The Screengrab : entertainment weekly

April Fools: The 35 Funniest Movie Characters Of All Time! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

So, the other day, my lovely Polish bride was attending a work function at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall, when she looked up and saw a tall, craggy guy dressed in camouflage, surrounded by a gaggle of teenage sons, and suddenly realized she was face-to-face with none other than Bill Ghostbustin’ Ass Murray...

...April Fool!

Oh...no, wait...that actually happened...and, indeed, America’s annual Day of Pranks is blessedly over for another year...yet considering we already kicked off the month with a salute to fools, and considering Entertainment Weekly just ran a big, page-wasting spread on the Greatest Heroes and Villains of All Time, your pals here at the Screengrab figured now would be as good a time as any to salute our real heroes...the Comic Relief.

Now, of course, the second we started compiling this list, we realized we’d undoubtedly forget at least two worthy choices for every name we picked...so feel free to remind us who we missed down below in the Comments section, and mayhaps we’ll run a Reader’s Choice list of faves at some future date. But in the meantime, please to enjoy our picks for THE 35 FUNNIEST MOVIE CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME!

DANNY KAYE AS HUBERT HAWKINS IN THE COURT JESTER (1955)

Most people know that comedy isn’t pretty, but it need not necessarily be mean. Consider the career of Danny Kaye -- in his heyday, one of the biggest draws in Hollywood, not only because he was funny but also because he was so darn likable. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in his most enduring movie, The Court Jester -- a film so benignly hilarious that it’s equally enjoyable for children and cinephiles. Taking his cue from the Technicolor swashbucklers of yore, Kaye throws himself into the role of the hapless resistance fighter-turned-jester with a childlike glee, even during the Errol Flynn-esque sword fights. But he’s at his best when engaging in his trademark wordplay. Who can forget the famous "pellet with the poison" exchange? Even better is the extended "Maladjusted Jester" number, in which Kaye, playing a hapless carnival performer-turned-freedom fighter masquerading as the "king of jesters and jester of kings" (long story), gets his chance to entertain the court. The story is put on hold while Kaye sings, dances, and jokes -- a risky move, because if the scene doesn’t work, the movie has nothing to do but stand… "and stand… and staaaaaaaaand…" Thankfully, it’s brilliant, thanks primarily to Kaye’s formidable talents and, it must be said, his innate likability. It’s this latter quality that makes the film work even today: at plenty of times during the film, Hubert has the option of resorting to violence or devious tactics, but that would be out of character for Kaye, so he must come up with more creative (and humorous) alternatives. It’s rare to find a movie that’ll make one smile throughout even between the laughs, but The Court Jester fits the bill perfectly. (PC)

PETER SELLERS AS INSPECTOR JACQUES CLOUSEAU IN A SHOT IN THE DARK (1964)

Every year, the legend of the Pink Panther films gets a little more tarnished. The endless remakes and reboots, the franchise sequels Steve Martin cranks out when he wants to restock his wine cellar, and the fact that they were never great pieces of cinema in the first place all conspire to rob the original Blake Edwards films of their magic, year after year. But lest we forget, the Pink Panther movies, as poorly as they have aged, were a showcase for the comedic talents of Peter Sellers, and in this film – the best of the series by a mile – it’s easy to see why he was once considered the funniest man in the world. What’s made the Clouseau character last is that Sellers made him a vehicle for so many types of comedy: gross physical slapstick, outrageous (for the time) sexual gags, wordplay, linguistic tomfoolery, broad ethnic comedy, improvisational brilliance, and even the odd subtle character moment. No comedian alive at the time could so deftly blend all those elements into a single character, and no one has been able to do it since, which is why the latter-day films, even starring as they do a once-gifted comic like Martin, are such a travesty. As if all that’s not enough, consider that Sellers made A Shot in the Dark in the same year that he did Dr. Strangelove! That’s a one-two punch that proves that there was literally no type of comedy he couldn’t make completely his own. (LP)

JOHN BELUSHI AS BLUTO IN ANIMAL HOUSE (1978)

Some might say "Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life." Happily others beg to differ. The loose cannon and gross-out pre-med under-acheiver John "Bluto" Blutarski is John Belushi at his slovenly best. He's that guy you kind of hate for being obtuse, but love for providing a breath of fresh air in pretentious situations like college, work and life. Bluto is the dispenser of such pearls of wisdom as "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily." Also, who can forget the crashing apart of the black & white reconciliation float in the homecoming parade? There would be no Animal House without Belushi's cherubic moron with a heart of gold (and stand-up ethics). (SCS)

ALYSON HANNIGAN AS MICHELLE FLAHERTY IN AMERICAN PIE (1999)

