It’s a little ironic that the fair-minded maiden in “Love in the Villa” yearns for an authentic, romantic Italian vacation since her fairy tale has been cobbled together by Netflix’s practically patented algorithm. Take one part down-on-her-luck female protagonist, add in a handsome-but-cantankerous gentleman either from or in an enchanting European setting, and mix with a generous splash of high jinks that force them to fall head over heels. Yet the blessed surprise awaiting even the most cynical of audiences of writer-director Mark Steven Johnson’s romantic comedy is that within the manufactured product lies a heartening appeal to its sensible delight.
Elementary school teacher Julie (Kat Graham), who is obsessed with “Romeo and Juliet,” has planned the trip of a lifetime with her boyfriend of four years, Brandon (Raymond Ablack). Their jaunt to Verona, Italy, includes everything from reservations at the finest restaurants to themed tours, all...
Elementary school teacher Julie (Kat Graham), who is obsessed with “Romeo and Juliet,” has planned the trip of a lifetime with her boyfriend of four years, Brandon (Raymond Ablack). Their jaunt to Verona, Italy, includes everything from reservations at the finest restaurants to themed tours, all...
- 9/1/2022
- by Courtney Howard
- Variety Film + TV
After the Austin Powers trilogy, there was a sense that comedian Mike Myers had elevated his game. Working with a character in three movies, he evolved the series from slapdash skits into real movies that had connective tissue and continuing characters. Love Guru is a regressive step in the extreme. Not only does the film stumble badly from one skit to another, the skits themselves have too much dead air. Neither Myers nor a group of hesitant actors -- who seem more like an endless number of sidekicks than supporting players -- show much confidence in the material. They seem to deliver lines or perform bits so they may quickly duck the rotten tomatoes surely headed their way.
Two film comedies go head-to-head this weekend, Love Guru and Get Smart, which is anything but smart on the studios' part. But the real question is which is the worst?
Quite possibly, Love Guru will out-awful Get Smart. Myers' name should ensure a respectable No. 2 finish, but all bets are off the following weekend.
The basic problem with Love Guru, as it was for Get Smart, is the filmmakers never define the central joke. Myers plays Guru Pikta, the Number Two Near-Eastern Self-Help Specialist. (Deepak Chopra is Number One.) This inspires all sort of spoofs of self-help mumbo jumbo, inane mantras, Bollywood dances and Beatles-era costumes. These almost get lost, though, amid serendipitous gags involving urination and defecation, elephants, ice hockey and penis size. Not to mention Verne Troyer, the little person who played Mini-Me in two Austin Powers films, who here is the butt of endless size jokes as well.
Oddly, Myers entrusted his first film with a new character to a rookie director, Marco Schnabel, who directed second unit on all three Austin Powers films. Schnabel not only lacks visual flair and the ability to pull together a style to link the skits, but he is probably too young and inexperienced to help Myers edit himself. When, say, one in four gags hit with any force, there is a need for serious editing.
Guru Pitka is hired by Toronto Maple Leafs owner (Jessica Alba) to reunite her star player (Romany Malco) with his wife (Meagan Good), who is shacked up with Los Angeles Kings goalie, Jacques Le Coq Grande (Justin Timberlake), which on the eve of the NHL's Stanley Cup Finals has sent her player's game into the toilet. This tissue-thin plot gets interrupted for flashbacks to Pitka's guru classes at an Indian ashram by an exalted cross-eyed guru played by Ben Kingsley.
A good actor is a terrible thing to waste, but this profligate film totally marginalizes Kingsley, Alba, Good and Malco. Timberlake fairs not too badly because he has a fun caricature to play, a Quebecois goalie with a huge crush on Celine Dion and an even larger physical endowment. The only actor who really scores is news talk show/comic Stephen Colbert, who plays a drug-addled, sex-addicted hockey broadcaster. He is absolutely hysterical.
opens: Friday, June 20 (Paramount). production: Paramount, Spyglass Entertainment, a Nomoneyfun Films/Michael De Luca production. Cast: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Omid Djalili, Ben Kingsley. Director: Marco Schnabel. Screenwriters: Mike Myers, Graham Gordy. Producers: Michael De Luca, Mike Myers. Executive producers: Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Donald J. Lee Jr.
Director of photography: Peter Deming; Production designer: Charles Wood; Music: George S. Clinton; Costume designer: Karen Patch; Editors: Lee Haxall, Gregory Perler, Billy Weber.
Rated PG-13, 117 minutes.
Two film comedies go head-to-head this weekend, Love Guru and Get Smart, which is anything but smart on the studios' part. But the real question is which is the worst?
Quite possibly, Love Guru will out-awful Get Smart. Myers' name should ensure a respectable No. 2 finish, but all bets are off the following weekend.
