December 17, 2003

(Producer's General Warning: Opinions formed while reading half a Hot Button column could be dangerous to the your health, my health and the health of some movies.)

The are four things wrong with Win A Date With Tad Hamilton…

1. From the very beginning to the very-close-to-90-minutes-later-ending, the pace is a little too fast and furious. It doesn’t feel so much like you’re on a Moulin Rouge-ian editing rush through the movie, but rather that you lose the opportunities to get settled with each character. More importantly, the three physical comics in the movie – Nathan Lane, Sean Hayes and Ginnifer Goodwin – don’t get the time to finish their beats. It is almost like they looked at Elf and said, “Do the opposite of what they did,” as the biggest laughs in Elf come from the breath beat Will Farrell takes after doing something really stupid and the look on the face of the person watching them. There are a few great double take gags in Win A Date, but we don’t get them because the movie is in such a rush.

They might also have been thinking that a broad sight gag would work in the background of a scene. And they do, at one point, get maximum wattage from a visual joke played in a long shot. But there is a gag about a mouthful of spaghetti in a fancy Hollywood restaurant that cannot be cut around. It has to be played, whether it is as successful a gag as intended or not. All it does now is distract the audience, as it was obviously intended to do,

2. The story structure is rather simple and clean. But almost too much so. I’m not going to give the full story away – and DreamWorks’ trailers and TV spots do not, at least so far – but this thing is so lean that if feels like an outline sometimes. Because the film flies, the clock is lost and, along with it, a great audience response to one of the film’s best lines, offered by Josh Duhamel when reflecting on what they have all been through…. a line that stiffed when I saw the film.

3. There are two too many characters in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. This is one of those things where you get the sense that they developed themselves into a problem. Funny though each man is, there is no storytelling virtue in having both Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes in this movie. They essentially do the same thing. They could have been Gleason and Carney if they were allowed. But there was no time for it and no writing done in that direction. Essentially they are just in the way of one another.

Even more importantly, Ginnifer Goodwin is going to be the next Eve Arden, the next Joan Cusack, the next great sidekick gal. And if she ever gets the shot, she may get past that. She’s that good. There is a shot here where she gets no help from Robert Luketic, out of focus, behind Topher Grace, and watches Grace’s emotions in just the right way. She’s really in the scene.

There must have been a reason why the filmmakers built a third woman into this story when none was needed. Maybe the Goodwin character had scenes at some point in development that disallowed her from taking the position in the story that the female bartender character takes in this movie. But from what is there now, it should have and easily could have been Goodwin. She is a character who does not interfere. So she could have been supportive of both sides of this friendly triangle without changing her character. Instead, Goodwin is lost for about 20 minutes of the film (or more) and she is sorely missed. The scene where she would see the Bosworth character for the first time after supporting a bad decision, finally offering her truth instead of her façade, could have been a Cameron Crowe level piece of romantic comedy history. Nope. And by the way, if the film’s great Topher Grace speech was one step better, this movie could have been the Say Anything for this young generation.

4. The movie ends too abruptly. Much the same way that Something’s Gotta Give has to go waaaaay out of its way to keep Jack Nicholson from actually consummating his relationship with Diane Keaton’s daughter so it doesn’t get too icky, this film lets the characters off the hook a little too quickly. You have to let “the wrong things” in a romantic movie settle in for a while to get full impact.

On the other hand….

Win A Date With Tad Hamilton is going to be the biggest romantic comedy sensation since Legally Blonde and pretty surely the first $100 million hit of 2004.

No one has ever seen Kate Bosworth smile in a movie before. It’s a good thing when Kate Bosworth smiles. She is not the most expressive actress in the world, but damned if she does not burn through that screen when she smiles. She delivers exactly what the movie calls for… profound beauty and instant likeability. As I was watching, I kept getting surprised because she was such a brooder in Blue Crush, trying so hard to be a sex goddess in Rules of Attraction, and so abused in Wonderland that all this smiling was a really pleasure.

Topher Grace is really, really good here. Luketic still works the close-ups to the point of some pain, but he survives that and really delivers in the end.

Luketic is still finding his visual style as a director. He’s pretty basic. But he gets exceptional performances out of his entire cast, just as he did in Legally Blonde, and his taste in actors is impeccable.

