Auteur Watch - Leslie Harris

Yeah, I know. I'm deliberately picking the simple ones now. Sorry, but sometimes you gotta do the cautionary tales. Besides, Tamar Hoffs is busier than I thought. I swore this was called at one point Just Another Black Girl on the IRT! But I'm like Stephen Colbert and I don't see race, but I do know a racist title when I see one. And some directors have only one film in them, and they make it, then nothing else. Well, some of them get to make other movies, like Kevin Smith, but somehow they seem the same. Others, like Leslie Harris don't get to fall into the Weinsteins' good graces, so just one film for them. But apparently she's doing a sequel to her one film. This news article here says she's casting it right now. I think she should go the Michael Apted 7-Up route on the casting, don't you folks?

Toy Story Topples Sandler

Welp, I've seen our collective cinematic futures, people. It's all right here in the crystal ball of this week's box office, and it's grim. To me, anyway. It's a Morluk and Eloi future we're headed for, no question about it. Or maybe it's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, or perhaps a little of both! He had similar class divisions in his tome. But the main thing is that every movie will be dedicated to the two big concepts: an elegy to mortality, and toilet humour. Toy Story 3's heavy on the former, but dipping their toes into the other. They're finally getting brave! I guess they can really afford to take a risk this time. Their next feature? Pixar's The Jerky Boys 2012. Go figure. Not what I would've done, but you gotta admit it's a risk. Suck it, 3-2-1 Penguins! And of course, pretty boy Adam Sandler. Some complain that his latest work is just a glorified home movie, but I ask you this: look at that credits list. That's some home movie, dontcha think? Wow! Probably more expensive than Click was! And don't kid yourself, Grown Ups did well at the box office, coming in a distant second with 40 million to Toy Story 3's 60 million; might as well round up for our buddy Pixar, we owe them that much. Some sniping 'journalist' said that Tom Cruise did badly with Knight and Day at #3 with 20 million, and maybe that's true, but hey! That's still better than Jonah Hex. I guess any publicity really is good publicity; you know it's bad when they don't talk about you at all. Respect for the dead kind of thing? Ouch!
But back to Sandler. So his little movie made 40 million, but my inside sources tell me that Giuliani bought about 10 million dollars worth of tickets with his war chest funds. What a good friend. He's not in Grown Ups, and you know who else isn't? Henry Winkler! Allen Covert! (he just exec-produced) Bad guys named O'Doyle! Why, Sandler's practically without a net here! He and his chums were concerned about releasing his movie in the range of the next Twilight movie, but I think he'll make out all right. Maybe that should be his next movie! Somewhere on that vampire slippery slope. He's a good writer; him and Fred Wolf oughta be able to come up with something! The point is, the market has clearly spoken. We've walked over the hot coals of classics like The Godfather and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but that era has clearly passed. Who wants to see such old, depressing, OLD movies anymore? The Godfather? Ick! I don't want to see a movie about crime! Plus, I think it's more than a little racist, implying that all Italians are gangsters. Raiders? I don't like any kind of excitement. Nothing but VeggieTales for me, thanque you. Plus, I think it's slightly racist, with all the racist caricatures and stuff? Or was that the 2nd one? A big capital No Thank You. No, Grown Ups for me and my friends, because for the boys, Salma Hayek's still hot, clearly reveling in her MILF years, and for the girls, Salma's outfit was cute, but clearly she doesn't look as good as she did in From Dusk Till Dawn. And Toy Story 3, toy soldiers for the boys, and Ken and Barbie for the girls. Yes, the playing field of plots is asymptotically close to being completely level now. Bland entertainment forever.
What else? The other debut this week is Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Looks kinda good! Well, that Mangold's a pretty good director. Ooh! Good name, too.

