The Screengrab : dane cook

Unwatchable #51: “Simon Sez”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

A few years ago I was on a bus from Paris to Frankfurt, following a whirlwind 36-hour tour of the City of Lights. Gazing out the window at the French countryside should have been entertainment enough for our tour group, but no: we had an in-ride movie. It was an action movie called Double Team, and it starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke. Appropriate, no? Van Damme is almost French after all, and they still loved Rourke in France for many years before his recent comeback.

Anyway, I don’t remember much about Double Team, but Wikipedia reminds me that Dennis Rodman played “a flamboyant arms dealer.” One thing I don’t recall thinking is that Rodman would have a long and successful film career. In fact, I very specifically remember not thinking that, and I think history has proved me right. The ex-basketball star’s sleepy-eyed brand of charisma may be an asset to the likes of Celebrity Apprentice, but his acting chops only served to make Van Damme look Brandoesque by comparison.

Nonetheless, Rodman did get a second chance at becoming the next Van Damme with Simon Sez, which I would charitably describe as an action comedy. Rodman plays the titular Simon, an ex-CIA operative now working for Interpol in France. (Apparently the European agency has a more lax dress code, allowing their agents to sport platinum blonde hair and multiple facial piercings and tattoos. I would think such an appearance might be a drawback on undercover missions, but I never went to spy school.) For reasons that eluded me, Simon is assisted by two monks, a wisecracking fat guy and a wisecracking black dude; they’re like the worst Abbot and Costello tribute show on earth.

That makes them a good match for the sorriest Jim Carrey substitute a SAG minimum salary could buy in 1999, Dane Cook. As Nick Miranda, Simon’s old classmate from Langley, Cook has clearly been given free reign to unleash his comic genius at will. He makes Wookie noises and Jurassic Park noises! He snaps off the one-liners in the midst of a high-speed car chase. (“These guys are like my college loan officers – they just keep comin’!” “Maybe he just wants some Grey Poupon!”) There is a satisfying moment when he falls off a fire escape into a garbage can and rolls down an alley, but it’s not enough to make up for his gruesome mistaken faith in his own talent and likeability.

Anyway, the plot has something to do with Rodman and Cook teaming up to rescue a rich man’s kidnapped daughter who is being held ransom for the disk full of CIA secrets Brad Pitt thought he’d found in Burn After Reading. Rodman’s vortex of bad acting takes over the rest of the cast, none of whom can make the typed-by-chimpanzee dialogue sound like words actual humans would say. The action sequences offer an array of gaffes and utter disregard for the laws of physics (I think I saw Rodman stopping for a sandwich as he fell from a 30-story window), but there is a quicksand sequence, which always cheers me up. (Unfortunately, Rodman rescues Cook before he completely disappears beneath the surface.)

The good news is that Simon Sez was rewarded with one of the worst opening weekends in history, debuting on 504 screens and taking in a miserable $185,472 total. The movie got what it deserved, and I don’t need to pile on any further. I will mention something you may have noticed: this is Unwatchable #51, which means we’ve made it halfway through the list and have 50 more to go. They bet against me! They said I’d never make it past #78! But I proved ‘em wrong! Tune in next week for a special first-half celebration of…Unwatchable!

Previously on Unwatchable:
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf

DVD Digest for January 13, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This week, Criterion and Eclipse’s salute to the late films of an Italian master takes the top spot, opposite a handful of notable classics and a bunch of recent junk.

DVD of the Week: Having finished yet another holiday season, most of Hollywood’s high-profile recent releases aren’t due on DVD for another few months yet. In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity for Criterion to roll out some of their most interesting work yet. Case in point is this week’s release of several of Roberto Rossellini’s historical films. The most noteworthy of the bunch is his film The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Criterion), which invests the “historical drama” genre with Rossellini’s trademark realism, turning the genre on its ear by refusing to succumb to its usual picturesque tendencies. In conjunction with this release, Criterion’s sister company has created the box set Eclipse Series 14: Rossellini’s History Films- Renaissance and Enlightenment, which contains three more of Rossellini’s historical films, including The Age of the Medici, Cartesius, and Blaise Pascal, which our own Vadim Rizov praised here a few months ago. In the middle of an Oscar season dominated by biopics and period films, the Rossellini DVD should provide a reprieve from the usual bloated reverence.

