american dreamz Tagged Articles at Cinematical

According to a source over at Deadline Hollywood, Golden Compass director Chris Weitz has been offered the directing gig on New Moon and possibly Eclipse, should both films shoot back-to-back. Nikki Finke's source says Weitz, who's apparently "still considering" the offer, was chosen because Summit Entertainment "liked the look" of Compass, even though it bombed at the box office, and also because Weitz is buddies with Summit's president of production, Eric Feig.

Apart from Compass, Weitz had a big role in the original American Pie (as a producer and uncredited director); he also co-wrote and directed the excellent About a Boy adaptation, and served as producer on flicks like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, In Good Company and American Dreamz. Personally, I'm a fan of Weitz (and his brother Paul), and blame the domestic failure of Compass more on some folks' inability to wrap their heads around the story's vast universe. However, he is a boy ... and last I checked, boys might not be allowed into the Twilight clubhouse.

What do you folks think of Weitz? Is he a good replacement?

Over on his blog at the Chicago Tribune, critic Michael Phillips (a very nice and knowledgable guy who James Rocchi and I chatted with at Sundance earlier this year) has a fun piece up on movies that he's walked out on. Then he asked a bunch of Tribune staffers to share what films they've walked out on.

Some of the picks are predictable -- Evita, Reservoir Dogs (one of my own least favorite movies of all time, though I actually sat through the entire violent mess), and Forrest Gump (blech) are on there, along with a few I wouldn't have thought of, like Prince's Under the Cherry Moon and Cat People, which I remember watching with a certain fondness as a midnight movie on TV in my youth (it wasn't that bad, was it?)

I'm one of those sadistic movie fans who will generally force myself to sit through anything, even at a film fest, when a lot of folks will slip out with the excuse that they need to catch something else that's overlapping a film they really just want to walk out on anyhow. I generally try to avoid up front seeing a film I know I'm really going to hate, but sometimes I'm assigned to review something, and it can't be helped -- I just have to suffer through it so I can write the damn review. Here are a few movies, though, that I suffered through but wish I hadn't. If only I'd known then that even print folks at a place like the Tribune walk out on films, I might have saved myself some misery ...

Despite a lack of pre-release reviews, Silent Hill drew young male audiences to the tune of $20.2 million this weekend, a total that earned it first place in the box office battle, just ahead of last week's champ, Scary Movie 4. Finishing third was the second of the week's three debuts, The Sentinel, which took in $14.6 million -- not a particularly impressive bow, but more than executives reportedly expected. Whatever their feeling about the open, the team behind The Sentinel can take some solace from the fact that they're not connected in any way to American Dreamz, which debuted in the eighth spot with a disappointing $3.7 million on 1500 screens (it earned only $2460/screen, as opposed to $6903 for Silent Hill, and $5196 for The Sentinel).

The top five was rounded out by a pair of animated films: Ice Age: The Meltdown made $12.8 million, bringing its four week total over $165 million (more than twice its budget), while The Wild took in $8.1 million in its second week of release. The full top 10 is after the jump.

Yes, it happened again -- a big horror film wasn't screened for critics. Is anyone surprised? I think I'm going to start mentioning this phenomenon only when studios have the balls to screen something they think critics might not dig, because at this point, that's much more notable than another film being hidden. American Dreamz and The Sentinel were offered to critics, and their conclusions, in sum, are that Tony Yalda is a genius (Paul Weitz not so much), and that The Sentinel is either thrilling and riveting or it's not. Details and copious links follow.

• American Dreamz: Like Kim, everyone and her brother sets some space aside in their reviews to praise Tony Yalda, who plays Omer-the-terrorist's queeny cousin. Apart from him, though, few have much good to say about the film, though a handful of critics find the chaos enjoyable, despite its lack of satirical teeth.

• The Sentinel: Reviews of this one are pretty mixed, and both sides are equally passionate. Some feel it's a well-constructed, tense thriller, while others (some of whom are unable to resist a 24 comparison), find it boring and absurd. Special credit this week goes to Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, who wonders if Kiefer Sutherland can do anything other than save the world, asking "Can he dance? Does he juggle?" (Personally, I'm troubled by the fact that no major reviewers bother to mention that the guy playing the president was Sledge Hammer. Where the hell were these people in the 1980s?!)

If you're looking for a few words on the absent Silent Hill, our own Scott Weinberg shelled out his hard-earned cash to see it, and rushed home to write a review. Essentially, if you're a horror nerd like Scott, you'll like it -- there's not much substance, but it's creepy and visually stunning.

The commercial I saw for American Dreamz the other night introduces us to the main characters: The President; The Chief of Staff; The Wanna-Be Star; The Boyfriend; The TV Host; The Stage Mother. Unfortunately, those descriptions are about as deep as the character development gets in this tepid comedy from Paul Weitz, the director of About a Boy, In Good Company and American Pie. While no one gets it on with a hot dessert in Weitz's newest film, neither does the comedy ever get more than lukewarm. I suspect this is one of those movie ideas that sounded a whole lot better in the pitch meeting than when it ended up in theaters.  