Hannigan, had already spent two years using Buffy the Vampire Slayer as her delivery system for the message that sexy dorks rule the universe, before jumping at the chance to really put that idea across here. Popping her words like gum and making "Like you have a shot at anyone else!" sound like a siren's love lyric, she instantly created a generation of men who will die empty and unfulfilled if they never meet a friendly-seeming bookish geek who's just biding her time until the moment is right to slap them across the face and scream, "Say my name, bitch!" Her absence from movies since then, except for an American Pie sequel or three and the even sorrier Date Movie, has been a real sore spot for some of us, made no easier to take by the possibility it raises that she might just be too happy at home with that wimp bastard she married to be seeking out work. Out of respect for her personal happiness, some of us have refrained from attempting to murder her spouse, even though we suspect that she'd look adorable in black. Enjoy motherhood, sugar britches. (PN)

SACHA BARON COHEN AS BORAT IN BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN (2006)

Overexposed? Sure. Mimicked to death? Definitely. Still one of the decade’s most iconic and consistently hilarious lunatics? Without question. Sasha Baron Cohen’s Kazakhstani journalist made his stateside debut on HBO’s Da Ali G Show in 2003 but came to national prominence with Larry Cohen’s 2006 hit, in which he traveled across America “learning” about the country while searching for his dream girl, Pamela Anderson. Posing as the inappropriate Borat amidst real people supposedly not in on the joke, Cohen pokes, prods and enrages citizens in an attempt to reveal something humorously honest about their patience, prejudices and standards of propriety. The social critique provided by Borat’s discomfiting gags, however, never takes precedence over the outrageous hilarity of his scenarios. Whether convincing an all-too-willing group of Southern bar patrons to sing along to “Throw the Jew Down the Well” on HBO, or engaging in a nude hotel wrestling match with his obese sidekick Azamat (Ken Davitian) in Borat, Cohen’s faux-reporter is a preeminent absurdist prankster whose comedy is best summed up by his own catchphrase: Is Nice!

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Paul Clark, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Phil Nugent, Nick Schager

Entertainment Weakly: Attacking EW’s Defense of The Clone Wars

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:21:00 GMT

Okay, I realize it’s dumb to get annoyed by articles in entertainment magazines, but I do write for The Screengrab...and isn’t public venting what the InterTubes are all about? So allow me to respond to Jeff Jensen’s defense of George Lucas and The Clone Wars in the current issue of the usually somewhat less annoying Entertainment Weekly (which at least had the good sense to give the feature-length animated infomercial in question an F). Bemoaning the aforementioned F, the poor box office showing of The Clone Wars and general fanboy discontent with Lucas, columnist Jensen writes, “Missing from the overheated bashing of The Clone Wars was the crucial point that it was made for kids, not the grown-ups for whom the original trilogy remains (ridiculously) sacred.”

Um...okay. Because Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were edgy Scandinavian Dogme 95 films made for grad students and aging Cannes jurists, right? That same "for kids!" argument has been used to defend The Phantom Menace, the Elmo-fication of Sesame Street and the general dumbing down of family entertainment from the time I actually was a kid ‘til now: hey, chill out, Grandpa...it’s okay if insert TV show or movie here is shallow, poorly written and generally dimwitted. It’s for kids!

Now, it’s not that everything I watched as a child of the ‘70s was primo high quality Art. I though Welcome Back Kotter was the height of urbane, sophisticated wit in my formative years, and was shocked to discover how incredibly crappy the program seemed when I caught a stray episode a few years back.

But Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back hold up (and, okay, we can argue later about Return of the Jedi). I may not be as goofy-nerdy-crazy about them now as I was in my pre-pubescent geekery, but I can still appreciate the craftsmanship that hooked me as a child. Yet more important than sheer craftsmanship is the lack of condescension in those earlier films. Lucas took his storytelling seriously then: much of his audience may have been youthful, but he didn’t treat us like kids. He took his goofy, made-up characters and the goofy, made-up world they lived in as seriously as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis or J.K. Rowling all took theirs, without mugging for his young audience like a birthday party clown.

In The Clone Wars, a character refers to Jabba the Hutt’s son as “Stinky.” That’s not dumb because I’m an adult. It’s just dumb. It breaks the fourth wall. It breaks the reality of the storytelling universe, because it’s a cheap, easy, “hip” reference from our world, not the fictional world of the story. And even kids who may like that schtick today (a small number, judging by the film’s box office results) will realize it’s dumb when they get a little older. Nobody has to defend the Harry Potter-verse by reminding adults that, hey, it’s for kids! Adults like Harry Potter DESPITE the fact it’s made for kids...they like it because it’s good.

Later in his article, Jensen informs us that, in addition to thinking aging hipsters (and, I guess, kids) shouldn’t expect quality from kid stuff, we should also realize “Star Wars is a stream of content – books, comic books, toys, micro-cartoons, videogames, DVDs, and, soon, a TV series. This new generation sees no distinction between movies and their merchandise, and that’s just fine with them.”

Which means today’s kids must be dumb as a sack of hammers, except Jensen then goes on to elucidate that today’s biggest movie franchise (Harry Potter) is a “literary franchise [accessory].” Which, as far as I can tell, has no meaning whatsoever nor relation to all the kids out there who actually CAN tell the difference between a certain work of art that moved their souls and, say, a Harry Potter toothbrush from Wal-Mart. “The Clone Wars will not be remembered as a great animated movie,” Jensen concludes, “or an awful one, for that matter. But it might be remembered as part of a larger pop moment that is wiring the future of entertainment.”

