Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Michael Cera and Edgar Wright: A comedy dream team?

Lest anyone have their suspicions, I don't just write about Michael Cera because it always brings a slight uptick in the rather meager number of people who take the time to visit this site. It's just that I happen to like the guy as much as most of the rest of the world seems to.

And now that he's stepping firmly into the role of leading but still young man, he does seem to be making very good choices. In the latest, which seems like it could only turn out to be extremely cool, he'll be working with "Hot Fuzz"/"Shaun of the Dead" director Edgar Wright on something called "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life."

Though I had admittedly never heard of the series of short graphic novels (four so far, I believe) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, it sounds like yet another "sensitive slacker" role for Mr. Cera (not complaining, mind you, because he certainly fits the niche well.)

Here, as best as I can tell, is what the story is about: 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim (Cera) is a wannabe-rockstar living in Toronto and playing bass in the band "Sex Bob-Omb." He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona V. Flowers, but must defeat her seven "evil exes" in order to date her.

And lest you think that viral movie promotion is just an annoying fad (which it very often can be), it actually brought these two very funny dudes together. You may remember that fairly funny video promoting "Superbad" in which Wright plays a snarky reporter who suffers the wrath of Jonah Hill. Well, Cera played second fiddle in that, and now it's clearly paying off.

So, what else is George Michael Bluth up to? Though it's not (yet anyway) an "Arrested Development" movie, it's still all potentially very good. It somehow slipped by me that he's playing the co-lead, along with Jack Black, in Harold Ramis' upcoming Camp Apatow flick "Year One," and he's also set to play 14-year-old (how in the world are they gonna pull that off?) Nick Twisp in the big-screen adaptation of one of my favorite comedic novels, "Youth in Revolt." I can only say bring it all on.

Details emerge about new "Wallace and Gromit" special

Given my love for Nick Park's creation I easily could have led with this goodness too.

Before I go any further, let me say all of this comes courtesy of Empire, and you can read their full article on the matter here. It seems that Wallace & Gromit's upcoming BBC special, previously known as "Trouble at the Mill," is now known as "A Matter of Loaf and Death" (groan, but still funny), and has cast its leading lady in "Coronation Street" star Sally Lindsay, pictured here.

Even better, Empire revealed some of what the guys' next adventure will be all about: Wallace and Gromit have a brand new bakery business, ‘Top Bun’ (the punning is already spiraling out of control!) Their house has been converted into a granary with a ‘Wallace patent-pending’ old-fashioned windmill on the roof. Gromit, however, finds himself having to run the whole operation single-handedly as Wallace is ‘dough-eyed’ in love with the beautiful Piella Bakewell (Lindsay), former star of the Bake-O-Lite bread commercials. What’s more, a dozen local bakers have disappeared in recent months and Gromit is worried that Wallace may be next. Gromit turns sleuth and the duo soon find themselves drawn into a sinister murder mystery (of course!)

This is set to air on the BBC sometime later this year and then, hopefully quickly, work its way across the pond (and into my house) on DVD.


The coolest movie of 2009?

Though there will surely be a lot of contenders for that title, it's hard to dispute the mojo that's quickly building for Michael Mann's gangster pic "Public Enemies."

The picture above is indeed Johnny Depp in character as John Dillinger, courtesy of Hollywood Newsroom, where you can see more pics from the set here. Along with Depp, the flick's got Christian Bale as top lawman Melvin Purvis, the lovely Marion Cotillard as Dillinger's moll Billie Frechette and Channing Tatum as Pretty Boy Floyd, plus Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Dorff as either supporting good or bad guys. Simply all-around cool.

"How I Met Your Mother" off the bubble?

Though Variety headlined this with the rather groanworthy "CBS comedies back with a Bang," the big news for me about the return of its Monday night lineup was the performance of my current favorite, "How I Met Your Mother."

The show hit a season high in its new 8:30 time slot (second-place 4.3/11 in 18-49, 9.7 million viewers overall), a 34 percent improvement in 18-49 over its fall firstrun average (and second place, by the way, is nothing to sneeze at when you're up against the season premiere of dancing with the has-beens and never-were.)

With Britney and, even better, "Scrubs" star Sarah Chalke set to appear on next Monday's episode, the numbers should only get better, and hopefully lead CBS to finally go ahead and greenlight a fourth season of network TV's best comedy.

R.I.P. Anthony Minghella

Though it's been awfully light and more than bit a silly here so far today, there is indeed one bit of very sad news out there: Director Anthony Minghella has died of a hemorrhage at the none-too-old age of 54.

Of all his movies ("The English Patient," "Cold Mountain" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," among others), I think my favorite would have to be his first, "Truly Madly Deeply." This very British but much less treacly take on the "Ghost" story starred Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman, and I'm sure you can still find it on DVD if it somehow passed you by.

But as with most deaths of talented people, what always saddens me the most is what was to come. Minghella had last directed a telepic for HBO based on the Alexander McCall Smith novel "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" starring Jill Scott, Idris Elba, Anika Noni Rose and Colin Salmon, which I haven't had the pleasure of seeing yet. Despite that rather wretched title, the premise of a Botswanan woman (Scott) starting up the country's first female-owned detective agency was enticing enough for HBO to greenlight 13 episodes of a series for Minghella to direct for next spring, but of course now that will never be. Rest in peace, Mr. Minghella.

