The Screengrab : kevin smith

The Last Morning Deal Report

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:00:00 GMT

A word of warning: just because this is our last Morning Deal Report at the Screengrab doesn’t mean Hollywood is going to stop announcing ridiculous projects. You’ll just have to find out about them somewhere else. I wish I could say we’ve saved the best for last, but we can only work with what they give us.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz will reunite for James Mangold’s Wichita. It is not the story of a lineman who’s still on the line. “The script has been through many machinations, but the most recent drafts were done by Scott Frank, with Mangold currently fine-tuning the script with Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island). Two-hander has several action scenes. Cruise will play a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of a single woman,” Variety reports.

Kevin Smith has found another pair of dicks. “Seann William Scott and Adam Brody are joining Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Warner Bros.' A Couple of Dicks,” Smith’s new buddy action comedy, per The Hollywood Reporter. Smith did not write the script, which is by script Robb and Mark Cullen, and “follows a maverick cop (Willis) and his partner (Morgan) who, while tracking a valuable stolen baseball card, tangle with a memorabilia-obsessed gangster and rescue a Mexican beauty who holds the key to millions in laundered drug money.”

Also, there will be another Batman movie, another Star Trek, another James Bond, and at some point, probably another King Kong remake. Save us the aisle seat!

Screengrab Salutes The Best & Worst Comic Book Movies Of All Time! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:00:00 GMT

It’s Watchmen Week here at The Screengrab as the greater Geek-iverse (and the studio executives who love it) await the opening of Zack Snyder’s much-anticipated, much low-expectations-generating adaptation of Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ beloved, game-changing graphic novel about a bunch of asshole “super” “heroes” fighting crime, mental illness and erectile dysfunction in a scary alternate reality where Richard Nixon never went away. (And by the way, does everyone out there already know Silk Spectre II: Electric Boogaloo is portrayed by the same actress who played Valerie Cherish’s little blonde protégé on The Comeback? I just found that out, like, yesterday and was momentarily confused because I thought all the Watchmen were supposed to be kinda middle-aged -- but then I checked the Internet Movie Database and, much to my surprise, Malin Akerman’s actually 31, which is somewhat middle-aged, I suppose)...

Anyway, our own Scott Von Doviak and Paul Clark have already weighed in with their reviews of Hollywood’s latest attempt to wring a little KA-CHING! out of the POW! ZAP! BAM! of the funny book aisle, a strategy that’s been serving the Suits pretty well in recent years. I could pontificate here on the way America’s fascination with caped crusaders panders to infantile, imperialist empowerment fantasies, crowding more intelligent, adult material from the multiplex...but not only would that be annoying, it would also be hypocritical, since (A) I like a good funny book movie as much the next geek, (B) another movie about masked superheroes battling supervillains is a helluva lot better than another movie about masked sadists chopping up teenagers and (C) I keep hoping they’ll someday finally make that Wonder Woman movie I’ve been waiting for since I was 12. Mmm...magic lasso...

In the meantime, though, please enjoy the following list from Nerve.com’s very own Legion of Doom as we salute truth, justice, the American way and THE BEST AND WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

The Best:

IRON MAN (2008)

True, it’s only been a few weeks since I wrote about Jon Favreau’s rock ‘em sock ‘em revival of the venerable Marvel Comics rust magnet for my Best of 2008 list...but (unlike certain awards-distributing Academies I could mention), I wanted to make sure this excellent film was recognized among the best of the best!

V FOR VENDETTA (2006)

Don't tell Alan Moore, who has never seen it but took the trouble to bad-mouth it anyway, but this adaptation of his Thatcher-era anarchists' fable, directed by Wachowski brothers proxy James McTeigue, does better than pretty good by its source material. The most important changes the filmmakers made from the original text, notably the transformation of Eve's (Natalie Portman) blokey boyfriend into a sardonic gay TV host played by Stephen Fry, actually work well: Fry's performance gives the film some heart, and film is clearly better suited than the printed page when it comes to paying gratuitous tribute to Benny Hill. The movie even inspired David Denby to apoplexy by seeming to present a terrorist as a political hero. Annoying David Denby is always a public service.

HULK (2003)

Remember how last year’s Edward Norton re-boot of The Incredible Hulk was going to prove that the relatively disappointing box office take of the 2003 Hulk was all Ang Lee’s fault? That audiences would embrace a louder, faster, dumber Hulk movie in a way they never did Lee’s artsy-fartsy one? How’s that working out for ya? The 2008 edition racked up almost exactly the same box office total as the 2003, so maybe it’s just that nobody likes poor ol’ Hulk. Or maybe the 2003 version wasn’t so bad after all, which is what I’ve been saying all along. Yes, it has its flaws; Eric Bana doesn’t exactly light up the screen, the CGI star isn’t quite up to snuff in some scenes, and things do take a little longer to get percolating than was perhaps necessary. But Lee brings a lyrical, haunting tone to the picture that may seem at odds with the whole “HULK SMASH!” ethos, but actually taps into a vein of melancholy the character has always possessed. The innovative editing scheme, with its cascade of digital wipes and split screens, is a far more clever and entertaining cinematic analog to reading a comic than anything Zack Snyder does in Watchmen, and the CGI effects do mesmerize at times. Hell, I could have watched this Hulk bouncing his way across the desert for hours.

X-MEN 2 (2003)

Ushering in the modern age of Marvel superhero films, Bryan Singer’s X-Men helped prove that the sight of men in tights – or, in this case, men and women in leather body suits – didn’t have to doom a comic adaptation to cartoonishness. It was Singer’s 2003 sequel, however, that truly elevated the genre by cannily marrying romantic drama, vigorous action and social-intolerance subtexts (here reconfigured from the source material to address sexuality more than race). Aside from Halle Berry’s still-awful wig and Alan Cumming’s grating Nightcrawler, X2 is sharper, smarter and more exhilarating than its predecessor, remaining true to the spirit of its heroes, villains and Dark Phoenix-ish storyline, buoyed by Brian Cox’s superbly villainous William Stryker, and smartly placing as high a premium on character as on spectacle. Which isn’t, however, to say that the spectacle itself isn’t reason enough to check out Singer’s sequel, since an early Stryker-led attack on Professor Xavier’s school, as well as Wolverine’s climactic throwdown with Lady Deathstrike, more than ably deliver the super-skirmish goods.

BATMAN (1989)

A genuine pop culture behemoth in the summer of '89, Tim Burton's blockbuster comic book movie probably did more than any other to make comics adaptations an accepted Hollywood genre, if only for proving that the success of the first couple of Superman movies hadn't been a fluke. This is not one of those accomplishments that nobody can see a downside to, and despite its hellacious popularity, the movie has always had enough attackers to count as controversial, including those who think it's a clumsy piece of storytelling to comics geeks (including Kevin Smith) who think it blasphemed its source material in any number of ways. But Burton's graphic sense and gothic sense of humor always made it a striking, strikingly funny piece of work, and facts are facts: no actor has ever been more compelling or convincingly haunted in a superhero role than Michael Keaton. The passage of twenty years and umpteen sequels and reboots (including Burton and Keaton's deeply flawed but often lovely Batman Returns) has thrown its defects and pluses into sharp relief: it's hard to remember that, in 1989, when Christopher Nolan was all of nineteen years old, many critics were appalled because they thought this picture was too dark.

SUPERMAN II (1980)

The 1978 Christopher Reeve Superman was an outlier, and probably the earliest example of filmmakers at least trying to make a genuinely good superhero movie. But it wasn’t entirely successful, and one sticking point for a lot of fans was the performance as Lex Luthor by Gene Hackman. The role has as many passionate defenders as detractors, but many thought that it was overly campy and unserious, and a superhero movie is generally only as good as its villain. The 1980 sequel would change all that. Introducing three Kryptonian supervillains escaped from the Phantom Zone – the hulking Non, the ice-cold Ursa, and best of all, the fantastic Terence Stamp as the megalomaniacal General Zod – Superman II gave us villains for the ages, and culminated in one of the most exciting fight scenes we’d seen to date. But it still wasn’t a great movie, and longstanding rumor placed the blame on the firing, when production was nearly complete, of Superman director Richard Donner and his replacement with Richard Lester. Lester, while a talented director, didn’t much care about the job and had little affection for the material, and the results are right there on screen. A few years ago, however, the Richard Donner cut was released commercially, and it finally became clear how good Superman II could have been if its original director had been allowed to pursue his vision all along.

