Agenda is the enemy of every good journalist and critic

I can already hear my editor grumbling, “What does this have to do with movies, Ed?”

Well, let me tell you. I'm sure I've mentioned before how I feel that most, if not all, critics are biased even before they walk into the theatre or screening room, but the agenda of journalists and the media has never been more prevalent than it has been this summer where everyone is picking a side on every new movie and then drilling home the point whenever they're right or lambasting others when they're wrong.

If a journalist/critic hates a movie and gives it a bad review, they'll harp on the fact that it bombed, proving that they were right, or vice versa. If a journalist/critic has had a problem with a filmmaker in the past, they might spend more time talking about their issues than with the actual movie. Good examples of this are the recent movies by Kevin Smith and M. Night Shyamalan. Frankly, you probably read more about them, their personalities and their public feuds in the last two weeks than about their actual movies.

Before Lady in the Water came out, everyone was talking about “The Man Who Heard Voices,” Michael Bamberger's new tell-all book about M. Night's dealings with Disney on the movie. It quickly overshadowed the movie, and as the reviews came in, it was pretty obvious that critics were taking Night to task more for his attitude and ego than for his movie.
SPOILER! (scroll in space below to read)
(I mean, let's face it, he plays an influential writer and kills the film critic character after a blatant slam about the occupation.)

Because Lady in the Water opened so weakly compared to Night's previous movies, we've been seeing all these stories this past week about how all the critics were right about it being a bad movie and it served Shyamalan right for not listening to Disney, etc. (Even “Entertainment Weekly,” which is owned by the same company who released Lady, is offering Shyamalan career advice. Where were they when Michael Bay, Rob Cohen and Wolfgang Peterson needed advice?) Not every critic hated the movie, and some brave ones were honest about it. I don't even think everyone who saw the movie hated it. But it's all about reporting by agenda. The media has decided it was time to take Night down a few notches after The Village, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

The same can be said for Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, which after months of being criticized before a single frame was seen is now being declared as an out-and-out bomb because it hasn't reached $200 million yet (and might not). Granted, compared to its production budget, which is well over that mark, it would be considered a bomb, but because of the agenda of the media, they spin the numbers to try to make it look far worse. I'm sorry, but $185 million for ANY movie in this day and age isn't bad. What ultimately happens is that people who might have wanted to see it, don't. Seriously, who wants to see a movie that is claimed to be a bomb even if millions of people who saw it enjoyed it and consider it one of the better superhero movies?

The problem is that it's irresponsible journalism. It's criticism and commentary based on agenda, rather than the quality of the movie or hard facts. And it's very selective agenda reporting, too. No one is hailing the Wayans as genii after the critically slammed Little Man opened higher than their last movie White Chicks, which was also slammed before anyone saw it. It's business has slowed down a bit but it's already over $50 million.

Most of it isn't even “news.” It's more about bringing down the icons after building them up for false reasons, and it's become a regular staple the more the internet becomes overdriven by “news” blogs and egotistical reporters who think that what they say can actually control the thinking of the masses. There are critics/journalists who actually take credit for bringing filmmakers down by their “investigative reporting,” and it's really dangerous stuff because the more the media thinks it controls the decisions of the moviegoers, the more it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy since way too many people believe everything they read and are easily swayed by false information, a lot of which is being driven by personal agendas.

Next week, a more innocuous topic, that of animation and how there are no new or original ideas anymore.

THE CHOSEN ONE:

QUINCEAÑERA (Sony Classics)
Starring Emily Rios, Chalo Gonzalez, Jesse Garcia, David W. Ross, Jason L. Wood
Written and directed by Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Genre: Drama
Rated R (for language, some sexual content and drug use)
Story: A quinceaeñera is a Mexican coming out party for 15-year-old girls to celebrate their passage into womanhood, but for Magdalena (newcomer Emily Rios), it's a time to find out that she's gotten pregnant from an innocent tryst. When her religious father finds out, he kicks her out of the house, forcing her to live with her great grand uncle (Chalo Gonzalez) and her gay cousin Carlos (Jesse Garcia).
REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Quinceañera was almost the Chosen One that got away, because I kept missing opportunities to see it. Fortunately, I was able to catch it at the last minute, a good thing because it's another great '06 coming of age movie and a solid debut from filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. It will probably be compared favorably to 2004's Maria Full of Grace, because it's another fine document of Latino/a life in America (in this case a Mexican teen living in L.A.), and like Maria, it shows that a director doesn't have to be Latino to be able to understand and capture that experience. While a lot of it is about Magdalene's coming of age, showcasing a great feature debut for Emily Rios, it's just as much about the coming out of her slightly older cousin Carlos, and the performance given by Jesse Garcia is the real breakthrough. It's not a perfect debut, because it's often hindered by some of the other new actors, and the frequent jumps between Spanish and English takes some getting used to, but it's an original human story based in real emotions with some nice moments and an uplifting end that's a real winner. Maybe that's why it was able to win both the Grand Jury prize and the Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. It will open in New York, L.A. and San Diego on Friday.

