Julia Roberts vs. The World

"Do you know this one girl with hair like this?"
-Scott Pilgrim

"Who MEEEEEEE?!?"
-Julia

Eat Pray Love and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World are almost kinda the same movie. Or at least thematically kin. No really. Though I'd grade them differently: B- and B+ respectively at least immediately after viewing.

Double Feature Review @ Towleroad

I'd love to hear what you thought of both or either. You starring in Read Share Like
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Posterized: Michael Cera

I'm still giggling about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which I saw this morning. I loved the comic book and I was pleased that Edgar Wright was so skilled at keeping the comedy zippy.

Wallace: The L Word
Scott: Lesbian?
Wallace: The other L Word
Scott: Lesbians ?

My review is coming soon but in the meantime, shall we discuss Michael Cera's movie career. This is it, in posters. Before he came to real fame with Arrested Development, he did have a few movie roles, usually as children such as in the Dennis Quaid /Jim Caviezel time travel piece Frequency (2000). But I'm picking up where the classic sitcom left off.

Arrested Development (tv, 03-06) | Superbad (2007) | Juno (2007)

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (08) | Extreme Movie (08) | Paper Heart (09)

Year One (09) | Youth in Revolt (09) | Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (10)

How many have you seen? And isn't it peculiar that the posters are almost all the full body type? I guess you need both arms and legs for maximum slapstick lolz. I thought he was pretty great in Juno (and thought he made a fine Scott Pilgrim) but I know he has many haters, too. Especially due to that Arrested Development Development Hell.

DVDs: SHOWGIRLS and The Proud Book of Tears From Paris Island

DVD releases have been slim picking as of late. Here's a sample of the new titles from the past couple of weeks. I'd allow you to vote for a DVD writeup but I'm three movies behind. Next time, next time...

• The Book of Eli - Tough guy Denzel Washington kicks apocalyptic ass.
  
• Cinema Pride Collection - June is gay pride month so this collection offers up ten movies and it goes like so: (60s) The Children's Hour, (70s) La Cage Aux Folles, (80s) My Beautiful Laundrette, (90s) The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Birdcage, Bent, The Object of My Affection, Boys Don't Cry, (00s) Kissing Jessica Stein, Imagine Me and You. I'm letting you know about all of them because...
  
  
  • I find it so weird that a "pride" collection features The Children's Hour and Kissing Jessica Stein even though I actually like both movies.
  • they were kind enough to send me the whole box set.
  • I'm excited to revisit Boys Don't Cry.
  • My Beautiful Laundrette is one of my favorite films from the 80s entire and now I can revisit Daniel Day-Lewis with punk blonde 'do any time I like.
    
  
  I just did an bullet point list within a bullet point list. I am so fancy.
  
  
• Coach - Hugh Dancy goes straight to DVD in his latest romance. Mmmm, Dancy.
  
• From Paris With Love - Jonathan Rhys Meyers & John Travolta play CIA Agents in the city of love. If this were about JRM making love to Parisians I'd be interested but I'm assuming both stars are just shooting people. Zzzz.
  
• Happy Tears - Parker Posey and Demi Moore have trouble with dad Rip Torn
  
• Mary & Max - I highly recommend you check out this odd animated pen pal romance from Australia. Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman provide voicework and the whole movie is entirely its own thing. That's always a compliment.
  
  
• Shutter Island - in which Martin Scorsese obsesses over insane people. I wish he hadn't opened the movie with DiCaprio all sweaty/disoriented. Too easy. I don't understand the appeal of this movie so tell me what I missed.
  
• When in Rome - My friend Luca is in this Kristen Bell vehicle and I shamefully skipped. Perhaps I will risk it on DVD despite the reviews? Will Kristen Bell get a feature worthy of her or should she go back to prime time series work. What say you?
  
• Youth in Revolt - In which Michael Cera argues with himself. Not about whether or not he should do an Arrested Development movie. Well, duh, shouldn't he?
  

