A lot of people remember Dax Shepard as being that guy who was famous for a little while in the mid 2000s and then sort of fell off the wagon as far as being famous goes. I really don’t know why though. He’s talented, funny, and actually a talented actor. I think that both Without a Paddle and Employee of the Month, and even Let’s Go To Prison are all completely underrated comedies that really showed Shepard’s range as a comedian.
Anyway, after taking some time off from the limelight, Shepard is back with a hilarious trailer for his writing and directing debut. The film is called Hit & Run and it follows a former getaway driver nicknamed Charlie Bronson, who’s in witness protection, and his girlfriend (and real-life fiance), the always lovely Kristen Bell. After landing a dream job in LA, the two plan to make a trip out there, but Charlie’s past gets in the way. An old accomplice played by Bradley Cooper swoops in looking for money that Charlie owes him, explaining that he spent 8 months in prison for this money.
Now, Charlie has to find a way to get the money before things go really bad. Also in search of Charlie is a federal agent played by Tom Arnold who is in charge of keeping him safe at all costs. The whole thing amounts to what looks to be a wild and hilarious ride from the mind of one of the most undervalued comedians in Hollywood. The trailer itself is frenetic and chaotically funny as it goes from one wild scenario to the next. From Tom Arnold accidentally catapulting a bowling ball from his car, to the gang busting in on a hotel room full of naked old people, to seeing Bradley Cooper in a believable set of dreads, Hit & Run seems to have it all and then some.
Recently, Showtime decided to give all of us a little nugget and release the entire pilot of their new show, House of Lies, on YouTube. I have been so entirely excited for this show to release. I’ve heard such amazing things about Homeland(I’m new to Showtime and haven’t watched it, don’t judge). Couple that with the cast, and you’re sure to have a winner. Don Cheadle is so versatile and amazing. Kristen Bell is a goddess. Jean-Ralphio is HILARIOUS, he has to be just ripping joke after joke.
These things, I thought, were obvious statements. It turns out obvious statements – straight to camera, no less – are exactly what I got.
I will preface the review I’m about to give with a statement. And that statement is this: this pilot was not terrible. Not a ringing endorsement I realize, but it’s important to remember that a lot of good shows have sprung from awkward pilots (such as America’s version of The Office). Sometimes shows can really hit their stride after a few episodes in, so it’s important not to throw a show completely out the window based on one episode.
However…
There isn’t a lot I feel like House of Lies has going for it. The characters seem overdone and cliche to the extreme. Marty is the asshole. Jeanie is the no-nonsense independent woman. Both are secretly lonely and it manifests itself in completely different ways. She swears they’ll never sleep together, which means they probably will. Marty refuses to be Dr. Phil’d by his retired shrink father when he has hate-sex with his psycho ex-wife, who happens to have his position in a competing consulting firm. He has a gender-confused son who tries to Kurt Hummell his way into a musical. Jeanie, of course, can take care of herself, and has frozen her own eggs to prove it. She is confident, self-sufficient, and married to her job.
The pilot leads us down the rosy path of redemption. Each characters flaws are displayed in detail, with a hint that we will get to their cores, learn more about them, grow to understand and care about them. The thing is, I don’t care. I’ve seen these people before, I wanted to see some new ones. So you’ve got a tired plot in one hand, half-ass character development in the other; and then you throw in the commentary. Of course, the common watcher may not know a thing about consulting jargon, so it would make sense to want to explain it. However, I really don’t think everyone watching ER is a doctor, or needs to have someone look into the screen and explain what an aortic dissection is.
I have no problem with Marty talking to the camera. In fact, the one part of the pilot I did really like was the presentation to the bank toward the end. Marty looks at the camera and says, “you’ve got the company that has the US by the balls… by the balls.” That’s the kind of commentary and humor that this show needs and that this pilot lacked. I felt like every time he looked the camera and explained a term like data dump, I was watching a cheesy training video about consulting on my first day at the firm. I don’t think a show needs to be dumbed down to that point. They should be relying on clever writing telling a story and this just felt lazy. Shows walk the line between correct and believable while still appealing to mass audiences.
