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Will Smith

Preview Review: Zookeeper — A Premise that Comes with a Hitch

by Dustin Freeley on May 24, 2011 · 0 comments

When a martini has that perfect balance of vodka and vermouth, enhanced by chips of shaken ice and the salty touch of an olive, you record your measurements for repeated imbibing pleasure. When filet mignon is seared the appropriate length of time so that it melts in your mouth, you do your best to duplicate that touch and taste.

I’m not sure if the same advice should be given when making a movie.

As the summer months begin, so do the horde of summer movies: blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean: Yes, we Made Another One, Thor, Green Lantern, and Super 8, buddy comedies like Hangover 2, and cartoons like Cars 2 will soon be the respite from muggy city streets. One such summer movie that opens July 8th is Zookeeper, and while I’m not sure which category to lump this one in, I will assert that Columbia Pictures needs a touch of help in their creative department, primarily because the current Kevin James vehicle about a clumsy, nervous fellow who is in need of dating advice strikes me as rather similar to the last James film about a clumsy, nervous fellow who needs dating advice, Hitch.

However, this time, Will Smith does not appear as the Christian de Neuvillette to James’ Cyrano; instead, Griffin Keyes’ (James) advisors are a bevy of bipeds and quadrupeds, all of who speak and give pearls of advice like “unlock your inner bear” and “never let a rider dictate the outcome of a situation.” Interpretations of this advice could certainly be seen in the world of dating, though exposing one’s “inner bear” in public might result in some sort of fine.

It is clear from the trailer that these lessons are not be taken symbolically, but rather, literally as demonstrated by Keyes’ mimicking of a giant grizzly protecting his cave, replete with opened-mouthed “arrrarrharr” while trying to intimidate a fellow car salesman — a profession that is suggested to be a step up from zookeeping, which might be ironic since both occupations require the employee to sling crap all day. These scenes may elicit a few laughs, as might James’ control over his not usual-Hollywood physique, something that’s made him a rather good physical comic and carried overall disappointing films like Paul Blart: Mall Cop and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, though it’s difficult to suggest that these laughs will overshadow the overall silliness of the film.

Regardless of the laughs evoked and the ridiculous predicaments that Keyes works his way into and out of, the trailer portends that the end result of Zookeeper will be similar to the subtext of Hitch: be yourself or beware of disaster. In Hitch, Albert (James) can’t be himself because he believes that his self could never attract or kindle interest of Allegra Cole (Amber Valleta), thus he needs the assistance of Hitch (Smith). Eventually, the uncovering of Albert’s association with Hitch threatens to sink his relationship as Cole believes that everything up to that point has been fraudulent. While this isn’t entirely untrue, Albert’s true self emerges and saves the day.

A similar story has been fashioned here. Keyes has been shot down by a former girlfriend who comes one “no” shy of becoming a fiancé, but declines the proposal because she doesn’t want to be with a zookeeper. Although the occupations and financial earnings of Albert and Keyes are different, the lack of self-esteem and feeling of self-worth are the same, thus the need for an outside party to interject, and I would assume that the denouement of Zookeeper includes Keyes returning to the zoo, giving up a life as a car salesman and still winning the girl, or at least a girl who will love him for who he is. Perhaps the twist will be a violent surfacing of his previously-latent love for llamas. I might pay to see that.

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Gladiator PSA: “Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right” — Tips for the Upcoming Apocalypse

by Dustin Freeley on May 20, 2011 · 0 comments

As I gather my Bible, Torah, Koran, copy of Watchmen, and print of Dali’s St. John on the Cross, I ready myself for the inevitable uber-undulating of the Earth that will occur around 6pm EST. As I’m preparing to barricade myself in an Astoria apartment with silver bullets, whittled crosses of what used to be a dining set, and a makeshift machete fashioned from a refrigerator fan, I wonder whether Harold Camping, the 89-year old radio broadcaster,  Christian Evangelist and impetus of my paranoia was initially swayed by Michael Stipe, who initially prophesied the end of existence on the 1987 album Document when he proclaimed “it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, [and] an aeroplane.” Perhaps he wasn’t far off inasmuch as Camping has declared that 6pm on May 21st will bring “this tremendous earthquake that’s going to make the last earthquake in Japan seem like nothing in comparison. And the whole world will be alerted that Judgment Day has begun.” 1

