It’s hard not to feel like a complete hack when writing a joke like this, but once I got it in my head, I couldn’t shake it loose. I don’t always make comics just for the punchline anyway. Sometimes it’s a good opportunity to experiment with body language and expressions. I think there are a couple of good ones here.
If you’re a little confused as to what comic I’m making refernce to, it’s Definitely, Maybe – a romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, and Rachel Weisz, Reynold’s character is on the brink of divorce and Breslin – his daugher – wants to know everything about how her parents met and fell ing love. Reynolds talks about the three great loves in his life, obscuring which of the women ended up with. It’s basically How I Met Your Mother – The Movie.
It’s all pretty much rom-com boilerplate, but I think what makes this movie interesting is the casting. Rachel Weisz pretty much plays the befuddled girlfriend in every movie, but Isla Fisher and especially Elizabeth Banks are brave choices. I think just about everyone fell in love with Fisher after Wedding Crashers. She’s basically Amy Adams with an attitude. I’m especially happy for Banks to be getting this kind of billing. She’s shown up in a lot of random places like Wet Hot American Summer, the Spider-Man movies, the horror comedy Slither and even on TV’s Scrubs. Most people probably remember her as the book store clerk Steve Carrell hits on in The 40 Year-Old Virgin. It’s obvious she has the chops. It’s nice to see her in something maybe a little more straight-forward
Above all, is it weird that the one I’m rooting for most ir Ryan Reynolds. I’ve always thought Reynolds was a great performer, but he was kind of trapped by his Van Wilder persona – the charismatic goofball who’s always throwing knowing glances to the audience. He’s tried branching out in films like Blade: Trinity and the remake of The Amityville Horror, but he’s had trouble latching on to good material. If it’s a lack of opportunity or a lack of good decision making, I don’t know.
I’m not saying Definitely, Maybe is the magic bullet, but I think it will pay off to do something a little more traditional and safe. If it gets people thinking about Reynolds as a more serious actor, then I would say “mission accomplished.”
If you’re interested, you can check out the web site for the movie at http://www.definitelymaybemovie.com. Here’s a couple of links to the trailer as well.
That about does it for me today. I just wanted to say thanks to all of the people who sent e-mails with their suggestions on how to prevent hotlinking. I’m not sure what direction I’m going to go with things – if I’m going to block off the folder on the server with the images, or if I’m going to include some kind of copyright line into the body of the image. But I got a lot of good tips and I wanted to say “Thanks.” I’m sorry I couldn’t respond to everyone individually.
I’m at home with Henry because he’s been sick the last few days, but I might be back a little later in the day if I can get him to take a nap. I was sent a reall cool Theater Hopper-related DVD cover mock up I want to share with you guys. Don’t let me forget!
See you soon!
Ryan Reynolds isn’t the only one who can grate cheese off his abs. Vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics to see what I’m talking about.
I think we can all agree that Ryan Reynolds is a very attractive person. I have no shame in admitting this. In fact, I’m certain that were I disciplined enough, having abs like Ryan Reynolds would clear up roughly 43% of my self-esteem issues. If this acting thing doesn’t shake out, he could be a full-time Men’s Health cover model.
Cami’s line about me nursing a crush on Reynolds since Van Wilder wasn’t an exaggeration. In addition to his physical appearance, there’s just something about his delivery I’ve always enjoyed – even when he’s playing it broad. Van Wilder is an infinitely more enjoyable film because of what Reynolds brings to the role. For proof, watch the Reynolds-less Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj. It’s basically the same movie set in a different location and putting Kal Penn in the lead role.
Although can someone please explain to me how National Lampoon got away with calling the film “Van Wilder 2” when Van Wilder is nowhere in that movie?
The Proposal comes out this weekend and it looks like a boilerplate Sandra Bullock rom-com piffle. I didn’t mean to be harsh with the punchline of today’s comic by pointing out Bullock’s age (she’s actually 45). But it really sticks out to me in the commercials and trailers for this movie when she’s been paired with an actor roughly 15 years her junior.
Of course, with leading men, this is never an issue and sometimes even MORE prominent. Actors in their 50’s being paired up with actresses in their 20’s you see it all the time. Don’t misjudge me and assume that I don’t think Bullock is allowed to do the same.
But look back at Bullock’s career. She’s usually been paired with actors roughly her same age or older. And Bullock is nothing if not a creature of habit. She’s been acting in the same kind of movies for roughly a decade now. So even if the formula changes a little bit, it’s note-worthy.
I know I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I kind of hope they work it into the script somehow. It would be an opportunity to make it funny.
Switching gears, I wanted to talk about some of the issues we’ve been having with the site for the last week and a half. By now you pretty much know what’s going on with the malware errors, Google Chrome, Safari and the like.