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager, Leonard Pierce

Morning Deal Report: Megan Fox Goes Deep

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Transformers star Megan Fox is taking additional steps to shore up her fan base with comic book nerds. Not only is she in negotiations to co-star with Josh Brolin in Jonah Hex, but according to The Hollywood Reporter she is also set to star in the comic book adaptation Fathom. The story “follows a young woman named Aspen who learns she is a member of a race of aquatic humanoids who possess the ability to control water.” Aquaman, eat your heart out.

Kevin Smith has two stars and a new title for his project formerly known as A Couple of Dicks. The newly titled A Couple of Cops will star Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Smith’s major studio debut for Warner Bros., “centered on a pair of cops who track down a stolen baseball card, rescue a Mexican beauty and must deal with gangsters and laundered drug money,” per Variety.

Christopher Nolan’s latest has a title – Inception – and a star – Leonardo DiCaprio. “Script has been kept under wraps but the studio calls it a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” I’ll show you the architecture of the mind!

Related:
Beyond Spike and Clint: More Filmmaker Feuds
When Good Directors Go Bad?: Insomnia (Christopher Nolan)

Bloody Valentines: The Worst Relationships In Cinema History (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:30:00 GMT

BURT & LINDA PUGACH, CRAZY LOVE (2007)

If you never saw this documentary by Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens (or the talk show promotional tour by its subjects prior to its release), here’s the set-up: already-married New York City attorney Burt Pugach had an affair with a younger woman named Linda Riss, and when she broke it off, he contracted goons to blind her by throwing lye in her face. But wait, it gets even more romantic! After serving 14 years in prison for his crime, Pugach hooked up with Riss again, and eventually the two kooky lovebirds got married. Now here’s the depressing part: if you didn’t know their history, the kvetchy, passive-aggressive old couple portrayed in the film's contemporary interview segments could be ANY miserable old couple stuck in the comfortable rut of a relatively loveless marriage. So for all you dudes out there who think passion equals love and all you ladies with a thing for the bad boys, Crazy Love is a grimly humorous corrective.

MAE & JIMMY DOYLE, VIRTUE (1932)

Far from DVD but recently restored in a pristine new print by Sony (it's a start), Virtue is a stellar script by frequent Capra collaborator Robert Riskin with a premise that hasn't dated one bit: if a woman comes to a relationship with way more sexual experience than a man and it makes him insecure, paranoid and jealous, is there any way for him to get over that and save the relationship? Mae (Carole Lombard) is a former streetwalker who falls in love with cabdriver Jimmy Doyle (Pat O'Brien) while working behind the drivers' lunch-counter; Doyle's a tough-talking he-man woman-hater, but Mae wins him over. When they get back from their honeymoon day at Coney Island, the cops are there to arrest her for coming back to NYC after her last arrest; Jimmy vouches for her, but after the cops leave, the real test begins. Jimmy's ridiculously suspicious and obviously the walking wounded, his pride and suspicion a relationship toxin. Unfortunately, there's only so far a Pre-Code movie can go, and rather than having Jimmy and Mae work their problems out in open dialogue, Riskin has to resort to a tricksy but stupid melodramatic murder plot to clear the air. Still, Virtue is superior to, say, Chasing Amy, because being a former streetwalker is a much better metaphor for sexual inequality in a relationship than converting a freakin' lesbian. I mean c'mon. There's no clips online, so enjoy the creepy home footage above of Lombard and Clark Gable doing nothing much in particular.

ANN DARROW & KONG, KING KONG (1933)

When Peter Jackson remade Kong, he beefed up the sympathetic vibes between ape and woman, even including an Edward Scissorhands-ish ice-rink moment at the end; it wasn't beauty killed the beast, but society. Not the case in the original, where a shrieking Fay Wray doesn't realize (as someone once pointed out, and I can't remember how) that Kong is, all things considered, far from the worst thing that could happen to her: he keeps her safe on the island and would never, ever drop her from the Empire State Building. But no: she shrills and is generally totally ungrateful. Naomi Watts and Kong are actually kind of a cute couple; Wray and Kong, forget about it. Someone thought the archaic and perfectly-preserved, unreconstructed attitudes of the original weren't enlightening enough and edited a really bad "modern trailer" for it; it's above.

ALGY LONGWORTH & GWEN, BULLDOG DRUMMOND STRIKES BACK (1934)

An immensely amusing movie 20th Century Fox apparently never bought the permanent rights to the source material for — hence insanely hard to see — Bulldog Drummond is embodied for an encore by Ronald Colman, who'd already embodied H.C. 'Sapper' McNeile's emblem of British charm and resourcefulness in 1929. But his companion Algy was being played by Charles Butterworth for the first time. As the movie opens, it's Algy's wedding day to Gwen (Una Merkel), but their honeymoon night keeps getting interrupted by Bulldog's murder investigations and tanglings with generic sinister Oriental Prince Achmed (Warner Oland). Bulldog seems like a man of the world (because he's been out of Britain), but everyone else is asexual and stiff-upper-lip; Algy seems either fatalistically resigned to his wedding night being interrupted or actively looking for excuses to get out of it. (His bride is American, hence presumably experienced, which implicitly adds to the panic.) His final line at the film's final interruption — the relationship is never so much as close to consummation — is astonishing: "Perhaps you and I will be happy in our Platonic little way." They're the most sexually trapped married couple ever.

ED & LOU AVERY, BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956)

The mismatch between Ed (James Mason) and Lou Avery (Barbara Rush) is a geographical one set up in casting: even if you don't know that Mason's British (and not terribly good at concealing his accent) and Rush is a corn-fed Coloradan, you can sense a mismatch from the opening moments, when Ed announces everyone they had over for their suburban party was "dull" and failed to say anything witty, surprising or interesting. When Ed starts binging on cortisone and turns into a raving psychotic with delusions of grandeur, it merely confirms that there's no way he should be in the same suburban house as the rest of America. He needs to get back to where he belongs. Nicholas Ray's movie was a flop when it came out, and now it's a kind of overrated cult classic, but it's still compellingly sardonic stuff.

DAVE HIRSH & GINNIE MOOREHEAD, SOME CAME RUNNING (1958)

When Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) wakes up on a bus back in his hometown, he's got a wicked hangover and a girl he doesn't remember having picked up, Ginnie Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). He sends her packing, but she keeps hanging around, and eventually they're a couple, out of intertia as much as anything: Hirsh wants to do the Right Thing, and Ginnie is so pathologically needy she's hurt by the slightest rejection. What Dave doesn't realize is that doing the right thing is the wrong thing for both of them; [MAJOR SPOILER] Ginnie ends up dead, and Dave ends up with more guilt than he knows what to do with. Ironically, in reality Sinatra made sure MacLaine would get her big death scene so she could have her big star breakthrough ("Look, I want the kid to get killed, she'll get an Oscar nomination," he reportedly said. "I don't care about my role."), and she got it. But on-screen, they're a couple trapped together by both of their faults: her needs, his unwillingness to be a bastard when it has to be done. Short-term kindness is long-term cruelty.

