DVD review: "The Extra Man"

Be warned: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's "The Extra Man" is indeed a "character study," but thankfully it's a genuinely odd and often endearing one.

Based on the Jonathan Ames novel of the same name, it stars Kevin Kline as the titular "Extra Man," a bizarre, sexless gigolo of sorts for rich old ladies, and Paul Dano as his protege. Much like Ames' "Bored to Death" on HBO, it's also an ode to the kind of New York eccentrics that are being buried by the city's continued Disneyfication.

Berman and Pulcini, who wrote and directed the fabulous "American Splendor," about the late Harvey Pekar, are at their best when they shine the light on American oddity, which is certainly the case with "The Extra Man."

Fans of "Bored to Death," of which you can certainly count me as one, should be warned, however: The humor is much less broad than with that NYC stoner romp starring Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis and Ted Danson. That doesn't mean, however, that the laughs aren't here, there just more delicate and sometimes hard to watch.

Ames always writes a lot of himself into one of his characters, and in this case you have to wonder how many of the issues he shares with Dano's Louis Ives. As the movie opens, he's being fired as a professor at Princeton because his boss discovers him trying on a co-worker's bra in the teacher's lounge.

From there, he sets his sights on New York City, and ends up matched up with Kline after answering an ad seeking a roommate who's a "gentleman." From there on out, the movie is mostly about the relationship of that odd couple and their various adventures squiring old women around town (yes, it often really is as crazy as it sounds.)

Having read on the DVD box that this was "Kevin Kline's best performance since "A Fish Called Wanda'," I was bracing for an over-the-top mess, but for the most part he dives into the part of Henry Harrison and delivers a portrait of a genuine New York eccentric. Dano, for his part, slowly learns to give as good as he gets with Henry's odd life advice, and they play off each other very well.

Ames' tale constantly straddles the line between genuine oddity and contrived quirk, and at least a few times dashes right across it. On the good side is Lewis' visit to a "recession spankologist," something that would be right at home on "Bored to Death" and funny enough that I won't tell you any more about it here.

On the down side, however, is the usually reliable John C. Reilly, who plays Harrison's neighbor with a high-pitched squeal that will grate on you almost as much as his overall performance. And, because of course any movie like this needs a potential love interest for our hero, Katie Holmes makes an appearance too, but never for long enough to be too annoying.

Watching "The Extra Man," I was reminded of two directors: Woody Allen (who turned 75 this week - bully) and Wes Anderson. Allen for the extremely strong sense of place that marks the best of his old New York movies ("Manhattan" being my all-time favorite) and Anderson, of course, for the oddity, at its very best and worst.

The bottom line: "The Extra Man" certainly isn't for everyone (it got a measly 41 percent positive at Rotten Tomatoes), but if you want to spend a little time with some genuine characters in a New York City that's rapidly fading away, you could do a whole lot worse than this mostly fun little flick.

And, of course, I always like to wrap things up with a couple of fun clips.

First up comes a clip from Julie Taymor's "The Tempest," which isn't likely to be on anyone's best of 2010, but along with "The Extra Man," it's sure to be among the craziest of the year, and that's always OK in my book. As you'll see below, this stars Dame Helen Mirren and Djimon Honsou, and also somehow Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming. Keep an eye out for this in at least some corners of the world Dec. 10, and enjoy the clip.



Next comes the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's tribute to his friend, the late great monologist Spalding Gray, "And Everything Is Going Fine." It pains me that in the many times I've been to New York City, I never got to see Gray live before he dived off the Staten Island Ferry, but hopefully this IFC documentary will be playing somewhere when I return there in early January. Enjoy.



And with that, I'm off on this rare Friday off to go see Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" in Atlanta, and really looking forward to it. Peace out.

Has "The Hobbit" found its new director? Perhaps so

I'm not afraid to admit when something is just too maddening to wrap my often way-too-occupied mind around, and the sad saga of Guillermo Del Toro and "The Hobbit" is a perfect example of that.

How a director that talented could give what seems like 10 years of his life to something and then just have to abandon it all still confounds me, but even if the MGM mess will continue to be beyond my pay grade (nothing), it seems "The Hobbit" is closing in on a replacement for Del Toro, and it's a natural choice.

David Yates has directed the last four (if you count the two-part "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" as two movies, which I suppose you have to) Harry Potter movies, and before that made the sublimely entertaining little flick "Girl in the Cafe" (rent that one immediately if you haven't seen it.) And now Production Weekly is reporting that an offer has been made to Yates to direct "The Hobbit" next.

