Cobra Kai continues to effectively mine the long-dormant characters and continuity of The Karate Kid film franchise. The strategy has yielded a successful series that basks in the built-in nostalgia of those old enough to recall the films’ heyday, and even fosters a new generation of fandom. However, the show’s fourth season taps into 1989’s The Karate Kid Part III with the heralded return of villain Terry Silver—a controversial callback, seeing as that film remains widely maligned. Interestingly, a radically different third entry was originally envisioned, one that would have taken the trilogy into time-travel territory.
If the teasers for Cobra Kai Season 4, which ominously tout Silver’s return—made 32 years later by Thomas Ian Griffith—left you in need of context regarding its importance, you were hardly alone. After all, the film, in which Silver served as main villain, was a dud, and the least-watched of the original Karate Kid Trilogy.
If the teasers for Cobra Kai Season 4, which ominously tout Silver’s return—made 32 years later by Thomas Ian Griffith—left you in need of context regarding its importance, you were hardly alone. After all, the film, in which Silver served as main villain, was a dud, and the least-watched of the original Karate Kid Trilogy.
- 12/30/2021
- by Joseph Baxter
- Den of Geek
Michael Ovitz still has nothing good to say about Michael Eisner. He and Ron Meyer started to patch things up over dinner a few years ago at Hamasaku, the sushi restaurant that Ovitz owns in West Los Angeles. And the famous threat Ovitz delivered to Joe Eszterhas about having “foot soldiers” marching up and down Wilshire Boulevard? Totally exaggerated in Eszterhas’ retelling via the press.
Those are among the anecdotes and tidbits shared by Ovitz in his new book “Who Is Michael Ovitz?,” due out Tuesday from Random House’s Portfolio imprint. The book isn’t so much a tell-all as it is a take-credit-for-(nearly)-all that went down during Ovitz’s 20-year run as the monarch of CAA.
The 384-page tome offers exhausting detail on how CAA reshaped the movie business in the 1980s and ’90s with its approach to packaging, and how Ovitz engineered the dealmaking behind...
Those are among the anecdotes and tidbits shared by Ovitz in his new book “Who Is Michael Ovitz?,” due out Tuesday from Random House’s Portfolio imprint. The book isn’t so much a tell-all as it is a take-credit-for-(nearly)-all that went down during Ovitz’s 20-year run as the monarch of CAA.
The 384-page tome offers exhausting detail on how CAA reshaped the movie business in the 1980s and ’90s with its approach to packaging, and how Ovitz engineered the dealmaking behind...
- 9/25/2018
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
La Dolce Vita -- the beloved throwback Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills where sand dabs still star on the entrée list -- will honor former regulars Frank Sinatra and his longtime agent and friend Guy McElwaine (who later became the head of Columbia Pictures during the era of Ghostbusters and The Big Chill) at a shared booth dedication ceremony Tuesday. Among those expected to attend are Sinatra’s daughter Tina and Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson, as well as back-in-the-day compatriots Elliott Gould, George Segal, Angie Dickinson and Alan Ladd Jr. The only other patrons to have so far received
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- 7/10/2012
- by Gary Baum
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Here's a plot twist ... Ex-soap star Leigh Taylor-Young -- famous for her role on the 1980s show " Dallas " -- is formally separating from her domestic partner, but TMZ has learned ... it's because she wants to Marry him! According to the legal docs filed in L.A. County Superior Court, "The parties intend to get married, so they must dissolve their registered domestic partnership." Leigh's domestic partner -- a writer named John Morton -- filed the papers.
- 7/19/2011
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
It begins on an empty street. The camera pans slowly across a gothic-tinged suburbia as whispered voices are heard off screen. Are we eavesdropping on an intimate moment? No, the conversation comes from a television set playing an old (deliberately) cheesy horror film.
In its opening moments, Fright Night produces a dual effect of voyeurism and postmodern horror that manages to be creepy and amusing at the same time. The camera continues its slow crawl and lifts with the cool grace of a vampire up to a window that introduces the hero Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) engaging in a bit of heavy petting with his girlfriend, Amy.
It is a striking opening sequence and brilliant in its execution. Immediately trouble begins as Charley notices two men carrying a coffin into a basement next door. This fleeting glance opens up a nightmarish world for this nosey teen and his friends, one...
In its opening moments, Fright Night produces a dual effect of voyeurism and postmodern horror that manages to be creepy and amusing at the same time. The camera continues its slow crawl and lifts with the cool grace of a vampire up to a window that introduces the hero Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) engaging in a bit of heavy petting with his girlfriend, Amy.
It is a striking opening sequence and brilliant in its execution. Immediately trouble begins as Charley notices two men carrying a coffin into a basement next door. This fleeting glance opens up a nightmarish world for this nosey teen and his friends, one...
- 5/19/2010
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's longtime agent Ric Nicita is set to become Hollywood's new movie bigwig after signing a deal to turn around Morgan Creek Productions' fortunes.
The Creative Artists Agency heavyweight, who is married to Cruise's production partner Paula Wagner, is turning his back on the agency business after 42 years to become an executive.
Nicita, who has been with CAA for almost 30 years, has been appointed the new co-chairman and chief operating officer of Morgan Creek Productions.
The company, which enjoyed a string of movie successes in the 1990s, has hit lean times in recent years with flops Georgia Rule and The Good Shepherd, which was directed by Robert De Niro.
Nicita replaces Guy McElwaine, who died earlier this year.
The Creative Artists Agency heavyweight, who is married to Cruise's production partner Paula Wagner, is turning his back on the agency business after 42 years to become an executive.
Nicita, who has been with CAA for almost 30 years, has been appointed the new co-chairman and chief operating officer of Morgan Creek Productions.
The company, which enjoyed a string of movie successes in the 1990s, has hit lean times in recent years with flops Georgia Rule and The Good Shepherd, which was directed by Robert De Niro.
Nicita replaces Guy McElwaine, who died earlier this year.
- 7/30/2008
- WENN
Studio chief and Hollywood agent Guy McElwaine has died following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.
The showman, who was involved in blockbusters from All the President's Men to The Karate Kid, died on Wednesday at his Bel-Air home.
In the 1960s, McElwaine owned a management and public relations company whose clients included Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty and The Mamas and The Papas.
The former brother-in-law of actress Dey Young joined Creative Management Associates, an agency that was the forerunner for the powerful International Creative Management and there, he is reported to be the first agent to sign filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
He enjoyed a brief stint at Warner Brothers as a senior executive in charge of worldwide motion picture production - putting together movies such as All the President's Men, Dog Day Afternoon and Oh God.
McElwine was also resident of Columbia Pictures, later becoming the studio's chairman and chief executive officer - helping produce blockbusters such as Ghostbusters and Gandhi.
The showman, who was involved in blockbusters from All the President's Men to The Karate Kid, died on Wednesday at his Bel-Air home.
In the 1960s, McElwaine owned a management and public relations company whose clients included Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty and The Mamas and The Papas.
The former brother-in-law of actress Dey Young joined Creative Management Associates, an agency that was the forerunner for the powerful International Creative Management and there, he is reported to be the first agent to sign filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
He enjoyed a brief stint at Warner Brothers as a senior executive in charge of worldwide motion picture production - putting together movies such as All the President's Men, Dog Day Afternoon and Oh God.
McElwine was also resident of Columbia Pictures, later becoming the studio's chairman and chief executive officer - helping produce blockbusters such as Ghostbusters and Gandhi.
- 4/3/2008
- WENN
Guy McElwaine, who rose from the publicity department at MGM to become one of Hollywood's top agents, studio executives and producers, died at his home in Bel-Air on Wednesday after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.
