Friday, April 23, 2010

Pop Culture Round Up: April 2 - 23

This is what happens when you forget to post these things. Hold on to your hats.

Hollywood stars to film in Ottawa

Anna Paquin declaration causes site to crash

Host of books appear as angels become theme of new teenage reading cult
  • Are they inspired by Castiel? Because I can see that.
Branding Deals Come Early in the Filmmaking Process

NBC Shows Send Signals to Recycle, Exercise and Eat Right

Bering in Mind: Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist, but urge: "Don't stop believing!"
  • Hold on to that feel-en-i-en! Oh, how could any one resist?

'Breaking Dawn': 'Dreamgirls' director Bill Condon is the first choice for the last two 'Twilight' films

Tracy Morgan Gets Emotional When Asked About Tina Fey

Home Library Key to Academic Success

Twitter chatter may predict movie box office
  • We're doomed.
It's time for Hollywood to see past the coming attraction of sequels

Are newspaper critics old hat amid the flood of online critics?

Why did 'Date Night's' Tina Fey and Steve Carell go from great TV to a bad movie?
Age gap between men and women on TV is closing, research finds

We Predict the Timeline of the Inevitable Glee Backlash

10 Famous Movie Quotes In Graph Form [PIC]

Love sees Gosling or McAvoy as Cobain

5 Reasons 3D TV Won't Take Off
  • Good because I don't want to puke in my living room.
Lovers, Not Victims

Blinded by jealousy?

Brad Bourland, Grocer With a 10,000-Top-Movie List

Dear TV Theme Music: What's Become Of You?

Death, Italian Style - Best Sendoffs

Movie critics: Shut up already!

Movie theaters turn to live event screenings to fill seats

The Food Network Expands With the Cooking Channel
  • Not a joke.
Museums Take Their Lessons to the Schools

Leave it to Turkish soap operas to conquer hearts and mindsin the Arab world
  • Of course! Who doesn't love the cheese of a good soap opera, which I am going to go ahead an assume is universal.
A New PETA Ad Will Feature the Late Bea Arthur

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

In Tuesday's comedy Olympics, I completely forgot to mention that I also saw Hot Tub Time Machine. Stop judging me. Sometimes broad comedy is just the thing.

Though you may not have guessed it from the ads, there's a depressing beginning to the hot tub time machine-related antics: estranged college friends John Cusack and Craig Robinson take Rob Corddry to a ski resort they frequented in during better days after Corddry attempts suicide. Once the hot tub send the trio plus Clark Duke back in time, they waffle between trying to relive their exact experiences for fear of disturbing the space-time continuum or potentially improving their lives for the better. Actually, their sights are set hilariously low, mostly involving avoiding physical pain (though there's some unfortunate sexism thrown in there for good measure). There's a lot of bodily function humour along the way, but the chemistry between the leads mostly redeems it or at least inject genuine emotions into the proceedings.

Yes, comedy is wildly broad, Cusack was sometimes a disconcerting shade of orange, and the end raised more questions for me than is reasonable considering what preceded it. There's also a character named April who isn't a crazy bitch (yay, Lizzy Caplan!), and Sebastian Stan is in it. So there. No Date Night but not as terrible as you might think. C+

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Cooking with Stella (2009), The Maid (2009), Date Night (2010)

Spring and summer naturally mean more comedies, and that's just as well after slogging through winter, winter movies, and particularly this year's crop of the same. For whatever reason, I tend not to lean toward comedy, and, when I do, I prefer my comedy spliced with something else, e.g. a hor-com like Shaun of the Dead or an action rom-com like Grosse Pointe Blank. Even so, I've been seeing a lot of comedies lately, and they disappoint more than they amuse.

First was Cooking with Stella (2009), in which the housekeeper (Seema Biswas) at the residence for a Canadian embassy worker in New Dehli who's been ripping off the household for years nearly has her plan derailed when the latest residents include a househusband (Don McKellar) who's also a chef and wants to learn Indian cookery from said housekeeper. The potential here is pretty good: Don McKellar, cooking, comedy spliced with a con. But here's the thing about a good con movie: you either need to believe that the con is harmless enough to the mark (e.g., he's so rich he won't miss a few mil) or that the mark is such a rube he almost has it coming. Neither is the case here. Michael (McKellar) obviously respects Stella (Biswas), so she . . . goes for the big con. By the third act everyone in the theatre around me just seemed tickled pink, laughing away, and I was clutching the arm rests and trying not to growl. If they had done one thing to make Stella in some way sympathetic -- given us the impression that she was making up for getting poorly paid, hinted at some massive debt she needed to clear, pointed out family she was supporting -- the end result would have been a lot different. I love a well executed con, and I'm willing to give points for trying. But this? Everyone kind of sucked, so there's no fun in watching them suck in varying ways. Also, almost all of Lisa Ray's dialogue sounded like bad ADR. C-

