The Screengrab : kirsten dunst

Screengrab's Back To School Round-Up: The Top 15 College Movies (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

REAL GENIUS (1985)

If there’s one thing America hates, it’s smart people. Brainy elitists like Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and that pencil-neck geek we used to beat up in gym class make us nervous, inspiring vague feelings of inadequacy that can usually be doused by voting for down-to-earth “real” people like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, who don’t know how to pronounce “nuclear” (and really couldn’t give a shit). But Martha Coolidge’s ensemble comedy about fledgling scientists at a fictionalized CalTech depicts a world where mental, not physical, strength is prized and knowledge (in the form of Val Kilmer’s fast-talking, wisecracking Chris Knight and Michelle Meyrink’s official Screengrab Sexy Nerd Jordan) is hot. The story’s teen prodigy protagonist Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarrett...largely MIA in recent years but reappearing soon in Frost/Nixon) and aging burnout Laslo (Jon Gries) embody the double-edged sword of intellectual aptitude, where intimate knowledge of chemical laser technology is no guarantee of success, happiness or intimacy with actual humans, while the surprisingly charming Kilmer offers a hopeful balance of “real” and “genius,” with the wherewithal to understand that light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation can also be used to blow off steam by pointing the way to the occasional pool party blow-out.

SCHOOL DAZE (1988)

Oh, college...where politics, drinking and date rape are never more than a quad away. This Spike Lee joint takes us to the Mission College campus, a historically black alma mater back in the "divest from South Africa, support ANC" days. It stars Giancarlo Esposito as a fascistoid fraternity leader, Laurence Fishburne as Dap, a righteous, wet-behind-the ears campus radical and Spike Lee as his vertically challenged cousin Half-Pint. Half-Pint is not so much into the politics, being more given to Greek life. The movie follows Dap's quest to get the college to divest and Half-Pint's quest to pledge with the Gamma-Phi-Gammas and get laid. Like any self-respecting college movie, School Daze, takes us through pledge week, a homecoming parade and a dance scene in which half-naked coeds get down to a band. All that plus musical numbers and parachute pants.

KICKING AND SCREAMING (1995)

I don't know about you folks, but my college experience was not a nonstop bacchanal of toga parties and panty raids (although that description accurately applies to the typical day at Screengrab headquarters), so the average college movie doesn't really speak to me. My memories of those days mostly involve bantering about matters great and small over a pitcher of beer with good friends, neurotic fretting about dysfunctional relationships and, towards the end, a sort of heart-freezing paralysis at the prospect of "life" awaiting me. That's probably why I've always loved Noah Baumbach's debut Kicking and Screaming, one of the few "Gen X" movies (along with Linklater's Slacker) that didn't make me want to set fire to the movie theater. (Let us not even speak of Reality Bites.) Baumbach's film covers the final day of college and the aimless months that follow for a group of friends finding it hard to move on from their routine of trivia contests, verbal jousting and picking up undergrads at the local pub. The ensemble includes Chris Eigeman, Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton and the scene-stealing Carlos Jacott, all of whom clearly relish Baumbach's literate, martini-dry dialogue, as well as Eric Stolz in one of his best roles, a sort of intellectual doppelganger of Wooderson from Dazed and Confused ("Why would I ever leave? I am a student and that's what I chose.") Have fun with those slobs at Delta House – I'll be over here thinking up eight movies where monkeys play key roles.

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986)

Innumerable horror movies have taken place on college campuses or featured college students as the protagonists, but more often than not, this is just so the producers can film the movie on the cheap and have an excuse to put nubile twenty-somethings in front of the camera. The highly enjoyable 1986 cult classic Night of the Creeps, on the other hand, not only makes full use of its campus setting (having the alien menace begin its rampage in a menacing corner of the biology lab), but with its campy tone, hilariously quotable dialogue, nerdy outcast protagonists, delightfully lo-fi approach, and innumerable film student in-jokes, it actually plays like a movie that was made by college students. Writer/director Fred Dekker wasn’t exactly that when he made Night of the Creeps, but he wasn’t far from it; he was only 26, and, having been rejected by both UCLA and USC’s film schools, he had something to prove. His later efforts didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but his debut remains one of the most enjoyable horror flicks of the 1980s – a movie that plays more like an admiring postmodern salute to the old B-movie fare of yesteryear than the grim misogynist slasher flicks that dominated the decade. (For those who are, ahem, of a certain age, the movie’s fashions and music will also bring back memories of college that may not be altogether pleasant.) The whole movie is sustained with its terrific sense of humor, much of which is dryly delivered by inimitable character actor Tom Atkins.

SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)

Sam Raimi’s second installment of the Spider-Man franchise isn’t just one of the best super-hero movies ever made; it’s a good solid college movie as well, that speaks to any busy student with or without radioactive arachnid powers. Think about it: Marvel Comics has always prided itself on mixing real-world angst with its crimefighting action; that’s the factor that made the Spider-Man comic such a success in the first place. And that kind of storytelling is very much on display here: Peter Parker, fresh out of high school and entering his first semester at Empire State (an institution of higher learning that, as a child, I was determined I would one day attend until I found out it wasn’t real), and the turmoil that so thoroughly futzes with his state of mind both in and out of costume all throughout Spider-Man 2 are familiar ones to anyone who’s ever been in college. He’s on a full ride, but his family’s not doing so well; he’s got to work a low-paying, demeaning job to help out, and that cuts into his study time. His girlfriend has eschewed college to pursue a successful career, and he’s not only barely got time to see her, but he’s even a little jealous. He’s drifting away from his only high school friend. His precocious genius isn’t as impressive to his college professors as it was to his high school teachers. And his educational mentor undergoes a horrible accident and rampages all over New York with the robotic limbs fused to his torso. Okay, maybe that last one’s a stretch, but still – you get the idea.

Click Here for Part One & Part Two

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Sarah Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak, Leonard Pierce

Morning Deal Report: Kirsten Dunst is a Jealous Ghost

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Its title makes A Jealous Ghost sound a lot like too many recent rom-coms about the recently deceased haunting their exes, like Over Her Dead Body or Ghost Town, due out Friday. That’s apparently not the case, however, as The Hollywood Reporter describes the upcoming Kirsten Dunst vehicle as a “literary horror movie.” Dunst will play “a young American woman who travels to London to write a dissertation on Henry James' classic ghost tale, The Turn of the Screw, only to find that her own circumstances begin to reflect the strange happenings of the story.”

Michael Douglas is keeping busy. In addition to his upcoming turn as Liberace for Steven Soderbergh, he’ll play “a car magnate with a runaway libido” in Solitary Man. That sounds more his speed. Per Variety, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito and Jenna Fischer are in talks to co-star.

Nicole Kidman is attached to The Eighth Wonder, which “centers on an archeological discovery that sets off a globe-spanning race.” Quoth The Hollywood Reporter: “The goal is to create a movie that will be to Raiders of the Lost Ark what the Bourne movies are to James Bond movies: a character-driven, treasure-hunting thriller.” Isn’t that what the Tomb Raider movies were supposed to be? Well, apart from the “character-driven” part, I guess. Those were more boobies-and-shorts-driven.

Related:
Soderbergh Does Liberace
Chick Hits: The Girl Power Top Ten

Trailer Review: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Paul Clark — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Continuing Memoir Week here at Trailer Review… today, it’s Simon Pegg’s turn. Here Pegg stars as a British journalist who finally gets his shot at the big time with a top-flight entertainment rag. I’m tempted to say that the story parallels my own experiences here at Screengrab, except that I don’t get to interact with the likes of Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox on a daily basis. Besides, I’d like to think I don’t make a jackass of myself the way Pegg does here, invariably behaving in ways that are more befitting of a frat house than the offices of a widely-read periodical. Sadly, this looks like pretty dire stuff, which is unfortunate given how much I usually like Pegg. As with Ricky Gervais last week, perhaps Pegg’s screen persona is so specific that he doesn’t quite mesh with many filmmakers’ visions, and it takes a regular collaborator (in Pegg’s case, Edgar Wright) to use him properly. Or maybe, just maybe, the material just kind of sucks.

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

When Good Directors Go Bad?: Elizabethtown (2005, Cameron Crowe)

Paul Clark — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Note: For various reasons too boring to get into here, I was unable to secure a playable copy of the DVD for this week’s Reviews by Request in time to write a post. I’ll be running Jason Alley’s requested review of The New Kids next Friday at the regularly scheduled time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Of all the paths to success taken by Hollywood’s major filmmakers, Cameron Crowe’s is one of the most interesting. Crowe’s 2000 film Almost Famous recounts the story of the teenage Crowe’s stint as a reporter for Rolling Stone, and after his time with the magazine he went undercover as a high school student in order to pen the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. As a writer-director, he carved out a niche for his warm, humanistic films, which tend to make liberal use of impeccably-chosen rock’n’roll soundtracks. After the success of Almost Famous, Crowe decided to try something new, making the mindbending thriller Vanilla Sky. However, many critics and audience members were unamused, and although the film did well at the box office (largely due to the presence of Tom Cruise), it’s currently remembered as an interesting failure. After this strange trip outside his comfort zone, Elizabethtown was supposed to be a return for Crowe to the kind of movie he made better than anyone.