"Deathly Hallows," the first installment of which is set to drop in November, finished shooting just this week, so the timing would certainly be ideal. And apparently in the actually only two years he spent on this, Del Toro wasn't just sitting idle; there are apparently sets and designs that have Del Toro's vision of Middle Earth pretty much ready to go whenever Yates, or whoever ends up taking this on, is ready to go.

Now an offer is only exactly that, and who knows if he'll actually accept it, but that would certainly be good news, because "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" was solid, and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," both directed by Yates, was the best in the movie franchise so far.

And "The Hobbit" has always been my favorite of Tolkein's tales, mostly because it is so naturally a story for children, and one that I adored when I was one. Heck, I even liked that Jules Bass/Arthur Rankin Jr. animated musical, as admittedly silly as it was, and learned to play the piano to its songs.

But what will happen to Guillermo Del Toro? He seems to have at least 10 options on his plate, but the picture is about to get a lot clearer, especially if you're going to Comic Con next week, where he will announce what he'll direct next. I have no idea what that might be, but will certainly be tuning in to find out. If I had my druthers, it would be an original tale set in Spain to complete the "Devil's Backbone"-"Pan's Labyrinth"-whatever might come next trilogy, because those are still easily his best movies.

OK, enough of that. All I have after that is a trio of videos and, be warned, yes there is some "Saved By the Bell" at the end. Yes, really, but first up is the first trailer for Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere," which could either be something really intriguing in the vein of "Lost in Translation" or just a sappy mess. I really had little time at all for "Marie Antoinette," which was just a ton of style signifying much less than nothing, but "Lost in Translation" and the even-better "Virgin Suicides" are winners in my book, so I'll certainly be there to see this as soon after it opens on Dec. 22 as I can. As you'll see from the trailer, "Somewhere" stars Stephen Dorff as a star leading a fairly empty existence until he's reunited with his young daughter, played by Elle Fanning. Like I said, plenty of room for schmaltz here, but I'm still holding out hope for something more. Enjoy.



Next up, and keeping it a family affair, here's the trailer for the second season of HBO's "Bored to Death," which stars Coppola's cousin (I think) Jason Schwartzman as a would-be private eye in NYC. If you missed the first season last fall, you missed out on some serious funny, especially in Ted Danson, who plays an out-of-control magazine editor. The show, which also stars Zach Galifianiakis and was created by Jonathan Ames, is set to return in September, so definitely give it a chance. Enjoy.



OK, how better can you wrap things up than with some "Saved By the Bell"? I'm not ashamed to admit that I love the extremely silly NBC Saturday morning show (which may still be on the air with some kind of "Saved By the Bell: Next Generation" or something, for all I know.) There's really nothing funny about the BP oil spill, but whoever put together this mashup of the show and "There Will Be Blood" clearly knows this simple fact: You really can learn just anything you need to know about life from "Saved By the Bell." Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. I'm off now to watch some World Cup. Peace - and futbol - out.

Yes, there will be a new Wes Anderson movie

After his last two flicks I wasn't completely sure I really wanted this day to come, but it seems there really will be another Wes Anderson movie, and it will indeed be opening the London Film Festival in October, and then supposedly get a very wide release in the U.S. beginning Nov. 13

And to that I can at least conditionally say bring it on, in large part to the new gallery of photos from "Fantastic Mr. Fox" that they've just put up at the movie's official site, which so far has little else on it.

The pictures, however, are well worth a visit, because they reveal an attention to detail, especially in the Fox family home, that compares favorably to - and I know I'm getting my hopes up way too high for what is an animated children's story, albeit a classic one - the Tenenbaum home in "The Royal Tenenbaums," by a nose my favorite Anderson movie.

With George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson and even Jarvis Cocker providing voices, it should at least hopefully be a lot of fun.

And in other good news, I was proven even more wrong than usual when - even after the positive reviews came pouring in - I just couldn't believe that any movie directed by Ben Affleck would be fairly great. Well, anyone who's seen that flick, "Gone Baby Gone," will probably agree that it was one of the best of 2007, and now he's back with a cast that sounds really promising.

Affleck will star in and direct "The Town," based on the novel by Chuck Hogan, and he'll be joined by Jon Hamm of "Mad Men" and, in even better news in my book, Rebecca Hall of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (and, I like to point out, "Starter for 10," just because it's a fun little British teen romantic comedy very few people have seen.)

