I’m not expecting a hell of a lot of traffic today, what with it being Memorial Day and all. So this next message is for our fans outside of the U.S.
Gee, you’re cool!
That being the case, do you think you could extend a little vote love my way so Monday isn’t a total bust? Thanks.
Gotta give props to my friend Nick who pointed out the plot hole in question from Bruce Almighty. Nick had a much more fervently negative reaction to the film than I did. I enjoyed the film, so I guess I got snowed.
Well, actually. That’s not entirely true. I really only liked the second act. The rest of the movie was crap.
Basically, the first act is all set up explaining why Jim Carrey hates God. He’s getting passed over at work. He gets stuck in traffic. He gets beaten up by a gang of Latino toughs. Typical “God is picking on me” kind of stuff. But Carrey complains so often and so LOUDLY, it’s becomes very annoying to listen to him whine for a half hour.
The second act is much more satisfying because we actually get to see Carrey use God’s powers in some imaginative ways. When he forces a co-worker who stole his position as anchor at the TV station he works for to speak in tongues, it’s hilarious. When he causes a meteor to slam into the planet only yards away from where he is covering a chili cook-off dressed as Mark Twain, it’s genius. Really, it’s all just an excuse to get Carrey to ad lib for an hour or so.
But the third act is totally lame. Realizing that he can’t handle the awesome burden of being God, Carrey learns A VALUABLE LESSON(tm) to “be the miracle” instead of bugging God to solve all of his problems. Yech!
This MESSAGE wouldn’t have been so unbearable if the filmmakers hadn’t chosen to beat us over the head with it repeatedly during the course of the movie’s last 30 minutes.
Of course, there are a million inconsistencies between being all-powerful and just plain uncreative. Within the structure of the story, Carrey isn’t allowed to screw with free will, but pretty much everything else is fair game.
When Carrey mistakenly causes a riot by granting everyone’s prayers, he could easily clean the whole thing up with a snap of his fingers. But does he do that? No! Instead he runs looking for Morgan Freeman not unlike Jimmy Stewart looking for Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life. It’s no coincidence that they reference it blatantly in a couple of scenes.
Of course, the movie wouldn’t have been very interesting if Carrey had a totally free ride. But you can’t expect the powers that allow the moon to be pulled out of orbit to be ignored by the audience when Carrey runs out of the way of a falling billboard as if he were mortal.
I kind of feel sorry for Jim Carrey at this point. He’s caught between being the funnyman everyone wants him to be and the “serious actor” he sees himself as. He’s pushing 40, folks. He can’t keep up his brand of physical comedy forever. My fear is that he’ll get stuck between genres and end up with nothing.
And that would be a shame.
Kind of funny that I’m taking pot-shots at Mel Gibson for The Passion of The Christ, then turn around and pen a comic where my character is attempting futile correspondence with God, eh?
Looks like ol’ Melly-Mel is going to make back that $30 million of his own money he sunk into The Passion. It did something like $26 million in it’s first day of release. Some people have said that tackling this heady material (in conjunction with the increasing bizarre interviews he’s been giving) are enough to bury Mel’s movie career. That’s a load of bull. Hollywood will forgive any amount of weird behavior as long as they’re taking your cash at the box office. Mel will be fine.
I don’t think Cami and I are going to get around to seeing The Passion this weekend. It looks like we’re about to undertake some massive home-improvement projects. We’re going to paint a couple rooms two different colors and install laminate wood flooring into one of them. I must have a hole in my head because we went through this exact same routine about this time last year and Cami and I nearly murdered each other.
Let’s get one thing straight. I am NOT Bob Vila.
The Oscar ceremony is this Sunday and I’m actually looking forward to it this year! I’ve said it before, but I think the nominations were sublime. Positive buzz has been surrounding Bill Murray. for Best Actor since Sean Penn. has been hinting he won’t make an appearance. If Bill won, it would be a victory for Midwestern smart-asses everywhere. Go, Bill, Go!
Other than that, not much to report. I guess if you’re interested you can check out a couple of t-shirt designs I submitted over at Threadless.com. It’s a cool little art/commerce community. You can view my designs here and here.
Take it easy!