On behalf of all the old fogies AND the youngsters of America, I hope to God he’s wrong.

Related Stories: Star Bores: Five Reasons to Skip The Clone Wars, George Lucas and the License to Print Money

Thursday Morning Poll for July 3, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It took almost three months, but it’s finally happened- it’s a tie! When polled about their favorite of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 5 Movies of the last 25 years, Screengrab voters overwhelmingly chose the critics’ favorites over the crowd-pleasers. After a tight race, it was Blue Velvet (my pick) and Pulp Fiction in a dead heat, garnering between them all but two of the votes, which were claimed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even with the release of WALL*E, it appears that Pixar’s inaugural feature Toy Story couldn’t get any love, and the Titanic reassessment is just going to have to wait until next year’s release of Jim Cameron’s Avatar.

Just in time for the holiday weekend, we’re getting’ jiggy with Mr. July 4th himself, Will Smith. After years of non-Independence Day releases, Smith returns to the weekend that made him a superstar to reclaim his throne. To commemorate the occasion, we’re polling you- our loyal readers- for your favorite of his movies released on the weekend of or preceding July 4, which rules out such later-July releases as I, Robot and Bad Boys II. Sorry, Nick Frost.

As always, the comments section is open for you to sound off on your thoughts. I’m especially curious to hear from anyone who would defend Wild Wild West because, I mean, come on.

Thursday Morning Poll for June 26, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Well, it’s about time we had a close poll. After weeks of runaway favorite, last week’s question on your preferences re: the Hulk franchise failed to yield a definitive winner. Of the choices, 35% of respondents preferred Ang Lee’s take on the comic book, as compared to 25% for Louis Leterrier’s. 5% like them both about the same, while another 25% professed their shared displeasure for both films. Finally 10% of those answering showed their true colors (green, of course) by voicing their love for Lou Ferrigno’s incarnation of the character. What does this prove? You tell me. Maybe nothing.

Earlier this week, I took Entertainment Weekly to task for some of the, well, poor choices they made for their list of the 100 best films of the last 25 years. Yet some of the films they picked were deserving, right? So of EW’s top five films on the list, which do you prefer?

As always, the comments section is open, especially if, like me, you want to bitch some more about the list. Believe me, I understand.

EW Makes Great-Movies List; Screengrab Points, Laughs

Paul Clark — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:00:00 GMT

With last week blessedly free of celebrities getting knocked up and/or being caught without underwear, Entertainment Weekly has seized upon this fallow period in entertainment news to unveil yet another list for your perusal. In this week’s double issue, EW’s writing staff unveiled their lists of “The New Classics” in a number of media, including their top 100 movies of the last quarter century. There were a few pleasant surprises- like #4 pick Blue Velvet making its second prominent appearance on a high-profile list in less than a week (after the latest AFI special)- and you can't really argue with Pulp Fiction at #1, but many of the choices left something to be desired. Put it another way- if you know both jack and shit about cinema, EW’s list is bound to feel pretty unsatisfactory, with a whopping six foreign-language films and two documentaries out of 100.

Of course, the makers of such lists are always prone to stating that their goal is to “stir up debate.” So in the proud Screengrab tradition of speaking truth (or at least strongly-worded fibs) to power, I’d like to go on record to state that a number of masterpieces of the past 25 years were ignominiously robbed in order to make way for the likes of Pretty Woman. On top of that, a few of the movies that made the list were so unceremoniously- and undeservingly- buried near the bottom that their inclusion is arguably even more of a disgrace when you consider the titles that outrank them. In keeping with EW’s format, I’ve kept the artsy-fartsy to a minimum- no shorts, no avant-garde, no mentions of Peter Watkins. Instead I’ve selected five pretty accessible movies (including a foreign-language pick) and one classic that deserved far better than EW wanted to give it.

But first, a note to EW’s webmaster: your online feature on the 26 greatest movie posters doesn’t want to scroll over to the poster for The Limey. Please fix this immediately. Thank you.

Now, my alternate selections, in no particular order:

The New World- to my eyes, the finest American film of the last 25 years. Should have qualified just by being one of the most beautiful films ever made, but there’s more to Terence Malick’s masterpiece than gorgeous cinematography and panoramic shots of nature. Malick’s re-creation of the founding of Virginia and the resulting “settlement” of the land is always completely convincing, transporting the viewer into the lifestyle (and mindsets) of the time in a way few period pieces can manage. But it’s also a heartrending love story of a particularly mature kind, as Pocahontas (the glowing Q’Orianka Kilcher) must learn to let go of her childish love in order to find sustainable happiness with another. The New World is a marvel, and I expect that we’ll be seeing it on plenty of lists in the decades to come.

