From the Archives: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Another expedition into the pre-Talking Movies archives returns carrying an unloved comedy.

Simon Pegg attempts to break America by air-brushing everything that made him loveable in the first place and headlining an unfunny, utterly bland rom-com. Wait, did I type that or just think that?

Ah, meta-textual humour. Such honesty is after all the main reason for the social and professional failures of Pegg’s character Sidney Young. This is based on the book by one time Vanity Fair writer Toby Young who made a spectacular ass of himself during a brief sojourn with that esteemed publication. His screen equivalent writes snippy pieces about celebrities for his own magazine The Postmodern Review before getting the call to head to NYC. These opening 10 minutes set in Britain are the most charming of the film and they’re not even especially funny. It is merely comforting to see Pegg among familiar faces like The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd and Katherine Perkins before he jets off to NYC to work for Jeff Bridge’s monstrous editor Clayton Harding. It oddly parallels Pegg’s own journey from Channel 4’s sublime sitcom Spaced to this anaemic Hollywood film.

Pegg writes comedy for a living. He must know this film doesn’t work because it simply isn’t funny. This film feels like it was hit by the writers’ strike and they had to begin production with the version of the script that the script doctor hadn’t added the jokes to yet… Even worse it’s not even his type of humour, the pop reference laden whimsical absurdity of Spaced and Hot Fuzz is replaced with a string of embarrassing encounters that one would think more obviously suited to Ricky Gervais’s style. Pegg does his best with the material he’s given but far too many scenes fall flat.

The supporting cast assembled is mightily impressive except that they have nothing to work with. Scene-stealer extraordinaire Danny Huston does his best as Sidney’s overbearing section editor and Gillian Anderson is nicely glacial as a publicist but Bridges looks all at sea as the one time rebel now conformist editor. Megan Fox does her best breathy Marilyn Monroe take off but no comedic gold is mined, a la Tropic Thunder’s fake trailers, from the truly preposterous romantic flick involving a young Mother Theresa that is generating Oscar buzz for her character. Fox is only there to be, well…a fox, so it’s amazing that it is Kirsten Dunst’s long-suffering writer who steals both the audience’s hearts and the film, and I say this as someone who took most of 2007 to get over Sam Raimi re-shooting the end of Spider-Man 3 to leave Dunst’s infuriating MJ alive.

There is only one reason to see this film – watched after a double bill of Ugly Betty and Dirty Sexy Money it will convince you that 1/4 of NYC’s hottest ladies used to be guys. Think on that in the two hours of your life I’ve stopped you squandering.

1/5

M Night Shyamalan, The Visit, and the Lighthouse

Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan is coming to Dublin on Sunday 30th August for the Irish premiere of his new movie The Visit, followed by a Q&A at the Lighthouse. Tickets for the event are priced at just €12 and are available for purchase here.

M. Night Shyamalan has not been having a good time of it since his glory days of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. His first feature since Will Smith’s blockbuster fiasco After Earth sees him team with the producer with the Midas touch Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Sinister, The Gift, Insidious) for Universal Pictures’ The Visit. Shyamalan returns to his roots with the terrifying story of a brother and sister who are sent to their grandparents’ remote Pennsylvania farm for a week-long trip. Once the children discover the elderly couple are involved in something deeply disturbing, they see their chances of getting back home growing smaller every day… Shyamalan produces The Visit through Blinding Edge Pictures, Blum through Blumhouse Productions alongside Marc Bienstock (Quarantine 2: Terminal), and their cohorts Steven Schneider (Insidious) and Ashwin Rajan (Devil) executive produce.

In anticipation of the release of The Visit, the Lighthouse presents a weekend of Shyamalan’s celebrated triptych.

The Sixth Sense: 28th August, 8.15pm

Shyamalan’s breakthrough third feature as director was a ghost story with a twist, rather famously, and minted money for all concerned in the dying months of 1999. Bruce Willis is the child psychiatrist trying to help the literally haunted Haley Joel Osment, who sees dead people, while unable to salvage his own failing marriage to Olivia Williams.

Signs: 29th August, 4.00pm

The final appearance of Mel Gibson as major movie star was a low-key tale of alien invasion, with Gibson’s widowed preacher becoming convinced that his family were somehow ordained to fight this cosmic takeover in the oddest way. Indeed the peculiar oddness of their calling was the first sign people were tiring of Shyamalan’s twist tic.

Unbreakable: 29th August, 8.30pm

Bruce Willis re-united with Shyamalan for a comic-book movie with a difference, not least that it wasn’t based on a comics title. Shyamalan’s extremely measured pacing took imbuing seriousness into pulp even more seriously than Bryan Singer’s X-Men, also out in 2000, and the huge twist at the end was a satisfying pay-off.