Oh, sure. They changed the names of the characters, the location and updated it for the modern day – But don’t delude yourself, screenwriter Steve Oedekerk. Evan Almighty is outright theft of The Book of Genesis and you will incur the wrath of The Almighty!
You don’t think the Good Lord will garnish wages? You just try Him, buster!
Okay, so maybe not. But you have to think at some point it crossed the mind of some shyster to file a lawsuit on behalf of God. Certainly more ridiculous things have been done in His name…
Evan Almighty comes out this weekend and I’m torn because I’m a big Steve Carell fan. I love The Office – watch it ever week – and I think he hit it out of the park with The 40 Year-Old Virgin.
However, Evan Almighty has the earmarks of such an obvious money grab, I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to see it. In fact, I’m worried that it might burn up a little of the good will Carell has earned with his previous roles and cameos.
The movie has two strikes against it, in my mind. First, that it’s director is Tom Shadyac. He made a great first impression with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. But I think most sensible people can see that his direction had little to do with the movie’s success. Unless, of course, you count pointing the camera at Jim Carrey and letting him do whatever the hell he wants some kind of intuative genius.
Since then, Shadyac has made a string of family-friendly, generally broad comedies that fail to inspire. He had another successful follow up with The Nutty Professor. But again, he skates by on the strength of his lead performer in Eddie Murphy. Liar, Liar was a modest hit. and Patch Adams was almost universally despised.
To me, Shadyac is one of those guys who happens to be in the right place at the right time and hitches his wagon to whatever comedy star is big. He’s doing it again with Steve Carell and the whole thing stinks of a hack job to me.
The second strike against the film are reports of it’s bloated $250 million budget – the largest ever for a comedy.
That’s a big red flag for me. Throwing money at an action movie or a science fiction epic is fine. The results typically show up on screen in the form of larger explosions or more ships in a space battle. But NEVER has comedy been made more funny by being given a larger budget. It speaks to gross mismanagement. Or worse, that the film doesn’t have it’s head on it’s shoulders.
I understand that there is probably a lot of effects work going into making the ark look real and it’s a big boat. So a big boat would cost more. I’m also sure it was a headache to get a bunch of animals to do what you want them to on screen and that took a lot of time to shoot. Time costs money. I get that.
But so what? If I can see a movie like Knocked Up – which cost $30 million to make – and laugh my ass off for, let’s say, 90 minutes, is it plausible to assume that a film that cost over eight time more money to make will result in me laughing eight times as hard?
That’s a screwed up measuring stick. I know. But I think it’s indicative of what’s wrong with the big budget Hollywood movies. If you can make more with less, why wouldn’t you? It doesn’t always have to be about spectacle. Even if your story is Biblical in proportion.
On the plus side, the production made a concentrated effort to reduce the impact of it’s carbon footprint by going green on many aspects of assembling the film. In an effort to “walk the walk” of the film’s themes of social and environmental responsibility, materials used in the film were donated to Habitat For Humanity, the cast used two-sided scripts to reduce the amount of paper consumed, Shadyac gave bicycles as gifts to reduce car usage and the production planted trees near the site in Crozet, Virgina where the movie was filmed as a thank you to the community.
Since it typically costs more money to do the responsible thing, it’s possible this is where most of Evan Almighty’s $250 million budget went. If that’s the case, than I’m a little more hopeful. But it doesn’t hold water when you get down to business. At the end of the day, does the movie entertain? No amount of money for special effects or environmental initiatives are going to offset that. These are all issues anciliary to the point of this kind of entertainment and it’s not a good sign that Almighty is getting more press for this than for the quality of it’s script or the ability of it’s performers.
I guess it’s wait and see.
Sometimes you just want to pitch one straight up the middle, you know?
Of course, now upon inspection, I might have pulled out this gag to sell it a little more. The delivery of this one… it just feels like a “what’s in the news?” late night kind of thing.
The Golden Compass comes out on Friday and I couldn’t be more bored with the idea. Gordon saw a sneak preview of it last Saturday, so we talked about it a little bit on Monday night’s Triple Feature. I was dead serious when I confessed that I thought The Golden Compass was the sequel to The Chronicles of Narnia. Can you blame me? Winter scenes, witches, talking animals. A little too similar for me, I guess. But what can I say? I’m a dullard. I don’t read “books” – whatever those are.
