At the recent press day for Hairspray, Michelle Pfeiffer talked about how she was inspired to believe in herself and strive to achieve — issues at the core of the buoyant musical. “It was my mother,” says Pfeiffer of her inspiration. “My mother didn’t have a career, and she
used to always say to me, ‘Michelle, there are two things you need to do before
you get married: you need to have a career, and you need to live on your own.’
That was her mantra to me, and then my dad inspired me [too, because] he had a
very fierce work ethic — he instilled in all of us kids the desire to succeed…
it didn’t matter what you chose to do, it was that you did it the best that you
could. So I kind of had a man’s work ethic for the time, because that was who I
emulated. Now it’s sort of everybody’s work ethic, men and women.” For Pfeiffer’s thoughts on her work in the upcoming Stardust, meanwhile, click here.
Monthly Archives: July 2007
The Black Cat
What do director Stuart Gordon, writer Dennis Paoli and star
Jeffrey Combs have in common? Well, besides collaborating on the 1985
horror classic Re-Animator, they now have another shared credit
— this time lifted from a short story of one of America’s most revered
and mysterious writers.
King of the Ants), co-written by Gordon and Paoli (Dagon, Castle Freak) and starring horror icon Combs, The Black Cat is the latest entry in the Emmy-winning Masters of Horror anthology series, and it dives headlong into the unchartered waters of biographic speculation, mixing the telling of the same-named story with elements of Poe’s actual life, much like Shakespeare in Love or the forthcoming Becoming Jane, I suppose.
As gorgeously shot (by Jon Joffin) as it is grisly, the brisk, hour-long movie stars Combs as Edgar Allan Poe. Suffering from crippling writer’s block, he’s deep in debt and in love with the bottle. When not nursing his own woes, Poe cares for his loving wife Virginia (Elyse Levesque), who’s been struck down with consumption. He tends to her, burdened with the knowledge that he cannot save her, especially when the doctor helping to treat her refuses to continue with his care unless Poe can make good on his overdue bills. But is it his wife’s slow, agonizing death and other real-world troubles, or her ever-present black cat that is steadily driving Poe insane? Unsure if he’s been condemned to a living hell of illusion and insanity, the writer sets out on a dark, inner voyage to create one of the more famous early horror stories ever written.
While the source material in all honesty isn’t really the best of Poe, the filmmakers get around this by tricking it out a bit and refracting it through Poe’s life, and the general stylishness with which they accomplish this carries much weight in terms of the project’s watchability. Film fans who abhor navel-gazing and referentiality — in horror or any other genre — will likely not find this among the best Masters of Horror entries, on par with such delightful works as Family and Deer Woman, which are more streamlined and fun. Still, if the means are obviously limited, these restrictions feed a certain imagination, and the film’s execution (no pun intended) is solid.
Presented in 1.78:1 widescreen and enhanced for 16×9 televisions, The Black Cat, like other Masters of Horror titles on DVD, comes housed in a cardboard slipcover, and accompanied by a litter of bonus features. An amiable audio commentary track with Gordon and Combs kicks things off, and much time is rightfully devoted to a discussion about the look of the movie. Running nearly 20 minutes, The Tell-Tale Cat gives a nice overview of the making of the movie, while a separate featurette, Bringing Down the Axe, shines a light on the special effects used herein, and how CGI and practical latex work were combined. Rounding out the disc are a brief biography and filmography on Gordon, a photo gallery from the movie and a DVD-ROM version of its screenplay. B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)
A Few Thoughts on Sunshine
All right, I’ll look to slam out a proper review tomorrow, perchance, but I thought I’d drop a few thoughts on Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. All in all, it’s an interesting and kind of artful misfire — the type of movie that doesn’t really ignite a desire to ever view it again, but one that you’d recommend to certain friends, if maybe not others.
Loosely categorized as a science fiction thriller, it’s set in the year 2057. The sun is dying and a solar winter has
enveloped the Earth, whose last best hope lies with the Icarus II, a spacecraft
with an international crew of eight men and women. Their mission: to
deliver a nuclear device designed to reignite our fading sun. Deep into their
voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, the crew hears a distress beacon from
the Icarus I, which disappeared on the same mission seven years earlier. A
terrible accident throws their mission into jeopardy, and soon the crew finds
themselves fighting not only for their sanity and their lives, but for the
future of us
all.
