Ben Stiller doesn’t have to work the boob tube circuit.

The star of those “Focker” films as well as the “Night at the Museum” franchise is a pretty safe bet in box office circles. So why did he just sign a deal with HBO to direct, produce and star in a new Jewish family comedy alongside Alan Alda?

A cynic might say it’s a sign Stiller feels insecure over the weak box office receipts for his last film, “Tower Heist.” Even mega-stars can be as paranoid as screen newbies. Why else would Will Smith sign up for “Men in Black III” after his drama “Seven Pounds” gave him a rare flop?

For Stiller, the chance to oversee his own HBO comedy offers the kind of creative outlet he can’t get with movies. And that’s a sad thing to say about an industry obsessed with remakes, sequels and other too safe bets.

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For movie geeks, 1998 is still remembered as the year that Harvey Weinstein’s lobbying and schmoozing led to the underdog “Shakespeare in Love” beating “Saving Private Ryan.” In writing this series, I’ve realized how much Oscar snubs, wins, and losses affect the consensus perception of certain movies.

In other words, had Weinstein’s movie been snubbed altogether, I think people would remember it more fondly than they do. If I recall correctly, no one was complaining much that the movie was nominated, but the win immediately changed the perception of the movie.

I loved a lot of movies released in 1998, but only one of them was nominated for Best Picture. It’s a very tough year for me to pick a favorite. The nominees:

“Shakespeare in Love” – Only saw it once, and I liked it. Costume dramas really ain’t my thing, but costume comedies? Well, that’s…wait, I don’t like them much either. But I guess this one’s alright.

“Elizabeth” – See above. Never seen it.

“Life is Beautiful” – Roberto Benigni winning Best Actor for this remains one of the great whiffs in Academy history.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The invasion sequence alone remains worth the price of admission.

“The Thin Red Line” – For my money, this is a pretentious mess. I’ve got a buddy who says it’s his favorite movie. I say he’ s trying to seem smart. But what do I know? I’m the guy who would have nominated…

“There’s Something About Mary” - Stalker? Big time.

“The Big Lebowski” - Am I wrong? Am I wrong? No, you’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an assh*le.

“Out of Sight” - You don’t have an extra clip I can use, do you?

“Rushmore” - Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream I would have sons like this.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The Statue of Liberty is kaput. That’s disconcerting.

This is really an absolute squeaker. Why? Partially, it’s because I love all of these movies so much. But mostly, it’s because I’m stupid. (more…)

Sports reporters endure a litany of canned quotes from modern athletes:

“We’re just taking it one game at a time.”

“It’s a team sport,”

“There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

A similar script kicks in when actors are asked their thoughts on President Barack Obama’s first two-plus years in office. Check out “Tower Heist” star Ben Stiller regurgitating the playbook to CNN’s Piers Morgan this week:

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Sensei did very well on predictions last week, easily beating the other prediction sites again. Sensei also revealed a new film essay (involving Batman and Tom Cruise, no less). This week, we have another battle for the top spot. Ben Stiller teams with Eddie Murphy in “Tower Heist” in hopes of slowing down “Puss In Boots.” Also opening is the latest “Harold and Kumar,” which just hopes to save face.

This weekend’s predictions and revenue results go as follows:

1. Tower Heist ($28 million) – No film has its future connected to positive word of mouth more than this one. Film will need to receive high ratings from weekend audiences, otherwise, “Puss In Boots” will win. Currently critical reviews are favorable but overall buzz on “Tower” feels right around where “Tropic Thunder” opened.

2. Puss In Boots ($25 million) - The film will benefit greatly from family audiences who didn’t see it Halloween weekend. Those audiences are now free of holiday obligations and will bring very healthy numbers to “Boots.” Look for a small drop and even another weekend win if “Tower Heist” falters. (more…)

You can call back the search parties; the funny Eddie Murphy has been found and is alive, well and part of the crack ensemble comedy “Tower Heist.”

No fat suits, kiddie co-stars or superfluous sequels. Just Murphy being Murphy – fast talking, lightning fast and utterly captivating.

But Murphy’s renaissance isn’t all that’s right with “Tower Heist.” Much maligned director Brett Ratner (the “Rush Hour” trilogy) squeezes everything out of his cast to make this a rare treat – a mainstream action comedy that doesn’t insult the audience.