McElwaine plied his trade as an agent at both the Creative Management Agency, and its successor ICM, but also effortlessly shifted from to seller to buyer to serve executive stints at Warner Bros. and Columbia. Most recently, he was president of Morgan Creek Prods.
"He had the utmost integrity when it came to anything that he ever did," Morgan Creek chairman/CEO James G. Robinson said. "I had a name for Guy -- the mayor of Morgan Creek. In other words, he was extremely well-liked here. He was a very decent person."
As a teenager, McElwaine held down summer jobs at Paramount before beginning his career at MGM's fabled publicity department. He eventually opened his own management and public relations company, representing such clients as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Warren Beatty and the Mamas and the Papas.
He shifted into the agency business at CMA in 1969, but then was lured away by Warners, where he served as senior exec vp worldwide production during the early 1970s, where he was involved in such seminal movies as "All the President's Men", "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Barry Lyndon".
After CMA was sold to the International Famous Agency and ICM was born in 1974, McElwaine returned as a founding partner, overseeing the agency's motion picture activities.
McElwaine plied his trade as an agent at both the Creative Management Agency, and its successor ICM, but also effortlessly shifted from to seller to buyer to serve executive stints at Warner Bros. and Columbia. Most recently, he was president of Morgan Creek Prods.
"He had the utmost integrity when it came to anything that he ever did," Morgan Creek chairman/CEO James G. Robinson said. "I had a name for Guy -- the mayor of Morgan Creek. In other words, he was extremely well-liked here. He was a very decent person."
As a teenager, McElwaine held down summer jobs at Paramount before beginning his career at MGM's fabled publicity department. He eventually opened his own management and public relations company, representing such clients as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Warren Beatty and the Mamas and the Papas.
He shifted into the agency business at CMA in 1969, but then was lured away by Warners, where he served as senior exec vp worldwide production during the early 1970s, where he was involved in such seminal movies as "All the President's Men", "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Barry Lyndon".
After CMA was sold to the International Famous Agency and ICM was born in 1974, McElwaine returned as a founding partner, overseeing the agency's motion picture activities.
Snow White goes to college, emboldens a nerdy group of seven outcasts and vanquishes the evil witch in the plodding Sydney White. Like many Hollywood interpretations of fairy tales, this Amanda Bynes starrer draws its inspiration not from the Oedipal, bloody folk legend recorded by the Brothers Grimm but from the pop-culture Disney version. Cute and cartoonish rule the day, and teens and tweens will be the film's chief audience when it opens wide against R-rated genre pics and the fall's tonier fare.
Chad Gomez Creasey's occasionally clever script is a clunky mix of cartoonish caricature and feel-good message-mongering. Director Joe Nussbaum (George Lucas in Love) brings an affection for outsiders to the material, but the film takes far too long to build momentum.
Despite her real-girl appeal as the title character, Bynes, who was terrific in Hairspray, can't overcome the heavy-handedness of the dialogue. Raised by her widowed plumber Father John Schneider), Sydney is a tomboy who knows her way around a construction site but has no experience on the social scene. She arrives at Florida's Southern Atlantic U. with a scholarship and a suitcase full of comic books and quickly catches the eye of dreamy, clean-cut Tyler Prince (Matt Long). That puts her in the sights of his ex, uber-meanie Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton), who rules the sisterhood of bleached blondes known as Kappa Phi Nu. The film's dramatic high points usually involve someone calling Rachel a bitch.
Kappa happens to be the sorority of Sydney's beloved mother, but even with her sparkly eye shadow and borrowed dresses, she has no chance against the conniving Rachel, who soon banishes the frosh pledge. Sydney finds refuge at the Vortex, the dilapidated house of seven socially challenged dorks of the Sneezy/Bashful/Sleepy variety.
This is no Ball of Fire, Bynes no Stanwyck, but her Sydney is a spark of life in the sheltered world of her ridiculous roomies, among them a sweet hypochondriac (Jack Carpenter), a gangly science geek (Jeremy Howard) and a permanently jet-lagged Nigerian transfer student (Donte Bonner). Nussbaum orchestrates some nice comic moments with this bunch -- like their collective awe, to the strains of Strauss, at the sight of Sydney's sports bra drying in the bathroom.
She pushes them to get involved in student politics, challenging the Witchburn oligarchy and turning the film into a tepid lesson in campaign democracy. The Freedom to the Seventh Power ticket reaches out to ROTC and LGBT alike, not to mention Hasidic Jews and the marching band. The need to belong, the value of diversity and the right to stand up to injustice are all folded into the cliched cry of emancipation for everyone's inner dork.
Amid its easy shots at conformism and the creepier aspects of Greek life, Gomez Creasey's script transposes some fairy-tale elements to the digital age in clever, if obvious, ways: The witch's magic mirror becomes Rachel's laptop screen, on which she daily checks her standing as No. 1 in the campus' Hot or Not rankings on MySpace. The poisoned apple, alas, is a virus-infected Mac.
Technical and design contributions are polished, with Orlando locations creating a fittingly idyllic campus setting.
SYDNEY WHITE
Universal Pictures
James G. Robinson presents a Morgan Creek production
Credits:
Director: Joe Nussbaum
Screenwriter: Chad Gomez Creasey
Producers: James G. Robinson, Clifford Werber, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, Wayne Morris
Director of photography: Mark Irwin
Production designer: Mark Garner
Music: Deborah Lurie
Co-producer: Dara Resnik Creasey
Costumer designer: Beverly Safier
Editor: Danny Saphire
Cast:
Sydney White: Amanda Bynes
Rachel: Sara Paxton
Tyler: Matt Long
Lenny: Jack Carpenter
Terrence: Jeremy Howard
Dinky: Crystal Hunt
Jeremy: Adam Hendershott
Gurkin: Danny Strong
Spanky: Samm Levine
Christy: Libby Mintz
Paul White: John Schneider
George: Arnie Pantoja
Embele: Donte Bonner
Professor Carleton: Brian Patrick Clarke
Katy: Lauren Leech
Running time -- 107 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Chad Gomez Creasey's occasionally clever script is a clunky mix of cartoonish caricature and feel-good message-mongering. Director Joe Nussbaum (George Lucas in Love) brings an affection for outsiders to the material, but the film takes far too long to build momentum.
Despite her real-girl appeal as the title character, Bynes, who was terrific in Hairspray, can't overcome the heavy-handedness of the dialogue. Raised by her widowed plumber Father John Schneider), Sydney is a tomboy who knows her way around a construction site but has no experience on the social scene. She arrives at Florida's Southern Atlantic U. with a scholarship and a suitcase full of comic books and quickly catches the eye of dreamy, clean-cut Tyler Prince (Matt Long). That puts her in the sights of his ex, uber-meanie Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton), who rules the sisterhood of bleached blondes known as Kappa Phi Nu. The film's dramatic high points usually involve someone calling Rachel a bitch.
Kappa happens to be the sorority of Sydney's beloved mother, but even with her sparkly eye shadow and borrowed dresses, she has no chance against the conniving Rachel, who soon banishes the frosh pledge. Sydney finds refuge at the Vortex, the dilapidated house of seven socially challenged dorks of the Sneezy/Bashful/Sleepy variety.
This is no Ball of Fire, Bynes no Stanwyck, but her Sydney is a spark of life in the sheltered world of her ridiculous roomies, among them a sweet hypochondriac (Jack Carpenter), a gangly science geek (Jeremy Howard) and a permanently jet-lagged Nigerian transfer student (Donte Bonner). Nussbaum orchestrates some nice comic moments with this bunch -- like their collective awe, to the strains of Strauss, at the sight of Sydney's sports bra drying in the bathroom.
