yet, there are so many actors making such poor decisions these days, it’s hard not to predict how these choices may affect their careers long-term. At the least we’ll get to say, “I told you so,” if they ever call us.

Actor:Tamoh Penikett
Upcoming Project: Dollhouse (debuts mid-season on Fox)
Why this is a bad idea: Association with Joss Whedon is like giving  your career an inertia pill. Case in point: Nathan Fillion, whose talent and good looks should have blown up the screens five years ago, after Firefly was yanked. Whedon also doesn’t have a great track record with Fox, so the longevity of Dollhouse seems questionable. Combine that with a recent turn on Battlestar Galactica, and Penikett could be the next James Marsters – a stunningly gorgeous, hugely talented actor, often better than the shows in which he appears, languishing in typecast sci-fi roles from which he will have a difficult time emerging.
What he should be doing instead: We see him in a recurring role as Don Draper’s rival for the affections of Rachel Menken on AMC’s do-no-wrong hit Mad Men.

Actor/Writer: Mike Myers
Upcoming Project: The Love Guru (opens June 20th)
Why this is a bad idea: Most people of a certain age (read: mid-thirties) have waited a long time for Mike Myers to remind them why they thought he was a comic genius after So I Married an Axe Murderer. Guru isn’t going to help. Myers’ career has followed the same trajectory of stale kitsch-fests that’s landed Jim Carrey on the back-burner for the past several years. While it may be difficult in the future to pinpoint exactly when Myers jumped the shark, watching his accent-riddled take on The Ladies’ Man (incidentally, a much better movie than it should be) is just going to be painful.
What he should be doing instead: Losing the accent and taking a cue from better actors. Myers’ planned remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty could be a promising return to form, but with his track record, we’re expecting schtick that would make even Danny Kaye spin in his grave. Myers needs to follow Kaye’s lead in this – it’s ok to be goofy. Just do it in moderation.

Actor: Elizabeth Banks
Upcoming Project: Meet Dave (opens July 11th)
Why this is a bad idea: Not every part is a plum. Banks is one of the most talented comediennes working today, which is a shame, because Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and Will Ferrell have been doing everything in their power to kill the American movie comedy. Though she’s branching out a bit in her upcoming choices – Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s W.; a remake of the Korean horror film The Uninvited with David Strathairn - she’s still at risk of getting stuck in a Judd Apatow rut with other upcoming roles (with Paul Rudd in Little Big Men, with Seth Rogan in the Kevin Smith-directed Zack and Miri Make a Porno). Hence, her need to be more selective with parts.
What she should be doing instead: Stop taking every script that comes across her desk. Same advice goes for Missi Pyle. America is starved for smart, funny women, and their talents are strong enough to keep their careers going even if they only work three or four times a year instead of twelve (I mean you, Missi!) Moviegoers will start to associate their talent with the caliber of productions they’re in, so the better the scripts, the better their chances of becoming the next Madeline Kahn.

Actor: Michael Cera
Upcoming Project: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (opens October 3rd)
Why this is a bad idea: Ah, the Juno backlash has begun, and Michael Cera’s poised to reap the fickleness of audiences everywhere. Because of his age and comedic talents, Cera’s getting typecast as the goofy high school student whose bad luck with girls provides the project’s premise (Arrested Development, Superbad, the upcoming Youth in Revolt). Unfortunately, there are only so many times this can be done before audiences get sick of him in this role. Arrested Development showed he’s got chops beyond the comedic, yet he rarely gets a chance to use them. That doesn’t bode well for his longevity beyond the Apatow Era.
What he should be doing instead: Break free of the Emo crowd. Juno was, ironically, a good career move – an indie pic with a credible slate of B-list actors. Unfortunately for him, it blew up a little too much, and now he’s stuck as the poster boy for hipster kids who can’t get a date. We suggest doing some tragicomedies that are a bit less precious and a bit more brainy, like Little Miss Sunshine or The Royal Tennenbaums, that show his range and get him out of his box.

