Every once in a while I see something that I think isn’t funny and am moved to find something that I think actually is. Since humor is so notoriously hard to quantify, I’m not going to attempt to really learn anything from my little game, I just present the contrasting videos and let you, the audience, contemplate the difference.
Today, we start with a Funny or Die video that has been making the rounds written and directed by none other than David Mamet. We’ve had our political and cultural disagreements, but I consider myself a fan and I find a lot of his stuff extremely funny. I also think Danny DeVito is pretty cool. As for this collaboration which has been making the blog rounds, however, perhaps the less I say, the better. Watch for yourself.
Okay, now I’d never compare the dramatic talents of Mr. Mamet with those of Weird Al Yankovic, but in this somewhat similarly themed clip from Yankovic’s all but forgotten “UHF,” I find that the funny edge definitely goes to Weird Al.
Folks, you have no idea how tired I am as I write this. Therefore, while we have four new wide releases this weekend, all interesting in their own way, I’m be keeping it as short as possible tonight/this morning.
Jolly Carl DiOrio expects the weekend winner to be the Emma Stone comedy vehicle, “Easy A.” I, an adult male, personally found the trailer and premise for this movie about a girl using a false reputation for promiscuity to various ends, which is supposed to appeal primarily to female teens, pretty amusing. Moreover, it’s getting unusually good — if slightly muted — reviews for a teen film.
Though M. Night Shymalan’s name is hard-to-spell-and-pronounce version of “mud” with hardcore fans, the PG-13 scare-suspenser, “Devil” — which Shymalan did not direct but produced and wrote the story (with a twist, no doubt) — is expected to do relatively well. It is being carefully protected from bloodthirsty critics.
The movie I’m most looking forward to is actor-writer-director Ben Affleck’s crime thrilller, “The Town,” co-starring Jeremy Renner and marking the big-screen semi-starring debut of “Mad Men” star and Mercedes pitchman Jon Hamm. Never a critic’s darling as an actor, Affleck is turning into one critically liked auteur and the highly positive reviews are making me anxious to see this one.
The movie I doubt I’ll ever see — and which is expected to make a shockingly low amount for a 3-D animated family film is “Alpha and Omega.” The cheaply made and critically unloved animation should at least should help some kids learn what are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.
UPDATE: One quick thought I meant to include last night. Jolly Carl said there might be a slightly depressive effect on the box office this weekend because Friday night and Saturday until sundown is Yom Kippur, the holiest holiday on the Jewish calendar. The interesting part of this is that we Jews are only 2% of the population — though if you live in New York or L.A. you’d never know it and some of us almost completely ignore these things. Are we that overrepresented as moviegoers that our impact is felt beyond places like NYC, L.A., and Chicago?
It was not along ago that there were only a couple paths to the director’s chair on a studio lot. Many went to film school and did time toiling for Roger Corman, while others jumped over from another profession within the industry. (Joel Schumacher, for example, began as a costume designer.) In the ’80s, there suddenly was a new way to get into the game – use a music video as your calling card.
Now, of course, we’re at the point where people receive job offers after posting a clip to YouTube (Lasse Gjertsen, who made the live stop-motion clips “Hyperactive” and “Amateur,” has received several offers of employment, but has turned them all down), and the music video path is now a well-worn road. Indeed, there are two movies coming out in the next few weeks (“Never Let Me Go” and “The Social Network”) that were helmed by men who got their start telling rock stars to act like rock stars, which inspired us to take a look at the more prominent directors of the music video world and track their success. The lesson we learned: even when someone has so many small successes, it only takes one big disappointment to kill them. (Big, big shoutout to the good people at the Music Video Database for helping to clear the cob webs, as well as opening our eyes on just how prolific some of these directors were.)
Julien Temple
You know it’s a Julien Temple video when: The entire piece looks like it was filmed in one giant tracking shot. (Look closer – the edits are there.) Breakout video: ABC’s “Poison Arrow,” and the short film “Mantrap” the band made in conjunction with their (spectacular) album The Lexicon of Love. Big screen debut: Temple is the only one on this list whose feature film debut came before his music video debut, though some would argue – and we wouldn’t disagree – that the movie in question, the Sex Pistols “documentary” “The Great Rock ‘n Roll Swindle,” is actually just a long-form music video. Best Temple video you never saw: Paul McCartney, “Beautiful Night,” from Macca’s Flaming Pie album. Gorgeous, and the tune is a good one, too.