These earthquakes will continue in succession as each time zone hits 6pm, which means that at certain moments you will be able to see territories that have been divided by human mathematics shake, undulate, and rupture while you stand on the solid ground beneath your feet, thanking the heavens that you and your family were dedicated individuals who “have quit their jobs and left their families to get the message out” like those who are “passing out tracts and reading the Bible” because they “don’t see the need for one more dollar.” 2

Within those with such dedication, I see something noble in trying to save as many lives as possible, and those who don’t listen only have themselves to blame for not listening to Camping, who, with “no formal religious training” 3 has only one time before made a prediction that didn’t come to fruition when he prophesied the end of the world in 1994, but he can’t truly be blamed for a math error that was caused by the denseness of Jeremiah, a rather intricate book in the Old Testament.  Besides, when publishing 1994?, he “put a big question mark after [the title], and in the book it also indicated that 2011 was also a good possibility,” so he was merely kindling fear, not necessarily mongering it.

This time around, the math has been meticulously reviewed and proves that “we know it is absolutely going to happen with no question at all.” After all, how could you doubt an equation that factors in the number of books in the Old Testament (46), the Deadly Sins (7), the Cardinal virtues (4), Jesus divided by pi, pi divided by Judas, the number of miracles performed (33) and is divided by the cosine of the Apocrypha (9). This time my friends, it is fool proof, not like the wealth of other biblical contradictions that condone and denounce slavery, homosexuality, masturbation, pre-marital sex, birth control, and capital punishment.

And, if there is any way to prepare for the beginning of the end of the world, it would be to refer to the most helpful tips provided to us by cinema:

As per 2012, a movie that missed the mark by a year but gets an honorable mention, we know that earthquakes and natural disasters chase cars and target specific people, so don’t try to run. It’s best just to stay in place as if you were evading a tyrannosaurus rex, one of those fictional monsters fabricated by opponents of intelligent design whose only evidence boils down to fossils.

When the earth similarly turns on us, we can always recall the wisdom of The Day After Tomorrow, in which we learn that large ships can navigate themselves through a narrow city covered in ice. But most importantly, wolves are survivors that are impervious to the elements, particularly when they hunger for blood from a perpetually brooding male figure that shows anger, frustration, sadness, and contempt all by crossing his arms and scowling.

We’ve also learned that it’s sometimes best to be rogue and worry about your own existence, but if you’re going to partner up with someone, it’s best to have an African-American in your corner. Morgan Freeman kept the heads of our country cool in Deep Impact, Denzel Washington became the preacher of a new civilization in The Book of Eli, and Will Smith saved the world from interplanetary annihilation in Independence Day and fought off a wealth of preternatural creatures in I am Legend. Lest we forget Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?

If perchance, a Will Smith-type figure is not around or has been melted by a fire-weilding angel, it might be best to locate a down-on-his luck, trying to atone for his transgressions blue collar worker like Randy Quaid in Independence Day or Bruce Willis in Armageddon. Self-sacrifice is often an admirable quality in someone that is not you.

With that, I bid you all adieu and hope to see you on the other side of the apocalypse.

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Gladiator PSA: Today’s Sign of the Apocalypse!

by Dustin Freeley on April 8, 2011 · 0 comments

In Revelations, Death will eventually enter on a pale horse followed by Hell, to whom “power was given […] over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth”; however, it seems the apocalypse is equally foretold when an unstoppable money-making force meets the harbinger of terrible movies and fodder for my most sardonically cynical posts.

A recent Time article has foretold this paradox that threatens to tear its way through Hollywood’s celluloid continuum when it announced that “Will Smith and son Jaden plan to star in a new M. Night Shyamalan-directed flick” (source).