Actor: Keri Russell
Upcoming Project: Bedtime Stories (opens December 25th)
Why this is a bad idea: She’s playing it safe. Russell’s co-starring part in the Adam Sandler-starring Stories will probably not launch her into the public’s hearts. (Click sure did nothing for Kate Beckinsale.) Russell showed her chops in Waitress, did the obligatory follow-up melodrama (August Rush), and now returns in this bit of holiday tripe. She’s being a bit too calculated in her choices, and that’s turning her movie career into the same kind of commercial milquetoast that defined her years in television.
What she should be doing instead: Despite previous rants about Judd Apatow above, Rusell is one actress who could do with some association with him while he’s still a hot commodity. A turn in something not quite as raunchy as his usual fare but still grittier than her usual movies could do what Mission: Impossible 3 should’ve accomplished but didn’t: add a nice edge to her screen persona while helping directors see her range.

- Jennifer Vasil

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

 

Review: Drillbit Taylor

Audiences deserve more for their money.

In the new comedy Drillbit Taylor, Owen Wilson plays an affable loser who manages to help redeem the lives of three troubled adolescent boys through an earnestness that’s as glowing and perfect as his exquisite suntan. The character is no new territory for Wilson, to be sure. The film also represents some familiar stomping grounds for producer and current comedy kingpin Judd Apatow, as well as frequent Adam Sandler director Steven Brill. It’s fine that no new ground gets broken, but the execution of the by-the-numbers plot shouldn’t feel so stale. 

The sitcom-ready premise follows three high school freshmen more or less interchangeable with the loveable horndogs from Superbad.  Terrorized by the school bully and his beta male, the kids hire alleged bodyguard-to-the-stars Taylor to protect them. A homeless Army deserter content to hang out at the beach, Drillbit initially sees the kids as a cash cow and milks his new job for every cent he can get. But in between inappropriate jokes about gonorrhea, multiple shots of Wilson’s bare ass and a freestyle rap-off , he becomes a surrogate father to the boys while romancing exactly the kind of hot yet inexplicably single teacher (Leslie “Mrs. Apatow” Mann) only found in movies. 

Of course, Drillbit is eventually exposed as a fraud and must overcome all odds to regain lost trust while the boys find self-esteem by standing up to their tormentors. Everything else falls into place, too: The Michael Cera-esque character wins the heart of the girl he’s smitten with, the Jonah Hill and McLovin clones realize that they’re friends after all, Drillbit gets the girl, blah blah blah. You’ve seen it before, and you’ve seen it done better.

Predictably, summer camp humor, pratfalls and sight gags supply much of the comedy. While admittedly there are some funny moments, the bulk of the gags fall flat and fall hard. The always delightful Leslie Mann and Stephen Root as the school principal are both underused. Cameos by David Koechner (how strange would it feel if he actually failed to show up in a modern comedy?) and Adam Baldwin are wasted.

It wasn’t that long ago that Wilson distinguished himself by skillfully inhabiting alternately bleak yet endearing outsiders in minor masterpieces like Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums. Yet his recent lazy willingness to reiterate the Butterscotch Stallion persona again and again (Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree) only solidifies his position as a paycheck movie star as disingenuous as his pal Ben Stiller. And to be fair, perhaps he realizes as much: it’s tempting to wonder if his perpetually bloodshot eyes are an actual character choice or evidence of his recent emotional troubles. 

All of this won’t matter if you heed the film’s tagline and remember that you get what you pay for. It’s a pleasant enough diversion, and at the Saturday matinee I attended most of the audience seemed at least entertained. If nothing else, the film respects its audience enough to avoid the kind of bullshit conclusions so prevalent in modern comedies (for example Brill’s Sandler vehicle Mr. Deeds). The refreshing absence of a gratuitous Will Ferrell cameo is also welcome. But with a story partially credited to 80′s film legend John Hughes, a screenplay co-written by Superbad collaborator Seth Rogen, and starring the potentially brilliant Wilson, moviegoers deserve better. Perhaps another more inspired teaming of Apatow and the red-hot-right-now Rogen can salvage Wilson from his steep, troubled path to mediocrity.

- Steve Kabel