WEEKEND PREVIEW

As you read this, I am on my way to sunny Bermuda… heck, I may even be there by now.  I will try to update the column from there a few times next week, but to make sure you don’t get too bored, Lovely Laura is going to start posting Classic Editions of The Whole Picture and Working Hollywood in my absence.  (Don’t you love the “Classic” scam?)  After I return, we’re going to start running the Classics on the weekends,  just to give you more stuff on which to chew.  If you are interested in what I’ll be experiencing, do check out bermudafilmfest.com.

CHICKS WITH BALLS:  I didn’t go to the screening of The Sweetest Thing expecting too much, except perhaps to be glared at by Sony staff (didn’t happen… the team was as charming and polite as ever).  I am, by any standard, a non-believer in Roger Kumble as a director.  I felt like he came up quite short on a very viable idea with Cruel Intentions, despite having time and money to do the film right.  But I have to say… he seems to drift towards very good ideas.

The Sweetest Thing could have been a major summer underdog hit.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not a very good movie.  It’s not as good as the weakest of The Farrelly Bros.’ work.  But the film flirts with a certain level of magic that makes me think that it could really surprise.  However, I think it’s in the wrong time slot.  Coming out today, the film has only two weeks to catch the eyes and dollars of teen and college age girls who are the strongest audience for the film.  But they are all just getting off of spring break and anticipating the rush of summer movies.  It’s a hard sell. In the first week of June or the second weekend of July, The Sweetest Thing could have been a real change-of-pace in the midst of the bang-bang summer season, offering a legitimately fun film for young women to go to more than once.

The movie itself?  It’s a mixed bag.  Cameron Diaz, as ever, owns the screen.  But the real surprise here is Christina Applegate.  She looks great and feels relaxed in scene after scene.  And she’s equally as poised whether she’s selling a gag or being played as the butt of one.  I guess that’s the overall feel of this film.  The trio of friends, filed out with Selma Blair, bounce back from every humiliation, every twist, every turn. 

What can one say about a movie in which the shy girl (Blair) recovers from a depressing break-up by having sex with a big dumb stud in virtually any location imaginable with a severity that actually has her rubbing her pubic mound in one scene like an athlete with a sore shoulder?  And that’s the throwaway gag. 

I don’t want to start listing gags, as I’m sure most reviewers/critics will, because if you want to see the film, the gags are all there really is, so why would I ruin it?  And if you don’t want to go, you really don’t want to go!  (Jeff Wells didn’t make it through the credits before he ran for the hills.)  But there are enough moments, if you are inclined to like this kind of movie, to get you through and to make you smile when it shows up on cable. 

The casting of the men is a little dicier.  Thomas Jane is an actor I like, but he is not a leading man.  Sorry.  What hit me like a ton of bricks watching him here was that he IS Frederic Forrest.  He’s a good actor, he’s modestly attractive and he’s got the blue collar, good guy feel about him.  Like Forrest, as a young man, people try to make him the leading hunk.  But Jane’s career in that slot hasn’t happened, not for lack of opportunities.  He’s solid here, but not special.  This is the kind of role where a Robert Downey, Jr. raises the bar up a few notches and turns plain material into something magical… kind of like Diaz, Applegate and Blair do on the girl side here. 

Supporting Jane is Jason Bateman, who is a nice enough guy, I’m sure… but why couldn’t they afford Jerry O’Connell?  It’s soooo obvious that it was O’Connell that they wanted.  I can understand why he might be sick of playing this role, but hey, it’s a Cameron Diaz movie!!! 

And one more note on supporting actors… never hire Parker Posey to be in a movie with Selma Blair.  They are, within 3 chromosomes, the same actress.  This is not to diminish the skills or charms of either woman, but it was like some sort of circus mirror trick. 

