little man Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In the wake of White Chicks and Little Man, the Wayans Brothers return to grace the world with the presence of next February's Dance Flick, which lampoons last February's Step Up 2: The Streets, not to mention Save the Last Dance, You Got Served, How She Move, maybe Center Stage, possibly Robert Altman's The Company, and probably plenty of stuff that isn't related to actual dance flicks.

Having watched the initial Scary Movie last week for the first time since my formative teen years, their spoof efforts there still aren't on par with SM3 (which they didn't do), but remain above SM2 (which they did do). In short: humor that's dated and crude is right up their alley (I'm frankly impressed they remembered to work Flashdance in), and besides, you saw that break-dancing newborn, right? Call up Calista Flockhart, and count me out already.

Starring the usually amusing Amy Sedaris and the often less so Wayans clan, Dance Flick serves the last laugh to the streets on February 6, 2009.

Here's one of the great disappointments of 2007: Hot Fuzz only earned $23.6 million in the U.S. despite being one of the best reviewed and most hilarious comedies of the year. Now, here's something even more tragic: the Wayans brothers are set to make a similar movie, one which will probably be a huge hit, easily doubling or tripling the box office of Hot Fuzz. According to Variety, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans will parody cop actioners in the same way they spoofed horror films in the first two Scary Movie installments (3 and 4, which the brothers hate, were made by David Zucker). The main difference with this project, though, is that most of the gags and send-ups will have to reference relatively old movies. Unlike the Scary Movie franchise, which attempts the most timely of horror allusions, this new project won't have as many contemporary releases in the cop action genre to make fun of.

Well, there are at least two old movies the Wayans have to joke on: The Last Boyscout and Bulletproof, both of which starred their formerly better-known brother Damon. No matter what, though, the Wayans' cop movie (probably to be titled "Cop Movie") will not be as funny as Hot Fuzz. It may not even be as funny as Loaded Weapon 1, unfortunately. But it will likely share the same type of replication-as-parody sequences as that 1993 action spoof. The only thing that can keep one from being too cynical is that the Wayans did give us a lot of brilliant comedy on In Living Color, and we can always hope for a return to that talent despite our having put up with White Chicks and Little Man. This time around, the Wayans brothers will be making comedy gold at Paramount rather than at Scary Movie's Dimension, with Keenan Ivory Wayans once again directing. Whether or not this will affect their involvement with the Munsters movie is unknown.

I'm sure that the weekend had you anxiously awaiting Sunday night's 3+ hours of Academy goodness -- fiery discussion over who is the most deserving, coordinating diamonds and flamboyant gowns for your own Academy party and carefully concocting your own Oscar pool. Or, more likely, you went on with your weekend as usual, perhaps trying to remember the last time you enjoyed the Academy's night of awards. Either way, you might have missed one of the awards ceremonies that wrapped up the night before. No, it wasn't the Spirit awards. It was the Razzies.

The big winners of this year's Razzies are, not surprisingly, the two films who grabbed the most nominations -- Basic Instinct 2 and Little Man. Sharon Stone's saucy comeback as Catherine Tramell got herself a win as The Worst Actress of 2006, and the movie also grabbed Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay and Worst Sequel. Considering all the crappy sequels out there, you know your film is bad when it's considered the worst of the worst. The Wayans horror came in second, with three wins ffrom Worst Actor for Marlon and Shawn Wayans, to Worst On-Screen Couple and Worst Remake/Rip-Off.

Our current Hollywood trainwreck, M. Night Shyamalan, didn't get through his Saturday night unscathed. He grabbed two Razzies for Lady in the Water, one for Worst Supporting Actor and one for Worst Director. This can't help his current film's struggle, unless he learns to embrace the bad like some others do. Rounding out the Razzie list, Carmen Electra grabbed a win for Worst Supporting Actress for Date Movie and Scary Movie 4, and RV was the Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment. If you're scouring this post for mention of everyone's favorite directorial disaster, Uwe Boll or his multi-nominated BloodRayne, look no further. The man and his movie slid by without big Raspberries to add to his collection! However, while he narrowly escaped this year, I have this funny feeling that we haven't seen the last of Boll's Berries.

