Screenwriter »

• To Cannes with Travis Bickle

  May 15, 2012 @ 11:35 pm | by Donald Clarke

  The time is here again. Tomorrow morning, Terminal Two of Dublin Airport will, for some of us, take on the quality of the train station in The Great Escape. You remember. All the escaped prisoners are lurking around behind pillars or conspicuously reading newspapers. Large numbers of the film community leave on the same plane to Nice every year. Look, there’s that programmer. Heavens. It’s that prominent producer. Few of us look like David McCallum. It’s more of a Donald Pleasence sort of business.

  At any rate, Cannes kicks off on Wednesday and I will be there to make all the facetious comments you want to hear. Our first treat (I hope) is to be Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. Mind you, It will be hard to instil too much envy when discussing that title. You can all see it in two weeks anyway.

  I leave you with this rather wonderful video — already something of an internet sensation — reimagining a Palme d’Or winner, Taxi Driver, as a Walt Disney film. These things have been around for ages. The one that recast The Shining as a heart-warming picture is something of a classic. I particularly like the moment in this at 3:45 where he addresses the “All the animals come out at night” sequence. So that’s why they called him “Dopey”.

  

• How easy was it to guess the biggest films of 2011?

  May 13, 2012 @ 10:26 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  I know I am a bit late on this, but I recently remembered that, back in December 2010, I made an attempt to predict the most successful films of the looming year. I could have done better. But it is still faintly chilling that there was so much correlation between my guesses and the eventual winners. Here’s what I said:

  1. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES

  2. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2

  3. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

  4. CARS 2

  5. ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN

  6. KUNG FU PANDA 2

  7. THOR

  8. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 1

  9. THE HANGOVER PART II

  10. SHERLOCK HOLMES 2

  And here’s the eventual winners with my predictions in brackets.

  1. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (2)

  2. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON(3)

  3. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES (1)

  4. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (8)

  5. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — GHOST PROTOCOL (N/A)

  6. KUNG FU PANDA 2 (6)

  7. FAST FIVE (N/A)

  8. THE HANGOVER PART II (9)

  9. THE SMURFS (N/A)

  10. CARS 2 (4)

  What do we learn from this? Well, it proves that, when it comes to predicting the takings of Kung Fu Panda films, Screenwriter is your only man. I got everything else wrong. Forgetting how big Tom Cruise remains in Rest of World, I failed to anticipate the huge success of Mission: Impossible. I also — foolishly, I now realise — didn’t quite grasp the number of parents who, distraught on bank holiday afternoons, would return to the bosom of The Smurfs. It should have been obvious that the throwaway cartoon would slip past the more prestigious Cars 2. My biggest mistake was, however, surely a mad belief that Tintin would lay all before it. It is easy to forget that Herge’s reporter remains a fairly obscure character in the United States. That film eventually wobbled towards the number 16 spot.

  But I would still maintain that the fact that one can, in an idle half hour, predict seven of the following year’s top 10 says something rather unhappy about the current state of cinema. It’s not as if any of the entries I didn’t mention were from beyond left field: the fourth Mission: Impossible, the fifth Fast and the Furious, the first Smurfs. None of my own failed predictions were particularly eccentric.

  The temptation is to say: “Oh it was ever thus”. It was not. Let’s go back 50 years to lovely old 1962. Here is the US top ten for that year.

  1. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

  2. THE LONGEST DAY

  3. IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS

  4. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

  5. THE MUSIC MAN

  6. DR NO

  7. THAT TOUCH OF MINK

  8. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

  9. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

  10. GYPSY

  Yikes. It seems even longer ago than half a century. I hardly need to point out the most obvious point. There is not a single sequel in the list. Unless I’m wrong there is only one remake — Mutiny on the Bounty. A smart fellow might have guessed that two of the era’s biggest musicals — Gypsy and The Music Man — would generate massive hits. I suppose Lawrence of Arabia, a weighty epic, always looked to make a significant amount of money. Dr No was based on a very popular novel, but, then again, it didn’t even manage to break the top five in the US. The third biggest picture, In Search of the Castaways, is an almost forgotten Disney live-action picture.

  Now, it would be wise not to get to dewy eyed. The 1962 list is not exactly packed with classics. Lawrence of Arabia (though I have reservations) fits the bill. To Kill a Mockingbird is durably solid. Dr No is a throat-clearing exercise for From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. The Longest Day is a bit bloated. We will, however, give out an unqualified cheer to celebrate the presence of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Now, there’s a movie.