The oddest thing about The Sweetest Thing is that it becomes so old-fashioned in the end.  Is the answer to girrrrrl power that all a woman needs to be happy is the right man?  I mean, that’s okay and all, but the movie works so hard to tell us that these women are smart, funny, sexy and in control of their lives, even when pursuing a guy.  But when push comes to shove, he completes her.  Hey, maybe that’s what women want (or think they want) these days… the freedom to be sexual objects and sexual objectifiers until they want to get serious. 

There were lots of gags that I liked, but didn’t laugh at out loud.  But they felt right.  Some stuff was just so far over the top that it was a waste.  (How many films can have a character poked in the eye with a penis and another sprayed with water from a broken urinal all in the same 10 seconds?  How many directors would go for the Blow-Job-Cam in a mainstream studio comedy?  How many films create a crowd of 50 people for a scene that realistically calls for 6 people max?)  The Sweetest Thing is the kind of movie that has Cinderella leave a glass dildo at the ball.  If you think that’s kind of funny, you’ll like the movie.  If you don’t, you won’t.  But here in early April, I think that studio marketers will have a hard time finding an audience that has way too much time to consider the issue.

HUH?!?!?:  Now that the Goldmember name has been secured for the third Austin Powers film, reports have now appeared about something that I either forgot or never knew… New Line gave MGM its attached-trailer spot in exchange for the title, The Spy Who Shagged Me.  So after lots of money spent fighting, and over 1000 trailers removed from theaters, eating two months of promotion, New Line and MGM have come to an agreement on Goldmember.  New Line is giving MGM its attached-trailer spot in exchange for the title rights.  Yes… the same deal.  So why did it take months and a public spat to work this out?  Did they think that “Goldmember” was less like a Bond title than “The Spy Who Shagged Me?” (Rhetorical question.)  Maybe they were just too distracted by Rings to say, “Uh, how about the same deal, dudes?”

LATER:  Sean Jordan is shutting down ZENtertainment for a while, leaving only the archived website and some occasional updates for his fans.  Sound familiar?  Sean is heavy into school and needs to focus.  Good luck, Sean.  See you back around the ranch soon.

READER OF THE DAY:  The Whalin’ Man writes:  “In your column regarding Pokemon 4 and 5 to be released in the U.S. you mentioned how both films were already out on DVD in Japan. Not true, the 4th movie is but the 5th movie has yet to be released in Japan yet but will be released this summer. Yes, I'm a Pokemon fan and feel free to mock me for it. I'll admit here and now I'm looking more forward to Powerpuff Girls: The Movie over Minority Report. The trailer for MR is exciting but it feels like Spielberg is trying to be Mr. Matrix and Mr. Hip with this movie. He's become a guy who used to be the audience's master of pop but is now it's slave, mainly because he both doesn't know what the current pop is but also because the audience's definition of pop has changed over the years since he became a success with Jaws. Well, that's my 2 cents.”

And this from Double D:  “In my opinion, most people's "real" favorite films of the year are determined not exactly at the end of the year, but much further down the road. I'll just go ahead and use myself as an example.  When I think of the year 2000. Two movies clearly come to my mind: Best In Show and O Brother, Where art thou? At the time during those, end of year lists, I doubt those two films come to mind. I remember Michael Wilmington saying O Brother was the best, and I think people thought he was nuts. But lately, out of my DVD collection, those get the most repeated viewings when friends are over. Hell, in 1999, I wish to rewind everything and ask, "Why the hell didn't The Limey make anyone's top 10?" In 1998, forget that whole Shakespeare in Love v. SPR, gimmie THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The reflective power, and the Repeat-Watching value of films, the long-lasting, all that shit, I think that really determines the best of that year. Funny thing of 2001, I don't think there was any clear Best Film. Everyone has their lists, Memento should clearly be mentioned, but everything else...shrug. Seriously, the year was that weak. I read a forward by William Goldman in a screenwriting book that came out recently, and he declared 2000 to be the worst Hollywood year ever, I can't even imagine what he thought of this past year.”

E ME:  I’ll get your mail eventually… tell me what you see and what’s happening while I am gone…