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God love Roger Ebert.
The man just is a workhorse with regard to film critism and while I vacationed in Chicago this week his review/article on THE TRANSFORMERS just serves to illuminate why you don’t have to be a stuffy intelectual to appreciate films that really do only serve one fan base that some would consider less than esteemed. Ebert slows things down, takes Bay’s kinetic visual orgasm down a notch and just speaks to why the film worked well enough to earn a three star review but why it did not achieve a fourth. His opinions were well-reasoned and actually removed any sense that this movie deserves to be treated like so many others that come out at this time of the year while couching everything in a casual tone that any bumpkin could relate to; it’s damn deceptive, as well, the way it seems like the review was written so fluidly. But that’s the reason why no one can come close to the man when it comes to film criticsm and why some pundits who are so sought after to appear on television shows once a week on Friday mornings are destined to become irrelevant and forgotten long after Ebert’s work soliders on within the literate community.
I can’t help but wonder whether we’ll get to hear Ebert back in the balcony, his hands scooping and circling as he makes his point as to why Richard Roeper’s opinion misses the mark (Really, Richard, LEGALLY BLONDE 2? A thumb-up that will live in infamy.), and once again restore order to the force that is chock-full of quote-tards from Rolling Stone to The Today Show. Intellegence while speaking aloud doesn’t have to be seen as something to be avoided just to appease Ma and Pa Kettle in the Red and Blue states but as long as the man can keep churning out reviews like this one it’s nice to be able and consume some film crit that is not only palpatable but doesn’t suppose those going to see this movie are deserving of anything less than an honest critique.
THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY; aka WEDDING DAZE; aka THE NEXT GIRL I SEE (2007)
Director: Michael Ian Black
Cast: Jason Biggs, Isla Fisher
Release: August 17, 2007
Synopsis: THE NEXT GIRL I SEE is a comedy that shows us that love has nothing to do with perfection. After losing the woman of his dreams, Anderson is convinced he’ll never fall in love again. But at the urging of his best friend, he spontaneously proposes to a dissatisfied waitress named Katie and an innocent dare evolves into the kind of love that both have been looking for all along.
View Trailer:
* Large (Flash)
Prognosis: Negative. Quick Memo to those running the campaign for this film: Pick a fucking title. It would be one thing if I was the jabrone running things but since you, MGM, insist on sloppily running your website like it’s 1996 and because you have public material out there that calls this film WEDDING DAZE, THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY and/or THE NEXT GIRL I SEE spanning IMDB and your own corporate site there is just no way around the idea that no one really cares about this film as a profitable vehicle. It’s sad that you have to let other people know that too with your laziness.
It’s rough when you want to like something but just can’t.
You’d like to grab any moment as reason enough to forgive what’s, ostensibly, a not-so-good film but even this trailer is an exercise in having lots of opportunities to try and snag something worthwhile but every time I just couldn’t muster enough forgiveness.
I didn’t appreciate, first of all, staring at Jason Biggs’ ass. I mean, really, did I really need to see his flashy red tuchas as it gingerly moves to and fro? On top of that I get that the premise of this comedy is just that: the guy’s almost-fiancé drops dead of a myocardial infarction and so he’s bummed as shit forever and day, even resorting to drinking pickle juice, until…da-da-daaaaa…he finds a complete stranger to propose to.
But here’s the best part! After his buddy, that creepy guy from Six Feet Under, who still oozes that slimy vibe, picks the random girl Biggs proposes to, and of course she’s one of the hottest waitresses that have never ever worked at any IHOP I’ve been at, the girl says yes.
Whoa! Comedy is sure to abound…
Yeah, Isla Fisher was great in WEDDING CRASHERS but as the trailer progresses, and she squeals with that very same squeal that made her such a draw to CRASHERS in the first place, you begin to sense something is amiss with the whole premise. You see, as we get further with the trailer this becomes a MEET THE PARENTS-esque kind of narrative.
The parents can’t believe that this crazy woman is now this dude’s fiancé, and vice versa, the quick bon mot tossed about by Isla’s mom asks us all, “Is he black?†Ha-ha, you dirty racist pig.
Then there’s the lingering shot of Jason’s raw, white ass. He looks like he was being caught for doing something but we’re not given a peek as to why this moment was included as I’m not sure if his new lady friend stumbles upon him, the girl’s black-hating mother or even his creepy friend. I guess it was just inserted to be ribald but whatever.
We then get treated to the wacky misadventures of getting to know one another, more parental awkwardness, some strange shenanigans while playing charades and I can’t help but feel a little queasy after Biggs shoots his wad, a pocket of toothpaste and saliva in his mouth, all over Isla’s face. I’m sure there are some people who would find that thing exotic or hot but I’m not having any of it. It’s just not amusing.