An immediate – and accurate – reaction to this news is that only two possible solutions could present themselves here. First off, the Smith family’s journey into remaking all eighties movies will be heavily impeded and ultimately derailed when they team up with Shyamalan to remake Back to the Future, but this time, a twist is added in which George McFly (Crispin Glover) fails to knock out Biff, but instead of continuing to be Biff’s lackey, McFly wanders home with head hung low, and soon after, stumbles upon an article about serial killer Ed Gein, with whose sheltered and lonesome existence he finds compassion, driving George to lay low until he can accost Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson) and Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) on their wedding day and proceed to hold Lorraine captive while he fashions Biff’s corpse into a Biff-suit so that he can play the role of “Daddy” as Marty McFly vanishes from existence while jamming to Huey Lewis is a cross-time split screen.

The more likely – and even perhaps more ominous – outcome of this endeavor is that Shyamalan’s career is resurrected, and he no longer inspires moviegoers to purge laughter at the brief flash of his name during a preview (source).  However frightening this prediction is, it seems rather probable, and mostly because Shyamalan – while still the director of the “futuristic sci-fi story set 1,000 years set in the future” (source) – seems unlikely to have any say about the content of the film, which is often the weakest part of his movies. Directorially, his past movies are entertaining, and even though his techniques sometimes border on pretention rather than necessity, his skill lies behind the camera.

But, this new project seems to have manufactured an antidote for his previous flops inasmuch as Jada Pinkett Smith, along with Will Smith are “co-producing the Shyamalan flick,” which suggests that anything not deemed Smith-worthy will not be filmed. And, this is where Shyamalan’s resurrection begins. While Will Smith has a few movies that I wish I had never seen, the majority have been entertaining, but more importantly for Shyamalan, only three movies since the release of Bad Boys in 1995 have grossed less than one-hundred million dollars (Ali, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Seven Pounds), and most of them have grossed well over two-hundred million, even those that were critically questionable like I am Legend and Hancock (source).

The point here is that Smith is – even on a bad day – box-office gold, so if anything were to redeem the fatefully terrible movies of Shyamalan, with the lone exception being Unbreakable (the argument that The Sixth Sense is void because the movie is completely un-rewatchable and, honestly, the twist at the end is the only reason why people forget about how viscous the actual story is), it would be the presence of the Smith family, whose ability to churn out moneymakers is nearly preternatural.

You know, after this venture, we might want to prepare ourselves for a remake of Back to the Future.

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Preview Review — The Karate Kid: Child Abuse and Prelude to an International Skirmish

by Dustin Freeley on June 24, 2010 · 0 comments

The original The Karate Kid is a synecdoche of the 80s; one that combines the underdog, underprivileged, middle-class Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio) – replete with brown hair, brown eyes and a New York accent that casts him as an outsider on the blonde-haired-blue-eyed-laden beaches of Beverly Hills and its affluent residents, including bad-boy Johnny Lawrence, which admittedly just sounds like a badass name. All of this is interspersed with a handful of love and training montages, complete with Joe Esposito’s silky-voiced-ballad declaring “you’re the best…a-round / nothins ever gonna keep ya down / yur the best aaaroooouuuund!”

Like most films from the eighties, this one has a moral message. And, like most eighties films, it tackles the theme of the outsider declaring the need for ubiquitous benevolence – but, after physically beating someone from a different culture, ethnicity, race, or social class. For further examples of these, please see Red Dawn, Footloose, Flashdance, Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV (Rocky V was released in 1990, so it rejects the need to further this trope; instead, Rocky beats the hell out of a smartass punk who has AIDS.) The Karate Kid’s message is two-fold. One, anyone can attain victory by staying focused and kicking some ass. Two, the elderly aren’t as useless as they seem. As a note, this last assertion is neither a joke nor an allusion to Dumb and Dumber. The original tagline for The Karate Kid is “Only the ‘Old One’ could teach him the secrets of the masters.”

Despite all of the eighties facets crammed into one film that also includes an improbable finishing move in the Crane Technique (really, Johnny just had to wait one extra second, wait for Daniel to land and then punch him square in the chest), The Karate Kid has a charm built on decent acting by Macchio, Elisabeth Shue, and Pat Morita (who, incidentally, was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Mr. Miyagi) as well as a decent story that traverses a wide range of ages insofar as Daniel, Ali Mills (Shue) and Johnny (William Zabka) are supposed to be 16- to 17-year-old students in high school, but the actors and actress are 23, 21 and 20, respectively, which allows adults to visually associate more with the characters because they are built like adults, not pubescent teens with acne and squeaky voices. If one were to cross-breed Saved by the Bell and The Karate Kid, it would probably be difficult to coerce an adult into watching the original without a child present. At the same time, the eighties mantra of butt-kicking teenagers clearly draws pre-pubescent teenagers as well as older teens into the film’s venture.