Naked- Now, I can kind of understand leaving Malick off your list, since the guy’s only made two movies during the eligible period. But what’s your excuse when it comes to Mike Leigh? Even the Academy has caught on to Leigh’s greatness- witness the bevy of nominations for Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake- but for my money his best work to date is still Naked. Of course, it’s something of a bitter pill to swallow, with an almost painfully bleak view of human nature. And in the middle of it all is David Thewlis, giving one of the all-time great performances, as the compulsively verbal misanthrope Johnny, the kind of bastard whose sole redeeming virtue is that he knows exactly how much of a bastard he is. Thewlis owns the film, creating from the ground up a character so fascinating that we can’t help but watch him, mouth often agape, up through the film’s magnificent final shot.

Heavenly Creatures- Hey EW, you know that Peter Jackson guy? The one whose most famous films you’ve placed prominently at #2? Well, he did make movies before Lord of the Rings, and in its way Heavenly Creatures is just as good if not better. Beginning with a true-crime story that would in other hands have lent itself to sensationalism- teenage lesbian murderers!- Jackson instead crafted in alternately invigorating and harrowing movies about the seductiveness, and the dangers, of fantasy. As Pauline and Juliet (Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet, in their breakthrough roles) grow ever more attached to their King-Arthur-meets-Ayn-Rand fairy tale land, they increasingly feel compelled to defend it against the encroachment of the everyday world, until the story commences in a sudden, shocking act of violence that sends these killer angels crashing back to Earth forever.

Once Upon a Time in America- Once again, Sergio Leone’s final masterwork is the odd man out among gangster dramas, with the EW writers forwarding the unfortunate notion that the genre began with The Godfather and ended with GoodFellas, with a brief stopover in Scarface Land. Leone’s film may not have the iconic status of Coppola, the seductiveness of Scorsese, or the gangsta cachet of DePalma, but as a cinematic achievement, it deserves respect, at least in its 227-minute long version. As a minor-key elegy for a crime culture that has long since passed, Once Upon a Time in America mops the floor with The Godfather, Part III, with as many classic moments as any film in Leone’s oeuvre. You’ll never look at a garbage truck the same way again.

Three Colors Trilogy- I debated including Decalogue on this list but decided against it because it premiered on television. But I had no such problem with Kieslowski’s trilogy, a wholly unique- yet entirely approachable- grand work in three parts. In telling three intimate stories, Kieslowski manages to capture a specific end-of-the-millennium worldview, as well as some surprising insights into human nature in general. But the film’s true power comes from their simplicity- Kieslowski tells us everything we need to know about these people and their lives, if only we know where (and how) to look. Beyond that, they’re just ravishing cinema, with the scores of Zbigniew Preisner ranking among the greatest ever written for the screen.

And finally…

Back to the Future- #91? Really? Working from perhaps the tightest and cleverest screenplay ever made into a Hollywood blockbuster, Robert Zemeckis and company turned what was essentially a comedic take on Americana into a genuine piece of Americana itself. How many movies of the past quarter century are this widely seen, or so beloved by all sectors of the moviegoing audience? Back to the Future is a textbook case of all the pieces lining up just so, as well as a testament to how wonderful a big-budget movie when the filmmakers trust their assembled elements enough to stay out of their own damn way. But hey, if you guys really think Shrek, Gladiator, Speed, Fatal Attraction, Scream, Beverly Hills Cop, Dirty Dancing (?!?!?), Out of Africa, and Napoleon Dynamite are all better than Back to the Future, I guess I don’t have anything left to say to you.

Chick Hits: The Girl Power Top Ten

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

After the big screen edition of Sex & The City exceeded the low expectations of industry gurus who were shocked...shocked...to discover that people were actually interested in a movie about, y'know, gurlz, Missy Schwartz wrote a depressingly familiar story for Entertainment Weekly: “It was an unqualified triumph...one the industry observed in a stunned, slack-jawed state. As the weekend rolled to a close, news outlets filed their reports with words like unexpected, surprising, and shocking. ‘What do you know?’ they all seemed to be saying. ‘Women go to the movies!’”

And if Sex and the City 2 (or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 or Mama Mia!) or any other female-centric movie succeeds in the near future, Hollywood will be surprised all over again, and Entertainment Weekly and other publications will run similar articles about the American movie-going public’s "unexpected," "surprising" and "shocking" desire for strong female characters...a desire Hollywood will more or less continue to ignore as it continues its relentless pursuit of teenage boys, no matter how many Speed Racers crash and burn along the way.

Because, after all, many studio execs are just overgrown boys themselves. They dig gadgets, explosions and special effects, and CGI creations are easy to control and merchandise. Female-centered movies tend to rely on well-written screenplays, relatable characters, nuanced direction and...yecccch...feelings: all the things most studio execs pretend to champion but secretly hate.

But we here at The Screengrab aren’t afraid to get in touch with our feminine sides as we raise our Cosmos to these Top Ten “chick hits”: films that put their empowered female characters front and center (without resorting to stripper poles OR big gauzy Prince Charming/Bridezilla wedding porn).

