Look, I have exactly one thing to say about Material Girls, the cute
little PG-rated romp starring sisters Hilary and Haylie Duff that opened last
week to $4.6 million, and it has nothing to do with how much I’ve had to drink
tonight.
I noticed as I was wandering by its poster today
that this movie has 19 effing producers… 19! And no, that’s
not counting the credited line producer either. Sure, you’ve got a couple Duffs on the list, and the requisite mix of executive producers and co-producers. But
sweet frickin’ Christ,
you’re telling me it really took this many people to
painstakingly piece together a masterpiece like this while Munich or Forrest Gump or
any number of complex epics have four or less? Producer credits are a complete
joke — the new STD of the industry — and if I were an ass-busting member of the
So this is my challenge, any and all Material Girls producers:
defend yourself and all your cohorts, explain who did what and why you deserve
poster/title card position. I’m talking to you, David Faigenblum, Brent Emery,
Milton Kim, Troy Rowland, Tara Pirnia, Guy Oseary… aww, screw this. I’m tired
of typing out all these names…
Writer-director Ryan Fleck’s Sundance-minted Half Nelson is a glancingly remarkable, two-handed character study that slips up a bit in its overly impressionistic trafficking but still features a solid performance from Ryan Gosling (above), who continues to be the best kept under-25 secret in Hollywood. While tough-love mentor tales are a dime a dozen, much rarer are movies which indulge the notion — let alone proffer a glimpse — of the curative