James Caan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Since its earliest days of development, the value of most computer animation was judged by how accurately it represented or substituted for reality: are skin tones believable, are textures authentic, is motion natural or smooth? But at least as far as animated movies are concerned, many (including lots of audience members) have forgotten that many of the medium's best examples were ones where abstraction and exaggeration were a big part (if not the biggest) of their artistry; notwithstanding feature-length classics like Snow White or Dumbo, filmmakers like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery entertained audiences by expanding their imaginations with punch lines, characters and even worlds that were anything but realistic.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is the most cartoonish animated film I've seen in a long time, and I mean that as a compliment. Taking inspiration from Looney Tunes classics, Buster Keaton, and Jerry Bruckheimer movies in equal measures, co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller have adapted Ron and Judi Barrett's kids book into a true larger-than-life tale, creating a world that scarcely resembles anything that could or would happen, and manages to be all the more exciting because of it.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A womanizing cad doesn't believe in true love, even though he makes his living writing novels about it. He sleeps with one beautiful woman after another, never getting attached, always pleased when the women leave before he wakes up in the morning. But his whole world is turned upside-down when, out of nowhere, he actually falls in love with one of them.

Yes, it's the ol' "education of a douchebag" story, going by the title Mercy this time around and starring Scott Caan, who also wrote the screenplay. (It's actually his third script; he directed the other two himself, and the first, Dallas 362, won the jury prize at CineVegas in 2003.) One is tempted to find autobiographical elements in Caan's swaggering character, especially since his real-life father, James Caan, plays his dad in the movie, but I don't know if that's accurate. But it might be the more charitable interpretation, since without a personal connection there's no reason to tell a story this generic.

It's at the release party for his third novel that Johnny Ryan (Scott Caan) meets Mercy (Wendy Glenn), a gorgeous, slender brunette who, unlike most heterosexual women (or so we're led to understand), is not instantly bowled over by Johnny's smooth cocky charm. Nor, it turns out, does she like his writing. This wouldn't normally bother Johnny -- he prefers women who can barely read anyway -- but in this case it's troubling because she's a New York Times book critic. Now with two reasons to pursue her (the usual one, and her negative opinion of his work), Johnny redoubles his efforts to get close to her.

Today, Warner Home Video announced the titles that will be released in May through the studio's video on demand service, Warner Archives. Among these titles is the 1963 Steve McQueen film Soldier in the Rain, costarring Jackie Gleason, and most excitingly, the 1974 buddy comedy Freebie and the Bean.

Chances are if you aren't already shouting at the top of your lungs in excitement, you have no idea what Freebie and the Bean is. And yet, in retrospect it seems like the missing - and absolutely essential - link between the gritty potboilers of the 1970s, such as The French Connection, and the glib, profane thrillers of the '80s and '90s, in particular the early work of Shane Black. At the urging of a few well-informed buddies I went to see the film late last year at a revival theater in Los Angeles, not the least of which because it stars Alan Arkin as a Hispanic detective (i.e., The Bean), and James Caan as his determined-to-be-corrupted partner (Hence "Freebie"). And while it certainly doesn't have the palpable drama of Friedkin's film, or even the slick polish of the Lethal Weapon films (or even The Last Boy Scout, a movie with which it shares an unhealthy number of similarities), it's an amazing, explosive, almost self-destructive exercise in action, comedy, racism, and property damage, not necessarily in that order.

If you think back to the warmer days of summer, you might remember that Jessica posted about an upcoming Internet porn flick called Middle Men. Set to be a comedy, the film was said to follow some normal dude who ends up in the center of that biz we call adult entertainment during the early days of Internet porn (mid-90s, I guess?).

And now we have our men of porn. Variety reports that James Caan, Gabriel Macht, Peter Stormare, and Rachael Taylor have signed on for the film, which will star Luke Wilson and Giovanni Ribisi -- all in yet-to-be-disclosed parts. The film is also sounding a wee bit different these days. Yes, it's still about some regular guy -- a "straight-and-narrow businessman who builds the first online billing company dealing exclusively with adult entertainment." But then there's a bit of an insane twist. He finds "himseld in the middle of a whirlwind filled with starlets, conmen, Russian mobsters, federal agents, and international terrorists."

Well, this is nothing like I expected -- dudes spending late nights on Stile Project's old cam pages while girls contort themselves while basking in the glow of their monitors. Maybe writers George Gallo (who will direct) and Andy Weiss were hanging out with Guy Ritchie. How terrorists, conmen, and Russian mobsters all get involved is anyone's guess, but it's kind of hard not to be intrigued with that cast.

We are all well aware that David O. Russell doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to working with actors. We've heard the stories about near fist-fights on the set of Three Kings, and everyone has seen the meltdown during I Heart Huckabees. The latest casualty of Russell's people skills is celebrated actor James Caan, who has officially quit Russell's political comedy, Nailed.

