EdAsner Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'm a little annoyed with Up right now, because it made me cry in the first 10 minutes. Crying at the end of a movie is easier to hide -- you can mutter about allergies or how too much computer time makes your eyes red. But crying at the beginning of the movie makes you feel like an awfully sappy wuss. Thank goodness I had big ol' 3-D glasses on, which at least managed to hide any telltale traces of weakness ... until I cried again at the end, damn it.

Up is the latest film from Pixar, and this time the main character is not a robot or rat or monster, but rather a little old man who looks like Spencer Tracy and occasionally growls like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. After his wife dies, Carl Fredericksen (Ed Asner) faces a lonely life ahead, possibly in a retirement community. He decides to have the adventure that he and his wife always dreamed of, and sets out for the quasi-legendary Paradise Falls in South America. His method of travel? The family home, lifted by an amazing canopy of balloons. However, he isn't alone ... he's inadvertently picked up an enthusiastic 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer, Russell (Jordan Nagai), who only wants to help.

I can totally see why the company handling regional promotions for Disney/Pixar's Up thought that tying numerous balloons to this quaint-as-all-get-out Seattle landmark would serve as a fitting display with which to promote the film. Alas, the fates had other plans, as strong winds whittled down the number of balloons afloat from somewhere near 200 to maybe half that, at which point the whole thing was simply taken down.

The home of the late Edith Macefield is best known for withstanding the encroaching development of the area, especially when Macefield refused an offer of a million dollars from those developing around her. Even without the balloons, that seems like an ideal complement to the stance the film's protagonist takes before taking off.

I can't help but wonder, though, if the winds weren't perhaps strengthened by the narrow space now surrounding the home... the winds of change, that is! Oh, never mind all that. That's one perfectly adorable house, and Up's one perfectly adorable movie.

(Thanks to Sarah for passing this on.)

Last year, when I interviewed Kimberly Peirce for Stop-Loss, I asked why a relationship played up between Ryan Phillippe's character and Abbie Cornish's in the trailer seemed absent from the final film, not to mention a confrontation between Phillippe and the senator he's driven cross-country to reach coming to a close over the phone and not in person. She explained that about as soon as they had to start editing the film itself, they had to turn over the footage to the promotional department for them to work with simultaneously, and that things don't always match up as a result.

Now, every once in a while, usually in regard to Apatow's oft-tested and whittled-down comedies, absent jokes and alternate takes come as a little surprise. But the year-old teaser for Terminator Salvation capped itself by showing Christian Bale facing off against a robot hiding underwater -- a scene that should appear early on in the film, but doesn't. In Disney/Pixar's Up, our geriatric hero doesn't blow a raspberry as he departs with his house (perhaps for the best), and in 500 Days of Summer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does not in fact board a bus filled with Zooey Deschanels (certainly for the worst).

What's the most striking occasion you can think of where a scene regularly flaunted in the trailers or TV spots was nowhere to be seen in theaters, and was clearly part of a scene and not a one-off teaser like Pixar themselves so often indulges in?

Note: This post will contain minor story and character spoilers for the movie Up, so read at your own risk.

Yesterday, Cinematical was lucky enough to be among a few selected press outlets who were invited to preview 45 minutes of the new Pixar film, Up, followed by a Q&A with Up director Pete Docter (Monsters Inc.) and producer Jonas Rivera. Up is only the second Pixar film (behind The Incredibles) to feature humans as the main characters, although as the flick moves along it becomes more of an ensemble with dogs and giant birds and God knows what else (remember, we only watched 45 minutes). And like WALL-E, Up also feels like two separate films -- with the first part serving as set up and backstory, while the second part jumps right into a dazzling action-adventure on the top of a mountain in South America.

