The Screengrab : dwayne johnson

Dwayne Johnson Is Coming for Your Children

Phil Nugent — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The New York Times has honored Dwayne Johnson with a profile. Despite reporter Brooks Barnes's rote tribute to the Artist Formerly Known as the Rock's "Paul Bunyan physique and Central Casting good looks", the piece raises suspicions that what really struck the editors as newsworthy is that, in these confused and festering times, at least somebody has got a long-term career plan. Having had mixed success with hit action films such The Scorpion King and non-hit action films such as The Rundown, and having had his acting praised for his work in such unlikely repositories for his talent as Southland Tales and Be Cool, the 36-year-old, six-foot-five-inch star is consciously making his pitch to the youth market. And not the tweens and the twentysomethings, either; it sounds as if his business cards should be printed with the motto, "You Know: For Kids!" A top executive at Walt Disney Studios says of Johnson, “He’s larger than life and has endless charisma but comes across as a regular guy on screen. That makes him a very unique talent.” But the judgement seems to be that, in a casting universe dominated, in Barnes's words, by those "who are either intense and brooding (Christian Bale) or pudgy and dorky (Seth Rogen)", the Rock lacks an "edge." That might help to explain why one is drawn to him, as to solid flotsam floating past in a hurricane, when he's passing for the most normal thing in the context of the storm of weirdness that was Southland Tales. "“Audiences, particularly kids," says director Andy Fickman, "seem to love discovering that a guy this big and this good looking is actually very sweet and very funny." As did the autograph-seeking stranger who, Barnes writes, interrupted Johnson's dinnertime interview to ask, "“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt you while you have a knife in your hand..."

The movie that set Johnson on his new path was Fickman's The Game Plan, a 2007 family-friendly Disney movie involving football and an adorable eight-year-old moppet that turns out to be one of those things that did monster business while remaining off the radar off anyone without kids. Fickman directed Johnson's new vehicle, Race to Witch Mountain, a "re-imagining"--"remake" is such an ugly word--of the 1975 Escape to Witch Mountain, forever known to people of my generation as "the one with the flying Winnebago." (I am not entirely certain that I have actually seen Escape to Witch Mountain, but I saw the TV commercial for it so many times that Eddie Albert's read of the line "You kids have powers that are beyond belief!" is embedded in my memory as if it were my first kiss, which given the circumstances and quality of my first kiss, it might as well have been.) Although the new movie has a better-than-respectable cast that includes Carla Gugino, Ciarán Hinds. Tom Everett Scott, and AnnaSophia Robb (of Bridge to Terabithia), Johnson's big head is undeniably the focal point of the ad campaign, flying Winnebagos be damned. After that, Johnson will take on the title role in Fix's $45 million Tooth Fairy; it will require that he don a tutu and wield a magic wand, which means that, if nothing else, Vince McMahon will standing in line at the box office at 12:01 A.M. on opening day. (Since you asked, Johnson has seen The Wrestler. “That film rang really true,” is his verdict. “It’s sad, but that’s exactly what happens to a lot of those guys.” It now seems far enough from being what's likely to happen to him that Barnes might have been pushing it by finding reason to drop Mickey Rourke's name twice in the course of the article.) In the meantime, Johnson has appeared at the Grammys, the Oscars, "the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, guest starred on Hannah Montana and served as the grand marshal of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Main Street Parade," all as part of his effort to have himself declared, as Barnes puts it, "Mom-Approved." It is hard not to wish him the best. He really is talented, he really does seem like a nice guy, and he even does his own stunts--of necessity, "because it is so difficult to find stuntmen of his size." Burt Reynolds would trade everything he ever had to have read that, just once.

