Slow news day (volume two)

Waaay back when this blog was first starting out, when we had barely scratched the potential of the literally dozens of people interested in my take on movie news, we mentioned Moneyball. That's right, all the way back in '08, we discussed the book-about-baseball-finances-turned-Steven-Soderbergh-movie. In the vast space of time between that day and now, a chasm old enough to have...grown an awesome beard?...things have changed. Aaron Sorkin has rewritten the script, someone named Bennett Miller (I'm checking to see if this is a fake name) is directing, and the cast still includes Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, and Jonah Hill (presumably not playing a baseball player). Had news of any of those things broken today, it would have counted as real, actual news. Instead, let me introduce you to someone. This is Kathryn Morris.
She's pretty in that generic Hollywood way, which is not to say that she wouldn't drop jaws in person and isn't a red-hot hottie. She's just familiar looking. She's also in Moneyball now. I believe she gets to make out with Brad Pitt. She was also on "Cold Case," which I always think of as the show that they were making fun of in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, even though I know their target was "CSI." Folks, this is what defines a slow news day. Casting an actress you kind of remember, who has few distinguishing characteristics, in a part you don't care about, in a movie that sounds iffy to begin with. Lemons into lemonade, folks. I'm trying here.

When given the chance, YOU WORK WITH PTA

Speaking as someone whose best chance of working for PTA will come after I have children, when PTA (Paul Thomas Anderson) asks you to join his film...YOU JOIN HIS FILM. I don't care if the role is "mute who stands in the corner touching himself," if someone who may end up being this generation's Stanley Kubrick asks you to partake in his vision, you drop whatever lame-ass romantic-comedy, talking-dog tentpole, or reimagined TV-series-turned-movie you were working on and get your ass to whatever whacked out location he is using. Why am I ranting about the need to bow to every whim of the man behind Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood? Because The Playlist is reporting that PTA is no longer waiting for a studio to come to their senses and fund the project, he's putting his damn cast together NOW. As all proper devotees of this writer/director/demigod know, his next inevitable masterpiece is about Scientology. Except, it's not called Scientology to avoid getting sued, but it may as well be called Schmientology in the film it's that obvious. Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing "The Master" (L Ron Hubbard...I mean, J Don Blubbard) and Jeremy Renner is also set to star. It's time to add the ladies, and PTA is beginning with a doozy. The role of Hoffman's wife (in the movies, in real life NOBODY touches Philip Seymour Hoffman because, you know, gross) has been offered to....
This is great, because someone really needs to keep Reese from doing something like Four Christmases 2 (would that be 8 Christmases or is there some kind of multiplier I'm forgetting). As for the role of the daughter of Witherspoon and Hoffman (again, in the movie, because in real life, Hoffman doesn't even have genitals), there are three actresses in contention:

Deborah Ann Woll

Amanda Seyfried

Emma Stone

Now, that Deborah (I believe it's pronounced deb-ORR-ahh, like on MILF Island) is out because...hellooooo did you see those teeth? Right, I'm being told she's a vampire on "True Blood" and that's why she looks like that. My apologies, now she's out because she stars on "True Blood." Seyfried is probably out unless PTA includes a plot that involves her writing letters or reading letters or stealing letters from someone she loves in some way (and unless it's "Nicholas Sparks presents Schmientology). So that conveniently leaves the only person who should be considered: EMMA STONE! You know my love for her, you know her talent in my eyes, and you know that I love PTA for coming to the same conclusion. Further proof the man is a genius.

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

Greetings junk junkies! Why, I can hardly believe it's been a full week since last we spoke to discuss my entertaining and expansive junk. In that time frame, I'm imagining that each and every one of us has put on the first layer of our holiday "padding," a fresh blurb of fatty fat fat to keep our insides warm and make us ever more ripe for zombie consumption. Huzzah! Before we dive into a close inspection of my junk, as is tradition, today's item from the creepy image from "Highlights" magazine above is the screw...for you see, it isn't just any screw...it's THE screw that held grumpy old Mrs. Winterbosom's rocking chair together. Oh, the old biddy may have sat on her porch and laughed before, but she won't be laughing now that she's having hip replacement surgery. Mwahahahaha.

