Daily Archives: June 22, 2007

Is John Cusack Stupid?

Ephemera, Irritations

On an appearance on The Tonight Show last night in support of his so-so thriller 1408, John Cusack — characteristically dressed like the extra Reservoir Dog — was asked by Jay Leno if he was a fan of Stephen King stories growing up, if he liked scary movies when he was young.

Cusack’s reply: “I love good films, any kind of good films at all, but I do remember The Exorcist, The Shining, 28 Days Later… there’s a lot of terrific films.”

The only problem, of course, is that, The Exorcist came out in 1977, The Shining (which Cusack went on to talk about being freaked out by as a teenager) in 1980, and 28 Days Later in… 2003. The question, then: did Cusack simply ignore the root of Leno’s question in mentioning movies he liked, or did someone prep him with a studio-vetted list of similar genre product that he mindlessly plugged in as a reply (in which case the latter still doesn’t really pass muster)? 1408 is based on a Stephen King short story, and Cusack dutifully cited The Shining, Misery and The Shawshank Redemption in answering another question about King’s work. But… 28 Days Later?

Steve Carell on Get Smart

Interviews

Steve Carell’s latest film, Evan Almighty, may be a grand-scale misfire of sorts, but the actor is still feeling good about his upcoming slate of projects, including next summer’s Get Smart.

“Get Smart was something I loved growing up with as a kid,” he says, “and getting the chance to bring that to a movie screen is…” Here Carell trails off, as the wide grin of a man getting paid to play for a living breaks out across his face. “We’re 12 weeks in, we’re almost done shooting it and I think it’s going to be fantastic. I’m very bullish about Get Smart for next summer.”

Disney Double Features Hit Aero

Screenings

Disney’s animated fare gets all the glossy DVD treatment and Academy laurels, but its estimable live action canon is the focus of a special screening series July 11-15 at the Aero Theatre.

Thursday, July 12, starting at 7:30 p.m., there’s a double feature of 1961’s wonderful, Oscar-nominated (for its lush, black-and-white cinematography) The Absent Minded Professor, starring Fred MacMurray, and the same year’s The Parent Trap, with Haley Mills preceding Lindsay Lohan. The following night, also kicking off at 7:30 p.m., is Escape From Witch Mountain, with Donald Pleasance, and 1977’s superb Freaky Friday, starring Barbara Harris and a young Jodie Foster. Other films screening during the series include 1960’s spry, delightful Swiss Family Robinson, 1950’s Treasure Island, the classic Mary Poppins and more. The Aero Theatre is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica; for 24-hour recorded information on tickets, directions and the venue’s upcoming schedule, phone (323) 466-FILM.

Evan Almighty

Film Reviews

Evan Almighty has as its lead certainly one of the hottest comedy stars working today in the form of Steve Carell, of  television’s The Office. Still, even filtered through the more forgiving lens of PG-dom, and giving its mash-up narrative conceit (part Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, part Noah’s arc bible story) a hall pass, Evan Almighty is a dispiritingly timid comedy of laid-track laffs.

I say “laffs” instead of laughs because there’s so little that’s either surprising or even genuine about this movie — it feels phony, in a rib-nudging sort of way, almost bizarrely, purposefully false. From every pore Evan Almighty exudes the feel of a meticulously corporate-vetted tale, and one so nakedly designed to radiate broad appeal that it ends up being a bore — and a rather predictable bore, at that.

From almost the get-go, Evan Almighty feels like the wrong choice for a spin-off to Bruce Almighty, just in terms of the story and where it’s taken. The smug, pompous Evan Baxter of the first film — a cameo bit player who finds himself the unknowing recipient of frustrated colleague Jim Carrey’s passive-aggressiveness — is completely gone, replaced with a generic-type sitcom dad, struggling to please the wife and kids with family time. Robbed of the comedic tension and opportunities that an erosion of this self-importance would provide, the movie becomes an exercise in visually tricked-out tedium. When Evan Almighty dips into its obligatory music montage of arc-building mishaps, Carell hits his thumb with a hammer not once, not twice… but three times, because, you know, comedy comes in triplicate. For the full, original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Universal, PG, 90 minutes)

Lynch Doc Web Site Goes Live; Poster Too

Ephemera, Posterized!