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Ben Stiller stars as Josh Kovacs, a dedicated hotel manager who knows precisely how to make every guest happy. He’s especially clued into the building’s resident millionaire, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). The two play chess via their computers, and Josh makes it his business to see that all of Arthur’s material needs are met.

Arthur insists he’s still just a kid from Astoria, even if he swims in a rooftop pool every evening. It’s a nice pose, one that has the hotel workers fooled … for a while.

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Politico:

The video stars Kevin Spacey, Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Kristen Wiig, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as part of the foundation’s celebrity division, pumping out ideas like not breathing to save the environment. There’s even a cameo from Bubba at the end.

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Hollywood, hear our plea:  Could you make some mainstream movies that don’t suck?  There’s nothing worse than a Christmas season where going to the movies seems about as appealing as sharing a straw with Lindsay Lohan.

Throw us a bone – how about more than just one or two flicks a year not targeted to the demographic that thinks Lady Gaga is a boundary-pushing icon of limitless creative vision?  Maybe a couple that are not focused on shiny supernatural creatures who chat about their feelings and stare longingly into the eyes of dead-eyed starlets acting as the surrogate for the millions of lonely shut-ins who adore them?  Just a few films not aimed squarely at creepy man-children dwelling in their moms’ Kleenex-strewn basements wishing they too could winch their bloated tushes into tights and fight crime just like their cinematic heroes.

How about more than just a handful of movies for men and women who need more than five hands to count out their age, who breathe through their noses, who have lives?  I have some dough – well, at least until the President and his fellow travelers declare me rich too – and I’d like to take my hot wife out once in a while to see a movie.  I used to go a lot, a few times a month.  But it seemed that five years ago there were always at least a few movies that piqued my interest.  Perhaps it’s me – perhaps I’m too demanding, what with my stubborn insistence on interesting stories told in a coherent manner by competent actors.  Or perhaps it’s just that the recent crop of movies is exceptionally crappy.

Let’s address the curmudgeon question here and now – yes, I have occasionally turned my hose on those damn kids when they messed up my lawn, but hobbies aside, the fact is that Hollywood is both leaving money on the table and sacrificing what little artistic credibility it has left by ignoring the normal adult demographic.  It appears that Hollywood has simply thrown in the towel and decided to focus on feeding formulaic moron fodder to a waiting cohort of slack-jawed ninnies eager for the next story about a magical robot or a superhero with issues. (more…)

When I first saw the trailer for Ben Stiller’s new film “Greenberg,” I hoped for the best. With the recent Oscar win for Sandra Bullock, an actress who clearly stepped out of her comfort zone to play the lead role in “The Blind Side,” I was hoping that Ben Stiller, an actor known for his successful comedies, could do the same. Unfortunately, his new film “Greenberg” is a solid disappointment that ultimately fails in a genre that it could have succeeded in with a better script and more interesting characters.

Stiller plays Roger Greenberg, a recent mental hospital patient. While his brother and family take a vacation to Vietnam, Greenberg lives in their California home to care for the dog. While there, Greenberg connects with an old band-mate who has since grown up and now has a wife and a child. As the story progresses, Greenberg also begins to form a relationship with the personal assistant who works for his brother’s family.

During his stay, the audience is introduced to Mr. Greenberg and all of his quirks and eccentricities. One of the first things we learn about him is his affinity for writing letters of complaints to companies. Greenberg also seems to be a desperate loner looking for direction in life. Years before, he had a chance for success in a band and now that missed opportunity is in his rear-view mirror as he continues to struggle with his own future. In one scene, he talks about going back to school for another degree but that would take too long due to his propensity for procrastination. (more…)

The payoff for sitting through a dozen craptacular releases is that one movie where you actually say, “Damn, that was worth the $11.50 and the kidney I spent to see it.”  As a modern moviegoer, you must be an eternal optimist.  You must hope against hope that the trailer you liked didn’t contain every single good scene and funny joke in the movie, and that the reviewer who raved isn’t covering up some pinko agenda that’ll make you choke out on your Goobers. 

You have to believe that out there somewhere is an action movie director who knows what a tripod is.  That there is a young lead actor who has never starred in a CW television series about beautiful but sensitive teenage male models with supernatural powers.  That there is a comedy screenwriter who can imagine a “funny” situation not involving a bodily fluid.  That Michael Cera will one day play a different character.