Now, onward and upward to this week's tasty tidbits that aren't quite big enough to leave the nest on their own.

1.) Dude. RDJ is straight up pissed, yo. - Although you and I, being the semi-rational people we are (when it comes to matters other than sports teams or the heart), know that yesterday's Iron Man 2 poster was muy caliente, Marvel is not taking any chances. Despite the rest of the world's explicit and obvious boner for robots (I'm looking at you all-of-Asia), the studio felt a poster that displayed the kisser of its most famous star would be the best way to market the film abroad. Thus, with a spelled-out title and a demasked hero, here comes the foreign poster.

Jeez. I don't know who pooped in Robert's hot cocoa, but I would just fess up and run before he kills you with his mustache.

2.) I would watch PT Anderson's Care Bears if he made it - Few directors have absolutely crushed it every single time. Cameron Crowe broke his streak with the turdish Elizabethtown, leaving me only Darren Aronofsky (who really can't go wrong with his next movie in which Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis do it) and Paul Thomas Anderson, who has revealed that he's going back to an old friend and an old theme for his next film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (shown above with his split personality), who was last seen doing his best to enjoy the crap taco that was Pirate Radio, has worked with Anderson on Magnolia (a supremely underrated film) and is set to play "The Master" in this next effort, which will once more explore themes of faith and power. Set in the 1950s and somewhat reminiscent of There Will Be Blood, the film will follow Hoffman's character and his young protegee as they set up a faith-based organization. Now, supposedly, this will be less angry towards spirituality and a bit more kind towards it. Still, I'm going to go right on ahead and guess that some groups are likely going to have a problem with the guy who wrote a murderous milkshaker doing them some favors.

3.) Robert Duvall still works harder than you - Despite being, let me check, 117 years old, Robert Duvall refuses to slouch into the role of Wal-Mart greeter as society demands. Instead, the charismatic and insanely talented thespian is being sought after by Terry Gilliam (and not just for his sweet disposition). According to Collider, Gilliam wants Duvall to be his Quixote in the once rolling then decimated Man Who Killed Don Quixote (the collapse of Gilliam's original attempt was chronicled in the brilliant Lost in La Mancha...so, you know, every crushed dream and wasted millions has a tiny documentarian silver lining).

Duvall is quick to note that funding isn't locked down yet (I'm guessing investors may have also heard about Lost in La Mancha), but this sounds like sheer genius. I'm waiting for Gilliam to put a bow on his fantastic career, and his determination to get this one finished, FINALLY, is something I admire. Why, this ridiculous quest to film this movie despite all odds and reason is downright....hmm, there's a word for this, a word for when someone is on an idealistic journey to do something....it will come to me....

4.) You sunk my Battleship....expectations even further - Devin Faraci from Chud.com took a crazy-ass trip to meet with Peter Berg the director of Battleship. Oh, he'll likely do other movies, and he's done other movies before, but now and forever he will be the man responsible for Battleship. Anyhoodle, Devin got a whole bunch of inside information regarding the insane flick (which is downright Roland Emmerich-sounding). In case you hadn't heard, the enemy is going to be aliens. Those aliens will be called The Regents. How nice that the aliens pick a name we can say. Anyway, Devin discovered a lot of tidbits like that the ETs are going to be stuck to a traditional 9 ship water-based battle, just like in the board game, and that someone will say "You sunk my battleship," which pretty much confirms that the movie is going to suck all of the balls. Of all of the intriguing little nuggets, the best was that Berg is planning a response to Stephen Colbert's blast on the film (below).

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - Guns on Amtrak, Fake Lesbians & Battleship Audition
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

That's the thing I'm most excited for. Sad.