She pushes them to get involved in student politics, challenging the Witchburn oligarchy and turning the film into a tepid lesson in campaign democracy. The Freedom to the Seventh Power ticket reaches out to ROTC and LGBT alike, not to mention Hasidic Jews and the marching band. The need to belong, the value of diversity and the right to stand up to injustice are all folded into the cliched cry of emancipation for everyone's inner dork.
Amid its easy shots at conformism and the creepier aspects of Greek life, Gomez Creasey's script transposes some fairy-tale elements to the digital age in clever, if obvious, ways: The witch's magic mirror becomes Rachel's laptop screen, on which she daily checks her standing as No. 1 in the campus' Hot or Not rankings on MySpace. The poisoned apple, alas, is a virus-infected Mac.
Technical and design contributions are polished, with Orlando locations creating a fittingly idyllic campus setting.
SYDNEY WHITE
Universal Pictures
James G. Robinson presents a Morgan Creek production
Credits:
Director: Joe Nussbaum
Screenwriter: Chad Gomez Creasey
Producers: James G. Robinson, Clifford Werber, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, Wayne Morris
Director of photography: Mark Irwin
Production designer: Mark Garner
Music: Deborah Lurie
Co-producer: Dara Resnik Creasey
Costumer designer: Beverly Safier
Editor: Danny Saphire
Cast:
Sydney White: Amanda Bynes
Rachel: Sara Paxton
Tyler: Matt Long
Lenny: Jack Carpenter
Terrence: Jeremy Howard
Dinky: Crystal Hunt
Jeremy: Adam Hendershott
Gurkin: Danny Strong
Spanky: Samm Levine
Christy: Libby Mintz
Paul White: John Schneider
George: Arnie Pantoja
Embele: Donte Bonner
Professor Carleton: Brian Patrick Clarke
Katy: Lauren Leech
Running time -- 107 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 9/21/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This review was written for the theatrical release of "Georgia Rule". A multigenerational dramatic comedy about a fractured family, Garry Marshall's "Georgia Rule" proves to be more prone to malfunction than dysfunction.
Despite its three solid leads -- Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan (yes, this was the production that inspired Morgan Creek chief James G. Robinson to write the latter a little letter) -- the film fails to make a connection to its audience, or itself for that matter, as it constantly struggles to find a suitable tone.
The director in the past has demonstrated a bankable knack for mixing light comedy with more serious elements, but the decidedly darker elements of Mark Andrus' script never jibe with Marshall's breezier instincts, and the awkward results are all too apparent.
Universal obviously is aware of those problems, dropping the picture into a market that's stoked for upbeat summer escapist fare. As a result, "Georgia" is unlikely to be on the minds of many moviegoers.
Screenwriter Andrus ("As Good as It Gets") drew upon his Mormon upbringing to tell the story of Rachel, a trouble-making California teen (guess who?) who is sent to a small town in Idaho by her alcoholic mother, Lilly (Huffman), to live with her strict, rule-enforcing grandmother, Georgia (Fonda).
The caustic, impudent, promiscuous Rachel is a real piece of work, but she's nothing Grandma hasn't dealt with before, and Georgia's got an endless supply of mouth-washing soap to prove it.
It's soon revealed that Rachel is a rebel with a cause, but even when the audience is asked to view her in a different light, her character's subsequent abrupt behavioral shifts make her tough to embrace.
But the bigger problem with "Georgia Rule" is that the troubling subject matter required a gutsier, take-no-prisoners approach (think Todd Solondz or Catherine Hardwicke or any number of Sundance-approved directors) rather than the safely mainstream balancing act that Marshall tries unsuccessfully to achieve.
The more Marshall sugarcoats those jagged emotional edges with homey small-town humor, the more uncomfortably unconvincing the film becomes.
His three female leads deliver the required goods with Fonda, particularly, in fine, feisty form.
Although no real fault of their own, the supporting characters, including Dermot Mulroney as a sympathetic veterinarian and Cary Elwes as Huffman's smug husband, tend to come across more like script devices than real, three-dimensional people.
Production values are up to Marshall speed here, with California subbing for fictional rural Idaho, but again, a little less polish and a little more grit might have helped make this wayward story of redemption a bit easier to forgive.
GEORGIA RULE
Universal Pictures
James G. Robinson presents a Morgan Creek production
Credits:
Director: Garry Marshall
Screenwriter: Mark Andrus
Producers: James G. Robinson, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, Michael Besman, Kevin Reidy
Director of photography: Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Production designer: Albert Brenner
Music: John Debney
Co-producer: Bonnie Timmermann
Costume designer: Gary Jones
Editors: Bruce Green, Tara Timpone
Cast:
Georgia: Jane Fonda
Rachel: Lindsay Lohan
Lilly: Felicity Huffman
Simon: Dermot Mulroney
Arnold: Cary Elwes
Harlan: Garrett Hedlund
Running time -- 111 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Despite its three solid leads -- Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan (yes, this was the production that inspired Morgan Creek chief James G. Robinson to write the latter a little letter) -- the film fails to make a connection to its audience, or itself for that matter, as it constantly struggles to find a suitable tone.
The director in the past has demonstrated a bankable knack for mixing light comedy with more serious elements, but the decidedly darker elements of Mark Andrus' script never jibe with Marshall's breezier instincts, and the awkward results are all too apparent.
Universal obviously is aware of those problems, dropping the picture into a market that's stoked for upbeat summer escapist fare. As a result, "Georgia" is unlikely to be on the minds of many moviegoers.
Screenwriter Andrus ("As Good as It Gets") drew upon his Mormon upbringing to tell the story of Rachel, a trouble-making California teen (guess who?) who is sent to a small town in Idaho by her alcoholic mother, Lilly (Huffman), to live with her strict, rule-enforcing grandmother, Georgia (Fonda).
The caustic, impudent, promiscuous Rachel is a real piece of work, but she's nothing Grandma hasn't dealt with before, and Georgia's got an endless supply of mouth-washing soap to prove it.
It's soon revealed that Rachel is a rebel with a cause, but even when the audience is asked to view her in a different light, her character's subsequent abrupt behavioral shifts make her tough to embrace.
But the bigger problem with "Georgia Rule" is that the troubling subject matter required a gutsier, take-no-prisoners approach (think Todd Solondz or Catherine Hardwicke or any number of Sundance-approved directors) rather than the safely mainstream balancing act that Marshall tries unsuccessfully to achieve.
The more Marshall sugarcoats those jagged emotional edges with homey small-town humor, the more uncomfortably unconvincing the film becomes.
His three female leads deliver the required goods with Fonda, particularly, in fine, feisty form.
Although no real fault of their own, the supporting characters, including Dermot Mulroney as a sympathetic veterinarian and Cary Elwes as Huffman's smug husband, tend to come across more like script devices than real, three-dimensional people.
Production values are up to Marshall speed here, with California subbing for fictional rural Idaho, but again, a little less polish and a little more grit might have helped make this wayward story of redemption a bit easier to forgive.
GEORGIA RULE
Universal Pictures
James G. Robinson presents a Morgan Creek production
Credits:
Director: Garry Marshall
Screenwriter: Mark Andrus
Producers: James G. Robinson, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, Michael Besman, Kevin Reidy
Director of photography: Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Production designer: Albert Brenner
Music: John Debney
Co-producer: Bonnie Timmermann
Costume designer: Gary Jones
Editors: Bruce Green, Tara Timpone
Cast:
Georgia: Jane Fonda
Rachel: Lindsay Lohan
Lilly: Felicity Huffman
Simon: Dermot Mulroney
Arnold: Cary Elwes
Harlan: Garrett Hedlund
Running time -- 111 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Man of the Year is a comedy about a comic who gets elected president of the U.S. -- or rather that's how the film starts out, only writer-director Barry Levinson gets sidetracked. He diverts his film into a political thriller with its own conspiracy theory, an improbable romance and a curious subplot that feels like an anti-smoking ad. Little wonder his bewildered star, Robin Williams, looks confused much of the time.
