I won’t be saying anything about Doubt until the end of next week or thereabouts, but the big acting revelation for me and several others I spoke to at last night’s AFI Fest screening is the supporting performance by Viola Davis, who plays the mother of one of the students in an urban Catholic school. She absolutely kills in one very intense scene with costar Meryl Streep, and I can’t even find an online photo of her performing in this scene. Davis goes to the front of the line in the Oscar Balloon right now, dammit.
Fandango’s Harry Medved has sent out a release about vigorous advance ticket sales for Twilight (Summit, 11.21). According to a “current Fandango survey of over 5000 moviegoers interested in buying Twilight tickets,” (a) 95% of the respondents are female, and roughly 58% of these are under-25; (b) 92% of respondents say they’ll see Twilight on opening weekend (duhhh), and (c) 85% say they plan to see the film more than once. Can you imagine sitting next to a group of under-25 women who’ve just seen Twilight in a bar after they’ve all had two glasses of wine? The giggling, the shrieking…good God.
This 10.27 Celeb Bitch post — four days ago! — appears to confirm that Seth Rogen has indeed slimmed down big-time for filming on Stephen Chow‘s The Green Hornet, which Rogen and Evan Goldberg are co-writing. He’ll revert back to his au natural form after shooting ends, of course. I knew guys who looked like Rogen when I was in my 20s, and now they look like sumo wrestlers with a drinking problem.
My latest theory is that movies that use numbers in their titles in a fun/escapist/frolicsome vein (like Ocean’s 11, Three Men and a Baby, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) tend to succeed in a marketing sense but those that adopt an emotionally sincere, verging-on-solemn approach (like Four Feathers, The Number 23, Seven Pounds) send out uh-oh signals that make people a little bit wary. There are exceptions, of course. Sergeants Three, a lighthearted Rat Pack remake of Gunga Din, isn’t remembered fondly by anyone. And I’m not aware of Lina Wertmuller’s Seven Beauties having suffered for its title.
New Seven Pounds poster found on Alex Billington’s firstshowing.net.
The new Slumdog Millionaire trailer and Fox Searchlight site, up and out.
A slight tightening of the Presidential election numbers has kicked in due to the laziest, dumbest and most sheepish portion of the electorate going “hmm, gee, I don’t know.” Otherwise voters are dug in, polls are static (except for two — Fox News and Mason-Dixon — that fivethirtyeight’s Nate Silver says are off on their own beam), the new N.Y. Times/CBS News poll says that 59 percent of voters believe that Sarah Palin is not prepared for the job (up nine percentage points since the beginning of October), and I’m still picking up worried/on edge/unsettled vibes from this and that Obama supporter.
Good. Nobody should relax. I’m certainly trying not to. My attitude is somewhere between “chill down, it’s in the bag” and “it’s not in the bag, pretend it’s neck and neck, don’t ease up for a second.”
Has everyone on this side of the fence e-mailed those Errol Morris “People in the Middle for Obama” spots to at least five fence-sitting wishy-washies in their personal orbit (friends, family, co-workers, neighbors)? Has everyone e-mailed the latest “Vote!” video to at least five under-25s who’ve shown pronounced video-game addiction and/or ADD tendencies in the past?
Originally posted on 9.7.08 during the Toronto Film Festival: As far as it goes, Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make A Porno is smooth and winning, largely due to Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks‘ engaging, alive-in-the-moment performances as longtime pals and roommates who discover, to their surprise, that they’re in love with each other while making a low-grade, hand-to-mouth porn film.
Call this one definitely better (and certainly more smoothly shot and cut) than Clerks II, heads and shoulders above Jersey Girl, a bit funnier than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, livelier and more entertaining that Dogma, almost as intimate and touching as Chasing Amy, much better than Mallrats and not as good as the original Clerks.
Within his familiar smart-but-easygoing-schlub persona, Rogen is on a roll these days, incapable of seeming rote or insincere, and he punches up the energy and aliveness in a way that’s obvious and ummistakable. And Banks matches him note for note with a game receptivity and good humor. As I was walking out, a journalist friend said, “Smith should thank God for Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen,” meaning that Smith is sorta kinda riding their coattails with this film, albeit in a way that bears his own ethos and sensibility.
Zack and Miri grooves right along in a good-natured, “let’s relax and be cool about being blunt and more than a little gross” sort of way.
It’s basically about the financially-strapped Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Banks), sharers of a ramshackle pad in funky Monroeville (a suburb of Pittsburgh where George Romero has shot two or three of his zombie movies), realizing that internet porn is a not-too-difficult way to raise quick cash, and giving it a try with no production money, a cheap video camera and a few friends as costars and assistants.