The obvious benchmarks here are Solaris, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and (just a bit) Armageddon, with Boyle’s tastes of course tilting toward the more artistic, which accounts for Alwin Kuchler’s affected cinematography, shot in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, a first for Boyle. What the movie — which, at its concentrated core, has a relatively bleak-hearted view about humanity essentially being its own worst enemy — most has going for it is that there is no sentimental attachment to its characters, which equals a real sense of jeopardy, since anyone can die at any time. After creating a relatively foreboding sense of mood in its first half or two-thirds, however, Sunshine devolves into an impressionistic action tale. By the time two characters are left sliding around on a giant cube, three words surge to the front of your brain: what the fuck? For more information, click here.
Ramones DVD Set for Fall Bow
Good news for folks who want to be sedated — a special Ramones DVD, It’s Alive: 1974-1996, will be released this fall (exact date TBD) from Rhino, distilling the essence of over 2,000 performances onto a two-disc set with over four hours of footage. Promising a blend of rare material from the influential group’s earliest performances at CBGBs to international festival gigs in front of crowds of over 100,000, this special set should be the closest experience to seeing the Ramones live again.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Lame
A full review will follow on Friday, but Kevin James and Adam Sandler’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is a movie that makes you say wow, and not in a good way. It’s bad. In fact, it’s flat-out awful. I went in expecting a slightly down-market, dumb-fun-time comedy, and left underwhelmed. The story is derisible, the cameos are strange (Dave Matthews? Dan Patrick?) and a long and absolutely laugh-free early passage leaves one with plenty of time to ponder the average number of popcorn crunches per minute of one’s neighbor.
From Sandler’s libidinous, gum-smacking, single-guy skirt-chaser right on down the line, Chuck & Larry goes to extraordinary lengths to assert the fact that it’s a “play-gay” movie, both in the film and of course in its marketing. It even has not one but two hetero-tilting taglines — “They’re straight as can be, but don’t tell anyone,” and “How far would you go for a friend?” Why not just go ahead and put, “Seriously man, they totally dig boobs, for reals” in parantheses under the title? That would roughly equate to the level of nuance and subtlety contained herein.
Sure, the movie actually delivers on Jessica Biel’s butt shots, in rather… admirable fashion, I guess you’d say? But it’s not funny, period. Further carving to follow…
Captivity
The first audience member stood up when battery acid was about to be
poured on a young girl’s face, but, interestingly, walked down the
stairs to the edge of the theater, watched the scene and then returned
to their seat. Apparently, it wasn’t actually too graphic. Said person did
leave, however, along with two others, during a sequence in which the
same character is forced to drink a bloody milkshake made out of
eyeballs, ears and other bits of flesh. Ahh yes, another month, another
slice of offensive cinematic torture porn to raise the hackles of cultural critics and parents everywhere.
This time it’s Captivity, a serviceably rendered but entirely predictable piece of mental rot
directed by Roland Joffé. Opening in just over 1,060 screens, the movie pulled in a dismal $1.4 million in its debut frame last weekend, good enough to come in behind the fifth weekend go-round of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
The film’s plot, to the extent that its set-up is even really accounted for, finds young fashion icon and actress Jennifer Tree (Elisha Cuthbert, making House of Wax look like high art) drugged and kidnapped from a corporate-sponsored party. She awakens to find herself sealed in a subterranean metallic
tomb, where her shrouded captor tortures with barrages of light and
sound, and by means more nasty.
Jennifer eventually makes contact with a fellow captive, Gary (Daniel
Gillies), and the pair seeks solace in one another’s company, trying to
escape their hellish situation.
The first 15 to 20 minutes of the movie feature very little dialogue,
and we don’t see Jennifer interact in person with another human being; Captivity, then, is a filmic exercise in mind’s-eye stalking, with the movie’s
cinematography fetishistically mimicking the early surveillance footage
that provides the killer’s point-of-view. One would think that since Jennifer is a young and sexy celebrity, the
film might have some sort of (nominal) commentary about fame or the
obsession that public images can trigger in diseased minds, but it
really doesn’t. <Spoiler alert> There’s never any doubt as to Gary’s complicity in the
plot (if I’ve shocked you with that revelation, you deserve a punch to
the head), so the film becomes nothing more than a bunch of rather
arbitrary and artificially flavored torture and thrill sequences, the
nasty playing out of a string. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.