Curiously, unlike Narnia which rankled some atheists for it’s detection of Aslan the Lion as a Jesus-like figure for leading a land out of sin. Now her comes it’s spiritual (pardon the pun) brethren in The Golden Compass and the shoe is now on the other food. Religious groups claim the film promotes atheism because the books written by Phillip Pullman depicts organized religion as evil. Pullman himself has made comments in the past describing himself as an atheist and deliberately “…trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.”
For me, personally, religion fits nowhere into the equation of either Narnia or Compass. I’m not overtly religious in my own life, so I view the conflict from an outsider’s perspective. Looking at it from a distance, I ask myself, “Aren’t these pretty heavy themes for children’s fantasy?”
Granted, most fairy tales have bleak and violent conclusions. So it’ s not as though children can’t process the weight of good and evil in a literary allegory. But why does everything have to be politicized to such a degree?
I think I have some more thoughts swirling around in my brain on this one, but I might hold off until Friday to set them loose. They might get me in trouble. We’ll see.
Until then, thanks for stopping by the site. See you again real soon!
I got in a little trouble last week for my comic about The Golden Compass. I got more than a few e-mails from people telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about and should shut up. Some people even went as far to say they were never going to read Theater Hopper again.
In some small way, I hoped to address this through the comic. Now I’m thinking I may have shoved my foot further into my mouth with my crack about the Bush administration.
I guess what I wanted to bring to light about The Golden Compass is that I didn’t intend to be so black and white by characterizing it as a “rip-off” – and I think that’s the term that probably pushed things over the edge.
Here’s the thing: At first glance, I was convinced that The Golden Compass was a sequel to The Chronicles of Narnia. Winterly scenes. Talking animals. Magic. For the uninitiated, I think this is a very easy mistake to make.
I think it’s also safe to say that the marketing behind The Golden Compass doesn’t try very hard to differentiate itself from Narnia. I think that’s deliberately done in order to ensnare people like myself who don’t know any better. “Hey, that kind of looks like Narnia! I liked that movie! I’m going to see this one!”
That was kind of the point I was making with the comics. Even though I was never familiar with Phillip Pullman’s novels, I recognize that they are thematically different from The Lord of the Rings and Narnia. What’s derivative about Compass is no fault of it’s own. Rather, it’s the greed of Hollywood executive who would have never brought this film to the screen if it weren’t for the success of those two franchises.
That’s not to slight the books for their content. I’m sure they are fine novels and would have made it to the screen eventually. But when you consider that The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was published in 1950, The Lord of the Rings published in 1954 and Northern Lights was published in 1995, it’s route to film adaptation appears expidited somewhat. I think most people agree that these books share a similar core audience.
In last Wednesday’s blog, I made the joke that I “don’t read books – whatever those are.” and people latched onto it as being dismissive. While I freely admit to being unfamiliar with The Golden Compass, it’s not because I don’t enjoy reading. I just don’t enjoy reading fantasy novels. I prefer biographies and history – things that actually happened. Would it surprise you to learn I’ve never read a Harry Potter book? I’m not putting down the genre. It’s just not my cup of tea.
That said, I don’t think the fact that I’m unfamiliar with the book precludes me from commenting on the movie. This is a movie site, after all and I tend to go with my gut. If I’m wrong about something, I’m wrong. But at least I’m being honest about my reactions. That’s the best anyone can hope for.
Anyway – that’s a lot of explaination for something that was supposed to be a fun poke in the ribs. Just know that none of it is personal and that if I’m making fun of a movie or an actor you like, I’m not judging your taste. I’m just providing commentary. Either it lines up with your sense of humor or it doesn’t. Hopefully you stick around long enough to say “Okay. What’s next.”
Speaking of “What’s next” – be sure to join us for The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe. We’ll be discussing The Golden Compass as well as Gordon’s recent interview with Newsarama.com.

We’ll also be doing another on-air contest. This week I’m giving away a copy of the Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake. But you can only win if you call in and participate. We’re doing another trivia contest (planned a little better this time, hopefully) and to the winner go the spoils!