But then, a funny thing happened- the return to glory never happened. At its premiere in Toronto, Elizabethtown received buzz that was middling at best, hostile at worst. Crowe’s film- which made the festival circuit in a rough cut- was later shorn of twenty minutes, with the film’s original ending jettisoned completely. But the damage had already been done, as Elizabethtown, no matter what form it’s in, still hasn’t recovered from that initial drubbing. If Vanilla Sky was a strange experiment on Crowe’s part to branch out to a new format, Elizabethtown was treated as one too many trips to the same creative well. Suddenly, the style that had audiences had loved in Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, and Almost Famous wasn’t working anymore.

Yet I’m here not to bury Elizabethtown but to praise it. The film is far from perfect, but it’s hard to hate a movie that’s as unabashedly sincere as this one. Elizabethtown is a big shaggy dog of a movie, one that stumbles around and makes too much noise but which it’s not impossible not to love at least a little. It’s not remotely one of Crowe’s better films, but it’s much better than its reputation would suggest.

Admittedly, it took me more than one viewing of the film to come around to this realization. After one viewing of Elizabethtown, I wrote that the film displayed “all of Crowe’s worst tendencies as a writer-director- up-with-people soliloquies, an overreliance on classic rock to bear the story’s emotional load- with almost none of his previous works’ better qualities.” Yet while I still see the elements I objected to the first time around, I don’t object to them nearly as much now. Is it a case of lowered expectations? Perhaps. I wanted another film of the caliber of Almost Famous, and Elizabethtown didn’t deliver in that respect. But I think there's more to it than that.

One of my biggest objections the first time around was to what I termed Crowe’s “relentless humanism”- his need to inject joy and life-affirming sentiment into practically every corner of the story. On top of that, little details kept eating at me- the fact that a major American company wouldn’t have a contingency plan that would prevent them from taking a bath on a billion-dollar campaign, or that a woman with a job and a life would somehow find time to map out a days-long journey (complete with annotated maps and corresponding mix CDs) for a man she’d met only days before. Actually, the entire character of Claire (played by Kirsten Dunst) seemed pretty far-fetched to me, a Crowe fantasy girl much like Almost Famous’ Penny Lane, only bearing next to no relation to the real world.

Yet after further review it’s pretty clear that Crowe wasn’t striving for realism with Elizabethtown. True, there are no mythical beasties or far-flung settings to clue the audience in to the fact that liberal suspension of disbelief will be required, but I believe Crowe intends the film not as a naturalistic representation of the world, but as an emotional odyssey through his own sensibility. Crowe leads his protagonist Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) on a journey from the brink of death back into life, spurred on by the memory of his father and the dogged persistence of Claire. And if Claire isn’t particularly convincing as a fleshed-out character, she’s such an effective catalyst that she works in the context of this story.

And along the journey, Crowe supplies a number of lovely scenes that make the occasional rough patch that much easier to take. Listen to the human cacophony that buzzes around the home of Drew’s Aunt Dora (played by the Food Network’s Paula Deen)- a flurry of activity that stands in sharp rebuke to Drew’s solitary lifestyle. Observe the perfect little scene that takes place between Drew and his slacker cousin Jessie (Paul Schneider, giving the film’s best supporting performance), culminating in the line, “yeah, I don’t know my dad very well either.” And even Crowe’s omnipresent soundtrack works surprisingly well, especially during Drew’s climactic road trip. If some of the music choices feel too on-the-nose, that’s pretty much the point, and if you don’t like Elton John’s “My Father’s Gun,” then there’s really no hope left for you.

As I said before, Elizabethtown has a number of problems. For example, Bloom’s performance is inconsistent- though he does have some nice moments- and Crowe really should have toned down some of the voiceover narration and dialogue (“the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that’s happened”- I mean, really?). Yet the more cynical films I see, the more I’m inclined to forgive a filmmaker like Crowe who clearly pours his heart into a film. In Elizabethtown’s final voiceover, Drew quotes a slogan of the British Air Force: “those who risk, win.” Crowe takes some big chances in Elizabethtown, and even if they don’t all pay off, the film has won me over. In two tries, yes, but better late than never.

