So Superbad‘s trailer has dropped, but it leaves a taste in my mouth of wanting to like this movie a lot more than I do right now… of just giving it credit because it’s co-written by Knocked Up‘s Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and produced by Judd Apatow. Director Greg Mottola’s The Daytrippers, from 1996, was a pleasantly diverting indie flick, but since then he’s benefited from working with some great television writers (Undeclared, Arrested Development), and has yet to re-prove himself on the feature front.
I understand that the whole conceit of the movie — about two dweeby, co-dependent high school seniors (Jonah Hill and Michael Cera) trying to get laid, and forced to cope with impending graduation — lies in laughs of the languidly structured, but so many of the trailer’s jokes and bits seem arbitrary, Rogen’s cameo elicits a yawn and the use of “Panama” doesn’t get me hyped up like it should. Cera’s inadvertent boob punch is funny, though, as is his briefly glimpsed fiddler-on-the-roof dance and Hill’s exclamatory conniption of, “We could be those mistakes!” Maybe it’s just a hard sell, trailers for these ramshackle laffers of careening tone. Or maybe I’m maturing? Jesus, I hope it’s the former…
The trailer for James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma has dropped, and it looks pretty sweet, all things considered. Mangold has always been a guy who values and gets great performances out of his actors, long before the success of Walk the Line. (If you doubt, rent the underrated Heavy for a look back at of the 1990s’ more interesting and unhurriedly paced independent flicks.) With Yuma — a remake of the 1957 Western starring Glenn Ford, and the story of a lowly cowhand rancher (Christian Bale) who gets caught up delivering a rakish desperado (Russell Crowe) for an appointment justice — Mangold has obviously inverted the demeanors and looks of his two protagonists, making Crowe’s Ben Wade comfortable in his own skin and Bale’s Dan Evans a reticent, small-fry guy who awakens to the idea of the sordid experience being of value as a lesson for his son (Logan Lerman). Notoriously averse to bullshit, Crowe is an actor who feeds off of matched-effort collaboration, and the extremely dedicated Bale seems like a great match.
And by the way, who would’ve figured, after 1999’s Liberty Heights, that Ben Foster would morph into a go-to guy for supporting roles as greasy, sleazy, hotheaded psychos (see Hostage, Alpha Dog, this and I believe 11:14 as well, if I recall correctly)? Strange, very strange. 3:10 to Yuma releases October 5 from Lionsgate; for the trailer, click here.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer proved fantastic at the box office this past weekend, debuting to an estimated $57 million-plus on just over 6,200 screens. Fan-boy gripes about whether Galactus should look like this or rock out with more of the purple-and-blue classic comic look turned out not to have much of an effect on Fantastic Four‘s bottom-line grosses, powered as much by family business as diehard comic book aficionados. The opening was a bit higher than the $56.1 million haul of 2005’s series launch, and easily outpaced theatrical holdovers Ocean’s Thirteen ($19.1 million, down 47 percent from its debut June 8), Knocked Up (down 26 percent in its third week, to $14.5 million) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (down 43 percent in its fourth week of release, to just over $12 million), as well as the weekend’s only other new wide release, Nancy Drew, which bowed to only $7.1 million.
In homicidal theatrical news, meanwhile, Hostel: Part II tumbled more than 63 percent in its sophomore frame, pulling in $3 million for a two-week total of just over $14 million. If writer-director Eli Roth‘s first film was a xenophobic travelogue recast as a grim exercise in “BTK-horror,” this movie highlights the amorality angle even more starkly (“We’re the normal ones,” says one of two American businessmen who eventually don swim caps and slaughterhouse gear for their vicarious thrill-kill sessions), something audiences apparently had less of an appetite for.