ROSEMARY & GUY WOODHOUSE, ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)

This one's a literal from-hell: what could be worse than having a husband who'll trade you in to a Satanic coven in exchange for a boost for his acting career? I've long maintained Rosemary's Baby is actually a black comedy — it has more nervous laughs than most real comedies — but there's no denying that anyone married to John Cassavetes is in for the long haul in general. Mia Farrow just gets an especially bad break.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Five, Six & Seven

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Vadim Rizov

DVD Digest for February 10, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

With St. Valentine’s Day less than a week away, you’d think studios would start rolling out some of their romantic classics on DVD. But I’m seeing very little of that this week, unless of course your idea of romance is vastly different than mine…

DVDs of the Week: But then, for me, nothing says romance like a pair of movies from surrealist master Luis Bunuel. This week brings two of his favorites, The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert, courtesy of the folks at Criterion. The Exterminating Angel is the known quantity for me, a wicked satire of bourgeois manners, in which a group of upper-crusters finds itself unable to leave following a dinner party, which brings them no end of trouble. Simon, Bunuel’s telling of the story of an ascetic who stood atop a remote pillar to prove his love for God, is one I’ve yet to see (do I smell a future Reviews By Request?), but its DVD release is no less noteworthy. The films, made during Bunuel’s sojourn in Mexico, have been given the deluxe Criterion treatment, with new transfers, documentaries, new interviews with actress Sylvia Pinal and others, and more.

Other noteworthy this week is Janus’ Essential Art House: Volume 2, which includes The 400 Blows, Black Orpheus, Pygmalion, La Strada, Ikiru, and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp in single-disc editions, also available separately. In addition, Lionsgate is releasing new editions of the Wallace and Gromit short films, A Close Shave, A Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers. Finally- and I can’t in good conscience call this a classic, though it’s not new- Universal’s got the “Extreme Edition” of the final film from the great Raul Julia, Street Fighter (also Blu-Ray). So if you enjoy things that suck, set aside money for that one.

If newer movies are more your speed, this week’s recent releases coming to DVD include: Courtney Hunt’s double Oscar nominee Frozen River (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Genius Products; Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac in Soul Men (Genius Products); Richard Gere and Diane Lane in Nights in Rodanthe (Warner, also Blu-Ray); and a pair of very different showbiz satires, Barry Levinson’s What Just Happened? (Magnolia), and Bruce Campbell directing Bruce Campbell in My Name Is Bruce (Image, also Blu-Ray). Also this week, a quartet of curious films from fascinating filmmakers: Oliver Stone’s W. (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray); Spike Lee’s WW2 drama Miracle at St. Anna (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray); Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness (Buena Vista); and Eric Rohmer’s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (E1 Entertainment Distribution), allegedly the master’s final film. Oddly enough, the Rohmer looks to be the most romantic movie in this week’s column. Don’t know if your Dirty Dancing-loving special lady would go for it though…

Finally, a pretty action-packed and bloody lineup of Blu-Ray only releases this week: Martin Scorsese’s classic Raging Bull (MGM); David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (Warner); a pair of John Grisham adaptations, A Time to Kill and The Pelican Brief (both Warner); a double feature starring The Rock, Doom (Universal) and The Rundown (Universal); and two of Onion AV Club critic Scott Tobias’ New Cult Canon picks, Donnie Darko (Fox) and The Boondock Saints (Fox). Also, Milos Forman’s Amadeus: The Director’s Cut (Warner) and the table-tennis comedy Ping Pong Playa (Image).

Oh, and Pretty Woman (Disney).

Screengrab Review: "Fanboys"

Nick Schager — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:30:00 GMT

The rise of the Internet has helped the geeks inherit the Earth, a development celebrated by Fanboys, a rather formulaic road-trip comedy colored by Star Wars mania. Thanks to having its theatrical release delayed for more than a year, Kyle Newman’s film took on something of a mythic stature in the far corners of the ‘net, as the holdup made it seem like a case study in the mainstream’s condescending disrespect for all things geeky. Now that the wait is over, however, the truth seems more plain: Fanboys struggled to garner a slot at the local multiplex because it’s little more than a broad, juvenile triviality that aims to boost its target audience’s self-esteem about their obsession without ever convincing outsiders why rabid support for certain beloved properties (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) is warranted. To be sure, entertainment is the primary modus operandi at work here. Nonetheless, there’s something missing in the film's treatment of its central passion, which – explained by one character with little more than “I like it because I do” – is so lacking in self-analysis that the entire affair proves merely an extended high-five to those already in the Skywalker-adoring club.

A project like this should naturally be guided by Star Wars love, yet were that enthusiasm wedded to even a trace of reflection about the sensibleness of such insane fidelity to a fictional sci-fi saga, Newman’s film might have managed to say something, anything, about the virtues and limits of fervent fandom. Instead, however, funny-ha-ha references are the proceedings’ defining trait, alongside puerile humor, pratfalls and more gay-panic jokes than you can shake a lightsaber at. Oh yes, and cancer – specifically, the terminal kind that nerd Linus (Chris Marquette) has, and which motivates his three Ohio friends Hutch (Dan Fogler), Windows (Jay Baruchel), and Eric (Sam Huntington) to convince him to embark, in 1998, on a cross-country journey to Lucas’ San Francisco Skywalker Ranch to steal a rough cut of Episode I: The Phantom Menace so he can see it before shuffling off his mortal coil. It’s a plot instigator of an embarrassingly lazy sort – what, their lifelong fixation on the franchise wasn’t incentive enough? – though, as befitting the action’s general slapdash quality, it barely plays a factor, too busy is Newman having his characters make late-‘90s-specific comments about chat rooms and letting Seth Rogen flail about in two separate, equally cringe-worthy roles.

In this predictable fantasyland, sexual frustration is alleviated by a hot female who works at a comics store (Kristen Bell), Trekkies are “gay,” and just about everyone understands the preeminent value of Star Wars. Cameos from Kevin Smith, Carrie Fisher and William Shatner only confirm that the film is cheekily self-aware, and don’t distract from the poorly executed stabs at pop culture humor – Canadian prog-rockers Rush may not be cool, but liking them is hardly hilarious – and weak attempts at emotional drama via Eric and Linus’ strained relationship. The white elephant in the room is, of course, that Episode I is terrible, a fact that’s ultimately addressed in a straightforward punchline-y way, rather than used as the crux of a tongue-in-cheek look at the misguided nature of blind devotion. But so it goes with this disposable comedy, so intent on indulging in obscure Star Wars trivia, banal sub-Kevin Smith arguments about the series, and Harry Knowles idolization that one soon craves just a single moment when – as in Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s legendary Late Night with Conan O’Brien segment – the air might be slightly let out of the insular, full-to-bursting fandom bubble.

A Few Minutes with Neil Gaiman

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Hey, longtime Screengrab fans, you remember our ol’ pal John Constantine, don’t you? He used to make you all angry with his posts theorizing that Diablo Cody is actually Kevin Smith before he took off to the warmer climes of 61 Frames Per Second. Well, John has been begging and pleading and scraping and bowing and really just debasing himself in all sorts of pathetic ways in hopes that we’d link to an interview he did with Neil Gaiman over at The Daily Beast, and we simply can’t take it anymore. Gaiman, as you may know, is the author of the young adult novel Coraline, the movie version of which opens Friday. I have seen it and it’s a creepy good time, if you like that sort of thing. John talks to Gaiman about the movie and how it “lacks people being eaten by vaginas,” as well as his previous fantasy film Mirrormask and his hopes to adapt his own comic book miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living for the screen.

There is also some talk of blowjobs. You can read the full interview here. There – hope you’re happy, John!

DVD Digest for February 3, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This week, a whole mess of “classic” movies flood the DVD market, which is good, since the recent releases coming out this week aren't all that impressive.