Nikki Blonsky on Hairspray
For 18-year-old Nikki Blonsky, director Adam Shankman’s
adaptation of the stage musical Hairspray represents a life-changing experience, as
well as a dream come true. Plucked out of obscurity from a Great Neck, New York
Coldstone Creamery ice cream shop, Blonsky was a hardcore fan
of the show. “I auditioned for Broadway two years ago, and they told me I was
too young,” she says. “Then I saw the Broadway show when I was 15, and I was
hooked. I loved it. I wanted to play
more than anything.”
said, ‘We’re making the movie, and [looking for] ages are 17 to 24,’” Blonsky
continues. “So I said, ‘Oh, I’m 17! Let’s do it — this is perfect!’”
of ‘Good Morning Baltimore,’ and to look at the soundtrack and say, ‘Oh my
gosh, I am on a soundtrack with Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Queen
Latifah, John Travolta…’” Here Blonsky trails off and laughs, a huge smile
spreading across her face. “It’s mind-blowing, just totally mind-blowing. My
life has completely turned around, I’ll tell you that much. I have extremely
supportive parents, so I’ve always been very happy and content with my life
with them and everything. But when you’re finally doing what you want to do in
life, it’s this level of joy that I never thought was possible. I mean, I’m
just happy 24-7, I’ve just never been this happy!”
A Double Dose of Breslin
I have a pal who has such a pronounced, sincere disdain for 11-year-old Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), and yet a correlative affection for her older brother Spencer (oh… The Santa Clause 3, let’s say) that it sprints past the strange right into camp brilliance. That’s why he’ll be stoked by today’s news. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Breslin possessing two testicles (as well as actual talent, my friend would exclaim at this point) is set to star in two new films.
First the bad news: he’ll topline the teen-flavored comedy Harold, opposite
actor-producer and box office kiss of death Cuba Gooding Jr., as a prematurely balding student trying to adapt to a new high school. But Breslin’s also lined up a lead role in M. Night Shyamalan’s
rebound thriller project, The Happening, which will start shooting in August, and stars Mark Wahlberg as a father trying to lead his family to safety when a natural disaster threatens to destroy the planet. Presumably there will be no “narfs” or “scrunts” this go-round…
Happy Birthday, Kristen Bell
Kristen Bell, who turns 27 today. Bell is taking the young starlet’s road less traveled; she will continue to try to parlay the critical and smallish-but-loyal support of Veronica Mars into big screen notoriety via (fairly) respected roles, but she needs to steer clear of material like Pulse, which was god-awful. Bell acquited herself decently in the wildly uneven Fifty Pills, but that was minor-chord filmmaking. Meanwhile, Fanboys has been delayed so many times I’m not even convinced it’s actually real at this point. A few indie-leaning dramas wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea, but here’s hoping Forgetting Sarah Marshall, produced by comedy’s King Midas of the moment, Judd Apatow, will do it for Bell.
The Number 23
Hollywood’s attempts to perpetually reinvent the thriller require
stylistic dressing consistent with the times, certainly. But they also
increasingly demand labyrinthine and complex myths and legends,
frequently attached to one of the following: nebulous anthropological and/or alien menace (the underrated The Mothman Prophecies); mental fracturing or devolution (Identity, Secret Window, Christian Bale’s own personal two-fer of American Psycho and The Machinist); strong hints or outright underscoring of devilish threat (the in-release Joshua, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Omen); or centuries-old religious conspiracy (The Da Vinci Code,
naturally). Maybe it’s a millennial hangover, maybe it’s a sign of a
surging collective anxiety and how we like to displace that nervousness
and apprehension by hanging it on the hook of something bigger than
ourselves. Whatever the case, into this arena steps this week’s new DVD
The Number 23, a stylish if somewhat irresolute thriller about one man’s downward descent into geometric fixation and madness. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.