I will give House of Lies an honest chance, a real one. The potential is just too great for me to ignore. And like I said, the pilot wasn’t terrible. It was just underwhelming. I was disappointed in the lack of depth and intelligence in it.
I give this episode 2.5/5 bears, so your rating glass can be half empty or half full. You pick.
Not too long ago, we told you all about House of Lies, a new show coming soon to Showtime. The network liked the new show enough to order 12 episodes of the show, which we now know will premiere on Sunday, January 8th, 2012 at 10 pm.
House of Lies will star Don Cheadle as Marty, who every piece of news is describing as a “cutthroat/self-loathing consultant of a top-tier firm.” And also, apparently he’s a real envelope-pusher who threw out his moral compass before he came to work. The show will also star Kristen Bell(Veronica Mars, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Dawn Olivieri (Heroes), Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation) and Glynn Turman (the creepy old black guy from Super 8).
I am super excited! I think this show is going to be majorly awesome. I’ve already fan-girled about the cast; but if the writing is good, it could be a sparkly jewel in the 2012 TV programming crown.
In an interview with the website Zap2it, Kristen Bell talks about her character and about the series:
Zap2it: Are the characters political consultants?
Kristen Bell:Really anything. It’s basically a group of cutthroat management consultants that will do whatever is necessary to get the job and the after-work. It’s murky as to what they actually really do, which I think is the actual description of consultants. If someone has a problem, we come and fix it — you’re downsizing, you need to stop fighting, whatever needs to be done. And their moral compasses are a little bit wonky. … But there’s a dynamic between the four of us — Don Cheadle, me, Josh Lawson and Ben Schwartz — that’s very fun. We travel together all the time, we spend 100 hours a week together.
So it’s kind of our life as traveling salesmen.
Would you call it a comedy, a dark comedy, what?
KB:It’s a dark comedy — a dark dramedy, I’d say actually. Tonally, it’s very Showtime.
What about the role appealed to you?
KB:I’d been searching for the right TV project. I knew I didn’t want anything built around me, for the reason of it’s difficult to be No. 1 on the call sheet. It’s a very different workload than No. 2. But also I wanted to find a writer or creator who had a story to tell, who wasn’t just like, “OK, what can we do with her?” I didn’t want it to be sold on me; I wanted to be part of a good project. And I trust Matthew Carnahan [“Dirt”], our creator, implicitly. I think he’s very funny, he’s very dark, he’s very provocative. I think Showtime also has a lot more they can do with storylines — what they show, the subject matter they broach. And working with Don Cheadle is not a bad thing. He’s pretty exceptional, both as a human being and as an actor, and I just feel like I’m learning a lot from him. I’m trying to absorb how he works.
Other than not being in every scene, what’s different about being part of an ensemble vs. being the star of a series?
KB:Then you’re No. 1 on the call sheet, when you completely represent a show, there’s so much more that’s required of you. You’re in every frame of the show, but there’s also the publicity aspect that’s a reality for us. There’s just a lot more on your shoulders, a lot more pressure. There’s a lot more pressure when you’re the main component of a show, and I didn’t want that pressure. I wanted to have fun, and this has actually been really fun.
Can you talk more about your character?
KB:I don’t know if I can. A lot is revealed in the first three episodes. She’s very compartmentalized. She has a lot of issues.
I’d imagine that in a show called “House of Lies” the people probably aren’t squeaky-clean.
KB:Yeah — she’s very flawed. All the characters are kind of flawed. So the dynamics are a little bit deeper — no one is exactly what you think they are. That’s partly because their line of work bleeds over into their personal lives. They’re chameleons. They transform into whatever the client needs them to be and do whatever they need to get the job. If you need us to be firm, we’re firm. You need us to be soft, we’re soft. You need us to rub your back, we’ll rub your back. The ability to transform to get what you want is what bleeds into my character’s personal life.
It almost sounds like you’re getting to play several different characters.
