Tag: Get Smart

A day at the TV Land Awards

Cast Of The Love Boat

The TV Land Awards are not an “and the winner is…” kind of award show extravaganza. They’re more a series of honorary nods to the very popular shows of television’s illustrious, time-killing past with an emphasis on glitz. And so a bunch of us media types were invited to add to the hub-bub at the Sony Studios back lot on a breezy April, waiting on a red carpet for whichever celebrity was escorted to our assigned spots, with those from famed print and broadcast outlets obviously getting the first dibs. In the case of this lowly pixel stained wretch, I felt honored to chat with a few really terrific performers who, each in their own way, had made quite an impression on me personally.

That most definitely applies to Jane Leeves, the comedically gifted actress best known as Daphne, Niles Crane’s Manchester-born one-true-crush and eventual wife from “Frasier.” After confessing that I’d had a crush of my own on her since before her famed “Seinfeld” turn as “Marla, the Virgin” her response was typically blunt-yet-charming. “I’m not that old!”

“Neither am I!,” I blurted. (I later learned that Ms. Leeves birthday was the following day. My own birthday was two days prior. I guess age was on both of our minds.)

Aside from being no non-TV star herself, Ms. Leeves was there to promote her now show, coincidentally to be aired on TV Land in a rare foray into original programming, “Hot in Cleveland.” The show teams Leeves with Wendy Malick (“Just Shoot Me”) and Valerie Bertinelli (“One Day at a Time”). The three play “very L.A.” career women with show business-related backgrounds of various types. (Leeves plays an “eyebrow plucker to the stars.”) Feeling a bit aged out of the L.A. game, they attempt a trip to Paris, but instead find themselves marooned at the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They quickly realize that beautiful, middle-aged women who can refer to celebrities by their first name are actually in fairly short supply in the midwestern metropolis and they decide to stay and be big fish in a smaller glamor pond. Betty White costars as a neighbor, perhaps a wacky one. Cue the glib comparisons calling this a “younger ‘Golden Girls.'”

Nevertheless, fans of Ms. Leeves should rest assured that her character is no retread of Daphne Moon. “She’s focused her whole life on her career and has forgotten to have a life. She’s the sort of smart aleck, wise-ass of the group, so it’s very different.”

janeleeves2

Then, perhaps feeling a bit star-struck, I went with the fallback question I frequently steal from our esteemed Will Harris. What project has she done that she doesn’t feel has gotten enough attention.

“It’s my cooking, quite frankly.”

Continue reading »

Celluloid Heroes: The 10 Funniest Lines of the ’00s

It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud at something a person says. Witty is one thing, but genuinely funny is another beast altogether. And when I say laugh out loud, I’m talking about involuntary spasms of laughter, the kind that take a couple of minutes to subside. There is no formula for it, and I have no criteria for what form it takes. I just know it when it see it. Unfortunately, I don’t see it often enough. Sometimes they appear in otherwise unfunny movies, at which point I usually get angry, but that’s a subject for another day.

In the first of a long list of decade-oriented blog posts about the movies of the 2000s, here are the lines that made me laugh the hardest at the Googoplex. Be advised, potential SPOILERS abound here, so I don’t want to hear that I ruined such and such movie for you. What are your favorite lines? Let’s hear ’em in the comment section.

#10: Up – Somebody always loves you
This is more of a laughter-through-tears kind of thing, but it’s my list, my rules, so it counts. Pete Docter goes straight for the heart in this movie, almost mercilessly so. The “married life” sequence makes me cry like a little girl every time I watch it, and this scene, where the loyal Dug comes to comfort Carl, is quite possibly the “Awwwwwww” moment of the decade.

Continue reading »

What Else Ya Got? “Get Smart”

Welcome to a new installment we like to call “What Else Ya Got?” The market of home video is about much, much more than just owning your favorite movie these days; if a studio skimps on the bonus features – “What do you mean Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t available to do an audio commentary?” – some view it as nothing short of ripping off the customer, as if owning the movie were suddenly beside the point. We find this phenomenon amusing, but we also understand it; it’s what kept this writer from running out to buy either “Kill Bill” movie when they were released. Years later, he’s still waiting for the combo set that features Quentin Tarantino’s cut of both volumes together.

Our inaugural subject for What Else Ya Got? is “Get Smart,” Peter Segal’s high-octane reboot of Maxwell Smart’s Agent 86. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Disc One
There are two versions of the movie; the theatrical release, and the “Get Smart Takes” version, which has over 20 minutes of added jokes, alternate takes, etc. When a guy like Steve Carell is your lead, there is surely some comedy gold on the cutting room floor, so it makes sense that they would include a feature like this. The problem is that the only way of seeing these features is to watch the entire movie, meaning you’ll need two hours and ten minutes to watch 20 minutes of funny. Why they didn’t include the alternate jokes as a stand-alone piece is a mystery.

Disc Two
“The Right Agent for the Job”

This is a making-of featurette featuring interviews with Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson director Segal and the movie’s producers, and includes screen tests between Carell and Hathaway, where they realized that the two had incredible chemistry.

“Man in Moscow”
A quick featurette about shooting in Red Square, which features Hathaway again sparring deftly with Carell.

“Language Lessons”
Steve Carell pretending to speak French, Italian, German, and sign language

“Spy Confidential”
A quick gag reel.

“Spying on Get Smart’s Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control”
Shameless plug for the straight-to-DVD release featuring Masi Oka and Nate Torrence, the gadget makers at CONTROL. But hey, the movie also features the lovely Jayma Mays, so perhaps it’s worth a look.

There is also a digital copy of the movie on Disc Two.

That’s it, kids. We’ll see you soon, covering something other than “Meet Dave,” which has one, count it, one featurette. And a lame one at that. But hey, can you blame them? The movie stunk on ice, and made about six bucks at the box office.

© 2023 Premium Hollywood

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