And, this is where 2010’s The Karate Kid differs. While nostalgia and the lack of having children prevent me from seeing this movie in the theaters, the previews are rather telling. Thus far, the reviews of the film have been pretty decent, and I’m actually not against a remake given that the newest version has been released 26 years after the original. After facing the hurdles that I’m getting old and on my path to true curmudgeonary, I brushed them off and focused on the trailer. In fact, I saw it at three different theaters, and there’s something just a touch wonky about the introduction of Mr. Han (formerly Miyagi) and the disparity between the overall charm displayed by the original.

First off, the main character Dre is played by Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith, a worshipper of Lord Emperor Zod, funding partner of a cult that is destined to end in castration or with the rest of us decreeing “Huh. Did not see that coming.” I have nothing against Jayden Smith, but his inclusion in this film follows what I like to call “Harry Potter Logic” – or, the creation of young adult characters who serve as magnetic vehicles that draws in similar young adult viewers and carry them along in subsequent novels and films as the young adult protagonists mature into teenage protagonists and then to an adult protagonists. Really, it’s genius, but one of the primary reasons why the majority of contemporary films should be DVRed for those spontaneous moments of boredom and nothing more.

Secondly, and most closely related to the wonkiness of Mr. Han is that the actors in 2010’s The Karate Kid are all 12-year-olds playing 12-year-olds. Because older actors were cast in the original, it doesn’t seem curious that Mr. Miyagi scales a chain-link fence to defend Daniel and completely pummels the five Johnny-led attackers, leaving them writhing and moaning on the ground while he helps Daniel back to the apartment complex. Appropriately, it doesn’t seem strange because Pat Morita stood about 5’3″ and was towered over by the taller, more muscular, 20-something-year-old actors, so we see (literally and figuratively) Mr. Miyagi as an underdog and at a disadvantage.

However, this connection with the old-man-underdog cannot be present in the newest version. Initially, the trailer seems rather faithful to the original with the exception of Mr. Han using a flyswatter as opposed to chopsticks — which elides the “true masters never lose focus” mantra of the original version — but then veers to the absurd when Dre is jumped by a number of Chinese students, only to be rescued by Mr. Han, who proceeds to take care of the gang and rescue Dre. The difference here is that the 12-year-old actors playing 12-year-olds look like 12-year-olds being jumped by Jackie Chan. While the original gives us a short, rather squat Mr. Miyagi facing a group of muscular, older males, the remake gives us Mr. Han, who has a good 12-inch height advantage on each of his opponents. While this was funny in Seinfeld when Kramer succumbed to his classmates’ “tiny fists of fury,” it reads as a bit creepier in the updated Karate Kid.

I’m half expecting the inevitable sequel to contain Walter Sobchak wandering through Beijing expositing, “Twelve-year-olds, Dude” prior to finding a toe before four o’clock.

What’s also a bit curious about this newer version is that the young protagonist’s ability to learn Kung Fu at such an exponential rate mocks the Chinese culture and the practice of Kung Fu, a martial art form inspired by Chinese philosophies, traditions, and legends. For Dre to be able to acquire these skills and physically – and evidently spiritually – match with students who have grown up with this practice as a way of life, minimizes the philosophical essence of Kung Fu. I don’t think the same thing can be said for the original Karate Kid inasmuch as Daniel was the only student learning from an experienced karate master in Mr. Miyagi. The Cobras were led and instructed by John Kreese (Martin Kove), a former Colonel in the United States Army. While he comes off as quite an adequate soldier, he is just that, a soldier and one who didn’t spend his youth in a country that cherished the significance of the martial arts.

If, on the off chance, China screens the new version of The Karate Kid and an international skirmish wells up because of it, I would like the 1.4 billion conscripted soldiers to read this post.

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