KB:There are many facets to my character’s personality, and every time they come up with a new one they’re like, “Oh yeah, and she’s this, and she believes this. Which could be directly contradictory to something we’ve already established, but that’s what they’re asking me to do, and it’s really exciting as an actor.
Summer is still in full swing, but one thing is captivating the minds of TV execs – Fall TV programming! With so many shows crashing and burning in the last year (The Event, Camelot, Detroit 1-8-7) and so many veteran programs having seen their last (Friday Night Lights, Smallville, Rescue Me), there are some large spots to fill. Showtime promises to provide some interesting heavy hitters under the regime of new president, David Nevins; including an order for 12 episodes of House of Lies, written and executive-produced by Matthew Carnahan (Dirt).
House of Lies is loosely based on the novel House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time by Martin Kihn, a satirical commentary that attempts to break down the fluffy misconceptions of the consulting business. His stance is that consulting is mostly a joke that became profitable; and that anyone will listen to an Ivy Leaguer with an MBA who wears a nice suit and uses fancy-pants words like “paradigm” and “granular.” Even if this finely pressed suit is spooning you information that you already know and taking credit for a success that isn’t theirs.
House of Lies (the TV show) will be a dark comedy that follows the career of consultant, Marty (Don Cheadle), who is described as “cutthroat,” without a moral compass to guide him as he does anything and everything necessary to succeed. The show will also star Kristen Bell (that native Detroiter that we love!) as Jeannie, a razor-sharp Ivy League grad, who is alleged to act as a voice of reason.
The show will also star Ben Schwartz (Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation) who is about twelve shades of hilarious, and Josh Lawson, who has been in only B-movies and crappy TV shows.
I think this show has the power to premiere to strong numbers. Not only does it have an all-star cast lineup, but it sounds pretty darn interesting and hilarious. Having worked for a consultancy firm, I’m curious to see how much steam they take from Martin Kihn’s book. I’ve heard he really tears the whole institution apart in it. Which is funny in my book, because consultants are all self-righteous stuffed peacocks who think that the ground they walk on turns to gold and that they shit sunshine and rainbows. If the show makes fun of consulting as much as I hope they do, I will be a fan for life.
[Editor’s Note: I’ve included an interview with Bell that has almost nothing to do with the show. How can you not like her?!?!]
House of Lies has started production and will begin filming soon. Look for it to hit Showtime in the Fall 2011 or Spring 2012 lineups!
Anyone who read my Scream Retrospective earlier this week will know I greatly respected the original Scream and was looking forward to this installment. When I arrived at the theater, the teenage girl behind the counter told me that the new one was really awesome, but that she had never watched any of the first three movies, because they looked ‘stupid’ and ‘lame’. For some reason, her ringing endorsement did not instill me with confidence, even though she was clearly an expert on the franchise.
Once inside, I was surprised that a 7:45 show, on opening night wasn’t more full. The theater was probably less than half-capacity, and of the kids there, probably most were still in diapers when the original was released. The movie started in the expected way, a phone call and a discussion about horror movies. This time, however, it didn’t seem so fresh. Now you’re probably thinking: “Of course it’s not fresh, it’s the fourth movie,” but I guess I was expecting something new.
Never have I watched a movie so self-aware of how cool its predecessor was, but it’s a new day. Scream 4 largely revolves around talking about how great the Stab franchise is. Stab being the movie within Scream 2, based on the events of first movie. So here you have a script written by Kevin Williamson(who wrote the first movie) that never stops stroking Kevin Williamson’s ego.
Our three returning Scream Staples – Sidney, Gale, and Dewey – seem to be nothing more than caricatures of themselves. Sidney has written a book about her exploits and is on tour. Her last stop is Woodsboro. Gale has settled down and married Dewey, who is now the sheriff of Woodsboro, and employees a star-studded police force that made me feel more like I was watching Scary Movie 6 than an actual canon chapter of the franchise.