What caused the irreconcilable rift, you might ask? It was all over a cookie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the final straw for Caan was during a scene in which his character is supposed to be choking on a cookie. Russell instructed Caan to cough and choke at the same time during the scene, which Caan thought was impossible for a human being to do both. The two couldn't come to an agreement and Caan left the set never to return. The film's producer got to work on the damage control and was quoted as saying the disagreement was "part of an ongoing creative conversation between the actor and director", and that Russell had been nothing but professional throughout the shoot.

It's about time. And, well, a little late. It would have made perfect sense to release a Criterion Collection DVD of Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket last year, when it quietly celebrated its tenth anniversary. But hey, better late than never, right? While promoting his latest film, The Darjeeling Limited, Anderson told MTV Movies Blog that he's begun work on a Criterion edition of his debut feature. The director said there's a lot of stuff to go into it, including a lot of footage that was left on the cutting room floor. And certainly he will have to put his original black-and-white short, also titled Bottle Rocket, on there. For those Anderson fans who haven't seen it, the short is basically just early versions of scenes that ended up in the later film, including the part in which Dignan (Owen Wilson) and Anthony (Luke Wilson) rob Anthony's parents' house -- with the soundtrack set to jazz rather than Love. When I first saw it -- Lincoln Center screened it with The Royal Tenenbaums on the eve of that film's release -- I thought it was a little bit funnier than the full-length. But looking at it now, I just think it's a neat curiosity for the fans. You can check it out on YouTube if you aren't willing to wait to see if Criterion includes it.

Bottle Rocket can feel pretty slow and uneven compared to Anderson's later releases, all of which have already received the Criterion treatment. But the crime caper comedy does feature a younger, funnier Owen Wilson, back when he was even more wide-eyed and excited than we're used to now. And it does at least have the obligatory homages to J.D. Salinger (think of Anthony as a grown-up Holden Caulfield) that links it up with the rest of Anderson's work. The main thing missing, of course, is Bill Murray, who has appeared in all of Anderson's films after this one. Maybe, as I suggested last week, somebody can do a special alternate version in which Murray is inserted into the film, possibly replacing James Caan. That would be a fun bonus feature. Or maybe Anderson and Murray could stage some fake auditions (like the real ones on the Criterion Rushmore) where Murray tests for each of Bottle Rocket's characters. Currently there is no release date, nor any news on the Criterion site, for Bottle Rocket, but hopefully we'll hear more about it soon.

There's no stopping Justin Timberlake these days, even though I feel the man is destined to star in one bad film after another. Some might call it a curse, while others feel it's more along the lines of "take what you can get." Kind of like back in the day when you were younger and really wanted a brand new bike. You looked forward to that bike. Dreamt about it, drew pictures of it in your school notebook. And, even though you were fourteen, a letter to Santa couldn't hurt. However, since your family hated you and never wanted to see you happy, I had to settle for some piece of crap the neighbor left on the curb when they skipped town. Damn you mom and dad! But, anyway ... Alpha Dog is supposed to come out sometime in the next four years. So there's that.

And Moviehole reports that Timberlake has landed yet another role, this time he will star alongside folks like Dennis Quaid, James Caan and that dude from Pimp My Ride -- I think his name is Prohibit or Xzibit ... something like that. The name of the film is True Players, and unfortunately I couldn't find any other details on it. I assume it will be some sort of con-artist flick judging by the title and the actors involved. If that's the case, it will be nice to see Quaid jump back into a more exciting role after watching him play schlub after schlub in films like Yours, Mine and Ours, In Good Company and Far from Heaven. Granted, there's the obligatory action film thrown in from time to time, but don't you wanna see the guy play a real slickster? Remember Innerspace and Great Balls of Fire? Yeah, give us another one of those performances, Quaid. As far as Timberlake goes, he's got Alpha Dog coming out on January 27 followed by Black Snake Moan on February 23. My fingers are triple crossed, as I imagine yours are too.

Dig through my big roll of movie posters, the ones I no longer have space to hang on the walls, and you'll find one that isn't very attractive and doesn't fit with the rest: Harry and Walter Go to New York, shown above. The poster represents one of my biggest guilty-pleasure films. I hung the poster in my living room for awhile, but people kept giving it funny looks and eventually I replaced it with Ed Wood, because everyone loves Johnny Depp.

I watched most of Harry and Walter Go to New York by accident when I was about 13 years old. My family was on vacation in Florida and one rainy night, my dad and I were flipping channels to see if we could find anything remotely watchable. We stumbled upon Elliot Gould and James Caan breaking out of prison in the silliest manner possible, and were intrigued. Was this a heist film or a comedy? And then Michael Caine showed up. And Charles Durning. We were riveted to the screen by the spectacle of a ridiculously plotted film with a stellar cast. Later, I found the movie again on late-night TV and videotaped it for my dad, but he preferred to remember it fondly than to actually watch it again. (He feels the same way about The Duchess and The Dirtwater Fox, which is a whole other story.)