NEW THIS WEEK:

TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY (Sony)
Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb, Jane Lynch
Directed by Adam McKay (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy); Written by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy)
Genre: Comedy, Racing
Rated PG-13 (for crude and sexual humor, language, drug references and brief comic violence)
Tagline: “The story of a man who could only count to #1.”
Story: As the title proclaims, this is the tale of Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell), one of the greatest NASCAR stock car racers ever. With his best friend and partner Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), the racers known as “Shake” and “Bake” often win every race they enter until a French driver named Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) comes along to challenge them.
Mini-Review: The second collaboration between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay isn't terrible, but it's certainly all over the map in terms of laughs with a lot of funny bits, but never nearly as consistently funny as Anchorman. Ferrell is mostly doing his usual schtick, but he does get some able comic support from John C. Reilly--yes, he really is funny!--Gary Cole, Leslie Bibb and the two actors who play Ricky Bobby's sons. For the most part though, it's a one-joke movie poking fun at how "stupid" Southerners are and when all else fails, it goes after the French and gays with the introduction of Sacha Baron Cohen's character, who spends most of the movie talking in a ridiculous accent. Some of the jokes just fall flat, and midway through, it starts getting too dark, and then turns around and becomes kind of corny. The movie looks really good, especially the NASCAR racing action, but it never quite fulfills the promise of Anchorman. Rating: 6/10

What Anchorman did to send-up ‘70s newscasters, Talladega Nights looks to do for NASCAR racing, and there's a lot of hope for it, since like Anchorman, this is Will Ferrell's baby, working again with his frequent collaborator Adam McKay, who he first met while they were both working on “Saturday Night Live.” Talladega Nights is the third racing movie of the summer after Cars and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but it's more like the former in that it takes place in the world of NASCAR, which is so hugely popular in the country, and it seems more like the kind of comedy that Ferrell's dejected fans might be able to get behind.

We discuss Ferrell's career in depth in this week's Star Spotlight, but he has a few secret weapons in this one, such as his partner Cal, played by John C. Reilly, who has been proving his comic mettle in such odd places as Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, though he's had some funny moments in at least a few of PT Anderson's movies, such as Boogie Nights, and in the Jennifer Aniston indie The Good Girl. The even bigger comic draw of the movie, second only to Ferrell, is Sacha Baron Cohen AKA HBO's Ali G and star of the upcoming Borat, who plays the boys' arch-nemesis, and it should be as funny a role as the lemur king he voiced in 2005's Madagascar. It's strange that Cohen is barely featured in the trailers, though.

The good news is that those commercials and trailers are very funny, often getting a good reaction from audiences, so maybe it will bring in a wider audience than Ferrell's last few movies, most notably NASCAR fans who might be able to appreciate Ferrell's low-brow humor in the way that they enjoyed Larry the Cable Guy in Pixar's Cars. Sony, the studio who helped turn Sandler into the superstar he is today, is giving the movie an ultra-wide release, knowing that there's room for a strong comedy with duds like You, Me and Dupree and Little Man bringing in business, just because there's nothing else to see. With Ferrell's strong draw among a wide range of ages and genders (mainly thanks to Elf), this could end up bringing in a similar range, though it's going to predominantly be catering to guys of all ages.

Why I Should See It: Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have been responsible for some funny @$$ sh*t in the past and Talladega Nights looks no different.
Why Not: No, really, it looks no different than Anchorman, except that it takes place on the race track and Ferrell is playing a different zany character. Could Ferrell still be popular after a year of duds since Anchorman?
Projection: $37 to 39 million opening weekend on its way to $120 million.

THE DESCENT (Lionsgate)
Starring Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone, Myanna Buring, Oliver Milburn, Molly Kayll
Written and directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: “Afraid of the dark? You will be.”
Story: For their annual adventure, six women go spelunking in an uncharted cave in the Appalachian Mountains, but the trip turns wrong as they don't seem to be down there alone.
REVIEW

Let's get the obvious out of the way, because to uninformed people, Neil (Dog Soldiers) Marshall's second movie will look like a rip-off of last year's “horror-ble” The Cave, but actually the movie was finished and even released in the UK before that. It's not your typical “people go somewhere and get slaughtered” movie either, because it starts more as a psychological thriller as six women try to get along and help each other deal with the dangers and fears of cave exploring before they encounter a bunch of primordial beasties.