Russell Mulcahy
You know it’s a Russell Mulcahy video when: Dozens of extras are wearing body paint, or when a prop nearly kills Simon Le Bon. In slow motion. Breakout video: Mulcahy was arguably the first “name” director of the music video world, helping clips for Ultravox, Kim Carnes and the Tubes – and, let us not forget, the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the first video MTV ever played – but it was the clip for Duran Duran’s“Hungry Like the Wolf,” along with the other videos he shot for the songs from Rio, that made him a household name…with music geeks like us, anyway. Big screen debut: “Razorback,” a monster movie about, yep, a bloodthirsty Australian pig. Mulcahy’s luck on the big screen changed two years later when he made the cult classic “Highlander”…then lost some luster when he made “Highlander II: The Quickening.” Best Mulcahy video you never saw: “The Flame,” the overlooked third single from Duran Duran spinoff group Arcadia. Le Bon is in full Barry Bostwick mode as he attends a fancy dinner party and the hosts try to kill him Agatha Christie-style.
* Sofia Coppola’s latest, “Somewhere,” won the highly prized Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. The problem, if there is one, is that she is a current friend and former flame of Jury President Quentin Tarantino. I have to admit that I had forgotten they’d ever been a “thing,” but many do remember and there’s been some grumbling to the effect that the movie isn’t all that “fucking great.” It ain’t the crime of the century, but I guess Tarantino should have recused himself. Speaking for myself only, I find that I tend to be either more harsh or more enthusiastic about friends’ work. As for Monte Hellman, Tarantino’s hardly alone in praising the maverick writer and director.
* Someone took Stanley Kubrick’s ultimate trip with way too much chemical enhancement over the weekend at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. I have a story about that I’ll tell you sometime. In the meantime, protective measures may be in order.
* Good. L.A. needs all the love letters, cinematic and otherwise, it can get. Naturally, all the lead actors are from foreign lands (Christopher Plummer is Canadian, but he feels like he’s from actual overseas), though I’m not sure about the characters. One of the things I loved about “A Single Man” was the way it depicted the European’s love affair with a town that U.S. natives mostly don’t seem to get.
* Woody Allen has stepped in to a long-running rumor-created fracas. France’s acting first lady, Carla Bruni Sarkozy, apparently did just fine in “Midnight in Paris.”
* Mickey Rourke’s latest gig appears to be playing notorious mob killer Richard “the Ice Man” Kuklinski. I think this is a close to making a true family film as Rourke may ever get, next to “Iron Man 2.” The man’s face doesn’t only scare small children, it scares me.
It’s been a hard day and I’m going going to keep it short and sweet. And how sweet it is for the husband-and-wife team of star Milla Jovovich and director Paul W.S. Anderson. Aided by those premium ticket prices for 3D movies and — as pointed out by Nikki Finke — using footage actually shot in 3D, the film easily won the weekend as indicated earlier and sailed to a record gross for the action-horror franchise. Specifically, the estimate for the weekend was $27.7 million for Screen Gems/Sony according to Box Office Mojo. It’ll likely drop off in significantly next week, but the damage is already done.
Elsewhere, there wasn’t that much box office love going around on this traditionally weak weekend. “Takers” came in at #2 and showed some relative legs with $6.1 million, again for Screen Gems/Sony, which is having a decent month. Meanwhile, both of last week’s toppers suffered significant second week declines. “The American,” from Focus Features, really did seem to suffer from some poor word of mouth and netted only a bit under $5.9 million.
Last week’s silver medalist, “Machete,” with two sequels announced in its end credits, suffered the geek second week curse and dropped by over 63% netting only 4.2% million. On the other hand, after seeing the film myself this weekend I heard some highly informal Hollywood scuttlebutt indicating the budget was significantly lower than $20 million figure we’ve heard for the very funny, but awfully slack, straight-faced tongue-in-cheek homage. So, it’s still possible Danny Trejo as Machete may kill again, if so, I’m guessing Fox will keep him on a tight budget.