In that spirit, a spirit of Pollyannaish hope in the face of overwhelming evidence indicating that Hollywood’s product will almost certainly continue to demonstrate that evolution is a two-way street, I present ten movies that are coming within the next six months that might actually be good – or at least not make me throw things at the screen and slap around the ushers. (more…)

John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard:

“[T]he system around which the motion-picture business has oriented itself almost since its creation in the early years of the last century–the star system, which it largely invented–has finally reached its end.”

“The eight most successful movies over the course of the year’s first eight months have collectively grossed $2.7 billion, up from $2.3 billion for the entirety of 2008. And what is most striking about these eight films is that not a single one of them, not a single one, features an unmistakable star. Three of them are cartoons (Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Monsters vs. Aliens). Three are sequels whose top-line talents are incidental to their success (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sixth Harry Potter, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Two feature relative nobodies (Star Trek and The Hangover). The first traditional star appears in the ninth-place film, which is itself a high-concept sequel in which the star mostly stands around (Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian with Ben Stiller). It’s not until tenth place that a classic vehicle hits the list, Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal. And after that you have to jump down to 15th place to find Tom Hanks in Angels and Demons. Will Ferrell’s movie tanked. Julia Roberts laid an egg. Adam Sandler couldn’t sell a ticket. Johnny Depp disappointed. Denzel Washington and John Travolta bombed together. Instead, the movies whose successes depended on their strong leading performances were the ones featuring the 57-year-old Irishman Liam Neeson (Taken, $145 million) and the out-of-work TV comedian Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop, $146 million).
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The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)

If the first “Night at the Museum” was weighed down with a cookie-cutter plot involving the stale idea of a single dad desperate to redeem himself in his son’s eyes, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” has no weight whatsoever thanks to a flat story loaded with monstrous plot holes and a cast of dull, one-dimensional characters.

There’s also only one laugh — one — and all the special effects in the world simply can’t make up for a single chuckle over 105 very long minutes. The only good news is that Ben Stiller appeared to be even more bored than I was.

If you remember, Larry Daley (Stiller) was once a night guard at the Museum of Natural History in New York City where after the sun went down, thanks to ancient artifact, the exhibits all came to life. Mayhem ensued, adventure was had and lifelong friendships were formed.

A few years have passed (between films and for our characters) and today Larry has managed to tinker his way into fortune and some fame as a highly successful entrepreneur hawking inventions, like his glow-in-the-dark flashlight (so you can find it when the power goes out, duh), on infomercials.   (more…)

He is a man with a gun. He is a killer, a slayer. Patient and gentle as he is, he is a slayer. Self-effacing, self-forgetting, still he is a killer. . . All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. — D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (1923)

Every once in awhile an action film comes along that revives. That proves that — no matter how strong the political correctness of an age, no matter how pale and pathetic its notions of masculinity, no matter how much Ritalin is force-fed to little boys, no matter how many toy guns, xylophone mallets, and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots get banned from stores and playgrounds — there are certain aspects of the male soul that are inviolate, and certain primal yearnings that are evergreen. Taken (2008) is one of those films, and its release last week on DVD and Blu-ray should be heralded by lovers of all things red-blooded, hairy-chested, and morally sound.

When this movie appeared in the doldrums of Hollywood’s off-season, it was expected to die a quick death in a marketplace filled with audiences either too sophisticated or too sophomoric to respond. Modern theatergoers, the theory goes, increasingly want their “heroes” to be either brooding Abercrombie & Fitch nymphets like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, feckless stumblebums like Ben Stiller and Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s Kevin James, quirky class cut-ups like Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp, or silly video-game tough guys like Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. When an actor does put some honest testosterone in his performance — Daniel Craig in Munich (2005), Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008) — it’s inevitably to make a much larger point about violence breeding only more violence, all of it equally reprehensible, a product of way too many pesky males wreaking havoc in primitive bursts of knuckle-dragging temper. (more…)

In my Final Weekend Tracking column posted on Wednesday, I predicted that X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) would reach $92M on opening weekend, despite soft reviews (now only 38% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). My first fearless forecast of the 2009 summer blockbuster season appears to be close to dead-on (missed by only 5%).

Star-turned-producer Hugh Jackman has scored his second-biggest opening ever and, easily, his biggest as a solo star. Wolverine has mauled the competition with a massive $34.75M opening day (including $5M or so in Thursday midnight sales). That could translate to a 3-day of $86.8M, getting Hollywood’s most lucrative season off to a spectacular start.

