The Screengrab : josh brolin

Morning Deal Report: Megan Fox Goes Deep

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Transformers star Megan Fox is taking additional steps to shore up her fan base with comic book nerds. Not only is she in negotiations to co-star with Josh Brolin in Jonah Hex, but according to The Hollywood Reporter she is also set to star in the comic book adaptation Fathom. The story “follows a young woman named Aspen who learns she is a member of a race of aquatic humanoids who possess the ability to control water.” Aquaman, eat your heart out.

Kevin Smith has two stars and a new title for his project formerly known as A Couple of Dicks. The newly titled A Couple of Cops will star Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Smith’s major studio debut for Warner Bros., “centered on a pair of cops who track down a stolen baseball card, rescue a Mexican beauty and must deal with gangsters and laundered drug money,” per Variety.

Christopher Nolan’s latest has a title – Inception – and a star – Leonardo DiCaprio. “Script has been kept under wraps but the studio calls it a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” I’ll show you the architecture of the mind!

Related:
Beyond Spike and Clint: More Filmmaker Feuds
When Good Directors Go Bad?: Insomnia (Christopher Nolan)

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.

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

And the nominees are...

Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road

Paul Clark Predicts: Heath Ledger

Probably the most iron-clad pick of the major nominees, giving Hollywood a chance to honor one of their brightest young talents who was gone far too soon. Although if by some chance there’s a sentiment out there to give it to someone who’s still around, I’d say Brolin would be the best bet -- Hoffman just won, Shannon’s lucky just to be nominated, and they’d never give Downey an Oscar for a performance that controversial. But yeah, this is Ledger’s all the way.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Heath Ledger

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Heath Ledger

Josh Brolin’s terrific performance in Milk may be diffused by the fact that he’s surrounded by other great supporting roles. Downey deserved his nomination, but won’t get it in a million years. But really, what are we even talking about here? If there’s ever been, forgive me, a mortal lock in the history of the Oscars, it’s Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.

Should Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Will Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Nick Schager Predicts: Heath Ledger

Iconic role in an immense blockbuster? And it’s his final performance? Ledger is this year’s sure bet.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Heath Ledger

Any other year, Philip Seymour Hoffman, since he's in enough high profile movies this year to warrant it. Rightfully, though the award belongs to Josh Brolin. This being not a normal year, but rather The Year Heath Ledger Died, he will get posthumously rewarded.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Heath Ledger

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: HEATH LEDGER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

And the nominees are...

Amy Adams – Doubt
Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler

Paul Clark Predicts: Viola Davis

I’d say this is between Davis and Cruz, but the role wins it for Davis. After all, the role has already brought home a Tony, and while it’s tempting to think Cruz could accept the Oscar from her boyfriend and Vicky Cristina Barcelona costar Javier Bardem, Davis’ Oscar clip will be hard to beat.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Viola Davis

I really, really want Penélope Cruz to win this, simply because she gave (for me, anyway) the most memorable Supporting Actress performance of the year...but the Academy hates comedy and loves drama, especially snot-running down the face “Oscar” moments like Viola Davis’ cameo in Doubt. Plus...diversity! And, hey, Viola ain't no slouch and totally knocked her scene outta the park, so no hard feelings. Taraji P. Henson doesn’t deserve it: she was likeable enough, but her performance was all about make-up, so I’ll be mad if she wins. Amy Adams doesn’t deserve it, either: she was fine, but the role was fairly bland. And I wouldn’t mind seeing Marisa Tomei win, but I’m guessing the Mickey Rooney wing of the Academy watched about five minutes of The Wrestler before snapping it off in disgust and reaching for that nice Benjamin Button screener again...

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Marisa Tomei

To hear a lot of the entertainment pundits tell it, Marisa Tomei is a stone cold lock for her role in The Wrestler, but I’m not convinced. She still catches a decent amount of flak from critics who don’t think she deserved her first Oscar. Viola Davis seems the most deserving for Doubt, but may suffer from a vote-split with Amy Adams. This one may be the most difficult of the major categories to call.

Should Win: Viola Davis, Doubt
Will Win: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Nick Schager Predicts: Viola Davis

Davis takes supporting actress honors, because Doubt has to win something. And because Woody Allen’s excruciating Barcelona-travelogue-cum-phony-threesome-dramedy can’t in any way be honored. Please.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Viola Davis

Because she was that good and because the Academy will want to throw something Doubt's way.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Penélope Cruz

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: VIOLA DAVIS

Stay tuned for no Miley Cyrus, no Bruce Springsteen, no Jon Stewart and some Indian guy called Gulzar as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues!

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

JENKINS!!!!! (a.k.a., Screengrab's Oscar Nod Prediction Results)

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Just wanted to give a big Screengrab high-five to the always hardworking, frequently overlooked (until now) character actor Richard Jenkins for his well-deserved Best Actor nomination for The Visitor. I’ve been a Jenkins fan ever since his great comic role as the long-suffering federal agent in Flirting With Disaster, and I’m happy to see him get bumped to the A list (or at least the B+ list) at last.

It was also nice to see Michael Shannon vault onto the red carpet outta nowhere. The wife and I just saw Revolutionary Road the other night, and shortly thereafter we turned to each other and said, “Why no Best Supporting Actor buzz for the crazy guy?” So we’re glad the Academy felt the same way. (And Penelope Cruz was always a lock for a Best Supporting Actress nod, but I’m still happy it’s official.)

On the other hand, while I wasn’t really expecting Oscar love for Debra Winger or Sally Hawkins, it’s still too bad they got snubbed (although Hawkins at least got a nice shiny Golden Globe for her trouble).

In other news, the ongoing Benjamin Button love fest (really? Brad Pitt gave a better performance than Clint in Gran Torino?) continues to baffle me as much as the curious case of Doubt not being a Best Picture or Best Director contender despite nominations for the screenplay and just about every actor with a speaking part in the movie. (Man, the Academy must really hate Dutch angles!)

But the big question you’re asking yourself is: which Screengrab staffer (or reader) scored highest in our Oscar Nomination Prediction Pool?

Well, first I should mention the staff as a whole scored a (fairly) respectable B- with our collective overall picks, correctly guessing 24.5 out of 30 nominations (for an 81.67% accuracy rating, if I did the math right).

Although we flubbed one Best Picture prediction and one Best Director slot, I can’t say I’m terribly upset about the Academy snubbing Christopher Nolan or The Dark Knight. (Scott Von Doviak and Sarah Clyne Sundberg, meanwhile, were the only ones on the staff who picked The Reader for the fifth Best Picture spot, having fortuitously remembered that Academy bylaws require at least one Holocaust-themed nomination per year).

Speaking of which, the Screengrab accurately anticipated a Best Actress nomination for Kate Winslet...but only Sarah had the ESP-Fu to anticipate the nod would be for The Reader, not Revolutionary Road. EW.com explained it thusly: “The Academy overruled a campaign and placed Kate Winslet in the lead-acting category for The Reader instead of Revolutionary Road. She may not have gotten two nominations, but this increases her chance at an eventual win.” (Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure what they’re talking about.)

We also mistakenly forecast Best Actress noms for Cate Blanchett and the delightful Ms. Hawkins (although a few of us managed to correctly forecast nods for Angelina Jolie and Melissa Leo in our individual picks).

Nobody here (except, ahem, me) saw the Jenkins nomination coming, but I also joined the general mistaken consensus that Clint would snake a Best Actor nod away from Brad Pitt.

Finally, we only scored three and three and a half out of five in both tricky Best Supporting categories, favoring Ralph Fiennes and James Franco over Josh Brolin and Michael Shannon and (in a tie) Debra Winger and Kate Winslet (for The Reader...we’re still confused about that whole thing) over Taraji P. Henson.

As for which Screengrab writer (or reader playing along at home) had the most correct individual nomination predictions...well (ahem), I’ll just let the scores speak for themselves...

15 – Leonard Pierce
16 – Sarah Clyne Sundberg
21 – Iris Steensma
22 – Paul Clark
22 – Scott Von Doviak
24 – Andrew Osborne

Woo-hoo! Yes! In your face...uh...esteemed colleagues!

Okay, that's it for now! See you soon for the next round!

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Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:30:00 GMT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon)

Heath Ledger was penciled in here even before The Dark Knight was released. Philip Seymour Hoffman's work as the Penguin…er, the potentially pedophilic priest in Doubt should secure him a nod. Michael Sheen is probably the lead in Frost/Nixon, but his publicist will push him for this category. Josh Brolin drinks your Milk. That leaves one spot for the other comeback kid, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder.