Auteur Watch - Catherine Hardwicke

Looque! Up in the sky! It's Ana Gasteyer! It's this gal I went to class with! No... it's Catherine Hardwicke. Oooh! Good name. If it were a guy, like Johnny Hardwicke, well... anyway, she's one of those rare few who migrate from one career to another. Sorry, Bo, but you've still got the day job. Side note: Cat in the Hat made money, right? Must not've been enough, or perhaps he a-holed his way into the director's chair, then a-holed his way right back out. Okay, back to C.H. Was the 80s her favourite decade? A semi-protege of Sally Cruikshank and Tama Janowitz, designing the production of such classics as Tapeheads and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka? Every girl's hair and dresses like Cyndi Lauper? Living in a Box only to sleep during the day, partying at trendy L.A. clubs and Jack Lemmon's house all night?
Or was it the go-go 90s? Time to roll up one's sleeves and get to work. A lot of P.D.'s retired during that time. Time for the next generation to take over! Even on a film like Posse! Which she parlayed to the white version, Tombstone. She reunited with Tapeheads director ... what's his name to do Car 54, Where Are You? I forget who that director is, but somehow I think Car 54 will be the one he's remembered for. Whichever cable network they always play it on, TMC or Showtime, it'll be on there forever for some reason. I'm thinking Rosie O'Donnell's the reason!
Surely the 2000s are Hardwicke's favourite. She finally had the motel pictures she needed to blackmail her way into the director's chair for such features as The Nativity Story and the first Twilight... somehow thematically they seem awfully similar. But no, if talking to one director has taught me anything, the current decade's always the favorite, and the 2010s are going to be the best yet, even if nifty 60's approaching fast. And look! A Red Riding Hood reboot is on the menu! With Amanda Seyfried no less! She's perfect for the part; as long as Todd Solondz isn't directing with what's her face in the lead: Heather Matarazzo, that's it. The only one NOT in that documentary I just saw!

Hey! Remember the '90s?

Hey my followers! Sorry, I was preoccupied for a minute there. I had to read up on my dating do's and dont's on Yahoo! Apparently one should talk about your former dates... I mean NOT! Not talk about your last dates. Anyway, the heavily subsidized movie market triumphs again at the box office this week... well, sort of. The kid-friendly debuts won big time. Say! Ever smoke a lot of weed and then walk through Toys R Us? Well then, Toy Story 3's for you, my friends! The long awaited three-quel is here. Pixar didn't want to do it. Disney wanted to release it straight to video. But someone prevailed and to the theater it goes. As prescribed by the laws of sequels, all the actors are back, and some new ones. I thought for sure Larry the Cable Guy'd take over for Jim Varney, but they got that Sandler cracker instead. Kewl! And of course, the roster of characters has expanded. Did they include pet rocks? Was there some kind of ode to the 70s? Did we get to see Woody with an afro? Did he get a black sidekick like Shaft or Willie Dynamite? Some complain that toilet humour has come to Pixar, but I say it couldn't come soon enough. Let the Apatow-ization, Farrelly-izing and Kevin Smith-ifying of everything continue unabated forever!
The other debut this week is Jonah Hex at... #8! For God's sake. They spent as much money on advertising as Toy Story 3! Hope it was worth it. Guess not. I'll bet Megan Fox was wishing now she didn't bow out of Transformers 3. With this and Jennifer's Body under her belt, she can't seem to sell a movie to save her life! The days of Marilyn Monroe are long gone, but we'll have the memories forever. A lot to live up to. But who knows? Some heir to the throne might come along someday.

Auteur Watch - Randa Haines

I shouldn't be too snarky here... I don't know why. Just a gut feeling I have. Don't want to burn too many potential bridges here! No doubt about it, though, Miss Randa Haines has climbed up to the top of her craft with little to no intention of climbing back down. She started a little late; preferably, one starts directing right out of high school. And she started in TV; for some, a major handicap. People like Rod Daniel and Peter Bonerz just can't seem to escape the black hole of TV directing. But not Randa! After apparently successful stints on everything from Hill Street Blues to Knots Landing she got her big break with an Oscar-worthy title called Children of a Lesser God... best known because the Simpsons parodied the title once. Was that the best decade or what? After all, the 80s ARE making a comeback.
But then came the 90s and it was rising star, rising star all the way. Two critically acclaimed features back-to-back: The Doctor, and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway. Unfortunately, she had to take it easy after those two since they weren't monster hits. But she wrapped up the decade with Dance With Me. Not to be confused with Shall We Dance. What is it with you and dancing, ladies? Is it really that much like sex?
I'd have to say the 90s was, is, are the odds-on favourite decade of her career. She was just turning 50 but somehow it didn't seem to matter because a whole army of cast and crew were kissing her ass 24-7. Not so much in the 2000s, what with don't care and don't care under her belt. The Outsider? A sequel to 1983's The Outsiders? No such luck. And I don't think Naomi Watts was the first choice... let's see if that one guy's paying attention. And she tried to sucker Bumpkin America with her latest until they realized it wasn't about Ron White.
So what's up next for Randa Haines? Nothing yet, according to regular IMDb. Maybe there's something on premium IMDb that you have to pay for. Hard to say what this auteur would want to end her career with; it is close to retirement time, no? The last installments of Harry Potter and Twilight are spoken for, I think... How about The 28th Amendment?

