DevilWearsPrada Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's a script to be written, hopefully by someone with talent, in which a character from the real world gets dropped into a romantic comedy. Sort of like Enchanted in reverse, or the middle part of The Last Action Hero -- a reg'lar Joe or Josephine suddenly finds themselves having to survive in the Rom-Com Universe, forced to adapt their normal-human skills and behavior to an alternate reality where almost nothing is like they know it.

Take The Proposal, for example. Ryan Reynolds' executive-assistant character makes a coffee run for his boss -- but there's no coffee in the cups! Seriously, you can tell from the way he's juggling them in one hand that, as in most movies and TV shows, they're completely empty. Unless, of course, normal physics don't apply in Rom-Com World, which is a distinct possibility. Naturally, when he gets the coffee all the way back to the office, the first thing that happens is that he slams into a co-worker, and coffee cascades from the now-full cups all over his shirt.

See, this is one way that it would be hard to live in a romantic comedy. For starters, when I buy coffee, the cup's almost always full of coffee. I like that. And if I was constantly running into people and spilling my magical drink all over myself, I'd need to keep multiple changes of clothes in my car and at my office. I imagine that people in rom-coms must have overnight bags stashed all over the place, given how often they spill stuff, fall down, and have messy things flung at them. It would be hard on the wardrobe.

For me the most entertaining part of the annual Oscar schpiel is not seeing which films get awards and what actors earn the most respect; it's scratching my head through the boneheaded decisions that seem to come a) out of nowhere and b) from a bunch of people who really ought to know a little better. Here are my picks for the seven biggest pieces of silliness regarding this year's Oscar nominations:

7. Borat for best adapted screenplay? Whaaaaat? Did we see the same movie? Don't get me wrong: I absolutely LOVED this movie -- I called it "one of the funniest movies ever made" and I stand by that opinion today -- but didn't most of the funniest bits come from moments best described as "off the cuff," "reaction-driven" and "semi-improvised"? I understand that more of the flick was scripted than one might expect, but c'mon. Unless all of Borat's interview subjects were given lines to read, I really don't see how this nomination makes any sense. I love seeing the movie get some respect, but what a silly way to do it.

6. Click gets nominated for best makeup ... but Pirates of the Caribbean 2 does not? What the hell? Did any of the Academy members see this movie? Yeah, I know that most of the more dazzling FX were full-bore CGI, but heck; the makeup used on Naomie Harris was more impressive than anything in freakin' Click! Fat suits and really lame "old man" makeup is all it takes to get an Oscar nom these days? Sheesh. Plus I just don't like living in a world that calls Click an Oscar nominee.

5. Nominating The Devil Wears Prada for Best Costume Design is like nominating Talladega Nights for Best Product Placement. Welcome to the world of Home Shopping Cinema.

I'm all for these guild awards, with their specific categories and distinct recognitions, but I'm not sure I understand the Costume Designer Guild's honor for "Distinguished Actor." If the reasoning is that the recipient of this award is someone who looks good in costumes, or makes costume designers look good, then Helen Mirren makes sense as this year's winner. But this reason doesn't explain why the guild is also giving Sandra Bullock an award. Suddenly, the logic falls apart -- especially for anyone who has seen Miss Congeniality 2.

The costume designers don't need to give actors any more praise. And Mirren certainly doesn't need any more trophies this year. To me, the guild's recognition of the different genres of costume design is interesting and appealing enough without some unnecessary star-kissing.

The categories for the Costume Designer Guild Awards separately acknowledge achievements for modern costume, period costume and fantasy costume. The lumping of these genres together into the Best Costume Design Oscar doesn't give credit to the differences between them, and it often ignores the difficulty of modern costuming, which many people assume is as easy as the everyday act of getting dressed in the morning.

Barnyard: The Original Party Animals -- Only worth renting if your kids have already seen The Ant Bully, Flushed Away, Happy Feet, Ice Age 2, Open Season, Over the Hedge and The Wild. (At least three times apiece.) Plot: A bunch of cows do silly things in a barnyard. Extras include filmmaker commentary, four featurettes, seven deleted scenes, two music videos, etc.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- You know how New Line released those really nifty "extended edition" DVDs for The Lord of the Rings? Yeah, well Disney liked that idea so here comes the mega-huge Narnia release, complete with seven additional minutes of in-movie footage, three lengthy audio commentaries, and two full discs over-stuffed with lions and witches and wardrobes, oh my.

The Devil Wears Prada -- The chick-flick version of Hostel. Anne Hathaway plays a "fat girl" who allows herself to be abused by the evil boss Meryl Streep just long enough to earn an oh-so-important life lesson. Extras include a filmmaker commentary, four featurettes, a bunch of deleted scenes and other random trinkets.

Material Girls -- One of the worst studio releases of the past 15 years. Stunningly bad. Highly recommended, however, if you happen to be a member of the Duff family. Anyone who can make it more than 15 minutes into Martha Coolidge's audio commentary has the fortitude of an Egyptian pyramid-builder. Featurettes and music videos are also included.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby -- Will Ferrell brings his patented brand of stream-of-consciousness goofiness to the easy-target world of NASCAR, and the result is a movie just as funny as we expected it to be. OK, so it's not Anchorman, but it's still packed with laughs. (Plus John C.Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen and Amy Adams are actually allowed to steal a few scenes, with makes me think even more of Ferrell as a comedian.) Snag the unrated edition for extra footage and a truckload of commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, bloopers, promos and more assorted silliness.

World Trade Center -- The year's second 9/11 movie takes a decidedly different approach than its predecessor (United 93) and turns out to be one of Oliver Stone's more accessible projects. The horrible date is re-captured in chillingly realistic fashion, the performances are pretty great across the board, and the extra features (in the 2-disc commemorative edition) are as informative as they are entertaining. Fans of the film can pick through two separate audio commentaries and a second disc filled with mini-documentaries on the film, the survivors and the event itself.

Okay, I admit it. Now that I've seen the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada, I actually kinda want to see it. Meryl Streep, with short, smartly styled silver hair, delivers her lines in the trailer with an icy-cold softness that says, "I'll rip you to shreds with my manicured nails and eat you raw for lunch if you piss me off." And casting sweet-and-innocent-looking Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) opposite Streep as the recent college grad from the Midwest who goes to work for the biggest bitch in the fashion biz, could end up being genius. The trailer looks smart, sharp and funny (of course, it's always possible that the rest of the movie doesn't live up to it, but a girl can hope), and now I'm actually interested to see the film. I mean, it's Meryl Streep! That gives it some potential, right?

Streep, who had slowed down a little over the past couple years, is suddenly churning out work like a woman on a mission. She has no fewer than eight projects in the works at the moment, from voicing the Queen Ant in the upcoming animated flick The Ant Bully, to the beleagured Jodie Foster-helmed circus-freak flick, Flora Plum (currently listed on IMDb as costarring Ewan McGregor), to Conquistadora, with dream cast William H. Macy, Patricia Clarkson, and Chris Cooper, to First Man, in which she will play a presidential candidate whose businessman husband (Robert DeNiro) quits his job to run his wife's campaign. That's a whole lotta Streep coming up. I hope this signals the start of a revival for her, because she is one of my fave actresses, and I will see just about anything she's in.

(Editor's note: As reader Seth so politely pointed out, "smartly styled" does not require a hyphen because 'smartly' is an adverb. I corrected my error, so now my own J-school grammar-police professor can stop spinning in his grave.)