  The important point is that the films form an eclectic list that appealed to a wide variety of demographics. This year it’s very hard to imagine anything that’s not a prequel or a sequel making the top spot. It’s going to be The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises or The Hobbit. Isn’t it? The only non-sequel that looked like having a chance was The Hunger Games, but it underperformed outside America and has already been pummelled by those pesky Avengers.

  I would have a guess at 2012. But this game is just too dispiriting.

  

   

• Hats off to Mike Sheridan and the Brave Trailer

  May 10, 2012 @ 5:36 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  The movie community reels in awe at the achievements of Mike Sheridan. The film johnny for Entertainment.ie joined Brian Maher of Spin 1038  to run 126 miles — the equivalent of five marathons — in order to raise money for Special Olympics Ireland. Jesus! That’s like running all the way from Limerick to Dublin. Hang on a moment. It says here that they actually did run all the way from Limerick to Dublin. They’re properly hard, like. If you want to contribute go here.

  Gosh, Mike is very brave. Speaking of Brave, let’s have a look at the new trailer for Pixar’s latest picture. Do you see what I did there? Wasn’t that enormously clever?

  

  Now this is very definitely an interesting one. Throughout its history, Pixar Studios have moved from one smash to the next. With Cars 2, they finally encountered a relative disappointment. The film was one of the 10 biggest of 2011, but it still underperformed by the studio’s standards. Keep in mind that Toy Story 3 was easily the biggest film of the previous year and, indeed, remains the seventh biggest picture of all time. Cars 2 also received very indifferent reviews from high- and low-brow critics.

  So this is as close to a crisis as Pixar has come. A lot rests on Brave. There have been some kerfuffles during production. Following “creative disagreements”, Mark Andrews replaced Brenda Chapman as director. But I rather like the look of the thing. The backgrounds do, admittedly, call to mind the landscapes from fantasy video games such as Skyrim. But the characters seem pretty feisty and it appears to have a fairly original tone. I wouldn’t worry to much about the caricatured version of Scotland on display. This is, after all, a cartoon world. Who knows? The Irish Times film team hopes to see Brave at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June. We’ll let you know.

• Fanboy fascism, the Avengers and Sam Jackson

  May 6, 2012 @ 7:02 pm | by Donald Clarke

  Last week, I pondered the hysterical responses to the smattering of negative reviews of Marvel Avengers Dissemble on Rotten Tomatoes. At this point, the film had not even opened — indeed, it wouldn’t open for another 10 days in the USA — but this did not stop posters from tearing strips of any critic who expressed any reservations about the Marvel ensemble adventure. What really struck me was the extraordinary misogyny on display. If the critic was a woman she was sure to attract the most appallingly sexist remarks. “The 1st person to complain is a woman, go f**king figure,” somebody said of Amy Nicholson. Other female critics were told to return to the kitchen or get their hair done instead of reviewing movies. I have always seen Joss Whedon, director of the film, as something of a feminist. So, I am sure he would be appalled by this strain of cave-man bellowing.

  

  I see A O Scott. Let’s get him!

  The other tedious — though less contemptible — recurring theme was an obsession with so-called “spoilers”. It seems that, for many posters, spotting elements of plot in reviewers’ synopses has become an outright obsession. One particular narrative turn, when revealed by reviewers, again and again drew unrestrained ire from the posting community. The fact that the incident happened in the first 10 minutes of the picture did not in any way deaden their righteous fury. By these standards, critics would be forbidden from noting that Titanic took place largely at sea. Golly. Folk just love to feel annoyed. Do they not?

  Now Samuel Jackson himself has waded in. A O Scott, distinguished critic with The New York Times, dared to dislike the picture. Worse still, he expressed  reservations about the entire comic book genre. Tony Scott (that’s really what he’s called) wrote: “The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre.” Oh dear. Oh dear. You’re unearthing a whole pit of snakes here, old man.

  

  I’ve done this joke before. Haven’t I?

  Sam Jackson, who plays Nick Fury in the film, quickly got to the head of the mob with burning torches. “Avengers fans, NY Times critic AO Scott needs a new job,” he wrote on stupid Twitter. “Let’s help him find one! One he can ACTUALLY do!” The online bruisers saw Scott’s quote as evidence of the critic’s unsuitability for this particular task. Apparently, a critic has to be a fan of a particular genre before being allowed to review a film within that category. This is not quite nonsense. But it overstates the case. Of course, a film reviewer should try and grasp the dynamics of a film genre before embarking on a critique. But, if he or she sees limitation in the form — and is able to express them articulately — then he or she is entirely within their rights to work those supposed reservations into any review. Where would such prohibitions end? Only those who like 3-D should review bumpy films? Only fans of Rob Scneider should tackle that actor’s atrocities? Hold on a moment.