Schwarzenegger to Make Cameo Appearance in New Stallone Movie; Old Action Rivals to Bury Freakishly Large, Bursting-Veined Hatchet

Phil Nugent — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:30:00 GMT

When Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he was running for governor of California in the wake of the disappointed reaction to the third Terminator movie, a lot of people were quick to make the obvious joke that turning to politics might be a good career move for him; running a state the size of California had to be easier for a guy who was then in his mid-fifties than trying to continue holding up his end in the action-icon game. In fact, his last movie appearance before taking office was a cameo at the start of 2003's The Rundown, in which he seemed to be graciously passing the baton to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The news that Schwarzenegger has agreed to do another cameo, as himself, in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables, should probably not be taken as a sign how just bad things have gotten for those who are supposed to be holding the reins out West. The Gov contributed a cameo to the 2004 Around the World in 80 Days, directed by Frank Coraci, a movie that was seen by approximately one-hundred thousandth of the number of people who recently saw Coraci and his leading man, Steve Coogan, making cruel sport of Joaquin Phoenix and Christian Bale. And he can also be seen, briefly and as himself, in a forthcoming Indian film, Kambakkht Ishq, which has an inside-Hollywood story and includes a cameo by...Sylvester Stallone.

Personally, we applaud the Governor's efforts to help cover the school budget by taking part time jobs. It's not as if he could sign up for a shift at Mickey D's--there's no way they make those hats big enough that head. And while some might worry that a state leader should not put his dignity in peril, in Schwarzenegger's case, that ship probably sailed somewhere around the time of Hercules in New York. (When you're making your movie debut alongside Arnold Stang, and you're the one whose voice they decide to redub, dignity is not a product that you're ever going to be asked to endorse.) Still, for those of us who remember the '80s, it's a little funny to see him doing Stallone a favor, and even funnier to see Stallone asking him for one. I don't suppose they were ever Spider-man and Doc Ock in the heated-feuds department, but from at least the mid-80s, when Schwarzenegger began to overtake Stallone in the steroid-idol sweepstakes just when Sly had impressed himself mightily by proving, with the success of Rambo, that he had it in him to embody more than one franchise meathead character with a five-letter name beginning with "R", there's always been an undercurrent of competitive tension between them, made all the more savory by Stallone's spectacular job at failing to hold up his end. One critic detected a "fear of Schwarzenegger" theme running through many of Stallone's mid-80s films--not just Rambo but also Rocky IV and Cobra--in which he was roughed up but not bested by huge, muscleheaded figures who often came with scary accents. Stallone even tried to duplicate Schwarzenegger's career-expanding success in turning to comedy, but while it not for us to say that Oscar and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot did not compare to Twins or Kindergarten Cop in the laugh riot department, they didn't do nearly as well at the box office. But the fact remains that last year's Rambo, and its predecessor, Rocky XXXVII, did a lot better than a great many thoughtful observers--feel free to take that as a synonym for "me"--expected them to. That means that Stallone has had two geriatric hits while Arnold has been off running some dumb ol' state. If Schwarzenegger misses his old job, being on the set of The Expendables should make him feel right at home: in addition to Stallone, who's also on board as writer-director, the cast includes Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, and Roberts's new P.R. man, Mickey Rourke, making the set a virtual watering hole for has-beens and comeback kids. It's been reported that Schwarzenegger has been preparing for his cameo by telling people that Stallone is "a a terrific director and writer, and a great actor." If he's really been doing that, without crossing his eyes to keep a straight face, he's both a master politician and a better actor than we remember.

Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" Pleases Mankind, Annoys Iran