Adam Brody and Anthony Anderson are deputies that define a new level of ineptitude within the genre. Sure, cops regularly wind up dead in horror movies, but they usually at least seem somewhat competent beforehand. There is never a point in the movie where you are made to believe these guys could even remotely protect anyone. The sad part, they are the most believable cops in the movie. Sin City‘s Marley Shelton plays another Deputy that is openly crushing on Sheriff Dewey, and either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that his wife is in the room. Her character is so strange you wonder how she could ever be allowed to carry a gun. No police force in film history has ever instilled less confidence. That fact is cemented by Dewey’s shooting ability, and later his hand to hand combat scene with the killer. I won’t ruin anything, but Dirty Harry he is not.
The teens in this movie are so irritating (which may be a sign of my age), that I found myself actually rooting for the killer to end them. They are headlined by Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), who is in actuality only 20, but looks about 30 in here, and was at no point believable as a high schooler.
Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) and Jill (Emma Roberts)
Then we have the entire ‘Gale’ storyline. Starting with her fall from grace since becoming a cop’s wife, which is so epic that she basically has to beg the High School Cinema Club to hang out with her and help solve the murders! And could you find a couple of less likable film geeks than the kid with the web-cam on his head and Macaulay Culkin’s little brother? I doubt it. Randy is probably rolling in his grave.
The cast though is one thing that the franchise has always counted as a strength. The number of name actors in this movie certainly helped add to the buzz. Aside from those already mentioned, we see a whole plethora of recognizable faces, including local Detroit News 4 anchor – Devin Scillian, Friday Night Lights star Aimee Teegarden and the incredible Allison Brie.
Anyhow, no surprise, this movie was totally style over substance. To be fair, there were a couple of parts I liked. The Kristen Bell scene was good, and there is a fight where someone gets smashed into a picture on the wall, that was hilarious. But there was no point where they had set up a scare well enough for it to pay off.
In the end the movie came off obnoxiously pretentious and so self-aware that you can’t help but think that between this and Scream 3, the franchise has hurt the genre just as much as helped it.
Overall Score: Scream 4 – 2/5 Bears – 1 out of respect for the original movie. – 1 for putting Kristen Bell and Allison Brie in the same movie.
You have to think about the landscape of the horror genre in 1996. Several years removed from its last smash hit and fading, Horror fans wanted a reason to go to the theater. The genre was in trouble, and the most successful horror movies of the decade to that point were Silence of the Lambs, Misery, and Flatliners. All released in 1990, and none of which are traditional ‘Horror’ movies. It seemed the old school ‘slasher flick’ had been all but killed the in the late 1980s. Done in by endless sub-par sequels to movies like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th. Audiences had become fed up and the box office reflected it. So when Scream came out, and grossed over $100 million, it was a big deal.
I felt the Laser line background screamed 1990.
I think it’s easy to forget how big a deal it was now, 15 years removed from its release, because of what came after. Scream fell victim to the same formula that killed its predecessors: Too many mediocre (if not downright terrible) sequels and copycats. In recent years I’ve been involved in discussions where this movie will be brought up and someone will lump it in with the garbage that followed. That however, is simply not fair. Scream was a head above anything that followed through the rest of the decade. From I Know What You Did Last Summer (& it’s own sequel) to Urban Legend (& it’s terrible sequel) to Scream 2 & 3, no movie I can think of has been so copied so quickly.
Scream set a standard for a while. It wasn’t just another teenage slasher flick, it was self-aware. It was a satire of the entire genre that it unintentionally revitalized. They did everything from straight out referencing movies like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street by name, to talking about the director of their own movie in a fictional manner. All the while, more subtly throwing nods back to the classics. Skeet Ulrich’s character, ‘Billy Loomis’ should sound familiar to Hitchcock fans who will remember the boyfriend ‘Sam Loomis’ from Psycho. You might also remember one ‘Dr. Loomis’ in the Halloween movies. We get a cameo from The Exorcist star Linda Blair as a reporter, and Sheriff Burke was played by Joseph Whipp. Mr. Whipp doesn’t have much luck protecting kids apparently, as he was also a cop on Elm Street 12 years earlier.