Which will you see/have already seen?

My apologies... I buried the lead.

<--- This arrived by UPS at the door just yesterday and I nearly squealed but for the man standing in front of me asking me to sign for it. Inside I was squealing, mind, and also criss crossing my hands in front of my face in homage to Nomi's famous dance move. What she learned you can't teach in any school!

Yes, it's the 15th anniversary blu-ray of total classic Showgirls (1995). It used to be a Bad Movie We Love and now it's just a Movie We Love Unconditionally and I am proud to say that I went on opening weekend in Salt Lake City even though they weren't allowed to advertise the movie in the paper. Way too naughty for the Mormons. Can't wait to see it for the umpteenth time though these extras "finding your inner stripper" and lap dance tutorial sounds suspect. We'll see.

We Can't Wait #10 - SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

Boom! Pow! Snik! It's JA and Dave with the next righteous entry in the "We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond" countdown...

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Brandon Routh, Allison Pill, Jason Schwartzman...

Synopsis: Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy must defeat her seven evil exes in order to win her heart. Shit gets real. Real awesome!

Brought to you by: Hooded sweatshirts, original console Nintendo fetishism, and true love. Also, giant hammers and flaming swords. But yeah, true love.
Expected release date: August 13th, 2010

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JA: I've had that trailer on my iPod since it came out and have watched it way, way too many times. I could probably recite it shot by shot - "We open on Michael Cera's face, bird-like and trepidatious, slowly moving towards us..." - as if it were a story unto itself. I'm so far into the stratosphere of geeking out over this movie that it's moved past spazzy and obnoxious unto a place where a new word is needed. I hereby deem my anticipation for this movie "spaznoxious."

It didn't start out this way. I hadn't even read Bryan Lee O'Malley's comics until after the pieces started falling into place with the film and got me interested. Well, make that piece-the-singular fell into place: Edgar Wright was there, and wham bam, I was interested. Shaun of the Dead is my happy place.

But from there, more pieces. If there wasn't a Michael Cera in the world then we'd have had to forge one from the mountain of the geek-gods to play Scott. We'll see if his on-the-nose casting pays off in unexpected ways or if it's too on-the-nose, but I still have faith in the myriad pleasures of his stammering behoodied goodness.

And the rest of the cast seems like a blast. And then the test screenings where everybody's eyeballs exploded. And then the trailer showed up and it was just all too much, that we have to wait until August. Too much! I need to find a magic whistle or the secret code (Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right Select Start?) to warp myself into the future where I'm seeing the movie already!

Dave: I suppose it's helpful for this countdown that I come at this movie from a rather different direction - I've never read the comics, I've watched the trailer a mere three times, and, well, that probably makes it clear that I'm less spaznoxious than calm and intrigued - two things that probably don't really need combining into a new word. So, really, I should let you spaznoxiously ramble about this because I'm bound to come across as disengaged in comparison.

But fact is, despite my much less... immersive experience of everything Scott Pilgrim already is, I AM excited. The cast basically seems like a hipster cinephile's wet dream - and Michael Cera is yet to knock himself out of my favour, sorry everyone - and, as you said, Edgar Wright is the creator of the happy place of several thousand people. It should certainly be interesting to see how his lunatic Britishness rubs up against the geek chic Americanness of the comic (well, that's the impression I get, anyway). Although it's certainly my experience that British youth culture has become so Americanized anyway that they're practically melding into one; but nevertheless, this is younger than Wright has skewed before (we'll miss you, Mr. Pegg) so I'm intrigued to know how he handles that.

And I think the part of the trailer - which I've watched ten times, by the way - despite all the "WHIP"ing and "KPOK"ing and the deliciously hammy one-liners from the cast is the way Cera delivers the line "Seven" with such despondency, and then it's undercut by the lovely Anna Kendrick - this isn't man-flu, Anna! That chick had a chain-whip!

JA: Knowing the books, I can tell you that the trailer's def. playing up the big comic-booky aspects - gotta sell them tickets - but you're in for a treat if the interaction between Cera and Kendrick is what's hitting your buttons because these books are really funny, and the characters are all so rich. I wished they would've given some screen-time to Keiran Culkin who has the plum role of Scott's gay roommate Wallace, or to Ellen Wong as Knives, the too-young girl in love with Scott, but I guess we've still got months for that. (Ugh, months!)

Dave: Now, this information about even more characters both excites and worries me. Excites because, well, to be all youthfully enthusiastic about it, they sound awesome! And in addition to those we've already got a preview of that's one load of epic characters.


But there's the worry. Are there too many to handle? The tagline is "An epic of epic epicness" but I don't see anyone letting Wright get away with a three-hour cut. So those evil exes will have to be ousted a cut-throat rate. But that, the unfolding of it in hopefully outlandish directions, is part of the thrill, I suppose, for me and anyone else who doesn't know the story inside-out. The attitude of self-aware geekery it exudes are the key points of interest for me. But you, JA, do you not have any worries about how it might be altered for the movies? I can't remember the last comic-book adaptation that wasn't some kind of vibrantly violent thing, or a superhero. And Scott, well, I sense he's more of a super-geek.

JA: If I didn't have such an epic amount of epic faith in Mr. Wright I'd probably be more worried. Oh sure, we're gonna lose a lot of the little moments in between the battles and the multiple side-stories with multiple side-characters, but that's what I have the books for, and will always have the books for. I have no trouble seeing this as its own two-hour-ish mash-up of O'Malley's world constructed and given life by the hands of Edgar Wright, and that in itself translates to enough awesome all on its own. More than enough!

What about you, dear readers? Is that a joystick
in your pocket, or are you just excited for this movie?
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"We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond"
The "orphan" picks Nathaniel (Burlesque), JA (Love and Other Drugs), Jose (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Craig (What's Wrong With Virginia?), Robert (True Grit) and Dave (Brighton Rock); Team Film Experience Countdown #12 It's Kind of a Funny Story, #11 Sex & the City 2, #10 Scott Pilgrim vs the World, #9 Somewhere, #8 The Kids Are All Right, #7 The Illusionist, #6 Toy Story 3, #5 Inception, #4 Rabbit Hole, #3 Never Let Me Go, #2 Black Swan and #1 The Tree of Life.

LFF: Hearts Made of Paper, Stone, or Perhaps Petrol

Dave here with Tuesday's report from the LONDON FILM FESTIVAL, and it's been my best day yet. Excited?

What is love? It's an age-old question, and you can probably guarantee someone's already made some sort of documentary on the subject. But that doesn't stop filmmaker Nicholas Jasenovec and comedienne Charlyne Yi from giving it their own shot. Paper Heart is a self-conscious quirky film that mixes actual documentary footage of Yi's journey around America interviewing various people on how they'd define love with a strange interpolated story of Jasenovec (actually played by Jake Johnson) picking up on the romantic seeds between Yi and Michael Cera (as 'himself') and filming every aspect of their blossoming relationship to see if Yi finally succumbs to this mysterious thing called love. This latter thread is really quite strange in how transparently fake it is, and it seems quite unnecessary when the interviewees provide much more entertainment, even if that probably wouldn't have been enough to sustain an entire movie. A dilemma, then, solved only by not having the film exist in the first place... C

The absorbing Mugabe and the White African takes a while to stutter into gear, but once it does it proves to be an excellent, and a terrifically important, piece of documentary work, marred only by a tediously dramatic score that too frequently zaps moments of their raw power. Charting the fight between Zimbabwean government, led of course by the dictator Robert Mugabe, and the remaining white Zimbabwean farmers that are standing their ground. As it progresses, the absurdity, and the horrific danger within Mugabe's racist politics becomes painfully apparent. Mugabe himself is, as you might expect, seen only via archive footage, and is heard menacingly announcing "Zimbabwe... is mine" as he wins an uncontested election. Filmmakers Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson clearly recognized the international historical importance of this legal dispute, as they are with Mike and Ben Campbell from its earliest days, and while there's the occasional worryingly staged moment, this is for the most part a powerful, measured and gripping insight into one of Africa's most frightening regimes. B+

(The previous two films have already received a small US release, so look out for them on your televisions or DVD store of choice if they intrigue you.)