Levinson once built a fairly unstable comedy around Williams' manic personality in Good Morning, Vietnam, and everyone laughed so hard that few noticed. But here confusion and mixed messages work against a coherent viewpoint -- and laughs.
The film wants to focus on the intersection of media and politics, which Levinson did in his very similar though much better movie, Wag the Dog. For that matter, Warren Beatty's Bulworth does a superior job of satirizing the fallout from a political candidate who actually tells voters what he thinks with brutal honesty rather than stay on a message designed by political consultants.
One problem here is that those consultants must have sat by Levinson's computer as he wrote. He is oh-so-careful not to make a movie that is too liberal or too conservative. No real issue is at stake, and Iraq and the war on terror do not exist. The result is a generic political movie without any real politics. So Man of the Year will offend nobody but just as likely will entertain very few. Boxoffice does not look promising after the opening weekend.
A popular TV pundit/comic, Tom Dobbs (Williams), cracks one too many jokes about running for president, only to discover that the Internet effectively has drafted him as an independent candidate. When Tom decides to run, this throws his entourage -- his chain-smoking, pragmatic manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken) and rumpled, crusty head writer Eddie Langston (Lewis Black) -- into a tizzy. The film then imagines that in the electronic age a comic like Tom can buy no ads and wage a campaign via celebrityhood and the Internet and still get on the ballot in 17 key states.
Meanwhile, an evil software company has sold the U.S. on a too-easy-to-be-true national voting system. (Let's ignore the fact voting systems are run by states, not the federal government.) A diligent software analyst, Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) -- discovers a huge glitch in the system only weeks before the election, a discovery that the firm's legal counsel, Alan Stewart (Jeff Goldblum), will go to any length to bury.
Tom then gets elected president because of the glitch. So the rest of the movie focuses not on the real story -- what would happen were an intelligent and political savvy comic to ascend to the Oval Office -- but rather on a third-rate thriller about a corporation trying to destroy, corrupt or smear a disgruntled employee. Throw in an unconvincing romance between Tom and Eleanor along with Jack's smoking-related illness and you've pretty much blunted any satirical sharpness.
This confusion is reflected in the movie's look. Cinematographer Dick Pope shoots in a documentary style as if this were All the President's Men. Yet designer Stefania Cella's sets are from that not-quite-real world of Wag the Dog.
Toward the end, Levinson inserts speeches into his dialogue, as if suddenly realizing his message is getting lost: In one instance, Eddie erupts into a diatribe about how TV makes everything feel credible, elevating a Nazi apologist and a Holocaust historian to the same debate platform before undiscerning cameras.
Williams fluctuates between his sentimental/serious side and outrageous manic comedy, so you never quite know who this character is. Linney and Goldblum are playing serious melodrama, while Walken and Black are Woody Allen-esque showbiz creatures, constantly urging their protege to stick to comedy.
Too bad Man of the Year didn't have the courage of its convictions -- to say something meaningful and shrug off the fallout from the outraged extremes of the political spectrum. A feel-good political satire is not what the nation needs at this moment.
MAN OF THE YEAR
Universal Pictures
Morgan Creek
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Barry Levinson
Producers: James G. Robinson, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David Coatsworth, Rob Fried
Director of photography: Dick Pope
Production designer: Stefania Cella
Music: Graeme Revell
Costume designer: Delphine White
Editor: Steven Weisberg, Blair Daily
Cast:
Tom Dobbs: Robin Williams
Jack Menken: Christopher Walken
Eleanor: Laura Linney
Eddie: Lewis Black
Stewart: Jeff Goldblum
Danny: David Alpay
Moderator: Faith Daniels
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Levinson once built a fairly unstable comedy around Williams' manic personality in Good Morning, Vietnam, and everyone laughed so hard that few noticed. But here confusion and mixed messages work against a coherent viewpoint -- and laughs.
The film wants to focus on the intersection of media and politics, which Levinson did in his very similar though much better movie, Wag the Dog. For that matter, Warren Beatty's Bulworth does a superior job of satirizing the fallout from a political candidate who actually tells voters what he thinks with brutal honesty rather than stay on a message designed by political consultants.
One problem here is that those consultants must have sat by Levinson's computer as he wrote. He is oh-so-careful not to make a movie that is too liberal or too conservative. No real issue is at stake, and Iraq and the war on terror do not exist. The result is a generic political movie without any real politics. So Man of the Year will offend nobody but just as likely will entertain very few. Boxoffice does not look promising after the opening weekend.
A popular TV pundit/comic, Tom Dobbs (Williams), cracks one too many jokes about running for president, only to discover that the Internet effectively has drafted him as an independent candidate. When Tom decides to run, this throws his entourage -- his chain-smoking, pragmatic manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken) and rumpled, crusty head writer Eddie Langston (Lewis Black) -- into a tizzy. The film then imagines that in the electronic age a comic like Tom can buy no ads and wage a campaign via celebrityhood and the Internet and still get on the ballot in 17 key states.
Meanwhile, an evil software company has sold the U.S. on a too-easy-to-be-true national voting system. (Let's ignore the fact voting systems are run by states, not the federal government.) A diligent software analyst, Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) -- discovers a huge glitch in the system only weeks before the election, a discovery that the firm's legal counsel, Alan Stewart (Jeff Goldblum), will go to any length to bury.
Tom then gets elected president because of the glitch. So the rest of the movie focuses not on the real story -- what would happen were an intelligent and political savvy comic to ascend to the Oval Office -- but rather on a third-rate thriller about a corporation trying to destroy, corrupt or smear a disgruntled employee. Throw in an unconvincing romance between Tom and Eleanor along with Jack's smoking-related illness and you've pretty much blunted any satirical sharpness.
This confusion is reflected in the movie's look. Cinematographer Dick Pope shoots in a documentary style as if this were All the President's Men. Yet designer Stefania Cella's sets are from that not-quite-real world of Wag the Dog.
Toward the end, Levinson inserts speeches into his dialogue, as if suddenly realizing his message is getting lost: In one instance, Eddie erupts into a diatribe about how TV makes everything feel credible, elevating a Nazi apologist and a Holocaust historian to the same debate platform before undiscerning cameras.
Williams fluctuates between his sentimental/serious side and outrageous manic comedy, so you never quite know who this character is. Linney and Goldblum are playing serious melodrama, while Walken and Black are Woody Allen-esque showbiz creatures, constantly urging their protege to stick to comedy.
Too bad Man of the Year didn't have the courage of its convictions -- to say something meaningful and shrug off the fallout from the outraged extremes of the political spectrum. A feel-good political satire is not what the nation needs at this moment.
MAN OF THE YEAR
Universal Pictures
Morgan Creek
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Barry Levinson
Producers: James G. Robinson, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David Coatsworth, Rob Fried
Director of photography: Dick Pope
Production designer: Stefania Cella
Music: Graeme Revell
Costume designer: Delphine White
Editor: Steven Weisberg, Blair Daily
Cast:
Tom Dobbs: Robin Williams
Jack Menken: Christopher Walken
Eleanor: Laura Linney
Eddie: Lewis Black
Stewart: Jeff Goldblum
Danny: David Alpay
Moderator: Faith Daniels
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 10/9/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Man of the Year" is a comedy about a comic who gets elected president of the U.S. -- or rather that's how the film starts out, only writer-director Barry Levinson gets sidetracked. He diverts his film into a political thriller with its own conspiracy theory, an improbable romance and a curious subplot that feels like an anti-smoking ad. Little wonder his bewildered star, Robin Williams, looks confused much of the time.