  I admit that, when it comes to horror, I have often raged at critics — particularly those from the US — who don’t seem to understand the way such pictures function. This does not mean that I feel they should be fired and replaced by Rob Zombie. I merely think they should open their minds a little.

  Anyway, Jackson’s remarks have triggered an interesting backlash. The brilliant Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, mused: “@AOScott His call for you to lose your job only supports your point about ‘glowering authoritarianism’ in pop culture”. Matthew Seitz, who writes for New York magazine, went further: ”The latent fascism of fanboy culture manifests itself through Samuel L Jackson. ‘A few negative reviews in hundreds? Get ‘em, boys!’” This appears like only mild hyperbole to me. The fanboy mob seems to collectively regard any divergence from orthodoxy as an excuse for unhinged rudeness and untempered hysteria. It should go without saying that those with the loudest online voices do not represent the majority of comic-book fans. But they do give the cadre a very bad name. Would everybody please calm down.

   

• Was 1939 the greatest year ever for movies?

  May 2, 2012 @ 10:53 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  Well, I don’t know. I suppose it might be. Oh, hang on. I asked the question. Didn’t I? Of all the frigging pointless games that buffs play one of the most neglected is Best Ever Year Bingo. In the same way that Citizen Kane (1941, since you ask) remains the critics’ choice for best ever film, 1939 has long been considered the annus mirabilis of cinema. Two movies alone make the case in very different ways. Whatever you think of Gone With the Wind, you can’t escape that fact that, by any sensible measure, it is the most successful movie of all time. It wins when you count the number of bums on seats. It wins when you adjust for inflation. Take that you annoying gang of blue aliens. In the same year, Jean Renoir released the sublime La Règle du jeu, which very often comes second to Kane in those polls. What else? Well, The Wizard of Oz might be the greatest family film ever made. Stagecoach might be the greatest — and is, unquestionably, the most influential — western ever to hit the plain. Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka showed that Garbo could be funny. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums was Kenji Mizoguchi’s greatest pre-war achievement.

  

  Having noted the achievements of Mizoguchi and Renoir, we must admit that the year belonged to Hollywood. Given certain misunderstandings then brewing in Europe, it is hardly surprising that the Americans went on to consolidate their position. A year later, while most of the great cinema nations were fighting the Nazis (or being the Nazis),  the US managed to deliver Rebecca, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story and Fantasia. They may not have entered the war for another year and a bit, but the Yanks did export some cracking entertainment to blackout Britain. Everyday life progressed unmolested in the US and Hollywood continued to deliver some of its finest ever films.

  What was it about 1939? Well, a lot of bunk is talked about economic depressions being a good time for popular entertainment. It does, however, seem that, during the 1930s, Americans really did take solace in the movies. In the years following the 1929 crash, the studios — gradually perfecting the art of sound — fed off that popularity and explored ever craftier ways of entertaining the masses. Cinema never again had such a clear run at the entertainment dollar. After the war, television began gradually to creep its way into homes with the view to poisoning minds. Oh, how Hollywood would love to be back in that time again. (Well, without the looming war and all.)

  

  There are other contenders, of course. We could make a very good case for 1972. The Godfather, Deliverance, Cabaret, Aguirre: Wrath of God, Solaris, Cries and Whispers, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: what do you make of them lovely apples? (I am probably obliged to also mention Last Tango in Paris, though I find it utterly ridiculous.)

  In 1960, despite the attack from TV, we got The Apartment, L’Avventura, Breathless, La Dolce Vita, Psycho, Spartacus and Rocco and his Brothers. Hang on a moment. Scratch the header above. The first year of the 1960s was amazing.

  Younger people might dare to suggest the strange false dawn that was 1999. Remember Magnolia, All About My Mother, Being John Malkovich, The Sixth Sense and The Matrix. (You already know my feelings on stupid Fight Club, but I mention it anyway.)

  If you ever figure out how to make a comment then please do suggest your own favourite year.