WINNER
Ledger, who will not attend the ceremony.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Leonardo Di Caprio, Revolutionary Road
Ralph Fiennes, The Reader

Being that Heath Ledger gave an excellent performance and then went and died, there is no way he won't be nominated for The Dark Knight. For the same reason it isn't unlikely he'll win. Otherwise Josh Brolin stands a fighting chance. Especially given that his performance as Harvey Milk's killer in Milk is the type of role this category was made for. Well, that and taking care of actors that for whatever reason didn't end up in best leading actor. Which would explain why we find Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire in here. Let's face it; he just isn't famous enough (yet) to get nominated for Best Actor. Ralph Fiennes seems like a perennial nominee; if he didn't get a golden man for Schindler's List there is no way he will this year, but consider the nomination a consolation prize. Leonardo DiCaprio will be in here too, but we all know he's just filler.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
James Franco (Milk)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

We all agree that this is Ledger’s to lose, right? Likewise, Brolin and Oscar perennial Hoffman are looking pretty locked at this point. With The Soloist moved to spring, Tropic Thunder is the best chance for the Academy to honor the clean-and-sober Downey, while filling the annual comic scene-stealer slot for this category. The race for the final nomination is pretty wide open. Nominating Dev Patel here would be the voters’ best shot at giving crowd-pleaser Slumdog an acting nomination, but while a Patel nomination would likely signal a Best Picture win for the film, the actor’s only major nomination to date has come from the SAG, who are generally more inclined to recognize youth performances. Besides, will the voters really go for his relatively colorless performance, which is really a lead? Other possibilities include Happy-Go-Lucky’s driving instructor from hell Eddie Marsan (who’s been cleaning up the critics’ awards), or such reliable character actors as Bill Irwin (Rachel Getting Married) and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road). But I’m predicting a second supporting nomination for Milk in James Franco, whose relationship with Sean Penn’s Harvey is the emotional center of the film.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
James Franco (Milk)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

So, yes, of course Heath Ledger will be nominated and win, resulting in a two-hanky “on-behalf-of” acceptance speech from...hmm...Michelle Williams? Christopher Nolan? Well, that’s a guessing game for another time. And the nomination for Ledger’s whiteface performance will book-end with Robert Downey, Jr.’s blackface role in Tropic Thunder (overshadowed in the comeback kid department by Mickey Rourke’s meatface role in The Wrestler, natch). Philip Seymour Hoffman and Josh Brolin seem like safe, SAG approved bets for their solid performances in Doubt and Milk respectively, and while I liked Tom Cruise’s what-the-hell performance in Tropic Thunder a lot more than some of my Screengrab colleagues (and think it would be a hoot if the Academy followed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s lead and nominated him), I think the fifth nod will officially go to James Franco for Milk (but really for Pineapple Express).

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (The Soloist)
Ralph Fiennes (The Reader)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Liev Schreiber (Defiance)

Schreiber, a terrific actor who’s long been ignored by most of Hollywood, will get the nomination Defiance earns. Fiennes will be a perfunctory pick, but Brolin’s nod as Dan White will be well-deserved. Downey gets the nomination for The Soloist because he’s had an amazing year, but they won’t nominate him for a comedy (Tropic Thunder) or an action blockbuster (Iron Man). In the end, though, who’s kidding who? Especially since The Dark Knight won’t be getting anything else, Ledger is – forgive me – a mortal lock for his unforgettable turn as the Joker. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Though Brolin deserves his nomination, it’ll come at the expense of James Franco and Emile Hirsch in the same movie.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
JOSH BROLIN, ROBERT DOWNEY, JR., JAMES FRANCO/RALPH FIENNES (TIE), PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, HEATH LEDGER

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
HEATH LEDGER

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

Morning Deal Report: Horton Hears a Hex

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Horton Hears a Who director Jimmy Hayward has lined up his next gig: he’ll be bringing DC comics gunslinger Jonah Hex to the screen. “The character of Hex, known for having the right side of his face disfigured and wearing a Confederate army uniform, was a rough-and-tumble gunslinger and part-time bounty hunter whose adventures always ended in blood,” notes The Hollywood Reporter. Josh Brolin is attached to star as Hex.

The Painted Veil director John Curran will direct Keira Knightley in The Beautiful and the Damned. “Hanna Weg script concerns the turbulent marriage of alcoholic writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his mercurial wife Zelda Sayre, who was schizophrenic. The tempestuous relationship, which unfolded in the high society of the Roaring '20s, inspired some of the novelist's works,” Variety reports.

Fresh from inflicting Bedtime Stories upon us, Adam Shankman will direct a remake of Bye Bye Birdie for Columbia. “A stage favorite for the past half-century, Birdie centers on Conrad Birdie, a popular singer whose character is based loosely on Elvis Presley. He's about to be shipped off to the army, but as part of a publicity stunt, he agrees to one last encounter with a fan before he goes to war.” Ah yes, it’s truly a timeless tale, but without Dick Van Dyke, we’re not interested.

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Andrew Osborne's Top Ten Movies of 2008 (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:47:00 GMT

So, by the end of first quarter 2008, I’d seen exactly one memorably list-worthy movie (see #7) and figured it was just gonna be one of those low tide kinda years after a pretty strong 2007 (Knocked Up, Juno, The King of Kong, Gone Baby Gone, Hell On Wheels, Zodiac, 2 Days In Paris, etcetera). And yet, looking back over the past twelve months, I have to admit, to paraphrase Charlie Brown, it wasn’t such a bad little tree, with a lot of perfectly enjoyable (if not terribly memorable) films, as well as a number of...

WILDCARDS: (potentially list-worthy movies unseen by moi in 2008): Man On Wire, Encounters at the End of the World, Waltz with Bashir, Trouble the Water, Let the Right One In, Revolutionary Road, Gran Torino

And now, the Top 10 I did see...

1. YOUNG@HEART

Usually, the top of my Top Ten list is something I’d be happy to watch again at the drop of a hat, but I suspect I’ll never, ever sit through Young@Heart again: the first time was wrenching (and memorable) enough. My wife and I saw the film at the Harvard Square Loews with my Dad, who’s been in AARP territory for quite a while now, and a theater half full of strangers. For the first thirty minutes or so, Stephen Walker’s documentary about feisty senior citizens singing ironic hipster doofus perennials like “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “Staying Alive” was a hoot...and then the first lovable oldster died. And then another, and another, like some horror movie of age we’re all trapped in, and suddenly every single person in the theater was getting smacked right in the kisser with the harsh realities of mortality, and nearly all of us were openly sobbing. Yet for all that, the film is never mawkish: the chorus members are presented as a platoon of happy warriors, singing at the top of their lungs as they march into the shadow of the valley of death, fighting tooth and nail for every last drop of joy they can squeeze out of life, even as their comrades fall around them. As I said before in my 2008 half-time wrap-up, I try not to judge people based on their personal tastes when it comes to movies, but if you can sit through the Young@Heartster’s performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You” (punctuated by the rasp and click of the soloist’s respirator) without a lump in your throat, you may need to check your own pulse.

2. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

While not as powerful or memorable as Young@Heart, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky was an equally heartfelt (and far less harrowing) film-going experience, with a similar theme (not to mention a timely one, given the world’s collective George W. Bush hangover): get busy living or get busy dying. Yes, life can be tough and full of injustice and, yes, it’s easy to be aloof and snarky and negative about it, but whether or not that makes anything better (for yourself or anyone else) is the question Leigh tackles here. Underpaid elementary school teacher Poppy (the infectiously great Sally Hawkins) is a relentlessly cheery optimist, the sort of person easily dismissed as a shallow, annoying bubblehead...in fact, one guy I know found the character so irritating he ditched the film after fifteen minutes. But then Poppy encounters her polar opposite, a seething mass of bitterness (embodied in a visceral performance by Eddie Marsan) whose dismal, head-full-of-spiders malevolence provides the necessary contrast to show the true strength and value of Hawkins’ irrepressible sunbeam, raising questions (and suspense) about which of the two worldviews will ultimately triumph.

3. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Like my fellow Screengrabber Scott Von Doviak, I didn’t expect this Jonathan Demme curiosity to wind up on my Best of 2008 list. Watching it the first time, it seemed unfocused and self-indulgent with its meandering Altman-wannabe pace, its self-consciously eccentric diversity and its melodramatic Lifetime-esque family drama. Yet because of its unusual construction, Rachel Getting Married feels now like a memory of an actual wedding I attended rather than just a movie I watched, adding extra punch to my recollections of the infrequent but correspondingly vivid moments of drama like the blistering showdown between Anne Hathaway’s loose cannon recovering addict Kym (a.k.a. Shiva the Destroyer) and her mother (Debra Winger...damn!) –- though even if Demme hadn’t gotten all artsy with the structure, Hathaway’s mesmerizing performance alone would have been worth the price of admission.

4. FROST/NIXON

Ron Howard’s cinematic adaptation of the acclaimed Peter Morgan play is what I call a “guys-in-suits” movie (one of my favorite genres) where formidable, top-level professionals like Howard, Morgan, Frank Langella (recreating his Tony-winning stage performance as Nixon) and the reliably great Michael Sheen (as Frost) focus their collective talents on a film about formidable, top-level professionals (like the real Frost and Nixon), sparring and strategizing and walking quickly down hallways and corridors rattling off witty bon mots and dense bits of jargon in the midst of high-stakes negotiations and race-against-time showdowns. Some critics have noted the actual historic impact of the Frost/Nixon interviews wasn’t really all that monumental, but the film charts high on my list as an entertaining poker tournament between two fascinating characters (with extra points for Toby Jones’ hilarious cameo as super-agent Swifty Lazar).

5. MILK

Sometimes timing is everything. In twenty years, critics will still be praising Sean Penn’s amazing transformation from scowling, self-important killjoy movie star into sweet, gawky force-of-nature gay activist Harvey Milk, but hopefully by 2028 this film will seem like just another well-made but otherwise run-of-the-mill “issue” film about an issue that’s no longer really an issue. But here in 2008, in the wake of the Proposition 8 disgrace, Milk is still, sadly, very much of the moment, and even for some progressives, the casual man-on-man kissing and romance between Penn’s character and his lovers (James Franco and Diego Luna) is a rare enough sight to give pause. From a historical standpoint, I was horrified to learn that Dan White (well captured by Josh Brolin in a chilling “mundanity of evil” performance) could murder Harvey Milk and the freakin’ mayor of a major American city in cold blood and get just seven years in prison on a manslaughter rap...that fact, combined with the anti-gay slanders of the McCain/Palin campaign (and, really, every Republican campaign in recent memory), the controversy over Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural and the sense of communion at the packed house screenings of Milk during its opening weekend are just some of the reasons Gus Van Sant’s good movie feels like such a great and important one now.

Click Here For Part Two

Morning Deal Report: Golden Globe Nominees Announced, NY Critics Sound Off

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button lead the way with five nominations each, as the Golden Globe nominees were announced this morning. Both were nominated for Best Drama, along with The Reader, Revolutionary Road and Slumdog Millionaire. Meryl Streep is nominated for both Doubt and Mamma Mia, matched by Kate Winslet for The Reader and Revolutionary Road. Other acting nominees include Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler and Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight – the sole Bat-nomination. Check out the full roster here.

The New York Film Critics Circle drank up Milk, naming it the best movie of the year and honoring Penn and Josh Brolin for their performances. Happy-Go-Lucky earned kudos for director Mike Leigh and star Sally Hawkins. Penelope Cruz took Supporting Actress honors for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Here's the full list.

“Ben Stiller is set to replace Mark Ruffalo in Greenburg, a comedy-drama Noah Baumbach is writing and directing,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Ruffalo dropped out after the shooting death of his brother last week. Greenburg “is expected to center on the intimacies of relationships in the manner of Baumbach's other films,” if that helps.

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Screengrab Salutes: The Top Biopics Of All Time! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The problem with biopics, as most cineastes know, is the way they often tend to play like a greatest hits of their subjects’ lives, packed with historical moments and celebrity impersonations rather than realistic character development or any kind of specific story worth telling.

But Gus Van Sant’s Milk vaulted out of the specialty box office charts and into the mainstream top ten largely on the strength of a gripping, inspirational (and, sadly, still timely) story of persecution, triumph and tragedy, featuring a classic protagonist/antagonist duo embodied by Sean Penn’s crusading gay rights activist and Josh Brolin’s conflicted assassin.

And so, with Oscar buzz clinging to Van Sant, Penn and Brolin like...wait for it...yes, milk mustachios, we here at the Screengrab decided now would be the perfect time to Walk Hard through the positively true story of OUR FAVORITE BIOPICS OF ALL TIME!

ED WOOD (1994)

Tim Burton’s tribute to the so-called “worst director of all time” is a two-fer: while Johnny Depp’s relatively obscure title character is the focus, the Oscar-winning main attraction was Martin Landau’s portrayal of a lusty, foul-mouthed, morphine-addicted Bela Lugosi in the final years of his life, after Hollywood had kicked him to the curb and the once proud actor could only find work rolling around in a lake with a giant rubber octopus. Lugosi’s son, Béla Junior, initially criticized Burton’s film for its inaccuracies with regard to his father (who, for example, was married at the time of his death and rarely used profanity, at least according to friends like Forrest J. Ackerman, Ed Wood’s one-time “illiterary” agent). But what makes the film great is that docu-drama realism was never the point: we don’t necessarily see events as they happened, but rather the way Ed Wood, Jr. (and, to a certain extent, Wood biographer Rudolph Grey and cartoonist/old Hollywood enthusiast Drew Friedman) perceived them: in surreal, melodramatic black & white fantasias where an alcoholic transvestite wannabe could actually transcend death and live forever like his idol, Count Dracula.

I'M NOT THERE (2007)

If ever there was an artist who required no further mythologizing, it would have to be Bob Dylan. A conventional biopic of the Bard might well be unbearable, which is why it's a good thing Todd Haynes, World's Cleverest Film Student, signed on for the task. Haynes takes the well-known Dylan mythos, scrambles it all together and then bounces it off a series of funhouse mirrors, delighting in the ever more distorted reflections that result. Six different actors play six different versions of Dylan, among them Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), an 11-year-old African-American boy who rides the rails with hobos, spinning tall tales of a rambling youth with no direction home; Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), an alternate universe troubadour whose Dylanesque career unfolds as scenes from a mockumentary in the mode of A Mighty Wind; and Robbie (Heath Ledger), an actor who is playing Jack Rollins in a conventional biopic called Grain of Sand. (Sample dialogue: "I'm only a pawn in their game!") The standout is Cate Blanchett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her eerie take on hipster-dandy Jude Quinn, supernova post-Beatles pop star. In appropriating and manipulating various filmmaking styles, Haynes is striving for a cinematic equivalent to the way Dylan adapted and exploded traditional folk forms in his music. The resulting surreal swirl recalls Dylan's most fertile creative period, his mid-60s "thin, wild mercury music" wherein characters ranging from Paul Revere to Jack the Ripper to Cecil B. DeMille could inhabit the same soundscape. Through these methods, Haynes is attempting a biography not so much of a man, but of an artistic sensibility. If I'm Not There is occasionally impenetrable, pretentious or overly impressed with its own cleverness, that only serves to make it a more accurate, warts-and-all portrait, without delving into tabloid trash. You may love it or hate it, but you get the feeling its subject wouldn't want it any other way.

LADY SINGS THE BLUES (1972)

This soapy treatment of the life of Billie Holiday is not beloved by jazz critics or historical purists, who recoil from its sloppy handling of the facts of the singer's life and gag on Diana Ross' pop stylings when she sings Holiday classics such as "Strange Fruit." But the movie remains highly enjoyable when taken on the terms that it set for itself in 1972: a chance for African-American audiences to wallow in the kind of old-Hollywood melodrama that had been spun from the lives of white celebrities such as Lillian Roth and Ruth Etting, with a dash of blaxploitation attitude for flavor. (It turns out that Billie needed a toxically blond white man to turn her onto heroin. Who knew?) Ross' singing here takes a back seat to her acting, which should have marked the start of a major movie career. She proved she had the talent, but once she'd tasted success in Hollywood, her diva gene ate her common sense alive. Her scenes with her piano man sidekick, Richard Pryor, have a special poignance today, because it's hard to remember that there was a time when Diana Ross and Richard Pryor occupied the same planet.