Levinson once built a fairly unstable comedy around Williams' manic personality in "Good Morning, Vietnam", and everyone laughed so hard that few noticed. But here confusion and mixed messages work against a coherent viewpoint -- and laughs.
The film wants to focus on the intersection of media and politics, which Levinson did in his very similar though much better movie, "Wag the Dog". For that matter, Warren Beatty's "Bulworth" does a superior job of satirizing the fallout from a political candidate who actually tells voters what he thinks with brutal honesty rather than stay on a message designed by political consultants.
One problem here is that those consultants must have sat by Levinson's computer as he wrote. He is oh-so-careful not to make a movie that is too liberal or too conservative. No real issue is at stake, and Iraq and the war on terror do not exist. The result is a generic political movie without any real politics. So "Man of the Year" will offend nobody but just as likely will entertain very few. Boxoffice does not look promising after the opening weekend.
A popular TV pundit/comic, Tom Dobbs (Williams), cracks one too many jokes about running for president, only to discover that the Internet effectively has drafted him as an independent candidate. When Tom decides to run, this throws his entourage -- his chain-smoking, pragmatic manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken) and rumpled, crusty head writer Eddie Langston (Lewis Black) -- into a tizzy. The film then imagines that in the electronic age a comic like Tom can buy no ads and wage a campaign via celebrityhood and the Internet and still get on the ballot in 17 key states.
Meanwhile, an evil software company has sold the U.S. on a too-easy-to-be-true national voting system. (Let's ignore the fact voting systems are run by states, not the federal government.) A diligent software analyst, Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) -- discovers a huge glitch in the system only weeks before the election, a discovery that the firm's legal counsel, Alan Stewart (Jeff Goldblum), will go to any length to bury.
Tom then gets elected president because of the glitch. So the rest of the movie focuses not on the real story -- what would happen were an intelligent and political savvy comic to ascend to the Oval Office -- but rather on a third-rate thriller about a corporation trying to destroy, corrupt or smear a disgruntled employee. Throw in an unconvincing romance between Tom and Eleanor along with Jack's smoking-related illness and you've pretty much blunted any satirical sharpness.
This confusion is reflected in the movie's look. Cinematographer Dick Pope shoots in a documentary style as if this were "All the President's Men." Yet designer Stefania Cella's sets are from that not-quite-real world of "Wag the Dog".
Toward the end, Levinson inserts speeches into his dialogue, as if suddenly realizing his message is getting lost: In one instance, Eddie erupts into a diatribe about how TV makes everything feel credible, elevating a Nazi apologist and a Holocaust historian to the same debate platform before undiscerning cameras.
Williams fluctuates between his sentimental/serious side and outrageous manic comedy, so you never quite know who this character is. Linney and Goldblum are playing serious melodrama, while Walken and Black are Woody Allen-esque showbiz creatures, constantly urging their protege to stick to comedy.
Too bad "Man of the Year" didn't have the courage of its convictions -- to say something meaningful and shrug off the fallout from the outraged extremes of the political spectrum. A feel-good political satire is not what the nation needs at this moment.
MAN OF THE YEAR
Universal Pictures
Morgan Creek
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Barry Levinson
Producers: James G. Robinson, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David Coatsworth, Rob Fried
Director of photography: Dick Pope
Production designer: Stefania Cella
Music: Graeme Revell
Costume designer: Delphine White
Editor: Steven Weisberg, Blair Daily
Cast:
Tom Dobbs: Robin Williams
Jack Menken: Christopher Walken
Eleanor: Laura Linney
Eddie: Lewis Black
Stewart: Jeff Goldblum
Danny: David Alpay
Moderator: Faith Daniels
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Levinson once built a fairly unstable comedy around Williams' manic personality in "Good Morning, Vietnam", and everyone laughed so hard that few noticed. But here confusion and mixed messages work against a coherent viewpoint -- and laughs.
The film wants to focus on the intersection of media and politics, which Levinson did in his very similar though much better movie, "Wag the Dog". For that matter, Warren Beatty's "Bulworth" does a superior job of satirizing the fallout from a political candidate who actually tells voters what he thinks with brutal honesty rather than stay on a message designed by political consultants.
One problem here is that those consultants must have sat by Levinson's computer as he wrote. He is oh-so-careful not to make a movie that is too liberal or too conservative. No real issue is at stake, and Iraq and the war on terror do not exist. The result is a generic political movie without any real politics. So "Man of the Year" will offend nobody but just as likely will entertain very few. Boxoffice does not look promising after the opening weekend.
A popular TV pundit/comic, Tom Dobbs (Williams), cracks one too many jokes about running for president, only to discover that the Internet effectively has drafted him as an independent candidate. When Tom decides to run, this throws his entourage -- his chain-smoking, pragmatic manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken) and rumpled, crusty head writer Eddie Langston (Lewis Black) -- into a tizzy. The film then imagines that in the electronic age a comic like Tom can buy no ads and wage a campaign via celebrityhood and the Internet and still get on the ballot in 17 key states.
Meanwhile, an evil software company has sold the U.S. on a too-easy-to-be-true national voting system. (Let's ignore the fact voting systems are run by states, not the federal government.) A diligent software analyst, Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) -- discovers a huge glitch in the system only weeks before the election, a discovery that the firm's legal counsel, Alan Stewart (Jeff Goldblum), will go to any length to bury.
Tom then gets elected president because of the glitch. So the rest of the movie focuses not on the real story -- what would happen were an intelligent and political savvy comic to ascend to the Oval Office -- but rather on a third-rate thriller about a corporation trying to destroy, corrupt or smear a disgruntled employee. Throw in an unconvincing romance between Tom and Eleanor along with Jack's smoking-related illness and you've pretty much blunted any satirical sharpness.
This confusion is reflected in the movie's look. Cinematographer Dick Pope shoots in a documentary style as if this were "All the President's Men." Yet designer Stefania Cella's sets are from that not-quite-real world of "Wag the Dog".
Toward the end, Levinson inserts speeches into his dialogue, as if suddenly realizing his message is getting lost: In one instance, Eddie erupts into a diatribe about how TV makes everything feel credible, elevating a Nazi apologist and a Holocaust historian to the same debate platform before undiscerning cameras.
Williams fluctuates between his sentimental/serious side and outrageous manic comedy, so you never quite know who this character is. Linney and Goldblum are playing serious melodrama, while Walken and Black are Woody Allen-esque showbiz creatures, constantly urging their protege to stick to comedy.
Too bad "Man of the Year" didn't have the courage of its convictions -- to say something meaningful and shrug off the fallout from the outraged extremes of the political spectrum. A feel-good political satire is not what the nation needs at this moment.
MAN OF THE YEAR
Universal Pictures
Morgan Creek
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Barry Levinson
Producers: James G. Robinson, David Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David Coatsworth, Rob Fried
Director of photography: Dick Pope
Production designer: Stefania Cella
Music: Graeme Revell
Costume designer: Delphine White
Editor: Steven Weisberg, Blair Daily
Cast:
Tom Dobbs: Robin Williams
Jack Menken: Christopher Walken
Eleanor: Laura Linney
Eddie: Lewis Black
Stewart: Jeff Goldblum
Danny: David Alpay
Moderator: Faith Daniels
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 10/9/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Two for the Money" is a muddled melodrama about the shady and questionable though not quite illegal world of "sports advisers." Those are the guys who feed sports bettors with their picks to beat the point spread for any given game. The muddle comes from the filmmakers' fuzzy notion of what exactly is the point to their movie.
Is it a sly remake of "The Gambler" (1974), which is the obvious antecedent? Or is it a poor imitation of David Mamet in his "Glengarry Glen Ross" mode, which includes the casting of that movie's full-throttle star, Al Pacino, who co-stars here with Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo? Or is this some misguided stab at analyzing the human "defect" that turns obsessional sports gambling into a $200 billion annual business?
