the onion Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you're a regular reader of online film criticism, then chances are you're already aware of the super-sharp crew over at The Onion's A.V. Club, and if indeed you are, then you know that these guys can put together a mean movie retrospective, with titles ranging from today all the way back to the mid-'90s. (I kid, I kid; Scott Tobias' The New Cult Canon did get around to the likes of I Am Cuba.)

An equally fascinating recurring feature is Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops, and the opening paragraphs to this week's entry on 1991's The Rocketeer are among the strongest testament to that column, that critic, and that team that I've read to date. Here's a taste:

"Anyone who tells you the appeal of moviegoing isn't at least partially voyeuristic is a goddamned liar and should be punched in the face repeatedly. We go to the movies in no small part to watch uncommonly beautiful people woo, romance, or reject other preternaturally fetching creatures in photogenic settings. As a young boy, I embraced movies as a socially acceptable way of looking at boobs. The fact that films were capable of art and truth was a neat bonus."

It only gets more graphic from there -- in all the best ways, natch -- before Rabin finally settles down to the film at hand (which just dashed up my Netflix Queue from the relative depths). Regardless, isn't that paragraph alone really just... something else?

[Thanks to Maxim for sending this my way.]

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

Those crazy cats from The Onion are back with a news story that takes a look at a new tour which gives folks a chance to check out the archaic system that was renting movies. Yes, it's a joke, and your local Blockbuster store is still around (and open!), but I could totally see something like this existing in, say, 10-20 years from now. Follow their news reporters inside an actual Blockbuster store, where they find actors playing Blockbuster employees, as well as actual renters. Real renters! I love the couple who say they can't believe how people used to live like this. Then you get the tourists with cameras taking shots of two "historical performers" having a conversation about a video. Love it!

What do you think? How far are we away from something like this existing in real life? And would you pay a visit? Take the kids?

Ah, remember the days when The Onion was just a simple newspaper three of your friends kinda knew about? You'd sit, snicker and try desperately to convince people to read this free, fake funny thingy. Mmmm. Now The Onion has gone video, and the one above is just priceless. In case you were living under a truck for the past year, the Iron Man trailer debuted and took the world by storm. Now, looking to profit off the millions of folks who want to see more of the trailer, the studio has decided to adapt it into a full-length film. (Unfortunately, out of the 758 Iron Man trailers currently available online, they do not say which one will be getting the feature treatment. One assumes, however, it will be the seventh international teaser extended intro scene.)

Luckily, those crazy cats at The Onion were all over this story -- debating whether or not it's smart to extend what most people felt was an excellent trailer 179 more minutes. Good news is Robert Downey Jr. has decided to reprise his role from the trailer (fans would've freaked if they re-cast the character) and reporters from The Onion do hope they bring back that pretty red head played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Amen to that! Says The Onion, "The studio has tried to reassure the public that everything they love about the trailer will be incorporated into the movie, right down to the actual lines from the trailer."

Awesome. Could go either way here -- but what do you think: Would you pay to go see a feature-length trailer?

[via The Movie Blog]

With the Writer's Guild members on strike, it's time for you wannabe screenwriters to push through the picket lines and get noticed. I don't actually know how possible this is. I kinda shrugged off my own mother's suggestion of this idea thinking it not possible -- well, that and the fact that I haven't really wanted to be a screenwriter for many years now. But I figure, if possible, the easiest way to get noticed would be to write up a brilliant adaptation of a popular book that's been in need of a good script. Need some examples of such books? Check out The Onion's latest list, "If you film it ... : 21 good books that need to be great films, like now." Many of these books have already been optioned by or sold to producers and some of them are currently on the track to getting made. Others, like Confederacy of Dunces, have been attached to multiple filmmakers and stars for nearly thirty years now. Someday it will probably get filmed, but the point of this list is not that it needs to be adapted. It needs to be adapted well. Actually, better than well. In the satirical paper's words, it needs to be a great film.