Kevin Costner’s wildly careening serial killer tale Mr. Brooks, on the other hand, scratched out another $2.8 million in its third weekend, bringing its total haul to $23.5 million. Made for a cost-conscious $20 million, foreign receipts and ancillary revenues might actually be enough to help realize the filmmakers’ visions of a sequel and/or franchise, an ambiguity that most certainly doesn’t await 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four. Stay tuned…
The Winnie the Pooh
books, penned by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, were a staple
of childhood for many, and certainly the barbershop-style, lightly crooned
theme song by Richard and Robert Sherman, with its evocations of “deep in the
100-Acre Wood, where Christopher Robbin plays,” is like a front row seat in a
ride back in time. That trip gets a mainstream release, now, with the DVD bow
this week of the three magical tales that really started the Pooh tradition —
“Honey Tree,” “Winnie the Pooh with Tigger Too” and “The Blustery Day,” the
latter the Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short Film of 1969.
Delightfully low-fi, The
Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh features a live action opening which
pans over to a bookcase and picture book, thus setting the piece — in the
tradition of many classic fairytales — firmly in the imagination, both
individually and collectively, of its viewers. Narrated by Sebastian Cabot, the
adventures that follow are warm, friendly and lightly moralizing set pieces for
the entire family — stuff like Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit’s house after
eating too much honey, Pooh being feted by Christopher Robbin on “Hero Day”
after an act of kindness, and together everyone battling the perils of high
winds. All the lovable characters that from the frontline of Disney’s stable
are here: Pooh (voiced in young-hearted fashion by Sterling Holloway), Tigger,
Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit and Piglet.
Despite its relatively minimalist palette — sharply captured
here, in a crisp transfer with surprisingly little grain — it’s interesting how
many of this movie’s images trigger such a strong sense of recollection, from
Pooh and Piglet’s plummet over a waterfall to Piglet tearfully ceding his home
to Owl, who doesn’t recognize it as Piglet’s. (Piglet takes ineffectual
timidity to a new level.) The material was first grouped together for a feature
release in 1977, and the animation cheekily feeds the notion of the entire
enterprise as a story of the adolescent mind, with the seams on Pooh’s back
popping open at one point, before he sticks his own stuffing back in.
Presented in 1.33:1 on a dual layer disc that triggers a
smallish pause mid-feature, this “Friendship Edition” of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh comes housed in a regular
Amray case that in turn slides into a sturdy cardboard slipcover. Running just
under 75 minutes, the movie comes with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio
track, and is actually available in three languages — English, French and
Spanish. A nice little slate of bonus features complements the main attraction,
kick-started by the debut episode of the Disney Channel’s television show My Friends Tigger & Pooh, a
performance of the movie’s theme song by Carly Simon (!) and a brief video art
gallery. For younger viewers, there’s a special short for Eeyore, a sing-along
special and a “100-Acre Wood Challenge” set-top game. On the outside of the
release, there’s a coupon good for purchases on other Disney titles, on the
inside there’s a cardstock insert and a small, fold-out advert with information
on the aforementioned Disney Channel spin-off show, its special Christmas movie
and the Disney “Movie Rewards” program. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)
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Love the ’80s series, or snarky fan web sites dedicated to sarcastically
keeping the flames of Sydney Barnes or Matthew Happnard alive. R&B, rock ’n’ roll… they each had
their hot-risers who stand (or more aptly lay) in total obscurity today, but
perhaps none so much as the soul scene, which put artists and church-trained crooners
through the wringer like so much grist through the mill.
The performance compilation DVD Soulvation, concentrating ostensibly on the regional speciality of Northern soul, attempts to rectify some of that anonymity, collecting
20 anthems from the underground dance music scene, each performed by their
legendary (and in some cases not-so-legendary) artists. Its play list is as
follows: Frank Wilson’s “Do I Love You,” Bob Brady and the Con Chords’ previously
unreleased “Everybody’s Goin’ To the Love-In,” top-shelf belter Brenda Holloway’s
“Reconsider” (a real stand-out), Kim Weston’s “Helpless,” Edwin Starr’s “I Have Faith in You,”
Sandi Sheldon’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Love You,” Leon Haywood’s “Baby
Reconsider,” The Artistics’ previously unreleased “Hope We Have,” Richard
Temple’s “That Beatin’ Rhythm,” the aforementioned Barnes’ “I Hurt on the Other
Side” (once put to good use by Spike Lee), JJ Barnes’ “Our Love Is in the
Pocket,” The Gems’ “I’ll Be There,” Lee Andrews and the Hearts’ “Nevertheless,”
The Carstairs’ enervated “It Really Hurts Me Girl,” Evie Sands’ “Picture Me
Gone,” The Platters’ “With This Ring,” Jackie Ross’ “Selfish One,” Betty
Lavette’s “Let Me Down Easy,” Pat Lewis’ “No One to Love” and Tobi Legend’s “Time
Will Pass You By.” As a grab-bag title, Soulvation more or less succeeds, but it’s obviously got niche appeal; for me, only about a quarter of the tunes connected in lasting fashion.
