The trailer for The Ruins, opening April 4 from Paramount, is online, and it looks like a matinee-level mash-up of Turistas (the travelogue elements, the latent xenophobia) and 2003’s Cabin Fever (the viral elements, the in-fighting). An R rating (which this movie has as well) and arguable “realism” presumably somewhat dented the former movie’s grosses, limiting it to only $7 million domestically in late 2006, while the same rating was seen as a big part of the latter’s insurgent, $21 million success. Here I expect it will act as more of a suppressor, necessarily excluding 14- to 16-year-olds who might otherwise drift in.
Starring Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey (above right) and Shawn Ashmore, The Ruins is based on Scott Smith’s novel about a group of friends whose leisurely Mexican
holiday takes a turn for the worse when they head to an “ancient Mayan temple, off the beaten path,” where some long-dormant evil
stirs and presumably makes them all pay in ways other than just insincerely “friending” it on MySpace. Ensemble cardsharp flick 21 and Superhero Movie, each opening the week before, seem to have a commercial leg up on The Ruins, and with George Clooney‘s latest directorial effort, the period piece football comedy Leatherheads, opening directly against it, I don’t see a way that The Ruins makes inroads with audiences outside of its wheelhouse demographic, especially since everything other than the setting and that one, forced perspective well shot that echoes There Will Be Blood has already fled from my mind as I write this.
With respect to the movie’s dual posters, I think the first one — of a stretched-back head, with prone neck — is far and away the most effective. The second poster, an outstretched hand, is a little bit Evil Dead, but mostly just vague. For more information on the movie, click here.
The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre presents another installment in their ongoing screening series of former Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas’ favorite films, hosting Best Picture Oscar winner The Best Years of Our Lives on Wednesday, March 12, at 7:30 p.m. Even more relevant in these war-torn times, the 1946 epic centers on three World War II veterans who return home and struggle with the physical and emotional demands of adjusting to civilian life. Juggling multiple storylines and social issues, Academy Award-winning director William Wyler and Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Toland give the drama a visual weight to match its dramatic heft. Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March and Teresa Wright star.
The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for the film, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.
Multi-hyphenate Neil Mandt’s Last Stop for Paul is getting some major cable channel run in big city media markets, as well as some positive advance notices from Richard Roeper and other critics. In advance of its theatrical bow this weekend, Mandt submits to a brief email Q&A about his interesting indie travelogue, which chronicles an in-a-rut bathroom supplies salesman who sets off on a four-corners-of-the-world adventure to spread the ashes of a recently, suddenly deceased childhood friend.
Brent Simon: So what was the first seed for the idea of the movie?
Neil Mandt: I’ve traveled the world extensively, and my first big trip was backpacking Europe alone the summer after high school. It seemed that every trip I took left me with at least one crazy story I would tell at parties. It was only a matter of time and trips until I started to think all of these stories put together would make for an interesting movie. So I came up with the sprinkling of the ashes as the through-line and bingo, we have a movie of my crazy adventures.
BS: So I’ve seen the ads for the film all over MSNBC, which is impressive saturation for any indie. How exactly has that worked on your modest budget?
NM: When my brother and I decided to release the movie ourselves we knew we would have to find some affordable way to get the word out. As I was poking around trying to investigate all of the traditional forms of advertising, I remembered that I had seen spots on local cable for local restaurants. Time Warner is able to sell off some of the left-over inventory on the national shows. When I investigated I was shocked to learn that spots were as cheap as $1 on the Travel Channel. MSNBC was $5 in the daytime and $7 at night. Crazy!
BS: What country, or countries, presented the most logistical hurdles during production?
NM: There were many logistics that I had to deal with in making this movie. In addition to being the producer along with my brother Michael, I was the lead actor, writer, director and travel coordinator. Coordinating the travel for the people who participated in the movie as well as producing the movie was very complicated. Once we were on the road shooting, the biggest concern was to avoid getting arrested in every country. Since we were stealing shots everywhere, we were essentially breaking the law everywhere. The Acropolis in Athens was especially tight on security, and numerous signs [were] posted warning against any type of filming. We made an extra effort to be stealth there.
BS: Let’s say you’re graced with the powers of Hayden Christiansen’s character from Jumper, and you can jump around the globe effortlessly — where do you go for Last Stop for Paul that you weren’t able to go, for whatever reason?
NM: We went everywhere I wanted to go in the filming of Last Stop for Paul. There were additional countries which I considered shooting in, however, they were decided against because I knew they would just get cut out of the final product. It’s important for a comedy to move swiflty and I didn’t want to have wasted time in the movie.