Revenge of the Nerds - The 10 Sexiest Guy Geeks In Cinema (Part Deux)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:30:00 GMT

5. Steve Carrell as Andy Stitzer in The 40 Year Old Virgin

The poster said (and showed) it all: the painfully earnest expression, the terrible haircut, the little kid shirt and, of course, the no sex. For 40 years. Long past the point when even the nerdiest of nerds have usually managed to score at least a mercy jump from some kind soul, Andy is still living in a lonely geek paradise of pop culture, complete with an incredibly bad-ass video game chair that may, in fact, be even better than sex. But, in his isolation, Andy has also developed a tender soul and some not unimpressive pectorals (beneath a thick pelt of manly chest hair) that, combined with the stealthy square-jawed good looks beneath all the silliness, is sheer catnip to Catherine Keener’s E-Bay entrepreneur (not to mention my wife and most of her friends).

4. Michael Cera as Evan in Superbad and Paulie Bleeker in Juno

My sources inform me that Michael Cera is more cute than hot, although his junk-accentuating yellow shorts in Juno and the fact that he manages to attract Ellen Page’s titular wise-ass are mitigating factors in the case of his performance as teenage Tic-Tac enthusiast Paulie Bleeker. Of course, the geek side of the equation is more obvious...neither Paulie nor Evan seem to be especially popular in their respective high schools, but they earn their spot on this list by personifying exactly the sort of unspoiled misfits who are just on the verge of coming into their own as confident young adults (i.e., a tasty morsel and/or excellent boyfriend material for perceptive partners like Juno and Martha MacIsaac's teen temptress Becca.)

3. Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in all those damn Harry Potter movies

And speaking of manly transformation...to quote blondychik1 over on YouTube regarding a certain nude scene from a certain notorious West End revival of Equus: “When did Daniel grow into a MAN?!?!” Meanwhile, over at Hogwart’s, the Harry Potter Nation has been watching the slow cinematic transformation of their favorite wizard from bespectacled young misfit to post-pubescent master of his wand in a mounting hormonal frenzy that even Muggles can feel way down deep in their Bertie Botts.

2. Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent in Superman I-IV

Respect.

1. Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in Spider-Man 1-3

My wife and my female friends think he’s hot. My gay friends think he’s hot. Mary Jane Watson (personified by smokin’ hot, soakin’ wet Kirsten Dunst) thinks he’s hot. But he’s not JUST hot...he’s also a smart, sweet romantic superhero who’s nice to his cloying, annoying Aunt May...hell, he’s even nice to frenemies like Harry Osborn who try to kill him...AND he can deliver a stack of pizzas to your door from just about anywhere in just over ten minutes. Ladies and gents, I think we have a winner...(but please be sure to let us know who we missed)!

Click here for part 1.

Parcheesi: The Movie

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:00:00 GMT

The search is on to find the Uwe Boll of board games. Universal has signed a deal with Hasbro to develop movies based on the classics: Monopoly, Battleship, Ouija and Candy Land. Because that 1985 Clue movie worked out so well, it only took 23 years to get to this point. Apparently everyone who was in charge of Hollywood then has now moved on.

This development dovetails nicely with last summer’s rumor that Ridley Scott has interest in bringing Monopoly to the big screen. According to the scuttlebutt at the time, Scott has already offered roles in the film to Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst. (We’re guessing Dunst plays the shoe, with Johansson taking on the part of the top hat.) The plan is apparently to turn the hallowed game of Atlantic City real estate into “a racy comedy thriller… in an attempt to win over teenagers who regard board games as a last resort on a wet afternoon.” Hey, if chess can be made into a musical, I guess anything’s possible. (And don’t tell me I’m the only one who remembers “One Night in Bangkok.”)

Admittedly, Battleship makes a little more sense as a cinematic concept, and Ouija pretty much writes itself, but frankly we’d prefer David Cronenberg's Ants in the Pants or Martin Scorsese's Don’t Spill the Beans to Candy Land: The Movie. If you think Universal couldn’t set their sights any lower (their official announcement is rife with nauseating buzzwords like “global brand awareness” and “slate strategy”), be warned that they aren’t stopping at board games. Variety reports that other Hasbro products, like goop-filled marvel-man Stretch Armstrong and poker-for-geeks Magic the Gathering, are also in the mix.

Morning Deal Report: Oliver Stone Directing Bush Biopic

Peter Smith — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Oliver Stone is planning Bush, a biopic of the world's cleverest president, which he says will be "give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin." He's already cast Josh Brolin, apparently. Too bad this title is already taken. Still, they could do better than just plain ol' Bush, no? What about The Decider? Goin' Nucular? Where Wings Take Dream?

Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst will star together in All Good Things, the feature debut of Capturing the Friedmans director Andrew Jarecki.

If you like the National Lampoon movies, but sometimes feel alienated by their excessive classiness, we've got just the production for you: Maxim's Mardi Gras, shooting this spring. Take your chick, bro!

Adrien Brody will play legendary R&B mogul Leonard Chess, against Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, in Cadillac Records.