This also came out at a time when it was rare to get A-List cast in a horror flick. I mean, this is what you did to start a career, not once you were established. And make no mistake, in 1996, Drew Barrymore was a bona fide A-List actress and I don’t think she gets credit enough for the success of this movie either. Scream catapulted almost the entire cast into furthering their careers. Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox were already TV stars, but this made them house hold names. Plus David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, and Rose McGowan all went on to have success after this.
The story was simple enough, small town high school students are being terrorized by a serial killer. He wears a mask and calls to taunt his victims on the phone. That aspect is what has been most played up in spoofs and re-imaginings. So much so that phone companies reported the orders for ‘Caller ID’ tripled after the release of the movie. As the movie progressed and we learn who the killer is (are) we are regaled by the lack of motives. Sidney (Campbell) survives and we’re actually given a pretty satisfying end to the movie. So much so that a sequel really doesn’t make sense. Of course that didn’t stop them from making one.
In fact the movie became watered down by not 1, but 2 sequels. A watchable, but not good sequel in Scream 2, and then the abortion of a movie that was Scream 3. The second movie followed Sidney (Campbell) and Randy (Kennedy) off to college where the movie was once again packed with a good cast and similar formula. In this fictional universe there is a movie based on a book by Gale Weathers (Cox) about Sidney and the events from the original film. This movie with-in a movie is called Stab. Stab inspires a copycat killer to start stalking Sidney and recreating kills from the original killer.
This one has a cast that including Jerry O’Connell, Rebecca Gayheart, Jada Pinkett (Smith), Omar Epps, Heather Graham, and ‘Charlie’ from The Mighty Ducks. It also featured Buffy herself – Sarah Michelle Gellar, and future Arrested Development star Portia de Rossi. But the best parts of the cast were the 2 actors who weren’t yet widely known. First Liev Schreiber, who reprised his role (of about 10 seconds) from the first movie as Cotton Weary, and most importantly, my favorite actor on television – from Justified Raylan Givens Timothy Olyphant.
In the 3rd movie we were heavy on cameos and big names, like on substance. At the time I did enjoy the presence of Jenny McCarthy and the cameos Carrie Fisher and by Jay and Silent Bob, but I don’t remember enjoying much else. Scream 3 was so bad it not only killed the franchise for the next decade, but the whole genre for a couple of years. After the ware-out provided by all the copies, it wasn’t till the Japanese Horror Invasion started in 2002 with The Ring that the genre felt fresh again.
That quickly faded however, and they went back to the well. This time with a gluttony of remakes. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (& horrible sequel), The Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street, and an entire franchise reboot of Halloween.
Now, here we are in 2011, just a few days from the release of Scream 4. The first chapter of the franchise in over a decade, and just as before we’re not short on names. From Sookie to the Cheerleader to Annie Edison, this looks to be full of beautiful women in precarious situations. The most important one of course being my Uber-Crush: Kristen Bell.
I can’t really predict any true level of quality here, but I will say I’m expecting it to be better than the 3rd one was. As long as they’ve worked on it for, they must have learned something from the 3rd movie.
Well I can already say that I hate these new ‘movie geek’ kids. Lame ripoff of my favorite character in the series Randy. They just seem to convoluted to be likable, but I guess we’ll find out Friday.
Anyhow, I’m going to see this opening night because of my attachment to the franchise. I’ll be doing so in hopes it’s not terrible, because I’ve already committed to seeing it a 2nd time with my Secret Agent/G-Man buddy Dave. We watched all the other ones together back in High School, so it only seems fitting that we do this one as well.
“Yes Kristen, obviously I agree. VERONICA MARS was a better show than TRUE BLOOD is.”
Recently, Showtime decided to give all of us a little nugget and release the entire pilot of their new show, House of Lies, on YouTube. I have been so entirely excited for this show to release. I’ve heard such amazing things about Homeland (I’m new to Showtime and haven’t watched it, don’t judge). Couple that with the cast, and you’re sure to have a winner. Don Cheadle is so versatile and amazing. Kristen Bell is a goddess. Jean-Ralphio is HILARIOUS, he has to be just ripping joke after joke.
Grizzly Bomb 