BS: What’s it been like traveling to so many festivals with the movie?
NM: I am the first to admit that I am surprised (happily) that Last Stop for Paul has been such a festival success. When we finished the movie I thought it was good, however I knew I was very close to the picture. I never expected that it would connect so well with audiences. Once we started getting invited to so many festivals and then winning award after award, we started to feel very confident with the movie. Looking back at a year of having the movie at over 100 film festivals I feel very honored and appreciative of every single one of them.
Last Stop for Paul expands nationwide throughout March; for more information on the movie, click here.
A week and change ahead of its alleged trailer debut, Paramount has released a first-look photo of Tropic Thunder, currently slated for release on August 15.
Ben Stiller — who nursed the idea of a Vietnam War spoof more than decade ago, long before the incarnation of this script, co-written with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen — rocks at least one decently sculpted bicep as spoiled action star Tugg Speedman, though one assumes his butt cheeks are clenched tightly for this shot, and that an awful lot of money was spent on Tan-On or some other skin bronzer. That’s Jack Black in the back, as gross-out comedy star Jeff Portnoy, the melanin doppleganger of man-in-the-middle Robert Downey, Jr., who plays an intense, Australian-born method actor who goes to all sorts of extremes to get into character. It’s a nice shot, though hopefully Stiller, who’s also directing, dials down the “Blue Steel” a bit. Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Matthew McConaughey and Bill Hader also star.
The 80-second trailer for 10,000 BC, Warner Bros.’ PG-13 prehistoric action opus which has been getting heavy
rotation TV ad support these last two weeks but unreturned emails and phone calls to editors
all over Los Angeles with regard to screenings, makes it seem a passable enough piece of glossy, effects-laden, stroke-off entertainment for the undemanding 12- to 18-year-old set — no Quest for Fire, that’s for certain.
Directed by Roland Emmerich, the movie’s story follows a hunter (Steven Strait, above) who goes questing to rescue his kidnapped woman (Camilla Belle, of When a Stranger Calls and The Quiet), though I’m not sure how one goes about enlisting the orderly service of marauding woolly mammoths, as one sequence seems to suggest. (If that’s actually possible, I have a new addition to my list of Top 10 things to do when I come into possession of a time machine.) The first poster for the film, meanwhile, obviously takes its inspiration from that back-to-the-cliff one-sheet of last spring’s big hit, 300, and is trying to ring a subconscious bell of reflection and excitement in audiences. The other poster, though, is more problematic. Folks aren’t used to seeing mammoths cavorting about, and a couple weeks back I honestly had someone ask me if that was art for the latest animated Ice Age flick.
A long day ended last night with a screening of The Hammer, radio personality Adam Carolla’s leading man big screen debut. Despite the swirl of real world irritations, I generally dug the movie on its own low-fi terms, though I confess an affinity for Carolla’s trademark saltiness, an acquired taste to be sure.
The story has its roots in the radioman and former The Man Show co-host’s real-life rise from working-class anonymity, with Carolla playing Jerry, a just-turned-40 Los Angeles carpenter who moonlights teaching boxing class at Bodies in Motion, and gets a new shot at both love and the big time, in the form of a public defender pupil and a shot at the Olympic trials, respectively. The romantic stuff of course doesn’t really play (Kissing Jessica Stein multi-hyphenate Heather Juergensen, above right, tries gamely, but Carolla is all knees-and-elbows when it comes to flirtatious banter, even of the wiseacre variety), the production design is super-threadbare and director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, also of Kissing Jessica Stein, isn’t a great match for the material, over-relying on ADR fixes and jump-cuts to spotlight his leading man. Still, the movie has an indefatigability of spirit that I admire, and it’s also completely genuine in its unbowed, non-held-tongue affection for multiculturalism and the working class, something rare in movies, big or small.
The trailer for the film, meanwhile, highlights at least some of this vaguely politically incorrect backtalk, which isn’t the main thrust of The Hammer but is among its high points — stuff like Jerry’s aside to his friend and fellow day-laborer Ozzie’s family (“You guys seem to all love Nicaragua so much, except for the part where you risked your lives not to live there anymore”), and his snappish interjection when a fellow boxer questions why he has to train with an old white dude (“Yeah coach — when is the black man going to get a fair shake in the fight game?”). More will follow in the coming weeks, including a possible interview with Carolla; The Hammer opens March 21, from International Film Circuit. For more information, click here.
