The Screengrab : bruno

Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009: Dishonorable Mention (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:30:00 GMT

In Part Three of this list, we presented The Screengrab’s consensus picks for the Top 5 Bombs of Summer 2009.

Herewith, our individual picks and dishonorable mentions...

Andrew:

1. Wolverine
2. PUBLIC ENEMIES (July 1)

Aside from Bonnie and Clyde, The Untouchables and that Star Trek episode where they went to the gangster planet (“I don’t think you’re stupid, Mr. Krako”), I can’t think of many successful modern tommy-gun stories. Let’s see...Mobsters? The Cotton Club? Billy Bathgate? Sure, Michael Mann is a good director, but when Johnny Depp isn’t swinging for the fences with an Ed Wood, a Sweeney Todd or a Captain Jack Sparrow, he’s just dull as dishwater, and without some truly stellar reviews and/or word-of-mouth, this one's likely to disappear in the crowded summer shuffle.

3. Land of the Lost
4. Transformers...yeah, that’s right, I said it.
5. TAKING WOODSTOCK (August 14)

Ang Lee has certainly made some excellent, memorable films...but this may not be one of them. While a behind-the-scenes history of the 1969 Woodstock music festival sounds like an interesting (if someone redundant) subject, the trailer makes the whole thing look like a third-rate HBO Original Movie (or maybe a second-rate Showtime one). Chances are, Taking Woodstock will only really be remembered as the vehicle that killed off Demetri Martin’s career as a big screen leading man.

Scott:

1. GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA (August 7)

Perhaps not the end of civilization as we know it, but you can see it from here.

2. Land of the Lost
3. The Taking of Pelham 123
4. Imagine That
5. Year One

Nick:

1. Land of the Lost
2. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
3. Year One
4. The Taking of Pelham 123
5. BRÜNO (July 10)

Brüno may very well live up to its hype, but given its subject matter, a large swath of America won’t even consider seeing it. Consequently, its respectable but far-from-enormous box-office take will make it seem like a disappointment.

Paul:

1. Land of the Lost
2. G-FORCE (July 24)

Even if this didn’t look like total garbage -- which it does -- it would be foolish to open a family comedy about a team of guinea pig spies with sassy celebrity voices the week after the latest Harry Potter movie. With the Boy Who Lived facing off against Voldemort, will anyone but Jerry Bruckheimer care about G-Force? I sure hope not.

3. FUNNY PEOPLE (July 31)

Broad Adam Sandler comedies can still bring in the crowds. Adam Sandler dramedies? Not so much. While I applaud Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Judd Apatow for tackling more serious material than usual, I just can’t see this connecting with multiplex crowds, particularly not with a trailer that is light on laughs and heavy on sentiment. Perhaps Apatow would have been better off taking the film to Toronto and garnering some solid festival buzz before rolling it out in the fall.

4. Imagine That
5. THE HURT LOCKER (June 26)

Ever since it received rave reviews from Toronto last year, Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama has been sold more as a kickass combat action thriller than as a political statement. So why would Summit Entertainment open the film opposite Transformers, the one blockbuster of the summer that’s practically guaranteed to have loud, kinetic combat scenes and none of the audience baggage that comes with Iraq War movies? Way to piss that Twilight clout right down your legs, guys.

Click Here For The Hits (Part One & Two), The Bombs (Part Three), The Toss-Ups (Part Four) and The Honorable Mentions (Part Five)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager, Paul Clark

Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009: The Toss-Ups (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:30:00 GMT

So, now that you’ve seen our consensus picks for the Top 5 Hits & the Top 5 Bombs of Summer 2009, here are the films that we didn’t know quite what to do with...