Happy Birthday, Phoebe Cates
Holy crap, Phoebe Cates is 44 today?!?! That just doesn’t seem right. Hold on, let me fire up the Cars’ “Moving In Stereo.” OK, that’s better…
Premonition
Premonition is
proof positive that imaginatively fractured storytelling like Memento doesn’t actually always work. Sandra
Bullock stars as mother and housewife Linda Hanson in this slapdash and
nonsensical dramatic thriller, a jumbled mix of time-bending suspense elements
and tones.
 has died in a car accident. When she<br />
wakes up the next morning to find him alive and well, she assumes it was all a<br />
dream, but is shaken by how vivid it felt. Linda soon realizes it wasn’t a<br />
simple dream, though, and that instead her world is turning upside down. Further<br />
surreal circumstances lead her to discover that her perfect life may not have been<br />
all that it appeared. Desperate to save her family, Linda begins a furious race<br />
against time and fate to try and preserve everything that she and Jim have<br />
built together.</p>
<p class=)
loose narrative of of personal-stakes investigation, but is frugal in design
and lacking in detail and rationality. Visual touchstones are scattered
haphazardly throughout (a dead crow here, a bottle of wine there), but they
hold neither any concrete meaning nor any surreal, anxiety-provoking allure; they’re just coded markers, wanly tossed into the mix to indicate where we are
on a timeline continuum. Furthermore, there are no sustained, legitimate
attempts to truly dissect Linda’s presentiments, or assign her plight any
importance. A few thinly sketched supporting characters wander in and out of
the proceedings, but do little to realistically impact it. As if these
stultifying inanities weren’t enough, Premonition also (and most
damningly) just comes off as boring, just plain and simple.
slipcover, Premonition’s tricked-out DVD
release comes loaded with enough bonus materials to make folks perhaps think it’s
a worthwhile title. Supplemental extras include a collection of deleted scenes,
including an alternate ending with optional director’s commentary, a look at
the making of the movie with interviews from the cast and crew, a look at the
major events of the movie put in “normal” order and narrated by freshman director
Mennan Yapo, a short documentary about people who in real life people have had
premonitions about their own futures, and a short blooper reel, which shows
that at least some laughs were squeezed out of this lemon. There’s also an
audio commentary track with Yapo and Bullock. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. F (Movie) B+ (Disc)
Michelle Pfeiffer on Stardust
At the recent press day for Hairspray, Michelle Pfeiffer also talked a bit about the forthcoming Stardust, based on Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel, and directed by Matthew Vaughn. “It’s one of those movies that’s kind of hard to describe in
one sentence or one word, it’s kind of everything rolled into one,” she says. “It’s sort of
a fantasy/mythic/romance adventure… it’s a lot of different
worlds going on at one time. Somehow it all comes together and it all works;
it’s one of those times where everyone being in a different movie isn’t a
bad thing.”
Pfeiffer plays 5,000-year-old witch Lamia (“It’s hard to say which one’s more evil — [her] or Velma Von Tussle; it’s a toss-up”), but she says
five hours of make-up every day, and it was just not pleasant,” says Pfeiffer. “In fact, I was told
by the producers of Hairspray
that I was not allowed to talk to John (Travolta) about
prosthetics. They said, ‘It’d be better if you didn’t swap horror stories…’ But
John fortunately had done his homework and was prepared, and he knew how to set
things up in a way that would make things as comfortable for him as possible.
I, on the other hand, was unprepared, and just got through it.”
In the end it was worth it, though, Pfeiffer says. “The movie is stunning, it is. It’s really beautiful. I
mean — I’m not, I look hideous. Some of the older parts I look OK, but
we poke fun at this quest for eternal youth and the degree to which women will
go to to get it. …When I talked with
Matthew (Vaughn) that was the thing that intrigued me, because it wasn’t really
in the script or story. The storyline of eternal youth was, but we decided to
have a little bit of fun with it, and we do. It’s kind of silly.
Stardust opens August 10 nationwide, but I’ll be seeing the film Monday, so I’ll post some thoughts on it this coming week. For Sienna Miller’s thoughts on the movie, meanwhile, click here.
Shia LaBeouf: Acting Is Life
With Transformers‘ $220 million (and counting) gross, and a prominent role in the forthcoming installment of the Indiana Jones series, erstwhile Project Greenlight kid Shia LaBeouf is well on his way to stardom, getting so far out ahead of any disastrous solo projects that he can milk this high for another four or five years, easy.