Samson and Delilah has just one connection to the biblical parable with which it shares its name - the chopping off of hair. But in Warwick Thornton's stunning film, the action is not a vengeful one, but one of grief. At different points in the film, both of the titular characters hack at their long locks with a serrated knife as a mark of a death, an act filmed each time with a painfully close intensity. Frequently the film reaches emotional spikes like these, but it's the strength of the film throughout that makes them so powerful. The story of two young Aboriginals living in a half-heartedly Westernized town, the film rests most strongly on the central performances of Rowan MacNamara and Marisa Gibson, who somehow involve you very deeply in the tragic unfolding, while remaining detached and volatile in character. If Samson and Delilah is a parable, it disguises it well. This is a powerful journey, a detached yet involving story about a pair you might not understand if you dissect their depiction, but gradually do on some basic human level. A- [See my extended thoughts on this film here.]

Tomorrow, as promised, it's the Fest's opening day, and I'll have a post dedicated to the chosen kick-off film, the world premiere of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

We Can't Wait #7 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Directed by Edgar Wright
Starring Michael Cera, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Satya Bhabha, Mark Webber, Keiran Culkin, Brandon Routh, Ellen Wong and Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Synopsis Scott Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona V Flower's seven evil ex-boyfriends to win her heart
Brought to you by Universal
Expected Release Date Unknown... hopefully Fall 2009.

Fox: It's my job to know something about this movie,... but I don't. I'm not a comics guy so I didn't even know this film was based on a comic book series until I looked it up on Wiki. "So then why did you slot it # 2 on your personal Top 20 you f**king dipsh*t?!? GAWWWD you suck!!!" Well, that's a very good question, Anonymous commenter # 3, and the answer is simply: 1.) Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) is directing, and 2.) I like the cast. 3.) Also, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (aka the cute cheerleader from Death Proof) is in it. I suppose the source material is what has a lot of people jazzed about this film, but it makes no difference to me. I'll gladly go into the theater blind, green, and naked for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

JA: I've spread myself too thin, interests-wise, to really call myself a "comics guy," but I have read about half of the Scott Pilgrim series so far and they are really delightful, and the casting on them has been so amazingly right, so perfect, and so exciting, and Edger Wright directing them seems just as perfect right and exciting, well... all these things look ace on paper. I I can't magine what could go wrong! (knock on wood) And Nick & Norah, which I loved loved loved, proved to me that I haven't gotten tired of Michael Cera's schtick yet, which is good because Scott Pilgrim is EXACTLY the same character. Hipster dweeb in a hipster dweeb band, hipster girl problems, et cetera et cetera.

Nathaniel: I'm not sure when "hipster" became a bad word exactly but wouldn't we prefer hipsters to the alternative?

As far as the perils of adaptation go... I know people like to believe that the mediums of comics and film are more similar than dissimilar -- you can actually view comics as storyboards. And storyboards are only, what, tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of collaborators away from the moving image itself? Presto! I'm being snarky but my point is that it's a tricky transferring act. But I love the concept and think it's a a real opportunity for a movie. Bryan Lee O' Malley's pictures fill me with delight. I was stopped dead in my tracks at a Scott Pilgrim table at Comic Con. I'm in.

JA: Here's Mary Elizabeth Winstead as "Ramona" --->

Fox: What an adorable tease of a photo.