Heading up the classics crop is the Being There 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Warner, also Blu-Ray). The good news is that the Blu-Ray disc will contain a number of intriguing special features, including an alternate ending. The bad news is that most of these features aren’t going to be on the standard DVD, so if you don’t have Blu-Ray, you’re sort of stuck. Still, definitely a movie that should be part of any good movie lover’s collection, no matter what form. And speaking of Peter Sellers movies, this week also brings the Peter Sellers 5-Film Collection (Lionsgate), which includes I’m All Right, Jack!, The Smallest Show on Earth, Carlton-Browne of the F.O., Two-Way Stretch, and Heavens Above!. Likewise, there’s a similar box set devoted to the work of Sellers’ mentor Alec Guinness- Alec Guinness 5-Film Collection (Lionsgate)- includes The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, The Captain’s Paradise, and The Ladykillers (a rather better selection than the Sellers set, I’d say).

More classics being released this week: Yentl Extended Director’s Edition (MGM), now featuring 30% more Streisand close-ups; the musical phenomenon RENT: Filmed Live on Broadway (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Friday the 13th, Parts 1-3, Uncut Deluxe Editions (Paramount, Part 1 also Blu-Ray), to tie in with the upcoming remake; the animated family film Oliver & Company 20th Anniversary Edition (Disney); John Carpenter’s wicked awesome Assault on Precinct 13 Restored Collector’s Edition (Image, also Blu-Ray); Richard Donner’s Inside Moves (Lionsgate); and the enticingly titled Silverado Single-Disc Version (Sony). Finally, Sony is releasing their second wave of their “Martini Movies” series, with this week’s releases being Getting Straight, Our Man in Havana, Five, Vibes, and Gumshoe.

On the recent releases, this week brings Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Genius Products, also Blu-Ray); Michael Cera in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah in The Secret Life of Bees (Fox, also Blu-Ray); the wine-centric comedy Bottle Shock (Fox); and Everybody Wants to Be Italian (Lionsgate), the movie that tries to prove that, uh, everybody wants to be Italian. Also, this week brings the long awaited release of Private Valentine: Blonde and Dangerous (Sony), yet another failed attempt at movie stardom by Jessica Simpson. After all, if you want to be a big-screen star, it helps if your movies actually get released in theatres.

This week’s TV on DVD releases include Bewitched Season 7 (Sony), Colombo Mystery Movie Collection: 1990 (Universal), and The Partridge Family Season 4 (Sony).

Finally, Fox is unloading four comedy favorites on Blu-Ray this week: Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space, and Sideways.

Smells Like Indie Spirit: Our Favorite Sundance Films Of All Time (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

SLACKER (1991) & CLERKS (1994)

I was struggling to extricate myself from college and move from Boston to L.A. when Richard Linklater's Slacker premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, reminding me that filmmaking wasn't just about Hollywood, but instead happened whenever and wherever a bunch of motivated creative types could get their hands on a camera. By painting Austin, Texas as a low-rent wonderland of hipsters and weirdos, Linklater inadvertently popularized the city and its filmmaking scene to the point where the rents got too high for most of the slackers (and businesses) depicted in the film. Nevertheless, despite attracting higher budgets and Hollywood friends thanks to the unexpected cult success of his debut (and the astonishing starmaking power of his follow-up, Dazed and Confused), Linklater stayed loyal to Austin, doing his best to Keep It Weird for the city's less famous residents.

A few years later, like much of Generation X, I was toiling on my own independent feature, dreaming of my own big Sundance debut when Clerks received the Filmmaker’s Trophy (and an acquisition deal from Miramax) in 1994...and so there was more than a little envy mixed in with my original lukewarm reaction to the Kevin Smith comedy. “It’s not THAT funny,” I thought, sitting in the Sunset 5 multiplex during the film’s theatrical run. “And the production values are crap!” Yet, in retrospect, the foul-mouthed riffing between cynical wage slaves Dante (Brian O’Halloran), Randal (Jeff Anderson) and national treasure Jason Mewes is, in fact, hilarious (reminiscent of John Waters’ “good” bad taste verbiage rather than just run-of-the-mill dick jokes). Moreover, like Linklater, Smith was and remains exactly the kind of Indiewood Horatio Alger even a bitter guy like me can’t begrudge. For one thing, he’s not a trust fund kid or the scion of Hollywood royalty: he filmed his movie at night in the very New Jersey convenience store where he toiled for pittance during the day, and if not for the good fortune of Sundance Advisory Committee member Bob Hawk seeing and liking the movie at the Independent Feature Film Market in New York, Smith might still be paying off the credit cards he used to finance his labor of love. Yet even after hitting the big time, Smith never went Hollywood (give or take his post-fame fling with Joey Lauren Adams and the occasional high profile screenwriting job): though sometimes uneven, his work since Clerks has remained idiosyncratic and personal, reflecting the sensibility of a smart, admirably humble working class jamoke who never got too big for his (admittedly gigantic) britches.

BLOOD SIMPLE (1984)

Sundance wasn't even Sundance yet when Blood Simple won the Grand Jury Prize in 1985; it was still known as the US Film Festival the year the low-budget Texas noir took top honors. As part of the first wave that led to the indie boom, Blood Simple is more notable for the careers that it launched than its own merits as an offbeat thriller, yet it still holds up remarkably well. Critics like Pauline Kael disdained the "camera whoop-de-do" at the time, but by today's standard, Blood Simple is a restrained piece of classical filmmaking. The plot is a sort of chess game where all the players are missing a few pieces, as a cuckolded bar owner (Dan Hedaya at his greasiest) hires a shady private eye (M. Emmet Walsh, ditto) to dispose of his wife and her lover. The wife is played by Frances McDormand making her motion picture debut, and the film not only marked the beginning of an impressive acting career, but also a remarkably long-lasting marriage (by show biz standards) as McDormand met her soon-to-be husband on the set. That was, of course, director Joel Coen, who along with brother, co-writer and producer Ethan Coen couldn't have known that Blood Simple was only the first chapter of one of the most storied filmographies of the past quarter-century. If not for Sundance, by any other name, it might never have happened.

SHERMAN'S MARCH (1986)

Ross McElwee's film -- subtitled "A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation" -- pulled triumph from disaster and constituted a bit of a landmark in the evolution of the "personal documentary." McElwee succeeded in taking a conceit that could have just been irritating -- providing a chronicle of his flailing love life in the course of showing how he managed to not deliver on a plan to make a film tracing the path of General Sherman's march through the South -- and dressing it with enough bittersweet humor and tart social observation to turn what could have been an act of self-exposure into a real picture of the times. (Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1987 festival.)

TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990)

Writer-director Charles Burnett's first feature Killer of Sheep would be selected for the National Film Registry, but this film, made a dozen years later, would finally earn Burnett his first play in real theaters. A blisteringly funny application of African-American folklore to a contemporary family, it is a cornucopia of wonders, not the least of them the performance of Danny Glover's career. It helped launch the steady simmer of Burnett's career that finally resulted in the restoration and theatrical and DVD release of Killer of Sheep last year, but ironically, To Sleep with Anger itself remains unavailable on home video and basically out of circulation. Burnett won a Special Jury Recognition prize when it was shown at the 1990 festival.

RESERVOIR DOGS (1992)

Quentin Tarantino's visceral debut has been ripped off so many times in the past fifteen years or so, it's probably safe by now to forgive Reservoir Dogs for being something of a ripoff in its own right. While Tarantino may have drawn a little too heavily on the likes of City on Fire and The Killing, it was clear from the opening scene – a roundtable discussion of the subtext of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" conducted by two-bit criminals in a crappy diner – that a distinctive new voice in American cinema had been discovered. And while that voice would occasionally grate over the years, its unique blend of profane tough-guy banter and geeky pop culture chatter found its purest expression in this time-twisting tale of that old reliable standby, the heist gone awry. In Tarantino's version, we never see the heist, but we get all the awry we can handle – in fact, more than some could handle in the case of the infamous "ear-slicing" scene. An unrivaled hard-boiled cast, including Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth and a sublime Lawrence "You're not Mr. Purple!" Tierney, expertly navigates the sharp turns from raunchy humor to shocking violence, all to the beat of your Super Seventies Favorites. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Reservoir Dogs lost to Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup. As Phil Nugent could tell you, the judges might have missed the boat on that one.

