The Screengrab : bradley cooper

Morning Deal Report: Heather Graham’s Hangover

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Here’s a project I can identify with this morning: Heather Graham will star in The Hangover for director Todd Phillips (Road Trip, Old School). “The story revolves around three buddies, played by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, who lose their best friend (Justin Bartha) at his Caesars Palace bachelor party just 40 hours before his wedding,” says The Hollywood Reporter. “The trio must attempt to retrace all their bad decisions from the night before and figure out where things went wrong.” Based on my experience, I’m guessing things went wrong at the Circus Circus buffet.

“Bruce Willis will make his directorial debut with the indie psychological drama Three Stories About Joan,” Variety reports. Camilla Belle will play the title role in the film that “centers on a young woman at three points in her life and the family tragedies that cause her to lose her grip on reality. Willis will play the father of Belle’s character.”

Are you ready for American Psycho: The Musical? “Producers are betting Bret Easton Ellis' novel and screen adaptation will translate to a stage musical, with original 1980s-inspired songs and familiar covers of hits from the era,” THR reports. That hangover isn’t getting any better.

Related:
Bruce Willis to Play Robot
Fincher's Musical, The Canon of Thor, and Justice on the Rocks

Summerfest '08: "Wet Hot American Summer"

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Well, folks, it's the end of the line. This weekend marks the Labor Day holiday, traditionally the last big weekend of the summer. School's back in session, long vacations are a thing of the past, and sunshine and beach barbeques give way to gray skies and long commutes. It's no different in the movie business: giant blockbuster blow-'em-ups give way to small, quiet pictures whose goal is to make your girlfriend cry. And just as the summer blockbuster season must end, so too must Summerfest 2008, the Screengrab's hot-weather feature where we analyze one movie a week with "summer" in the title, with the goal of giving you something to do for two hours while your silently dreading having to go back to the office. But we're not going to just leave you hanging with some cheap piece of junk we happened to notice while scrolling through the IMDB listings; oh, no. We're going to see Summerfest '08 out with a blast by bringing you a movie we've been excited about since we began this project, a true throwback to the summer flicks of yore where you could sit in a theater with a rapidly melting Slurpee and have a few laughs without feeling guilty about it. Summer may be over -- and it may be a long four months until we bring you "The Screengrab's Twelve Days of Christmas Movies" -- but we're going to wave goodbye to it with one of the funniest, most good-natured satires in recent years. Whether or not you came of age in the 1980s, this is a movie that will make you feel what it was like, and crack your shit up while doing so.

It's been great spending summer with you kids, but the time has come to pack up your duffel bags and head home to your parents. But before you do, put on your tightest pair of gym shorts, and join us for 2001's Wet Hot American Summer!

THE ACTION: Late August, Camp Firewood. It's the last day of camp, just like it's the last day of the Screengrab, and kids and counselors alike are stricken with a hormone-crazed mix of excitement and regret: camp is just about to end, but there's still so much to do! Will the head counselor find love with the unassuming astronomer who lives across the way? Will our slightly nerdish hero finally draw the attention of his dream girl away from her thoughtless, philandering boyfriend? Will the lithe, athletic, tennis-playing chap ever get laid? Will the camp's baseball team ever defeat that snooty bunch from the rich kid's camp the next lake over? Will the cook overcome his Viet Nam-era post-traumatic stress disorder with the aid of a talking can of mixed vegetables? And will the fat kid who runs the camp radio station ever take a bath, already? These questions and more will be answered, sort of, in what turns out to be not only a vivacious comedy in its own right, but an absolutely pitch-perfect evocation of the party-as-a-verb days of the early 1980s and the innumerable shameless sex comedies they brought us. Ultimately more a collection of moments than an actual movie, Wet Hot American Summer is so riotous and well-meaning, you can't hold its shambolic nature against it.

THE PLAYERS: Janeane Garofalo shines in her role as the stern head counselor who has everything but the love of a good man, as if to remind skeptical viewers of the fact that she was once very funny. David Hyde Pierce seems a tad out of place among the legions of improvisers and sketch comedy pros in the cast, but he still has a few fine moments as the world's least convincing heterosexual male lead. But the real standouts here are the comic actors who fill out the cast in minor, but often spectacularly funny, parts: co-writer Michael Showalter is only adequate as the longing male lead, but he's absolutely killer in a late-reel appearance as a hacky Catskills comic. Christopher Meloni is appropriately unhinged as the brain-damaged vet who's lousy at keeping his perverse secrets. Amy Poehler is outstanding, alongside Bradley Cooper, as the high-strung type-A director of the camp's talent show. And Paul Rudd, especially, is hysterically funny as a bratty, self-involved lothario who can barely be troubled to listen to his girlfriend when she's talking; he has a scene with Garofalo about midway through the film that may stand out as the funniest temper tantrum ever filmed. Director David Wain (who wrote the script alongside a pre-The Baxter Showalter) shows a steady hand as well as a brilliant touch for period detail.

SUMMER FUN: Wet Hot American Summer doesn't mess around: it gives us the ne plus ultra of summer fun, all crammed into an hour and a half. It takes place on the last day of camp, and, perfectly echoing the film cliche, it features everyone in sight squeezing as much fun out of the summer as they possibly can: hooking up with anyone in sight, driving to town (in a memorable and grimly hilarious scene) to score drugs, breaking out into inexplicable guitar solos, helping their friends get laid, playing Dungeons & Dragons, practicing for the big talent show, and in one of the most subversive twists of any movie parody, prepping for the big Snobs vs. Slobs showdown. Every activity is either turned on its head for sweet subversion or taken completely over the top for maximum laughs.

HAWAIIAN SHIRTS: From the ringer tees to the polyester shorts to the brace guards to the ample cock-rock on the soundtrack, one thing that Wet Hot American Summer gets spectacularly right is the period detail. And one of the most important details when you're making a movie that hails back to the golden age of 1980s teen sex comedies is the Hawaiian shirt. Only one person wears one in the course of the movie, but he's a big fat party animal, and as Homer Simpson took the time to explain once long ago, big fat party animals are one of the two groups who do their best work in Hawaiian shirts. The big fat party animal in question is Zak Orth as J.J., whose gregarious stoner demeanor here suggests that there's someone ready to step into Seth Rogen's shoes if he every gets tired of being really funny.

BIKINI PARTY TIME: While Janeane Garofalo's still too self-conscious to step into one, bikinis are plentiful in Wet Hot American Summer. A good thing, too, as they're occasionally filled out by the likes of Marguerite Moreau and Elizabeth Banks; in fact, the latter in a bikini inspires a great scene where Paul Rudd gets so distracted from his lifeguard duties that he lets one of his charges drown -- then begins a Death Wish-style crusade to wipe out anyone who saw him do it. Beyond that, there's also knit tops, frosted lipstick, short shorts, knee socks, bra-less t-shirts, and the like for your enjoyment. It's all part of the neon-green cocktail that makes up the movie, which, in the end, plays like the funniest 1980s movie made since 1989. If summer has to end, this is the way to see it out.

Taking "The Midnight Meat Train"

Paul Clark — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Last fall, I wrote up a Trailer Review for a movie called The Midnight Meat Train, based on a short story by horror maestro Clive Barker. At the time, I had some misgivings about the movie- largely due to director Ryuhei Kitamura- I was intrigued enough by the premise and the Barker name that I filed it away in my mind as one to watch for. Now, nearly nine months later, the movie has arrived in a limited number of theatres, courtesy of its distributor, Lionsgate. According to the horror site Shock Till You Drop, the movie was caught in the middle of a regime change at the studio, with new chief Joe Drake dumping the remaining projects left behind by his predecessor, Peter Block, aside from sure things like the unkillable Saw franchise. Due to the niceties of studio politics, the movie has been quietly opened in roughly 100 theatres, mostly of the discount variety, in order to fulfill a contractual obligation with production company Lakeshore Entertainment. The movie was scheduled to play for a week on its way to a fall DVD release.

With the marketing and distribution costs at an all-time high, and DVD and on-demand supplanting theatrical viewing as the moviegoing experience of choice for the majority of Americans, it’s becoming more and more common to see movies getting this treatment. It can happen for a number of reasons: the films might be difficult to market, there might be the aforementioned studio infighting, or maybe one of the executives simply doesn’t like the movie. Sometimes, the movie just isn’t very good. These factors and others can come into play when it comes to which movies get the shaft from studios.