I can tell you that we’re doing everything we can to scrub the site at every opportunity, but we’ve been compromised in a way that we can not immediately fix. Someone shared with me a link to this article that will hopefully shed some light on the situation and give you some insight as to the problems we’re dealing with.
I can only hope at some point someone will develop some kind of defense for this thing because every time I locate and strip the malicious code, it’s back on the site a few hours later. Until then, I feel like I’m twiddling my thumbs.
On top of this hacker problem, I’m also experiencing difficulties with the recent upgrade to WordPress 2.8. As you can see, the comic ranking system is frozen and the calendar and search functions normally to the right of the blog are missing.
Behind the scenes, the post tagging system does not work and I cannot edit the status of my posts. It’s a real drag.
Combing the internet, I can see there are several unhappy customers. People are pretty much saying it’s completely bungled on WordPress’s part.
I was thinking I would roll back the site to 2.7, but I guess I didn’t make a backup. I thought I did, but now I can’t find it. Maybe I e-mailed to myself and deleted it before I realized the problems 2.8 was having. But it’s a mess.
Anyway, that’s my problem, not your problem. But I just wanted to give everyone a status update.
Let’s talk about the weekend! In addition to The Proposal, Year One is also coming out and it looks like it’s getting trashed in the reviews. It’s a shame, because I really respect and admire Harold Ramis. But you could kind of tell from the trailers that the movie didn’t have a clear direction. What’s up with Jack Black and Michael Cera skipping through time? It looks confusing.
Is anyone still planning on seeing Year One? What about The Proposal? Or is everyone waiting for Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen to come along next week and step on everything? Leave your comments below!
I remember being bummed that I wasn’t able to catch the coming-of-age comedy film Adventureland when it was in theaters last April, so it was a real treat to finally catch up with it when it was released on Blu-ray last Tuesday.
Writer / director Greg Mottola’s semi-autobiographical tale about a recent college grad languishing away at the “worst job on Earth” at Adventureland Amusement Park in 1987 doesn’t exactly benefit visually from the Blu-ray format. But the movie has an intentional, gritty feel – as if it’s been filtered through someone’s memory.
The movie does a good job setting itself within the time period without pushing too many “Hey, it’s the 80’s!” cultural touchstones. Yuppies and Madonna are mentioned here and there, but the protagonists in this movie are far, far away from the mainstream. For the most part, they’re grossly over-educated, analytical and sarcastic shoe-gazing romantics with a Lou Reed obsession. I guess the comedy is supposed to come from the contrast of otherwise smart people doing what Martin Starr’s supporting character called “the work of pathetic, lazy morons.”
Falling somewhere between Shia LaBeouf and Michael Cera on the Geeky/Sensitive Leading Man Scale, Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan – a recent college grad whose plans to travel Europe with a friend are dashed when his Father loses his job. As things get worse for James’s family and his future in grad school at Columbia University is threatened, he’s forced to take a summer job. Overqualified for every job he applies for, James is forced to take a job at the local, run-down amusement park Adventureland.
The movie serves James a romantic interest in the form of Kristen Stewart’s Em Lewin. I have to admit that I was prepared to hate Stewart going into the movie by virtue of her preening, posturing, sneering performance in Twilight. But in Adventureland, she’s fascinating to watch. Em has a lot of problems at home and despite her cool and friendly exterior, she doesn’t really want to be known by anyone. Her performance really made me reconsider my previous negative attitude toward her as an actress.
James’s confidant at Adventureland is Joel, played by Martin Starr. A sarcastic and somewhat lonely intellectual who shows James the ropes at the park. Mottola gives Joel the pretentious habit of smoking a pipe, but makes him self-aware enough to know that it’s obnoxious. “It’s a revolting affection,” he acknowledges. “But it relaxes me.”
The rest of the cast is rounded out by Ryan Reynolds as the park’s mechanic and Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park’s managers.
Reynolds finally does something very interesting with his innate charm and makes his character a little sleazy for once. Hader and Wiig aren’t in the movie as much as the advertising for the film would have led you to believe. But they are used effectively throughout the movie to add comedic punch between scenes.
There really isn’t anything in Adventureland that hasn’t been done by a thousand other coming-of-age movies. But the film is very relaxed and sure about itself. More than anything, it seems to be about hanging out, getting high and letting relationships unfold. Watching it, I was actually reminded of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused – another period piece about hanging out, getting high and letting relationships unfold. The only difference here is that the jocks and popular kids have been completely replaced by the intellectuals and misfits.
Similar to Dazed and Confused, however, is the film’s excellent soundtrack. David Bowie, Big Star, The Cure, Crowded House, The New York Dolls, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Replacements, The Velvet Underground and, of course, Lou Reed wrap the film in a perfect period time capsule.
Inventively, in addition to skipping ahead to specific scenes, one of the menu features on the Blu-ray lets you skip to scenes using specific songs from the soundtrack. Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” appears as a menu option no less than 4 times – a funny callback to a running joke throughout the film.
