This is a pretty dead movie week for non-Hannibophiles, so for this week's column, I'm going to talk about stuff going on in the movie world that's captured my interest.
First of all, \My Big Fat Greek Wedding"" this week surpassed ""The Blair Witch Project"" as the most commercially successful independent movie of all time, a huge accomplishment for a movie that only hit the box office top 10 many weeks after being released. It's interesting that such a low budget movie can garner such returns with good-not-spectacular reviews, just on charm and buzz, but the success of the ""The Blair Witch Project"" already taught us that anything can succeed with the right timing.
Speaking of buzz, I'm pretty excited for the next few weeks. I'm very curious to see ""Punch-Drunk Love,"" the collaboration between Adam Sandler and Paul Thomas Anderson, the writer/director who brought us ""Boogie Nights"" and ""Magnolia."" I'm a fan of run-of-the-mill Adam Sandler movies, but I'm interested to see Sandler in a movie that intends to have artistic merit. What happens when an offbeat critical darling directs a lovable critical punching bag? I'm pretty curious to see.
I'm also curious to see ""Knockaround Guys."" After seeing him lead in the wonderful ""61*"" and provide the only bright spot of ""We Were Soldiers,"" I'm a big Barry Pepper fan. And I want to see him in a cast with Vin Diesel, Seth Green, Dennis Hopper and John Malkovich.
What I'm not as curious to see is ""The Rules of Attraction."" I don't swoon for writer/director Roger Avary'because I'm not a huge fan of his associate, Quentin Tarantino'but what in the world is he thinking with this cast? Jessica Biel could barely handle a movie as serious as ""Summer Catch,"" while I am dumbstruck by the amount of attention paid to Shannyn Sossamon. Anybody who sat through ""40 Days and 40 Nights"" knows what a nonactress she is, and it's almost literally true. The woman was discovered by a casting director while she assisted a DJ at a Hollywood party. Her acting experience boils down to a couple of commercials and then two features, and it shows in her acting.
Of course, bogus casting decisions are the theme of the day, it seems. The movie for which I'm most excited these days is December's ""Gangs of New York,"" directed by the brilliant Martin Scorcese. He got Daniel Day Lewis out of retirement. Cool. He got Cameron Diaz. Not bad. As for the lead, he got Leonardo DiCaprio. Why? See ""The Man in the Iron Mask"" and you'll be sure that DiCaprio is a legitimately bad actor who can't deliver lines to save his life. Can't Scorcese do better? Apparently, the delayed production has even recently included reshooting love scenes between Diaz and DiCaprio, because they weren't believable enough. Oy vey.
Yes, the whole world's gone batty, right down to community leaders. Jesse Jackson recently raised a big fuss over a scene in recent hit ""Barbershop"" in which Cedric the Entertainer's character rails against the reputations of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Either Jackson's desperate for attention or he just didn't see the movie.
In case you didn't see it, in the scene, a dozen other characters subsequently shout down the rant in question. Meanwhile, one of the basic premises of the movie is that in a black barbershop, it's OK to say things you can't say anywhere else, and the basic premise of Cedric the Entertainer's character is that he's a cranky old wiseass who can't and shouldn't be taken seriously. Besides, would it really be better in the eyes of black leaders if the black community were portrayed as a conformist monolith of unanimous thought? Respect for leaders and pioneers is good, but shouldn't it be challenged? Isn't the reputation of every great, good and decent American leader and hero challenged at some point? Anyway, the movie's still worth seeing, so go form your own opinion instead of bothering to listen to Jackson, or me.