Hey! Remember the 80s?

I get it now! It's not that the 70s will live forever, but they still will, no question about it. No, the hot nostalgia lags exactly, EXACTLY one generation behind. And I still figure a generation at about 30 years, give or take 5 to 10 years. And so, #1 and #2 at the box office this week fall handily into that time horizon. Stand By Me from 1986 romanticized the 50s. Summer of 42 was about 30 years after. And round and round we could go... if I had more examples. Why, even The Godfather probably falls close to that! At least, the Al Pacino part of the story... maybe not. Never mind. GoodFellas as well.
For me, though, this box office is clearly a lesser class of nostalgia. I mean, I like the original Karate Kid, or maybe I'm just prejudiced. Or maybe the new Karate Kid is too young. When was the last time you heard of a 13 year old black belt? Let alone one that could take any adult in a fight? See what I'm saying? All due respect to Will Smith's kid and everything. But I included the pic of the A-Team for one reason: whose body was Liam Neeson's head cut-and-pasted onto? Surely, not Liam's! Why, he looks like he still has his Suspect or Next of Kin physique! No Hollywood black magic in the world could pull THAT off, I'm afraid! As for the rest of the box office... LOSERS! They're all losers. Yes, even Shrek. I dealt with all those already. I gotta move on.

Auteur Watch - Deb Hagan

Damn! That didn't work, did it? Anyway, I already profiled her two years ago, when her big breakthrough College made the feature-length version of D.E.B.S. look like Avatar. But lemme say this about Deb Hagan: she's got a good Jerry Lewis name. If she were ever introduced by Lewis, he could say "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Miss Deb ga-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGAN-MAVEN-MOINEN!!!!!" If you go to Deb Hagan's official IMDb page right now, you might see the headline "Ten Worst films of 2008." Is that a good thing? Basically, no, because College wasn't even good as kitsch. The commercials on TV didn't even make it look good. Of course, I'm not the target demographic anymore, so it must just be the jealousy talking, but I still know $#!t from shinola, if I may say so in this forum. Anyway, Deb's got plenty on her plate as it is: something coming up called The Matadors. Here's how it got green-lit: some movie studio exec said "Oh! A sequel to The Matador? I love it! Here's $1.5 million dollars; go and make it!" What was that thing that Pauline Kael said about women filmmakers?

(10 minutes later...) Awright! Got the image link to work! But I did forget the following...

For more on Deb Hagan, follow THIS link!! HAHAHAHAHA....

Get Me to the Shrek!

Another crackerjack week at the Top 10 USA Box Office. Shrek still top boffo, of course. No surprise there. Still not powerful enough to justify Austin Powers 4, but then again, what is? Surely not Demi Moore as the love interest! About 10 years too late for that. Anyway, we got 4 debuts this week. We got Get him to the Greek. Yeah, Apatow's still got it. I just can't decide if Jonah Hill's the new Jon Lovitz or the new Chris Penn... Let me guess: even though everyone else sees him as the new Jon Lovitz, he THINKS he's the new Chris Penn, even though he blew his chance to show it with Cyrus. No, I have a feeling he's going to lose a bunch of weight and do Observe and Report 2 soon enough, even though it'll be a direct to DVD release, but it'll still make a great Costco 2-pack!
There's also Killers with Katherine Heigl, who still owes her fame more to Apatow than she'd care to admit. Somehow I don't see the influence of that TV show she's on... that ER knock-off, what's it called? Someone email that to me. It made $16 million this weekend, which ALMOST paid for the entire TV ad campaign and the catering costs. Oh well, maybe the DVD sales will be good. The next debut is another one of those live-action renderings of a semi-beloved cartoon strip: Marmaduke. Well, it's still more real than Marley & Me. Just to give you a fair warning, in the next short reviews I'm going to say: now Owen's the Marley! Try to act surprised.
And finally, Adrien Brody's hanging on to his marquee status with Splice, a tribute to the lost era of analog movie editing: the decks, the razor blades, the glue. It's all digital now! Cameras AND film. Everything all blurry in a bad way. I HATE it. Okay, that's it for me, gotta get back to the books.