The web site for the new documentary on David Lynch has gone live, and includes the above, quite spare poster image. Compiled from over two years of footage, the film charts Lynch’s creative path during the making of his latest film, Inland Empire, and just recently had its premiere at the Munich Film Festival. No word yet on American play dates, but more to follow in the coming weeks…

Indiana Jones Starts Shooting

Ephemera

So the first picture of Harrison Ford on the set of the fourth Indiana Jones movie is up on the Indiana Jones community site — snapped by director Steven Spielberg, no less — and it looks like production, which commenced yesterday, is starting with a bang, no hand-wringing scenes of namby-pamby exposition chatter or anything. (Those will be left to Jim Broadbent, I guess.) Ergo, Indy’s bloodstained pants, and the blood in and around his ear.

I can only hope that this scene of repose, however, was soon followed by Ford whip-cracking the shorts off of that production assistant in the background, cackling with glee and growling, “I’ve still got it.”

Filming will continue throughout the summer, with the movie set to release May 22, 2008. No word, yet, though, on whether the “Opal of the Mer-Man Prince” will be found…

Evan Tries to Dance

Irritations, Musings

Universal’s very bland and disappointing mega-comedy Evan Almighty tests the relatively new big screen maxim of, “Leave ’em dancing, leave ’em happy.” Ever since the Farrelly brothers re-popularized — to the tune of “Build Me Up Buttercup” in 1998’s There’s Something About Mary — the notion of end credit-scored goofing around (we’re not going to count Lethal Weapon 4‘s desperate, diversionary “Why Can’t We Be Friends?,” from the same year), comedies have been delighting in having their casts and crew goofily flail around just before the final lights come up.

Will Smith’s Hitch found the cast spinning its nuptial-set finale off into an end credits dance-off, getting down to Heavy D’s “Now That We’ve Found Love.” The 40-Year-Old Virgin, meanwhile, featured a Bollywood-style rendition of “Age of Aquarius.” Now Evan Almighty gives us C+C Music Factory’s “Everybody Dance Now.” When a comedy has really hit (like with Mary), it’s a blast of sunshine to see the fun everyone had making the film, and in a more marginal work (like with Hitch), it can accrue goodwill with tremendous downhill momentum, sending you out of the theater on a high, lifting you up and momentarily blinding you to some of the movie’s problems.

When you’ve just suffered through something like Evan Almighty, though, you just kind of look at the screen and think about how much more money these craftspeople are making than you, and it pisses you off.

NBC Pumping Evan Almighty

Musings

Somewhere, Paul Weitz is cackling. The wide-eyed, interlaced-finger corporate synergy he lampooned in searing fashion in In Good Company is on full, unapologetic display on NBC, which is using The Office to pump up star Steve Carell’s burgeoning movie career.

The network re-ran three episodes this evening, but stretched them to a cumulative running time of two hours by padding the night out with interstitial bumpers featuring copious clips from the movie and banter with Carell and other cast members, like Lauren Graham and Wanda Sykes. This tack may work for the film’s opening weekend numbers, but don’t expect word-of-mouth to help this movie out.

Carell exudes a certain nice-guy sympathy, so the natural inclination is to want to go easy on Evan Almighty, but the truth is that there are five times more laughs in the single half-hour “Casino Night” episode of The Office (which Carell penned, incidentally) than the entire running time of Tom Shadyac’s ramshackle (sigh) “comedy of biblical proportions.” It’s that uninspired, though Carell did give me one good laugh with an obviously improvised line — clarifying his bearded appearance by way of explaining that he was cultivating “a Loggins and Messina look” to spice up his love life.