5.) This 44 Inch Chest is one Sexy Beast - I loved, loved, loved, loved Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast. He was so good and the film was so deliciously grisly and intense that it still resonates with me. Thus, I am incredibly excited for the next film from the writers of that movie (and one of the stars). The trailer only makes me more pleased, if only because it's a British gangster movie NOT from Guy Ritchie and because the cast looks like they could seriously kick my ass in real life. Oh, and the title is just sheer and total badassery. Lord, the more I think about this, the more I really want it to get here...which it probably won't because it's a British film that doesn't have Jude Law, so it won't get US distribution. It's why God invented DVD.



That's my junk for this week. I hope you like it. See you tomorrow with haiku in full effect.

Movie Review: Pirate Radio

Hey, hey, hey. I usually remember to kick out a movie review for you on Monday...but I forgotted it yesterday. Lo siento. Perhaps I forgot because the movie was so durn forgettable. My good friend and CD105.9 DJ Steve King liked the movie, I can only assume because it had amazing rock music...but when a movie's biggest laugh is a "pooped the bed" story and the ongoing gag is a sidekick with a dirty name, the movie kind of sucks. Here's what I thought:

Bon Montage
Pirate Radio sets sail on a love bloat

You know what’s fun about watching people listen to the radio? Nothing. No wonder then that writer/director Richard Curtis’s Pirate Radio sinks before it leaves port. This attempted love letter to 60’s-era rock reads more like a demented ransom note composed by half-wits and Ritalin junkies. The opening sequence, indistinguishable in every way from a trailer for the movie, initiates what could be the first 135-minute montage in cinematic history. Effervescent but stupid, it’s as if you’ve walked into a party with bitchin’ music where everyone is pretending to have a good time but really just wants to go home.

Originally titled The Boat That Rocked overseas, the film retells the lapse in judgment of our jolly British friends, as their stiff-upper-lipped radio stations refused to play more than a half hour of rock & roll each day during 60’s, which, you know, just so happened to be the prime days of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. This gave rise to rock broadcasts from various boats anchored in the North Sea, broadcasts tuned in by more than half of the British population. Compelling? Well, it could have been, had Curtis not decided to populate his fictional vessel with escapees from a mental institution.

Philip Seymour Hoffman leads a potent and criminally underused cast as The Count, who is basically Wolfman Jack without the howl and any definable personality. He is joined on air by various whackjobs, including Dave (Nick Frost), a near sex addict; Simon (Chris O’Dowd), a lovelorn awkward turtle; Angus (Rhys Darby), an ambiguously sexual weirdo; Gavin (Rhys Ifans), a narcissist who dresses like a pimp and Bob (Ralph Brown), a burned-out hippie. Their station, Radio Rock, is run by Quentin (Bill Nighy), whose godson, Carl (Tom Sturridge), is brought aboard for reasons that would ruin the third act. These characters stand exactly as revealed in the brief descriptors above as they do after more than two hours.

What counts as conflict boils down to Sir Alistair Dormandy, played by the delightfully hammy Kenneth Branagh, attempting to shut down the station with the help of his sidekick Twatt (Jack Davenport)—whose unfortunate moniker is a joke exploited no less than a dozen times. Branagh’s mustachioed Domandy plays like a British Hitler (a Britler?), and he receives the lion’s share of the laughter not derived from jokes about sex or poop.

Curtis, who flawlessly nailed the ensemble comedy with both Love Actually and Notting Hill, is at war with himself; he simultaneously desires to show how revolutionary this programming was (with near-constant reaction shots of British commonfolk listening along) while delivering broad-based laughs. Throw in some truly bizarre subplots involving confused paternity and sex partner-swapping and you get an overlong hot mess that is never boring but never outright compelling.

It’s easy to see how this film sounded like a really good idea at the time, but so does Taco Bell at 2:30 in the morning, and just like that late-night “run for the border,” Pirate Radio leaves you feeling overstuffed and full of regret.

Grade – C-