Phil Nugent — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Mick Foley, who after years of journeyman work and trying out various personas achieved rasslin' stardom with the WWF as Mankind, has gazed upon Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler and, in Slate, given it his professional seal of approval. Foley, who has written a trio of best-selling memoirs as well as some children's books, reports that he had been approached in the past about writing the definitive wrestling movie and that he turned down an offer to serve as a consultant on the Aronofsky film, figuring that if "I felt like having my name attached to a failure... I'd write another novel." But after attending a screening of the movie, Foley was moved by Mickey Rourke's performance as the faded '80s wrestling icon Randy "the Ram" Robinson, honoring the actor's ability to make "the pathetic seem heroic", and impressed by the film's documentary-style atmosphere. (Aronofsky shot with "working independent wrestlers" and shot "at real independent wrestling shows"; as the director mentions in this interview, this level of verisimitude extended even to the scenes at a New Jersey grocery-store deli counter, where the Ram supplements his meager income by donning a hairnet and spooning out potato salad, and where moviegoers can see Rourke, in character, affably messing around with real customers.) "Rourke", notes Foley, "deserves great credit not only for whipping himself into incredible shape—packing 30 pounds of muscle on for the role—but for doing his wrestling homework. Learning the trade at age 52 could not have been easy, but Rourke's in-ring work is good enough to pass this wrestler's sniff test. No one will ever confuse Randy's clothesline with Stan Hansen's, and the scenes surely benefited from careful editing, but much of what Randy did—his flying 'Ram Jam'; a Japanese enzugiri kick—actually looks pretty good. Importantly, it doesn't look any better than it should. His first in-ring scene, with a starry-eyed rookie thrilled just to be in the same arena with a former mat legend, looks realistically rudimentary."

"And everyone involved—Rourke, Aronofsky, independent wrestler Necro Butcher, stunt coordinator Douglas Crosby—deserves credit for creating a memorable midmovie bloodbath, a fight involving broken glass, barbed wire, a staple gun, and other implements." In fact, "Necro Butcher"--who appears in the cast credits listed as playing his "character" under his real name, Dylan Keith Summers--is one of a many-headed ensemble supporting cast that lends the picture a unique flavor. First seen backstage politely negotiating with Randy about just how much the staple gun will be employed in their match, he looks like a balding high school professor who's let his beard get a little out of hand over summer break. Once he hits the stage dressed only in cut-off jeans, he takes on the air of a deranged hillbilly who's come down from the mountains to seek his fortune working in Rob Zombie movies. As much as the film has been touted as a one-man show for the deserving comeback kid Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler would probably be unbearably bleak if not for the comradely vibe it gets from the weirdly lovable crew of hairless muscleheads and tattooed nightmares swarming over its set, all of whom turn out, on close examination, to be orderly professionals who are deeply solicitous of each other's fears and tender feelings. It's a reminder of what an untapped talent bin wrestling may be for casting directors willing to think outside the box. (Mick Foley, whose likable, smarter-than-you-think schlub act ought to make him a natural for the character actor clubhouse, has performed honorably in such TV series as G. vs. E. and Now and Again and recently turned up in a small role in the thriller Anamorph. Terry Funk, who pioneered the extreme-regular-guy persona that Foley updated for the age of flannel, has done good work in small parts in such pictures as Paradise Alley and Road House. And Foley's old wrestling partner Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson may have entered movies as a side of action beef, but in the last half dozen years, he's grown more as an actor than Stallone or Schwarzenegger did in twenty-five. This is a guy who managed to maintain his dignity in both The Scorpion King and Southland Tales!)

The Wrestler leads to Randy's twentieth-anniversary rematch with a burnoosed opponent known as "the Ayatollah"--played by an African-American wrestler named Ernest "the Cat" Miller-- who he met at Madison Square Garden in 1989, and who tries to garrotte him with a flagpole bearing an Iranian flag. (The movie's terrific opening credits sequence deftly places the match in its context as a high point of the trash culture of the '80s, linking Randy to such swaggering ephemera as the hair-metal rock he loves and the outdated Nintendo game that his most celebrated match inspired.) Apparently '80s nostalgia isn't a big concern of Iran's, because it's being reported that "newspapers and websites" in that country have "condemned the film" for this battle royale sequence, which includes a moment when the mighty Ram snatches the flagpole away and breaks it in two. To be fair, I don't know if they get WWF Smackdown in Tehran, and to a people without the slightest grasp of the nuances of professional wrestling, this imagery must seem like a weird and needless provocation. Still, as far as giving the Iranian government and media something to bitch about, it's a long fall from the heady days of 300 and Persepolis. Maybe, in the spirit of the new, post-Bush, Vince McMahon should be dispatched on a diplomatic mission to explain that, if only the Ram's big match had happened a year later than it did, his opponent would have been wearing an Iraqi military uniform and tried to belt him upside the head with cannisters of nerve gas.