The most notable recent release coming to DVD this week is the Ed Harris-directed oater Appaloosa (Warner, also Blu-Ray). Also this week: Kevin Costner in Swing Vote (Disney, also Blu-Ray); Dane Cook and Kate Hudson in My Best Friend’s Girl (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray); Keifer Sutherland in Mirrors (Fox, also Blu-Ray); Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys (Lionsgate); the India-set drama Brick Lane (Sony); and the Evelyn Waugh adaptation Brideshead Revisited (Disney).

In the classics department, this week sees the release of Eagle Pennell’s seminal proto-indie The Whole Shootin’ Match (Koch Entertainment Distribution). Also this week are two more Paramount Centennial Collection DVDs both starring Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Funny Face.

Finally this week’s TV on DVD releases include: Reba Season 5 (Fox) and ’Til Death Complete Second Season (Sony).

Trailer Review: Bedtime Stories

Paul Clark — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

When I first heard about Adam Sandler’s new effects-driven family comedy, I found myself dreading it. But although the combination holds somewhat less promise than “Sandler meets PT Anderson”, I’ve got to admit this looks slightly less toxic than I’d originally feared. The idea that the kids are inadvertently wishing harm upon Uncle Skeeter through their outlandish bedtime-story twists is a promising one that’s sure to leaven some of the inevitable mawkishness of the genre. Yet alas, there’s not a laugh to be found in this trailer. Maybe it’s because I only find Sandler funny when he’s got a little edge, but seeing him soften his trademark character for the kiddies just doesn’t do it for me. After all, if there’s one comedian who shouldn’t be given a reason to dumb down even further, it’s… OK, it’s actually Dane Cook, but if there are two then the second would surely be Adam Sandler. But still, I’m not cringing at the idea of this movie anymore, so that’s a step in the right direction, right?

Morning Deal Report: Nicolas Cage's Dark Knight

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Your weekend box office champ was Lakeview Terrace, with Samuel L. Jackson scaring up $15.6 million. Yes, Neil LaBute fans, this is the director’s biggest haul ever – beating out even The Wicker Man! Other than that, business was slow at the ticket counters, with Burn After Reading dropping to second place with $11.3 million, and My Best Friend’s Girl at third with a meager $8.3 million – good news for all of us hoping for Dane Cook to be banished from show business. Sadly, the romantic comedy that’s actually kind of funny, Ghost Town, took in even less: only $5.2 million. I guess this means American prefers Dane Cook to Ricky Gervais, which is…ominous, to say the least.

Nicolas Cage will reteam with Gone in 60 Seconds director Dominic Sena for Season of the Witch. “Cage plays a 14th century knight transporting a girl suspected of being the witch behind the Black Plague,” says The Hollywood Reporter. “His compatriots help him bring the girl to an abbey of monks trained in exorcising demons.” It’s a supernatural thriller – like The Wicker Man! (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Title of the week honors go to Muchas Gracias, Bob Oppenheimer, a period drama picked up by Miramax. Per THR, “The film centers on an American serviceman in the 1960s who is sent on an appeasement mission to a fishing town in Spain after a U.S. military plane crash results in the accidental detonation of four hydrogen bombs; in addition to his role with the locals, the serviceman also embarks on a relationship.” Hey, sorry about all the radiation! Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?

Related:
When Good Directors Go Bad: The Wicker Man (Neil LaBute)
Abel Ferrara Would Like Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage to Please Die in a Fire

Independent Film Festival of Boston 2008

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

The Boston Film Festival began in 1976 at the late, lamented Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, and was reborn, in a new incarnation, in 1985. Although hardly a big, buzzy fest like Sundance or Toronto, packed with deal-making, career-launching glamour, the BFF was still an exciting venue for independent cinema, where local audiences got their first glimpse of films like Blue Velvet and Down By Law, complete with special guest appearances by the likes of David Lynch. And, while the Boston Film Festival is still up and running, offering hometown premieres of future arthouse fodder like Jesus Camp and The U.S. Versus John Lennon, it’s telling that the Best Comedic Actor Award at last year’s edition of the fest went to Dane Cook for Good Luck Chuck.