HOOP DREAMS (1994)

Steve James's epic documentary about the role that high school basketball, and the promise of professional sports careers, plays in the lives of two black kids and their families is a prime example of what Sundance's dedication to good liberal causes is good for. The movie itself is the kind of project that either pays off big time for the people involved or amounts to a waste of years of effort, and it wasn't a waste. (Winner of the Audience Award at the 1994 festival)

CRUMB (1994)

Terry Zwigoff's great profile of the underground comics master Robert Crumb slipped a little dynamite into the often staid documentary category. Rich, hilarious, painful and spiky, it's a wake-up call for anyone who thinks the standard documentary form is played out; all you need, Zwigoff reveals, is a subject who fascinates on a kaleidoscopic variety of levels and a determination to spend years chasing him to ground. At the 1995 festival it took both the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary, and also a prize for cinematographer Maryse Alberti.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three & Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak & Phil Nugent

Screengrab Review: “The Shark Is Still Working”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

As I’ve mentioned here before, Jaws is a movie that’s always been near and dear to my heart. I realize I am not alone in this, especially now that I’ve seen the fan-made documentary The Shark Is Still Working: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws. A true labor of love – maybe even a labor of obsession – the nearly three-hour film has been in the works for four years, which is a good thing since several of the principal participants are no longer with us. (Peter Benchley, author of the novel Jaws, died in 2006, and February 10th will mark the one-year anniversary of the death of Roy Scheider, who played Chief Brody and narrates this documentary.) The Shark Is Still Working is required viewing for any Jaws fanatic, but for the moment, at least, that’s a problem: the documentary has yet to secure distribution, although it seems a no-brainer that Universal should pick it up for DVD release at least.

Wisely, director Erik Hollander and his crew have not made another behind-the-scenes “Making of Jaws” doc, instead confining the familiar production tales to the first fifteen minutes or so. (The film’s title comes from a story Richard Dreyfuss could tell in his sleep by now, about walking around Martha’s Vineyard during production and hearing the constant squawk of two-way radios: “The shark is not working! Repeat! The shark is not working!”) Instead, Still Working is an exhaustive – and occasionally exhausting – scrapbook of Jaws minutiae: along with the expected interviews with Benchley, Scheider, Dreyfuss, director Steven Spielberg and producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown, the documentary goes in-depth with artist Roger Kastel (who painted the famous one-sheet image of shark closing in on nude swimmer), late voice-over talent Percy Rodrigues (who lent his low-key menacing tones to the Jaws trailer) and Carl Gottlieb (the co-screenwriter who penned the influential making-of book The Jaws Log).

But there’s more – much more. Still Working also features some solid gold video footage of Spielberg on the morning the Academy Award nominations for 1975 were announced. (“I got beaten out by Fellini!” a crestfallen Spielberg announces, with indignant character actor Joe Spinell at his side for some reason.) Collectors of Jaws props and memorabilia, attendees at a Jaws fan convention and builders of a replica of the original mechanical shark “Bruce” are also interviewed, as are filmmakers Kevin Smith, M. Night Shyamalan, Bryan Singer, Eli Roth and Robert Rodriguez, all citing Jaws as a huge influence. (I’ll leave it to you to decide whether more good than harm has been done.)

At times, The Shark Is Still Working can be a bit repetitive. I lost track of the number of testimonials to the oft-cited accidental brilliance that led to the shark going unseen for the first half of the film (although it’s nice to hear Spielberg admit that Jaws would be a much worse movie if he made it today, given the ready access to CGI effects). But while a few trims here and there wouldn’t hurt, it’s really the ramshackle enthusiasm for tangential matters that makes the documentary such a joy for Jaws fans. My absolute favorite section of the film centers on the residents of Martha’s Vineyard, many of whom participated in the making of Jaws, either behind the scenes or as local color onscreen. I’m not much of a fan convention guy, but I’m very sorry I missed JawsFest 2005 and its screening of the original movie right on shark beach – and I’m especially sorry I didn’t get there before the rotting hull of the Orca was completely dismantled by overzealous fans. Watching The Shark Is Still Working is the next best thing to being there, however, and here’s hoping everyone gets the chance to see it soon.

Screengrab Review: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno"

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

NOTA BENE: My esteemed colleage Scott Von Doviak already reviewed this bad boy when it played at Fantastic Fest, and did a fine job of it. But that was, like, totally a month and a half ago! He might as well have been reviewing that French train movie. So, in the name of second opinions, here we go!

With Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Kevin Smith seems to have set himself two goals: convince people that the raunchy, Seth-Rogen-starring sex comedy isn't by Judd Apatow, and re-establish himself as a scrappy, lovable filmmaker instead of the egomaniacal jerk that half of America loves to hate. The first part is easy -- despite Apatow's near-domination lately of the dudeflick, Smith got there first. The real question is, can he establish that he's a talent to watch out for again after having squandered so much goodwill?

The answer is...yes and no. He starts out with a pretty watertight premise: Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play the kind of platonic roommates that hardly ever exist in real life but are everywhere in movies and TV. They're struggling artist types -- though robbed of the insufferability of that archetype by engaging performances by both actors -- who strike upon the notion of filming a porno movie as a way to get rich quick. (Any resemblance between this plot and the actual economic reality of the porn industry is purely coincidental.) Along the way, this wacky duo discovers that their carnal cash cow may be just the thing to unleash some hidden feelings about each other.

There's a lot to like about Zack and Miri Make a Porno. It's certainly a lot more likable than most of his recent efforts; he's assembled a cast that makes his dialogue sound snappy again instead of contrived. He's hit upon an entertaining plot that lets him generate the usual shitstorm of controversy from the usual bluenoses without seeming too utterly calculating. And while it's certainly not going to win any acclaim as a feminist film, it's certainly the first movie I can recall from him where the lead female character has something more than one dimension. (Judd Apatow, take note.) But in a lot of ways, it's still a Kevin Smith movie: excessively bro-ish, gross when it should be clever and clever when it should be smart, and unable to resist dabbling in gay- and race-based humor while being utterly inept at doing so. Smith has proven that he can be a better filmmaker; now let's see him be a good one.

Related Posts:

Screengrab Review: Pineapple Express

Screengrab Review: Pride and Glory

In Other Blogs: Evil “Touch”?

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

You might think everyone would be happy now that the latest DVD release of Touch of Evil contains both the originally released theatrical cut and the version restored to the dictates of the famous Orson Welles memo a decade ago. But no! Apparently there are some aspect ratio issues to contend with. At his eponymous blog, Dave Kehr writes, “the sentiment of the group seems to be that we all want to vent about the Touch of Evil 50th anniversary edition, with its highly controversial 1.85 aspect ratio. There’s clearly no cut and dried answer here, in the absence of any documentary evidence, but my eye tells me that it’s too tight. The shot above shows some obvious trimming at the upper frame line, but for the most part the 1.85 version that Universal has released seems to give preference to head room while cutting out the less conspicuous compositional elements at the bottom of the frame. It all feels a bit tenuous and unstable to me, like a chord that hasn’t quite been allowed to resolve itself.”

At Parallax View, Sean Axmaker isn’t so sure about that. “I respect Kehr’s eye as I do his insight, but watching the revised cut in 1.85 for the first time was a revelation to me. Compositions became more dramatic, framed more tightly around Welles’ groupings. The long-takes in Sanchez’s apartment feel more claustrophobic, without so much of the expanse of the blank ceiling open above their heads.” Adding to the confusion is the fact that the two versions included on the DVD aren’t the only ones out there. “Today, no less than four cuts of the picture exist: the original 93-minute release version, the 108-minute preview version rediscovered in the Universal vaults in 1975 (and which had since supplanted the release version in all theatrical showings), a kind of unholy marriage created for video that cuts footage exclusive to the short version into the preview version, and the 1998 ‘revision’ of the film. This latter project, produced by Rick Schmidlin and edited by Walter Murch with Welles scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum serving as advisor, is being branded as a ‘restored version,’ but that’s a studio marketing move. As the project participants understand, it’s really an unprecedented and still unique attempt to retroactively honor a director by following his directions in repairing an artwork taken out of his hands. For the sake of accuracy, I will be referring the 1998 cut as the ‘revised version’ or the ‘1998 revision.’”

