AjayNaidu Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Yes, that's a printer on the red carpet for the 10th anniversary screening of Office Space at the Paramount Theatre in Austin on Sunday night. The guys swinging baseball bats are the same ones you saw attacking the printer in the 1999 movie -- Ajay Naidu and David Herman. We like our red carpet scenes lively here in Austin.

Mike Judge, who wrote and directed Office Space (and played the manager at Chotchkie's), appeared at the event with nine other actors who played major characters in the movie -- everyone except Ron Livingston and Jennifer Aniston, essentially. The theater was sold out, and watching Office Space with 1,200 people who've seen it before was amazing and hilarious. Everyone frequently contributed cheers, whoops and applause for certain actors or memorable bits of dialogue ("Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately." "I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.").

I'm not really a dog person, myself. I prefer cats. I like cats that sleep a lot and purr and occasionally do something adorable, like trying to rip your arm off. However, I did like most of the dogs in Hotel for Dogs, especially the lead canine character, Friday the fluffy white mutt. For the most part, these dogs don't have human qualities forced upon them but are funny and sweet in a naturally canine fashion, and they run circles around the human characters in more than one way.

Friday is owned by two children, Andi (Emma Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin). The kids have been traveling from foster home to foster home since their parents died, and apparently foster parents are all mean cusses who don't allow pets, so they've been hiding poor Friday in the woods and backyards and alleys and such for three years. Friday nearly ends up in the hands of Animal Control, and as we well know from movies and TV, anyone associated with the pound is evil and sadistic. So the little dog ends up taking matters into his own, er, paws (I hate writing phrases like that) and finds his own family -- two strays who live in an abandoned hotel. One thing leads to another, and suddenly Andi and Bruce realize that there's plenty of room in this once-fancy hotel that no one seems to care about for a lot of dogs that no one else seems to care about, either.

(from left to right) Sean Gullette in Pi, Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream, Hugh Jackman in The Fountain, and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

I had been writing a rambling introduction to this piece, but to make a long anecdote short, I decided to re-watch the works of writer-director Darren Aronofsky prior to seeing his new film, The Wrestler. Out of more happenstance than planning, I began his first film exactly a day to the minute before this one would end, and now I offer up my thoughts on his career to date. (Who knows what more could come following this: 24 Hours of Fincher? 36 Hours of Boyle? My Dinner with Andre Benjamin's Idlewild?)

Just the other day, I was remarking to a friend: "When are they going to make a movie about a pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua who gets lost in Mexico and must rely on friends to find her way back Stateside?" And in Variety today, there it was. Thank you, Mr. Hollywood - answerer of prayers, fulfiller of dreams! And with Raja Gosnell, director of Scooby-Doo and Big Momma's House at the helm, I've got a feeling this puppy can't lose! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Piper Perabo is going to the dogs! The article doesn't say who Perabo will play, but if I had to guess I bet she'll be the dog's Paris Hiltonesque owner? Whoever she plays, if this baby's half the movie Kangaroo Jack was, we should be in for some head-exploding, kick-you-in-the-crotch, lick-you-in-the-ear entertainment! Let me catch my breath here -- sarcasm overload. Okay.

Perabo last appeared on the big screen in the Diane Keaton vehicle Because I Said So (as in "Why do I have to watch this?"). She is currently starring in In Vivid Detail, which is playing the Tribeca Film Festival. And before the year is out she will appear in both Carriers and Ashes, which is the directorial debut of Ajay Naidu (Samir from Office Space). According to the announcement, South of the Border will be live-action, but it doesn't mention whether an actual chihuahua will be used or a CGI dog a la Scooby. It also doesn't mention whether the dog will be speaking or not, but I can't imagine the producers passing up a chance to have animals talking in wacky accents. Also not mentioned: how the chihuahua gets from Beverly Hills to Mexico, but I'd love to be the screenwriter who has to figure that out! There is no imdb information on the film regarding the writer of South of the Border, so I'll just assume it's David Mamet.