If there is one moment, just one moment, that actually feels like something that belongs in a mass-market comedy it is the moment where Isla asks to feel a fellow bus riders’ belly in hopes of finding out how long the woman has been with child. It’s not until Biggs puts his face to the chick’s pooch that we get the line, “I’m not pregnant.†That represents one moment of why I would see the film but that’s just one.
Like Booger trying to help Lane Meyer out in ONE CRAZY SUMMER, right before Jeremy Piven gets maced, I just can’t assist this trailer in any way.
Director: John Dahl
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Release: June 22, 2007
Synopsis: Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) is a man who loves his job. He just happens to be a hit man for his Polish mob family in Buffalo, New York. But Frank’s got a drinking problem and when he messes up a critical assignment that puts the family business in peril, his uncle (Philip Baker Hall) sends him to San Francisco to clean up his act. Played with gruff charm by Kingsley, Frank is not a touchy-feely kind of guy, but things start looking up for him. He gets a job at a mortuary, starts going to AA meetings and falls for Lauren (Téa Leoni), a quirky client he meets at the funeral home. Meanwhile, things aren’t going well in Buffalo where an upstart Irish gang is threatening the family business. When violence erupts, Frank is forced to return home and with an unlikely assist from Lauren, faces old rivals on new terms.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Negative. I liked THE MATADOR.
I realize that this was a flick that not many people were able to see but I can say that those who have saw a film that really tried to meld the axiom of “opposites attract” and pulled it off without it ever feeling terribly hokey. This seems like that kind of film: a mÈlange of situational writing mixed with some absolute absurdness.
Never minding that two of the greatest character actors working today, the honorable Dennis Farina of Old Style fame and Philip Baker Hall of every crotchety old cop part there ever was, play swift parts in establishing Sir Ben Kingsley’s role as a drunken hit man.
Regardless of you feelings about the premise on the whole I have to credit in swiftly going through what this story is about, establishing the reason why we’re here in the first place, and even making Ben seem like a funny fellow.
There is a little bit of warmth in the dude’s ability to seem like a likable hit man even in the opening moments he has with Luke “Perennial Best Friend” Wilson. Forget the easy joke about Kingsley being in San Francisco and the near requisite gay joke but when he enters a funeral home to start his new job as what looks like someone who prepares the decedent prior to the viewing the moment is handled with some aplomb.
While the narrative of the trailer suffers a bit from this point on, there is an odd moment between Tea Leoni and Ben where I think the two are flirting with one another (couldn’t he be her grandfather?) there is the moment where things come back up again where Ben confesses to his AA group that he in fact an alcoholic…and a hit man. Yes, it’s Middle America funny but it works.
And just like the submarine this trailer is we go back down again where I think Ben actively trains Tea on how to kill someone through a sensi/student kind of relationship. At first I think she protests about what Ben does but then she’s fully complicit in the ways in which Ben murders other people for a living. It doesn’t make sense and that’s part of the problem with the trailer. It feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be: a funny ha-ha flick or a quasi-comedy with another gay joke tossed in there for good measure.
I can’t really pinpoint why this trailer just seems to lack any motivating call-to-action about why I should see it but I can say that it really fails to make me believe that Tea would have any romantic inkling for any other dude than one who is of her same age…or generation.
So, barring the love story, what we have here is a film about a hit man trying to go clean and make a go at sober living but, in the end, I don’t think this is going to be any MATADOR. It could be a buddy comedy but I can’t justify anything here that could even be close as to something I would want to pay money to see.
Director: Andrew Currie
Cast: Carrie-Ann Moss, Billy Connolly, K’Sun Ray, Henry Czerny, Dylan Baker
Release: June 15, 2007 (Limited)
Synopsis: Welcome to Willard, a small town lost in the idyllic world of the 50’s, where the sun shines every day, everybody knows their neighbor, and rotting zombies deliver the mail. Years ago, the earth passed through a cloud of space dust, causing the dead to rise with a craving for human flesh. A war began, pitting the living against the dead. In the ensuing revolution, a corporation was born: ZomCon, who defeated the legions of undead, and domesticated the zombies, making them our industrial workers, our domestic servants – a productive part of society. ZomCon would like the people of Willard to believe they have everything under control… but do they? Timmy Robinson doesn’t think so. At eleven, Timmy already knows the world is phony baloney – Mom and Dad just won’t admit it. Now ZomCon’s head of security has moved in across the street, and Timmy’s Mom refuses to be the only housewife on the block who doesn’t have a zombie of her own. When she brings a zombie servant home, Timmy discovers a new best friend, and names him Fido. And even though Dad has a bad case of zombie-phobia, Timmy is determined to keep Fido, even if he does eat the odd person…
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. Who would of thought that Billy Connolly would have come so far after being a replacement for Howard Hessman on HEAD OF THE CLASS? Not since Dan Schneider proved to the world that there is life after Ricky in BETTER OFF DEAD has that show produced such talent, you would’ve thought that he sunk everything with that video he made on the show to Timbuk 3’s “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shadesâ€.