The Oscars, the Golden Globes and those other movie awards are all well and good, but they're the same thing every year: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Motion Picture, etc., etc. Booooooring! We here at Moviefone thought we'd spice things up a bit, do something a little different just to give you movie lovers an awards program about which you can really be proud. And so this year we tapped Mr. Moviefone himself to distribute awards in categories that you'll most likely never EVER see at the Academy Awards. And you know what? Those other awards are weaker for it. And so we present the first annual Mr. Moviefone Awards.

But first, here's a special message from the one and only Mr. Moviefone ...

Here's what I've learned after reading some of your comments ... you guys are way better at this as I am. So add your very own award, and sometime in mid-February I will choose and then broadcast the top 10 on one of my TV or radio outlets. Probably the one I want to get fired from the most ... because I'm pretty sure it will happen. And of course we will broadcast it right here on Moviefone.com. So let 'er rip. We're not easily offended.

Actor Most Likely to Make You Want to Throw Crap at the Screen: Robin Williams in 'RV'

Actor Most in Danger of Becoming Overexposed: Hugh Jackman for starring in six films this year

Actress Most in Danger of Becoming Overexposed: Scarlett Johansson -- not so much because she's in too many movies; she's just likely to pop out of her dress

Best Actor/Actress Nobody Saw: Tie between Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps, both in 'Half Nelson'

The "Why Can't I Be Matt Damon" Award: Ben Affleck

Lamest Couple: Tristan and Isolde in -- you guessed it -- 'Tristan and Isolde'

Actress Most Likely to Split Six Pitchers of Beer and a Bucket of Wings With You (and Look Sexy While Doing It): Elizabeth Banks in 'Invincible'

Funniest Performance in a Drama: Tie between Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin, both in 'The Departed'

Most Vindicated Actor of the Year: Daniel Craig in 'Casino Royale'

The Most Humiliating Sequel (aka The "No Matter How Old I Get I'm Going to Act Like a 20-Year-Old Tramp" Award): Sharon Stone for 'Basic Instinct 2'

"Biggest Act of Hubris" Award: M. Night Shyamalan for casting himself as a writer whose work will change the world in the not-so-world-changing 'Lady in the Water'

Best Use of a Severed Body Part on Screen: Jack Nicholson using a corpse's hand for emphasis in 'The Departed'

Best Movie Line for Picking Up Chicks: "Very nice. How much?" -- Sacha Baron Cohen in 'Borat'

Movie That Should Have Required Guys to Trade Their Manhood Instead of Cash for Admission: 'The Holiday'

Most Over-Hyped Movie of the Year: 'Snakes on a Plane'

Best Movie Nobody Saw: 'Little Children'

Worst Movie Everybody Saw: 'X-Men: The Last Stand'

Funniest Movie of the Year: 'Borat'

Scariest Movie of the Year: 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Biggest Rip-Off of the Year: 'The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause'

The "Why on Earth Do They Still Let Them Make Movies" Award: Tie between Harrison Ford in 'Firewall' and The Wayans brothers for 'Little Man' (and every other movie they've ever made)

Movie Most Likely to Induce Vomiting: 'Jackass: Number Two'

The Most Porn-Like Movie Title of the Year: Tie between 'Stick It,' 'Little Man,' 'Glory Road,' 'She's the Man,' 'The Pink Panther' and 'Failure to Launch'

POST: What movie awards would you bestow this year?

WATCH IT: Mr. Moviefone's weekly TV spot

As a massive fan of the Looney Tunes, I called foul the moment I saw the very first (and woefully wretched) trailer for Little Man. The flick's about a pint-sized criminal who poses as a baby in order to get some valuables back from an unwitting new guardian -- which means it has the exact same plot as the classic 1954 Looney Tunes short called Baby Buggy Bunny.

OK, I thought, fine. The witless Wayanses are stealing from old Bugs Bunny cartoons now. Wonderful. But now comes word from Cartoon Brew that there's a lot more thievery going on than previously assumed. (Having not seen Little Man myself, mainly because I choose not to drop $10.50 on voluntary retina torture, I cannot comment on these scenes -- but if I HAD been in the movie theater as the rip-offs unfolded, I'd have been screeching like a howler monkey.)