So Doomsday, director Neil Marshall’s follow-up to The Descent, opening March 14 from Universal and starring the lovely Rhona Mitra, apparently isn’t screening for critics, though we’ll see if advance reviews pop up online for friendly (i.e., persuadable fan-boy) outlets. If so, maybe I’ll just go with a reprinted review of 1996’s Escape From L.A., and do a find/replace search on some names/settings.
It’s been around a while, and is updated only sporadically, but this parody of Nick Nolte’s diary is pretty brilliant, as much for its low-fi design and “good 19th century engravings of the South Pacific islands” as the prose itself. Sample: “Point: I had long ago overheard an expression, was a few months back at the opening of a friend’s hibiscus farm, and today I’ve come to find I’ve misunderstood the expression entirely. It seems ‘lift music’ isn’t necessarily inspirational music as I understood it, but rather what the English refer to as elevator music. Appears I owe a few emails to Neil. All my insistence of him writing more lift music is without question embarrassing.”
And yes, it appears Nolte himself heard about the blog, was none too amused (unlike Kevin Costner), and sought various injunctions against it and what not. That’s why there’s the amply-displayed parody tag in the top left-hand corner.
With the $135 million (and counting) commercial success of Juno, the bar has recently been re-set for whimsical tales of headstrong, intelligent young women grappling with life difficulties. So it’s both surprisingly appropriate and something of a cruel irony that in the week after screenwriter Diablo Cody’s Oscar triumph for the latest “little film that could” from indie powerhouse Fox Searchlight, Christina Ricci’s Penelope finally sees the light of day, after a long delay in release.
Acquired by IFC Films for theatrical distribution at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006, the movie was set to bow in first April and then August of last year, before IFC reorganized its priorities, choosing to focus on its core business of smaller-budget independent films. Sold off to upstart Summit Entertainment (whose first release was last autumn’s P2, starring Rachel Nichols), the movie was then shelved again (even though it had already begun screening for critics), repackaged with a new PR company and marketing scheme, and finally slated for this February — a leap year release date of the 29th, fittingly enough. The result was a disappointing ninth place opening last weekend, to $3.8 million in 1,196 theaters. Reviewers weren’t much kinder, either.
Clumsy and wanly farcical, Penelope veers jerkily between fairytale fantasy and more tenderhearted reality. The story centers the title character, the intelligent daughter of a fantastically rich family (Catherine O’Hara and Richard Grant are her parents) who is the victim of a curse that renders her with a pig’s snout for a nose. The spell can only be broken if Penelope bonds with a young man from a similarly sociable and well-heeled family, which is where Max (James McAvoy) comes in. Written by Leslie Caverny and directed by Mark Palansky, Penelope is a slender, sort of self-esteem booster shot of an idea given no sort of rigorous workout beyond its base, rah-rah components and one distinguishing narrative hook.
Perhaps most, though, the movie suffers from the weight of unreasonable expectations. A beloved child starlet of the 1990s, in both Mermaids and two Addams Family movies, Ricci came of her own as an indie queen in the post-Parker Posey landscape of the American independent film scene. Roles in Buffalo ’66, The Opposite of Sex, Pecker, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and, most notably, The Ice Storm gave Ricci the glow of an actress on the rise — a young, real world, thinking guy’s sex symbol. But Ricci was never a reliable box office indicator. And holding back Penelope with the thinking that her rising star, or that of producer Reese Witherspoon (who has a small cameo in the movie) or McAvoy (Atonement), might give the movie some sort of commercial bump was foolhardy at best.
This was always a movie for the interstices, especially considering Ricci’s biggest adult hits (a short list to begin with) have all landed in the $10 to $35 million range. For all her respect amongst peers, Ricci’s mainstream prospects have come across as… well, cursed, much like the 2005 horror movie of the same name from director Wes Craven and Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson — a $40 production that had to shut down filming to get its script problems ironed out, and then released, in derisible form, to $19 million, with only Ricci‘s face on the poster.
Then there’s the matter of Ricci’s complicated history with starring roles in delayed movies beginning with the letter “P.” 2002’s Pumpkin bounced around for a while, finally grossing only $300,000 and change; the much-hyped Prozac Nation, meanwhile, was completed in 2001 and then sat on by Miramax for two years before being released straight to DVD. In that regard, perhaps Penelope has already outperformed its station. None of this bodes particularly well for the theatrical haul of this summer’s Speed Racer, from the Wachowski brothers. At least that movie doesn’t begin with the letter “P,” though. For the full original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Summit, PG, 103 minutes)
The trailer for Michael Myers’ The Love Guru arrived in the mail today, and got some heavy rotation as well this past weekend on the small screen, if not before — though it doesn’t yet seem to be online*, if such a thing is possible these days. I watched it three times — twice in TiVo-captured form, once again on messengered DVD, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything — and nope, I didn’t laugh once.
