August 5, 2005

Nothing to complain about… it's been a pretty great week at the movies.

I've seen two films a day every day but Monday… half of them complete and ready for theaters and half of them still somewhere in the process… late in the process, but still in process.

The ones heading into theaters, The 40 Year Old Virgin (a second look), Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo and Asylum were all happy experiences, albeit each living in a different realm of expectation.

There are very different elements in The 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers. One moment, it seems that one is better than the other… and a few minutes later, a big joke makes your position flip. The truth is, we haven't had a better one-two R rated comedy punch since the heyday of the SNL/Lampoon comedies.

If you have any interest at all in seeing Deuce Bigalow, you won't be disappointed by DB:EG. The press kit really says it all…

Asylum is kind of a classical English death drama. We screened it on Monday night at Hollywood's Arclight cinema to a full house of people who are interested in arthouse product and who have filled a 250-seat theater for the third time in three screenings. Visiting with us were the venerable producer Mace Neufeld and the moody hunky Morton Csokas. Both men were terribly nice and good interviews.

Csokas is the slowly developing movie star who has titles with more than two billion worldwide on his resume with two Rings and one Star Wars, plus The Bourne Supremacy and Kingdom of Heaven, not to mention xXx and Kangaroo Jack… really, don't mention them. He is one of the most considerate, polite, gentle men on the ascendance you will ever meet. And he travels with Eva Green, who even while suffering jet lag is both beautiful and able to tell jokes with just the lifting of one eyebrow.

The film has much of the same mood that the director's last film, Young Adam, had… lots of sex, lots of dirt, lots of grief.

Only one of the four still-developing films I saw is likely to come up short of Oscar nominations when the time comes. The Fox party at the Globes and after Oscar night may not feature the Best Picture winner, but there is a very good chance that it will sport the winner of both Best Actress and Best Actor in Diane Keaton and Joaquin Phoenix. Reese Witherspoon's 0-for-Oscar run is almost surely over with her singing performance in Walk The Line. And one of the surprise nominees of the year may be Clifton Collins, Jr, who was last in awards contention for Traffic and who is nearly unrecognizable in the role that made people see Robert Blake as a serious actor.

But perhaps the most exciting thing about this week was the number of young directors who have flexed their muscles. Two of the films were from second time directors whose first films - one, a doc - were festival fodder. Judd Apatow makes his feature directing debut with The 40 Year Old Virgin.

As for The Dukes of Hazzard… I don't know… didn't see it… and oddly enough, I'm not sweating it. Maybe you can tell me.

Have a great weekend.

E-ME.