But how’s the movie, you ask? Is it the horror equivalent of Idiocracy- a cult-y oddball that didn’t get the studio love it deserved? Or was Lionsgate right in dumping The Midnight Meat Train into mostly-empty theatres to be quickly forgotten? Actually, it’s somewhere between these two extremes. Neither a genre masterpiece nor a travesty, it’s a fairly effective, hard-R horror movie. If it’s guts and gore you want, The Midnight Meat Train should satisfy your cravings.

One aspect I liked about the movie was that it belongs less to the tradition of slasher movies than it does to the old-school “meat movie” and, as such, feels less beholden to formula and cliché. Unlike slasher movies- which devote an inordinate amount of attention to the killing and mutilation of women- Kitamura and Barker are pretty equal-opportunity in portraying their victims, which I appreciated. In addition, the movie plays in parts like the straight-horror flipside to David Fincher’s Se7en, as our protagonist (played by Bradley Cooper) finds himself unable to look away from the violent heart of the city. It’s not until he’s spurred on to really probe this hear that he finds much more darkness and horror than he could have imagined. I haven’t read the Barker story upon which it’s based, but I would imagine that this theme is present there as well.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t work as well as it could, due in large part to director Ryuhei Kitamura. Kitamura is a favorite of Asian cinema fans, but I found his previous films consistently underwhelming. Versus’ zombies-versus-yakuza premise cemented the movie’s rep in the hearts of fanboys, but it was too slipshod and unevenly paced to work for me. Likewise, Godzilla: Final Wars succeeded in the giant-monster scenes but failed when the director tried to inject human storylines into the mix. But most of all, Kitamura’s tendency toward show-offy camera work and needless CGI have been consistently problematic, and it’s these same issues that keep The Midnight Meat Train from being as good as it could’ve been. During the most potentially frightening scenes, Kitamura’s use of computer generated gore and camera trickery took me right out of the movie, making me think of how he pulled off the shot rather than being scared.

Yet I would still recommend The Midnight Meat Train to anyone who’s into horror. Bradley Cooper makes a sympathetic protagonist in his early scenes, and is convincingly crazy later on. I also liked Vinnie Jones as the silent killer, his imposing frame used to good effect here. And in spite of Kitamura’s look-at-me! direction, the movie contains a number of effective sequences, including a final-reel revelation that left me quite pleasantly surprised. So if you like horror, give The Midnight Meat Train a look when it comes to DVD. After all, it’s not like Lionsgate is giving you many other options.

SXSW Short Takes

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Odds and ends from the first few days of SXSW:

Humboldt County – After being flunked out of medical school by his own father, Peter Hadley (Jeremy Strong) goes for a ride with free spirit Bogart (Fairuza Balk) and ends up in California’s redwood country. There he meets Bogart’s friends and family, all of whom live off the grid and earn their keep by growing and selling marijuana. The debut feature from writer-directors Danny Jacobs and Darren Grodsky boasts an alluring setting and several strong performances, most notably Brad Dourif as the patriarch of the pot-farming clan. There’s a hole in the center, however: Hadley is an underwritten character and Strong is unable to breathe much life into him.

Older Than America – Director Georgina Lightning stars as Rain, a resident of the Fond du Lac Indian reservation in Minnesota who has been experiencing strange visions. Years earlier, her mother was institutionalized after suffering from similar delusions – or at least, that’s the official story. The truth Rain uncovers is based in reality: the children of the reservation were forced to attend a Catholic boarding school with the motto “Kill the Indian, save the man” – a place where unspeakable abuses took place. The history and setting could have made for a powerful movie, but Older Than America is a bit too clunky. The performances aren’t particularly lively, and the mystical elements don’t mesh well with the real-life horror. As a visiting government geologist, Bradley Cooper too often seems to be in his own separate movie.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth – Erik Nelson’s documentary on author/media personality/all-around cranky guy Harlan Ellison gives you just about what you’d expect, which in this case is not a bad thing. Nelson combines archival footage of Ellison’s TV appearances with newly shot material showing the author at his typewriter (yes, a manual typewriter, kids), reciting his work, and even being fitted with a hideous neck goiter for a role in a science fiction program. Friends and admirers ranging from Robin Williams (in his most bearable screen appearance in years) to Sandman creator Neil Gaiman are on hand to offer their two cents and/or take some cheerful abuse from the film’s subject. While there is an element of shtick (or as Gaiman prefers, “performance art”) to Ellison’s ranting, suffer-no-fools persona, he’s certainly worth watching for 90 minutes as Dreams with Sharp Teeth proves.