Josh’s Score: 7/10

Ever think that you should be doing much more with your life than you monotonous daily routines?  Well, Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) does.  After seeing him deal with his annoying boss, cheating girlfriend, and horrible “best friend”, we start to understand that Wesley should be doing something different with his life.  Luckily, faster than you can say Brad Pitt, Fox (Angelina Jolie) shows up to inform Wesly that he needs to come work for a secrete society of assassins known as The Fraternity, who is lead by Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

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Ethan’s Score : 6.5/10  

There have always been different kinds of comedies. There are the ones churned out by studios every summer that are reasonably funny, but nothing special. And then there are the ones that truly show a unique voice and blow us away. Get Smart falls into the former category. But I’m not saying it doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. For the most part, it’s pretty solid.

What makes this an enjoyable movie is the cast. Particularly Steve Carrell. His excellent comic timing, improvisational skills and energy gives this film such a boost. Anne Hathaway is …..(drool)….did I just lose myself there? She has good chemistry with Carrell. And Alan Arkin and Dwayne Johnson are quite funny too.

I liked that the film tried to have an actual threatening villain and plot with high stakes. But it’s not helped by bland direction and some spotty editing. A better visual style would have helped this film a lot. But really, it’s an enjoyable movie. Just don’t go in with super high expectations.

I’ve been pondering about this over the last few days.  What can we do to get more readers? I mean, we love every single one of you reading this right now. But still, how can we get even more? How can we get more attention? I would love suggestions. I will never rest until I can get everyone on this site press passes to Comic-Con. But we need your help.

One of the most revolutionary figures in the history of special effects and make-up. His groundbreaking work on The Terminator, Aliens, Jurassic Park and many other films blew me away growing up. If you’ve read his book (which I received for Christmas ‘06) then you will know that he was not only a genius of film, but a warm-hearted and loving man. He will be greatly missed.

Big is a film that surprised audiences when it premiered 20 years ago and, even today, the movie takes you off guard in unexpected ways.
 
In 1988, Big was opening at the tail end of a movie year that saw three other films with “body-swapping” gimmicks: Like Father, Like Son (a dreadful farce with Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore hamming it up), 18 Again! (with George Burns and Charlie Schlatter of tv’s Ferris Bueller), and Vice Versa (a not-bad comedy with Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold giving good performances). Only Like Father, Like Son was a hit (a year later, Dream a Little Dream, with Jason Robards swapping souls with Corey Feldman, saw a mercifully brief run in theaters). The problem with these witless concoctions is they gave older actors an excuse to broadly impersonate a clueless child and young actors an opportunity to broadly mimic adult authority figures. The original Freaky Friday did this better 10 years earlier and all of the four previously mentioned films didn’t look beyond the surface of its gimmick.
 

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We’ve had a couple of commercial breaks, and here are our reactions.

 

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The promsing but shaky career of actor Brad Renfro came to a sad end on Wednesday. While the official cause of death has not been released at this time, there were rumors of substance abuse and Renfro had run-ins with the law in the past. It is unfortunate that scandal sheet tales of Renfro began to overshadow his film career at times, as, in the right role, he was a remarkable actor with a once red-hot career.
 
Director Joel Schumacher hand-picked Renfro to star in the demanding lead role of “The Client”, which marked Renfro’s acting debut. The film was a box office hit and, while Susan Sarandon gained an Oscar-nomination for her performance in the film, it was Renfro’s breakthrough work that earned the most attention. His intense, heartfelt performance was not only the film’s center but he held his own against Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones and Mary-Louise Parker.
 
His following choices would prove interesting, if not always succesful. He followed “The Client” with “The Cure”, a bold but little seen film about the friendship between two young men, one of whom is dying of AIDS (Joseph Mozello of “Jurassic Park” co-starred with Renfro). He then played Huck Finn opposette then-hot Jonathan Taylor Thomas in “Tom and Huck”, a forgetable Disney film that wasn’t even as good as the Elijah Wood-starring “The Adventures of Huck Finn” from two years prior. Renfro then appeared in “Sleepers”, a controversial, highly touted courtroom drama. Although it was a supporting role, Renfro co-starred one of the best ensemble casts of 1996 (alongside Dustin Hoffman, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Minnie Driver, Jason Patric and Kevin Bacon, to name just a few) certainly a good career move. He then starred opposite Bacon in “Telling Lies in America”, but his work was overshadowed by Bacon’s more flambuoyant performance, and that it was written by Joe Eszterhas, the much-hated screenwriter who wrote “Showgirls” and “Jade” the same year.
 
Renfro then appeared in Bryan Singer’s coal-black adaptation of Stephen King’s edgy short story, “Apt Pupil”. Renfro’s commanding performance as a corruptable teen seduced by the evils of Nazism, is as dark and uncompromised as the film itself, though most of the attention went to his co-star, Ian Mckellan, who gave a terrifying performance as the Nazi in hiding. The film, a tough sell, didn’t find it’s audience until later, when audiences re-discovered it after Singer became a household name.
 
Renfro resurfaced three years later with well-regarded performances in Larry Clark’s controversial “Bully” and Terry Zwigoof’s “Ghost World”. The former showcased Renfro’s “rougher side” to great effect, while the latter had Renfro excelling at quirky character comedy. He starred in “Deuces Wild” the following year, a period gang drama that co-starred Stephen Dorff and Matt Dillon. The film had the misfortune of opening against “Star Wars Episode II” and quickly vanished. Since then, Renfro popped up in films that either went straight to video (like the Jean Malone-starring “American Girl”) or passed quickly through theaters (like the intriguing “The Jacket”, with Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley). He was recently filming “The Informers”, adapted from the edgy novel by Brett Easton Ellis. The project co-starred Winona Ryder, Billy Bob Thornton and Brandon Routh and was just the edgy, return-to-form vehicle that could have brought Renfro back into the spotlight. Whether his scenes were finished, need to be re-shot, or cut from the finished film remains to be seen.
 
Renfro had the ability to convey a world weariness and had a charisma that was well beyond his years and his best performances (in “The Client”, “Apt Pupil” and “Ghost World”) amply display his versatility and hold on audiences. He was 25 when he died. He will certainly be missed.

Yes, I’m doing this mostly to play with the new plugin I installed to see what all it will do.  Still, this is the second movie of the year that I really want to see and the first that I absolutely will not miss.  This trailer really makes it look like the movie keeps the sense of sweet innocence that is found in previous Gondry films like Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep.

Holy Crap!  Another episode only three days after the last one!  That’s right, kids.  We’re finally getting back on track.  Thanks to those asking about the show.  Real life just got in the way again.  In honor of I Am Legend coming out this week, we talk about the good, the bad, and the sucky of vampire movies we’ve seen (and ones we haven’t, but still needed to mention). 

Editorial Note:  As one point of contention, Dave erroneously attributed Flesh For Frankenstein and Blood For Dracula to Andy Warhol.  He deeply regrets this error as they were both made by Paul Morrissey, and he should know better

 

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This week we talk about movies that actually should be made, and Dave makes a startling admission about Children of Men.  Hit the jump for show notes and news links.

 

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