Another lavish new DVD release gets the business at Beyond the Multiplex. “What remains profoundly upsetting and unsettling about Salò after 33 years is that the pornographic and scatological and violent images it depicts — if you want a list of the specific outrages, find it somewhere else — emerge in a context of such rigorous formal beauty. With lavish production design by Dante Ferretti (later a collaborator with Fellini and Scorsese), costumes by Danilo Donati, music by Ennio Morricone, settings in spectacularly decaying Italian villas and the most austere, gorgeous camerawork of Pasolini’s career, Salò captures the Italian film industry at its postwar aesthetic height.”

At Hulu Blog, guest blogger Kevin Smith reminisces about the first time he saw Slacker (which you can now view there for free). “After overpaying for both parking and popcorn, we settled into what seats we could find together in the packed theater of a midnight screening. And once the trailer for Hal Hartley's Trust concluded, the Orion Classics logo lit up the screen and introduced me to my future. For the next 100 minutes or so, I was agog. My jaw literally hung open as this shaggy paean to those who follow the road not taken unspooled, offering me a glimpse into a free-associative world of ideas instead of plot, people instead of characters, and Nowheresville, Texas, instead of the usual California or New York settings most movies elected to feature (that ‘Nowheresville’ was really Austin speaks volumes on how culturally bereft I was at the time). That night, director Richard Linklater and his film not only captured my imagination, he (and it) captured my heart -- not to mention kick-started my ambition.”

And in List-o-Mania this week, Spoutblog takes a look at 10 Underrated Bill Murray Roles. For instance, “The Writer” in The Lost City. “Another movie that’s not very good and that not a lot of people have seen is Andy Garcia’s labor of love set in Havana during the Cuban revolution. And like most movies featuring a minor appearance from Murray, The Lost City is at least worth watching just for him. In fact, you could easily just fast-forward to each of his scenes and not miss anything since his role and performance is so out of place anyway.”

Fantastic Fest Review: “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

The tone was set before the Fantastic Fest screening began, as Kevin Smith took the stage and, correctly assessing the prevailing sentiment in the Paramount Theater – “Holy shit, is he fat!” – launched into a scatological monologue about his morbid obesity’s effect on a creaky toilet seat. If his speech scared anyone off, well, they probably had no business being in a theater where a Kevin Smith movie called Zack and Miri Make a Porno was about to unspool.

Rarely has there been a more clear-cut case of truth in advertising. Zack and Miri do indeed make a porno, and that is pretty much the extent of the plot. Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are employees at a Starbucks-type coffee chain and also roommates, but their relationship is entirely platonic and their combined income isn’t sufficient to keep the lights on and the water running on a consistent basis. They decide to attend their 10 year high school reunion anyway, and are surprised to learn they’ve become viral video stars. Earlier in the day, a kid with a cell phone camera snapped footage of Miri changing clothes in the coffee shop, including a glimpse of her in oversized granny panties and a concluding shot of Zack mooning the camera. Thus a brilliant scheme is born: Why not make a porn movie and use the profits to pay off all the bills?

If you think Kevin Smith would use a premise like this as an excuse to pile up dick jokes like donuts – well then, you are obviously familiar with the work of Kevin Smith. Zack and Miri enlist a cameraman (Jeff Anderson, Randal of the Clerks movies) and a cast, including Smith regular Jason Mewes, Traci Lords, and actual porn star Katie Morgan (you may know her from Phat Ass Tits 4 or Interracial Cum Junkies 3). Their first effort is called Star Whores and features characters named Luke Skyballer and Hung Solo – yes, more Star Wars references, imagine my glee – but when that proves too ambitious, they decide to shoot the down-and-dirty Suck My Cockacinno right in the coffee shop.

Somewhere under all the balls and assholes in Zack and Miri, a heart beats. Zack isn’t thrilled with the idea of Miri having sex with someone else in the movie and vice-versa, and as their own big scene approaches, trepidation builds. Can they still be friends after doing the deed, even if it’s only for a porno? Thanks to the two leads, this question becomes more than just a throw-away. I’m expecting Seth Rogen fatigue to set in any day now, but he and Banks do make an endearing pair, and no one was more surprised than me to end up caring about them in the end. (Heh, heh – I said “in the end.”)

In a way, Kevin Smith has something in common with Tyler Perry. It’s doubtful that either one of them is ever going to progress as a filmmaker, but their loyal fans don’t really care. If you like Kevin Smith movies, this is probably one of the better ones. If you don’t, rest assured Zack and Miri is no quantum leap forward.

Related:
Screengrab Fall Preview: Andrew Osborne's Picks
Screengrab Speculation: Who is Diablo Cody REALLY?

Fantastic Fest Review: “Fanboys”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I think I’ve mentioned this a time or twelve here, but unlike my colleague Andrew Osborne, I don’t have the Star Wars gene. Sure, I loved the movies as a kid – maybe not quite as much as the Planet of the Apes series or anything with Bigfoot in it – but they never became an inextricable part of my life essence and I definitely wasn’t waiting in some smelly tent for Episode I back in 1999. If we’re playing “Star Wars vs. Star Trek,” Kirk, Spock and the gang win out with me every time. So I wouldn’t appear to be part of the target audience for Fanboys, the long-awaited story of four geeks and a gal who take a road trip to Skywalker Ranch in order to be the first to see The Phantom Menace.

Having said that – and despite all the delays, reshoots and controversies over plot points that dogged the movie in recent months – Fanboys proves to be an enjoyable ride for the most part. If you’ve followed the behind-the-scenes machinations, you know the set-up: It is 1998, and lifelong Star Wars geek Linus (Chris Marquette) has terminal cancer. (This is the part the studio didn’t like, but after an outcry from fanboy nation, it is restored.) Along with fellow Force enthusiasts Hutch (Dan Fogler), Windows (Jay Baruchel) and estranged best friend Eric (Sam Huntington), Linus sets out in a van to accomplish the one thing he wants to do before he dies: see the long-awaited first prequel to the Star Wars trilogy. (As an aside, and without giving away whether or not he accomplishes his goal – imagine this is your dying wish and the movie in question turns out to be the freakin’ Phantom Menace. Ah well, at least it wasn’t The Clone Wars.) Road trip hijinx galore ensue, including a pit stop in Austin to pick up top secret intel on Lucas’s fortress from Ain’t It Cool News ubergeek Harry Knowles, a night in jail that will have you rethinking your whole approach to prison pooping, and a rumble at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. There are cameos galore, including actors from the original trilogy, Seth Rogan in multiple roles and even the Shat himself, William Shatner.

Stylistically, Fanboys is sort of a mesh between the Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow sensibilities (Smith has a cameo and Apatow oversaw the reshoots and enlisted many of his regulars), but its secret weapon is co-screenwriter Ernest Cline, who has absorbed every ounce of nerdy minutiae from the past 30 years and deploys his vast store of useless knowledge for both punchlines and poignancy. Although Fogler still strikes me as a poor man’s Jack Black, the core cast is engaging, particularly Kristen Bell as the one girl who’ll put up with the geeks.

My main problem with Fanboys is that I wish it had actually been made ten years ago (as per Cline’s original plan), before geek culture became so pervasive and satisfied with itself. After another decade's worth of prequels, merchandising and ubiquitous references, I don't care if I never hear about Yoda, Chewie or Ewoks ever again. In a way, though, that's beside the point. Star Wars is the secret language of these characters – the way they always communicated. In that respect, it's no different than if the movie had been about, say, terminally ill Cubs fans taking a trip to see their team win their first World Series in 100 years – they'd just talk about Ernie Banks and “Let’s play two” instead of Darth Vader and “May the Force be with you.” The story is really about the friendship, the journey and the laughs along the way, and on that level it works even if you don't give a shit whether or not Greedo shot first.