Andrew:

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (August 21)

This one hits theaters closer to Labor Day (and the start of the “quality” awards-bait season) than Memorial Day -- assuming QT actually finishes his grindhouse WW2 epic on time -- and the theaters it hits will probably be art houses rather than multiplexes, where nobody will be expecting the confusingly titled Basterds to rack up Pulp Fiction-esque "national sensation" numbers...but Tarantino’s latest seems like quite the odd duck nonetheless, with a promised ultra-violence sensibility that may have trouble finding its artsy splatter audience even WITH all the ass-kicking Jews and Brad Pitt’s funny southern accent.

BRÜNO (June 10)

Oh, sure...Borat was a national sensation, and the annoying guy in your office still says, “Niiice!” on a daily basis. But I’m guessing it was a lot easier for most Americans to feel “in” on the joke when Sacha Baron Cohen was making fun of them funny furriners than it will be to laugh at their own homophobic prejudices or their own knee-jerk PC responses to the heterosexual Cohen’s flouncing, mincing gay character. But then again, you know what they say about that whole “no such thing as bad publicity” thing...

Nick:

1) Public Enemies, because Michael Mann has yet to make an out-and-out summer blockbuster.

2) UP, because eagerness for Pixar’s latest has been especially muted.

3) Angels & Demons, because The Da Vinci Code craze seems to have subsided.

4) Julie & Julia, because its August release date implies that the studio thinks it has more limited appeal than Meryl Streep’s The Devil Wears Prada or Mamma Mia!

5) The Ugly Truth, because even though it’s the summer’s chief rom-com, it’s hard to imagine Katherine Heigl continuing to be a serious box-office draw.

Paul:

Drag Me to Hell- Sam Raimi fans are pumped for his return to horror, but will anyone else care? Will this be the film that finally lifts the box-office curse on summer horror movies?

Terminator Salvation- is there life for Terminator after Arnold? Will people pay to see the movie when they can just as easily watch the Terminator TV series at home? And can Christian Bale still reel in audiences now that his profanity-filled tirade has been heard by millions?

The Taking of Pelham 123- in a summer full of epic effects-driven movies, can audiences be bothered with an old-school hostage-negotiation thriller? And will MGM release a super-sweet new DVD edition of the original film just in time for the remake? Because they really should.

Year One- will a high-concept caveman comedy, even one starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, play in this age of improvisational laffers? And will there be zug-zug like in Caveman?

Public Enemies- is Johnny Depp really the box office draw Hollywood thinks he is after the Pirates trilogy? Can Michael Mann become bankable again after the subpar returns for Miami Vice? And in this era of Grand Theft Auto, will ticket buyers get excited for a fedoras-and-tommy-guns gangster shoot’em’up?

Bruno- can the least funny character from Da Ali G Show actually carry a film? Will people flock to laugh at the strange misadventures of a flamingly gay Austrian, or will they be scared off by the homosexuality factor?

Bandslam- is Vanessa Anne Hudgens still a draw even when she isn’t starring in High School Musicals? Will tween-friendly fare still do solid box office even during the summer movie season?

Taking Woodstock- is the August 14 release date occasioned by the 40th anniversary of Woodstock simply a symbolic gesture, or will nostalgia for the Summer of Love turn this into an unexpected late-summer hit?

Click Here For The Hits (Parts One & Two), The Bombs (Part Three) and The Honorable Mentions (Parts Five & Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Paul Clark

Trailer Review: The Hangover

Paul Clark — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Maybe it’s just that I wasn’t the binge-drinking type in college (I was more into haunting the local movie theatres), but the comedies of Todd Phillips have never really spoken to me. I know that Old School has plenty of fans, especially among those who love Will Ferrell’s “Frank the Tank”, but personally I just don’t find getting plastered- and the consequences thereof- to be particularly funny. That said, The Hangover doesn’t look too bad as these things go. Sure, it traffics in a pampered frat boy’s fantasy of a bachelor party- plenty of booze, babes, and gambling, paid for by people who probably have more money than they deserve. However, the relatively low-wattage cast gives this a kind of ramshackle feel, and a potential for anything to happen that wouldn’t be there if Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn were top-lining. Besides, this got one more laugh out of me than the Brüno trailer (for the "Holocaust ring" joke, case you're wondering), so that’s something.