Josh Duhamel is beautiful and I still have no idea whether he can really act, but he’s just right here. He’s not vain, even though he is playing a vain guy. And he’s game.

And then there is Goodwin, about whom I just can’t say enough. She really has very little great stuff to do here. But she is alive in scene after scene after scene in a starling way. Give this girl a role like the one Renee Zellweger has in Cold Mountain and she would win an Oscar. Give her Rizzo in Grease. Put her opposite Adam Sandler and she will hold every scene. Remake The Apartment and she would match or surpass the memory of Shirley MacLaine’s performance… and convince you that boss would want to sleep with her, no problem. She’s not what you expect. But she’s the most interesting new comic actress I’ve seen since Judy Greer and - in a weird way, because she’s not tall and blonde - I think she will be easier to get cast in big studio movies in big roles. (Greer is already a favorite of some of the best young directors in the business.)

Anyway… back to the movie…

It’s a movie that audiences are going to adore. By the end, you find something to like (or love) in everyone. And its heart is in just the right place.

What I see right now is a January 23 release date. It might have changed again. But I would go as early as I could if I were DreamWorks. The more weeks between this film and 50 First Dates, which will open big no matter how good or bad it is, is the best for this movie. If I could get screens, I’d open it Christmas Day on 250 screens and go wide on the 2nd There is nothing else as fun in the market and teenage girls are going to eat this up… but adult women will go for it also – it’s not as silly as Legally Blonde - and boys will identify with Topher Grace and enjoy watching Bosworth.

It’s really nice to be writing about a movie again and even better writing about one that’s not Oscar bait. DreamWorks’ summer looks very muscular from here. But the return to cocky – well, DreamWorks is cocky even when they are releasing crap (he said lovingly) – starts with Tad Hamilton.

READER OF THE DAY: THE OTHER SUNDANCE BOB writes: “Have you noticed that in the print ads for "Something's Gotta Give", the lead actors seem to be in their 40s??? Something's Gotta Give? I guess their wrinkles and natural age lines....

Also, just saw the commercial for "Big Fish" on TV. That sonorous announcer says: "From the imagination of Tim Burton...." Well I guess that's news to John August who wrote the wonderful screenplay based on the book by Daniel Wallace.

Lastly, having seen an advance screening of "Girl With a Pearl Earring", a lovely film about the artist Vermeer and the subject of his famous painting with yet another good performance from Scarlett Johansen.....this is the film that has me tearing out my hair about English accents.

Excuse me, but why is EVERYBODY in this film talking like they're in London? At the Hamptons Film Festival, I met the director, who's English. And yeah, Colin Firth as Vermeer....he's an English actor. But why is EVERY SINGLE PERSON in this film talking like it's bloody ol' England? Just for once, for a historical film set in Holland, could we have heard inflections that sounded proper for the country its set in?? (Don't get me started on all those Roman epic films, and EVERYONE sounds like they're from the U.K........)

There....I feel better.”

THE SOUP MAN writes: “I'm working toward an M.A. in teaching, and through a class I have on the reading process I realized that I employ the same tactics in moviewatching - acquiring background knowledge about the filmmakers, the plot, etc., talking about the text, reading criticism, and re-watching, for starters, that one does to read any text. There isn't a 'correct' way to watch a movie, but there's all kinds of strategies that thinking filmgoers use, and these strategies can be inaccessible to the masses because they remain mysterious. I wish critics would share and make explicit their processes; too often it seems that their opinions, sublimely articulated as they can be, arrive fully-formed not long after the credits roll. When you do read about a reconsideration of a film it's months (Newsweek & "Bonnie and Clyde") and usually years after a film's release.”

SAM NOT GAMGEE: “What can I say about Return of the King except

Jackson: 3
Lucas: 2

The best fantasy adventure movie since The Empire Strikes Back.

And you're right: he could have made it at least another half hour longer. Unlike most movies that have multiple endings, I wanted this one to keep going.

For years I have been working the system to see free movies, especially previews. This was my crowning achievement!”

E ME: You guys have so much fun ahead of you, discovering the awards season movies… how are your measuring sticks changing as the awards keep coming?