Joe: I only know about this movie what JA tells me, but what he tells me, so far, I'm really liking. Despite the fact that, while I've seen Mary Elizabeth Winstead in several movies, I could not pick her out of a police lineup. That photo is not helping.

Nathaniel: So, what about you out there... you're too quiet. Have you read any volumes of Scott Pilgrim's adventures? Any strong feelings about this up and coming cast (or in Cera & Evans case ... already arrived) cast? Or does JA's "hipster" dropping leave you scrambling for the exit?

In case you missed any entries they went like so...
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We Can't Wait:
#1 Inglourious Basterds, #2 Where the Wild Things Are, #3 Fantastic Mr. Fox,
#4 Avatar, #5 Bright Star, #6 Shutter Island, #7 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
#8 Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, #9 Nailed, #10 Taking Woodstock,
#11 Watchmen, #12 The Hurt Locker, #13 The Road, #14 The Tree of Life
#15 Away We Go, #16 500 Days of Summer, #17 Drag Me To Hell,
#18 Whatever Works, #19 Broken Embraces, #20 Nine (the musical)
intro (orphans -didn't make group list)
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Nick and Norah's National Coming Out Day!

And I almost forgot. Last year I typed up a somewhat controversial list of "out" film people. I'm not going to retype but if I did it'd feel so nice to add. And I would've had to. It's so nice to add. See, more and more Hollywood types are rejecting the don't-rock-the-boat myth of Certain Career Doom. Good for them. The way I see it "Coming Out" is a tangible gift to oneself but it's also of abstract benefit to the world. People feel alone and scared and marginalized for lots of reasons, not only sexuality, and if you can make someone else feel less alone merely by being true to yourself? Shazam! The world is a better place... and most of the time you won't even know that someone else was able to borrow from your strength. Which is fine. You don't need credit. At the risk of referencing a bad movie: Pay it forward.

Today I met up with Joe to take in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and it was sweet and cute and funny (though not really a patch on the director's debut Raising Victor Vargas, which is all of those things too). But since it's National Coming Out Day what I most want to say is that youth-oriented movies have come a long way. In the movie Nick's two best friends are both gay. Miraculously the movie doesn't think this is weird or shameful or anything other than just the way Nick's life is. If anything the movie thinks this makes Nick (a straight romantic lead) even more loveable than he is already is just by being Michael Cera.

Shameless generalizsations coming atcha now! Back in 80s teen movies nobody was gay onscreen. "Gay" was only something the characters didn't want to be called. No characters actually were, you know, that way. If you were a gay kid in the 80s (as I was) there just wasn't much to make you feel less "weird" or marginalized apart from the odd arthouse movie that you snuck into with sympatico friends. In the 90s token gay characters began emerging regularly (like Christian in Clueless) but they were mostly peripheral. In the Aughts the Gay Best Friend is everywhere in mainstream fare. From nonexistent to affectionately and ubiquitously portrayed in just two decades? That's real progress even if some diversity in "types" would be more than welcome. I can't imagine what it's like for gay kids growing up now. And the fact that I can't imagine it means that things have changed a lot. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.

The Many Hoodies of Michael Cera

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JA from MNPP here, with a brief call-to-arms for the actor Michael Cera.

Michael, I say this because I like you very much. Maybe you want to do something somewhat different somewhat soon. Something that doesn't involve A) batting those puppy dog eyes, and B) pull-strings. You've already expressed knowledge of your own current self-created limitations. That is a step in the right direction, good sir. Self-awareness is the on-ramp onto the highway of career longevity!

I say it's time for some villainy. Screw sweet, my friend! Make with some murder! It'll do you a world of good, I swear it. Perhaps a Juno sequel in which Miss McGuff's "witticisms" finally push you over the edge? Or Superbad 2: Super-Stab! I don't know, I'm not making millions of dollars to come up with that crap, you think of something.

This post has not been brought to you
by Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist,
Out in theaters today!

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