There is a good reason Hollywood continually makes Animal House wannabes and avoids producing films that actually focus on academia. Kids prefer their college movies to be about the fun stuff. And so a movie like Old School grossed $75 million while another Luke Wilson comedy called Tenure currently lacks a distributor. The latter film may also be hilarious, as a satire of the tenure process, but if it doesn’t concentrate more on beer bongs and naked co-eds, it won’t attract as big an audience. And according to some scholars, it may not even resonate with them, because it couldn’t possibly be what the process is really like. Film blogger and associate professor Chuck Tryon was quoted about the film last year as saying, “my ongoing pursuit of tenure typically involves me sitting in front of my laptop until 1 a.m., I don’t know how interesting that would be to watch.”
And evident by the scathing reviews from Sundance of John Krasinski’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, it appears another film about academia has failed to make a strong case for the subject matter. Too bad for the late David Foster Wallace, whose stories were adapted for the film, that Gus Van Sant wasn’t at the helm. A decade ago, in an interview with Van Sant, Wallace pretty much gushed that Good Will Hunting is the most accurate film about academia ever made. Do we agree with him? Let’s just say there’s not a whole lot of competition for such an honor. But in our attempt to recognize the ten best films about academia, Good Will Hunting doesn’t quite make the top spot. …Read more
The Democratic National Convention is over, and all the ecstatic party members have left Denver to go back to their zombie-esque lives (Bob Hope said it, not me). But after four days of celebrating what it means to be a Democrat, some may not wish to settle down and calmly wait out the next two months until Obama’s (possible) win, let alone the next five months waiting for the candidate to (possibly) be sworn in as President, participating in the normal non-specifically-Democratic, non-self-congratulatory activities that most of us are content with.
So, one thing excited Democrats can do is watch movies that will continue to inspire and encourage their beliefs and politics. As Karina already wrote, The American Presidentis one movie that just barely may allow Obama fans to relive his DNC speech. Also, beginning yesterday, the Oscar-nominated documentary No End in Sight will be available in full on YouTube through till Election Day. Of course, there’s always other anti-war and anti-Bush docs for free viewing online, at such sites as SnagFilms and FreeDocumentaries.org.
And since there are so many docs out there that can make a Democrat giddy with the want for change, I’ve decided to limit today’s list to fictions and dramatizations, because they are more about feelings than facts, and that’s all you really need for political inspiration these days. As usual, I’m leaving out a lot of picks, both obvious and obscure, so feel free to tell us what movie make you feel most proud to be a Democrat.
The Harold and Kumar panel opened with a disclaimer from moderator Adam Vary of Entertainment Weekly. “This is family day at Comic-Con, but in case you didn’t know, this is for an unrated DVD of a stoner movie.”
But what better way to sell a DVD to your teenage fan base, then to get your hooks into them when they’re in close proximity to parental wallets?
Cynicism aside, it looks like there are some pretty cool elements to the package for the fans. In addition to a “12-15 minute mini adventure of what would happen if Harold and Kumar had decided not to smoke weed on the plane, and made it to Amsterdam,” there’s an extensive interactive feature called “Dude, Change the Movie,” which allows the viewer to swap out scenes from the theatrical cut for other options. Remember the bottomless party? You can choose to watch it topless. “Most of the options,” said co-writer Hayden Schlossberg, “Are extremely unrated, and extremely…”
“Nude,” John Cho interrupted. “You’re welcome.”
Some vague details about Harold and Kumar 3, and disappointment for fans who want to believe that John Cho and Kal Penn are really Harold and Kumar in real life,after the jump.
Baby Mamahad a big weekend. The Tina Fey comedy made $18 million dollars, beating Harold and Kumar’s take by about $4 million and easily enough for the top box office slot. Still, the stoner comedy more than made back its production budget in its first weekend, and that’s cause enough for Warner execs to take credit for handling their first post-merger New Line release successfully.
The Hollywood Reporter says IFC is in “final negotiations” to distribute The Pleasure of Being Robbed, the Josh Safdie feature which has been the subject of much chatter since it was announced as the only American film to screen at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.THR’s Gregg Goldstein is calling this turn of events ” a final triumph for SXSW producer Matt Dentler,” who selected the film for his final Emerging Visions sidebar before departing for Cinetic.
Idiocracy is not even mentioned in this Variety story about Mike Judge’s next project, a workplace comedy called Extract which is set to star Jason Bateman. Pay no attention to the political satire which spawned an energy drink even though the film itself was barely released––me want more Office Space!!!
Despite (or, perhaps, in reaction to) grumblings in France that too few of the home country’s filmmakers had found a slot on the schedule for the Cannes Film Festival, the just-announced Directors’ Fortnight sidebar is overwhelmingly made up of French co-productions. Oh, and the closing Fortnight film? Josh Safdie’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed.