Initially, The Maid seemed like it was going to bother me just as much, if not even more. A maid (Catalina Saavedra) who's been with a family for 21 years, is getting sick and complaining of too much work, so the family offers to bring someone in to help her. Raquel (Saavedra) then sets about sabotaging everyone they bring in. This part drags on for way too long. I don't know whether to blame writer-director Sebastián Silva, Saavedra, or some combination of the two, but there is no insight into Raquel's psyche. We never get to the bottom of why she chooses to behave this way, and the mask posing as Saavedra's face doesn't provide any clues either. Even when we take time out to seemingly focus on Raquel's inner life, there's still nothing there: Raquel admires a cardigan in Mrs.' closet, so she buys the same one on her day off. Because of how she looked in the sweater? Because of how it made her feel? Because she feels she deserves sweaters just as nice (she gets one as a gift from the family early in the movie and makes a point of looking at the label, but we don't see the label and what do I know about Chilean labels anyway, so it's hard to judge)? Who knows? After the third maid, Lucy (Mariana Loyola), is brought in while Raquel is incapacitated with illness, and Lucy manages to crack through Raquel's . . . whatever it is that's the matter with Raquel . . ., the movie picks up considerably and packs quite a few laughs in. If only they had cut down the first hour to twenty minutes or so and given us the slightest window in Raquel's mental disorder, it could have been a great movie. B-

It's beyond obvious how hysterical Steve Carell and Tina Fey are, so throwing them together in front of a camera should achieve at least a few laughs. Throw them up there with some material that's actually funny and give them funny people to work with? You're cooking with fire. Date Night's not a perfect movie -- it drags when it focuses on the thriller angle over comedy -- but it's by far the best comedy I've seen all year. As a suburban married couple who try to get out of their rut by heading into the city for a dinner out and find themselves wanted by crooked cops for stealing a mobster's property, Carell and Fey hit the exact right balance between fish out of water and resourceful parents who love each other. By the time William Fitchner gets to deliver the line "sex robots," you're pretty much dying with laughter. I should feel bad/guilty/something negative about liking the Hollywood-delivered obvious choice in the comedy Olympics here, but I don't. Added bonus: Mark Ruffalo. I know you were thinking, "Shirtless Mark Wahlberg," but I prefer the opportunity to lean over to my viewing partner and whisper, "The Buffalo!" B+

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Pop Culture Round Up: March 20 - April 1

On The Media: Transcript of "Tropes Galore"

The Aztecs, through old-world eyes

Love music, hold the criticism

The original, R-rated 'Grease' comes home to Chicago

Twilight: New Moon Scene Explains Why Victoria Was So Mean

Michael Bay Assembles Dream Cast for Transformers 3

Why Women Novelists Don't Lighten Up

Someone rescue Robert Pattinson
  • Sounds like a job for a pair of burgeoning celebrity interventionists I know.
James Cameron Challenges Glenn Beck to a Debate, Global-Warming Skeptics to a Shoot-out

When It Comes to Wooing Barbie, Jon Stewart Puts Ken to Shame

Mission: Obsess Over Continuity, Post Gotchas Online

See you at the movies - Roger Ebert's Journal

Snobbery, Projection, Resentment

Why are professors at Harvard, Duke, and Middlebury teaching courses on David Simon's The Wire?

Lightfoot mulls new Edmund Fitzgerald lyrics

A futures market for the movies

If movie theaters made concessions to health ...

Thanks to cable, actors are getting a chance to make unexpected transformations

David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen Reteaming for EASTERN PROMISES Sequel

How Lady Gaga Became the World's Biggest Pop Star

Stars Rib Matt Damon During Hollywood Salute

Best Boss Ever? Michael Steele & The RNC Interns

Is There a Future for Arts Criticism?

Next Big Thing - Literary Scholars Turn to Science

Cinema's greatest writer villains