Writer Dan Gilroy ("Freejack") and director D.J. Caruso ("Taking Lives") are clearly fascinated by this milieu. Yet despite characters, situations and a music score that attempts to push every scene to the extreme, they don't make their fascination our fascination. The characters become increasingly remote as their behavior thrusts viewers further and further away from the story. The odds are that this overheated but undercooked film will puzzle or annoy too many viewers, even sports obsessed males, to sustain a long theatrical run.
The movie first offers up three implausible but not wholly impossible characters. McConaughey plays a washed-up ex-jock with a bum knee who still thinks he has a shot at becoming an NFL quarterback. He supports himself between workouts as a phone operator in a Las Vegas 900-number racket, where his true talent emerges: He has an uncanny knack for picking about 80% of the winners of each weekend's football games.
This talent is spotted in faraway New York by Walter Abrams (Pacino), a recovered gambling addict who now exploits -- teases? -- his addiction as the host of a TV and telephone sports adviser for bettors. His wife, Toni (Russo), an ex-junkie, spends her days managing her off-the-wall husband and running a beauty parlor.
Walter recruits Brandon, moves him to the Big Apple and installs him downstairs in his brownstone, no less. Walter then recasts his empire around this Whiz Kid. He even shoves aside a computer geek (Jeremy Piven), whose spreadsheets actually achieve a success ratio comparable to Brandon's.
He renames his protege John Anthony, supplies him with a car and the occasional call girl and is rewarded one weekend when Brandon -- sorry, Anthony -- guesses right on every game. Ah, but the Gambling Gods are fickle, as we all know, so the fall is coming soon enough.
Predictability isn't the real problem though. Rather it's the filmmakers' inability, unlike Mamet and very few others, to make unsavory characters and raw, kitchen-sink psychology work in dramatic terms. A viewer must wonder who or what he is to root for among these symbiotic characters who prey upon each others' weaknesses.
The film's sledgehammer approach to drama is deeply wearying. When Brandon first arrives in New York and his driver pulls up in front of Walter's brownstone, the soundtrack plays Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman". Then Pacino, in a performance just south of "Scarface", is egged on by his director -- as if he needs much prodding -- to push each scene into crazed, self-destructive obsession, snapping at Brandon's heels and slapping cigarettes in his mouth despite a weakened heart and constant chest pains.
McConaughey has effective moments as a lamb led to the slaughter who is too busy admiring his wonderful, fluffy coat. He is the film's one character that had genuine potential. On the other hand, Russo's Toni is an amalgam of so many cliches you wonder how the actress got any purchase on the material.
Armand Assante turns up for a couple of scenes as a Really Bad Dude with a weakness for gambling, but the character lacks a clear focus and the physical threat he seems to represent vanishes soon enough.
The filmmakers know the world of sports betting but not sports itself. More specifically, no losing football coach at any level, much less the NFL, would instruct his team to throw a Hail Mary pass on the last play of the game to beat the point spread!
Conrad W. Hall gives the film a dark, moody atmosphere amid Tom Southwell's sets all too successfully depress or alienate. The Christophe Beck score assumes a silent moment is a wasted opportunity.
TWO FOR THE MONEY
Universal Pictures
A Morgan Creek production
Credits:
Director: D.J. Caruso
Screenwriter: Dan Gilroy
Producer: James G. Robinson, Jay Cohen
Executive producers: Dan Gilroy, Rene Russo, Guy McElwaine, David C. Robinson
Director of photography: Conrad W. Hall
Production designer: Tom Southwell
Music: Christophe Beck
Co-producer: Wayne Morris
Costumes: Marie-Sylvie Deveau
Editor: Glen Scantlebury
Cast:
Walter: Al Pacino
Brandon: Matthew McConaughey
Toni: Rene Russo
Novian: Armand Assante
Jerry: Jeremy Piven
Alexandria: Jamie King
Southie: Kevin Chapman
Reggie: Ralph Garman
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 123 minutes...
Is it a sly remake of "The Gambler" (1974), which is the obvious antecedent? Or is it a poor imitation of David Mamet in his "Glengarry Glen Ross" mode, which includes the casting of that movie's full-throttle star, Al Pacino, who co-stars here with Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo? Or is this some misguided stab at analyzing the human "defect" that turns obsessional sports gambling into a $200 billion annual business?
Writer Dan Gilroy ("Freejack") and director D.J. Caruso ("Taking Lives") are clearly fascinated by this milieu. Yet despite characters, situations and a music score that attempts to push every scene to the extreme, they don't make their fascination our fascination. The characters become increasingly remote as their behavior thrusts viewers further and further away from the story. The odds are that this overheated but undercooked film will puzzle or annoy too many viewers, even sports obsessed males, to sustain a long theatrical run.
The movie first offers up three implausible but not wholly impossible characters. McConaughey plays a washed-up ex-jock with a bum knee who still thinks he has a shot at becoming an NFL quarterback. He supports himself between workouts as a phone operator in a Las Vegas 900-number racket, where his true talent emerges: He has an uncanny knack for picking about 80% of the winners of each weekend's football games.
This talent is spotted in faraway New York by Walter Abrams (Pacino), a recovered gambling addict who now exploits -- teases? -- his addiction as the host of a TV and telephone sports adviser for bettors. His wife, Toni (Russo), an ex-junkie, spends her days managing her off-the-wall husband and running a beauty parlor.
Walter recruits Brandon, moves him to the Big Apple and installs him downstairs in his brownstone, no less. Walter then recasts his empire around this Whiz Kid. He even shoves aside a computer geek (Jeremy Piven), whose spreadsheets actually achieve a success ratio comparable to Brandon's.
He renames his protege John Anthony, supplies him with a car and the occasional call girl and is rewarded one weekend when Brandon -- sorry, Anthony -- guesses right on every game. Ah, but the Gambling Gods are fickle, as we all know, so the fall is coming soon enough.
Predictability isn't the real problem though. Rather it's the filmmakers' inability, unlike Mamet and very few others, to make unsavory characters and raw, kitchen-sink psychology work in dramatic terms. A viewer must wonder who or what he is to root for among these symbiotic characters who prey upon each others' weaknesses.
The film's sledgehammer approach to drama is deeply wearying. When Brandon first arrives in New York and his driver pulls up in front of Walter's brownstone, the soundtrack plays Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman". Then Pacino, in a performance just south of "Scarface", is egged on by his director -- as if he needs much prodding -- to push each scene into crazed, self-destructive obsession, snapping at Brandon's heels and slapping cigarettes in his mouth despite a weakened heart and constant chest pains.
McConaughey has effective moments as a lamb led to the slaughter who is too busy admiring his wonderful, fluffy coat. He is the film's one character that had genuine potential. On the other hand, Russo's Toni is an amalgam of so many cliches you wonder how the actress got any purchase on the material.
Armand Assante turns up for a couple of scenes as a Really Bad Dude with a weakness for gambling, but the character lacks a clear focus and the physical threat he seems to represent vanishes soon enough.
The filmmakers know the world of sports betting but not sports itself. More specifically, no losing football coach at any level, much less the NFL, would instruct his team to throw a Hail Mary pass on the last play of the game to beat the point spread!
Conrad W. Hall gives the film a dark, moody atmosphere amid Tom Southwell's sets all too successfully depress or alienate. The Christophe Beck score assumes a silent moment is a wasted opportunity.