The film, due June 20 from Paramount — or about the time Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be milking its last reasonably expected repeat business from wallets — stars Myers in his first new original character since Austin Powers, as “the second best guru in India,” Pitka. An American who was left at the gates of an ashram in India as a child (shades of Joe Dirt, anyone?) and raised by religious types, Pitka moves back to the United States to seek fame and fortune in the world of spirituality-infused self-help. His unorthodox methods are put to the test when he’s hired to settle a rift between a star hockey player on the Toronto Maple Leafs (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife (Meagan Good). The movie costars Jessica Alba, Verne Troyer and Justin Timberlake, alongside the aforementioned Malco and Good.
Sigh… where to begin? First off, any comedy relying on ice hockey is just a dicey proposition; Americans do not care about the sport, outside of about five cities (maybe fewer). And I thought Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday had reliably exhausted the idea of a hot, young female sports franchise owner (Cameron Diaz there, Alba here, with Troyer as the coach). The story here seems tired, implausible and uninteresting (hat trick!), seemingly leaving us with just lots of winking from Myers.
In more specifics, the “ding!” sound effect accompanying Myers’ twinkly moustache curl (used twice) seems lazily nipped from television (a “Debbie Downer” sketch, perhaps?), Alba’s delivery of the already very predictable, “Well, this one time in college…” line is dreadful, and the incongruous use of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” feels like a munificent lender from a waiver signed on the set of the third Austin Powers. Timberlake — who plays Good’s new suitor, and a fellow hockey player — is the high point of the piece (with his line, “You know, like in the porno?”), but even he only brought a half-smile to my face, not a laugh. Honestly, the first thought I had upon seeing the trailer for The Love Guru was, “Hmmm… I’d rather watch 2002’s The Guru again, actually. That wasn’t a bad little movie — some fun Bollywood stuff, musical numbers, plus the advantage of Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei.”
This paragraph, fronted by a comment from publicity consultant Steve Sugarman, from a longer piece from L.A. Weekly about Santa Barbara News-Press publisher Wendy McCaw and her predilection for outlandish litigation stemming from reportage on a massive editorial board shake-up at her paper, caught my eye:
“’Though the tactics of McCaw seem unusual as to all the litigation
she’s thrown out, unless you know the business objective of McCaw, it
is not fair to comment on the tactics of a crisis PR consultant,’
Sugerman said. Her tactics might make sense if her goals are to push
out her former editor to cut costs, keep a high-powered union out of a
small paper and produce a cheaper product that advertisers must
advertise in because it’s the only daily in a wealthy community.”
Funny, I thought. And kind of telling. As a former defendant in a $19 million lawsuit of harassment filed by the idiot ex-publisher of my one-time employer, the now-defunct Entertainment Today, I know all too well how aggrieved simpletons deal with falls from grace and/or challenges to their (frequently inherited) power.
Of course, I don’t know McCaw, so let me be clear that I am in no way commenting on what some have deemed her ongoing war against journalists and the first amendment, otherwise impugning her credibility or doing anything other than linking to this story as an act of bemused recollection. I am sure McCaw is a wonderful, intelligent woman who smells like fresh tulips and sweats Clive Christian’s #1. Of course my comments are borne of personal experience, refer solely to such, and are in no way, shape or form comparative to the L.A. Weekly piece. There… that should take care of things.
But get ready to be sued, Ross Johnson. If only because those that can sue do, even (maybe especially) when there’s nothing but noise, fury and a lingering inferiority complex on their side…
It’s a happy birthday to Jessica Biel, who turns 26 today, and perhaps celebrates by squeezing into the same bra-and-panty set that she rocked in the trailers for the execrable I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. Then again, maybe she just goes to a dog park, eats a Lean Pocket and does some tae bo, I don’t know…
From today’s “Holy crap!” files… they’re actually making a Dragonball movie? And it’s directed by James Wong, who’s helmed Willard, Final Destination 3 and the recent remake of 1974’s Black Christmas? And it’s starring the heretofore entirely respectable Justin Chatwin, who’s actually shown great promise and screen presence — whatever one thinks of the movies, respectively — in War of the Worlds, The Chumscrubber and The Invisible? And it’s costarring the much-derided Emmy Rossum and… Chow Yun-Fat? This all seems wrong in ways that stretch beyond three dimensions and bend time and space. When I just read about “a young boy named Goku seeking out [sic] upon his grandfather’s dying request for the great Master Roshi,” I want to start punching myself in the face. A bad move for all involved, no matter the payday…
There is, rightly, a lot of talk and
hand-wringing about the dearth of studio-generated movies made for
adults, and the lack of success (or even effort) in creating a new
generation of film fans, rather than just entertainment junkies and
trend-following sheep who will occasionally fork over cash in
exchange for colorful stimulus response.