Trailer Review: Brüno (Red-band)

Paul Clark — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

I believe that Sacha Baron Cohen may be the most talented comic currently working, and that his performance three years ago in Borat is one of my favorite performances of the decade. Which makes this red-band trailer for Baron Cohen’s latest, Brüno, doubly disappointing- despite all the outrageousness on display, I didn’t laugh once the first time I watched it, and just to be sure I wasn’t just in a bad mood, I watched it again the next day, again without a laugh. Of course, it doesn’t help Brüno may be the least funny of the regular characters from Da Ali G Show. Say what you will about Borat being a caricature, but what really sold the character was less the strange situations he got himself into than his seeming over-eagerness to please in spite of it all. Brüno, on the other hand, is mostly just a mincing stereotype who tries to make people uncomfortable with his unmistakable gayness- which is fine, but the joke only goes so far, and I fear that Sacha Baron Cohen may have overextended it. Still, I have high hopes for his future cinematic projects- the guy is seriously talented, and even in other people’s projects he makes a big impression (he’s a scream in Talladega Nights). And I have a feeling that if some adventurous filmmaker found the right semi-dramatic role for him, he could knock that out of the park too.

Breaking “Bruno”: Sacha Baron Cohen Faces NC-17 Hurdle

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:30:00 GMT

One of the special SXSW screenings I passed on earlier this month was the sneak peek at approximately 20 minutes worth of footage from Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat, Bruno. It just seemed like one of those things that would end up being a bigger hassle than it was worth, and I felt confident I could wait until July to see the whole thing. That may not be as easy as it once seemed, as the film has just been saddled with the MPAA’s dreaded NC-17 rating “because of numerous sexual scenes that the ratings board considers over the line.”

Anyone who saw Borat – I’m specifically thinking of the scene in which Cohen and obese, hairy co-star Ken Davitian rassle face-to-junk in the nude – has to be wondering how Bruno could possibly be so much more offensive as to warrant the NC-17 rating, which tends to limit the number of theaters that will agree to screen the movie as well as the number of outlets willing to advertise it. And of course, all hardcore fans of Cohen and his characters have to be chortling with glee in anticipation of whatever it is he’s done to raise the MPAA’s hackles.

Entertainment Weekly correspondent Karen Valby did attend the SXSW sneak preview, and offers her own take on the three scenes screened, including this one: “Bruno arrives in a ‘ghastly s---hole called Texas.’ (The fellow Texans in my audience gave this line a round of applause. What's wrong with us?) Bruno appears on a crap daytime talk show called Today With Richard Bey, appealing to a largely African American audience. He swans onto the stage for a segment devoted to single parents, blabbing about how his adopted African baby boy is a ‘dick magnet’ and that he traded his iPod for the kid. The audience wanted his hide. Then a gleeful producer wheels out a gorgeous little black baby boy wearing a ‘Gayby’ T-shirt and leather pants. Bruno declares that he's named his son O.J. -- child protective services intervenes.”

Of course, there’s always the strong possibility that Cohen submitted a version of the film containing over-the-top material he never intended to include (until the release of inevitable unrated DVD, of course), simply so he could trim it from the offending cut and resubmit the version he intended all along. The MPAA would then think they’d done their job and reward Bruno with the R rating that will allow the core teenage audience to enjoy Cohen’s antics over and over again. “For the moment, Baron Cohen is doubtless playing the uncompromising artist,” Richard Corliss writes in Time, “insisting that every frame of his film be shown as is; and Universal, I'd guess, is exerting its muscle both on the MPAA to approve a version with some shock value and on their star-auteur to throw the board a few boners and get the damn R. Baron Cohen shoots a lot of footage in his docu-comedies, and, the studio spokesman told Waxman, ‘With the quantity of material available, I cannot foresee a problem. It's not even April and the film comes out July 10 so it's nonsense to say there's a struggle of any kind.’”