THELMA AND LOUISE (1991)

Okay, so I’m not sure how empowering it is to drive off a cliff in real life, but this Ridley Scott film (based on an iconic script by wunderkind, zeitgeist-tapping Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri) caused a sensation upon its release by (A) objectifying Brad Pitt as a hunky slab of beefcake (thus electrifying and pretty much launching his career) and (B) allowing Susan Sarandon’s Louise to gun down the scumbag who was raping Geena Davis’ Thelma (and later blow up the truck of a leering male chauvinist pig) without even feeling all that bad about it, just like any number of male actors in any number of male-centric revenge fantasies...except in films like Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Taxi Driver, etc., the male heroes didn’t have to die in the end to satisfy Hays Code-style notions of karmic retribution for stepping outside the lines of acceptable social conduct. Still, the film’s outlaw motif energized female audiences by (melo)dramatizing the common stereotypical perception of men as either (a) dangerous assholes or (b) hapless boobs while providing enough action and sex to attract audiences of every gender.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006)

There’s a beloved feminist koan that goes something like this: ruthless, aggressive men who go after what they want are called winners, while ruthless, aggressive women are called bitches. Of course, most thinking people realize that ruthless, aggressive men are actually called assholes...and it’s the universal, gender-blind nature of the eternally confusing success vs. happiness equation faced by Anne Hathaway’s aspiring fashionista “Andy” Sachs that helped to make the film version of The Devil Wears Prada a $300 million dollar monster hit. And, let’s see...two seconds of Googling and...yep! There’s a TMZ article from 2006 with a, shall we say, certain familiar ring to it: “Blah blah blah, female-centered film exceeded all expectations...yadda-yadda-yadda...industry analysts surprised,” etc., etc. etc. As Meryl Streep’s formidable Gordon Gekko-in-stilettos magazine mogul Miranda Priestly might say to those industry Suits who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the existence of fifty percent of their audience, “Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”

BRING IT ON (2000)

This broadly played late-summer sleeper is actually packing a lot of heavy metaphorical lumber for a teen flick about a cheerleading competition. Kirsten Dunst is the new head of the Toros, who cheer for the (rich, white) Rancho Carne High School in Los Angeles; they're gearing up for the national championships, which they've won the past six years with the spectacular routines provided by departing team leader Big Red. But when a new girl with a gymnastics background and an attitude -- Eliza Dushku, who was too cool for Buffy the Vampire Slayer's school -- joins the squad, she has unsettling news. It turns out that Big Red was stealing her plays from the fly girls who cheer for the (black, poor) East Compton Clovers, thus making the Toros the cheerleading equivalent of Pat Boone to the Clovers' Little Richard. Dunst actually does her best to rationalize this cultural parasitism rather than destroy her cheerleading institution overnight, but the situation becomes intolerable after the Clovers attend a Toros game and mock their blonde plagiarists by performing the stolen moves in the stands. In the end, both teams attend the finals and show that they can use their brains and talents to compete honorably on the field of battle. There is, however, one scene that shows that contemporary standards of empowerment may be thornier, and weirder, than is commonly acknowledged. Dunst offers the Clovers, who have been prevented from attending the national competition by financial hardship, the chance to come by talking her father into getting his company to sponsor them, but the head Clover (Gabrielle Union) contemptuously rejects the offer, telling Dunst that they don't need her charity; they'll raise the money themselves, their own way. Their own way turns out to be going on an "Oprah"-like TV show and raising contributions by guilt-tripping viewers with their tale of woe. I guess it's honest labor and not charity if it helps "Oprah" kill an hour.

JACKIE BROWN (1997)

Such '70s blaxploitation films as Coffy and Foxy Brown may have made Pam Grier a cult star, but it was always a degraded form of stardom, and not just because the movies were cheap genre knockoffs; she may have had the chance to show that she could hold the camera and kick ass in the final reel, but she still also had to get her top ripped off before being raped by guys who looked like the Ku Klux Klan's answer to Uncle Fester, while being called things like "this big-jugged jigaboo." Jackie Brown catches up with Grier more than twenty years down the road, when she's at an age when Hollywood regards actresses as disposable. It's not a great age to be a flight attendant, either, which is why Jackie is working for a low-grade Mexican airline and acting as a courier for Los Angeles-based gun dealer Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). Both Ordell and the federal agents setting up a case against him regard Jackie as a pawn who can easily be taken out of play at any moment. But -- and here's the key difference between this and Grier's '70s vehicles -- the movie respects her. The way she looks through Tarantino's lens, you sort of picture the camera shuffling its feet nervously as it tries to work up the nerve to ask her if she's been seeing anybody lately. And so Ordell, whose fearsomeness would cut him a lot more ice in a different Tarantino movie, is reduced to a comic figure; for all his bluster and firepower, his assumption that the middle-aged black woman with the low-paying job must be a bit player (which Jackie will use against him, and against the feds, too), makes him ridiculous. The only man in the movie who can see Jackie for what she is remains Robert Forster's bail bondsman Max Cherry, who, unlike the film's younger, strutting cocks, lacks the ego and capacity for self-deception that might get in the way of his seeing clearly what's in front of him. Tarantino included a riff (borrowed from Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes) on the arrogance of Superman in the second Kill Bill film, and Jackie Brown is in some ways a black, female Superman fantasy, except that Jackie doesn't have to put on a pair of eyeglasses to trick the dull-witted into thinking she's no match for them.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)