GENTLEMAN JIM (1942)

This affably sanitized life of heavyweight boxer James J. Corbett (Errol Flynn) is probably the most entertaining example of the boxer-biopic genre that Martin Scorsese was to bury for all time with Raging Bull. It also provided its star, Errol Flynn, with a rare chance to appear onscreen in street clothes instead of leggings or cowboy gear. The premise is that Corbett was the first brainiac who conquered his opponents by means of the "scientific" method, which enables him to whup such swaggering sides of beef as John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond). This allows Flynn to win his fights and still display a glib enough tongue to pitch woo at society gal Alexis Smith. This is also the movie that was in theaters when Flynn was dragged into court on hinky charges of statutory rape, a sideshow that turned out to do the movie not the least bit of harm at the box office.

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT (1993)

In this updating of Love Me or Leave Me (the 1955 cult classic in which Doris Day, as singer Ruth Etting, was physically abused by James Cagney as her husband-manager), Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne play Ike and Tina Turner, from their days starting out together on the R & B touring circuit and the period when electrifying star performances on-stage alternated with one-sided sparring matches backstage to the day that Tina, having discovered the untapped strength at her core with the help of a chanting regimen, starting punching back. The closest thing to a flaw in Bassett's performance is that she didn't have Turner's legs, a problem that today would probably be corrected with the help of CGI; she compensates with her slugger's arms, which make the scenes of abuse easier to get through, since you can't help but anticipate the moment when this woman realizes that she can take care of herself. Fishburne may be even better, tapping into deep reserves of rage that a lesser actor would have been tempted to take out on the costume designer. This is probably the finest lead performance ever given by an actor who at one point is forced to don hot pants and a Prince Valiant haircut.

Click Here For Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five & Part Six

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

Ever-Mysterious National Board of Review's Year-End Awards

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Before any of the critics’ associations weigh in with their year-end awards, the National Board of Review releases its annual awards announcement and Top 10 list. While this organization certainly has an official-sounding name, questions remain about the legitimacy of the group, which was actually founded as a censorship board in 1909. In response to a reader question, Roger Ebert once wrote, “I have never met anyone who has met a member of the National Board of Review. The director John Boormann recently told me that he attended one of their award banquets at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and met several other award winners. There was a celebrity host to hand out the prizes. ‘After I got back home,’ he mused, ‘I realized that I had not met a single person claiming to be a member of the National Board of Review.’”

Be that as it may, the NBR’s list is taken seriously each year as a bellwether of the upcoming critics’ prizes and other awards, so we hereby dutifully present their top honors:

BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire
BEST DIRECTOR: David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
BEST ACTOR: Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
BEST ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Josh Brolin, Milk
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

TOP TEN FILMS:

Burn after Reading
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Gran Torino
Milk
WALL•E
The Wrestler

Screengrab Review: Milk

Paul Clark — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Following the 2005 release of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, there was some excitement over the possibility that more high-profile gay-themed movies would follow, a development that didn’t really pan out. Now, three years later, Hollywood has once again decided to tackle gay-friendly subject matter, this time the life of slain San Francisco politician and activist Harvey Milk- directed by the openly gay filmmaker Gus Van Sant, no less. But while the film has attained a certain amount of contemporary relevance with its parallels to California’s recently-passed Proposition 8, Milk biggest breakthrough may be the idea that the lives of gay heroes can be boiled down to the Hollywood biopic formula just as easily as their straight counterparts.

Think I’m kidding? Let’s go to the tape: middle-aged Milk (Sean Penn), fed up with his life, moves to San Francisco with his new boyfriend Scott Smith (James Franco). Appalled at the treatment of homosexuals even in the most gay-friendly neighborhood of the most gay-friendly metropolis in America, he’s spurred on to community activism, which ends up leading to politics. After three unsuccessful runs for public office, he finally wins a seat on city’s Board of Supervisors. There, he spearheads a number of major social reforms, including an effort to shoot down the hateful Briggs Initiative in 1978, before being gunned down by a disgruntled formal colleague. Take out the homosexual material and a few of the other details and we could just as easily be talking about any number of civil rights leaders. Hell, there’s even a frightened wheelchair-bound gay boy who inadvertently inspires Milk during his time of doubt, and Smith essentially gets assigned the role of the requisite concerned significant other who wrings his hands and tells Harvey that he’s not devoting enough time to the person who loves him most.

Material this formulaic (courtesy of Big Love writer Dustin Lance Black) would not seem to suit the recent career trajectory of Van Sant, who has lately made a series of highly experimental meditations on death. However, Milk finds Van Sant largely on autopilot, telling his story in a straightforward style that’s virtually indistinguishable than that of most Oscar-bait dramas. Gone are the spare, largely experiential narratives of his other recent films, in favor of a conventional mode of storytelling, with plenty of stock footage and montages to establish the film’s historical context. And while there’s plenty of first-rate cinematography from Van Sant favorite Harris Savides, Van Sant keeps his trademark expressionistic soundscapes to a minimum. Practically the only scenes in the film that feel unmistakably Van Santian are those involving Milk’s fellow supervisor and eventual killer Dan White, played, in yet another in a string of vivid character performances, by Josh Brolin.

If there’s one thing that’s especially distinguished about Milk, it’s the acting. Not only is Brolin perfectly cast as White, but so are Franco, Diego Luna as Milk’s ill-fated rebound lover, Alison Pill as the butch, no-nonsense campaign manager, Denis O’Hare as the hateful Briggs, and so on. Best of all is Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, a former hustler who under Milk’s mentorship is reborn as an activist. And Van Sant wisely lets Anita Bryant play herself in stock footage, letting the smiling, singing anti-gay gorgon serve as a distant, but very real enemy to the beliefs espoused by Milk and his followers. That Bryant would quickly turn from a political force to a punchline in Airplane! in a scant two years is one of history’s more humorous small miracles.

But if the film works- and on balance, I’d say it mostly does- it’s because of Penn, who gives his best performance since… Sweet and Lowdown? Dead Man Walking? Carlito’s Way? Suffice it to say that he’s pretty great here, infusing the wit and intensity that has marked his best performances with a warmth that I’ve never seen from him before. Penn’s Milk is a natural leader because he cares and brings out the best in those around him, but Penn also doesn’t shy away from the thornier aspects of the character. Unfortunately, the film itself isn’t nearly as well-equipped to deal with the contradictions of a man who advocated coming out of the closet yet remained closeted himself for over forty years, who was both an impassioned advocate for social change and a canny politician and self-promoter. At one point, Milk mentions that three of his lovers have attempted suicide, and it comes as a shock because the film so completely paints him as a caring partner and companion. And this, more than anything else, is what keeps Milk from being the cinematic landmark that it so clearly aches to be- that it’s so eager to give the audience Harvey Milk the secular saint that it ultimately forgets about Harvey Milk the man.

Morning Deal Report: The Butler Did It

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:30:00 GMT

America has elected its first African-American president, so what better time to bring the story of “A Butler Well-Served by This Election” to the screen? Sony snapped up the feature rights to this true story “a dozen days after the Washington Post published Wil Haygood's front-page report on Eugene Allen's 34 years at the White House. Allen worked for eight presidents, starting with Harry Truman in 1952 and ending in 1986 with Ronald Reagan,” Variety reports. Highlights of the story include Nixon’s controversial “breakfast in bed” request, which some claim led to the downfall of his administration.

Life is like a box of crayons. Or something like that. Rosie Perez, Craig Ferguson and Arsenio Hall will lend their voices to The Hero of Color City. Per The Hollywood Reporter, “Becky Bristow's film, which previously had signed on Christina Ricci to voice the lead, is an animated fable centering on a group of crayons that band together to stop a tyrant from robbing their world of color.” If we may make a casting suggestion: How about Burnt Sienna Miller?

Jonah Hex is searching for a new director. “Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have dropped out as the directors of Jonah Hex, the DC Comics property that is expected to headline W. and Milk star Josh Brolin as a partly disfigured gunslinger and bounty hunter,” says Variety. “Neveldine and Taylor wrote the script, but their exit as directors was attributed to ‘creative differences.’” What else?

Related:
Dead-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed: Dubya in the Movies
Trailer Review: Milk

Thursday Poll for October 30, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:00:00 GMT

And It’s George W. Bush by a landslide! Inspired by the recent release of W., we asked our readers to compare the onscreen presidency of Josh Brolin with his father’s performance as Ronald Reagan on the controversial miniseries The Reagans. In the end, it wasn’t even close, with every single vote going the younger Brolin’s way. Of course, there were only a handful of votes registered by our state-of-the-art polling instruments, which either means that only a few of you have seen either or both of the films, or there was some massive voter disenfranchisement going on. Of course, neither would possibly stand a chance against Terry Crews' spot-on portrayal of President Camacho, but that's a poll for another time.

