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do the math

$10 Mil Per Laugh Makes Comedy A Safe Hollywood Bet

Did the winter movie season—with its prestigious yet completely depressing crop of cattle-bolt murderers, paralyzed wink-authors, Alzheimer's sufferers, and the like—get you down? Fear not: As the NY Times reports, a massive crop of Hollywood comedies are coming down the pike. Didn't care for the potty-mouthed Russian Roulette humor of Semi-Pro? No matter, as every taste will be accounted for in The Great Comedy Rush of 2008: Apatowian sex farce, period screwball, and the wacky worlds of surrogate pregnancy and Mossad have all been covered. To predict how they fare, we might look to the past—in 1988, the Times notes, a recent writers strike and weakening domestic economy provided the backdrop to four comedies (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Coming to America, Big, and Crocodile Dundee II) that dominated that summer's box office. But as it turns out, there's a far simpler method to determine how much your dumb comedy is going to rake in:

Thomas Pollock, a partner in the Montecito Picture Company, whose "Old School" helped put Mr. Ferrell on the fast track five years ago, pointed out that heavily tested, carefully tuned comedies were on the whole wonderfully predictable.
More »

12:14 PM on Thu Mar 6 2008
By Seth
1,929 views, 3 comments

Latest by Miss d: Oh Thomas... you'd like to think it that easy... more »

culture

Having Sex With Rosie O'Donnell Deemed Worse Than With A Crash Victim

Just in time for Valentine's day, Maxim Online brings us The Worst Love Scenes. "Worst" in this instance can mean anything from a lack of chemistry (as demonstrated by Jennifer Lopez's topping of a submissive, semi-comatose Ben Affleck in Gigli) to utter nausea-inducement (Rosie O'Donell's Nip/Tuck scene walks away with first place). But for our money, nothing ever quite comes close to approaching the too-perfect wrongness of the runner-up, the infamous James Spader-Rosanna Arquette scar fucking scene from David Cronenberg's Crash, where a pair of black fishnets and some staple sutures are all that stands in the way of the couple's ultimate expression of their extra-orificial passion. More »

10:33 AM on Wed Feb 7 2007
By Seth
4,229 views, 5 comments

Latest by MrPeepers: I just wondered how many times Donald Trump called in to vote for Rosie.... more »

jim carrey

Paramount Hires Jim Carrey Pal To Save 'Ripley'

Jim Carrey's recent preemptive dumping of A Little Game Without Consequence had us crippled with worry that we might never again see the unemployed megastar's name on the marquee of our local theater, but today's Variety allays those admittedly hysterical fears that a couple of big-budget plug-pullings might drive the actor into an early retirement: Carrey will work again! Probably, in late 2008! As Paramount promised at the time it decided to put Ripley's Believe It Or Not on a shelf until it could figure out how much money they wanted to spend on an already expensive movie that could spiral out of financial control each time director Tim Burton decided to indulge one of the actor's requests to "try that take again, but this time, can I do it while riding on the shoulders of a twenty-foot-tall, solid gold robot? I really think that's what my performance needs here," it's revived the project, adding a writer amenable to Carrey's helpful creative input: More »

12:47 PM on Mon Dec 18 2006
By Mark
547 views, Comment

movies

Annals Of Insane Movie Pitches: 'Possum Trot Cloggers'

Armed with nothing more than a well-worn pair of Stevens Stompers, a scrappy team of background dancers, and a crazy dream that her romantic comedy set against the backdrop of competitive clogging might one day find its way onto the big screen, writer/actress Julia Fowler took to the roof of a local parking structure, where she would perform perhaps the first clog-pitch in Hollywood history. THR reminds us once again about why we love this town so much: More »

11:09 AM on Wed Dec 13 2006
By Mark
569 views, 14 comments

Latest by moviegal: thought New Line (aka 'will we ever open another movie to more than 5 mil ever again??) had it... more »

warner bros

Warner Bros.: Hey, Why Is No One Paying Attention To Our Cheaper Flops?