A few quotes from a July 1 piece in the Los Angeles Times, just before Transformers‘ bow, however, showcase a manic streak that could conceivably augur trouble if LaBeouf hits a rough patch. “I freak out sometimes,” he says at the article’s end. “When I’m in my trailer, I have panic attacks. I’m like a nervous little gremlin. [On set] I can control myself, I can watch the monitor and say, ‘That’s the person I’ve created, that’s who I want to be right now.'”
“Acting is my entirety. This is the most important thing in life to me — above politics, above my family, above my own happiness. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t want to live, literally. I’m saying this and I mean it. Happiness isn’t worth anything, it’s momentary. This is forever.”
Such notions of forever are all well and good when you’re starring in blockbusters, of course. It’s a different matter when you’re no longer on the receiving end of phone calls and offer sheets. I’m not saying he’s doomed or anything, but LaBeouf seems like a genuinely good kid; I hope he doesn’t get too caught up in numbers analysis.
On Transformer’s Ending
I’ve written a good bit on Transformers, and last week touched in passing fashion on the idiocy of its ending, but it’s worth pointing out again the
destroying huge swathes of a city, including a scene in which planes fly through buildings, killing, conservatively, dozens of people — via an utterly jaw-dropping coda which asserts “the president ordered Decepticon
leader Megatron’s body dumped into the ocean, where the pressure destroyed
it.” So this is what allows the Transformers to remain on Earth and live in secrecy
among us. What a cover-up… brilliant, just brilliant.
On L.A.’s Indie Film Lounge
Dinner, cocktails and mingling are on order as indie filmmakers of Los Angeles screen their work under the stars in Hollywood tonight at Citizen Smith between 8:30 and 11 p.m., on Selma Boulevard just between Ivar and Cahuenga. Victoria Lane hosts, and tickets are $8. For more information, visit Citizen Smith’s eponymous web site, or phone (323) 461-5001.
Neverwas
“For those that don’t know, this is how it began,” opens Neverwas, a solid enough
fantastical-minded drama which premiered at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival and
was acquired by Miramax, but then probably deemed too reminiscent in narrative and
lacking slightly in comparative lacquered whimsy to something like Finding Neverland to garner the P&A
muscle of a wide theatrical release.
Thank You For Smoking)
as Zach Riley, a psychiatrist who returns to
his father, famous children’s novelist T.L. Pierson (a gravelly-voiced Nick
Nolte), committed suicide decades ago. The mysteries of Zach’s tragic early
life, contained within the pages of his father’s titular masterwork, are slowly
revealed to the psychiatrist with the assistance of a wide-eyed, allegedly schizophrenic
patient named Gabriel Finch (Ian McKellen). While Zach is reluctant to get
drawn into any analysis or discussion about his father’s Tolkien-esque tome,
Finch insists it’s all real, and that Zach has had a spell cast on him to make
him forget his place as ruler of the magical kingdom.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and
other tales of psychiatric munificence. Philip Glass’ mesmerizing score
provides Neverwas with a nice aural backdrop,
and if director Stern dips into saturated-frame affectation a bit too often (all
sunlit windows and canted slow-motion), it’s only about half as annoying as one
might typically find it because of all the fine actors more than pulling their
weight here. Abetting Stern is a fabulous cast that includes the aforementioned
players as well as Jessica Lange as Zach’s fretful mother Katherine; William
Hurt as Zach’s new boss, Dr. Peter Reed; and Brittany Murphy as a botanist grad
student and possible love interest, Maggie. Rounding out the cast in small cameo
roles are Alan Cumming, Michael Moriarty, Vera Farmiga, Cynthia Stevenson and
Bill Bellamy.
uplift, Neverwas is a decent enough flick,
certainly worthy of a rental. There is essentially only one question at the
heart of the movie, and Stern takes the long way around the maypole in actually
addressing it, meaning that the climax requires a silly confluence of events
and parties. Since all that provides the audience with more time with McKellan,
though, one doesn’t too terribly mind.
sound audio track, and French and Spanish subtitles. Apart from a gallery of
preview trailers for other Buena Vista DVD releases like The Invisible and Wild Hogs,
there are unfortunately no supplemental extras on the DVD, which is housed in a
regular Amray case.