TWO FOR THE MONEY
Universal Pictures
A Morgan Creek production
Credits:
Director: D.J. Caruso
Screenwriter: Dan Gilroy
Producer: James G. Robinson, Jay Cohen
Executive producers: Dan Gilroy, Rene Russo, Guy McElwaine, David C. Robinson
Director of photography: Conrad W. Hall
Production designer: Tom Southwell
Music: Christophe Beck
Co-producer: Wayne Morris
Costumes: Marie-Sylvie Deveau
Editor: Glen Scantlebury
Cast:
Walter: Al Pacino
Brandon: Matthew McConaughey
Toni: Rene Russo
Novian: Armand Assante
Jerry: Jeremy Piven
Alexandria: Jamie King
Southie: Kevin Chapman
Reggie: Ralph Garman
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 123 minutes...
- 10/13/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
You could say the devil made them redo it.
It isn't often a movie is remade before the first one even hits theaters, but such is the curious case of the prequel to the granddaddy of all demonic possession pictures.
Unhappy with the original Paul Schrader take, Morgan Creek threw more money at Renny Harlin, who goosed the atmospherics but failed to generate the requisite chills with last year's Exorcist: The Beginning, which managed to scare up a tepid $42 million domestically.
Now moviegoers are getting a chance to judge Schrader's effort for themselves, and it's a safe bet that the majority will quickly understand why the suits had their fears about the awkwardly titled "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist."
While the William Wisher and Caleb Carr story line and character motivations are easier to follow, the Schrader variation is awfully dull, with scant evidence of the sort of things that make horror movies attractive -- like mounting suspense and spine-tingling creepiness and, oh yeah, the element of horror.
Instead Schrader, who took on the production after original director John Frankenheimer fell ill, serves up a discourse on that ages-old battle between God and the devil over the human soul with all the sustained tension of a Discovery Channel program.
As in the Harlin film, Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard plays Father Lankester Merrin, a priest (played in his older years by Max von Sydow in the original Exorcist) who underwent a crisis of faith at the hands of the Nazis from which he never recovered.
Trading his collar for a sturdy pair of boots, Merrin has been working as an archaeologist in British East Africa, where he has unearthed an ancient Byzantine church that has been preserved in its entirety.
Working under the watchful eye of Father Francis (played here by Gabriel Mann), a young priest who has been dispatched to ensure that the contents of the pristine structure are accorded the proper religious respect, Merrin unwittingly unleashes a whole lot of hurt when it is discovered, too late, that beneath the church lies the still-potent remnants of an ancient crypt where satanic rituals had been routinely conducted.
Given that Warner Bros. Pictures is throwing Dominion up against another movie prequel going by the name of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," that church isn't the only thing to be buried.
An actor who conveys just the right amount of genuine decency and a world-weary remorse, Skarsgard is ideally cast as Merrin, but here, as with the Harlin version, he's again surrounded by several weak performances, not to mention some laughably inept CGI.
On paper, it might have been easy to see the attraction of a prequel that would expand on the 1973 film's reference to Merrin's having once performed an exorcism in Africa. But in the dominion of the horror film, an intriguing backstory won't suffice.
It might also have those moody Moroccan locations and acclaimed cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on the payroll, but this inert take on the classic William Peter Blatty material can't even exorcise the doldrums, let alone the demons.
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist
Warner Bros. Pictures
Morgan Creek Prods.
Credits:
Director: Paul Schrader
Producer: James G. Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David Robinson
Screenwriters: William Wisher and Caleb Carr
Director of photography: Vittorio Storaro
Production designer: John Graysmark
Editor: Tim Silano
Costume designer: Luke Reichle
Music: Trevor Rabin, Angelo Badalamenti, Dog Fashion Disco.
Cast:
Father Merrin: Stellan Skarsgard
Father Francis: Gabriel Mann
Rachel Lenso: Clara Bellar
Cheche: Billy Crawford
Sergeant Major: Ralph Brown
Jomo: Israel Aduramo
MPAA Rating: R
Running time -- 116 minutes...
It isn't often a movie is remade before the first one even hits theaters, but such is the curious case of the prequel to the granddaddy of all demonic possession pictures.
Unhappy with the original Paul Schrader take, Morgan Creek threw more money at Renny Harlin, who goosed the atmospherics but failed to generate the requisite chills with last year's Exorcist: The Beginning, which managed to scare up a tepid $42 million domestically.
Now moviegoers are getting a chance to judge Schrader's effort for themselves, and it's a safe bet that the majority will quickly understand why the suits had their fears about the awkwardly titled "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist."
While the William Wisher and Caleb Carr story line and character motivations are easier to follow, the Schrader variation is awfully dull, with scant evidence of the sort of things that make horror movies attractive -- like mounting suspense and spine-tingling creepiness and, oh yeah, the element of horror.
Instead Schrader, who took on the production after original director John Frankenheimer fell ill, serves up a discourse on that ages-old battle between God and the devil over the human soul with all the sustained tension of a Discovery Channel program.
As in the Harlin film, Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard plays Father Lankester Merrin, a priest (played in his older years by Max von Sydow in the original Exorcist) who underwent a crisis of faith at the hands of the Nazis from which he never recovered.
Trading his collar for a sturdy pair of boots, Merrin has been working as an archaeologist in British East Africa, where he has unearthed an ancient Byzantine church that has been preserved in its entirety.
Working under the watchful eye of Father Francis (played here by Gabriel Mann), a young priest who has been dispatched to ensure that the contents of the pristine structure are accorded the proper religious respect, Merrin unwittingly unleashes a whole lot of hurt when it is discovered, too late, that beneath the church lies the still-potent remnants of an ancient crypt where satanic rituals had been routinely conducted.
Given that Warner Bros. Pictures is throwing Dominion up against another movie prequel going by the name of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," that church isn't the only thing to be buried.
An actor who conveys just the right amount of genuine decency and a world-weary remorse, Skarsgard is ideally cast as Merrin, but here, as with the Harlin version, he's again surrounded by several weak performances, not to mention some laughably inept CGI.
On paper, it might have been easy to see the attraction of a prequel that would expand on the 1973 film's reference to Merrin's having once performed an exorcism in Africa. But in the dominion of the horror film, an intriguing backstory won't suffice.
It might also have those moody Moroccan locations and acclaimed cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on the payroll, but this inert take on the classic William Peter Blatty material can't even exorcise the doldrums, let alone the demons.
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist
Warner Bros. Pictures
Morgan Creek Prods.
Credits:
Director: Paul Schrader
Producer: James G. Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David Robinson
Screenwriters: William Wisher and Caleb Carr
Director of photography: Vittorio Storaro
Production designer: John Graysmark
Editor: Tim Silano
Costume designer: Luke Reichle
Music: Trevor Rabin, Angelo Badalamenti, Dog Fashion Disco.
Cast:
Father Merrin: Stellan Skarsgard
Father Francis: Gabriel Mann
Rachel Lenso: Clara Bellar
Cheche: Billy Crawford
Sergeant Major: Ralph Brown
Jomo: Israel Aduramo
MPAA Rating: R
Running time -- 116 minutes...
The Exorcist movie series is not so much a franchise as a perpetual going-out-of-business sale. There are now four official Exorcist films and many more imitations. The Exorcist (1973), written by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin, was truly one of the scariest movies ever made, for it portrayed a confrontation by humans with true evil rather than the monsters, mummies, ghosts and living dead that populate most horror films. Since then, however, audiences have been treated to the usual off-the-rack horror nonsense with the Exorcist label misleadingly attached to the titles. Exorcist: The Beginning continues the practice of false advertising.
Yes, the Exorcist imprint will draw enough young males for a solid opening week. Once word gets out that this movie makes Alien vs. Predator look like a classic, boxoffice could drop 50% or more.
The scariest thing about this film is how desperate the makers are to earn a scream. Clearly lacking confidence in a prosaic premise, director Renny Harlin and writers Alexi Hawley, William Wisher Jr. and Caleb Carr try out just about every gag they can think of: From a meaningless opening sequence featuring severed limbs and upside-down crucifixes on a battlefield, the movie indulges in facial boils, blood-sucking leeches, maggots on a stillborn baby, squirting blood, buzzing flies, two suicides, a bird plucking out a human eye and mad hyenas tearing apart of small boy. And when all else fails, they throw in a shower scene and sandstorm.
This was the film that found Morgan Creek making two versions. Paul Schrader shot and finished an edit of his The Beginning in May 2003. When Morgan Creek topper James Robinson rejected this film, Schrader departed and Harlin was brought aboard. Reportedly, little if anything from Schrader's version appears in Harlin's film.
Like the lamentable John Boorman film Exorcist II: The Heretic, this film too rolls back the clock to investigate the first confrontation between Father Merrin, the aging exorcist in the original film, and the devil in British colonial Africa, an incident alluded to in Friedkin's film and Blatty's best-selling novel. Stellan Skarsgard, who, remarkably, stars in both Schrader and Harlin's movies, plays Merrin as a disillusioned ex-priest, drifting through Cairo in 1949 in an alcoholic haze. A mysterious antiquities collector (Ben Cross) approaches him about joining an archaeological dig in a remote region in Kenya, where British authorities have discovered a buried Christian Byzantine church in a place where no church from that era should exist.
Merrin arrives at the site to learn people are disappearing, wild hyenas circle the compound and villagers believe an evil force lurks within the church. He is accompanied by a young and eager priest (James D'Arcy) whose belief in God is so mighty you know he is doomed. Merrin finds more in common with Dr. Sarah Novack (Izabella Scorupco), one of those selfless souls who can do good deeds without ever mussing her makeup or perfectly coifed hair.
Father Merrin -- oops, make that Mr. Merrin -- and Dr. Sarah Share a Holocaust background. She is a concentration camp survivor, while he left the church after witnessing Nazi atrocities in his native Holland.
The remainder of the movie is taken up with bad nightmares, living nightmares of strange doings in the devil's playground and hideous deaths experienced by several characters. The soundtrack is more alarming than the hyenas as every sound is amplified and ominous choral music pounds away. From time to time, Merrin feels the urge to search -- alone -- inside the church or go digging in the nearby graveyard. He always does so in the dead of night. Guess he doesn't want to wake anybody up.
Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro makes the whole look much better than it deserves, while designer Stefano Maria Ortolani does an amazing job of creating an African desert, old Cairo and wintry Holland on the backlots of Rome's famed Cinecitta Studios.
This is the kind of film that mysteriously vanishes from most participants' resumes. In this instance, they can always fall back on Flip Wilson's old line and claim that "the devil made me do it."
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING
Warner Bros. Pictures
Morgan Creek
Credits:
Director: Renny Harlin
Screenwriter: Alexi Hawley
Story by: William Wisher Jr., Caleb Carr
Producer: James G. Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David C. Robinson
Director of photography: Vittorio Storaro
Production designer: Stefano Maria Ortolani
Music: Trevor Rabin
Costume designer: Luke Reichle
Editors: Mark Goldblatt, Todd E. Miller
Cast:
Father Merrin: Stellan Skarsgard
Father Francis: James D'Arcy
Dr. Sarah Novack: Izabella Scorupco
Joseph: Remy Sweeney
Major Granville: Julian Wadham
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 112 minutes...
Yes, the Exorcist imprint will draw enough young males for a solid opening week. Once word gets out that this movie makes Alien vs. Predator look like a classic, boxoffice could drop 50% or more.
The scariest thing about this film is how desperate the makers are to earn a scream. Clearly lacking confidence in a prosaic premise, director Renny Harlin and writers Alexi Hawley, William Wisher Jr. and Caleb Carr try out just about every gag they can think of: From a meaningless opening sequence featuring severed limbs and upside-down crucifixes on a battlefield, the movie indulges in facial boils, blood-sucking leeches, maggots on a stillborn baby, squirting blood, buzzing flies, two suicides, a bird plucking out a human eye and mad hyenas tearing apart of small boy. And when all else fails, they throw in a shower scene and sandstorm.
This was the film that found Morgan Creek making two versions. Paul Schrader shot and finished an edit of his The Beginning in May 2003. When Morgan Creek topper James Robinson rejected this film, Schrader departed and Harlin was brought aboard. Reportedly, little if anything from Schrader's version appears in Harlin's film.
Like the lamentable John Boorman film Exorcist II: The Heretic, this film too rolls back the clock to investigate the first confrontation between Father Merrin, the aging exorcist in the original film, and the devil in British colonial Africa, an incident alluded to in Friedkin's film and Blatty's best-selling novel. Stellan Skarsgard, who, remarkably, stars in both Schrader and Harlin's movies, plays Merrin as a disillusioned ex-priest, drifting through Cairo in 1949 in an alcoholic haze. A mysterious antiquities collector (Ben Cross) approaches him about joining an archaeological dig in a remote region in Kenya, where British authorities have discovered a buried Christian Byzantine church in a place where no church from that era should exist.
Merrin arrives at the site to learn people are disappearing, wild hyenas circle the compound and villagers believe an evil force lurks within the church. He is accompanied by a young and eager priest (James D'Arcy) whose belief in God is so mighty you know he is doomed. Merrin finds more in common with Dr. Sarah Novack (Izabella Scorupco), one of those selfless souls who can do good deeds without ever mussing her makeup or perfectly coifed hair.
Father Merrin -- oops, make that Mr. Merrin -- and Dr. Sarah Share a Holocaust background. She is a concentration camp survivor, while he left the church after witnessing Nazi atrocities in his native Holland.
The remainder of the movie is taken up with bad nightmares, living nightmares of strange doings in the devil's playground and hideous deaths experienced by several characters. The soundtrack is more alarming than the hyenas as every sound is amplified and ominous choral music pounds away. From time to time, Merrin feels the urge to search -- alone -- inside the church or go digging in the nearby graveyard. He always does so in the dead of night. Guess he doesn't want to wake anybody up.
Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro makes the whole look much better than it deserves, while designer Stefano Maria Ortolani does an amazing job of creating an African desert, old Cairo and wintry Holland on the backlots of Rome's famed Cinecitta Studios.
This is the kind of film that mysteriously vanishes from most participants' resumes. In this instance, they can always fall back on Flip Wilson's old line and claim that "the devil made me do it."
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING
Warner Bros. Pictures
Morgan Creek
Credits:
Director: Renny Harlin
Screenwriter: Alexi Hawley
Story by: William Wisher Jr., Caleb Carr
Producer: James G. Robinson
Executive producers: Guy McElwaine, David C. Robinson
Director of photography: Vittorio Storaro
Production designer: Stefano Maria Ortolani
Music: Trevor Rabin
Costume designer: Luke Reichle
Editors: Mark Goldblatt, Todd E. Miller
Cast:
Father Merrin: Stellan Skarsgard
Father Francis: James D'Arcy
Dr. Sarah Novack: Izabella Scorupco
Joseph: Remy Sweeney
Major Granville: Julian Wadham
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 112 minutes...
Exorcist: The Beginning, the bedeviled prequel to the 1973 horror hit The Exorcist, has run into new problems, with Morgan Creek Prods. and director Paul Schrader jointly announcing Monday that Schrader, who completed principal photography in February, is no longer working on the film. Schrader took over the project in preproduction when the late director John Frankenheimer became ill, but he and producers James G. Robinson and Guy McElwaine ran up against creative issues in postproduction. Sources said Schrader's name will probably remain on the completed film. No replacement director has been named for the project, which is scheduled for release early next year through Warner Bros. Pictures.
- 9/16/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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