Housed in a regular Amray case, Soulvation is presented on a region-free disc in 1.33:1 full
screen, with a Dolby 2.0 stereo audio mix that is certainly adequate if not
mind-blowing. The video quality of its footage varies a bit, but most is solid considering the sources and time of its recording. Overall, the title runs 70 minutes, padded out a bit with interview footage,
though some academic overview would definitely have been welcome, particularly
given the missing-in-action nature of some of the included acts. C+ (Concert) C-
(Disc)
Michael Showalter plays an average guy in The Baxter… a really average guy. In honor of that film’s off-kilter delights, as well as his 37th birthday today, here’s a reposting of an interview with him from the fall of 2005, on occasion of the movie’s original theatrical release. To wit:
For someone whose comedic resumé includes inspired absurdist
fare like Wet Hot American Summer and
the new Comedy Central show Stella, Michael Showalter is remarkably relaxed and low key in person, cycling through
bottled water and fiddling with the string on a hooded sweatshirt as he
discusses his feature film directorial debut, The Baxter. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise, though, since guilelessness is always the leavening ingredient in his often willfully incongruous
comedic collaborations.
Showalter, of course, got his start as part of the sprawling
comedy collective The State, which achieved a cultish following in the 1990s
via an eponymous sketch show on MTV. Showalter and his cohorts — including Stella and The Baxter costars David Wain and Michael Ian Black — met as
freshmen in college at New YorkUniversity
in the late 1980s. “It was just one of those things — a large group of people
all in the same place at the same time with exactly the same goals,” Showalter
recalls.The Baxter, which
he characterizes as a deadpan cartoon in which “all the characters are
participating in the same drawn reality,” marks Showalter’s film debut as a writer-director,
though he has plenty of experience helming sketches.
He also stars in it, playing Elliot Sherman, the very
embodiment of romantic compromise. If George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone”
announces swaggering screen bad boys and exotically flavored orchestral scores
herald the arrival of cinema’s most sensitive heartthrobs, Death Cab for
Cutie’s “The Sound of Settling” would serve as the putative theme song for
Elliot, a dowdy but sincere accountant who finds himself caught between
well-heeled fiancée Caroline Swann (The 40-Year-Old Virgin’s Elizabeth Banks) and Cecil Mills (Michelle Williams),
a bookish temp who seems on the surface a much better geek match. (Both she and
Elliot read the dictionary as a book.)
The film’s story finds Elliot awkwardly attempting to assert
himself. Though he’s not a 40-year-old virgin, he is a man-child whose
politeness has metamorphosed into serial acquiescence. When Caroline’s dashing
ex-boyfriend BradleyLake
(Justin Theroux) arrives, Elliot recognizes the familiar warning signs of an
impending dumping.
Showalter’s leaping off point for The Baxter was the great screwball romantic comedies of the 1930s
and ’40s, films in which second male leads like Ralph Bellamy and John Howard
took it squarely on the chin when the Cary Grants of the world swept in and
relieved them of their women. (For a modern day comparison, think of Bill
Pullman’s jettisoned character from Nora Ephron’s Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romantic
comedy Sleepless in Seattle.)
It wasn’t a role that Showalter originally wrote with
himself in mind (Edward Norton’s name was bandied about at one point), but when
it became clear that it made the film financially feasible he rose to the
challenge. “Well, my attitude was that I wanted to do what was best for the
film,” Showalter says, “and at that time I saw myself playing Elliot as being
in service of the larger good.”
Like many comedians, Showalter seems to blanch a bit when
discussing the roots of his own inspiration. “I haven’t given it a lot of
thought. I like smart, fast, tight and clean,” he says. “I definitely like
tension, that’s something I like to try to find. And I think that I like
awkwardness. That’s something I find funny — human awkwardness. The Office is the funniest thing that
I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s basically because it’s just non-stop awkward
tension between all these characters, that constant sense of wanting to crawl
inside your own skin and die. But I really couldn’t define it beyond that. I
don’t think I have a formula.”
Showalter — who says he devoured all types and sub-genres of
comedy growing up — may not have a set creative formula, but he does have a
distinctive voice. His comedy is very mannered, driven by a sense of
playfulness. If there’s a tension, it’s never malicious, but rather balanced
perfectly between earnestness and silliness. It’s micro comedy instead of macro comedy, Showalter
concedes — comedy of protocol and words that isn’t built for breakout
mainstream success. “Probably not,” says Showalter when asked if he could ever envision
transitioning to more overt, studio-friendly fare. “I think The Baxter is a very independent film. I
think that it’s accessible in a way that some of my other stuff isn’t, but I
[also] think that it will not and cannot possibly be appreciated in the same
way that Wedding Crashers is. It’s
too stylized, it’s too specific.”
“I don’t have a good sense of what the bigger audience
likes,” Showalter continues, “and that’s partly why I think I exist in the
margins in my career. But I know what I like and what appeals to the
sensibilities of people I know.”He’s hoping those sensibilities help the whimsical Stella carve out as comfortable a small
screen home as that of Cops spoof Reno 911!, conceived and rendered by his
fellow ex-Staters. “We’re flying blind,” says Showalter of his show with Wain
and Black, a piquant staple of VH-1’s I
Love the ’90s specials. “It’s about these three guys who get into utterly
insane misadventures. We just take something small and take past the point
where it’s at all logical.” He’s not kidding. A recent episode found the guys
growing their own vegetables (indoors, naturally) to save money ($50 a year!) only
to become itinerant farmhands for the very crew boss whose agricultural advice
they failed to heed.
If Stella doesn’t
stick, Showalter won’t be gloomy for long. “It took me until when I started
doing The Baxter to really feel like
I was ready to step out on my own,” says Showalter. “And I’m grateful for
having had the opportunity to sort of stay inside the bubble for so long. What
I want to do now is sort of bounce back and forth between the collaboration and
working as an individual.”
That means, given his druthers, definitely more writing, and
almost certainly more directing. “I don’t think I could give up writing, but I
think I could give up acting,” says Showalter, who’s also a big sports fan who
likes to play poker and chess. “I would never in a million years tell you that
I’m an actor. …I just think doing this and getting paid at all seems like such
a novelty and farce that I never got too hung up on the money. If you’re paying
me to write this stuff that feels so much like my own, I’m just so lucky, so I
never got too up in arms over it.” For a review of The Baxter, click here; to purchase The Baxter via Amazon, click here.
It’s a cool, sunny Los Angeles day and David Goyer is where any
self-respecting comic book aficionado would be on such a clear morning:
inside, in a dimly lit room. Except instead of poring over copies of
the latest hot titles and dissecting minutiae to do with color, shading
and character, Goyer is in the edit bay tinkering onThe Invisible
— a film that represents a bit of a change-up, and a departure from
the graphic novel subgenre for which he is most well known. In the wake
of The Invisible’s $20 million spring box office take, Goyer has now been tapped by Universal to do an update of The Invisible Man, and may or may not direct a Magneto spin-off for 20th Century Fox.
Directing is something of an intriguing new, well, direction for Goyer who, as a kid
growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, always just wanted to write comic books,
which eventually led to his bringing them to life for the big screen.
As a writer, producer and occasional director, Goyer has exercised his
passion for telling brooding, character-driven stories by helping
translate comics both obscure and hugely popular. To him, it’s no
coincidence. “In retrospect, most of my movies are kind of about
outsiders,” Goyer says while fiddling with a coffee cup. “Even going back to Dark City or Batman or Blade
— they’re all about these people who are outsiders and alone. I didn’t
have a lot of friends growing up, so that clearly must be why I’m drawn
to these kinds of stories.” For the full feature piece, from FilmStew, click here.
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