Cinematical

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

As far as hustling movie producer archetypes go, I tend to prefer Joel Silver over Harvey Weinstein. Sure, Weinstein played a role in some of the great American independent films from the last decade of the twentieth century, but Silver's production credits have more spice to them -- The Matrix, Predator, 48 Hrs. -- hinting at the zany force behind their existence. The movies he has produced don't always please everyone (consider those last two Matrix movies), and sometimes his productions run into unforeseeable setbacks (Joss Whedon's troublesome Wonder Woman script). But now, Silver's trying a radical maneuver that reaffirms his maverick abilities: He's shopping around Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, which tells the story of a drama surrounding a stolen painting and stars Gerard Butler, to other studios despite the plan to release it through Warner Bros. in October.

According to Patrick Goldstein in The Los Angeles Times, Silver said he showed the movie to Lionsgate and Sony Pictures to get some advice on how to market the film. However, when Goldstein asked Warner Bros.' top executive Alan Horn about the situation, Horn called the movie "very English," not "broadly commercial," and said the studio "might not be willing to spend the marketing money he wants us to." So it follows that Silver probably wants to sell the movie to somebody else.

This kind of thing has happened before. Jonathan Levine's teen horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was set for a release through The Weinstein Company, but when it was determined that the distributor might not provide the best home for the film, it went to the more agreeable Senator Films (although Senator has yet to release it). What troubles me is Horn's assertion that RocknRolla is "very English." Yeah ... so?

Whether or not you're offended by the use of the word "retard" in Tropic Thunder, it's hard to deny the difference between the intention of the humor and the ire of the groups protesting it. When Ben Stiller's character, Tugg Speedman, learns that he was mistaken in going "full-retard" with his miscalculated awards-bid performance as a mentally challenged man in Simple Jack, you either laugh or you don't, but you definitely get it. Stiller's point is that self-important actors often take crass or poorly formulated roles on the basis of subject matter simply so they can get a chance at the podium. At no point are we forced to laugh at a character meant to be taken as actually retarded; instead, we only get Tugg Speedman's really bad, really offensive interpretation of one.

At his Scanners blog, Jim Emerson gets this point, and smartly rails against complainers like the Special Olympics for making such a big deal out of a scene before even coming to terms with its purpose. He also brings up a brilliant historical parallel: In 1977, Randy Newman's single "Short People" was pulled from the air because it supposedly offended, uh, short people. "If you do satire or parody, you have to expect there will always be fools who will take it literally," writes Emerson. "Those people are called 'literalists.' And there ought to be a law against them."

When Stephen Frears' The Queen came out in 2006, all the buzz emphasized Helen Mirren's icy performance as London's reclusive royal highness. The ubiquitous praise lead to her Oscar win, but it overwhelmed recognition of the movie's secret weapon: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, quietly pressuring his Majesty to face the public in the wake of Princess Diana's untimely demise. There's a reason why Sheen conveyed the nuances of Blair's role in the event, which transpired a mere three months after the Prime Minister rose to power -- he had practice. The Deal, a fantastic made-for-TV movie Frears directed in 2003, tracked Blair's cunning (and morally questionable) instincts in the years leading up to his position at the top of the Labor Party.

Sheen played Blair in The Deal first, and it's both a superior performance and a superior film. Whereas The Queen had a tabloid hook and only tangentially explored the deeper political ramifications of a reclusive national leader, The Deal delves into precisely how Blair managed to emerge at the top of British politics with a series of calculated maneuvers. Political drama at its finest, The Deal hit DVD in the United States last month, where it has been touted as "the prequel to The Queen." That's not quite fair; The Queen is the sequel to The Deal, and the two movies ought to be seen as a single, wholly fascinating package depicting British politics in the 1990s.

Beginning with the summer of Surf Ninjas and concluding with last year's Underdog, Vulture has compiled a list arguing that August movies generally blow. Sifting through the titles from the past fifteen years, it's hard to ignore their point. If Bushwhacked, Spawn and The Thirteenth Warrior don't convince you, how about Hollow Man? The Adventures of Pluto Nash? Anacondas?

August usually means a lot to America. It's big for vacationers. The sun comes out and everyone gets one last hurrah before the summer recedes for the year. So why would studios dump their worst movies at this time? Maybe it's just a coincidence, but either way, it's hard to say whether or not this August will break the trend. Swing Vote seems to confirm Vulture's dire prediction, but Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder will surely find some appreciative audiences. And we all know The Dark Knight will continue to make bank. However, before you start thinking that a turnaround is on the way, consider the third Mummy movie -- and, once again, Vulture might have something here: Variety has called it "cheeseball stuff." Could that be the codeword for "typical August movie"? It would seem so.

