Behind-the-scenes casting decisions are rarely made public—it’s only way after the fact that we discover that John Travolta turned down the Richard Gere role in American Gigolo, or that Mel Gibson was tapped to play Russell Crowe’s part in Gladiator—but it seems pretty clear to me that Rainn Wilson was not the first choice for The Rocker. The role practically screams Jack Black, and, frankly, he would’ve been better at it.
I like Rainn Wilson well enough—he was deliciously creepy in Six Feet Under and brings his own strange, uptight energy to The Office. But he’s not leading man material. Okay, maybe in some sort of Vincent Gallo-helmed indie film, but in a lovable family-style romp, not so much. His eccentricity has too much of an edge.
In The Rocker, Wilson plays drummer Robert “Fish” Fishman, who was kicked out of the 80’s metal band Vesuvius right before they made it big. (Don’t even ask me to decode the horribly unfunny opening scene where Fish, upon hearing of his ouster from the band, attacks his former bandmates with superhuman strength.) Now, 20 years later, he’s working a low-end job and still bristles at the mere mention of the word Vesuvius. (In another miscue, Vesuvius are still playing metal and still big—please name for me one other 80’s hair band that is relevant today.)
Eventually, his bitterness and unwillingness to grow up leave him jobless and homeless. He’s forced to bunk in the spare bedroom of his big sister (Jane Lynch, wasted), who lives with her dopey, “everyone’s life is cooler than mine” husband (Jeff Garlin), and her overweight, nerdy son Matt (Josh Gad, clearly Jonah Hill also refused the part), who plays in a band.
Needless to say, the band will need a drummer and Fish will agree to fill in, suddenly living out his rock and roll fantasies for the second time.
Pop cutie Teddy Geiger plays the band’s mopey lead singer Curtis and Christina Applegate, winning as ever, plays his sexy mom (and a love interest for Fish—yeah, right). I liked rising starlet Emma Stone as the band’s perma-scowl sporting bass player, who harbors a secret crush on Curtis.
But The Rocker is simply unfunny, uninspired, and at times, desperately gross (Fish likes to vomit into his shirt pocket before gigs). There’s a lot of music—mediocre, Jonas Brothers style kiddie rock—which adds little the proceedings. The Rocker feels like the work of a cover band—a game imitation, but nowhere close to the real thing.

Posted at 2:29 pm
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When it comes to the more recent works of Woody Allen, we film critics have begun to rely on a standard script. There’s the “he’s washed up!” line that came on the heels of such disappointments as Hollywood Ending and Anything Else. There’s the “it’s not half bad but he’ll never be truly great again” line that followed efforts like Melinda and Melinda and Sweet and Low Down. There is the “Woody’s back!” line that came breathlessly after Match Point.
I suspect that there will be more “He’s back!” enthusiam with  Woody’s new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Such praise will be followed by more lines from the Woody review script: “Scarlett Johannson is his new muse!” (Oh yeah? Then how do you explain Scoop?) “He’s so energized by these foreign locations!” (Hmmm, then why was Cassandra’s Dream such a flop?)
So let’s try to avoid knee-jerk responses to his new work. Here’s how I see Woody today. He’s not as funny as early Woody, he’s not as artistically fertile as middle period Woody, and he clearly cranks out way too many films. These films are capable of being mediocre, good, and even great. Just don’t expect any patterns.
That being said, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of the good ones—and damn close to being great. Here Woody is exploring his favorite subject (other than himself)—love.
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is smart, beautiful, and pragmatic. Her best friend Cristina (Scarlett Johannsson) is smart, beautiful, and wildly unpragmatic. Together, they embark on one last summer fling to Barcelona, where they meet artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Although they have literally just met him, Juan propositions that they join him on a weekend getaway to the Spanish countryside. Vicky thinks he is brash and vulgar; Cristina thinks he is glamorous and exciting. Naturally, both young women will fall head-over-heels in love. Matters are complicated by the arrival of Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), Juan’s fiery ex-wife.
The Spanish scenery is seductive in its own right, and Woody’s insights into human behavior, especially how our love lives play into our larger myths about ourselves, are spot on.
Some people may object to the travelogue-style voiceover that narrates the girls’ sexual and spiritual journey, but I found it amusing and droll.
As for Bardem, he injects a real sensual earthiness into his performance—the scenes between him and the two leads are quite captivating. And when you throw Penelope Cruz into the mix (check out the posters for the film to get a sense of her gloriously disruptive role in the proceedings), and what can you really say, but “muy caliente”?
Yes, a Woody Allen film that is smart and sly and all kinds of sexy. Woody is back! Oh no . . . wait.

For the complete Vicky Cristina Barcelona review, check out the September issue of Baltimore. 

Posted at 1:51 pm
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About 5 minutes into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the new animated film from Lucas Studios, I turned to my friend Travis and said, “Wait. I thought Anakin went bad in Revenge of the Sith. Then why is he swashbuckling right alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi?” “Because this film takes place before that one,” he explained.
Let me get this straight: The most recent three Star Wars films—Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Sith—were not sequels, but prequels, right? So what does that make this? A midquel? Episode 2.5? A palate cleanser? The mind reels.
Actually, the mind doesn’t reel at all. It’s quite clear what Star Wars: The Clone Wars is—a giant advertisement for Lucas’s next project, an animated Star Wars TV series that will run on the Cartoon Network and TNT.
Surely, that explains why the animation is so horrible—the faces are so stiff and robotic they bring to mind Max Headroom—and the voice work done by a cast of no names (except for a random cameo from Samuel Jackson). Why set up fans for a quality you won’t be able to deliver? It also explains why the plot doesn’t move the mythology in one way or another—nary a clue that Anakin is going to turn evil. (Each episode, presumably, will be it’s own discrete adventure). And finally, it explains the addition of a spunky new girl power heroine, Anakin’s new apprentice (or “padawan,” in the film’s parlance) Ahsoko. If you’re going to do a cartoon series, you better appeal to the kids.
In this feature-length version, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoko are trying to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s infant son, who has been kidnapped by Count Dooku. The rescue mission is important, as Jabba controls airspace that will be needed in the Jedi’s fight against Dooku’s droid army. (Or something like that.) Light sabers are wielded. Yoda speaks in mangled platitudes and at one point, Anakin is attacked by an army of what appears to be giant beer cans.
As for Queen—in this episode, still Senator—Amidala, who is Anakin’s one true love? She makes a brief but truly strange appearance as she tries to appeal to Jabba’s uncle Ziro, for the safety of the knights. I mention this only because the actor who voices Ziro (Corey Burton), is doing some sort of strange Truman Capote impression and Ziro is dressed in drag. And no, I didn’t doze off during the film and dream this—although that certainly would’ve been an appealing option.

Posted at 1:42 pm
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Never has the expression “no guts, no glory” been more apt than in describing the new comedy Tropic Thunder.
The film demonstrates tons of guts—it has one character in blackface, another making fun of a mentally disabled man, and yet a third who is a vulgarian Jewish film executive. (What, no jokes about killing pandas? Oh wait. . .it has that, too.). With those risks comes a fair amount of glory. When Tropic Thunder is funny, it is awesomely so. However, when it fails, everyone involved looks like a bunch of schmucks.
Directed and co-written by Ben Stiller (who also stars), Tropic Thunder depicts a film crew making a war movie in Vietnam. Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, the fading action star hoping for big screen legitimacy. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a comic actor (and closet crackhead) best known for farting on cue. Most famously, Robert Downey Jr. plays Australian method actor and multiple Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes a “controversial” skin-dying procedure to play a black sergeant.
When newbie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides his actors are too spoiled for their roles, he sends them deep into the jungle, rigging it with scary obstacles set up by the film’s gung ho special effects guy (comedic flavor-of-the-month Danny McBride). But unbeknownst to Cockburn, a group of drug warlords are hiding in the jungle, putting the cast in real danger.
Okay, so here’s what works: Robert Downey Jr.’s Lazarus is a brilliant send-up on the kind of method actor whose “selfless” immersion into a role is actually a form of giant egoism. Of course, a white actor playing black, even in a satire, is a huge risk, but Downey Jr. insulates himself by being so damn good. He’s so funny, so smart, so committed to the role that you have no choice but to sit back and watch the man work.
But here’s what doesn’t work: Ben Stiller’s Simple Jack. This, you see, was Tugg Speedman’s first attempt at legitimacy, playing a stuttering farm hand with a bowl cut and buck teeth. (The film is riffing on the notion that actors who play disabled characters often win Oscars.) Tugg, not exactly a mensa candidate himself, got wildly lambasted by the critics. “Never play the full retard,” Lazarus sagely advises him, noting that Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for Rain Man, while Sean Penn tanked in I Am Sam. Okay, so far, so funny—even if I felt a little uneasy over the use of that insensitive word. (Hey, I was an All in the Family fan, too.) But that should’ve been the end of it. Instead, for reasons I won’t disclose, Stiller plays a big chunk of the movie in his Simple Jack persona. Those scenes are painfully unfunny and offensive—a case of a not-so-great-to-begin-with joke taken to an awful extreme. (Not surprisingly, a coalition of disabled rights groups have called for a boycott of the film.)
And here’s what sort of works: Tom Cruise’s Les Grossman, the profane and blustery (not to mention fat and bald) studio exec who only cares about the bottom line. For Cruise, taking this part was a no-brainer: He’s doing something over-the-top and buzzworthy. As for the performance itself? It’s undeniably funny, but I’m not sure if it’s funny because Cruise is good, or because it’s such a departure for the famously uptight star. (If, for example, your boss came to the company party in drag, you would find it funny even if your boss wasn’t really a great drag queen, if you know what I mean.) Like Downey Jr., Cruise commits to his part fully. He’s just not as good at it.
Still, in a summer where Judd Apatow’s plotless, low-concept comedies have soared, it’s refreshing to see such a high-concept comedy in action. When it works, Tropic Thunder is by far the funniest film of the summer (please, film promoters, don’t take that quote out of context). When it fails, at least it does so prodigiously.

Posted at 4:18 pm
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Anyone who watches the new documentary American Teen, about high school life in a small town in Indiana, will be compelled to cast a fictitious version of the film in their mind. Alt-rocky, angsty teen girl Hannah Bailey could be played by Julia Stiles, who played a similar character in 10 Things I Hate About You. Nerdy, but deceptively self-aware Jake Tusing could be played by Michael Cera, who played a similar character in Juno (and Superbad). Wealthy queen bee Megan Krizmanich, who is probably just responding to fierce pressures at home, could be played by Rachel McAdams, who played a similar character in Mean Girls. Sensitive popular kid Mitch Reinholt, who dates Hannah until peer pressure compels a break-up, could be played by Zac Efron, who plays a similar character in the High School Musical movies.  And so on.
These similarities point out what is good—and not so good—about this documentary. On the one hand, American Teen is extremely watchable—it’s fast paced, suspenseful (will Megan get into Notre Dame? will Hannah leave Indiana for San Francisco?) and often quite funny (“I am like this sock,” says droll Jake, comparing his social life to a pairless sock in the dryer). It has some raw moments, too, such as when Hannah breaks up with a  boyfriend and goes into a deep, dark depression; or when basketball player Colin misses the last shot and cries in the locker room, but for the most part, it glosses over the real troubles of these kids in favor of funny montages (such as when Jake goes to visit his older brother in college and has a few too many beers) and pat resolutions.
We don’t learn much about these kids that we don’t already know—that teens face lots of pressures, from their parents, from their peers, from themselves—and director Nanette Burstein doesn’t seem interested in the stories that don’t fit our comfortable stereotypes. (For example, Hannah has a best friend who is a male—he even takes her to prom. What’s the nature of their relationship? Is he gay? A straight boy secretly pining for her? That more out-of-the-box, complex relationship is never explored.)
Still, it’s the kids—equal parts smart, candid, and clueless—that make American Teen worth watching. You’ll root for them, even while wishing that this documentary on their lives dug a little deeper.

Posted at 4:07 pm
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I have a vague early memory of a blurry picture in my parents’ New York Times of some nutjob who strung a wire from one Twin Tower to the other and walked across it.
That nutjob was Philippe Petit and he was an acrobat, provocateur, performance artist, and utterly magnetic life force. In Man on Wire, filmmaker James Marsh chronicles Petit’s death-defying adventure—and his devoted band of accomplices (some in love with Philippe, some in love with adventure, others simply bored), who helped make this high-wire feat possible.
Filmed almost like a heist film—the Twin Towers were still being built at the time (1974) and, while construction crews came and went, security was high—the film uses a remarkable mix of historic footage (much shot by Petit and his crew), sly re-enactments (not distracting, I promise), and present-day interviews (virtually the entire crew is alive today, including Philippe, who tells a story almost as deftly as he crosses a wire) to recreate the events. When Petit finally does his mid-air dance, you experience a cathartic mixture of relief, awe, and elation. It’s a stunner.

Posted at 3:33 pm
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There’s a certain contract that the creators of a stoner comedy make with the audience: There will be lots of doobie jokes, lots of infantile men over-reacting (and sometimes, drastically under-reacting) to the madcap misadventures they’ve gotten themselves into, and, most importantly, the whole proposition will be amiable, no-consequence fun. While Pineapple Express follows most of the rules of stoner comedy—it’s funny and the pot jokes fly a plenty—it commits a cardinal sin: The violence in this film has consequences—people get maimed and they even die. Duuuuude.
Seth Rogen, channeling a young Albert Brooks, plays Dale Denton, a process server who witnesses a drug kingpin commit a murder and, in his haste to leave the scene, drops the rare strain of pot he was smoking. The drug kingpin (Gary Cole), who has ties to Dale’s dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), immediately recognizes the contents of the roach: Pineapple Express pot. Now both Saul and Dale are on the run.
The best thing about Pineapple Express is Franco’s Saul, a happy wanderer, who, when he isn’t sitting on his couch howling over The Jeffersons reruns, visits his “bubbe” in a retirement home. Franco is just doing another iteration on the stoner dude we’ve seen many times before—from Spicoli to Keanu’s Ted—but he brings to the character a blissed-out sweetness all his own.
The shlubby and neurotic Rogen is also funny—if less of a revelation—and they make a gloriously incompetent and spastic pair as they try to elude the bad guys. (At one point, while they’re being chased by Rosie Perez’s corrupt cop, Franco simply stops driving. Some barely firing synapse must’ve remembered a somewhat similar strategy working in a movie he saw once. Of course, in this case, Perez screeches next to them and begins shooting. “I thought she’d drive past us,” Saul demures.)
Pineapple Express is yet another film from the increasingly less reliable Judd Apatow comedy factory—in this case, directed by arthouse auteur, David Gordon Green, a curious choice. At it’s best, it has a kind of sublime silliness, but it’s not nearly as affecting or insightful as Apatow’s best work. Plus, all that extreme violence left me with a bad taste in my mouth. In short, it harshed my mellow.

Posted at 10:13 am
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A few questions will perplex you as you watch The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Here, I will attempt to answer them.
Q: Where is Rachel Weisz?
A. She got her Oscar and got the hell out. She has been replaced by Maria Bello, who is sporting a dark wig and a British accent. Perhaps the filmmakers thought we wouldn’t notice?
Q. How did Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello end up with a 20-year-old son?
A: Apparently, many years have passed since the last film. The fact that Fraser’s Rick O’Connell looks exactly the same as he did before he had a 20-year-old son should not distract you.

Q: Who’s the charmless actor who plays the son and why does his voice sound so funny?
A: His name is Luke Ford and he’s Australian.
Q: Why does this whole plot about raising a dead army led by an evil king (Jet Li) feel so familiar?
A. Because it was done, much better, a few weeks ago in Hellboy 2.
Q: Why do people keep saying things like, “You’re a mummy magnet!” and “I hate mummies, they never play by the rules!”?
A: Apparently, Tom Stoppard wasn’t available to write the screenplay.
Q: What the hell is a great actress like Michelle Yeoh doing in this flick, playing an immortal white witch?
A: I believe the official term is “slumming.”
Q: Why are the special effects so cheesy?
A: We’re in a recession.
Q: Hey, well at least the Abominable Snowmen were kind of cool.
A. That wasn’t a question, but yeah, they were.

Posted at 12:08 pm
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Anyone who knows me, already knows that I am no fan of Kevin Costner. I find his whole self-styled Everyman routine tiresome and pretentious. He’s had some great movies over the years—Bull Durham remains one of my all-time favorites—but every time he gets into that preachy, Jimmy-Stewart-wannabe mode, I check out.
So Swing Vote, which was produced by Costner (most likely explaining a prolonged scene featuring him and his band), was something of a special ordeal for me. There was Costner, playing Bud Johnson, a (supposedly) lovable loser from New Mexico, who, through a remarkable series of events, has 10 days to cast his vote and determine the next president of the United States. Costner is in his full-on hang dog, sheepish, aw shucks persona here. Yuck.
He’s a single dad, raising a movie-precocious daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll, one of the film’s saving graces)—or,  more accurately, she’s raising him. She rouses him from bed every morning, gives him civics lessons, and even drives the truck when he’s drunk. (Mind you, she’s in the fifth grade.) Maybe this is supposed to be cute, but I had a hard time getting behind a dad who was so flagrantly neglectful.
Anyway, once it becomes clear that Bud is the elusive swing vote, both candidates—the slightly dim Republican president (Kelsey Grammar) and the slightly spineless Democratic nominee (Dennis Hopper)—set up camp in Texico, New Mexico, where Bud is from.
Swing Vote tries to be a biting satire about our messed up political system—both candidates will do anything to woo Bud’s vote, including flip-flopping on various positions to accommodate him—but it has nothing particularly interesting to say. The fact that the Republican is an empty suit and the Democrat is a bit of a weenie shows you the depth of the film’s politics—when in doubt, they play it obvious and safe.
A whole lot of good actors work hard to make this thing somewhat tolerable—Grammar is particularly good as the sitting president and it’s fun to see old pros Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane as the campaign managers—but it’s barely that. The film tries to balance comedy with political satire and sentimentality, as Bud finally learns to be a better citizen and father, but the whole thing is awkward—and long (just over two hours.) Frankly, I’d rather abstain.

Posted at 12:06 pm
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There is a great scene in The Wackness, a coming-of-age film about a teen pot dealer in New York named Luke (Josh Peck) who sells drugs to his depressed shrink Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) in exchange for free therapy. In it, Squires, feeling estranged from his cold wife (Famke Janssen), takes Luke to his favorite old dive bar and is dismayed to discover that the bar is no longer a happening scene, but actually kind of desolate and depressing. Both Luke and Dr. Squires talk about their need to get laid—Luke for the first time, and Dr. Squires because he feels that sometimes it’s okay to cheat, but only when completely necessary. While the two are drinking beer and commiserating, hippie chick Union (Mary-Kate Olsen), who is one of Luke’s customers, floats into the bar. As Luke looks on incredulously, Dr. Squires begins to flirt with her. A few minutes later, it’s Squires, not him, who’s hooking up with Union in the bar’s vintage phone booth. Luke shakes his head in misery. He clearly can’t decide what’s more disgusting: That Dr. Squires is macking on a teenage girl or that he, Luke Shapiro, has no game?
That scene, funny, sad, slightly disturbing, is The Wackness at its best. But the film can’t sustain that delicate balance. It occasionally wears its “movieness” too loudly. Part of the problem is the goatee-sporting Kingsley, who seems so happy to play this philosopher-pothead-screw-up, he overacts with impunity. What’s more, an overly dramatic scene at the end—it involves a suicide attempt and lots of speechifying—suggests that the film takes itself more seriously than it should.
Nonetheless, there are some fabulous grace notes in The Wackness, which documents Luke’s curious outsider status: As a drug dealer, he gets invited to all the parties, but he’s on the outside looking in. When he falls in love for the first time, with Squire’s step-daughter Stephanie (Juno’s Olivia Thirlby), he predictably falls way too hard; he has no life experience to anchor him. The movie, which is set in 1994, also has some nice little period details—Luke hears Biggie Smalls for the first time and loves to make mixed tapes for his friends. He uses the word “mad” to describe every emotion: “I was mad tired,” “She was looking mad hot”—which rings true. And Josh Peck, yet another escapee from the Disney Channel acting factory, is a likeable lead—ably demonstrating how Luke’s chronic “chillness” is a mask to hide deeper feelings.
The Wackness seems rather explicitly autobiographical—writer director Jonathan Levine would’ve been just about Luke’s age in 1994 and he, too, was raised in New York. I’m not sure if Levine is a one-bong-hit wonder. Only time will tell.

Posted at 12:03 pm
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