This week’s poll comes just in time for Halloween. This afternoon, we ranked our all-time favorite horror movies, and now it’s your turn. I’ve listed the five most popular films among our writing staff, and now it’s your turn. Which of the Screengrab’s all-time favorite horror movies is your favorite?

Which of Screengrab's top 5 horror classics is your favorite? | BuzzDash polls

Ooooooooh, scary! Leave your comments below, and when you’re out trick-or-treating, remember to check your candy before you eat it. See you in November!

Screengrab Review: "W."

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

It's not for me to offer unsolicited advice to a famous and successful filmmaker like Oliver Stone, especially when it's too late for said advice to be taken anyway – but what the hell, while I'm here I might as well tell you my idea for the movie Stone should have made instead of W. As you may have read here in the Screengrab or elsewhere in the liberal elite media, W. is a biopic of our current president, George W. Bush, who is not up for re-election and is leaving office in January no matter who wins. (Unless he barricades himself inside the Oval Office with a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey, which might have made for a good scene in W…but I'm getting ahead of myself.) As such, W. is unlikely to have a substantial effect on the upcoming election.

What if, instead, Stone had made a movie about the administration of President John McCain? Stone and his screenwriter Stanley Weiser could have cooked up a juicy, paranoid fantasia of a potential McCain Era in American history, supplemented by flashbacks from McCain's actual colorful past. It would be a similar movie in many ways; as Tom Dickinson writes in the fascinating Rolling Stone cover story "Make-Believe Maverick," McCain and Bush were both youthful fuck-ups with daddy issues, the major difference being that "George W. Bush was a much better pilot."

Our 43rd president's career as a pilot isn't covered in W. but Stone's film samples most of the greatest hits from Bush's misspent youth. We see his hazing as a Yale fraternity pledge, his inability to hold down a job for long (whether it be on a Texas oil rig or on Wall Street), his fondness for the demon alcohol, his courtship of librarian and future wife Laura (Elizabeth Banks), his baseball dreams, his sobriety and salvation, and finally his entry into "the family business." And although we don't see much of brother Jeb in the movie, it's clear that (in Stone's view, anyway) patriarch George Herbert Walker Bush (James Cromwell) sees the boy he calls "junior" as the Fredo of the family.

These blasts from the past are scattered throughout W., which primarily concerns itself with the Bush administration’s ramp-up to the war in Iraq. The film opens months after the 9/11 terror attacks, as the president and his cabinet brainstorm a catchphrase that will resonate with the American people. “Axis of hatred” falls short, but…ahhh, “Axis of Evil! I like that!” This scene plays exactly like the moment in Stone’s The Doors when Ray Manzarek dreams up the keyboard intro to “Light My Fire.” Sometimes it seems there is only one biopic in the world.

Stone’s unique brew of absurdity, paranoia and psychobabble is at its most potent in these Strangelovian war room scenes. The cast alone makes for compelling viewing, if only for the wide variety of acting approaches. As Condoleezza Rice, Thandie Newton is such a near-perfect replicant, she doesn’t come close to resembling an actual human being – she’s like something Disney shipped in from the Hall of Presidents. Jeffrey Wright is doing a voice as Colin Powell, but to the best of my recollection, it’s nothing like Powell’s actual voice. Others barely attempt any imitation at all; as the man Bush calls “Vice,” Richard Dreyfuss only once hints at Cheney’s Penguin grin, but he’s got the prince of darkness vibe down pat. When Cheney explains what the real plan is for Iraq – that is, the establishment of a new American Empire in the Middle East and Asia, with delicious black oil flowing from every pipe – W. is at its most giddily satirical and subversive.

It’s a shame the rest of it is so pedestrian. It all flows together and moves along at a brisk pace – it doesn’t feel like a movie that was shot, edited and released within the span of a baseball season – but the script is far too reductive and simple-minded. (Yes, you could argue that’s appropriate to the central character, but then you still have to sit through it.) Stone likes to be able to claim he’s depicting both sides of the story, so he appears to treat key points like W’s religious conversion and romance with Laura seriously. Then he turns around and gives us one of those classic Bushisms (“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”) and jars us right out of the movie.

As Phil Nugent posted earlier this week, Stone had originally planned to include more black comedy and surreal elements, and I do think that might have been the more fruitful approach. To the extent that W. does work, give credit to Josh Brolin – he’s the one member of the cast who gives both a pitch-perfect impression and a genuine performance. It’s hard to play dumb and spoiled and, y’know, carelessly destructive of an entire country, and still maintain a modicum of likeability – but Bush did pull it off for a while and Brolin pulls it off here. Poor Elizabeth Banks is saddled with a conception of Laura Bush that doesn’t extend much beyond “enabling airhead,” and James Cromwell projects too much gruff gravitas to pass for the patrician elder Bush.

It all comes down to “Poppy didn’t love me best, so I’ll show him,” and even if that’s true in reality, it’s a boring cliché on the screen. And since we’re dealing with Oliver Stone, a point worth making once is worth making a hundred times, in 100-point boldface type, until not even the dimmest bulb in the audience can possibly miss it. I’m reminded of a scene in Barcelona, where a character explains that he understands subtext to mean a “hidden message or import of some kind,” but wonders what you call “the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious?” That is, of course, the text – and Stone’s movies are all text all the time, right there on the surface, completely open and obvious.

Trailer Review: Milk

Paul Clark — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

After making four films that revealed the capital-A artist within, Gus Van Sant returns to a more mainstream project, an account of the life and death of gay activist-turned-politician Harvey Milk, played here by Sean Penn. Yet while the biopic is one of the most formulaic and Oscar-grubbing of genres, Milk looks like a Van Sant movie through and through. For one thing, the film appears to rival Brokeback Mountain as the most sexually frank movie about homosexuals to be released by a Hollywood distributor to date, in keeping with both the material and with Van Sant’s own work. In addition, Van Sant’s style is very much in evidence- plentiful follow shots and off-kilter framing- particularly in the bits involving Dan White (Josh Brolin, who between this and W. is remaking his career playing men the American Left loves to hate). Unlike many films in this genre, whose stories remain inoffensively in the past, Milk has relevance even today, when gay rights is a point of contention for many Americans. In short, this is one of the best trailers I’ve seen so far this year, and the movie itself has rocketed near the top of my must-see films for fall.

Screengrab Fall Preview: Leonard Pierce's Picks

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

So,my fellow Screengrabbers have thrown down the gauntlet, and once again, I gotta clean it up. What movies am I really looking forward to this fall? Burn After Reading, The Road and Synedoche, New York, among others. But thanks to the quirky rules we set up just to get on each other's nerves, we're trying not to repeat ourselves, so I've chosen to focus on a few films that have gone unmentioned by my beloved associates.

Of course, there's plenty to look forward to in theaters this fall above what's on my top three list below. The indie film about an Arab-American teenager's crisis of conscience, Towelhead; the wide release of the clever Assassination of a High School President; the American big-screen debut of Wong Kar-Wei's breathtaking Ashes of Time; and the mainstream debut of the sparkling Lily Rabe in the otherwise uninteresting What Just Happened are all enough to put your butt in a padded theater chair if you're a film fan. But beyond that, there's the movies I'm most -- and least -- looking forward to, beneath the cut.

3 UP

Milk: The story of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California history, would be compelling enough, but with the sporadically brilliant Gus Van Sant behind the camera and three terrific actors playing the key roles (Sean Penn as Milk, the always-compelling Victor Garber as Mayor George Moscone, and Josh Brolin as the homophobic ex-cop who becomes their assassin), this is one I'm going to look forward to until its opening night.

Miracle at St. Anna: Will this World War II epic be directed by the good Spike Lee or the bad Spike Lee? A pointless feud with Clint Eastwood during production suggests the latter, but the screenplay (by the book's author), a cast mixing young newcomers with skilled veterans, and the fact that Spike's movies are never less than interesting even when they're not great pull me towards the former and ensure I'll be in line to see this come Christmas.