Love him or hate him, you've got to hand it to Brett Ratner for keeping his career in motion. Variety brings word that the hustling filmmaker plans to take his Rat Entertainment company from New Line, where it first settled in 1996, to a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures. Ratner says the departure of New Line execs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne in February convinced him it was time to move on. At Paramount, Ratner will probably get bigger budgets and executives more receptive to his blockbuster-ready concepts. Stating the obvious, Ratner told Variety he "will not be pitching art films. I want to make major tentpole movies." You don't say?

Unless you're Scott Foundas, you probably balk at the idea of more Ratner movies populating the mainstream film scene, but the guy does fit the proper archetype of the classic Hollywood powerhouse. A modern day Sammy Glick, he knows how to make movies that bring out the audiences, whether or not they're any good. But maybe that determination means that, one day, Ratner will make a lot of great movies. His planned Hugh Hefner biopic sounds promising -- or at least, appropriate.

Still, that's a little ways off. Encouraged by his experience with X-Men: The Last Stand, Ratner decided he wanted to work on a new superhero franchise, so he's adapting Valiant Comics' Harbinger. Also in his queue: Beverly Hills Cop 4, The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Boys From Brazil. Do these projects get anyone excited? Anyone at all?

The basic scenario behind Swing Vote makes for an easy pitch: An average American (Kevin Costner) winds up in the position of casting the deciding vote in a presidential election. Both candidates (played by Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper) fly into town and try to woo him. It's a simple premise clearly aimed at exploring the various quirks of the political process. However, although it is quite a fantastical situation, the filmmakers have put quite an effort into incorporating at least one element from the real world: News anchors. Countless movies have asked Jay Leno and his fellow late night brethren to make cameos on TV joking about this or that bit of plot to add a sense of realism, but Swing Vote brings a slightly different set of rules to the table: The presidential candidates are clearly fictional (and Grammer, the Republican candidate, doesn't have many Bush-like qualities), while the news anchors, for the most part, play themselves. If you ask me, something doesn't quite add up here.

Chris Matthews blares into the camera about the ramifications of the election snafu. Tucker Carlson follows suit. Larry King delivers his trademark monotone. And Arianna Huffington gets a full-blown monologue. How is it that all these people can play themselves in a world with a completely different president, one virtually devoid (as far as we can tell) of modern talking points like the Iraq War and the beleaguered economy? It's almost as if they've been imported from another dimension.

According to a report conducted by Nielsen PreView published today in The Hollywood Reporter, R-rated comedies don't do so hot at the box office. The timing of these findings seems odd, considering that Step Brothers made a solid $30 million last weekend, while analysts are predicting that another summer comedy slapped with the restricted label, Tropic Thunder, will collect at least that much. Right in the middle of those two releases comes Pineapple Express, which, like Step Brothers and Tropic Thunder, has a built-in core audience interested in raunchy masculine humor. The findings of this report suggest that larger audiences don't want to attend R-rated movies, but it's sort of a pointless observation because R-rated comedies are only made for people who want to see them. Everyone else can check out You Don't Mess with the Zohan.

Of course, there is the occasional R-rated comedy with cross-over appeal, such as Knocked Up, but studios are probably hesitant to make many of those when a safely PG-13 Juno will suffice. Anyway, it's usually not difficult for Hollywood movies to trim a few vulgarities or the fleeting shot of exposed skin in order to knock down the rating a notch and maximize turnout. Horror films are a different story: They usually make bank with the R-rating intact.

Speaking to the 18 and over audience here: Do ratings play any role in the movies you choose to see?

Look, I thought The Dark Knight had a lot of strong selling points: Combine a deft pace with thoughtful characterizations and a whopping IMAX design that turns the entire experience into a plot-driven theme park ride, and you've got one hefty dose of Batman adrenaline.

Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.

Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.

It's one thing to disagree with somebody. It's another to censor them. That's the central problem with the United Kingdom's decision to condemn The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary by Martin Durkin arguing exactly what its title implies.

A response to the global warming awareness popularized by An Inconvenient Truth, Durkin's film was considered disingenuous from the perspective of British broadcast regulator Ofek, which ruled that Channel 4 violated the country's boundaries of impartiality when it broadcast the movie last year. Apparently, Durkin manipulated his subjects in order make them verify his questionable stance that global warming was a conspiracy.

Now, I find it hard to buy into any movie that puts its ugly one-sided argument right in the title, but there's something to be said for freedom of speech in this case. What's the U.K. doing with these nonsensical impartiality laws? Since when do documentaries have to remain objective and avoid agendas? Even your average PBS program takes a side. The ruling suggests a totalitarian mindset where art is subjected to a group think mentality, and that's scary. What if The Dark Knight were banned for condoning torture? Maybe that's an extreme comparison, so try this one: What does Ofcom think about Michael Moore?