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4 articles from 2008

19 June 2008 10:37 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Mike Myers's The Love Guru , which is being released on Friday, is receiving so many blistering early reviews that Los Angeles Times writer Tom O'Neil, who tracks films up for major awards in his column "Gold Derby," is predicting that the film may be a shoo-in for the Razzie for worst film of the year. For example, Moira Macdonald in the Seattle Times calls it "preadolescent humor with a few sitars thrown in." But Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter observes that Guru will have competition for the worst-film title from Get Smart, which also opens on Friday. Honeycutt concludes: "Quite possibly Love Guru will out-awful Get Smart."

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12 June 2008 10:36 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Marvel's The Incredible Hulk, who first muscled his way into theaters in 2003 and had to fight off critics upon his arrival, returns at midnight tonight (Thursday), and he's earning a bit more respect -- and probably more green as well. Claudia Puig in USA Today says the new Hulk "is more viscerally angry and packs a bigger wallop than Ang Lee's talkier, more introspective version" and that while there are plotholes, "as a popcorn movie steeped in action, it keeps our attention." Lou Lumenick says that when it comes to fans of the comic book and the TV series, the new Hulk "squarely hits the target." However, he adds, the sequel is "only fitfully successful in engaging the middle ground -- us nonhard-core fans." Mick Lasalle in the San Francisco Chronicle says that the new film does not attempt to make "a thinking-person's action movie," as Ang Lee attempted to do with his Hulk. Instead, he remarks, the film "embraces its identity as a sci-fi-summer-action-blockbuster extravaganza." The trade papers predict that the film will show lots of strength at the box office. "This loud and quick-moving production will shake loose ample coin in all markets," writes Todd McCarthy in Daily Variety. Adds Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter: "The film is poised to carry the weekend buoyed by an unbeatable combination of buzz and hype."

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16 May 2008 10:34 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

A rather conventional computer-animated feature may seem like an unlikely choice for inclusion in the program of the Cannes Film Festival, but when it is voiced by the likes of Angelina Jolie, Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman, among others, and those celebrities are willing to come to Cannes to promote it, the film takes a back seat to the glitter -- a necessary component of Cannes' redoubtable red-carpet festivities. Critics for the trade press gave it polite applause. "Although it's aimed primarily at youngsters, Kung Fu Panda embraces humor that plays well across age groups and nationalities," wrote Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter. Todd McCarthy in Daily Variety called it "nice looking but heavily formulaic." Britain's Screen International described it as "warm and very likable Hollywood fare."

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15 May 2008 10:23 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Several trade reporters attending the Cannes Film Festival observed that Blindness, the, er, dark film that opened the festival Wednesday night, will need to garner some favorable reviews if it is to become successful at the box office when it opens in September. It has received none so far. Daily Variety noted that the film was "applauded at its gala screening, though not wildly so." The trade paper's reviewer, Justin Chang, wrote that Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles may have turned out a "slickly crafted drama" but that the tale by Nobel laureate Jose Saramago "emerges on screen both overdressed and undermotivated,scrupulously hitting the novel's beats yet barely approximating, so to speak, its vision." Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter commented that while the film may be provocative cinema, "it also is predictable cinema: It startles but does not surprise." Fionnuala Halligan, writing for Britain's Screen Daily, said that "Meirelles never illuminates convincingly the wrenching fear of his source material." Derke Malcolm, writing in the London Daily Mail concluded that the film, "though palpably sincere, is often both repetitive and dull." And Peter Howell in the Toronto Star remarked that the film commands "more respect than love" and predicted that it "won't be a guaranteed multiplex rouser."

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4 articles from 2008