To admit how badly read I am, at least with regards to popular fiction, I've only read three of the 21 books. The rest I'm at least familiar with through news of their respective film deals and/or development, much of which Cinematical has covered. Of those three I've read, one is something I was recently excited about being adapted until it fell through, one is something I can't imagine making a great film because memoirs hardly work cinematically, and one I've seen adapted once and could care less about being adapted again, especially since it's the subject of an annoying legal battle (can you guess the three?). Anyway, the list is pretty well-thought out, but it made me wonder what most people think makes a great adaptation. Do people really prefer movie versions to be literal translations, or do they want something less redundant in their adaptations? Personally, I've always championed the latter. To me, a great film is one that is brilliant enough that: 1) You don't easily say the usual, "the book was better," nonsense; 2) You can still read the book without it having been ruined by the film -- major points if you can even ignore the cast of the film while reading; 3) It utilizes the film medium so that it now seems necessarily appropriate that the story is being depicted visually rather than verbally; 4) That it communicates new ideas that the novel didn't communicate. I know of three adaptations that come closest to fulfilling these four standards of excellence, To Kill a Mockingbird, About a Boy and Adaptation. I'm sure there's plenty others, but like I said, I'm not well-read enough to be sure.

[via Fark.com]

Ah, leave it to those plucky contrarians at The Onion, as their crack film team presents a flurry of classic films -- along with arguments about why their glories may hang about them like giant's robes upon a dwarvish thief. There are a few surprises in the listings (A Clockwork Orange? Really?), but by and large it's a lively piece with plenty of well-done reasoning and snappy subjectivism. Star Wars? "Remove Harrison Ford's swaggering charisma from Star Wars, and what's left? The Phantom fucking Menace." Network? " ... does predicting that network television and its audience will grow increasingly degraded and desperate qualify as Nostradamus-like prescience, or mere common sense?" The Big Lebowski? "Compared with the Coens' usual energy and the tautness of their best work, Lebowski feels unfocused, uncommitted, and amateurish." The Shawshank Redemption? "In the hands of director Frank Darabont, the brutality of prison life looks faintly like nostalgia." Like I said, whether you agree or disagree, this is great stuff ... and this, ot course, begs the question of if there are any so-called "Classics" you just can't get through. ...

For this news I'm going to need you to sit down and move anything sharp away from your computer screen. Done? Okay. Today it was confirmed that 20th Century Fox is planning on going ahead with a Mr. & Mrs. Smith remake, to begin production later next month.

The studio's Vice President, Mtumne Ngumwebaum (best known for a last name no one can pronounce without laughing) announced that, this time around, they're "going to do it bigger and better, with twice the budget and even hotter stars." Hotter than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.

Right now Eli Roth is being considered to direct the mammoth production and, on a personal note, we at Cinematical couldn't be happier. Heck, we're huge Roth nuts - even Martha has posters of him on her wall. If ever a film deserved a remake, it's this one...and so three cheers to Fox for pulling it off.

Note: Thanks to The Onion for the scoop.

[via Alarm!]

 

One of the best satirical websites ever to be conceived, The Onion, has a movie in the works--in theory. I have no idea what it's about, but it's billed as a "sketch comedy" and is written by Robert Siegel and Todd Hansen, writers for The Onion, so it's sure to be chock-full of the unique brand of satire The Onion is so well known for. IMDB lists roles for the film including "Texas Chainsaw Killer", "The Penis Businessman", "Upstanding Black Man" and "Gil Bates" and has aging action-star Steven Seagal in the coveted role of "Cock Puncher". Steven Seagal as "Cock Puncher"?!? I'd see the film just to see that.

However, the movie finished shooting in 2004, was supposed to be released in 2005, and still isn't out. So not sure what gives. Actor Amir Talai, who had a role in the film, last updated his blog entry about the film in October 2004, with the note that the film had been pushed to 2005. I emailed Amir to see if he had any updates, and he said he hasn't heard anything about the film for over a year, which wouldn't seem to bode well for the film ever seeing the light of day. We emailed the editors of The Onion as well, but got no response.

So, anyone out there with the inside scoop on The Onion movie? What gives? Did Fox Searchlight greenlight the film, then decide it sucked? Were audience reactions to the film's previews so dismal they decided to pull it? Was it not funny enough? Too satirical? Or is all this just part of the secret plan to draw interest in the film?