One of the things that have really taken a foothold in America’s zeitgeist in the last few years is our propensity for and attraction to zombie films. We’ve seen zombies running fast through malls in Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, we’ve seen ‘em move a little slow but with a beat you can dance to in SHAUN OF THE DEAD and we’ve even seen them remade a couple of times in the 28 WEEKS/DAYS series. What’s been missing, though, has been a real mesh between comedy and abject weirdness.
I believe this movie is exactly that.
What’s delightful, and utterly funny, is how things start. Never mind setting things up, people, let’s just get right into things with Ritter from CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, a film that deserves to be on the low-end of many Best Of acton/thriller lists, with asking a class filled with kids how many of them have ever had to kill a zombie. It’s said with such smoothness that the accompanying image of a zombie, in a requisite belt and shoulder strap get-up, holding a stop sign to halt oncoming traffic so the same kids can safely cross the street is a one two punch. And it works wonderfully to capture you in wondering what the hell is going on.
“What would we do without our zombies?â€
The voiceover that pipes in isn’t what you would expect to chime in. It’s nice British accent that poses the above question and it’s immediate of what this question is supposed to imply. Sociologically speaking, the zombies have a role of performing all the tasks that no one else wants to do and the bigger picture of what’s been on everyone’s lips in this electoral season couldn’t be clearer. From an entertainment point of view, it’s outrageously effective. These zombies are washing cars, serving food, dropping shit on the floor accidentally, getting yelled at and not making an effort to catch the ball in a game of catch.
Never before has an embedded song been choicely picked as when The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated†starts up and when we get to the meat of what this movie is about. However, that’s not easily discernable considering that you already have a community that is using zombies as hired help.
Between the quotes from other outlets who have seen the film there is an issue I have with trying to understand where the problems arise. Where is the crux of the drama that somehow changes this sleepy hollow into something more? Do the zombies end up attacking, turning on their masters?
I think that between the quotes from others who have seen the film, the absurdity of having the youngest kid in the film taking a shovel to the rotting corpse of a zombie who he is obviously trying to do away with and the make-out session one human has with a member of the dead army is just part and parcel of a film that actually is going to take the recent obsession with zombies to the next level.
THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2007)
Director: Seth Gordon
Cast: Billy Mitchell, Walter Day, Nicole Wiebe and Robert Mruczek
Release: August 17, 2007
Synopsis: A middle-school science teacher and a hot sauce mogul vie for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Awesome. This has got to be one of the rad-est trailers to ever come down the pike. Ever.
One of the great things about not having to impress a lot of people with your trailer, the fact that you need to make money is a mere afterthought to what you decide to do with your preview money, is that it leaves the door open to innovative and creative ideas; an idea, then, that I have never really seen, or executed, before is the regressive trailer.
To feel like this is a movie straight from 1982 is an accomplishment, first of all, but to make the trailer also conform to the short attention spans of those watching these things is an amazement as well.
One of the first things you recognize, apart from the Fat Boy Slim-like techno drop, and the douche wearing that silly ass puffy yellow trucker hat that was obviously the norm, I’m betting dollars to doughnuts he was also rocking some of those striped socks that were pulled up at calf level, is that the blend between old and new is seamless. From the cheesy synth music to the slick documentary style footage of old guys reflecting on their youthful days as kids whose only ability was to rock a joystick it’s truly engaging.
I’m a little scared by dudes who sport some mullets, one of them who obviously owns a Remington beard trimmer and a copious amount of Just For Men beard darkening solution, but to hear them be straight-up serious about their sacrificing to be the best at video games is a little bittersweet.
What’s more is that we move from pathetic to hilariousness when the classical music starts in with the scroll that tells us that there is a Donkey Kong record that has stood unchallenged for 20 years and that this is really a movie about Dweeb vs. Dweeb.
The comedy that is these two dudes, one who should have found a more productive hobby in life in order to find a modicum of fame and another who should just cut that Goddamn mullet off his head, are going head to head in a race against…well, nothing really.
This trailer is just a good time, flat out. It makes me want to spend my money to see it, it stirs up that good ol’ nostalgia of when I was a wee lad and all I had was an Intellivision, and it surely ends on a note that not even I could have seen coming. It’s the perfect storm of idiocy and the notion that this could be a breezy way to pass 90 minutes; in an era where things can get self-indulgent real fast this is a welcome addition to the summer.
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