This just in: Today in New York City, our Moviefone colleague Kevin Polowy attended the Disney/Pixar Animation Presentation hosted by Dick Cook and John Lasseter. Apparently, a whole handful of new, upcoming titles were announced -- some of which we've known about and some brand new. Additionally, they screened 30 minutes of WALL-E footage and announced that Sigourney Weaver would do a voice in the film. Kevin reported back, saying the footage "looked really strong, and turned this skeptic into a believer." (I don't know how Kevin was worried about this one; it's just too damn adorable.) Aside from WALL-E, here are highlights of what else was announced:

• Up will follow WALL-E for Pixar, featuring the voices of Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, John Ratzenberger and Jordan Nagai.
  
• Tinkerbell will go direct-to-DVD, followed by three sequels. So four Tinkerbell films all together.
  
• Rapunzel is back! Not only that, but the classic story will be done in full CGI.
• King of the Elves is another film coming from Disney animation in 2012, and it's based on a Phillip K. Dick story.
  
• Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to be released in 3-D in 2009 and 2010.
• Toy Story 3 hits theaters on June 18, 2010
• Newt will be Pixar's film in 2011, and it comes with this description: "What happens when the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet are forced together by science to save the species, and they can't stand each other?
• Cars 2 coming in 2012!

UPDATE: Full press release after the jump, including more titles from Disney animation ...

Note: This is the final review in my five-part series on the Vacation movies. Click on the links below to read my previous reviews from this franchise:

National Lampoon's Vacation / National Lampoon's European Vacation / National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation / Vegas Vacation

There are three factors that might compel you to watch Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure:

1) Love for the original. "Hey, Christmas Vacation was hilarious! I watch it every year! And now my beloved characters are going on a new holiday-themed outing? Radical! Sign me up for some island fun and adventure!"

2) A desire to complete the series. "Well heck, Vegas Vacation was pretty lame, and my heart tells me this might be even worse, but I've got to see it, right? I've seen all the others!"

3) It is on TV, and you are trapped under something heavy. The remote is nowhere to be found, and your face is pinned to the floor in a manner that makes looking away from the television an impossibility.

Hopefully, after I share my thoughts with you, #3 will be the only reason you might watch this "film" in its entirety. Some of you might not even be aware that this "movie" existed (it aired on NBC in 2003 before being given a DVD release), so I guess what I'm doing here is a public service announcement more than a review.

Allow me to share the opening exchange of the "movie," a labyrinthine conversation that I had to rewind four times before I even understood what was being said. I'll set the scene. Clark "Third" Johnson (played by Jake Thomas), son to Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his wife Catherine (Miriam Flynn), is talking to a girl on the way home from school.

CLARK: I was named after my mom's cousin's husband -- Clark Griswold the 2nd. I'm the third Clark Griswold. Clark Griswold Johnson.
GIRL: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
CLARK: Yes, they're with my grandma in Kansas. Except for my oldest sister, she's working at a strip club in Las Vegas
GIRL: A strip club? Where do you live?
CLARK: My mom and dad and I are staying with my cousin Audrey Griswold. She's visiting her boyfriend in Indianapolis. So we're kind of house sitting for her. You know, over the holidays.

These are the first words spoken in the "movie!" As an aspiring screenwriter, if I ever put that exchange to paper I would shoot myself in the throat. What a needlessly complicated, bizarre bit of exposition! And that's how you hook the audience? That's your big opening scene? It would have been better to just have the kid look into the camera and explain, in monologue form, who he is related to and what the hell is going on.

Matty Simmons, producer on all of the Vacation films, "wrote" this one, despite having no real previous screenwriting credits. Hey Matty? I'd like to be a professional golfer, but I suck at golf. Therefore, I don't play golf on a professional level. Makes sense, right? If I were given two hours in the back seat of a bumpy truck, a note pad, and a stick with poo on it, I could write a better script than this. I'm not kidding. Give it up. You're a successful man in other fields, you've got loads of money. Don't write anymore scripts. Stop.