Lakeview Terrace: Much like Spike Lee, Neil LaBute can deliver precise hits and broad misses. But this story about racial tension in Los Angeles is right in his wheelhouse, with its themes of hidden anger, authority abused and real ugliness burbling under residential bliss. And a menacing Samuel L. Jackson is a good Sammuel L. Jackson, as Grand Theft Auto fans can testify.

3 DOWN

Beverly Hills Chihuahua: It's a tiny little CGI dog! Who hobnobs with the rich and famous! In Hollywood! And it's got...attitide! And sass! If you need me, I'll be over here in the corner, killing myself.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: From the asinine title to the 'gosh-isn't-New-York-uniquely-wonderful' feel to the promise of a soundtrack filled with precious tunes by indistinguishable groups of mildly sad white people to the calculated air of cuteness to the presence of one-note Hollywood darling Michael Cera, there's pretty much nothing about this movie that doesn't make me want to punch somebody.

Punisher: War Zone: Sick of superhero movies? Waiting for a real stinker to come out so that everyone will just shut up about them already? This oughtta do it.

WILD CARD

The Spirit: In the world of comics, Frank Miller -- in recent years, at least -- has developed a reputation as an exquisitely skilled artist, a craftsman nonpariel, but also a man who increasingly takes less and less care with this plots and stories, which grow ever more abstract and nonsensical as his art gets better. Which one will show up behind the camera for The Spirit? I'm afraid it'll be both, but there's no denying the appeal of the project, so I'll be taking a chance.

Related Posts

Screengrab Fall Preview: Andrew Osbourne's Picks

Screengrab Fall Preview: Scott von Doviak's Picks

Screengrab Fall Preview: Paul Clark's Picks

Oliver Stone Finds His Dick

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:30:00 GMT

When last we checked in with Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic, W., most of the major players were in place. Josh Brolin was busy practicing his chimplike smirk and hunched shrug of defeat for the title role, with Elizabeth Banks as the missus, and the cabinet filled out by Thandie Newton (Condi Rice), Rob Corddry (Ari Fleischer) and Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell).

One major hole remained: the man behind the throne, Dick Cheney. Speculation pointed to Robert Duvall (who reportedly turned down the role) and Paul Giamatti (who may have had his fill of White House machinations with John Adams). Now it appears the role has been filled.

The Hollywood Reporter sez: “Richard Dreyfuss could soon make the trip to Oliver Stone's White House, entering final negotiations to play Dick Cheney in the provocateur director's upcoming W.” The Reporter also passes on the following helpful tidbit: “The 60-year-old Dreyfuss has never played a U.S. leader, but has had a few related roles. He starred as an opposition senator to Michael Douglas' commander in chief in 1995's The American President, as Alexander Haig in a television movie about Ronald Reagan and played the president of a banana republic in the 1980s comedy Moon Over Parador.”

How appropriate that it took the addition of a Jaws star for the casting of W. to jump the shark.

First Look at Oliver Stone’s Capra-esque Bush Bio

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:30:00 GMT

The new issue of Entertainment Weekly provides our first peek at Josh Brolin as George W. Bush and Elizabeth Banks as First Lady Laura Bush. It does not give us a gander at Dick Cheney, as that part has yet to be cast even though Oliver Stone’s W (or possibly dub-ya) is set to go before the cameras in less than two weeks. “Stone denies rumors that Robert Duvall turned down Cheney. And he won't comment on reports that he's talking to Paul Giamatti about the part.” From John Adams to Dick Cheney? That’s a depressing commentary in itself.

It’s quite a startling transformation for Josh Brolin, from the Marlboro Man of No Country for Old Men to the “Cowboy President.” (It may be an equally startling transformation for Elizabeth Banks, but I don’t think I could have picked her out of a lineup before this.) “When Oliver approached me about George Bush my initial reaction was 'Why would I want to do that?” says an entirely sensible Brolin. “But Oliver pointed out certain similarities I had with the character. We both have well-known fathers. We both grew up in the country. We both have strong mothers.”

As for why Stone is making this movie at all, the auteur gasses thusly: “I think history is going to be very tough on him. But that doesn't mean he isn't a great story. It's almost Capra-esque, the story of a guy who had very limited talents in life, except for the ability to sell himself. The fact that he had to overcome the shadow of his father and the weight of his family name — you have to admire his tenacity. There's almost an Andy Griffith quality to him, from A Face in the Crowd. If Fitzgerald were alive today, he might be writing about him. He's sort of a reverse Gatsby.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Stone movie without controversy, particularly in matters of historical accuracy, but the director is having none of it. “I'm tired of defending the accuracy of my movies. I'm past that now. JFK was a case to be proven, Nixon was a penetrating biography of a complex and dark man. But I'm not bound by those strictures anymore. Bush is not a complex and dark man, so it's different. This movie can be funnier because Bush is funny. He's awkward and goofy and makes faces all the time. He's not your average president. So let's have some fun with it. What are they going to do? 'Discredit' me again?”

We’ll all get the chance, maybe sooner than expected. Stone is hoping to have the movie in theaters before Election Day.

Richard Jenkins Is Ready for His Close-Up, Whether He Likes It or Not

Phil Nugent — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

If you've been to the movies a few times in the last twenty years, you've probably seen Richard Jenkins. Trust me. Jenkins isn't a household name, and he doesn't really have a household appearance, either: he's tall, bald, and bland-looking, and at 60 doesn't appear all that different from when he first started popping up in movies, in such roles as the doctor in Hannah and Her Sisters who gently breaks its to the hypochondriac played by Woody Allen that he doesn't have a malignant brain tumor. Yet Jenkins is a crackerjack actor, capable of using what God gave him to surprising effect. His ability to suggest something cracked or wild inside a businesslike frame has made him a favorite of such directors as the Coens and the Farrellys, and David O. Russell, who used him in Flirting with Disaster as an FBI agent who wanted to adopt a baby to raise with his professional partner and lover, Josh Brolin. His best-known role may be the patriarchal undertaker in the HBO Six Feet Under, where his character was dead from the start of the series and still usually seemed to be the only person on the show who was having a good time. In the new movie The Visitor, which was written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, Jenkins has his shot at carrying a movie, playing a widowed economics professor who has disappeared inside his own orderly world. “I understood this man,” Jenkins told Jeremy W. Peters in an interview for the New York Times. “I understood his reluctance to reach out, to become part of things.”

That's actually not a surprise, given that McCarthy wrote the movie with Jenkins in mind and then worked closely with him in fleshing out the details. (A working actor himself, McCarthy seems to have a special affinity for showcasing actors who not many people would automatically see as leading man material; his first film as a writer-director was The Station Agent, which put Peter Dinklage on the map. Four years ago, McCarthy started feeling Jenkins out with regard to their working together. Then, as Jenkins recalls it, “About a year and a half later he called me and said: ‘I wrote this script. Would you take a look at it?’ He sent me the script, and I read it, and I just loved it. I mean, I just loved it. And I said to him, ‘Nobody’s going to give you any money to do this movie with me in the lead.’ He said: ‘That wasn’t my question. My question was, do you want to do it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ ” Having failed to talk his director out of hiring him, Jenkins now declares himself pleased with the resulting movie, as does McCarthy. The Visitor opens this coming weekend in New York and Los Angeles. Now if Jenkins can just survive the publicity tour...

Oliver Stone Pitches a “W”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:30:00 GMT

President George W. Bush threw out the traditional first pitch in the Washington Nationals’ home opener last night, the first game in their new ballpark. (The Nationals won on a walkoff homerun by Ryan Zimmerman, who is on my fantasy team, thank you very much.) The Prez was greeted by either a chorus or a smattering of boos, depending on your affiliation. We wonder what sort of reception was Oliver Stone hoping to hear; in other words, what sort of audience will there be for his rapidly developing biopic W?

Last week we noted the casting of Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks as Dubya and his First Lady, Laura Bush. Now Entertainment Weekly reports that “James Cromwell is in negotiations to play George Bush Sr., and Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale) is in talks for the role of Colin Powell. But at press time, it was still unclear who will take the role of Vice President Dick Cheney. A source close to the production tells EW that Stone will reach out to Oscar winner Robert Duvall, though the actor's agency says that an offer has not yet been presented.” And then there are the rumors. Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere says he has been “told about three casting ‘likes’ for Oliver Stone's W -- i.e., actors who are wanted for the George Bush biopic but not (as far as my source knows) signed. Toby Jones (who plays legendary super-agent Swifty Lazar in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon) is being sought to play Karl Rove. They want Jeffrey Wright to play Colin Powell, and they'd like Tommy Lee Jones to have a go at Donald Rumsfeld. Again -- nothing firm, no contracts.” Paul Giamatti is also rumored as a possible Rove, per New York magazine.