• That Scarlett Johansson Lego

  April 27, 2012 @ 8:46 pm | by Donald Clarke

  By now you will have read Tara Brady’s interview with Scarlett Johansson for Marvel Avengers Upended (is this right?). The conversation was energised by certain interactions concerning a Lego version of the Black Widow, Ms Johansson’s character in the enthusiastically reviewed superhero movie. Ms Brady had worn her (vegan) leather jacket to the event and — possessed of red hair — therefore looked a little as if she had come in costume. Just as well. Scarlett only gave TB back her Lego because “you kind of look like her”.

  

  These Lego creations are seriously cool. (In an aside, note how Americans say “a Lego” while we say “a piece of Lego”. What can it mean?) Both The Black Widow and  Hawkeye come with changeable expressions. You remove the hair, swivel the head and they go from angry to, well, just very determined. I guess this has probably been going on for years, but it is a while since I played with Lego.

  

  If you like the popular Scandinavian building toys then you had better get ready for a bumper period of brick-related madness. Last week, a press release from Warner Brothers confirmed that the studio is set to launch a film version of the activity. No, really.  The notice reads: “It will incorporate some of the LEGO world’s most popular figures while introducing several new characters, inviting fans who have enjoyed the brand’s innovative toys and hugely popular video games for generations to experience their visually unique LEGO world as never seen before.”

  Hang on a moment. Who are “the LEGO world’s most popular figures”? Surely the whole point of Lego is that you construct your own world. If the toy does have “popular figures” — aside from eight-brick red-and-green dog — they are drawn from other franchises. Is the film going to feature a bricky version of Han Solo? It’s not such an absurd notion. Many people think the Lego Star Wars video games are somewhat better than the wholly official games based on that space opera.

  Can this film really happen? Well, we did get to see Battleshit. However, the proposed versions of Monopoly and Risk seem to be stalled in pre-production mire. I’m still hoping to see Michael Mann’s Buckaroo.

  Anyway. These Lego superheroes rockl. Right?

   

• Is Disney turning a setback into a crisis?

  April 23, 2012 @ 10:52 pm | by Donald Clarke

  It certainly looks that way. Last Friday it emerged that Rich Ross had resigned as head of Walt Disney Studios. The move seems to have been triggered by the high-profile failure of Andrew Stanton’s flatulent space opera John Carter. As you will be aware, panic had set in some months before the film was released and its underperformance at the US box-office appeared to confirm all the gloomy prognostications. The film has, at time of writing, made a paltry $69 million in its domestic run. It is still possible that, as Disney prematurely announced, it could lose as much as $200 million when all the sums are tidied up. If that were the case then it would stand as the biggest box-office failure of all time.

  

  I don’t know what you’re grinning about, mate.

  That said, you have to feel a little sorry for Mr Ross (as sorry as you can manage for a multi-millionaire). John Carter has actually done passably well outside the United States. With $200 million in its rest-of-world ledger, the picture didn’t exactly flop in the old countries.

  The skinny out there in the alleys suggests that Ross, who emerged from Disney’s TV wing, didn’t have the stature to rein in Stanton. You can understand his position. Stanton, director of Finding Nemo, had made Disney millions. If some bloke off the telly had told him to pull back from the cliff, he might very well have politely told that executive where to shove it. After all, before release, the word on Titanic was entirely negative and that didn’t turn out too badly.

  There were other notable failures during Ross’s reign. You have probably barely heard of something called Prom. Well, that’s the point. The teen flick was supposed to finesse Glee’s success into a mainstream movie hit, but it bombed pathetically on release. Mutterings began that this was yet another example of TV thinking. Nobody could blame him for the relative underperformance of Cars 2. The entire Red Army would have failed to stop John Lasseter pursuing that project. (And let’s not forget that it was still the 10th biggest film of 2011.)

  Conversely, he can hardly take any credit for the enormous, baffling success of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Blander Tides. A monkey in a hat could have ushered that unlovely product to its jaw-dropping $1 billion.

  What really strikes one about the news is that comes a week before — barring an extraordinary catastrophe — Disney is set to have an enormous hit with Marvel Avengers Assemble (or whatever it’s called today). “Ah yes,” I hear you say. “But that film springs from a deal done with Marvel several year ago. Mr Rich was not really a player.” But here’s the thing. As the mainstream currently stands, it’s hard to see what influence any CEO can have over future profits. Every film in the top 10 from 2011 counts as some sort of sequel. All the executive had to do was press the green-button on part four, five or six. That monkey in the hat, if so challenged, would have no problem accumulating a whole truckload of bonus bananas. The only film in the list whose creation involved any sort of risk was The Muppets. Guess who distributed that film? A clue: their logo features a fairy and a magical castle.