Additional bonus features include audio commentary with Greg Mottola and actor Jesse Eisenberg and the requisite deleted scenes. There’s a 17-minute making-of documentary and a few interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes utilizing some of the supporting cast members. “Lisa P’s Guide To Style” instructs you on all the “latest” 80’s fashion. “Welcome to Adventureland” gathers a couple of commercials promoting the park, the employee orientation kit and a peek at the official drug policy. “Frigo’s Ball Tap” instructs you on the proper technique and variety that is the art of tapping your friends in the balls.
Adventureland didn’t set the world on fire at the box office last April, pulling in $16 million domestically during its theatrical run. That’s a shame. The movie is confidently told and competently performed. It deserves a bigger audience and hopefully it will find it on DVD.
Warner Bros. released three new stills of Ryan Reynolds dressed up in costume for the forthcoming Green Lantern movie. As I’m sure you’re all aware, he’s not wearing an actual costume, but a CGI suit that is being painted over his body by very lonely computer nerds in post.
Here’s my take… I’ve always felt that this movie version of the Green Lantern costume was needlessly ornamental and vaguely Tron-like. But I’ve gotten used to it. Now that I’m looking at this complete head to toe shot, I’m really creeped out by what looks like shrink-wrapped socks on Reynolds’ feet. Seriously, animators. I don’t need to know what the indentation of Reynolds’ toenail bed looks like. But, my! Those foot tendons are FABULOUS!
I swear, with this movie, it’s one step forward and two steps back.
Do you have an opinion about Green Lantern? I bet you do! You should leave your comments below!
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Feb 15, 2011 | A WEB ANY SIZE |
Is “a fistful of power rings” a new sexual euphemism? Let’s see if we can make that happen.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I always found the original Green Lantern comic design to be one of the sexiest in comics. Yeah, I know Hal Jordan is a dude, but I always appreciated the costume’s sleek, retro-future design. It’s truly one of the few costumes in comics that doesn’t need improvement. Even Jim Lee managed to leave it relatively unchanged in his horrible Nehru collar-inspired reboot of DC comic’s entire line of characters.
Of course, the producers of the Green Lantern movie managed to muck that up by making Hal Jordan look like a emerald-hued Slim Goodbody.
Critics beat the crap out of Green Lantern. It’s averaging a 26% “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes right now. According to Box Office Mojo, estimated attendance for Green Lantern is below that of even Daredevil and Ghost Rider – two films synonymous with B-grade superhero movie flame-outs.
But the fan reaction has been interesting. People seem to be defending the movie as mindless fun. I take that to mean that the eye-candy was satisfactory even if the story fell flat on it’s face.
If you had asked me a few months ago to speculate on Green Lantern’s odds of success at the box office, I probably would have sided with the critics. Despite Ryan Reynold’s inherent likability, all of the new movie clips and preview material they were showing made Green Lantern look like amateur hour. Everything from the costume design, to the lumpy CG character work to the inclusion of Sinestro, Hector Hammond AND Parallax as villains did not inspire confidence.
But a strange thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. The success of X-Men: First Class effectively eliminated my doomsday predictions for Green Lantern. I don’t know why. Beyond their superhero subject matter, the films couldn’t be more different from each other.
I guess it’s because I was convinced that X-Men: First Class was going to be a complete bomb. To me it appeared as tone-deaf to the comics as Green Lantern appears to be. The fact that X-Men: First Class was actually good forced me to put my assumptions on hold and adopt a wait-and-see attitude toward Green Lantern.
So, despite the bad reviews, I’m still willing to invest the time to see Green Lantern. I’m willing to open up my heart a little bit and take my chances.
Because here’s the thing: I LOVE Green Lantern. For me, he’s the DC equivalent to Iron Man and I’ve been a fan of the character and the mythology for a long, long time. In fact, the GL books are the only DC books I read right now. So you know I’m serious about it.
It’s easy to love Superman or Spider-Man… Captain America or Batman. That’s like saying “I love America” or “I love vacation days.” It’s kind of a given.
It takes a little bit of fortitude to say “I love Green Lantern” or “I love Iron Man.” Because, for a long time, these guys were second-stringers and their comics were not very good.
I hate to be all “I loved these characters before they were cool.” That’s not how I feel. I’m thrilled these characters are getting their due in popular culture. I’m just trying to explain how long I have been invested in them.
So, yeah. I want to give Green Lantern and – more surprisingly – Cami wants to come with me.
Well, maybe not surprisingly. She’s a huge Ryan Reynolds fan. How big? Her favorite Ryan Reynolds movie is Just Friends. Okay, admittedly, it’s a pretty funny movie. But, yeah… watching Reynolds run around in a painted on costume for two hours? I’m sure it doesn’t hurt.
Did any of you check out Green Lantern this weekend? What did you take away from it? Is the costume everything it’s trumped up to be? Leave your comments below!