First full "Tropic Thunder" trailer

OK, enough with all that depressing stuff. Here's the full trailer for Ben Stiller's upcoming "Tropic Thunder," which, despite the warnings of reader dbackdad (who was lucky enough to see a preview screening in Arizona) that this won't be terribly funny, I'm still holding out hope otherwise. Unfortunately, one thing we find out is that Robert Downey Jr.'s stint as a black man starts to already grow old in this small dosage. Enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly bearable Wednesday. Peace out.

15 comments:

jeremy said...

Real bummer about Minghella. I liked Truly, Madly, Deeply quite a bit, and found The Talented Mr. Ripley creepy in that I sympathized with a sociopath, but more than any other film of his, The English Patient I found to be sublime--which is a rarity for me in that its long and a period piece.
When Juliet Binoche's character reads the burn victim's journal and says, "'The heart is an organ of fire'--I love that, I believe that," my heart sings in a way that is only possible through the magic of film. Then later as she's raised and lowered to reveal the mural in the church by the beam of a lantern--I am reminded of the contradiction of love existing during war.
But my favorite scene in the whole movie, and one Minghella talked about multiple times, is one of those rare, rare moments in film when an actor stays in character and completes a scene even when the director probably should have called cut.
That scene takes place under a pier. Katherine has to end her affair with the Count and she is angry with him and devastated. Their conversation ends, she turns quickly and walks straight into a post. Kristin Scott Thomas is so firmly in character that she quickly adds a light humiliation to her other emotions and storms off. Sublime (even if Roger Deakins should have won best cinematogrphy that year).
Its moments like these that Minghella utilized so well. It is so apparent that he had a rapport with all of his actors--Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson as you mention, Matt Damon, all of 'em.
Such a shame that we won't get to see what other stirring performances he could have gotten--espeically from the likes of Anika Noni Rose and Jill Scott.

Bob said...

Minghella will definitely be missed, no doubt about it. "English Patient" and "Ripley" are such excellent movies and I'm sure he had a few more like that in him. I'll watch "Truly, Madly, Deeply," one of these days too.
As far as the other news goes, Michael Cera and Edgar Wright! That's a comic dream team. That movie has suddenly shot up to the top of the list of films I'm most looking forward to.

P.S.: Thanks for the picture of Sarah Chalke. As Janitor would say, "It brightened my day."

Reel Fanatic said...

I take just about opportunity I can to post a picture of Sarah Chalke, Bob ...

And though you clearly liked "The English Patient" more than I did, Jeremy, I have to agree that it has a lot more appeal than most long period pieces .. and I didn't know all that about the scene under the pier, so thanks for sharing!

Eric said...

I am so stoked...Superbad is arriving from Netflix today. all your talk about Michael Cera has inspired me to pay closer attention to him.

Sad About Anthony Minghella. I completely forgot that he did Truely Madly Deeply. I was thinking about it in another context last night and could not remember the name.
The English Patient was pretty good by my estimation but Lorraine kind of had Elaine Benic's reaction, "Die Already".

And let's not forget the passing of SF great Arthur C. Clark. He changed the face of Sci-Fi movies with the scientific accuracy of 2001. With the exception of walking in slomo in 0 G. That paricular convention always made the footage from the actual moonlandings seem like early 18FPS silent footage.

Reel Fanatic said...

You're certainly right about Arthur C. Clarke, Eric ... My only excuse for omitting him this morning is that I simply ran out of time! .. I hope "Superbad" doesn't disappoint, but given how much I love it, I really don't think that will happen

ren said...

hrmmm...like michael cera, love edgar wright, ADORE the scott pilgrim series, but i don't see cera in the role...sadly, neither do the rest of the comic geeks in my office, but for the sake of bryan lee o'malley, i'll keep an open mind.

ren said...

oops, sorry, i'm back...

concerning "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" , do you know any more about the airing of it? is it produced by hbo for their own airing or is it a cinema film?

my mother is a huge fan of the books and i think they keep the title to attract the readers, don't you? i am pretty sure it was a best seller, so there's a built in audience, if they know that it's out there.

Reel Fanatic said...

All I know about the telefilm, Ren, is that is was indeed made for HBO .. I only pay for HBO during airings of "The Wire," so I've cancelled my subscription once again ... The movie that Minghella made from the novel should probably be available on DVD soon, I'd imagine, but clearly the series won't be able to proceed unless they start over pretty much from scratch ... After a little research, I"m afraid I can't yet find anything about a DVD release date

Eric said...

Loved Superbad. Granted there were times that suspension of disbelief went out the window but that is usually the case with Teen movies written by 45 year old men (Gross Generalization) I think only John Hughs got that right and that was only his early stuff.
But there was an originality to the story and I just loved the cops. Cera was great I just hope he does not get type cast as he grows.

Bob said...

I'm close personal friends with Edgar Wright. Well okay, he's my myspace friend. Anywho, he posted confirmation about collaborating with Mr. Cera on his myspace blog last night. Very exciting!

Reel Fanatic said...

I'm glad to hear it didn't disappoint, Eric, and I'm definitely with you on the John Hughes ... Though I found Jonah Hill's dick lunchbox story to be about the funniest thing of the entire year, the B storyline about the cops has grown on me more and more with subsequent viewings

Terence Towles Canote said...

I do hope that the Wallace and Gromit special makes it way here. It is one of the disadvantages of living in the States...they get to see Wallace and Gromit first!

* (asterisk) said...

The No.1 Ladies... gets screened on BBC TV over here in the UK on Easter Sunday, so I'm sure it'll pop up on HBO soon, if they were co-funding.

Sad news, even if I didn't nec like all his work. Ripley was wonderful; and English Patient certainly worthy of a couple of viewings.

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