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The great thing about a sequel is that it has a built-in audience. The problem with sequels is that, as the numbers after the title go up, so does the production budget. Very hard to know for sure, but sources have told me that the production budget for X-Men was in the $75M range. X-2: X-Men United may have had a budget of about $110M, while the cost of X-Men: The Last Stand was, in all likelihood, as much as $210M. Why doesn’t it make sense to just churn out X-Men 4?

Look at these numbers.

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Recording superstar Beyonce Knowles is building a bankable resume for herself as an actress with Sony Screen Gems’ Obsessed as the latest title burnishing her resume. Co-starring the excellent Idris Elba (The Wire), this low budget, PG-13 genre pic has scored a far-above-expectations $11M on Friday, and it will likely reach $27.5M for the weekend. That is the best opening yet for the former Destiny’s Child lead vocalist as an above-the-title star, topping 2003’s The Fighting Temptations and Cadillac Records from late 2008.

Beyonce does battle with the sexy Ali Larter (HEROES) in OBSESSED

OPENINGS FOR BEYONCE MOVIES
1. Austin Powers: Goldmember – $70.3M opening
2. Obsessed – $27.5M opening (projected)
3. Pink Panther (2006) – $20.2M opening
4. Dreamgirls – $14.1M wide break (after a platform start)
5. The Fighting Temptations – $11.7M opening
6. Cadillac Records – $3.4M opening

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The final weekend of April has never been Hollywood’s favorite release date. In fact, it is generally considered to be among the worst release dates on the calendar. Whatever opens on the final weekend of April gets absolutely crushed by the official start of the summer blockbuster season on the first weekend of May.

The 4 new wide releases and 1 major specialty release set to debut this weekend will face an onslaught of mega-hits over the next month. How can Obsessed (Sony), Earth (Disney), The Soloist, (Dreamworks/Paramount), Fighting (Rogue) and The Informers (Senator) possibly find an audience with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros) arriving next weekend followed by, in successive weeks, Star Trek (Paramount), Angels & Demons (Sony), the combo of Night at the Museum 2 (Fox) and Terminator: Salvation (Fox) and Disney/Pixar’s Up?

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If you’re wondering if I was about to opine on the craft of gut-twisting horror stories, you’d only be half right. I’m actually talking about real life here. As many of you may know from my earlier posts, I first flame-throwered onto the scene here at Big Hollywood about a month ago, on the occasion of Team Oscar’s could-not-be-more-ill-advised taking off for the unfriendly skies of Islamist Iran.

I knew they were going to get punked! They were going to Punkedville! In fact, I was so sure of it, I was the one who broke the story in the US off the French wires to Drudge and Nikki Finke.  One Hollywood Jihadi PR roadside bomb detonated. War Is Hell.

Look at their trip from my POV. I remember the whole balls-to-the-wall anti-Apartheid campaign from the mid-eighties. ‘I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City,’ remember? By the way, wasn’t Little Stevie great in that video? Love him! Point being, if the racist South African apartheid regime was unworthy of cultural exchange, why was the gay-hanging, women-stoning, child-executing, blogger-killing, hostage-taking fascist regime in Iran worthy of a gold-plated Academy PR kiss? (more…)

Good news for the Motion Picture Academy. Despite the fact that the five Best Picture nominees had combined to gross less than $300M domestic by showtime, Oscar ratings were up considerably from last year’s all-time low. Early numbers show that the ABC telecast scored a 27 share, surging by 11% overall and by over 14% with TV’s “money demo” 18-49s. Compare that to last year when the show was down 25% in households from 2007 and down 30% among 18-49s.

The credit should go to producers Lawrence Mark and Bill Condon, although I can see why the streamlined show is a bit of a Rorschach test for viewers. If you love movies, and especially actors, last night’s show was respectful and enlightening. If you are inclined to dislike awards shows and actors, then the telecast would be pretty dreary.

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On Sunday, the Academy Awards will be handed out at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and there are some clear favorites. Slumdog Millionaire, the feel-good Danny Boyle Mumbai opus made for just $14M, is a heavy favorite to win Best Picture. It’s hard to imagine Slumdog missing out on Hollywood’s biggest prize, having won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award and just about everything in between.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

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