Happy Birthday, Forest Whitaker
It’s a happy birthday to Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, who turns 46 today. Whitaker has always been a rather soft-spoken and reserved guy, and I think he’s really taken internally some of the professional slings and arrows that he’s had to suffer over the course of his career. The amusing and strange thing to think about? If Whitaker hadn’t been bounced from the helm of Fat Albert — a movie he was attached to direct for quite some time, but eventually departed after creative differences with creator Bill Cosby — his career trajectory might have been altogether different and precluded him even doing The Last King of Scotland. For a feature interview on Whitaker, click here.
On The Simpsons Movie Screenings
In a piece by Gina Piccalo, the Los Angeles Times is reporting today — and my own emails are confirming — that 20th Century Fox won’t be screening The Simpsons Movie for critics until three days in advance of its July 27 general release, ostensibly a strategy to the preserve the film’s plot, which has been a source of rabid speculation ever since the project was announced last year with a surprise theatrical trailer. While there’s the typical speculation that such a move means Fox doesn’t feel they really have the goods with the movie, I’m apt to side here with those that believe the surface explanation.
The trailers and TV ads to date have sold the movie merely on its status — as a celebratory filmic extension of the series. To the extent that plot points have been leaked or reported on (a nuclear accident in Springfield, etcetera), there’s been a lot of talk about these being potential misdirection, and large portions of the material from trailers being specially crafted for such. To me, that seems plausible. And you know what? I don’t really mind.
Ahh, Rampaging Dads…
I originally meant to repost this review of a completely average “rampaging dad” flick starring Ray Winstone on Father’s Day, actually, but I just last night saw a guy get up in some other dude’s grille about (accidentally, it seemed) pushing his 8- or 9-year-old daughter out of the way, and it struck me that there really is a comparatively healthy subset of Charles Bronson-type guys out there, for whom any affront is cause to throw down. Usually we get the nobly questing father, trying to find his missing child or avenge an awful death of said offspring. In real life, though, a lot of these guys are simply big ol’ douchebags. Ahh, rampaging dads…
Hot Rod’s Running Time, Solved
Good news, of a sort — despite some earlier indications to the contrary, Hot Rod‘s final, commercial release running time is in the ballpark of 87 minutes or so, definitely under 90 minutes, even with credits. I’ll try to have a few more thoughts on the film tomorrow…
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I have a dirty confession to make. I’m a professional film critic and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film in a franchise whose five efforts thus far have raked in a combined $3.5 billion domestically, is the first film in the series that I’ve seen.
This is irresponsible to some and baffling to most, but I find it rather amusing.
When the first movie came out, in November of 2001, I was the editor-in-chief and principal film critic of a now-defunct weekly entertainment paper here in Los Angeles, so I had my pick of the litter with regards to assignments. The thing was, I wasn’t necessarily as excited about Harry Potter
as the general populace. I’d heard good things about the books (even a
thumbs up from my mom), but hadn’t read any of them; given that my
regular job indulged such high amounts of escapist fiction, any time I
had left for reading invariably was devoted to biographies or something
of the sort, so I could feel like I wasn’t completely rotting my brain
The paper where I worked wasn’t invited to the film’s out-of-town
junket (in London), and I believe I had another, admittedly nominal
conflict the evening of the announced screening I first heard about
from a Warner Bros. publicist. So I passed the movie along to one of my fine and more than grateful freelancers; I think I reviewed Steve Martin’s Novocaine, Snoop Dogg’s The Wash, and the indies Maze and The Fluffer that week, four films which collectively opened on less than a quarter of the screens that Harry Potter did.
I followed with interest the intriguing choices of director for the
series, and some of the other gossip, but never really felt like I was
missing out. If anything, I thought fondly of a day 20 years hence,
just settling down one weekend with a stack of DVDs (or whatever form
of newfangled home exhibition was all the rage at that time) and
plowing through them all, my own little discovered pop cultural time
capsule. But now I’ve gone and ruined that a bit. And all in all, I have to say, I enjoyed the movie just fine.
It’s not as
bewildering of an experience as you might think, actually, wandering
into a series completely cold. You’re probably able to appreciate
certain things a bit more — certainly there’s no irrational attachment
to the novels’ exposition or detail in setting. I had no strong previous connection to the material, but was carried
along by the film’s rather savvy balance of wonderment with a sense of
impending doom and mystery. Coming out of The Order of the Phoenix, I can understand and more fully appreciate the series’ appeal, even without the same sum-total hourly commitment of shared darkness. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.