As long as there are older white
people, though, and producers like Scott Rudin who shrewdly
capitalize on literary and publishing trends, there will be movies
like the oh-so-well-heeled The Other Boleyn Girl, a bodice-ripper by turns passably intriguing and dreadfully inert.
If there’s anything that
upper-middle-class and predominantly Caucasian adult audiences like,
speaking in the broadest terms, it’s big screen adaptations of
literary hits about historical figures that they didn’t pay attention
to in high school or (if they matriculated at all) college. Heck, it
explains half or more of the entire audience, if not the very
existence, of the History Channel. I had a former boss — the type of
guy who barely skated through high school, afforded his position in
life by the success of his father — who would come in to work and
regularly regurgitate these narratives, meandering monologues of
half-truths, mangled detail and certainly no proper contextual
motivation. My guess is that it made him feel smart, worldly and more
relevant, collecting these discrete, deep-fried nuggets of historical
trivia.
Based on Philippa Gregory’s best-selling novel of the same name, The Other Boleyn Girl
is a scattershot, overwrought drama of cloak-and-dagger plotting,
romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in
British history. Against the wishes of his wife Lady Elizabeth
(Kristin Scott Thomas), Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) and his
brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey), impress their
ambitions for familial advancement on the Boleyn’s two daughters.
Knowing that the aging Queen Catherine of Aragon (Ana Torrent) has
again recently failed to give King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) a male
heir, Sir Thomas and the Duke of Norfolk contrive to attempt to have
first Anne (Natalie Portman) and then younger Mary (Scarlett Johansson) seduce the king, no matter that Mary is already wed.
Initially Mary wins King Henry’s favor, and bears him an illegitimate
son. But Anne, clever, conniving and fearless, eventually edges her
sister aside in her pursuit of an even bigger prize — the throne.
Like a made-for-TV, two-hour history of
World War II, The Other Boleyn Girl doesn’t
have a clear sense of how to artfully collapse its narrative
(ignoring, for instance, the matter of Catherine being first married
to Henry’s deceased brother), and it certainly doesn’t plumb the
psychology of Anne or its other characters in any lasting or
insightful way. In TV ads for the film, two lines appear (“We’re
sisters,” says Mary, followed by Anne’s response, “And therefore
born to be rivals”) that would seem integral to the main
relationship under the microscope. And yet that exchange doesn’t
appear in the movie, and Mary and Anne vacillate between games and
favors in arbitrary fashion, at least based on what we see on screen.
British director Justin Chadwick’s television experience evidences
itself, in both the best and, more frequently, worst, most
constrictive senses of that description.
As Henry VIII, meanwhile, Bana —
already too virile to play the fat, in-poor-health king who would
die less than a dozen years after the events depicted here — is
required to do ridiculous things. There’s no sense of independent
thought with him, let alone the authoritativeness, capriciousness or
vindictiveness associated with King Henry’s later years. He seems to
exist merely to pull levers of power as directed by Anne, and to a
lesser extent Mary. While it’s true that the relationship between the
Boleyn sisters is extremely interesting, and at the crux of this
film, the lack of insight into King Henry is such that it makes for a
rather severe isosceles triangle, and is a disservice to the entire
story.
Full of the swelling strings, pursed
lips and clenched fists that we’ve come to expect from Masterpiece
Theatre, as well as plenty of histrionics, The Other Boleyn Girl plays like a Cliffs Notes version of a
master text. There are no significant career lessons to be learned
here for Portman (who has a much better natural grasp of the tone of
these sorts of period pieces) or Johansson (who has a pout and
old-school, pie-faced beauty to suit tales of yore, but not much
else). There is a lesson, however, for authors of historical fiction: the literary market may be shrinking in comparison to other forms of
entertainment, but if you write it, Hollywood will still come
knocking, because there will presumably always be a market of adults
who want to catch up on, in quick-bite fashion, the history lessons
they slept or passed notes through during their younger years. For the full original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Sony, PG-13, 115 minutes)