But even as The BFF becomes ever more non-essential, the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which kicked off last night with the East Coast premiere of local hero Brad Anderson’s latest, Transsiberian) has restored the excitement and thrill of discovery to Beantown's movie-going diet.

Reflecting the fresh energy and opportunity of the Hub’s resurgent indie scene (as well as its recent adoption by Martin Scorcese and other Hollywood players), the IFFB presents itself as a vital, hands-on event, with a “filmmaker friendly” focus, offering panels like “Breaking into the Boston Film Industry” while championing homegrown talent like Anderson and mumblecore progenitor Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha).

Click here for more information on IFFB 2008 (which runs through April 29), and stay tuned for reviews of this year’s festival fare!

Jessica Alba Is Ready To Be Taken Seriously Now, Please

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Jessica Alba is tired of getting all these scripts containing gratuitous nudity. I know, I know: what’s the problem? “I don't think this is happening to Natalie Portman,” she tells The Independent’s James Mottram, who may have had to wipe the drool off his profile of the actress before he sent it in. “Jessica Alba mesmerises men,” writes Mottram. “It's what she does…Her signature roles so far have seen her in various states of undress, from a bikini-clad diver in Into the Blue to a lasso-wielding stripper in Sin City… Hamstrung by her beauty, she is typical of what Hollywood wants from its young starlets these days: a girl-next-door with just the right amount of sex appeal for the 18-25, male, movie-going demographic.” He goes on to praise Alba’s “ability to stir male loins,” which maybe sounds dirtier than he meant it.

So now that we’re all clear on the fact that Alba is an attractive woman and that this fact goes a long way towards explaining why she’s in movies, it must be about time for Alba’s Serious Actress phase to commence. The first step is to dismiss her previous work as fluff or worse. Of Good Luck, Chuck, her recent rom-com with the execrable Dane Cook, Alba says “It's porn…It wasn't supposed to be like that.” On Into the Blue and her co-star Paul Walker: “Paul was the lead. Paul helped develop it. You wouldn't believe how much that kid got paid! And I don't think he did one ounce of publicity.”

In the J-horror remake The Eye, Alba got to flex her acting muscles as a blind violinist. She learned “basic Braille and how to walk with a cane. And she spent six months learning how to play the violin – even though, in the end, this is seen in just two sequences.” Mottram is also impressed with Alba’s political consciousness – unless he’s putting us on, which seems increasingly likely as the article progresses. Alba “recently appeared in a pro-Barack Obama video directed by Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am.” Her thoughts on the candidate? “Everyone views him as the next JFK. That's where people are putting him, because he's for the people and not necessarily about making more money for corporations that are running our country.”

“Maybe there's a chance of that Oscar yet,” Mottram concludes. Yeah, I think he might be putting us on. Either that or he’s in love.

The Ten Best Murderous Duos in Movies, Part 1

Phil Nugent — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The life of a killer can be a lonely one, whether pursued professionally or as a hobby. In last year's Mr. Brooks, Kevin Costner, who based on some of the stories about his on-the-set behavior that have hit the papers ought to have had some experience with having no one to play with, was so lonesome that he had to summon up an imaginary friend (William Hurt) to give him someone to talk to on those long nights of stalking and shooting. (In the course of the movie, a real person who knows about his secret life approaches him and asks if he can apprentice with him as an aspiring psycho, but since this asshole is played by Dane Cook, having to put him up with him just means Costner needs to lean on the nonexistent Hurt more than ever.) Michael Haneke's new English-language version of his 1996 Funny Games also underlines the need for a killer to bring along a spare, someone with whom he can trade wisecracks and rely on to keep an eye on the prey and one hand on the remote control. (If you haven't seen the movie, don't ask. And if you haven't seen the movie, also don't see the movie.) Then there's Pete and Sidney, who work for Joe Brody in the classic The Big Sleep. After Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe meets them, he asks Brody about the weedier, goofier one: "Is he any good?" "Sidney?" replies Brody. "He's company for Pete." ("He kills me," says Pete, by way of an unsolicited testimonial.) These pairs kill us:

Henry (Michael Rooker) & Otis (Tom Towles), HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1990)

When watching a couple of characters prancing through a movie laying waste to half the cast, you might let your mind wander to the question of just how these folks met. Are there conventions? Classified ads? It's easier to understand why a serial killer would want another pair of hands than to envision how he'd go shopping for someone to supply them. There are any number of ways that such a conversation could go wrong. Not the least of Henry's virtues is that it addresses head on the issue of how a solo killer goes about trying to establish a franchise. Henry is already well into his serial-killing career when, after a good long stretch on Otis's couch, he concludes that his old friend might have the stuff to join him on his visits to the homes of strangers. For a while, it does look as if having the fun-loving Otis along has made it more rewarding to rampage around town performing random acts of dismemberment. But, as our nation has learned since 2000, being a good person with whom to have a beer is not the best qualification for a job requiring careful planning and precise execution. Careless and uncontrollable, Otis finally proves himself an unacceptable risk and winds up as one more load of filler weighing down a Hefty bag. Like Rick in Casablanca, Henry is forced to consider the possibility that he is destined to be one of life's romantic loners.

Mingo (Earl Holliman) & Fante (Lee Van Cleef), THE BIG COMBO (1955)

There’s a lot to love about Joseph H. Lewis’ nasty little noir: the gorgeously dark camerawork by John Alton, the snarling screenplay by Philip Yordan (its vicious snap most clearly evident in an early scene where the mob boss, played toothily by Richard Conte, chews out a losing boxer), the barely sublimated sex and the creative violence. It’s one of the best movies of its kind, and criminally underseen by audiences both today and when it was released. One of the most enjoyable bits of the movie, though, is the presence of Mingo and Fante. These two characters, with their bizarrely unlikely names, are the goons of Conte’s Mr. Brown, and they’re memorably played by the lunkheaded Earl Holliman and the domineering Lee Van Cleef, respectively. Alternately menacing, comical and even sympathetic, they’re two of the best-written minor characters in noir history, but one of the reasons that they’re fondly remembered by a handful of film buffs today (Joss Whedon named a couple of characters in his Firefly series after them) is because, predating Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever by a good twenty years, they are perhaps the first murderous duo on the big screen to be portrayed as gay. Of course, this being the ‘50s, neither Yordan or Lewis could come right out and say so, but it’s made plenty clear for anyone who’s paying attention: Fante and Mingo share a room together, sleep feet apart, bicker like a married couple, express a great deal of, er, manly fondness for one another, and even dine together. Which, in fact, leads to the movie’s big oh-what-a-giveaway line: holed up in a ratty dump waiting for the heat to die down from their latest killing, our gruesome twosome are reduced to dining on take-home lunchmeat, leading Mingo to lament, “I can’t swallow any more salami!” Even if the movie version of The Big Sleep had been allowed to be as explicit about the sexuality of Joel Cairo and Wilmer Cook as the book was, they wouldn’t have been this much fun.

Al (Charles McGraw) & Max (William Conrad), THE KILLERS (1946)