Michelle Pfeiffer on Troubled Woman
At the recent press day for Hairspray, Michelle Pfeiffer talked about why she
hasn’t been seen on screen since 2002’s underrated White Oleander. It’s a messy tale, for those who haven’t heard about it. To wit:
“I spent a couple of years trying to get this movie going,
called I Could Never Be Your Woman,
which Amy Heckerling directed and Paul Rudd stars in with me,” Pfeiffer explains. “It hasn’t
been released and I’m not sure when it will be. But I really, really loved that
project and, frankly, for a few years everything paled in comparison, and it was the
only thing I’d wanted to do. So that was sort of to be my big comeback, and
that was two years ago.
What’s the delay? “It’s not really legal problems, it has something to do with
deal stuff,” says Pfeiffer. “There are no legal battles per se, but I think it’s about finding
the right distribution deal that everyone can be happy with. It’s the first
time something like this has happened (to me), and initially it was very frustrating. But now that
it’s been two years, I’m kind of not thinking about it, honestly. I would love
for it to come out, but the ship has sailed and I’m moving on.”
Of course Pfeiffer’s being fairly gracious and forgiving. Her make-nice statements are the press-pattycake equivalent of styrofoam packing popcorn — not totally forthcoming, but not necessarily false, either. The film is basically the biggest casualty of the implosion of upstart Bauer Martinez, which in turn is partly a result of the poor earnings of both National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj and Harsh Times, but also some rather shady and/or dizzying basic-level mismanagement. (Also caught up in Bauer hell: The Moguls, formerly known as The Amateurs, and Richard Gere’s troubled The Flock.)
Still, Pfeiffer insists that fans needn’t worry about her totally disappearing. Apart from the forthcoming Stardust, she’s also eyeing a couple other projects. “I’ve actually been working the last two years, it’s just that
now everything is coming out,” she says. “It’s kind of natural that I was
due to take a break. It wasn’t a conscious decision… but I’d worked pretty hard for a long time, and it
probably
made sense for my psyche.”
Chuck, Larry and Jessica Biel’s Butt
What’s a butt worth? Kevin James and Adam Sandler’s gay-but-not-really comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, releasing July 20, has the two single firefighter pals posing as a homosexual couple in order to secure health and pension benefits for James’ kids. Of course, we all knew there had to be some va-voomish feminine temptation to give the movie some hetero sizzle and counterbalance all the willfully uncomfortable, nudge-nudge laughs. That’s where Jessica Biel comes in, naturally. Base level prurience aside though (honestly), I’m intrigued by how… umm, assertively Universal is doing that.
I generally expected a few low-cut dress cleavage shots in the movie’s trailer, but the above screen caps — from the obligatory scene where Sandler’s character must control his libido and surging crush while Biel’s character changes clothes in front of him — are in heavy rotation in the Chuck & Larry TV ads, and not just in the evenings, either. I don’t know for sure that they’re making the rounds on the broadcast networks, though; the summer slate has sent me scurrying back to the comforts of cable.
If an Adam Sandler summer comedy ever needed any help — with his track record, it’s a minimum $40 million opening and a final haul anywhere between $135 and $170, guaranteed — Biel’s estimable back end could help squeeze a few more dollars out of teenage wallets. I just hope that when her character offers Sandler a squeeze of her boobs (part of the same scene, teased in the ads), she’s on to his ploy, and toying with him… mainly because I just don’t like to think about guys like Isaac Mizrahi getting over. Maybe my approach has been wrong all these years…
McPhee-ver Spreads to Big Screen
According to The Hollywood Reporter, American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee has signed on for her first studio film gig, an untitled Anna Faris project for Columbia Pictures, penned by Legally Blonde scribes Karen
McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and directed by Fred Wolf.
The script centers on a Playboy bunny (Faris) who
gets kicked out of the Playboy Mansion and becomes the house mother to
the lamest sorority on a nearby college campus. McPhee will play a pregnant hippie, and rounding out the major roles of
the sorority sisters will be Emma Stone, Rumer Willis, Kat Dennings and comedian
Dana Goodman. The film is perhaps most notable, however, as the first
female-driven comedy to come out of Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production company. Production is set to commence the last week of July in Los Angeles so, somewhere, Rob Schneider is slipping into a micro-skirt and high heels right now…