It struck me as a little bit weird that the sex scenes are shot with a static camera sitting on a tripod each and every time. Hand-held photography is obviously the way to go with films of this sort — get in there, get close, get it all, etc. But then none of Smith’s films have been shot with a loosey-goosey hand-held approach — visually he’s always been a very formal, almost rigid, director — so I guess it does sort of make sense.
It’s obvious that Zack’s scripting the sex scenes so that Miri won’t “do” anyone other than himsefl on-camera, and Miri being distinctly unsettled when Zack is offered an easy roll in the sack with one of the pic’s female costars, that they care deeply for each other.
Zack also experiences a creative awakening in shooting home-style porn, which gives a lift to his overall attitude and self-image. But the penultimate moment comes when he and Miri finally perform the deed on-camera, and their cohorts (and the audience, of course) realize it’s not much of an acrobatic, look-at-us! performance for all the right reasons.
It’s unrealistic, of course, that a hottie like Banks would be attracted to a schlubby guy like Rogen (unless we’re talking about the real-life Rogen, which is a whole different deal because then you’re talking a guy who’s bright, funny, famous and rich). But then Apatow has been pulling this fantasy crap in film after film, and now Smith (another rich, brilliant, super-successful geek with a weight issue) has picked up the torch.
In the real trenches of the real world, average overweight geeks do not schtup beautiful blondes with radiant ruby eyes, exquisite facial structure and perfect white teeth — end of story, end of proposition, total dreamworld. But the fact that this doesn’t get in the way of enjoying Smith’s film says something. To me anyway.
Rewritten Issue: At the end of Zack and Miri’s sex-on-camera scene, Banks sits up and starts collecting herself — we’re talking seconds after Rogen has dismounted — and we see that she’s wearing a short jean skirt. I would find this believable and even mildly hot if it happened in a Sam Mendes film (because failing to get fully undressed prior to sex is a natural sort of occurence), but I don’t believe for a second that Smith’s characters — hand-to-mouth GenXers from Grimville, Pennsylvania who are looking to make money by shooting a sex film that will sell — would get down on camera with the woman wearing a pushed-up jean skirt. No. Effin’. Way.
Doubt director-screenwriter John Patrick Shanley and mystery partner at AFI Fest/Doubt after-party at Hollywood Roosevelt hotel — Thursday, 10.30.08, 10:55 pm.
The Vistor producer Michael London, star and likely Best Actor nominee Richard Jenkins at Arclight Cinema following post-screening q & a.
Doubt after-party at Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, marred only by lack of ventilation. I was feeling damper and stickier by the minute. I got through it by telling myself that Rudolph Valentino, John Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin must have felt even stickier when they attended parties at the Hollywood Roosevelt in the 1920s, when there was no a.c. at all.
“The question now,” as N.Y. Times media columnist David Carr wrote today, “is how many people will be left to cover it.” Print people, he means. Yes, I too read this story online. I never read the print version of the Times, although, as I’ve said repeatedly over the last four or five years, I would be very saddened to live in a world in which you couldn’t buy the print edition. As I do six or seven times a year when I’m in a sentimental, old-fashioned mood.
Clint Eastwood‘s Changeling, going wide this weekend, is running 74, 37 and 19 — very heavily skewed towards older women, at least $20 million. The Haunting of Molly Hartley is at 43, 28 and 5. Rock n Rolla, going wide ,also has a 34, 22 and 1…nothing. Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno is running at 66, 33 and 13. Younger males, of course. Looking to be one of the better Weinstein Co. openings in a long while.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa opens on 11.7, and is now at 90, 38 and 9. Over-25 women with kids. Pretty good business. Role Models is at 44, 35 and 5….decent. Soul Men is at 59, 32 and 3. Quantum of Solace (Sony, 11.14) is at 70, 53 and 15 — very strongly male, both older and younger.
DIsney’s Bolt, opening on 11.21, is at 58, 28 and 3. Twilight, sure to be a big hit with under-25 women, is running at 44, 39 and 8.
- Really Nice Ride
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall‘s Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year’s Telluride...
More » - Live-Blogging “Bad Boys: Ride or Die”
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when...
More » - One of the Better Apes Franchise Flicks
It took me a full month to see Wes Ball and Josh Friedman‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes...
More »
- The Pull of Exceptional History
The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
More » - If I Was Costner, I’d Probably Throw In The Towel
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner‘s Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
More » - Delicious, Demonic Otto Gross
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg‘s tastiest and wickedest film — intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...
More »