The "film" was "directed" by Nick Marck, a television director who has helmed episodes of some really great shows -- The Wonder Years, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars. Mr. Marck, I'm willing to believe this wasn't your fault. I'd take it off the old resume, though.

So Eddie and Catherine are house-sitting for Audrey. Fine. Whatever. As the film opens, a wasted Fred Willard is firing Eddie from his job, which seems to consist of playing tic-tac-toe with a monkey. There are several "jokes" about how Eddie is dumber than said monkey. Eddie returns home, decides to take a bath. Plumbing hijinks ensue. Their dog farts a lot (No, a lot). And they smell bad, see? The farts that the dog has, I mean. Laughing yet?

Through complications involving a monkey attack and fear of a lawsuit, Eddie is awarded a trip to the South Pacific by his ex-boss. Ed Asner (a loooooong way from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) inexplicably pops up as Uncle Nick, and he joins them on their vacation. They run into Eric Idle, whom I believe is supposed to be playing the same role he played in European Vacation -- British guy who gets beat up by accident a lot. Wasn't funny then, is far less funny now. The gang gets stranded on an island, some atrocious green-screen technology is used, Eddie flies a plane, they get off the island. Fin.

Quaid tries his best here, but the guy had funnier material in Pluto Nash. Cousin Eddie was in maybe five minutes of Vacation total, and didn't enter Christmas Vacation until halfway through. He's a funny character to be sure, but only when he has someone reacting to or commenting on his antics. No one fills that role here. Eddie can't sustain a feature film on his own -- let alone one as stupefyingly awful as this. Flynn isn't given much to do as usual. Thomas is cute, and I thank him for giving me something to do while waiting for the "movie" to end -- figure out where I had seen him before (turns out he was the non-Haley Joel Osment kid in Spielberg's A.I).

Dana Barron, who played Audrey in the original Vacation 20 years prior, returns here for absolutely no reason. My guess is that offers went out to everyone who has ever played a Griswold, and Barron was the only one who agreed. She is the only Griswold kid ever to reprise his or her role. So...put that in your history books.

Sung Hi Lee plays Muka Laka Miki (and I don't want to spoil anything, but that name gets hilariously mispronounced several times!), but she might as well just be referred to as "Token Hot Chick." I can imagine some stressed out producer throwing his hands in the air, and bellowing "At least get some T&A in this thing or no one's going to watch to the end!" I'd like to thank that producer I just made up, because that extremely mild, PG-rated T&A is really all that kept me going.

In fairness, not everyone hates Christmas Vacation 2. After all, it was nominated for Best Hair Styling in a Television Mini-Series/Movie of the Week at the Hollywood Makeup Artist and Hair Stylist Guild Awards. So someone was a fan. But please. Don't watch it. There isn't a laugh or a smile or a smirk or a grimace in the thing. It isn't so bad that it's good. It isn't even so bad that it's bad. To call it bad would be an insult to things that are bad. It hurt my feelings. They say depression rates go up at Christmastime -- I think I've found the reason.

Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure made me long for the subtle nuance, in-depth character development, and rib-tickling tropical comedy of Saved By the Bell: Hawaiian Style.

Renegade Animation, known to observant cartoon-watchers everywhere as the production company behind the slightly insane Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, are moving into movies with a feature called Who Stole Santa's Sack? (which will hopefully be renamed, because right now it sounds sort of gross). The movie will be flash animated, and will be independently produced with a budget of under $10 million. Despite the low cost, however, the vocal cast is packed with big(ish) names, including Ed Asner, Norm MacDonald, Brad Garrett, Shirley Jones, and Kathy Bates.

The project will be helmed by writer Robert Zappia, who based his screenplay on a story his dad told him when he was a kid. Aw. If I made that movie, it would feature a giant mole named Moberly and his friend Ezekiel, the enormous praying mantis. Any takers? Zappia's experience - which is totally free of animated or child-focused projects - is mostly on TV, though he did write, um, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.