Long before Joss Whedon was a small-screen institution, he was just a fresh-faced young script doctor with a dream. That dream was to create a richly detailed fantasy world featuring nubile teenage girls. Sure, you’re saying: how does that make him any different than millions of other guys? Here’s how: his nubile teenage girls kicked ass. And not just any ass, but demonic vampire ass! Within a decade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer would find its way onto television and prove a major cult hit, giving the country a brand new definition of girl power and adding an entirely new dimension to teen angst as Buffy Summers and her Scoobies battled monsters and bloodsuckers at Sunnydale High. But it all started with this low-budget big-screen number. Whedon, once he’d decided he was a highbrow auteur, more or less disavowed the Buffy movie, but in many ways, it holds up a lot better than people give it credit for: it doesn’t take itself so deadly serious, it has tons of terrific comic turns from Paul Reubens and Stephen Root in supporting roles, and while Kristy Swanson’s Buffy may not carry the emotional weight that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s did, she looks mighty fine in a half-shirt, and she furthers the cause of female empowerment the way only a vampire slayer can. She’s rough, she’s tough, and she maintains her keen fashion sense: what could be more feminine than that?

Click here for Part Two!

Related Posts: Girl DisemPowering: Nine Films That Didn't Do Feminism Any Favors (Part One & Part Two)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce

Lindsay Lohan: Too Crazy For Manson

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

So, less than two months after it was reported here that Tara Reid...I mean Lindsay Lohan...had been cast as one of the titular LSD and murder enthusiasts in Manson Girls (the latest entry in a feel-good trifecta including the murder/torture/stripper-pole-humping I Know Who Killed Me and the scumbag-who-killed-John-Lennon biopic Chapter 27), industry schadenfreude enthusiasts are reporting the erstwhile actress was fired from her latest terrible-sounding project.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Ms. Hilton...I mean, Lohan...claims she wasn’t fired...but blogger Nikki Finke begs to differ.

Quoth Ms. Finke: ““Lohan quickly became more of a deficit than an asset when [producers] discovered that they couldn’t find any name actresses who wanted to co-star with her.”

According to various sources, Ms. Spears...uh, Lohan...later celebrated her continuing status as box office poison by sharing tequila shots with fellow inexplicable celebrity Lauren Conrad of The Hills.

Here’s wishing Ms. Montag or Lohan all the best in her continuing efforts to, y’know, like, whatever.

EW Makes List of Vile Villains, Isn’t as Cool as Screengrab Lists

John Constantine — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:10:00 GMT

Actually, I’ve got to give it up to our esteemed peers over at Entertainment Weekly because this is a pretty nice overview of dastardly personae in movies. It starts off on the wrong foot. Darth Vader? Darth Vader ceased being imposing the moment he made an effeminate, golden robot. Then Leatherface, which is acceptable but come on. The bad guy in a movie called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t an exciting entry! The list kicks into gear when it starts reaching further into the past and gets unpredictable. For example, I had forgotten about the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang altogether and now I’m going to spend the rest of today reliving childhood trauma. And Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus in Gladiator comes out of nowhere. What an inspired choice! He’s a bad guy so icky he makes horrific Gene Simmons-tongue faces while watching other dudes kill each other and then tries to impregnate his sister. It’s no Ten Best Murderous Duos but, hey, what is?

You can check out the first 25 of 50 right here.

Confusing Indecency With Originality? Robert Downey Jr. in TROPIC THUNDER

Paul Clark — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

A few days ago, my colleague Scott Von Doviak weighed in on the recently-released photo from Tropic Thunder that's been making the rounds of late. More specifically, he sounded off on the casting of Robert Downey Jr., which has had the blogosphere all a-twitter this past weekend. Given the small but vehement protests among certain people both on and off the Web, I thought I ought to post my thoughts here as well.

First off, it's not as simple as Downey playing a black man. According to a "First Look" feature in this week's Entertainment Weekly, Downey "plays Kirk Lazarus, a very serious Oscar-winning actor cast in the most expensive Vietnam War film ever. Problem is, Lazarus's character, Sgt. Osiris, was originally written as black. So Lazarus decides to dye his skin and play Osiris, um, authentically." Stiller, who also wrote and directed, has gone on record stating that Downey's character (and the film itself) is skewering blinkered, insufferable actors rather than African-Americans.

Yet that hasn't stopped some folks from criticizing the film and Downey for "pulling a Danson" and invoking that dreaded "B" word: blackface. Frankly, I don't see it. The purpose of blackface was to get cheap laughs from white people by exaggerating the prevailing stereotypes of African-Americans for the purposes of comedy, and I don't see Downey wearing an enormous shit-eating grin or sneaking around a watermelon patch, Bamboozled-style. Also, the makeup is loads more realistic than any blackface ever was — be honest, if I hadn't told you the black guy in the photo was Downey, would you have guessed it? Me neither. If Stiller and Downey maintain that the film isn't trying to lampoon African-Americans — which would be a stupid, career-killing idea in this day and age — I see no reason why we shouldn't take them at their word.