These guys have a special weapon: the dialogue from the classic original short story by Ernest Hemingway. In the story, two strangers walk into the small town diner where they plan to kill "the Swede" for reasons unspecified, and, feeling serenely untouchable in their big-city arrogance, proceed to taunt the rubes while they sit there and wait for their target to walk in. ("We’re killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, bright boy.") The first fifteen or twenty minutes of this movie amount to probably the most faithful film adaptation that Hemingway ever got: McGraw, the star of the cult noir The Narrow Margin (and a man who looked as if he'd been carved out of granite and was royally pissed off about it) and Conrad (TV's Cannon and the narrator of the Bullwinkle cartoons) just play out their little scene together, and then the Heningway story runs out. The movie, which was co-written by Anthony Veiller and the uncredited John Huston and Richard Brooks, and which is not bad at all, proceeds to fill itself out to feature length by having an investigator, played by Edmond O'Brien, fill in the backstory of why the Swede — Burt Lancaster, in his film debut — had a price on his head. There was a sort-of remake in 1964, directed by Don Siegel, which is best remembered as Ronald Reagan's last film as an actor. (He plays the head villain and gets to slap Angie Dickinson around.) The remake, which hews closer to the Lancaster movie than to the Hemingway, eliminates the O'Brien-investigator figure and has the killers themselves — called Charlie and Lee, and played by old pro Lee Marvin and younger hepcat punk Clu Gulager — decide to find out why they'd been hired. This version lacks the crackle that the earlier one had, but it does have a scene where the title characters trap Norman Fell in a steam bath while Gulager mockingly wipes his sunglasses on Mr. Roper's head.

Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) & Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), LA CEREMONIE (1995)

Bonnaire and Huppert are two of France's greatest and most fearless actresses, and it's a wonder it took a director so long to put them together. But when Claude Chabrol finally did so in his masterful thriller, the result was quite possibly the finest psychotic duo in French cinema. Bonnaire plays Sophie, an illiterate yet hyper-competent young maid for a rich family, and Huppert is Jeanne, a nosy, gossipy postal clerk who becomes her friend. "What a pair," Sophie's employer (Jean-Pierre Cassel) exclaims. "One can't read and the other reads our mail!" It's clear that the two women need each other — Jeanne, with her playfully forceful personality, draws Sophie out of her shell, while Sophie gives Jeanne a sympathetic ear compared to the other townspeople who shun her for the accidental killing of her young daughter. Soon, the two of them are partners in crime, getting into all manner of mischief around town and at the charity where they volunteer. But after Sophie is fired for trying to blackmail the family's pregnant daughter, she and Jeanne sneak in one night to take revenge. The night begins innocently enough — some torn clothing here, some ruined bed sheets there — but quickly turns deadly once the girls see the shotguns hanging on the wall. Jeanne wants to have fun by scaring them, while Sophie insists on loading the guns, yet it's entirely possible that they hadn't planned to kill anyone until Cassel happens upon the gun-toting duo in his kitchen. Once they've killed him, they have no choice but to kill off the rest of the family as well. For all the big-screen psychopaths who plan their murders down to the last detail, cases like Sophie's and Jeanne's are arguably more chilling, as the killings aren't a premeditated act of vengeance but the climax of a prank gone horribly wrong. Funny games, indeed.

Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) & Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

Like Sophie and Jeanne, Heavenly Creatures' heroines Pauline Parker (Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Winslet) are a pair who first bond over their shared outcast status. In their case, they both suffer from health problems, and as their classmates take exercise, they become fast friends. Together they rule over a lurid, elaborate fantasy world of their own creation. The pair are inseparable, spending every possible moment together, and they eventually their frenzied teenage hormones lead them to experiment with sex. But more than anything else, it's their fantasies that sustain them and help them to escape their difficult lives in 1950s New Zealand, but they also lead to their downfall. From the beginning, they look down on anyone else, and eventually this disdain turns to paranoia about those who would threaten their happiness together. Of all the perceived threats to the world they've created, the most threatening is Pauline's pragmatic, hardworking mother, so one day the girls decide to join her on a leisurely stroll, and when they're alone on a path, they bludgeon her to death. Heavenly Creatures was based on a real-life case, and while the facts might have lent themselves to a sensationalistic treatment, director Peter Jackson keeps us with his heroines all the way. The film follows Pauline and Juliet into their fantasies (rendered in loving detail by a pre-Lord of the Rings Jackson), mostly because it's the only way to truly understand what led them to carry out their hideous crime. Along the way, we grow to love the sinners even as we hate their sin, and it's because of this that the film's final scene, in which Pauline and Juliet are forced apart by the courts, is almost unbearably sad.

— Paul Clark; Phil Nugent; Leonard Pierce

Click here for Part 2.