Charlene Lydon, programmer at the Lighthouse, says “We are delighted to welcome M. Night Shyamalan as our guest here. I think it is an interesting time in his career as he appears to be in a state of transition, having moved from the mainstream to making a secret low-budget found-footage thriller. I very much look forward to hearing him in conversation and also enjoy the opportunity to revisit some of his earlier work on the big screen.”

Wayward Pines, the TV show Shyamalan produced and directed the first episode of, has received extremely wounding criticism. And that’s after the unmerciful beating After Earth took. Things started to go wrong with The Village, in retrospect, as it threw in a frankly unnecessary twist almost because Shyamalan felt he had to insert a twist. (Which made The IT Crowd scene in which Matt Berry throws out every possible twist he can think of while Chris O’Dowd tries to watch a film feel a very pointed jab.) But then came Lady in the Water… When I reviewed The Happening for Dublinks.com I couldn’t escape the feeling that Shyamalan had lost his nerve. Lady in the Water was drunk on confidence, stretching the thinnest of stories into a feature. The Happening, by contrast, made a mess of a proper feature. As visual stylist Shyamalan put together impressive sequences, but as a writer he seemed self-doubting and his actors’ performances suffered accordingly. Perhaps teaming up with Blum is just what Shyamalan needs: a return to pared-down horror, with grounded characterisation, and no grandiosity. We shall see…

Tickets for each screening are now on sale at http://www.lighthousecinema.ie. The Visit is in cinemas on 11th September 2015.

‘You Make the Movies’

‘You Make the Movies’ is something you’re going to be seeing and hearing a lot of soon so here’s some info on what it is.

‘You Make the Movies’ is a pro-copyright campaign organised by the Irish Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness. The who in the what, you say? Glad you asked. It was set up in 2004 to help promote copyright, and inform movie and television fans everywhere of its vital importance. Funded by more than 30 member companies, from film studios to retailers, it spreads the word about the positive role copyright plays in protecting creative ideas. This campaign is being supported by Carlton Screen Advertising, Bravo Outdoor Advertising, and Clear Channel; and, with a media value in excess of €500k, will be rolled out across outdoor, print and online platforms. The part of the campaign that will undoubtedly catch people’s eyes are trailers, directed by BBC comedy heavyweight Steve Bendelack, paying homage to famous film moments from Lord of the Rings, The Life of Brian, Sixth Sense, Jerry Maguire and Jaws. The tagline ‘You Make The Movies’ in this initiative to protect the creative rights and livelihoods of people working in the Irish film industry is an explicit acknowledgement of the vital role the public plays in supporting the industry.

Copyright issues are obviously one of the most challenging issues for the movie industry today, just as much as for the now crippled music industry. Trish Long, Disney Ireland VP says the campaign recognises “the importance of protecting creative ideas and in helping secure the livelihoods of approximately 18,000 people who work in the film industry throughout Ireland. We hope that movie lovers nationwide will enjoy the campaign and take to heart the message, of which we are absolutely convinced, which is very simply: YOU Make the Movies.” Actress Amy Huberman also throws her substantial weight behind the campaign, “Illegal downloads and piracy are killing the film industry. If you love the cinema, keep supporting the real industry and pay for the movies that you want to see. Pirated DVDs … will simply reduce the number of good films it will be possible to make and for you to see as they take money directly from the filmmakers’ pockets.” Mark Doherty of The Independent Cinema Association of Ireland, heartily agrees, “Your local cinema has been an integral part of the community in Ireland for generations… From Dublin Bay to Galway Bay, young and old, from the usher who takes your ticket to the projectionist up in the booth. Every time you buy a cinema ticket you help to keep our industry alive.”

The Irish film and gaming industry has a turnover in excess of €700 million. Tom Byrne, in charge of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Ireland, notes that DVD rentals and sales are now “a key contributor to the total revenue of a film” that directly employs over 2000 people around Ireland. Byrne importantly states, “We are greatly encouraged by the positive message of this campaign and believe that the Irish public will respond equally positively to that message and think more carefully about the consequences of purchasing illegal content.” The British campaign of a couple of years ago, featuring Daniel Craig and crew-members from Quantum of Solace, successfully reversed the tone of the previous, inescapable, incredibly aggressive and negative campaign that was so memorably and justly destroyed by The IT Crowd. If Brendan Gleeson’s ever to get his film of At Swim-Two Birds with Hollywood’s Irish stars off the ground this campaign needs a similar achievement…

For more click www.youmakethemovies.ie.