Whether there’s any truth to these rumors should become clear quickly, as shooting is scheduled to begin April 21st in Shreveport, Louisiana. Stone is looking to have the movie in theaters before Bush leaves office in January – a sort of goodbye present, no doubt. It’s still not clear what the director finds so compelling about Dubya’s story, but the official line is that the film will be “the improbable story of a man who went to the White House despite getting fewer votes than his opponent; who became commander-in-chief despite having avoided military combat himself; and who became the least popular president ever elected to a second term. W will shock and surprise you and leave you questioning everything you believe to be true.” Here’s something we believe to be true: this will be another Oliver Stone film that leaves us questioning everything.

Barack Obama and Brad Pitt: Separated at Birth?

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Genealogists have uncovered some startling connections between our current crop of presidential candidates and everyone’s favorite celebrity couple – and for all we know, they’ve given Oliver Stone some casting ideas for a future project.

According to the Associated Press, the good people at the New England Historic Genealogical Society have determined that Barack Obama is a distant cousin of Brad Pitt, while Hillary Rodham Clinton and Angelina Jolie are “ninth cousins.” But that’s not all! “Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.”

This should give Stone plenty to work with should he ever get around to making a movie about the 2008 presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the JFK and Nixon helmer is at work on his latest meticulously researched and thoroughly accurate biopic, this one called simply W. Yes, it’s the inspiring story of George W. Bush, starring No Country for Old Men cowboy Josh Brolin as the current president. Entertainment Weekly reports that Elizabeth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno) has been cast as first lady Laura Bush in what the director describes, presumably with a straight face, as “a fair and accurate portrait, focused on things like his relationship with his father, President George H.W. Bush, his wild younger days, and his conversion to Christianity.”

“Freaky Little People”: The Coens Burn On

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:30:00 GMT

The red carpet continues to roll out for Joel and Ethan Coen en route to Oscar night. On January 27th, the brothers convened in Hollywood for a three-part Q &A on the crafts of No Country for Old Men, moderated by Spike Jonze. On the first panel, dedicated to cinematography, the Coens were joined by Roger Deakins, who has lensed all of their movies since 1991’s Barton Fink. They discuss the Coens’ detailed storyboards, their shorthand manner of communication, and the difficulty of shooting the early morning sequence in which Josh Brolin's Moss is discovered at the crime scene and chased into the Rio Grande, which was pieced together from footage that could only be shot within a few minutes of dawn and dusk. The second panel shifts focus to sound editing and mixing, with Oscar nominees Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland sitting in, and the third covers production design with Jess Gonchor. Although moderator Jonze often comes off like a character from a Saturday Night Live sketch about a nervous high school AV club president, it’s a fascinating glimpse into the Coens’ working methods, and all of it can be viewed on the No Country website.

Not content to rest on their laurels, however, the brothers are already looking ahead. In an interview with the L.A. Times, the Coens dismiss the idea that an Oscar coronation will turn them into the grand old men of cinema. “Our movies are too outside of the mainstream," says Joel. “This is the biggest-grossing movie we've ever had. [No Country has grossed over $50 million at the box office, the first Coen movie to cross that mark.] And even at that, it doesn't approach the kind of business and influence, in terms of people's perception of American culture, that big, Hollywood studio movies do.” Or as Ethan puts it, “We ain't leadin' anything, buddy.”

Next up for the brothers is Burn After Reading, a sort of spy tale written specifically for a ground of actors the Coens wanted to work with, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt and John Malkovitch. “All the characters in Burn After Reading are numskulls,” says Joel, “which Malkovich had no problem with; Clooney has never had a problem with…Brad was initially taken aback. He's very funny in the movie. He grew to love it as much as George does. Each character is dumber than the next. But they're all lovable.”

Other irons in the fire include Hail, Caesar!, described by Joel as the third part of the George Clooney “Numskull Trilogy," and A Serious Man, “about a Jewish community in the Midwest in 1967.” Joel describes the latter as “a domestic drama.” Sure. And Fargo was a true story.

Bush Gets Stoned

Phil Nugent — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Oliver Stone, who as a Hollywood director has largely turned away from a string on movies on recent American history and contemporary political themes during the last decade, and who mostly has a handful of noisy bombs (U-Turn, Any Given Sunday, Alexander) to show for it, seems to have decided to get back to his plow. He spent part of last year preparing a movie about the My Lai massacre, Pinkville, but now that project has been cancelled by its studio. Now Stone has gone way topical with plans to make a biographical picture about the current White House resident to be called, simply, Bush. The film will be written by Stanley Weiser, who worked on the script for Stone's 1987 Wall Street. (More recently, he was responsible for the hagiographic 2003 cable-TV film Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story.) Bush will be played by the very hot-at-this-moment John Brolin, of whom Stone says, "Josh is actually better looking than Bush but has the same drive and charisma that Americans identify with Bush, who has some of that old-time movie-star swagger."

As for the idea that political movies are Stone's thing, the director dismisses it as a "cliche": "I'm a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great." To have empathy for any one of these fellows is certainly some kind of feat; maybe anyone who actually has empathy for all of them should be the Dalai Lama or something. But Stone just seems to mean that he's looking at Bush's life in terms of its dramatic potential, rather than plotting to film a political cartoon. "I want a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world? It's like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I'll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from. It includes his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States, and his coming into his own with the stunning, preemptive attack on Iraq. It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors." In one way at least, he may prove to be the well equipped to understand Bush on one level: anyone who's read Stone's interviews about his early life — or for that matter has seen Wall Street — knows that the guy is no stranger to father issues.

Morning Deal Report: Oliver Stone Directing Bush Biopic

Peter Smith — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Oliver Stone is planning Bush, a biopic of the world's cleverest president, which he says will be "give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin." He's already cast Josh Brolin, apparently. Too bad this title is already taken. Still, they could do better than just plain ol' Bush, no? What about The Decider? Goin' Nucular? Where Wings Take Dream?

Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst will star together in All Good Things, the feature debut of Capturing the Friedmans director Andrew Jarecki.

If you like the National Lampoon movies, but sometimes feel alienated by their excessive classiness, we've got just the production for you: Maxim's Mardi Gras, shooting this spring. Take your chick, bro!

Adrien Brody will play legendary R&B mogul Leonard Chess, against Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, in Cadillac Records.

Top Ten of 2007: Paul Clark

Paul Clark — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Note: Like Leonard, I don’t live in one of what Hollywood would consider a major cinematic market, so I have yet to see some of the year’s best-reviewed films, such as There Will Be Blood and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But I think it’s better to post this now rather than waiting until I’ve seen all the major movies, which for all I know won’t happen for months.

10. The Hunting Party

It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again- 2007 was a damn fine year to be a movie lover. Because of this, there were probably a dozen films competing for the final spot on this list, but in the end I had to go with a sentimental favorite, one that deserves much more love than it’s gotten so far. Richard Shepard's darkly comic tale of three journalists (Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg) searching for a Bosnian warlord succeeds not so much because of its story as for its salty, unironic portrait of male friendship. As in Shepard’s last film The Matador, The Hunting Party is a story about men drawn to violence who booze and bond in outposts far off the beaten path. At a time when Brokeback Mountain is still a punchline, it takes real chutzpah to write a scene in which one man tells another, “that’s why I love you,” without going for a laugh.

9. Time

Korea’s prolific and controversial director Kim Ki-duk has become something of a whipping boy for the cinematic cognoscenti, but there’s no denying that the guy’s got skills. Time, his best film to date, appears on the surface to be a response to Korea’s plastic-surgery craze, but at its heart it’s a story of amour fou, like Seconds played for tragedy rather than thrills. In Kim’s hands, plastic surgery becomes a metaphor for how self-conscious we’ve become, so insecure in our skin that we’re no longer able to simply give ourselves over to others, not even those we love. Also, Kim’s gift for astonishing imagery is as keen as ever, especially in his use of a seaside sculpture park.

8. I’m Not There

The premise- six actors playing six different versions of Bob Dylan- sounds like an academic exercise only a semiotics major could love. But each onscreen Dylan is only a pawn in the game of director Todd Haynes, a piece of the puzzle that has become the Dylan mythos. With his ingenious structure, Haynes highlights the contradictions, tall tales, and outright fabrications of Dylan’s legend, revealing him to be less a self-conscious chameleon reinventing his image for the public as a lifelong searcher who cared little whether we wanted to follow. The wonder is that I'm Not There is so much fun- sometimes electrifying, sometimes goofy, but always fascinating.

7. Offside

The idea that Iranian women aren’t allowed to attend soccer games would seem to be the setup for a dour polemic, but director Jafar Panahi has other plans for their story. In Panahi’s eyes, the law isn’t so much an injustice as a colossal pain for all involved, and by highlighting the absurdity of the situation, Offside becomes the stuff of high comedy. And a rousing crowd-pleaser to boot- Panahi shot much of the film in the bowels of the stadium during an actual World Cup qualifying match, and even at a distance from the field, the energy is palpable. In the end, football is a uniter, not a divider, and once the detained women escape their captors to mingle with their celebrating countrymen, they’re able to share in the victory that their laws had tried to deny them.

6. Joshua

In a year that saw Rob Zombie’s Michael-heavy remake of Halloween, one might be excused for wondering what an evil-kid thriller was doing on my list. But George Ratliff’s Joshua is another breed altogether- a genre movie in the abstract, but a particularly chilly and thematically-rich one. Moreover, Joshua is very much an of-the-moment bad seed, not some pint-sized supernatural boogeyman but the product of ineffectual and indulgent parenting. Jacob Kogan is creepy in the title role, but the real revelation is Sam Rockwell, giving the performance of the year as his father, a man whose parenting skills are limited at best, and who is ill-equipped to deal with a son whose behavior goes so sharply against his own. When he finally realizes what he’s up against it’s too late to stop it, and thanks to Ratliff and Rockwell, this realization hits with the power of a gut punch.

5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

In Assassination, director Andrew Dominik plays a tricky game- to make a Western that doesn’t so much de-mythologize the genre as re-mythologize it by making explicit the undercurrent of mythmaking that was always a part of the West. It could have been a disaster, but somehow it works beautifully, thanks not only to the beauty of the filmmaker but also the performances. Brad Pitt is fine as a Jesse James who is all too mindful of the larger-than-life figure he cut in the West, but the film belongs to Casey Affleck as Ford, the youngster whose boyish hero worship festered into violent obsession. Ford was foolish enough to believe that he could create his own legend, but all he did was to be swallowed up by Jesse’s, and because of Affleck’s performance this reviled figure becomes downright tragic.

4. The Host

The best giant monster to attack theatres this past year didn’t stomp Tokyo, but Seoul, in the superior Korean creature feature The Host. With a flair for showmanship and populist storytelling that nearly equal those of Spielberg in his Jaws days, director Bong Joon-ho has made a monster movie to stand alongside the greats in the genre. Part of the credit should go to the effects wizard who created the disgusting yet somehow lovable monster, but I dare say the movie wouldn’t work so well if not for the endearingly flawed family at the movie’s center. Even on a list this full of darkness and despair, there’s always a place for pure, unadulterated entertainment, and The Host gave me more sheer moviegoing pleasure than any film of 2007.

3. Gone Baby Gone

Most of the praise for Gone Baby Gone has centered on the film’s performances- especially the much-feted Amy Ryan- and the surprising amount of thematic resonance to be found in the film. But I think director Ben Affleck deserves a great deal more credit for how powerful this film is than he’s been getting. Most obviously, Affleck has a real feel for his setting- a working-class South Boston neighborhood- and the people who inhabit it. But while this location seems at first like backdrop to a mystery involving a kidnapped child, it eventually takes center stage in the story, which turns into an breathlessly compelling study in the consequences of tribalism. “Guys take pride in where they’re from, like it was something they did,” states protagonist Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck- again!) in the film’s opening voiceover. The tragedy is that Kenzie- thinks himself above it all- buys into this idea as much as anybody.

2. No Country for Old Men

For most of its running time, No Country for Old Men works primarily as an uncommonly exciting chase thriller, in which the overmatched Lewellyn Moss struggles to stay ahead of stone-cold killer Chigurh (Javier Bardem). But while first two acts of the film are enough to mark it as the Coen brothers’ best work in years, it’s the final act, which avoids the expected confrontation between Chigurh and Lewellyn in favor of something more philosophical, that the film to another level of greatness altogether. An observer for most of the story, Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) suddenly comes face to face with the idea that even if you run from the evil that you fear may be hiding behind one door, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be waiting for you behind another. “You can’t stop what’s coming,” indeed.

1. Zodiac

From the beginning, David Fincher’s evocation of the still-unsolved case of the Zodiac killer has been something of an anomaly. It’s a serial-killer movie that practically never goes for cheap thrills, and a three-hour fact-based period piece that’s almost bereft of epic sweep. In short, it’s tough to put my finger on what exactly makes Zodiac such a masterpiece. For me, the most awe-inspiring aspect of the film is its near-obsessive attention to detail, one that’s downright fanatical even by the standards of the true-crime genre. But using the thousands of tiny clues and incidental pieces of business that surrounded the Zodiac case, Fincher immerses us fully in the world of the case, one in which the crime-solving technology and interdepartmental procedures of the day were always several steps behind the schemes of the killer.

Also worth mentioning: Everything Will Be OK (sorry, no trailer)

When I was making this list, I decided to restrict myself to feature-length films. However, taking into account all new movies I saw this past year, none hit me quite as hard as Don Hertzfeldt’s thrilling new animated short, Everything Will Be OK. In little more than fifteen minutes, Hertzfeldt tells the story of a man who is doomed to die. His doctors give up on him, his mother moves in to help, and the man himself goes off the deep end. And then, without warning, he suddenly gets better, much to everyone's annoyance. Everything Will Be OK has the feel of an especially good Raymond Carver story, both in its sense of irony and its reliance on small but significant detail, but the twisted sense of humor and unique animation style is all Hertzfeldt. Call it number zero in my top 10.

Morning Deal Report: I Fought the Law and I Won

Peter Smith — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Josh Brolin will play Dan "Twinkie Defense" White, the disgruntled ex-cop who murdered Harvey Milk and San Francisco mayor George Moscone in 1979, in Gus Van Sant's Milk.

That Ed Norton twins comedy, Leaves of Grass (?), is written and will be directed by Tim Blake Nelson, the director of that high-school Othello adaptation O and the actor from O Brother Where Art Thou. Curiouser and curiouser.

Angelina Jolie to play sexy spy.

— Peter Smith

Movies We Missed: Flirting With Disaster (1996)

Peter Smith — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Americans will still pay to see Ben Stiller run his shtick into the ground, judging from the healthy box-office return for The Heartbreak Kid. But we have to look back over a decade to remember when we actually thought Ben Stiller was funny, and before we got a little sick of him playing another neurotic little guy in an impossible situation.

Why we missed it: Director David O. Russell wasn’t yet famous for films like Three Kings or for trying to set Lily Tomlin on fire verbally with a string of f-bombs.

Stiller himself had only achieved cult status for his short-lived sketch-comedy show and modest acclaim for his directorial debut, Reality Bites, when this film came out.

Why we should have known: A cast that included Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Alan Alda, Josh Brolin and Mary Tyler Moore on a minimal budget should have given some indication that this was probably a good script.

The concept — an adopted and (surprise!) neurotic man’s quest to find his real parents accompanied by his pregnant wife, a sexy-but-incompetent case worker and a documentary-film crew — is a great one.

Why we ended up kicking ourselves: Stiller is clearly the right man for this role. Nobody has played a more believable well-meaning-but-ultimately-doomed Jewish guy since Woody Allen invented the role years earlier. His reactions, timing and ability to pull off physical comedy are all perfect here.

Patricia Arquette and Tea Leoni are both genuinely funny. Their half-hearted attempts to win Stiller’s affection create many funny moments and also give the film a little heart.

Russell’s script stays sharp, creative and original throughout the film.

The film’s final sequence involving a pair of gay, vacationing cops, Stiller’s wife, lover, birth parents, adopted parents, newfound brother and some heavy doses of LSD is unforgettable and absolutely hilarious.

Why we may have been better off without it: This role sparked a dozen just like it for Stiller, including real gems like Duplex, Along Came Polly and Meet the Fockers. Reviews that included the word 'genius' seem to be the only ones that David O. Russell read or believed in.

— Bryan Whitefield