Review!

Welp, I really should be getting onto my homework... how sad is that? But it's college level stuff, so this is not some high school punk kid talking here, waiting to see Justin Bieber in Jonah Hex... man, is he buffed out! Must be steroids. ...I mean, Megan Fox. Of course. What an actress... AND a fox!
Anyway, back to the movie at hand, because I was thinking maybe a movie review will help me get the leg up I need on this whole homework racket. Ransom! is a movie, that I saw, so why not start with that. It's a movie starring Glenn Ford and Donna Reed. If it were cast today, it'd be William H. Macy and Megan Fox... I mean, Sandra Bullock. Well, she's getting older and moving into MILF territory... I mean, more matronly roles. Can't lie about that.
And, I dunno. I guess I wasn't too impressed... or was I? I guess the acting was pretty good. Glenn probably shoulda got an Oscar or something, or at least a nomination. Really sharp critics will note that Glenn seems to be the first on-screen self-conscious dad, more concerned about getting in every jokey comment he can at his son's expense before he goes missing. Donna Reed's not given much to do, but we're rooting for her anyway. Probably could've gone without the butler and the maid for our collective contemporary's sake, but it was a different era, indeed, and being a CEO back then was quite different, I guess. Or, I guess the correct answer is: it was wrong then, and it is wrong now, but to cover it up is to deny this important, but unfortunate chapter in our history.
Now, I guess I'd be remiss, derelict in my movie reviewing duties if you will, if I didn't mention that this WAS remade, but not with William H. Macy and some hot chick. No, it was redone in 1996 with pre-crazy Mel Gibson and Rene Russo... hot in her own right, arguably. Not Jayne Mansfield hot, but I guess that doesn't play these days. So, given the casting, and the modern attitude, think of this as Lethal Weapon 3.5: The Kidnapping-ing. (Kidnappening?) And it is kind of interesting comparing the differences of the two. But both do have that kick-ass scene where the dude goes on TV live with a big pile of money in front of him, to say, well, kidnappers, here it is on your TV screen. Come and claim it! I'd have to re-watch how Mel does it, but I'm guessing it's not as good. Of course, it was a lot more money in Glenn Ford's day and they padded out the script out to movie length, since it was originally done as a TV show.
But the biggest difference between the two... at least, for me, is how they deal with the kidnappers. I never get to the plot! Glenn Ford / Mel Gibson is a rich bastard who's bastard of a son gets kidnapped, and Oscar-worthy acting ensues as a reslut... result. But the 1956 version NEVER shows the kidnappers! That's just how horrible the crime was back then. I mean, for God's sake, this isn't Communist Russia we're talking about here! This is America! We don't bug our hotel rooms like THEY... used to. Sorry, I digressed again, but to reiterate, in the 1956 version the kidnappers are never shown. We don't even hear a voice over the telephone!!!! In the 1996 reboot, on the other hand, we see NOTHING BUT the kidnappers. We see their backstory, we see them planning, we see them cobbling together makeshift daycare facilities, we get the big Morluk/Eloi speech, etc. We see urine running down the kid's leg when he realizes the kidnapper's come back... well, I'll try not to give too much away, but it's a nail-biter, and Mel even gets the opportunity to do his signature Lethal Weapon running down the street. Those days are long gone now, but he stays as fit as he cares to, no question about it. Oh, and the remake features a kick-ass Kite-Cam that falls to earth. Bet that cost a penny and a half, eh, Piotr? ...damn. He's dead. And yet, has a 2010 credit! How's that for staying busy?
So, in conclusion, both kinda suck, but in different, unique ways. And of course, if you go on the IMDb and look at user comments, you'll no doubt find a positive review of anything. Even Fat Slags, I'd hazard a guess! But I'm in favour of any movie that takes me out of my usual dramatic rut, like I'm Not Rappaport and Ransom!(1956). Okay, back to the homework.

**1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan