A dark goofball comedy about assorted doofuses in Washington, D.C., only some of whom work for the government, this short, snappy picture from the Coen Brothers - of ‘No Country for Old Men’ fame - tries to mate sex farce with a satire of a paranoid political thriller, with arch and ungainly results.
After getting some unenthusiastic reviews (including one in Daily Variety on Aug. 21), director Mathieu Kassovitz is seeking to distance himself from the film, which opens Friday — even though the version reviewed was international version, and Fox is not releasing the film overseas.
An Indian filmgoer reportedly rented out an entire cinema to disprove a director’s claim that his latest horror movie is so scary no one can watch it alone.
‘Tropic Thunder’ is a send-up of Hollywood, actors, acting, agents, directors, writers, rappers, trailers and egos, much enhanced by several cameo roles, the best of which I will not even mention. It’s the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh and rolls on to video.
The $90 million Ben Stiller sendup of Hollywood had a stellar Saturday, jumping 25% over its Friday level to gross $6.5 million. That propelled it past Sony’s female-skewing “The House Bunny,” which finished second at $15.1 million.
While download sites like Apple’s iTunes offer recent releases and scads of library titles, there’s a void when it comes to some of Hollywood’s greatest — “The Wizard of Oz” and “Schindler’s List” among them — and some of its top-earners. Disappointed fans can either buy the DVD or troll underground peer-to-peer networks.
These days, any independent seller hoping to land a distribution deal at a festival or market like Toronto in September realizes that only a few lucky winners will land a seven-figure minimum guarantee. Only the most commercial, accessible and Oscar-worthy Toronto offerings will be cherry-picked by the studios’ specialty divisions.
The 684-page report’s conclusions singled out advertising/marketing as well as movies as likely influences on youth smoking. With regard to films, the chief recommendation made in the report is that “anti-tobacco advertisements” should be included before feature films “to partially counter the impact of tobacco portrayals in movies.
Babylon A.D.–based on the book Babylon Babies by French author Maurice Georges Dantec–unfolds in the near future, in which a mercenary named Toorop (Diesel) is hired to deliver a young woman, Aurora (Thierry), from Eastern Europe to New York within six days. Aurora is no ordinary woman–her fate may determine the fate of the world–and assorted forces want her dead or captured.
Rumour has it that Warner Bros. decided to push back the release of ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ because of Daniel Radcliffe’s flesh-flashing in the Broadway production of Equus. As Fox News so eloquently puts it, “That’s not the image Warner Bros. wants associated with bespectacled Harry, who remains chaste and virginal.”