  The Ross story just demonstrates that, when something goes wrong at a movie studio, a ritual head must roll, whether or not its former owner was responsible in any meaningful way. At least, the poor bloke was willing to take a risk on something that wasn’t a blasted sequel.

  Anyway, if your monkey is interested in being paid a squillion dollars to press a big green button, Disney are currently looking for a new studio head. Pixar’s Brave could still be huge. The Avengers can’t fail. If Coco sits quietly in his cage he could, by year’s end, find himself praised as a genius to rival Irving Thalberg or Jack Warner.

   

• The Cannes competition is announced.

  April 19, 2012 @ 5:20 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  Two years ago the competition was a tad disappointing. Last year, it was absolutely top drawer. The 2012 competition programme, which was announced by Thierry Frémaux, festival director, in Paris earlier today, looks pretty darn promising. We were already fairly sure that neither Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master nor the new, untitled Terrence Malick film would be ready in time. Indeed, their non-appearence confirmed that the supposed leak of the programme earlier in the month was almost certainly a hoax. Those films were the only two eyebrow-raisers on the list published by gullible bloggers. If they had appeared today then we might have retrospectively given the leak some credence.

  Anyway, what’s worth attending? Well, we have new films from Michael Haneke, Jacques Audiard and Abbas Kiarostami. If you’re in search of a trend, you might note that there is an extraordinarily high number of English-language films: David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, Walter Salles’s On the Road, Lee Daniels’s The Paperboy are among that list. If I had to single one film out for particular mention it would be Jeff Nichols’s Mud. Visitors to this place will be aware that the director’s Take Shelter was my favourite film from last year. Jeff’s new drama once again stars Michael Shannon. Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey and Sam Shepard also join the gang.

  Both Twilight stars will be on the red carpet: Kristen Stewart is in On the Road; Robert Pattinson appears in Cosmopolis. Mr Pitt will, most likely, return to support the George V Higgins adaptation Killing Them Softly. As ever, there will be more stars than the heavens (is that the right cliché?).

  I am disappointed that the new films by Wong Kar Wai and Park Chan-Wook are not on the list. But the only real scandal here concerns gender. Once again, as in 2010, there are no women directors in the main competition. What the heck is going on?

  The full competition is as follows:

  Amour, Michael Haneke
  The Angels’ Share, Ken Loach
  Baad el mawkeaa, Yousry Nasrallah
  Beyond the Hills, Cristian Mungiu
  Cosmopolis, David Cronenberg
  Holy Motors, Leos Carax
  The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg
  Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik
  In Another Country, Hong Sang-soo
  In the Fog, Sergei Loznitsa
  Lawless, John Hillcoat
  Like Someone in Love, Abbas Kiarostami
  Mud, Jeff Nichols
  On the Road, Walter Salles
  The Paperboy, Lee Daniels
  Paradies: Liebe, Ulrich Seidl
  Post tenebras lux, Carlos Reygadas
  Reality, Matteo Garrone
  Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard
  Taste of Money, Im Sang-soo
  You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet, Alain Resnais

   

• The great Prometheus certificate debate

  April 15, 2012 @ 10:42 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  I’ve been jetting about recently. As a result, this place has been a bit less busy than usual. Tuesday saw Screenwriter touching down in London for a special screening of new footage from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. Might Shelley have been speaking of Scott when he wrote “Monarch of Gods and Dæmons, and all Spirits/ But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds…”? Almost certainly not. But I have to take every opportunity possible to make use of that English degree I received in 1932.

  Anyway, the footage helped clarify what the darn thing is about. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that, at first, it was a prequel to Alien, then it wasn’t any sort of prequel at all. Now, it’s a film set in the same universe at an earlier point to the great 1979 picture. Scott, who joined Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron on stage, explained that, ever since the film came out, people have been asking him about the “space jockey“. That, in nerd speak, is the ossified creature that Sigourney Weaver and gang encounter shortly after landing on the planet where the alien lurks. Now, we’ll know the answer.

  There was a fair bit of interesting chatter. Fassbender, who plays an android, explained that, while preparing for the role, Scott had pointed him towards the great Joseph Losey picture The Servant. Given that the Harold Pinter-scripted drama is among my favourite films of all time, I couldn’t be any happier. ”I’m a gentleman’s gentleman, and you’re no bloody gentleman!” That’s what Dirk Bogarde says in one of the very rare films where he plays a surly, miserable bastard.

  The closest thing to a controversy kicked off when somebody inquired about the film’s potential certificate. If you have been posting on Prom-Maniac.com you will know that, over a month before the film opens, fans are already getting very het up about this subject. It has been implied that Scott might be prepared to cut the film in order to secure a less lenient cert from the Motion Picture Association of America. This has triggered real anger. Many people out there on the ether regard a stricter cert as a badge of honour. If only adults are allowed in then the film must be for adults. That’s the logic.

  Scott was quite interesting on this issue. He admitted that he was a businessman as well as a film-maker and — not wanting to exclude a large portion of the audience — greatly desired a PG-13 rather than an R cert. But he sounded pretty annoyed about the way the MPAA went about its business. “I know the importance of that. When a big film fails, it’s disastrous for all of us,” he said. Then he started to get a bit cryptic. He said that he didn’t want to single out a particular movie, because it was directed by a friend of his, but he was surprised at some of the “films this year that have got PG-13 ratings – it’s absolutely f**king ludicrous. So MPAA, get your house in order.” Can he be thinking of The Hunger Games? It’s a hard phrase to parse. If that film is in his mind then he, presumably, is complaining at the MPAA’s inconsistency, rather than getting all angry about the wee kids being exposed to knife fights in The Hunger Games. I’m just guessing here.

  At any rate, whatever happens, somebody, somewhere will be unhappy. If Prometheus does get an R then Scott and his colleagues at Fox will be fuming at the expected loss of earnings. If a PG-13 is handed out then various nuts on the internet will be calling Sir Ridley a traitor and demanding (oh, be still, my aching sides) “a boycott“. You know. Like those brave folks who walked to work during the Montgomery bus boycotts in the Civil Rights era. Like the followers of Ghandi who shunned British-made goods during the fight for Indian independence. They will, in other words, be behaving like the bravest of heroes and will undoubtedly bring 20th Century Fox to its knees. Give me a break.

   

• Is 21 Jump Street the most unlikely critical hit ever?

  March 19, 2012 @ 9:34 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  We rather liked 21 Jump Street around these parts. It is no masterpiece. But, given that it is an updating of a 1980s series almost nobody remembered, most critics were surprised that it managed to stand up straight without bruising its knuckles on the ground. Channing Tatum (dumb, athletic) and Jonah Hill (smart, clumsy) make a very nice comic partnership and the film has a very singular tone. It feels improvised, but not to the point of indulgence.

  Anyway, my point is that few films with this sort of heritage have achieved the degree of critical praise that has come the way of 21 Jump Street. It currently scores 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 69 percent on Metacritic (the difference indicating consistent, but not hysterical support). Those are the sort of scores that usually greet Kurdish films about oppressed goat herders.

  It is genuinely difficult to think of another picture that managed this sort of reversal. To be fair to us old hacks, it does demonstrate that, contrary to what many internet posters suggest, we do remain open to persuasion by low-brow material. Nobody wanted to hate This Means War, but McG and his uninterested cast made it impossible to feel any other way. If Adam Sandler had made some effort to become a woman — rather than just wearing a dress and using his regular voice — then we might have gone easier on Jack and Jill.

  The financial and critical success of 21 Jump Street does, however, offer annoying Hollywood executives an excuse to continue travelling down a frustratingly stubborn dead end. Why do they keep making films of television series that were broadcast when the core audience was barely conscious or — in many cases — not even at the twinkle-in-eye stage? Remember that version of Bilko with Steve Martin? By 1996 even the reruns were fading into memory. Didn’t they shoot a version of The Honeymooners in Dublin (of all places)? That adaptation of The Mod Squad didn’t even make it across the Atlantic.

  The producers can’t expect much return for the recognition factor. Everybody knows that mainstream comedies are aimed at people between 12 and 25. That lot were toddlers when 21 Jump Street finished. If Guy Ritchie ever gets round to releasing his proposed version of The Man From UNCLE, the original audience will be using Zimmer frames to propel themselves in any other direction.

  There are two things going on. Firstly, film directors and producers are as sentimental as anybody else. They are just reliving happy memories from their own youths. Secondly, we must remember that good ideas — any ideas actually — are hard to come by. “Two cops go to high school? I like it,” Hiram Cashmountain remarks. “It was once a TV series? Who cares? Give ‘em the loot. That’s an idea.”

  It is an idea. And, against all the odds, it spurned a film that got some of the best reviews of the year so far. The folk behind John Carter must be livid.

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