The Screengrab : alvin and the chipmunks

Morning Deal Report: The Squeakquel

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

I wish I could tell you there won’t be an Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel. Furthermore, I wish I could tell you it won’t be titled Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. But I cannot tell you these things. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Betty Thomas will direct the squeakquel, in which “Zachary Levi, star of the NBC action comedy series Chuck, has been cast opposite the computer-generated singing rodents.”

Woody Allen is going back to London. After a brief return to his New York stomping grounds for the upcoming Whatever Works starring Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood, Allen will shoot his latest project across the pond with Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins. “As usual, Allen is keeping title and plot under wraps,” Variety reports.

The Departed screenwriter William Monahan has another crime up his sleeve. Monahan will direct an adaptation of “The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Thief, Rock-and-Roller and Prodigal Son, the forthcoming memoirs of career criminal Myles Connor. Connor became an art connoisseur and a rock musician whose band, Myles and the Wild Ones, backed Roy Orbison. He was also an accomplished art and antiques thief who was involved in a series of museum robberies that grabbed headlines in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s,” per Variety.

Morning Deal Report: Would You Buy Tires from David Cross?

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Proud Alvin and the Chipmunks star David Cross has gotten Demoted. In the comedy to be director by American Pie 2 autuer J.B. Rogers, former Alias star Michael Vartan "will play Rodney McAdams, a hotshot Treadline Tires sales associate who delights in tormenting his less-than-cool colleague, Ken (Cross)," sez the Hollywood Reporter. "But when their boss suddenly dies, Ken is promoted and assigns Rodney to a secretarial job as payback, giving the male chauvinist a taste of his own medicine." No word yet on whether Patton Oswalt turned down the part first.

Sacha Baron Cohen, who already has that Sherlock Holmes comedy on his plate along with something called Dinner for Schmucks, has sold a pitch for Accidentes to Fox Atomic. According to Variety, Cohen will play an ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer who "transforms from contingency attorney to hero of the working class when he helps an immigrant win a judgment against his wealthy employer after a landscaping mishap. He also becomes the enemy of L.A.’s power elite." We're rooting for him already.

Finally, some good news for those of us who feared Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York might be buried alive after the suits could make heads nor tails of it at Cannes. Sony Pictures Classics is close to picking up the film for domestic distribution, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "The special effects-filled $20 million film received mixed reviews on the Croisette. The original cut was a little more than four hours, and after its Cannes premiere, Kaufman said the two-hour, four-minute version he debuted there might be whittled further. Producers apparently are aiming for a late 2008 release for awards-season qualification."

Related:
David Cross Digs Deeper
Charlie Kaufman Does Not Save His Urine in Jars

DVD Digest for April 1, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

In a slow week for new DVDs, there are no real world-beaters being released today. However, there are a number of solid picks for movie lovers of various stripes, and if nothing else there should be fewer flubs in this column than there were last week.

Easily the most interesting recent film to come out on DVD this week, Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Paramount) is being released by Paramount in both single- and double-disc editions. The big difference, as usual, is one of special features, as the extra disc includes a number of new featurettes, including spotlights on the history behind the Sweeney Todd legend and a doc on Stephen Sondheim's music. But the real keeper is the film itself, a legitimately dark creation, easily the most despairing Burton film to date. Burton's vision complements the already strong material so perfectly that it more than compensates for the not-quite-up-to-snuff singing by stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, who are pretty great otherwise. Sweeney Todd is the filet of this week's new films on DVD, although with such competition as Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox, also Blu-Ray) and Resurrecting the Champ (Fox), that's pretty faint praise.

Also of note is Warner's The Bette Davis Collection Volume 3, the latest in their exhaustive assembling of box sets featuring the studio era's biggest stars. Normally the selection in these sets are pretty dire, comprised largely of films that weren't ready for a standalone release. However, this set looks unusually strong. Included in the set are the Davis fan favorite Deception, 1943's Watch on the Rhine (which won Davis' costar Paul Lukas a Best Actor Oscar), and In This Our Life, a pre-Hush, Hush... Sweet Charlotte collaboration between Davis and Olivia De Havilland. Other titles in the set are The Old Maid, All This, and Heaven Too, and The Great Lie. As usual, Warner has dug into their vaults and paired each film with their "Warner Night at the Movies" programs, including classic newsreels, cartoons, and trailers. Eventually the well will have to run dry on Davis films as it does with all stars, but this collection should be worth a look.

The only other intriguing DVD release this week- that is, unless you're clamoring for Martin: The Complete Fourth Season or Murder, She Wrote Season 8- is Koch Lorber's trio of new DVD editions of films by the Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Among the films is the American DVD debut of 1993's Fiorile and 1984's Kaos, plus a new edition of their 1982 classic Night of the Shooting Stars. Koch Lorber's DVD releases can be dicey, both in terms of variable picture quality and the lack of special features. However, for those who've been waiting for more of the Tavianis' films to get released on DVD, the wait is over.

Finally, our old pal David Huddleston has returned from his vacation just in time to voice his condolences to the following HD-DVD releases:

Appleseed Ex Machina (Warner)
August Rush (Warner)

Because nothing says "watch this on a bigass HDTV" than a box-office flop about a musical prodigy. Who's with me?

David Cross Digs Deeper

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Have you been keeping up with the David Cross flame wars? In case they haven’t edged the primary season off the front page of your local rag, the Observer helpfully brings everyone up to speed, while giving Cross yet another chance to make his case. This is the situation, in brief: David Cross has a supporting role in Alvin and the Chipmunks. Inasmuch as said film is widely perceived as a shoddy piece of kiddie fodder attached to a Christmas merchandising campaign, former fans of the actor-comedian perceived Cross’s appearance in it as a betrayal of his indie cred. (Apparently everyone missed last year’s Curious George, in which Cross essayed a similar role as a beloved cartoon character’s nemesis.)

Fans went on the attack, posting venomous comments on sites like the Onion’s AV Club. "It wasn't simply that I read somebody said I was a 'douchebag' for doing this,” Cross told the Observer. “I read hundreds—literally hundreds [of comments] ... Just a lot of it, enough so that when I read Patton's thing it was the breaking point.” That would be Patton Oswalt, whose offhand comment on his Myspace page led to Cross posting a response on his own website. Isn’t the Internet great? Imagine the fun if it had been around back when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis broke up.

Cross discusses his early career struggles, the issue of integrity, and why he even bothers to respond to anonymous Internet comments in an interview that raises even more questions. For instance, what to make of the image of Cross settling in beneath a painting of the Reagans posing with Michael Jackson? As Cross says, “The biggest joke of all is that the fact that when this article comes out, it will only make things worse.” He said it, not us.

Trailer Roundup End of Year Special- Worst Trailer, 2007

Paul Clark — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Alvin and the Chipmunks

There's a special place in Hell reserved for the makers of crappy kids' movies. Just because kids will watch just about anything doesn't give Hollywood license to sell them shoddy goods. It seems nearly impossible to find a big-budget non-Pixar kids' movie these days that doesn't contain self-aware pop-culture jokes and the unholy triumvirate of "family-friendly" gags- poop, flatulence, and "ow, my balls!" But while contenders for the dubious honor of 2007's worst trailer were plentiful, ranging from Cuba Gooding Jr. and the fat white guy who suffers most of the painful gags in Daddy Day Camp to the farting seals of Arctic Tale, the worst of all was almost certainly Alvin and the Chipmunks, a mix of CGI and live-action from the visionary who brought you Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. What exactly puts this over the top? Is it the oh-so-hip musical stylings of a trio of singing rodents crooning that cutting-edge hit "Funky Town?" The sight of Jason Lee managing, by simply appearing onscreen, to outdo the indignity he suffered making Underdog? The presence of a clearly slumming David Cross? The spectacle of Alvin farting in Lee's face? Actually, I'd say it's none of these things. Instead, I'd argue that what makes this an odious phenomenon is the idea that, now that the studios have pillaged the pop culture touchstones of our youth in the name of nostalgia, they've even more cynically begun adapting material that wasn't even very good to begin with, repackaging it for a new generation of undiscerning kids. It's times like these that make me glad I don't have kids.