Dwayne Johnson Is Coming for Your Children

Phil Nugent — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The New York Times has honored Dwayne Johnson with a profile. Despite reporter Brooks Barnes's rote tribute to the Artist Formerly Known as the Rock's "Paul Bunyan physique and Central Casting good looks", the piece raises suspicions that what really struck the editors as newsworthy is that, in these confused and festering times, at least somebody has got a long-term career plan. Having had mixed success with hit action films such The Scorpion King and non-hit action films such as The Rundown, and having had his acting praised for his work in such unlikely repositories for his talent as Southland Tales and Be Cool, the 36-year-old, six-foot-five-inch star is consciously making his pitch to the youth market. And not the tweens and the twentysomethings, either; it sounds as if his business cards should be printed with the motto, "You Know: For Kids!" A top executive at Walt Disney Studios says of Johnson, “He’s larger than life and has endless charisma but comes across as a regular guy on screen. That makes him a very unique talent.” But the judgement seems to be that, in a casting universe dominated, in Barnes's words, by those "who are either intense and brooding (Christian Bale) or pudgy and dorky (Seth Rogen)", the Rock lacks an "edge." That might help to explain why one is drawn to him, as to solid flotsam floating past in a hurricane, when he's passing for the most normal thing in the context of the storm of weirdness that was Southland Tales. "“Audiences, particularly kids," says director Andy Fickman, "seem to love discovering that a guy this big and this good looking is actually very sweet and very funny." As did the autograph-seeking stranger who, Barnes writes, interrupted Johnson's dinnertime interview to ask, "“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt you while you have a knife in your hand..."

The movie that set Johnson on his new path was Fickman's The Game Plan, a 2007 family-friendly Disney movie involving football and an adorable eight-year-old moppet that turns out to be one of those things that did monster business while remaining off the radar off anyone without kids. Fickman directed Johnson's new vehicle, Race to Witch Mountain, a "re-imagining"--"remake" is such an ugly word--of the 1975 Escape to Witch Mountain, forever known to people of my generation as "the one with the flying Winnebago." (I am not entirely certain that I have actually seen Escape to Witch Mountain, but I saw the TV commercial for it so many times that Eddie Albert's read of the line "You kids have powers that are beyond belief!" is embedded in my memory as if it were my first kiss, which given the circumstances and quality of my first kiss, it might as well have been.) Although the new movie has a better-than-respectable cast that includes Carla Gugino, Ciarán Hinds. Tom Everett Scott, and AnnaSophia Robb (of Bridge to Terabithia), Johnson's big head is undeniably the focal point of the ad campaign, flying Winnebagos be damned. After that, Johnson will take on the title role in Fix's $45 million Tooth Fairy; it will require that he don a tutu and wield a magic wand, which means that, if nothing else, Vince McMahon will standing in line at the box office at 12:01 A.M. on opening day. (Since you asked, Johnson has seen The Wrestler. “That film rang really true,” is his verdict. “It’s sad, but that’s exactly what happens to a lot of those guys.” It now seems far enough from being what's likely to happen to him that Barnes might have been pushing it by finding reason to drop Mickey Rourke's name twice in the course of the article.) In the meantime, Johnson has appeared at the Grammys, the Oscars, "the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, guest starred on Hannah Montana and served as the grand marshal of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Main Street Parade," all as part of his effort to have himself declared, as Barnes puts it, "Mom-Approved." It is hard not to wish him the best. He really is talented, he really does seem like a nice guy, and he even does his own stunts--of necessity, "because it is so difficult to find stuntmen of his size." Burt Reynolds would trade everything he ever had to have read that, just once.

DVD Digest for July 22, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, Criterion gives DVD buyers a re-pressing of an old favorite and a new version of a classic. Also, plenty of Blu-Ray for your enjoyment, provided you’re not in the market for good movies.

DVD of the Week: Years ago, Criterion released four of Carl Th. Dreyer’s greatest films in deluxe versions, but his 1932 classic Vampyr has only been available in a subpar transfer from Image. Until now, that is. This week, Vampyr finally gets the treatment it richly deserves in a new two-disc set from the folks at Criterion. Along with both German- and English-credited versions of the film, the DVD contains a commentary from film scholar Tony Rayns, a 1966 documentary about Dreyer’s work, a radio broadcast of Dreyer speaking about filmmaking, and much more. Even the insert is indispensible, containing not only essays on the film, but a book featuring the film’s original screenplay as well as the story on which it was based. Naturally, any DVD version of a Dreyer film is a must for any serious film lover, but to see one of his most significant works given the top-shelf treatment like this is magnificent news.

Also this week, Criterion is re-releasing Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low in a new version featuring several new features, plus a new high-definition transfer. So if you didn’t pick up the film last time around, now’s your chance.

In a slow week for new movies coming to DVD, today brings the release of the college-students-taking-on-Vegas thriller 21 (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Famke Janssen in Turn the River (Universal), and the John C. Reilly/Seann William Scott comedy The Promotion (Weinstein).

On the TV-on-DVD front, the big news this week is the long-awaited Region 1 release of Spaced: The Complete Series (Warner). Fans of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz will finally be able to get a taste of the series that introduced to the world the stars (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost) and director (Edgar Wright) of those films, along with the witty, pop-culture-savvy brand of humor that made those movies fanboy favorites. Also this week: Las Vegas Season 5 (Universal).

Finally, coming this week to Blu-Ray only: the Sony horror trifecta of I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Urban Legend; Universal’s Mummy trilogy of The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and The Scorpion King; and The Perfect Storm (Warner). And if you’re actually waiting for good movies to come out on Blu-Ray, take heart- October is only three months away.

The Screengrab : the scorpion king

Dwayne Johnson Is Coming for Your Children

DVD Digest for July 22, 2008