Part of the problem is that the film doesn't really seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up. We have a wanna-be political satire about a dumb Southern president (gee, wonder who Dennis Quaid is supposed to be lampooning here?) who wakes up the day after his reelection and decides to start thinking. His sedated First Lady is played by Marcia Gay Harden (so obviously Laura Bush she might as well be wearing a "Hello My Name Is ..." tag), and Willem Dafoe, doing his best Dick Cheney impression, is the controlling Chief of Staff.

Then we have the would-be social satire of a reality TV show where wanna-be pop tarts perform for the votes of audience members, and things aren't always what they seem on camera. Weitz works again with Hugh Grant, his star from About A Boy, who plays Martin Tweed, the snarky, British, malcontented host of the show. If you're going to cast anyone in the part of a Simon Cowell-esque TV host, you couldn't do much better than to cast Grant in the part. Likewise, Mandy Moore (playing against type again, as she did in Saved!, by playing a nice girl who's really not-so-nice beneath the surface) is an excellent choice to play Sally Kendoo, who is so desperate to leave behind her "white trash rural Ohio roots" she would probably sacrifice her own mother (Jennifer Coolidge) for success.

It's the last day to toss in your input on our new name, so get to it. Otherwise, today's show has a recap of the Cannes lineup, and news regarding Woody Allen, Julia Roberts, and films new in theaters.

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Hosts
Karina Longworth

Editor
Randall Bennett

Music
Love as Laughter - I'm a bee

Format
4:26, 28.6 MB

Program
00:00 - Cannes film fest listings released
01:22 - Woody Allen pulling out of Paris, back to London for him
02:40 - Give Julia Roberts some credit for hitting the stage, since no one else is
03:37 - What's poppin' at your local cinema

Our corporate sugar-daddies at AOL have this contest going for American Dreamz: record yourself singing the American Dreamz theme song and send them a video. They'll post the best (and what do you wanna bet the worst, too) entries for readers to vote on. See, it's kinda like American Idol, but without the snark of Simon Cowell and whatever-she's-on-this-week antics and gravity-defying boobage of Paula Abdul.

I haven't seen American Dreamz yet (Jette just wrote a review from SXSW, and I'll be reviewing it later from a non-festival screening), but just on the description - the president of the United States serving as a judge on an Idol type show? Riiiiight. Because the first thing you want to do when you have a president having a breakdown is put him on TV without his teleprompter, right? Besides, what better use for the time of the leader of the Free World than judging a pop star show? Honestly - am I the only one who thinks this concept was doomed to the realms of banality from the get-go?

Okay, criticism of the concept of the film aside, some of  you might actually have the spare time and inclination (and hopefully talent as well)  to enter this contest. If you're interested, check it out over here. Warning: you have to sing the Mandy Moore song - you can't be all cool and do your own version of Live's cover of Walk the Line or anything. But I must admit - seeing some tattooed, heavy metal rocker boy blasting out a Mandy Moore song would probably make my day.

Thanks to hot tipper Mike for pointing us to this gem.

My brother emailed me last weekend asking what I knew about Paul Weitz's American Dreamz, the new satire from the brilliant/idiotic (depending on your point of view on teen sex comedies) mind that brought us American Pie. Because I'm a helpful sister, I went to the IMDB and read him the summary - it turns out that, were he still living in LA (he's not), he could have gone to an advance screening of the thing. Basically, he just wanted to know what he'd missed by moving to the Midwest; based on the screening reports just posted at AICN, the answer is "not much."

Though it's sometimes a challenge to see the movie through the hyperbole in AICN's fan reports, one thing comes through clearly here: the movie is a bit of a mess. At best the narrative is poorly constructed ("very jumpy," if you will); at worst it's "90 minutes of 'Bush is dumb, American Idol is dumb,' man-handled by a writer incapable of reconciling the two concepts." Ouch. But hey, at least Dennis Quaid is good! Go read for yourselves, if you're curious about the film. Two warnings, though: one of the reviews is filled with annoying, over-the-top profanity, and both are heavily spoiler-laden.

Crappy or not, American Dreamz is released in the US on April 21.

If you ask me, there's no such thing as a new beginning. You'll notice that, whenever something bad happens to someone, you'll hear that sympathetic voice (usually a family member or co-worker who really has no idea what you're going through) cry out, "Don't worry, just start over. Think of it as a new beginning."No. It doesn't work that way. I had a beginning. We've all had a beginning. And once we're past the beginning, there's no starting over. There's crying and moving on and that time I slept with Awkward Girl from (insert random bar) because she reminded me of something I never had - but there certainly is or was no new beginning.Before I present you with this week's trailers, I want you to understand the words of wisdom spoken above. Because, once you decide to invest your time and money into one of these films, there's no way to go back. No way to start over. And whatever you do - don't blame me. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park...