Related:
Fanboys on the March
Fanboys vs. Darth Weinstein

Screengrab Fall Preview: Andrew Osborne's Picks

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:05:00 GMT

So, last week, Scott Von Doviak picked a trifecta of movies he’s most looking forward to (and three he’s most definitely avoiding) in the Fall/Winter 2008 Oscar Bait/Xmas Blockbuster Season, and challenged his fellow Screengrabbers to do the same.

Paul Clark was the next to weigh in, and now I’ll give it a shot...although I have to admit, with so many interesting and terrible-looking movies on deck, it’s hard to pick just three of each, so I’ll automatically disqualify Burn After Reading and Synechdoche, New York from my Top 3 and Bedtime Stories and The Women from my Bottom 3, since they’ve already been cited on the previous two Fall Preview lists.

Which brings us to MY lists...

3 UP

1. Frost/Nixon – I’m a big fan of what I call “Guys In Suits” movies, featuring the behind-the-scenes machinations of top-level professionals tackling complex problems and/or competing in high-stakes political/diplomatic jousting matches. The Queen was a fine example of the genre (even though Helen Mirren’s Elizabeth II wore pantsuits and was certainly no guy), and this tale of the 1977 cat-and-mouse tango between Tricky Dick and the TV interviewer attempting to coax a smoking gun mea culpa from the disgraced ex-president shares a screenwriter (Peter Morgan) and co-star (the always great Michael Sheen) with that earlier film, while adding a Broadway-honed performance by Frank Langella...plus I heard the stage version was outstanding.

2. W. – So, originally, I had Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince here, until Noel Murray reminded me (in the comments section below) that the very same Scott Von Doviak who started this whole "Fall Preview" mania recently posted about Warner Bros.'s decision to bump the next Hogwarts episode to summer '09. And that self-same Von Doviak, in the Wild Card section of his Fall Preview, said of W., "This can’t possibly be any good, can it?" Well, sir, my answer to that question would have to be...maybe? I mean, sure Ollie more or less accused LBJ of murder in JFK...but the historical whodunnit was still compelling and fascinating (as was Nixon) despite (and maybe because of) all the director's usual batshit crazy excess. George W. Bush is a far less tortured protagonist than Richard Milhouse or Jim Garrison, but his unlikely rise to power, his rogue's gallery of blueblood, secret society and redneck cronies and the duality of his goofy antics vs. his creepy daddy issues, addictions, arrogance and ruthless ambition (combined with Stone's usual kitchen-sink sturm und drang) make this one a must-see, thumbs up, down, or sideways.

3. Zack and Miri Make A Porno – For my third pick, it was a toss-up between Doubt, another Guys In Suits (or, in this case, Nuns In Habits) movie adapted from a Broadway play, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which has a charming trailer and Michael Cera (who’s developed into a pretty good indicator of quality in his short career) or this goofy new Kevin Smith joint, which could very well be terrible. But I’m not sick of star Seth Rogen yet and I have many pleasant memories of past visits to Mr. Smith's View Askewniverse, so I gotta give the nod to Silent Bob.

3 DOWN

1. Marley & Me – The Chariots of Fire theme plays while a cute widdle dog runs along a beach pursued by the ever-more-icky Jennifer Aniston and a newly soulful, poignant, life-affirming, ix-nay on the uicide-say Owen Wilson. The tag line is “Heel the Love.” Based on the coming attractions trailer, let’s just say I am very much not the target demographic for this movie and we'll leave it at that.

2. Filth and Wisdom – Sure, Madonna’s an easy target when it comes to cinematic misadventures, and maybe it’s banal and predictable to assume her directorial debut about quirky London flatmates with big dreams will be as pretentious and self-important as its title...but my friend Heidi caught a screening at the Provincetown Film Festival and said it sucked, and I'm more than willing to believe her.

3. Saw V – Really? Even still yet more torture porn? Dude, the shit was old when Troma released Bloodsucking Freaks back in 1976. Enough already.

WILD CARD

The Road - I'm fascinated, but jeez, this post-apocalyptic road movie sounds like the entertainment equivalent of my father's recent painful nose surgery or, y'know, Dancer in the Dark.

Beyond Spike and Clint: More Filmmaker Feuds

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:30:00 GMT

It’s been a good month for filmmaker feud enthusiasts, with both the Clint Eastwood/Spike Lee dust-up and the Werner Herzog/Abel Ferrara war of words heating up simultaneously. The L.A. Times has taken the opportunity to put together their own rundown of “Directors gone wild,” reminding us of a few directorial battles of days gone by.

By an odd coincidence – or maybe kryptonite is somehow involved – two of the feuds revolve around the Man of Steel. You may recall the aborted Tim Burton version of Superman that was to star Nicolas Cage about a decade ago. Kevin Smith had penned a script for Superman Lives! (you can read it here), but Burton wanted no part of it. Later, when Burton remade Planet of the Apes, Smith accused him of ripping off the ending from one of his comic books. (Why the Clerks auteur would want to take credit for such a widely derided twist remains a mystery.) Burton disagreed, telling the New York Post, “Anyone who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I would especially never read anything created by Kevin Smith.” Smith has been known to sign bootleg copies of the Superman script “Fuck Tim Burton,” though he claims this is done tongue-in-cheek.

Then there’s the case of Superman II, directed by Richard Lester – unless it was directed by Richard Donner. Lester’s cut is the one most of us grew up on, but Donner – who was replaced midway through filming the sequel – recently released his own version on DVD. “Though the sequel was more highly regarded than the original Superman,” says the Times, “Lester’s follow-up Superman III was trashed, leading many fans to believe anything good in Superman II was because of Donner.”

The Times feature also includes Uwe Boll’s feuds with Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg, proving that feuds taking place entirely within the mind of Uwe Boll are eligible for the list.

Related:
Spike Strikes Back
Werner Herzog vs. Abel Ferrara: Round 2

Independent Film Festival of Boston: The Zellner Brothers & Goliath

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Goliath, a quasi-mumblecore tragi-comedy by the Zellner Brothers of Austin, TX plays this weekend at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. The indie feature, about a man who loses both his wife and his beloved cat in the same harrowing year, was first reviewed here at The Screengrab by Scott Von Doviak during the 2008 South-by-Southwest Film Festival.

David Zellner and his brother, Nathan, have been crafting distinctive independent cinema since 1996, but I first became aware of them at a terrible film festival called 30th Parallel that leeched onto the back of the 1997 SXSW fest, analogous to the Slamdance/Sundance arrangement, but much shoddier (and short-lived, since 30th Parallel barely made it through its first and only installment).

I know about the 30th Parallel Fest, because it featured the Texas premiere of my own indie film, Apocalypse Bop. The whole misbegotten affair kicked off with a back room hotel reception marked by a sad tray of vegetables and the absence of any members of the 30th Parallel staff to greet us. This led to some awkward bonding among the invited filmmakers as we all stood around, confused, waiting for some information about what we were supposed to do. Then, eventually, we all left.

Because just about every movie theater, auditorium and/or other screening venue in Austin was booked for SXSW, 30th Parallel mostly screened its selections in the back rooms of bars, which wasn’t a terrible idea in theory. Unfortunately, the Zellner Brothers had the misfortune of premiering their surrealist mime masterpiece Plastic Utopia on “Melrose Monday” at some 6th Street dive, meaning that many of the 30th Parallel films screened that evening were drowned out by blaring Melrose Place-themed trivia questions from the front of the bar.

Additionally, the 30th Parallel projectors were seeming World War II-era relics that kept jamming and breaking down every few minutes...and, even when they worked, they often caused the projected films to stutter, blur and, occasionally, melt.

