Two Months Out: Part Two

By BOP Staff

April 23, 2009

He loves the part when Darth Vader gets away in Empire Strikes Back.

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Kim Hollis: I'm pretty much going to echo what other people here have said. I'm one of Judd Apatow's biggest proponents and usually will follow him to anything he has a hand in. I very much like Jack Black, and think his Nacho Libre moments (those are bad) have been mostly overshadowed by his better work in things like School of Rock, Shallow Hal, High Fidelity and Anchorman (those are good). I dig Michael Cera but agree that his work has been one-note thus far. And Harold Ramis has directed two of my favorite movies ever in Caddyshack and Groundhog Day, and other movies that I really, really enjoy in Vacation and The Ice Harvest.

So why is it that nothing about Year One works for me? It looks awful. Awful on the level of that Cavemen comedy series that ABC tried to give a shot. Awful on the level of Caveman, the Ringo Starr movie that relied on "ca-ca" as its running gag. I'm sensing a theme, here. I'm just not sure people are ready to see their "ancestors" at their worst, and comedy based on this notion is a tough, tough sell. I think Year One is going to bomb and bomb big.




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David Mumpower: A lot of you are choosing to focus on Judd Apatow for his role as a producer, but let's be honest here. His stamp of approval has reached Krusty-brand products levels of meaninglessness. Writer/director/Ghostbuster Harold Ramis should be the focus here. He's a tough one to figure. If we exclude the early days of his directorial career, taking Caddyshack and Vacation out of the equation, his post-1990 work includes a masterpiece in Groundhog Day and a $100 million winner in Analyze This. Otherwise, it's...not so good. Analyze That was a dismal successor that earned about 30% of what the original made. He made Multiplicity, a $20 million loser, he drove Al Franken off to the Senate with Stuart Saves His Family, which still hasn't earned a million to this day, and he did okay with the Bedazzled remake, a low budget $38 million performer. His last film, The Ice Harvest, was quite entertaining but it was completely ignored at the box office with a $9.0 million tally. Ramis' sense of humor lines up with my own, but it only seems line up with the public zeitgeist every eight years or so. Somehow, I don't think Year One is going to be that film, either, and I'm not just saying that because I've seen the trailer. I'm not saying this will be a bomb since I never rule out dumb comedies in the post-Paul Blart movie realm. I just don't see the appeal here, though. Mel Brooks already did this shtick in History of the World Part One. This strikes me as a bad idea that will make more money than it should.

If they don't drive over shanties in the Transformers sequel, we don't know who Michael Bay is anymore.

Kim Hollis: What are your thoughts and expectations for the box office performance of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?


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