Today's NY Times' looks at the strategy that Warner Bros. executives are embracing going forward from the bomb-strewn summer (Superman Returns, Lady in the Water, The Ant Bully, and, of course, Poseidon) that's left the studio in sixth place at the box office this year: tucking their heads between their knees and hoping that one of their "smaller" movies (like, say, that little Scorsese flick) performs above expectations, buying them enough job security to make it to next year's guaranteed blockbuster, Harry Potter. In the story, shellshocked-but-resolute WB muckity-mucks Jeff Robinov and Alan Horn lament that people have harped on their higher-profile disasters, while ignoring all the money they've proudly lost on lower-budgeted projects: More »

11:59 AM on Mon Oct 9 2006
By Mark
227 views, 1 comment

Latest by Her Royal Empress Dr. Bufflekins III, Esq.: Nothing says there's nothing left to lose quite like detailing the failures. more »

movies

Tired, Unimaginative Grandparents Responsible For Animation Glut

By our count, the major Hollywood studios have released 107 films featuring computer-animated, talking animals since January of this year, a numbing procession of disappointing, nearly indistinguishable offerings like The Wild, The Ant Bully, Barnyard, A Prairie Home Companion, Over the Hedge, Akeelah and the Bee, and Garfield: Lasagna Inspector that's clogged the multiplex and mostly failed to capture the imaginations of children accustomed to being mindlessly entertained by wisecracking CGI critters. Today's NY Times takes a look at the animation glut currently reaching critical mass, which threatens to confuse—and worse, bore—their core audience, but which for the time being is still producing product that achieves its primary goal: giving grandparents a way to keep this generation of ADHD-addled kids quiet in between Ritalin doses: More »

10:07 AM on Tue Oct 3 2006
By Mark
264 views, 12 comments

Latest by Transuranic: Snarky toaster, nothing - how about a musical with a charming widdle candlestick! Wait until even Pixar has its talent diluted and they're forced into a remake of "Beauty and the Beast: Housekeeping Years" (or somesuch straight-to-download dreck) more »

movies

Theatre Owner Takes Two Week Vacation From Hollywood Crap

Rather than submit to a force-feeding of mindless he-witch fare or the Jackass Collective's latest foray into experimental reverse-peristalsis- and-blunt-force-genital-trauma cinema, an angry Illinois theater owner decided to issue the studios the ultimate symbolic "fuck you" (or at least the ultimate symbolic "fuck you" available to someone with just two movie screens): shutting down for two weeks to protest the "drivel" Hollywood is currently offering. Reports the LAT: More »

3:01 PM on Fri Sep 29 2006
By Mark
160 views, 6 comments

movies

Joe Eszterhas Hoping To Make 'Showgirls'' God-Awfulness Work For Him

Joe Eszterhas—who at the peak of his powers in the 1990s single-handedly overturned the image of the meek Hollywood scribe by earning millions for his uncompromising tales of beaver-flashing, psychosexual intrigue—has finally addressed the film that many finger as his undoing. Showgirls was meant to be a titillating, sensational look at the cutthroat world of Las Vegas entertainment; instead, it ended up being one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies of all time, thanks in no small part to Eszterhas' powerful dramatic choices, such as the scene in which Nomi and Cristal discover they are united by their Doggy Chow-eating pasts. According to New York magazine, however, Eszterhas claims to have been in on the joke all along: More »

5:43 PM on Tue Sep 19 2006
By Seth
295 views, 11 comments

Latest by DirtyPillows: I wonder what the auditions will be like. Does one have to reinact the pool scene on Joe's couch, improvising with a bottle of water? more »

movies

The Only Movie Trailer Mash-Up You'll Ever Need


The Mother of All Trailers is like spending two and a half minutes inside a studio executive's wet dream, in which his subconscious mind delivers up a genre-crossing, absurdly star-studded cinematic product that no test audience, no matter how fickle, could possibly resist. Of course, the production costs would probably stretch into the ten figures, but that's a problem one can safely ignore while still in the throes of REM sleep, at least until a nocturnal climax following the trailer's final frame cruelly releases him into a waking nightmare of budget overruns. More »

11:29 AM on Wed Sep 13 2006
By Mark
258 views, 6 comments

Latest by Mo!: The record scratches are a nice touch. Hopefully trialers will stop having them now that they have been so mercilessly mocked in this YouTube. more »

spider-man

'Spider-Man 3' Reshoots To Ensure Audiences Choke On Its Action

Warner Bros. learned the hard way this summer that when audiences line up to see a movie called Superman Returns, what they expect to see is a super man returning to do super things, not a touchy-feely supermeditation on a single mom's efforts to balance work and family. Even WB studio head Alan Horn would later admit, "We should have had perhaps a little more action to satisfy the young male crowd." The Spider-Man franchise has had better success in that department, but the third installment is leaving nothing to chance: After piling on multiple love interests and villains, James Franco recently revealed to MTV News that director Sam Raimi is bringing back the cast for reshoots: More »

5:06 PM on Tue Aug 22 2006
By Seth
321 views, 7 comments

Latest by JohnKong: That's what I heard. more »

snakes on a plane

Critics On A 'Snakes On A Plane': A Review Round-Up

As with any self-respecting bad movie, there were no advance press screenings of Snakes on a Plane, so we've had to wait until today to read the reviews. Rotten Tomatoes currently gives it a respectable Tomatometer score of 65%—you wouldn't want any B-horror flick clocking any higher—with a predictable lack of consensus over whether it's so [pick one from column A: good/bad/overhyped] it's [bad/good/overrated]. Here's a round-up of what some of them are saying—and because we are dealing in the always confusing "qualities of badness," we'll also clearly denote whether the reviewer was trying to be positive or negative with their put-downs in each instance: More »

5:15 PM on Fri Aug 18 2006
By Seth
362 views, 5 comments

Latest by drewheyman: "scrawled in white powder on a glass table, or perhaps" doesn't sound that negative to me, sounds like a good time was had by all. unless the "white powder" was actually stipper talcum. more »

movies

Do A Line With Pee-wee!


Thanks to LAist for kickstarting the weekend early with this YouTube find, Everything I Know About Drugs I Learned From Hollywood. It's a surprisingly well-curated document on the subject (despite containing a dearth of clips from the George Segal/Stockard Channing MOW classic, Not My Kid). And not that we endorse this kind of thing, but we can't help but feel LA Kings games would be a lot more intriguing if the Staples Center could get their hands on one of those coke-dispensing Zamblowni machines. More »

7:09 PM on Thu Aug 17 2006
By Seth
119 views, 1 comment

Latest by Procrastinator, Esq.: Punky Brewster just made my day. ("Nose candy...?") more »

culture

Hollywood Tries To Understand The Whippit-Addled Teen Brain

In the second installment on its series on Hollywood's desperate attempts to recapture the attention of teens who are abandoning the multiplex in favor of simultaneous sessions of text messaging, ringtone downloading, and snorting of crushed Ritalin, the LAT relates a moment of clarity achieved by David Gale of MTV Films while observing one of these beautiful, demographically desirable creatures in temporary captivity: More »

11:53 AM on Tue Aug 8 2006
By Mark
191 views, 2 comments

heath ledger

Heath Ledger Returns To Queer Cinema With Lipstick-Wearing Role

The rumors swirling around Comic-Con last week that Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker in The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel, were confirmed today by THR. The choice is sure to send ripples of controversy throughout the highly factious fanboy community, who'll debate endlessly whether or not the role should have been awarded to an actor most famous for starring in Brokeback Mountain. Their concern wouldn't be that he'd make the supervillain too effete, mind you, but rather that the guy who played Ennis del Mar wasn't capable of going nearly gay enough with the role: Requiring a face full of makeup, a Manic Panic Green Envy dye-job, and the need to punctuate every statement with a round of ear-piercing shriek-laughter, the Joker is one part that requires an actor to really embrace his inner drag queen. More »

11:13 AM on Tue Aug 1 2006
By Seth
707 views, 6 comments

Latest by el smrtmnky: i'd like to see vincent d'onofrio as the penguin. add a slightly darker take. as for heath as joker, it's inspired. if indeed they're going the dark knight route, don't expect the brightly colored weirdo w/the dark edge that nicholson more »

culture

Amazon.com Makes Curating Your 'Shot In The Genitals' Film Festival Easy

While browsing for the DVD of the Charles Bronson/Lee Marvin fugitive fur-trapper classic Death Hunt on Amazon.com, Austin360.com's Dave Thomas discovered a feature he hadn't noticed before*: User submitted plot keyword tags, ranging from the extremely broad (clicking "Snow" brings you to 16 pages of wintry titles, including The Empire Strikes Back and, predictably, White Christmas) to the highly specific ("Shot In The Eye" conveniently aggregates movies, such as Saving Private Ryan and The Godfather, that feature a well-placed bullet in the peeper, though a separate tag exists for "Shot In The Genitals"). The classification system is highly useful, even if it tends to tread into the realm of obsessive excess: V for Vendetta, for example, gets 103 tags, and while it's helpful to remember that Fight Club and The Seven Samurai also feature someone having their head shaved, we think we were fine without having access to a list of titles that also make prominent use of a toilet. More »

11:28 AM on Thu Jul 27 2006
By Seth
115 views, Comment

trade round-up

Trade Round-Up: Meryl Streep Helps Save The Summer

A news-light trade round-up for the holiday weekend:
· As we mentioned in this morning's B.O. report, the real superhero at the movies this weekend was Meryl Streep's Ultra-Bitchwoman, with audiences helpless to her soul-freezing inferiority-rays. [Variety]
· A boycott of Disney by theater owners in Spain has been lifted, finally allowing Spanish audiences to see Cars, and wonder for themselves exactly how automotive procreation works during the endless Owen Wilson-Bonnie Hunt flirtation scenes. [Variety]
· Roger Ebert is in stable condition after emergency, cancer-related surgery. [THR]
· CBS wins a slow Sunday with repeats of Cold Case and 60 Minutes, or as they refer to it internally, "walking dead night." [THR]

2:39 PM on Mon Jul 3 2006
By Seth
212 views, Comment

matt damon

Matt Damon Could Get Chance To Bed Green-Skinned, Nymphomaniac Beauties In 'Star Trek' Prequel

Having turned out a handsome, if not record-shattering, third chapter to Paramount's Mission: Impossible series, J.J. Abrams has now been entrusted to reinvigorate one of the studio's most enduring franchises: Star Trek. the Insider's Marc Malkin reports that for his prequel vision, Abrams wants none other than Matt Damon to step in as a youthful, pre-toupeed Captain Kirk: More »

1:11 PM on Wed Jun 21 2006
By Seth
3,065 views, 4 comments

vince vaughn

UPDATE: Peter Billingsley's Guide To Beating The Child Star Odds

The LAT approached Peter Billingsley—the irrepressible, Red Ryder BB Gun-coveting scamp Ralphie from A Christmas Story—to find out how he managed to bypass the dark paths trod by so many of his young actor peers, and instead carve out for himself a successful career as a movie producer. Yes, in just five easy steps, you too can circumvent an adulthood doomed to crystal meth-fueled dry cleaner hold-ups, and achieve your former child star potential: More »

5:00 PM on Thu Jun 15 2006
By Seth
946 views, 1 comment

Latest by Gallant Patsy: Gee, I wonder if Ralphie could help Screech? more »

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