And yet, it is to the Zellner Brothers’ credit that, despite all the hellacious distractions, I not only sat through the entire, tortured screening of Plastic Utopia, but came away considering it one of the most brilliantly deranged independent films I’ve ever seen, a surrealistic cult classic that, sadly, has never inspired nearly the cult it deserves.

Yet, while not cult figures on the level of, say, John Waters, Kevin Smith or Jim Jones, the Zellners have slowly built a small, devoted following, in Austin and elsewhere, despite their tiny budgets and occasional peculiar experiments like 2001’s Frontier, a faux foreign film in a fake foreign language (Bulbovian) starring an older, puffier Wiley Wiggins (of Dazed and Confused fame).

Recently, the Zellners have devoted themselves to dry, absurdist short subjects which highlight the pair’s strengths: unexpected, offbeat writing and visuals combined with their own very likeable recurring screen personas: David, the excitable, put-upon cynic and Nathan, the mellower zen weirdo.

The shorts (available for viewing at ZellnerBros.com) opened the door to the influential Sundance Film Festival, which recently premiered their latest feature film, Goliath, once again starring David and Nathan, with cameos by Wiggins and mumblecore poster boy Andrew Bujalski.

The film, in terms of tone and subject matter, plays like the bastard child of Little Children and Year of the Dog. Goliath, the titular tiger-striped tabby owned by David Zellner’s protagonist, goes missing and his recently divorced owner goes more than a little insane, eventually scapegoating a neighborhood sex offender (played by Nathan) as the source of his troubles.

The film plays out in a deadpan naturalistic style that left me yearning for a little more of Plastic Utopia’s antic narrative drive and visual invention, yet nevertheless hooked me with its own peculiar rhythms, dry wit, occasional slapstick, Asian porno drumming (yeah, you heard me) and its sometimes harrowing depiction of the hazards of love and pet ownership...without giving too much away, I’ll just note here that if you’re a tender-hearted pet lover, this may not be the movie for you.

Screengrab Speculation: Who is Diablo Cody REALLY?

John Constantine — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:29:00 GMT

That’s right ‘Grabbers. It’s another Juno post. This time though, Uncle John’s got a little something different than the usual praise or backlash piece. After much consideration, I have realized that writer Diablo Cody is not a real person.

I got to see Juno back at the tail end of November and liked it well enough. It is a cute movie, it knows it’s a cute movie and since being cute seems to be its chief ambition, I find it hard to heap either serious praise or scorn on it. At the time though, something about Juno seemed very familiar. Something about the overt nostalgia evoked by its suburban pastoral setting, its color palette, its costuming, twee soundtrack, and 80s pop culture references seemed to recall something very specific. Some person…

I present to you the theory that

Is in fact

Yes, Diablo Cody is actually Kevin Smith. Shocking I know and no doubt disturbing for those readers with a folder on their desktop labeled DCStripperPicsHAWT. But it’s true. The full theory is deep and riddled with evidence provided by the internet and coffee stained back issues of Entertainment Weekly but here are three bullet points to back up the claim:

1) Nobody Talks Like That – Kevin Smith’s fall from commercial and critical grace in the past eight years signaled the death of quirky-monologue-as-conversation in movies. This was a good thing. But Juno resurrects the insipid rat-a-tat dialogue stylings found in Clerks and Mallrats and cashes in Star Wars references for Thundercats and other flotsam from 1985. Nobody says, “Honest to blog.” Nobody says, “Try not to suck any more dicks on your way through the parking lot.” These things were written by the same person.

2) Nobody Likes Kevin Smith Anymore, Needed to Become Somebody Else – By the time Jersey Girl flopped, Smith had already overstayed his welcome in the average moviegoers mind. Clerks 2 wasn’t exactly the kind of success to bring them back into the theater either. In order to regain the buzz surrounding his early success, Smith needed to somehow become an indie breakout again. Creating a sexy new persona was just the ticket and it worked swimmingly.

3) Both Former Strippers

We’re through the looking glass now, dear reader.

That Guy!: Stephen Root

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:30:00 GMT

Okay, that's enough of the artsy-fartsy European creeps. Let's get back to America! And they don't come much American-er than Big Steve Root, one of the most prolific character actors in the business today. For a guy whose first film role featured him unseen in a toilet (although, considering the movie was Crocodile Dundee II, maybe it's just as well), Stephen Root has a rather highbrow acting background: for years prior to the kick-off of a remarkably rich film and television career, he was a respected member of the National Shakespeare Company. His first major recognition as an actor came when he portrayed the flighty, meddling billionaire Jimmy James as part of the high-powered cast of NewsRadio, and even with dozens of film roles to his credit, he's probably best-known -- and best-paid -- for that role and his voice-over work on King of the Hill, where he plays, among other roles, the hapless Bill Dauterive. A number of directors have enjoyed his work enough to make him a regular member of their repertory companies, particularly Mike Judge, Kevin Smith, and the Coen Brothers; Root's ability to play extremely eccentric roles while never giving the same characterization twice makes him especially sought-after by directors who specialize in character roles, and Root admitted in a recent interview that being killed by the Coens (as he, or at least his character, is in No Country for Old Men) has been the high point of his career to date. Having just celebrated his 56th birthday, Root -- who, to be perfectly honest, looks like he's been playing a 56-year-old for the lion's share of his career -- no doubt has plenty of years ahead of him both on the big screen, playing his specialty of suit-wearing middlemen who have something extremely wrong with them, and in voice-over, where he's proven to have exceptional talent. And with most of his comedic work for television widely available on DVD, a case can be made for Stephen Root as the preeminent comic character actor of the 1990s.

Where to see Stephen Root at his best:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)

There are two kinds of Buffy fans in the world: those who liked the movie and wondered why the subsequent TV show took itself so damn seriously, and those who hated the movie and look at it as an embarrassing shell from whence the brilliant television series emerged. Unfortunately for those of us in the former camp, Joss Whedon -- who created both -- is in the latter camp and all but disowns the movie. But one thing cannot be disputed: the series would have been much improved if Whedon had seen fit to include Stephen Root as the rambling, hilariously clueless Principal Gary Murray, who made the end credits of the film so enjoyable.

OFFICE SPACE (1999)

Outside of NewsRadio and King of the Hill, Office Space forms the third jewel in Stephen Root's crown of 1990s comedy dominance. No performance of his is more memorable, more purely distilled, more quintessentially Root -- in fact, Mike Judge built the entire movie around Root's performance from a series of animated shorts he did years earlier for MTV. While there's plenty to love about this subversive take on the deadening grind of white-collar work, nothing holds the movie together like a single red stapler, and no character is more central to the plot, from beginning to end, than the psychotically ineffectual Milton Waddams. An all-time great comic role.

O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

We hate to keep bringing up members of the Coen Brothers Touring Company in this space, but what can we tell you? The boys know a good character actor when they see one. Stephen Root, in his first film with the Coens, has a small but unforgettable role: edging away from comedy and into (literal) tragedy, playing a variant on Tiresius as the recording studio operator and radio station man who first discovers the hidden genius of the Soggy Bottom Boys. Although Root has some funny lines in his scenes, it's his nearly-wordless performance in responding in a transport of bliss to "Man of Constant Sorrow" that is so astounding here.

Morning Deal Report: Rogen Makes Porno

Peter Smith — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Seth Rogen has joined Kevin Smith's new movie, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. He's Zack and his 40-Year-Old Virgin costar Elizabeth Banks ("Beth," from the bookstore) is Miri. This is kind of interesting, since Rogen and Judd Apatow are like the good Kevin Smith, making the filthy-but-sincere crowdpleasers that Smith always seemed to be trying for.

Meanwhile, Rogen's Knocked Up costar Katherine Heigl stars in the rom-com The Ugly Truth, by the makers of Legally Blonde.

Catherine Hardwicke's next movie is the teen thriller Twilight, with Into the Wild's (dreamy) (but maybe a little young for me) Kristen Stewart.

— Peter Smith