Baby Mama will compete at the box office this weekend from its comic polar opposite, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. As keeping a notebook puts it, it’s like “a psychic microcosm of the democratic primary. Baby Mama is to Hillary as Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo is to Barack!”
Jimmy Fallon, having apparently abandoned his movie career after Factory Girl, will soon be announced as Conan O’Brien’s replacement as host of NBC’s 12:30 pm chat show.
Here is a master guide to all of our reviews, interviews and assorted other coverage from the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. You can also revisit all of our SXSW previews here.
The New Line Fallout continues: Sex and the City: The Movie (we can link to the trailer now! But we can’t embed it! Because the intern responsible for uploading trailers to YouTube has probably already been fired!) and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay are amongst the upcoming films facing release limbo in the wake of news that 75% of the former standalone studio’s staff is expected to be fired. Variety says Warner Brothers’ consolidation plan in the months ahead is “reminiscent of what happened to Disney’s Miramax arm after the Weinstein brothers departed in 2005,” which doesn’t bode well for the fate of the films: in the fall of 2005, Disney dumped 10 Miramax films in 10 weeks with little fanfare, and even star-propelled projects like Proof and The Libertine couldn’t recover from the insult.
Semi-Pro managed to come in at number one at the box office this weekend with just $15 million. The Other Boleyn Girl debuted on a third of the screens but made over $2k more on each of them, proving that, even in the darkest economic times, there’s always a market for implied lesbianism.
Speaking of implied lesbianism: Ellen Page has dropped out of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, which will begin shooting two weeks later than expected.
indieWIRE reports that the Tribeca Film Institute and funding organization Renew Media are merging “to create one institution dedicated to innovation in film and media, the enrichment of audiences and the promotion of education, understanding and creativity through the media arts.” The new org will be headed by Renew’s Brian Newman.
*Blush*––New York Times blogger David Carr has called our Oscar party “the white hot social center” of the Oscar-party landscape. If you’re in New York that night, you simply must stop by. Details here.
“If you’ve seen Daniel Day Lewis’ portrayal of a greedy, sinister oilman in There Will Be Blood, it’s just another example of the Hollywood left’s contempt for capitalism.” That’s Tonight Show producer Dave Berg, speaking at a meeting held to try to rally Hollywood’s Republican troops against Barack Obama. Via Wilshire and Washington.
David Edelstein is worried that Juno will win Oscars in just about every category it’s nominated due to better choices splitting the vote. “As one of the few critics to dislike Juno, I would be devastated,” he writes in the first of what will apparently be a series of bloggy exchanges with Lynda Obst. “But weirder things have happened in these silly awards.”
From The Department Of Questions That Don’t Need To Be Asked: Jeff Wells wonders, “Is there anyone who doesn’t suspect that Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay will somehow play fast and loose, water down or otherwise make light of that deplorable situation?” Commenters to proceed to argue whether or not Gitmo detainees should be transfered to domestic prisons.
Exciting news! Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely (which I love) and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (which I’m totally excited about, even if shouldn’t admit it) are among the titles recently added to the lineup of the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. Other titles announced today: Stuart Townsend’s Battle in Seattle, starring Woody Harrelson and Michelle Rodriguez; Crawford, described as “a balanced and comprehensive documentary look at the town of Crawford, TX and how it evolved once George W. Bush moved there”; The Promotion, a comedy starring Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly; and live action/animation hybrid The Toe Tactic, directed by Emily Hubley. The rest of the lineup drops February 5.
Here are some gags that could have been saved for the actual movie: George Bush smoking pot and saying the words “cock sandwich”; the one-eyed inbred son in the basement, which comes after an obvious set-up, anyway, and which reminds too much of the tow truck driver’s house in the woods from the first movie; and the Ku Klux Klan sequence, which feels ripped straight from O Brother, Where Art Thou?– it will likely still be funny in the movie, despite its being familiar, but there’s no need to make us feel like the movie won’t be fresher than a sack of chicken rings.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
The Democratic National Convention is over, and all the ecstatic party members have left Denver to go back to their zombie-esque lives (Bob Hope said it, not me). But after four days of celebrating what it means to be a Democrat, some may not wish to settle down and calmly wait out the next two months until Obama’s (possible) win, let alone the next five months waiting for the candidate to (possibly) be sworn in as President, participating in the normal non-specifically-Democratic, non-self-congratulatory activities that most of us are content with.
Baby Mama
Despite (or, perhaps, in reaction to) 
The New Line Fallout 
*Blush*––
Exciting news! Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely (which I love) and 