In addition, the recent revelations about Tropic Thunder have made me pretty darn excited to see it. While part of me wishes Stiller could have convinced Daniel Day-Lewis, the most famously Method of contemporary actors, to play Lazarus, you'll certainly hear no complaints about Downey, a personal favorite and a genius-level comic actor. But what has me really pumped is the edginess of this particular storyline, an edge that's been mostly absent from Stiller's work since — well, whaddya know — his last directorial effort, 2001's Zoolander. After a decade of mostly wishy-washy roles, it's good to see Stiller taking chances again, both onscreen and behind the camera. I'll resist making further pre-judgments about the film until a substantial trailer is released, but for now I want to say that Tropic Thunder has become one of my most-anticipated big-budget releases of the 2008.

To tide you over until March 17, the pre-announced premiere date of the trailer, here's the online-only teaser, which gives us a glimpse of Downey "in character":

The Spirit of '67

Phil Nugent — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Pictures at a Revolution, a new book by Entertainment Weekly staffer Mark Harris, zeroes in on a signal moment in popular culture — 1967, a time when the old Hollywood studios were losing their grip on mass taste and hip young American filmmakers were beginning to be influenced by the European New Wave directors — by examining the making of each of the five films nominated for that year's Academy Award for Best Picture. The list consists of In the Heat of the Night, the eventual winner, and the four also-rans, Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Dr. Dolittle. The films themselves go a long way towards making Harris's point that Hollywood was cracking apart at the time from confusion, internal conflict, and dry rot; it's hard to believe that they were all made in the same year, let alone that an industry would have chosen all of them to point to with pride as the best of which they were capable.

The ones that seem most clearly of their time are Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate. The latter was a crowd-pleasing zeitgeist movie, a time-stamped movie of the moment, but Bonnie & Clyde was a genuinely revolutionary film at the time — the writers, Robert Benton and David Newman, had originally hoped to attract Francois Truffaut to direct — and a certified classic. It was also a movie that, had it won the Oscar, would have set off a chain of massive coronaries through three-quarters of the executive suites in Hollywood. As for In the Heat of the Night, it was recently re-issued on a new DVD, which set off a fresh round of condescending notices pointing up its flaws. It is in fact an entertaining little murder melodrama with a number of strong virtues — notably the dazzling cinematographer by Haskell Wexler and Rod Steiger's Oscar-winning performance — but it is the kind of movie that was overrated in its day and is now fated to be underrated, as punishment for being a good movie that won an award that should have gone to a great movie. It looks even better if compared to the other big racial-tolerance message movie, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which is where most of the dry rot settled.

In its general outlines, this will be familiar territory to many readers of film books; the Bonnie & Clyde story has been especially thoroughly covered already, but even the ringer, the expensive and unwatchable Dr. Dolittle, has already been dealt with at some length in a well-known book: John Gregory Dunne's 1969 The Studio, a first-hand journalistic account of how thoroughly that movie's tortured production bollixed Twentieth-Century Fox at the time. But Harris is a good writer and has managed to wring fresh material from such interview subjects as Mike Nichols, Arthur Penn, Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Towne, and Buck Henry, while plugging the gaps with well-chosen insights drawn from such sources as Sidney Poitier's memoirs. Overblown title and all, Harris's book is a fascinating, five-sided snapshot of a remarkable moment in movie history.

Paste Magazine's Art House 100

Phil Nugent — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Paste magazine has published its "Art House Powerhouse 100", devoted to listing "the people behind the movies we love." The feature is self-consciously designed to serve as an alternative to the other "power lists" that such magazines as Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly get such a thrill out of assembling, with Paste's list striving to determine, "Who are the power players in the world of quality cinema? What individuals and organizations make intelligent, well-crafted movies and have the profile, financial resources and/or critical esteem to attract discerning audiences? In short, we looked for those at the intersection of art and commerce who make independent film the viable and sustainable industry that we’ve come to enjoy." After that buildup, the magazine proceeds to serve up a list of names that for the most part will not be unfamiliar to many people with a passing interest in high-profile moviemaking a little further off the beaten track than say. Transformers. But if few of them have been starving for media attention, most of them are certainly deserving of a pat on the back. The lists of directors (which includes Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Todd Haynes, Tim Burton, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Winterbottom, Stephen Frears, and comeback kid Sidney Lumet) and actors (among them Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Laura Linney, Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Don Cheadle, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cillian Murphy, Ryan Gosling, Johnny Depp, and Javier Bardem), can be found at the website. The hard copy, available at your local newstand, also tots up noteworthy cinematographers (such as Roger Deakins, the hard-working D.P. on No Country for Old Men, In the Valley of Elah, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and producers, as well as listing the magazine's favorite film festivals.

Funny Book Funny Business

John Constantine — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:55:00 GMT

The Screengrab’s very own Leonard Pierce wasn’t joking in his post earlier today. We are going to drown you in comic book movie related news and you are going to like it! It’s true that nigh on every superhero that’s seen print in the past seventy years has been optioned by a studio. While the solo heroes are all tied up though, Hollywood has been slow to approach the legal quagmire of producing adaptations of one of comics’ most celebrated traditions: the team-up. No, X-Men and Fantastic Four don’t count. They’re individual properties in their own right.

In the past six months, it’s been looking like Warner Bros. was set to make the first big budget superhero team-up with a George Miller (Babe, Happy Feet, Mad Max) helmed Justice League adaptation. But, according to Entertainment Weekly via AICN, today is the day that determines whether or not the flick happens. An anonymous source indicated that January 15th is the greenlight deadline for Miller’s Justice League and while the WB is pushing to have it in theaters within eighteen months, Miller is still pushing for a re-write. It’s not clear whether or not Warner Bros will bring in another director or if they’ll allow Miller to pursue a non-WGA approved rewrite.

I’m right there with Mr. Pierce in the belief that the most promising comic book material for screen adaptation waits in indie comics. That said though, if the popcorn superhero movie is going to continue to be profitable and entertaining, it has to evolve beyond the origin story-good sequel-bad sequel franchise mold that’s been established in the past decade. Team-ups are a smart way to do this provided they are, unlike most comic book movies (*cough* Ghost Rider), well made. Get someone like Steven Soderbergh, who’s proven just how successful and entertaining an ensemble of colorful characters can be, to make an Avengers movie and then we’ll be getting somewhere.

Francie Accent

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:45:00 GMT

It may not be the most glamorous career in Hollywood, but without dialogue coaches, we'd have a lot more Kevin Costner movies to contend with. As part of its occasional "Working Hollywood" series on the people in the industry who do the jobs that won't land you on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times profiles Francie Brown, who came to southern California to act and ended up helping other actors to embarrass themselves, and us, a little less.

Citing everyone's favorite Welshman, Christian Bale, as especially adept at wrapping his voice around unfamiliar accents (Brown was Bale's dialogue coach on Batman Begins and 3:10 to Yuma), Brown also sheds some light on some of the technical aspects of voice-coaching and why certain nationalities are easier to work with than others: "The trap when you're doing a rural or an uneducated person is to fall into a Southern accent, because there are things native to the Southern accent, like dropping 'ings,' that are also native to a rural sound. Particularly for English and Australian actors, it's easy to go Southern, because it's such a musical sound and it's catchy and because so much of the Southern drops 'R' sounds, which are also dropped in English and Australian a lot."

"It's Like 'Willy Wonka' Meets 'The Wild Bunch'..."

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:30:00 GMT

As the Writer’s Guild strike grinds on, it’s as good a time as any to pay tribute to those for whom the screenplay is not so much a job as a lottery ticket. Present company is definitely included – like most of my fellow Screengrabbers, I have a desk drawer full of brilliant yet tragically unproduced scripts, any one of which should have made me a millionaire by now. But I’ve also been on the other side of the equation, having spent several years reading scripts for Hollywood production companies and a well-known screenwriting contest, and I’m here to tell you that for every unknown writer with an original story told in a compelling fashion there are approximately 7000 folks who should have put the hard-earned money spent on their Final Draft programs away for a rainy day.

Still, as long as there are influential individuals willing to sift through haystacks in search of a needle, the dream lives on – which brings us to this Entertainment Weekly piece about Nehst Studios, a new company spearheaded by former Shooting Gallery exec Larry Meistrich. Nehst (pronounced “next,” but spelled in a more Google-friendly way) is not exactly Project Greenlight – although some participants have compared it to American Idol – but it is a way for aspiring screenwriters to get some feedback on their ideas, and even some option money if Meistrich and his fellow judges like what you’re doing.

In the EW article, Meistrich says “We charge 10 bucks per pitch, but that's really just to weed out the maniacs.” I can’t believe that works, having read Unabomber-like screeds from screenplay contest entrants who paid a $25 fee, but what the heck. If you want to give it a shot, check out their site – but don’t quit your day job just yet.

The Fifty Dumbest People in Hollywood

Peter Smith — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:00:00 GMT

In reaction to Entertainment Weekly's cover story listing the "Fifty Smartest People in Hollywood" (including such brainiacs as Will Smith and Brian Grazer), the New York Daily News has now compiled its own list of the fifty dumbest people in Hollywood. Though the Daily News openly mocks the EW list, they did manage to come up with fifty names that did not overlap with it; considering that the EW list of "smartest" people included Ben Affleck, the temptation must have been great. But then it might have been a distraction from what appears to be the real purpose of something like this, which is of course to provide an excuse to run Lindsay Lohan's mug shot again. Face it, kid; until Mel Gibson drunkenly plows a tank into a chorus line of orphans and nuns, you are the new Nick Nolte. — Phil Nugent