Affleck is playing a bank robber who becomes smitten with the teller of a bank he held up (Hall, natch), and Hamm is an FBI agent on his trail. The teller, of course, makes the robber want to go straight, but she is also the FBI's golden ticket to catching Boston's most wanted bank robber.

Sounds pretty standard to me, but with that cast, I'm in.

And fans of "How I Met Your Mother" - of which you can still count me one, even if it slipped a bit last season - might be curious to know that Ted himself, Josh Radnor, has apparently directed his first movie.

Radnor also wrote the script for "HappyThankYouMorePlease" (wow is that a bad title), which stars Malin Akerman, Kate Mara, Richard Jenkins (huzzah!) and even Buster Bluth, Tony Hale.

In what sounds a heck of a lot like "HIMYM" itself, the comedy "follows the lives and loves of six New Yorkers not quite ready to embrace adulthood. Sounds awfully meh to me, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

And speaking of "Mad Men," I'll close with an extended Comic-Con clip from AMC's coming update of "The Prisoner," which I had thought was going to premiere directly before or after "Mad Men" finally returns Aug. 16 (the day after I get back from Mexico!)

It now seems AMC's "new" show won't appear until November, but with Sir Ian McKellen as the mysterious interrogator I'm gonna tune in for at least a few episodes, and the nine-minute-or-so clip (I did warn you) actually raises some hope that this might have been a good idea in the first place. And with that, it's off to the salt mine. Peace out.

Friday morning links

Actually, the best news out there is that, with a revamped starting pitching staff and the best outfield in the American League, the Baltimore Orioles are now 6-1 in their last seven games. And, even better, supercatcher Matt Wieters finally makes his debut tonight against the Detroit Tigers.

With all this coming together, I can even see a .500 finish - poetically known in this corner as the "Run for 81" - in sight. Hey, one can dream, right?

And I'm almost as excited about the fact that this is clearly the best movie weekend of the year, even if it doesn't include Rian Johnson's "The Brothers Bloom." Because of my 10-10-10-5-5 (crazy, I know) schedule, I should be off of work by 4:30 or so today, and I'm gonna try and check out a screening of "Up!" for my supper.

I've been just as happy, though, to see that Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" has fared almost as well with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes - 98% for "Up" to 95% for "Drag Me to Hell" (actually, I looked through the six pages of reviews at RT to find the one splat for "Up" but couldn't find any ... I think they're just making it up.) It's clear that Sam Raimi is having fun again, and that we will too. For a great Raimi profile from the New York Times, click here (and the correction about the print headline is a hoot too ... that one had me scratching my head.)

But beyond that, here today it's about two sites I found recently that offer a little Friday morning time-wasting, the first way better than the second.

Anyone who's been here before knows that if there's a single upcoming movie I'm most obsessed with for the rest of this year, it would have to be Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are," and that really has nothing to do with all the ridiculous hoops that Warner Brothers has made Jonze and his crew jump through just to get it released.

From everything I've seen so far, they've managed to take my favorite childhood story and bring it to life with all its wild spirit intact. We won't get to see the final product until sometime in October, I believe, but just the trailers featuring that great Arcade Fire song "Wake Up" have been enough to get me thoroughly jazzed for this.

And now, the folks who are putting this together have started (well, it actually may have been going for sometime now already) a blog of sorts that's loosely about the movie, but moreso just about random thoughts that are always at least mildly diverting. The site, We Love You So, is well worth checking out, if for no other reason than right now, if you scroll down far enough, it contains a photo of a "Where the Wild Things Are" bento box. Yes, really.

Today's second site may simply be a bit of "viral marketing," but for that it is at least pretty clever. Judd Apatow's "Funny People," set to come out at the end of July, is certainly one of the summer movies I'm amped for, even if it seems like they did give away the entire plot in the trailer.

Though the main stars are Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen, the movie also features Eric Bana, Jonah Hill and a host of other hopefully "Funny People," including Jason Schwartzman, who this latest gimmick site is about.

His character in the movie, Mark Taylor, has a sitcom (or at least a pilot) on NBC called "Yo! Teach," so of course NBC has made a site devoted to it. The good news is that the three-minute-or-so clip on the first page is a pretty dead-on skewering of teacher sitcoms, and yes, that is indeed Roger from "What's Happening!!". Click here to check it out.

And, though I'm sure no one needs any incentive to go see "Up," I'll leave you with this clip introducing Doug the talking dog. Although "Ratatouille" will always be my favorite Pixar flick, I have a feeling this one will be right up there with "The Incredibles" competing for second place. Peace out.