donald petrie Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Throughout My Life in Ruins, a couple of characters are frequently reminded that they are not as funny as they think they are. Unfortunately, this also applies to the movie itself. It wants to be a bubbly and occasionally zany comedy with a touch of romance surrounded by gorgeous Greek scenery ... but it often feels flat and forced, and even the landscapes seemed blah. It's being touted as a follow-up to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with the same lead actress (Nia Vardalos), but it doesn't have the pleasing blend of comedy and family sentiment that made its predecessor a success.

The movie is about a five-day tour of legendary ruins in Greece (thus the title). Georgia (Vardalos), a former history instructor whose stopgap job as a tour guide has extended for years. She hates her job, fusses because she's being assigned "second-class" tourists, and finds fault with everything in Greece that isn't at least 2,000 years old. Various Greeks -- her boss, her bus driver -- tell her that she has lost her kefi, a Greek word meaning joie de vivre or mojo or the ability to not annoy the audience. She just needs to relax and get laid and stop worrying her pretty head about things.

Did the Marx Brothers ever get serious? Pixar seems to have perfected the art of mixing dramatic themes into their comic adventures, pleasing audiences both young and old. (Moviefone's current poll of readers on Pixar's best reflects this as well, with a top choice that may surprise you.) Up is a rather magnificent tale that's filled with witty dialogue, visual gags, and laugh out loud moments, even as it "moves smoothly from romance to drama to fantasy to comedy to action-adventure and then back to sentimental drama again," in the words of Jette Kernion. Sam Raimi took modern horror in a new direction by coupling jolts with jokes in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, expertly playing one against the other. His latest, Drag Me to Hell, marketed as a straight-up horror tale, is, in fact, "a convulsively funny movie with chills and thrills," as I've written before. Really, it's more of a comedy than anything else.

This week's widest releases appear to be more straightforward comedies: Todd Phillips' The Hangover stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis as three friends who stumble around Vegas after a bachelor party gone wild; Brad Silberling's Land of the Lost stars Will Farrell as a scientist who stumbles around a prehistoric world with dinosaurs and fantastic creatures. Meanwhile, Donald Petrie's My Life in Ruins looks more like a traditional romance with comedy and drama, starring Nia Vardalos as a Greek tour guide.

How do you like your laughs? Do you prefer your comedy straight up, no chaser? Or would you rather have other elements added to the mix: drama, horror, adventure? Take our poll and let us know.

Do you ever get the feeling that you are completely out of step with the rest of your demographic? Well, I frequently do, especially since I sat down with fellow members of the female persuasion to watch Sex and the City -- talk about being a stranger in a strange land. So, you can understand why I will probably be avoiding the latest addition to the so-called chick flick cannon like the plague. Variety reports that Donald Petrie (director of such classics as Miss Congeniality, Just My Luck, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) has signed to direct the literary adaptation, Fashionistas.

Danny Fischer and Paula Chorley will be writing the script based on Lynn Messina's debut novel. Fashionistas centers on a young go-getter at a fashion house who conspires to take down her demanding boss by inventing a fictitious designer. The whole thing sounds like a little bit of Devil Wears Prada mixed with a dash of All About Eve; and without the genius of Meryl Streep or Bette Davis, I think Fashionistas will probably suffer by comparison.

Fashionistas was originally set up at Paramount, but the studio has since dropped the production and the project will now be produced independently. Since I haven't read Messina's book, I guess it could be considered unfair of me to dismiss its 'literary efforts'. But, as a general rule, any book endorsed by Lindsay Lohan is not the book for me.

Fashionistas is expected to begin production later this year.

Over a year ago, Erik Davis brought you word that Nia Vardalos was coming back, and that she was gaining rare access to the 2,500-year-old landmark -- Athen's Acropolis. That's not to shabby for a woman who hasn't found any success even remotely comparable to her break-out indie hit -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Nevertheless, My Life in Ruins is currently filming under the watchful eye of director Donald Petrie. It follows a Greek tour guide (Vardalos), and co-stars Richard Dreyfuss, Rachel Dratch, Harland Williams, and Alexis Georgoulis. After shooting at the Oracle of Delphi and Olympia* (site of the first Olympics), this past Saturday the cameras finally hit the Acropolis.

Talking to Reuters, Vardalos says: "No one has ever been granted permission to shoot at the ancient sites. This is huge." Apparently, this has been in the works for years, starting with a request during the 2004 Summer Games. "It was a lot of dinners and hand shaking, a lot of requesting permission and really assuring them that we would leave the ruins exactly as we found them." They got what they wanted, but only for one day. How's that for production pressure? It'll make it tougher that the crew won't be allowed to eat or drink on the site. I'm sure it will be a mixture of happiness and huge stress. Let's just hope that they don't have the Valkyrie film woes.

After all of this effort and unprecedented access, will it all be worth it? It's Vardalos' Greek security blanket, which should help it, but it could always become the next Connie and Carla, and being Greek didn't help the Big Fat bomb of a TV show. Anyone want to make predictions?


*Edited to include proper site of first Olympic Games.