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Morning Deal Report: Keira Knightley’s Last Night

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Keira Knightley re-teams with The Jacket screenwriter Massy Tadjedin, who will make her directorial debut with Last Night. Per Variety, “Story follows a married couple, apart for a night while the husband takes a business trip with a colleague to whom he’s attracted. While he’s resisting temptation, his wife encounters her past love.” Tadjedin is also at work on an untitled project for Steven Spielberg.

The new family-friendly version of The Rock, who would really appreciate it if you’d call him Dwayne Johnson, will star in a movie based on everyone’s favorite section of Disneyland – Tomorrowland. Or will he? This self-contradictory Variety report first says, “After turning the theme park ride Pirates of the Caribbean into a blockbuster film trilogy, Disney is circling an entire segment of its theme park — Tomorrowland — as inspiration for a space movie that will star Dwayne Johnson.” But two paragraphs later: “Disney denies the film has been titled Tomorrowland or is dedicated to the park’s section, a futuristic area of the Magic Kingdom that includes such attractions as Space Mountain.” Hey, just as long as it’s not based on It’s a Small World, we’re happy.

Robert Zemeckis can’t get enough of that motion-capture technology. He is once again teaming with Monster House collaborator Gil Kenan for “a big-screen version of Airman, a children's adventure book by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer.” Incidentally, Colfer is now at work on a sixth installment in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series called And Another Thing. Anyone familiar with this guy’s work? I’m wondering if I should be intrigued or appalled.

Related:
Keira Knightley Wants to Be an Actress When She Grows Up
Every Which Way to Witch Mountain

Morning Deal Report: Ashley Judd Meets the Tooth Fairy

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:30:00 GMT

I vaguely remember reporting a while back that Dwayne “The Rock” John had signed to star as The Tooth Fairy, but I wasn’t sure if that happened here in the real world or in a dream. (Yes, I sometimes dream of blogging for the Screengrab. In my underwear. Which really doesn’t distinguish it from reality in any way.) Variety confirms this is really happening with this morning’s news that Ashley Judd has joined the project. “Johnson plays a minor league hockey player nicknamed the Tooth Fairy. Judd plays his girlfriend, a single mother of two kids.” The screenwriters include Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, so you can expect a big-screen sitcom here.

Regular Steven Spielberg collaborator Jeff Nathanson will adapt The Maze of Bones, the first novel in the 39 Clues series. “39 Clues is built around the extended Cahill family, the most powerful clan in the world,” says The Hollywood Reporter. “The series is designed as an interactive adventure for kids ages 8-12 that will involve books published simultaneously in several countries, online games and hundreds of collectible cards as readers compete to solve the mystery of the Cahills' power by searching around the world and through history.”

And in giant robot news, Voltron: Defender of the Universe is headed for the big screen. It will be directed by Max Makowski, someone I had never heard of before this morning but who I have now decided I hate. Per Variety, Makowski “most recently penned the big screen adaptation of TV series Hawaii Five-O for Warner Bros. He also is attached to direct Warners' feature based on series Kung Fu and an American redo of Japanese pic Shinobi at U.” See? You hate him too, don’t you?