Stuff stolen from the 52-year-old cartoon includes: 1) A scene in which the new guardians discover a tattoo on their new baby friend; 2) A clueless grown-up giving the man-baby the "upsy-daisy" treatment ... into the ceiling; 3) The most blatant theft: A gag involving the flicking of lights and the smackdown that occurs when someone says "click" instead of flipping the lights off. (It makes more sense if you've seen the Bugs cartoon recently, which I have.)

Little Man is a Sony product. Bugs' copyrights are held by Warner Bros. Where's the freaking lawsuit? If we can't punish the Wayanses for making such absymal comedies, surely they can get their knuckles rapped for outright plagiarism.

(Thanks to film ick for the pointer towards Cartoon Brew, and thanks to CB for the pic of "Finster Baby.")

It's official: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a failure. It made only $62.2 million last weekend, failing to break the second-weekend record owned by, of all things, Shrek 2. Poor, poor Disney. Ahem. Yeah, you're right -- they're probably ok over there, what with setting a new record for 10-day earnings ($258 million) and passing X-Men: The Last Stand as the year's top-grossing film and all. In addition, the film's per-screen earnings -- slightly over $15,000 -- were matched only by Gabrielle, a French film that opened on only two screens. Most of the films in the top 20 struggled to take in $5000/screen.

Though POTC2 fell off by more than 50% from last week, it still easily outdistanced the weekend's two major debuts, You, Me and Dupree and Little Man, both of which opened solidly with around $21 million (Little Man was in 500 fewer theaters). Superman Returns recovered a bit from the Pirates broadside and finished the weekend in the fourth spot, with $11.6 million. In other news, The Break-Up, which is gradually being scaled back, finally left the top 10, ending the weekend with a take of under $1 million from 797 screens, good enough for fourteenth place. Full numbers are after the jump.

This news reminds me that I really hate the term "urban entertainment" (and variations). Whenever I read the term, I get that Jerry Seinfeld voice in my head saying, "Why do they call it urban? Is other entertainment rural? Does it have to come from or be about cities?" Anyway, I don't know a better term for it, and I can't easily define what it means, so I'll just go along with everyone else and continue calling it that.

The Weinstein Co., which has yet to deliver a big hit (Clerks II might end up their first) since its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, separated from Disney, is partnering with Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television (which would be probably be called Urban Entertainment Television if founded today), on a new company called Our Stories Films, which will produce low-cost urban movies. This is a brilliant move since the urban market is huge right now. Between all the rapper-starred movies to Tyler Perry to this week's release Little Man (the Wayans actually owe Bob Weinstein for part of their current success), there is definitely consistent money to be made there. And the Weinsteins are certainly smart to be working with Johnson, who will run Our Stories and will controll all decisions to produce, acquire and and finance its films, instead of letting a bunch of suits try to figure out what is hot for the genre.

July Fourth weekend has come and gone, and one thing has become clear: 2006 is a summer movie dud. This weekend's so-called blockbusters You, Me and Dupree and Little Man -- two of the year's worst stinkbombs -- only comfirm it.

Sure, last year was no prize either, except that George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (one of the year's best films) eventually reared its head, and if you were like me, you got a huge kick out of the final Star Wars (Revenge of the Sith). But take a look at the soulful, rich, clever, snappy cornerstones of summers past: Spider-Man 2 (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Minority Report (2002), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Mission: Impossible II (2000), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Bulworth and/or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Face/Off and/or Men in Black (1997), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Speed (1994), The Fugitive and/or In the Line of Fire (1993), etc.

If there's one thing I don't have, it's attitude. Born and raised in New York City, I've mastered the art of looking like I have attitude by studying those around me ... and it ain't easy. Through my training, I've learned the most important rule to follow while attempting to come off as someone with severe attitude is not to smile. Smiling shows weakness and, because of this, you'll notice that 98% of all New Yorkers rarely smile. Actually that's not true -- they will smile upon seeing something bad happen to another person. They smile because they're so glad it didn't happen to them.

It's okay though -- I've accepted the fact that I don't have attitude. I mean, growing up, I was rarely involved in a situation that forced me to utilize some form of attitude. I never ran with a bunch of punk kids, never played an intense sport like football, never joined the military and I never committed a crime. However, I did play video games and watch MTV. And yet, I don't have an extensive gun collection and never engaged in copious amounts of promiscuous sex. Go figure.

As you may have guessed by now, all of the following films feature characters with attitude. Something I don't have. And never will. I blame you, Carson Daly. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park: