We'll never get to call him "Shirley" again....

Yesterday saw the death of hollywood icon Leslie Nielsen. He passed away from complications related to pneumonia at the age of 84.



Most in my generation will remember him for his turns in classic absurdest parodies like "The Naked Gun" and "Airplane." In these films (and other lesser ones in more recent years), Nielsen utilized his distinguished looks and dead-serious delivery of ridiculous dialogue to create an immortal comic persona.

"Surely you can't be serious."

"I am serious...and don't call me Shirley."


Before his comic turns in the 70s and 80s, Nielsen typically played leading men. One of his first leading roles was 1956's "Forbidden Planet," a science fiction epic. This performance led to a string of strong-jawed hero roles as well as parts in romantic comedies.

As his chiseled good looks gave way to a more fatherly animus, Nielsen satirized his own former persona, parlaying the transition into comedy heavyweight.


He will be missed.

One superhero too many?

Honestly I feel like the comic book abs are more believable. Damn you Ryan Reynolds.

The trailer for the upcoming adaptation of DC comics' "Green Lantern" franchise (now 70 years old) sports Ryan Reynolds giving a quick ab-flash (for the ladies), piloting some experimental jets, giving some pseudo-deep voiceover, bantering with a wooden Blake Lively, battling with a ridiculously bald Peter Sarsgaard, and grappling with some seriously shoddy CGI.

The trailer can be viewed here.

I loved superheroes as a kid. I still love them to some extent. Since the success of the first X-Men film in 2000, comic book franchises have dominated Hollywood to mixed results. Films like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and the first batches of X-Men and Spider Man sequels showed that there was indeed some depth and gravitas to be found in those serial illustrated sagas.

Unfortunately, the majority of comic book adaptations have been mediocre at best (The Incredible Hulk) and downright offensive at worst (The Fantastic Four anyone?). I'll reserve judgement on this newest foray into the D.C. universe until I see it in theatres, but based on the trailer, I'll be heading into the local Megaplex with low expectations. That might actually work in the movies favor.

Just as a P.S., the credits of Green Lantern do score some points for the following components:

A) Director Martin Campbell, who helmed 1995's "Goldeneye" and 2006's "Casino Royale," two of the best James Bond films in the canon, as well as that wonderful 1997 homage to the swashbucklers of the 1930s, "The Mask of Zorro."

B) Ryan Reynolds. While it is yet to be seen whether he is a truly talented actor, I do find him to be incredibly likable. He has the makings of a movie star and is well on his way to acheiving that status.

C) Peter Sarsgaard. While he may look incredibly silly with that swollen, pink, CGI noggin in the trailer, the man has a great track record with his turns in films like "Garden State" and "Jarhead." He brings some definite indie cred to this iffy production.

Oh, those Coens

I won't lie to you, I'm getting all kinds of fan-boy giddy in anticipation of the Coens' remake of True Grit. For those who are unfamiliar, 1969's True Grit (based on the 1968 novel) was something of a swan song for the era of John Wayne westerns. Sure, he'd star in a few more until his death in 1979, but True Grit was something of a final bow for that classic, slow-talking lug who'd been refining his iconic persona since his first acting gig in 1926.










The '69 adaptation of "Grit" was also significant as it earned Wayne his first Best Actor Oscar. In retrospect, this was probably more of a life-achievement award honoring Wayne for his long and storied career. In my humble opinion, John Wayne's performance in True Grit is perfectly fine, but it doesn't come close to the heights he reached in 1956's The Searchers.  Upon accepting the gold statue, Wayne famously remarked: "If I had known this, I would've put that patch on thirty-five years earlier!"

Anyway, come December we will see if The Coen Brothers are up to the task of one-upping John Wayne. I'm optimistic, considering they cast the "can-do-no-wrong" Jeff Bridges in the role formerly occupied by Wayne. Take a look at the trailer.







Matt Damon with a moustache. Righteous.

Considering the tone of the original film was relatively light, it'll be interesting to see how the Coens' seemingly darker adaptation will compare. Bridges seems like the only man alive who could fill John Wayne's rather sizeable shoes. But more than anything, I hope that this film holds up just for the sake of reviving the western, a genre sorely overlooked in the last decade. Here's hoping.

Revisiting Adaptation.

Charlie Kaufman is nothing if not an original. Love them or hate them, his screenplays have made their way into the cult consciousness(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich) . Whether his weirdness is brilliance or just, well, weirdness, is up to the audience I suppose. The Spike Jonze-directed Adaptation is perhaps the definition of self-indulgence. Faced with the task of adapting Susan Orlean's non-fiction book, "The Orchid Thief," Kaufman found himself with a case of profound writer's block. So naturally, he wrote a screenplay about his writer's block, inserting himself into the story (along with a fictional twin brother) along with a fictionalized version of Orlean played by Meryl Streep.

First off, I just love that somehow Jonze and Kaufman were able to get this movie made. It takes balls for a screenwriter to write a screenplay about screenwriting and confront its difficulties by inserting a real-life book and person into a story about the lack of story that exists in the source material while commenting on the contrived gimmicks screenwriters use to get attention while having your film climax in all of those gimmicks and cliches.

Does that summation make sense?

I recently re-watched Adaptation for the first time since seeing it five years ago. On my first viewing, I was unsure of how to respond. I was unfamiliar with Kaufman and Jonze for the most part, so the abrupt tonal changes and multiple layers of reflexivity threw me off. Upon watching it again, i was struck by how magnificently this seemingly impossible idea was pulled off. Kaufman confronts all of his own neuroses by bearing them for his audience through Nicholas Cage's performance. Yet the film never feels to self-congratulatory. It's about the difficulties of storytelling, and the messiness of the story told within that premise is kind of the whole wonderfully self-deprecating bent of this insane movie. In short, it blew my mind.