Related:
The Rock IS "The Tooth Fairy" and Other Worst Case Scenarios
Spielberg Gets a Clue

Geek Love: The Unmanliness of the New Action Heroes

Phil Nugent — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

"Now the geek is god in Hollywood." That's emerging conventional wisdom as expressed by publicist Tony Angellotti. emerging declares the veteran publicist and Oscar campaigner Tony Angellotti. "Every generation redefines its heroes and the heroes of today are slight of stature and geeky." The emergence, not just in starring roles but in action hero roles, of such as Shia LaBeof (Disturbia, Transformers, and now Indiana Jones's kid), James McAvoy (Wanted), and Emile Hirsch (Speed Racer) is apparently setting off a wave of soul-searching in Hollywood, where it seems somehow significant that these are the fellows stepping up to "replace" the likes of Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone. If this were, say, 1968, there'd probably be think pieces appearing analyzing this development in terms of a political shift in the zeitgeist; the Iraq war and other setbacks to our great national ego trip have tarnished the steroid-addled heroes who emerged full-bore in the 1980s and made audiences quicker to look for heroes who seem more thoughtful and capable of self-doubt. But nobody talks like that anymore, and today's self-appointed experts are more likely to speak the language of the pop psychologist. Angellotti, who seems personally affronted by some of the newer success stories ("Do these kids even shave?"), has this theory: "For decades, we wanted our heroes to be who we could never be, but this generation of filmgoers wants heroes they can relate to, who are similar to them. They see themselves in these somewhat awkward, geeky, hairless-faced guys. They can relate to them. Stars like Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis were men; these are boys, and they're appealing to younger audiences."

Others, such as Peter Safran, a man so smart that he freely admits to having produced Meet the Spartans, thinks it's a supply-and-demand issue. "I don't think it's happening because it's what the audience is demanding; it's happening because the old-style action hero isn't emerging. These are the people who are emerging now and clearly audiences respond to seeing themselves up on the screen. Shia LaBeouf's audience grew up with him - they are very familiar with him and he's a legitimate star today." Some of these deep thinkers may be getting a bit ahead of themselves. Whatever he can or can't bench-press, Shia LaBeouf is a talented guy with tremendous reserves of audience rapport; whatever his future holds, he's much more plausible star material than a lot of the people who've been hyped as alleged up-and-comers since Andrew McCarthy and Judd Nelson were figuring out which end of the razor you held to your face. (Judd's still working it out.) More to the point, some of the "men" that these guys (who, let's face it, may have their own deep-seated personal reasons for preferring heroes with hairline issues and calorie-intake counselors) love so much had their own callow periods when they first appeared on film. There were a few years there, between the point where Moonlighting started to turn brown and Die Hard's opening weekend, where it wasn't clear that Bruce Willis would ever wipe the smirk off his face and evolve into something more durable than an overage frat rat, and Mel Gibson's early success as the stone-faced pain merchant Mad Max was something he had to grow past on his way to becoming an assured, emotionally expressive leading man. (Then space worms ate his brain. But that's another story.)

In the end, the overmuscled, inaccessible terminators of the last couple of decades may be the ones who look like an aberration in the history of Hollywood stardom. Pauline Kael once defined the recipe for success as a male movie star as having the strength "to be one's own man" while still expressing "the sensitivity that is attractive to women." Stallone conveyed some of that sensitivity in the movie that made him a star, Rocky, then lost it when he pumped himself into a cartoon killing machine, a move that proved to have only short-term dividends at the box-office. And Schwarzenegger never became enough of an actor to express it even if he had access to it; if his political career continues to prosper, it'll enhance the likelihood that he'll ultimately be seen as an all-around celebrity success story whose movie career was just a stepping stone to bigger things. These guys were big, the biggest stars in the world at a time when testosterone overload was what the world seemed to want, but when the world moved on, they were painted in a corner, and left behind no progeny above the level of, say, Dolph Lundgren. (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who Arnold more or less officially designated as his rightful heir in a cameo in The Rundown, has shown himself more interested in developing as a character actor than in making a quick payday from walking away from explosions in slow motion.) The Shias and the Emiles may actually be closer to the true face of Hollywood tradition.