The Screengrab : ali mcgraw

Morning Deal Report: Jackie Chan Kicks Around “Karate Kid”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

We already knew a Karate Kid remake was in the works, with Will Smith’s son Jaden set for the lead role. Now it looks as if the new Kid has his Mr. Miyagi – and, really, could it be anyone other than Jackie Chan? The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Chan is in negotiations to take on the role “made famous by Pat Morita in the original franchise…Like the original, which starred Morita and Ralph Macchio, the movie will examine the relationship between a martial arts expert and a boy who is picked on by bullies.”

Speaking of remakes, here’s one of the more bizarre Variety stories in a while. It’s not that I’m surprised to read that “Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer have set John Adams helmer Tom Hooper to direct and Christopher Hampton to write East of Eden, an adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel.” No, what surprises me is that nowhere in the article is it mentioned that a rather famous adaptation of this novel already exists. James Dean? Elia Kazan? Do these names ring a bell? Instead, Variety notes that “U and Imagine first optioned Steinbeck's book in 2004, when it shot to the top of the bestseller lists right after Oprah Winfrey chose it as the first selection when she revived her book club.” OK, so it took Oprah to bring this obscure work to their attention. Gotcha.

A Steve McQueen biopic is on the way, based on the book Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel, which “delves into McQueen's offscreen penchant for motorcycles, fast cars and drugs. Project will examine his three marriages, including his stormy relationship with Ali McGraw, as well as his battle against lung cancer,” Variety reports.

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Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds: 2 B 2-Together 4-Ever!

Phil Nugent — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds are getting hitched, and we here at the Screengrab haven't been this proud and excited since our guppies mated! These are two of our favorite people: Reynolds, because he's a likable fellow who's shown himself to be a reliable, capable actor whether he's flexing his chops in bad comedies (Van Wilder), bad action movies (Smokin' Aces), bad horror movies (The Amityville Horror), or bad unintentionally comic action horror movies (Blade : Trinity); Johansson, because she was once in a good movie (Ghost World) without doing it much harm, because Tom Waits isn't too proud to cash the royalty checks, and because every time we run a picture of her, such as this computer-generated simulation of what she'll look like in her wedding outfit, our page numbers go up for some reason. (Also, her name is Scarlett, but she's a blonde! How trippy is that!?) Interestingly, though both of them keep very busy, the 23-year-old Johansson and the 31-year-old cradle-robbing bastard Reynolds have never worked together before. (IMDB lists their only shared credit as 101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies on TV, which we haven't seen--we're waiting for the opera---but we have a hunch it would stretch the definition of "working together.") But if this marriage is going to work, and I think we can all agree that the thought of it failing is just too morbid to contemplate, then they're going to want to explore the possibility of co-starring vehicles to increase their volume of quality time together. (It worked for Julia and Kiefer, right?) Because the kids must have their hands full with wedding plans--registering at Sears, negotiating to rent out a bowling alley for the bachelor party, trying to get Survivor's Boston Robb on the phone to ask if he'd still lobby for the surf and turf buffet--they might not have a lot of time to flip through scripts, so we've taken the liberty of offering a few suggestions:

THE GETAWAY: Scarlett and Ryan have to co-star in a remake of the married-bank-robbers-on-the-lam thriller The Getaway, based on the Jim Thompson novel. This isn't our favorite choice for them, but after the Steve McQueen-Ali McGraw and Alec Baldwin-Kim Basinger versions, we're pretty sure that federal law demands it, so they might as well get it over with quick, like ripping off a band-aid or meeting the in-laws. (Personal to Ryan: just ignore Mr. Johnansson when he demands that you pull his finger.) After watching Ryan's steely gunplay in Smokin' Aces, we suspect that he'll actually be a solid, impressive Doc McCoy, and as for Scarlett, well, we're sure that she'll look shiny and immaculate even while camping out in a rat-infested dumpster. Since the movie will almost certainly blow, the newlyweds can't be judged too harshly for it, which means that the real suspense will be in seeing who gets to play the slimy killer nutjob chasing them and the lovable old goober who gives them a lift at the very end. We propose that the casting director go wide and unexpected with Steve Zahn as the psycho and pluck the viewers' nostalgic heartstrings by hiring Bob Newhart to play the sweet, gabby old thing. Or, if Newhart is unavailable, Robert De Niro.

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?: After the scathing reviews The Getaway is sure to earn, Scarlett in particular will be eager to jump in the deep end and show off her acting chops. That's a problem for her, because she can't act, but she can probably hollar, and that's really all you need to do to impress most critics with your range after they've sat through twenty pictures where you pretty much just stood there reflecting light. Playing Martha, the rampaging gorgon at the center of Edward Albee's marital slugfest, gave Elizabeth Taylor the chance to pick up an Academy Award for Best Hollaring by a One-Time Candidate for Most Beautiful Person in the World, so there's a ready-made tradition for Scarlett to tap into here. The husband, George, is supposed to be a prototypical middle-aged American wimp, but since most people's memories of the play are based on the movie starring Taylor and Richard Burton, they think George is English, which means that Reynolds too will have the chance to stretch by breaking out his best Monty Python accent to go with his prop eyeglasses. Throw in Elijah Wood and Bijou Phillipa as the goggle-eyed witnesses to this house of horrors and I think we've got a winner. Don't talk about the boy, Scarlett!

GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY: Tradition and awards are all well and good, but for full mutual career satisfaction, our little Lunt and Fontaine are also going to need to bring home that box-office gold. The ideal thing would be to sign them up for a franchise as crime-fighting superheroes. It isn't until you start trying to come up with possibilities that you realize just how few great man-and-woman superhero combos there have been, especially since Reed Richards and Sue Storm have already been spoken for. But we think that these two will make for a fine fit. Swear to God, we think there's always been something about Ryan Reynolds that's whispered, "Goatee! Robin Hood costume! Bow and arrows!" As for Scarlett, she's sure to rock the black leather slinkywear. The only problem is that there have been rumors of a Green Arrow movie in the works going back to when Kevin Smith was regarded as promising, and the property may be tied up. If it can't be pried free, then we propose going old-school and reviving Nick and Nora, the wisecracking alcoholic marrieds of the Thin Man series, "rebooting" the franchise to give it commercial potential for these sophisticated modern times. As Nick and Nora, Ryan and Scarlett will make wisecracks--or, to better keep with the nature of their talents, Ryan will make them while Scarlett stares at him blankly--chug martinis, and solve crimes. While wearing jet packs!

RYAN & SCARLETT'S XXX HONEYMOON SEX TAPE: A surefire career booster! With an IMAX 3-D sequence to be directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring Christopher Walken and Zac Efron in the musical numbers. To be released in conjunction with the premiere of their new reality series. "It's just called 'Chicken of the Sea' because people like chicken, Scarlett!"

Yesterday's Hits: Love Story (1970)

Paul Clark — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

What made Love Story a hit?: It takes some balls to title a romantic drama Love Story. In doing so, writer Erich Segal essentially threw down the gauntlet, proclaiming this to be the definitive romance for a generation. And for audiences of the early 1970s, it was embraced as an old-school romance they could call their own, both as a best-selling novel, then as a film. Love Story appealed to a wide audience- its anti-establishment message resounded with youth of the era, while attractive, clean-cut leads Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw were likable to “square” audiences. Moviegoers responded to the tune of more than $100 million, a huge figure in the pre-blockbuster era.

What happened to its popularity?: There’s a school of thought that says that cold, ironic movies tend to age better than warm, sincere ones, and while that’s not always the case, it’s pretty true of Love Story. Like Titanic (spotlighted in my last column), Love Story’s cornball tendencies became more glaring with the passage of time, making the film easy to deride. Supposedly there’s a tradition at Harvard- the setting of the film- of incoming freshman getting together to heckle Love Story. But more than that, Love Story had the misfortune of coming at the beginning of a decade that saw an unprecedented amount of adventurousness in Hollywood. Compared to subsequent hits like MASH, The Godfather, and Jaws, Love Story got lost in the shuffle.

As for its stars, McGraw quickly became more famous for her relationships- Robert Evans, Steve McQueen- than for her later work. O’Neal’s career fared better in the long run, finding him working with filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and Peter Bogdanovich, but by 1978, when he starred in the film’s sequel, Oliver’s Story, his popularity had waned as well.

Does Love Story still work?: Much as I’d like to defend the film against its hecklers, the truth is that Love Story hasn’t aged well. One particularly grating element of the film is its dialogue. Great dialogue is rarely a hallmark of romantic films, but Love Story’s so overwritten that there’s hardly a point when the characters sound like they’re speaking naturally.

This is especially true of Ali McGraw’s Jenny, who begins the story by verbally strong-arming O’Neal (as Oliver) into a first date and never really lets up. Even after Oliver tells Jenny, “verbal volleyball is not my idea of a relationship,” Jenny’s dialogue still mostly comes off as self-impressed. This is a big problem when the film is largely predicated on the idea that Jenny is an irresistible life force, and McGraw just wasn’t actress enough to make it work.

But a bigger issue is how rushed it feels. The biggest casualty of the film’s abbreviated running time (just over 90 minutes) is characterization, in particular the parents of Jenny and Oliver. We know that Oliver’s relationship with his father (Ray Milland) is strained because he calls his father “sir” and his father casually says “that’s an order” when speaking to his son. Conversely, we know that Jenny and her father (John Marley) have a loving relationship because she calls him “Phil” and talks to him like a friend. This is typical of Segal and director Arthur Hiller’s approach, too often resorting to comfortable cliché to avoid dealing with the story’s thornier issues.

With its narrative arc- rich boy falls in love with and marries poor girl, gets disowned by family, but works his way back to a well-to-do lifestyle, after which she contracts fatal disease that for some reason never changes her appearance- Love Story might have made an effective melodrama. However, the film is in such a hurry that very little makes an impression. It’s like listening to a concert pianist play a concerto in double-time- sure, he hits all the right notes, but where’s the soul?