Another Labor Day weekend inspired video clip.
Remember, any job is easy if you have the right tools.
Tag: Johnny Depp (Page 4 of 9)
It’s been nearly 15 years since producer James L. Brooks bankrolled a feature version of a short film made by some Texas youngsters, and that movie (“Bottle Rocket”) introduced the movie world to director Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson, and his brother, Luke. Since then, Dallas-born Luke Wilson’s movie-star handsome likeness has become a highly familiar to filmgoers, playing both leading men and supporting roles mostly in comedies like “Legally Blonde,” “Old School,” and Mike Judge’s criminally maltreated “Idiocracy,” as well as “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and a classic cameo in “Anchorman.” (He was the anchor who — spoiler alert — got his arm was sliced off with a sword by Tim Robbins.)
To this day, Wilson has a habit of turning up in odd and interesting places, like a series of well-known commercials for AT&T or in the uneven but entertaining “Middle Men,” in which Wilson very credibly stars as a Texas businessman who gets much more than he expected at the intersection of e-commerce and adult entertainment. He is also preparing to play the part of Laura Dern’s flaky ex-husband on “Enlightened,” a new TV series from cult writer-producer Mike White (“Chuck and Buck,” “School of Rock“) with episodes directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme.
At the risk of creating an embarrassing but perhaps partially correct impression of a man-crush, in person Luke Wilson is a highly charismatic guy. Behind his highly colloquial speech — I’ve left out a lot of “likes” — is an intelligence that, without giving away much of anything, dispenses with a lot of the usual show business interview platitudes. Now in his late 30s, he also appeared thinner than his slightly chunky appearance on “Middle Man” or his recent AT&T commercials. That was because Wilson had deliberately gone over his normal weight by about 25 pounds for the role of a hard-driving businessman and family guy.
What was that like?
I was going to try and avoid doing this this week and meant to gripe about the Los Angeles Film Festival’s rather serious problems in terms of how they treat the human beings who attend, but there was simply too much interesting news stuff going on to ignore, even if some of it is outside of what I usually cover. So, LAFF, you get another reprieve…
* I don’t do gossip and the content of an argument between a director/star and his ex-mistress certainly qualifies. On the other hand, when that star is Mel Gibson and he has the history he does and he says something as noxious as this, you just can’t ignore it. People say terrible stuff when they’re in the thrall of extreme anger, but Gibson keeps going back to the racist and misogynist well when he becomes unhinged. It’s not nothing.
Also, I hope he avoids anything that looks like preaching ever again. I’m no theologian, but as I understand it, a devout fundamentalist anti-Vatican II Catholic who openly cheats on and leaves his wife is not exactly walking the walk, but it’s only anyone’s business because of the way he’s made religion part of his career and it’s hard not to think of him as complete hypocrite, on top of everything else. I truly don’t believe that people should decide not to see movies based on a particular actor’s behavior, not matter how bad, but this comment is so repulsive, and the man is so clearly out of control, that I’ll understand if people would just prefer not to look at him anymore.
On the other hand, for those in the talking and making fun of people business, it can be a good thing, and it’s already started, largely via Twitter. Jeff Schneider of the Wrap has compiled some of it.
* I usually also try to avoid stories that are vague and unconfirmed, but this one is a bit too interesting and potentially big to ignore. There’s also a various obvious Gibson connection to the biggest unconfirmed glorified rumor of the day. It’s that it’s just barely possible that two back-to-back “Mad Max” sequels are being directed down-under even as we speak by the Max man himself, George Miller. Certain aspects of the story, especially the putative titles, are hinky, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. If it’s true, I’m guessing Miller is a bit relieved that Gibson isn’t involved this time. (Though can they really be sequels in the usual sense without him, or at least his character?)
It appears that there was so much consternation in response to a cleverly odd online teaser trailer for Paramount/Nickelodeon’s “Rango” that the original video disappeared from YouTube within hours a couple of weeks back. Well, now it’s back (you can see it at the link above) and we also now have this more conventional, but still very clever trailer for the CGI animated film starring the voice of Johnny Depp and an impressive all-star supporting cast as well as the very good writer John Logan on board.
It might be just my love of westerns talking, but I completely dig this trailer. That’s interesting because up to now director Gore Verbinski hasn’t been on my radar very much — I’m not a “Pirates of the Caribbean” fan, to put it mildly. This little varmint oater with a surreal edge, however, has me expecting good things.
Tired of trailers that give everything away? Well, below is the teaser trailer — or whatever it’s supposed to be — that’s been mystifying bloggers like Drew McWeeney all day. The movie is called “Rango.” [UPDATE: The trailer has since been deleted. I guess someone decided it was just too surreal. ANOTHER UPDATE, MUCH LATER: And now it’s back.]
Reminds me of a joke:
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: The fish.
Or, in this case, the mechanical fish, I guess.
As per McWeeney and YouTube, the movie is performance-capture heavy animated piece about a “chameleon with an identity crisis” and stars Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, and a truly impressive collection of venerable character actors including Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Ray Winstone, Beth Grant, Ned Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton and Alfred Molina. It’s being directed by Gore Verbinski and co-written by the very busy scribe John Logan. I am anything but a fan of Verbinski’s “Pirates” movies, but the marketing has worked. They’ve got my attention.
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