To horror enthusiasts, they'll know how scary and awesome the movie is from all the great word-of-mouth, much like 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead, but that's only because like those movies, it was released in Marshall's native England long before its U.S. release, which means that true horror fans will already have seen it or even own it on region-free DVD. That means that Lionsgate is going to have to try to sell the movie to mainstream audiences, putting The Descent in the same boat as last year's French thriller High Tension, which Lionsgate released last summer to poor results. It's also having to face some of the same issues as the Australian thriller Wolf Creek, released by Dimension last Christmas Day to only slightly better results, because it involves a slow build-up to establish characters and setting before moving into horror territory. It makes it a better movie for it, but it will require patience among those looking for all-out slaughter from beginning to end.

As we've seen numerous times, starpower doesn't mean much for horror movies. It can't hurt to have known names or faces in roles, but Cilian Murphy and Naomie Harris were mostly unknown when they made 28 Days Later, and The Descent's all-female cast includes some potential superstars in Shauna MacDonald and Natalie Mendoza. MacDonald has done a bunch of British television shows like “MI5” and “State of Play” while Mendoza's career is more eclectic, though they're both fairly hot.

Sadly, there may be some apathy among male moviegoers about seeing a horror movie starring only women, despite there being so many great horror heroines in the last few decades from Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween to Milla Jovovich in the Resident Evil movies and Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge. To some guys this will look a bit too much like The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, if it were down a cave and they were being slaughtered by creatures, but maybe the heavy estrogen factor will allow it to be one of those rare female-friendly horror movies of interest to 18 to 25 year old women, who are also known to enjoy horror from time to time.

In the last few years, Lionsgate has done a good job cornering the market on horror, and they're giving this a moderate release into 1,800 theatres; they also have created a visually striking poster that looks cool but does nothing to explain the movie and the trailer isn't one of their better ones. If that doesn't work, Lionsgate has promised do debut the first trailer for Saw III in front of The Descent, though most people will probably just wait to watch that online. Unlike other '06 horror movies, Lionsgate has not hidden this movie from critics like some of their other offerings, actually screening it regularly, and reviews have also been mostly positive, especially since most of the genre sites have been able to see it well in advance. There certainly will be some people who have been waiting to see this in theatres, though it might have difficulty getting the teen males away from the new Will Ferrell comedy. Because of that, it will have to build on its potentail word-of-mouth business, if it wants to stand a chance against some of the other strong horror films coming down the pike.

Why I Should See It: The Descent may easily be one of the best horror movies of the year.
Why Not: Unfortunately, having been made two years ago, that doesn't necessarily mean this year.
Projection: $7 to 8 million on its way to $20 million.

BARNYARD: THE ORIGINAL PARTY ANIMALS (Paramount)
Starring (the voices of) Kevin James, Courteney Cox, Sam Elliott, Danny Glover, Andie MacDowell, Wanda Sykes
Written and directed by Steve Oedekerk (writer/director Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Nothing to Lose, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist; writer of The Nutty Professor, Bruce Almighty, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius,
Genre: Animated, Family, Comedy
Rated PG (for some mild peril and rude humor)
Tagline: “What happens in the barn, stays in the barn.”
Story: Did you ever wonder what farm animals did when the farmer has his back turned? No? Okay, then you may as well not read any further. If you did wonder, then Barnyard tries to show you by following around Otis (voiced by Kevin James), a singing and dancing “party cow” who likes playing tricks on humans, though he soon learns that animals really shouldn't let humans know that they are able to walk and talk…because it might make a lot of people start questioning bestiality. (Okay, only part of this synopsis is true, but if you think I'm going to call a cow “udderly irresponsible", you don't know me very well.)

It's hard not to get as cynical as that synopsis after having to write about three computer animated family comedies in a row. This one has been the butt of many jokes because the animation looks very strange, like Disney's Home on the Range if put through a “3D-izer,” and what kind of male cow has udders anyway? And yet, it also looks funnier than both The Ant Bully and Monster House, which is why it's more likely to bring in more family business than last week's animated bomb.

This is the first movie in a long time from comic genius Steve Oedekerk, whose main claim to fame was probably 1995's Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, the sequel to Jim Carrey's breakout hit, and he'd reteam with Carrey in 2004, writing his biggest hit to date, Bruce Almighty. In between, he did the martial arts spoof movie Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, which coincidentally, also had a cow on two feet!! (You following the connection here?) Oedekerk then joined with Nickelodeon Films to write their first computer animated comedy Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

As far as the voice cast—as if that matters anymore after the bombing of a movie voiced by Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep—the real star is Kevin James, who stole the show in Will Smith's Hitch last spring. There are a bunch of other notables like Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon), Courtney Cox (“Friends”), Sam Elliot (a lot of things), but most importantly, it includes the obligatory voice of Wanda Sykes, who has made it her goal to appear in every single movie released this summer. (If you look closely, you can see Sykes waving from the beach in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.)

The question is whether Paramount and Nickelodeon Films, who released the disappointing (by comparison to Shrek and Monsters Inc.) 2001 animated family comedy Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius will do better with their second fully computer animated feature. That movie opened to less than $14 million—just like Home on the Range—but ended up making up the difference over the holidays, ultimately grossing over $80 million. Although The Ant Bully, directed by Jimmy Neutron's John A. Davis, didn't do very well last weekend, Barnyard has the benefits of being funny and even quotable, which is par for the course with Oedekerk's movies. It also has talking animals, which always seem to be more of a draw in animated movies, than talking little boys, usually the audience going to see these movies.

Despite the presence of two computer animated movies still in wide release (2 1/2 if you include The Ant Bully), it seems like Nickelodeon has a good chance at getting this movie to the kids who will appreciate the humor, so at the very least, it should do as well as some of the animated films from earlier in the year like Hoodwinked! and Disney's The Wild, though with the added benefit of schools being out, which would help business on Friday and Sunday.

Why I Should See It: Oedekerk tends to be very funny, and his involvement in the movie could make something that's funny to both parents and kids.
Why Not: The animation looks weird, the premise looks like Home on the Range, and the male cows have udders! What sort of bizarre world is this? I mean, talking cows I can dig, but udders?
Projection: $11 to 13 million on its way to $40 million

THE NIGHT LISTENER (Miramax)
Starring Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, Rory Culkin, Joe Morton, John Cullum, Bobby Cannavale
Directed by Patrick Stettner (The Business of Strangers, Flux); Written by Armistead Maupin (“Tales of the City,” “More Tales of the City,” etc.), Terry Anderson, Patrick Stettner
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Rated R (for language and some disquieting sexual content)
Tagline: "Listen for the truth."
Story: Author and nighttime radio host Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) discovers that he has a fan in Pete Logan (Rory Culkin) a young abused boy with AIDS, but as he makes plans to go visit the boy, he mysteriously disappears and things get stranger when he meets the boy's adoptive mother (Toni Collette).
REVIEW

This weeks' fourth and lowest-key movie is based on the novel by Armistead Maupin, the respected author who wrote about the experience of living in San Francisco in his serialized stories “Tales of the City” which were later collected into bestselling novels. The Night Listener was a semi-autobiographical novel written by Maupin about his experiences with Anthony Godby Johnson, the author of the 1993 book “A Rock and a Hard Place,” which descibed his abusive childhood and contracting AIDS at the age of 11. Oddly, Maupin started suspecting that Johnson didn't exist and was a figment of his “adoptive mother's” creative imagination.

Oddly, things like this are becoming very common these days, as seen recently by the outing of author James Frey (author of the appropriate “A Million Little Lies”) and the experiences of actress/director Asia Argento who had adapted JT Leroy's novel The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, also about a boy abused by his mother and a series of stepfathers, before discovering that Leroy was a fictitious character made up by the book's actual author.

For Williams, The Night Listener is another chance to delve into a darker world of dramatic thrillers, which have done him well with recent movies like 2003's One Hour Photo and Insomnia and less so with the indie movies The Final Cut and David Duchovny's House of D, neither which found an audience. This movie is certainly a departure from his normal comic fare, so it won't appeal to the audience of his recent sleeper hit comedy RV, but it will be something that his older fans might appreciate.

It doesn't hurt that he's been paired with Toni Collette, possibly one of Australia's finest and most underrated exports. She first got attention here as Haley Joel Osment's emotional mom in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, but she's been grinding along with roles in movies like last year's In Her Shoes, and she's currently appearing in the road comedy movie Little Miss Sunshine. Her adopted son is played by Rory Culkin, another M. Night survivor having played Mel Gibson's son in Signs, but since then, he's had pivotal roles in well-regarded indies like Mean Creek and Down in the Valley. (Just don't ask him what happened to his older brothers.)

Also adding support is Sandra Oh, who has actually appeared in about six movies in the last two years, but the only one that people will really remember her for is her ex-husband's comedy Sideways. Before then, she was more famously known for playing Rita on the HBO show “Arliss,” but even that's forgotten now that she's been nominated for two Emmys and won a Golden Globe for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC”s “Grey's Anatomy.” Blink and you might miss Bobby Canavale as Noone's ex-boyfriend Jess. Canavale is best known for his role in The Station Agent, but he's likely to have a bigger role in the upcoming Snakes on a Plane.

The movie is getting a moderate release into 1,400 theatres, and it's being sold as a straight thriller, although the commercials don't really give a very good idea (if any) what the movie is about. It's hard not to think of this movie in terms of The Human Stain or Birth, both of which had equal star power but also equally esoteric premises which would only appeal to older moviegoers and those who read the book. Both of them struggled to make $5 million. The Night Listener is opening in more theatres, just slightly more than the 2005 thriller The Jacket starring Adrian Brody and Keira Knightley, but that too had trouble finding an audience. The summer just isn't a good time for this kind of movie and it's being released too wide considering that it will have a more limited appeal, mostly among Maupin's readers.

Why I Should See It: An intriguing concept based on a true story, and two great dramatic performances from Robin Williams and Toni Collette. The week's “thinking man's” movie, for sure.
Why Not: Right, like someone might want to actually think while they're watching movies.
Projection: $3 to 3.5 million opening weekend on its way to around $8 million.

STAR SPOTLIGHT: Will Ferrell

Of course, being that Talladega Nights is going to be the #1 movie of the weekend and potentially one of the biggest comedies of the summer, we can't help but shine the spotlight on comedian Will Ferrell. We just don't have a choice in the matter.

Like many other comics, Ferrell got his start in the L.A. improv group “The Groundlings”, before joining the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1995. A popular sketch on the show turned into 1998 comedy A Night at the Roxbury and Ferrell also appeared in the sketch-turned-movies of his SNL compatriots, Superstar and The Ladies' Man. (The latter's failure quickly put an end to the idea of turning SNL sketches into movies, so don't expect a Debbie Downer trilogy any time soon.) Ferrell kept appearing in movies while remaining on the sketch show for almost seven years, taking on roles in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and in Zoolander, which put him in contact with his long-time partners in crime Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

Arguably, the turning point in his career was the Todd Phillips' comedy Old School, which teamed him with Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson for a college comedy that built on opening weekend buzz to gross $75 million over the spring of '03. That was only the start though because later that year, Will Ferrell donned an elf suit for Elf, a movie that put him over the top by introducing him to a younger audience, as well as an older audience, by combining his brand of physical humor with a universal Christmas theme. It opened with $31 million, but went on to make over $172 million that holiday season, allowing his Q-rating and pay rate to rise.

In 2004, Ferrell's own project, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, was released by DreamWorks. Directed by his SNL buddy Adam McKay, it also had a strong showing despite opening a week after Spider-Man 2, and it did well though not nearly as well as Elf.

2005 wasn't so good for Will Ferrell, despite appearing in more movies than ever. First, he did a mean Woody Allen impersonation in the filmmaker's dramedy Melinda and Melinda, then he took on soccer in the kid's movie Kicking & Screaming, which did okay opening weekend but not so well afterwards. When Ferrell played Darin in Nora Ephron's movie version of the TV show Bewitched, it did the about the same business as Kicking its opening weekend and slightly more overall, but still not great.

As with Starsky & Hutch, Ferrell made a cameo in the R-rated hit comedy Wedding Crashers, starring Vaughn and Wilson, but then ended the year on a low note with a scene-stealing role in the movie based on the musical based on the Mel Brooks movie, The Producers. It didn't do very much for the careers of Nathan Lane, Uma Thurman or Matthew Broderick either.

Ferrell's output this year has been fairly low key, providing a voice in the animated movie based on the popular children's character Curious George and a dramatic role in the indie Winter Passing opposite his Elf co-star Zooey Deschanel.

To date, Will Ferrell has yet to appear in a movie that opened over $40 million, which would put him in the ranks of Adam Sandler, another “Satuday Night Live” alum, but it certainly looks like he's heading that way, and Talladega Nights is going to be a great litmus test to prove whether Elf and Anchroman were flukes, or if Ferrell really has what it takes to bring people into theaters on a regular basis.