The basic problem with Love Guru, as it was for Get Smart, is the filmmakers never define the central joke. Myers plays Guru Pikta, the Number Two Near-Eastern Self-Help Specialist. (Deepak Chopra is Number One.) This inspires all sort of spoofs of self-help mumbo jumbo, inane mantras, Bollywood dances and Beatles-era costumes. These almost get lost, though, amid serendipitous gags involving urination and defecation, elephants, ice hockey and penis size. Not to mention Verne Troyer, the little person who played Mini-Me in two Austin Powers films, who here is the butt of endless size jokes as well.
Oddly, Myers entrusted his first film with a new character to a rookie director, Marco Schnabel, who directed second unit on all three Austin Powers films. Schnabel not only lacks visual flair and the ability to pull together a style to link the skits, but he is probably too young and inexperienced to help Myers edit himself. When, say, one in four gags hit with any force, there is a need for serious editing.
Guru Pitka is hired by Toronto Maple Leafs owner (Jessica Alba) to reunite her star player (Romany Malco) with his wife (Meagan Good), who is shacked up with Los Angeles Kings goalie, Jacques Le Coq Grande (Justin Timberlake), which on the eve of the NHL's Stanley Cup Finals has sent her player's game into the toilet. This tissue-thin plot gets interrupted for flashbacks to Pitka's guru classes at an Indian ashram by an exalted cross-eyed guru played by Ben Kingsley.
A good actor is a terrible thing to waste, but this profligate film totally marginalizes Kingsley, Alba, Good and Malco. Timberlake fairs not too badly because he has a fun caricature to play, a Quebecois goalie with a huge crush on Celine Dion and an even larger physical endowment. The only actor who really scores is news talk show/comic Stephen Colbert, who plays a drug-addled, sex-addicted hockey broadcaster. He is absolutely hysterical.
opens: Friday, June 20 (Paramount). production: Paramount, Spyglass Entertainment, a Nomoneyfun Films/Michael De Luca production. Cast: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Omid Djalili, Ben Kingsley. Director: Marco Schnabel. Screenwriters: Mike Myers, Graham Gordy. Producers: Michael De Luca, Mike Myers. Executive producers: Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Donald J. Lee Jr.
Director of photography: Peter Deming; Production designer: Charles Wood; Music: George S. Clinton; Costume designer: Karen Patch; Editors: Lee Haxall, Gregory Perler, Billy Weber.
Rated PG-13, 117 minutes.
- 6/17/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A bigger-louder-dumber take on that good ol' CBS hillbilly hit, the movie version of "The Dukes of Hazzard" starts off on the wrong foot and keeps heading, appropriately, south.
Let's be honest: The hourlong series, which ran for 6 1/2 seasons (and was even able to bounce right back after its stars sat out the 1982-83 season in a contract dispute), would never be mistaken for high, or even middling, art.
But nowhere to be found here is any of the goofy charm of the original and its indefensible ability to keep the testosterone humming thanks, generally, to the revved-up General Lee and, more specifically to Daisy Duke and her, uh, Daisy Dukes.
Instead, there are a ton of dead-end car chases and remarkably few laughs, meaning this would-be action comedy quickly sputters out on both counts.
Aside from the unknown quantity represented by those who have been aching to see if Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson have what it takes to become big-screen sensations, this Warner Bros. Pictures release likely will stall upon arrival.
Called upon to fill the boots of Tom Wopat and John Schneider as hell-raisin' cousins Luke and Bo Duke, Knoxville and Seann William Scott spend an awful lot of time riding around in their trusty orange Dodge Charger, but John O'Brien's script doesn't give them any real place to go.
That goes double for the rest of the characters, including Burt Reynolds as a decidedly trimmed down Boss Hogg (played by Sorrell Booke in the series) and Willie Nelson, subbing for Denver Pyle as joke-crackin' Uncle Jesse.
After having proven himself with the offbeat cult comedies "Super Troopers" and "Club Dread", both featuring fellow members of his Broken Lizard sketch troupe, director Jay Chandrasekhar might have seemed like a good choice to put a fresh spin on the material. But he seems lost without the rest of his team (who manage to pop up in assorted cameos), demonstrating a tin ear for the purported comedy and a lead foot for the daredevil sequences that wouldn't have cut it on an installment of "Jackass".
Recruited to fill out that item of apparel made famous by the underrated Catherine Bach, meanwhile, Jessica Simpson and her attire make equally brief appearances. More of her actual performance might turn up on DVD, but the bits that make it into the theatrical version play like outtakes from her more entertaining "These Boots Are Made for Walkin' " video.
Speaking of outtakes, those that show up in the end credits prove to be a lot funnier and feature cooler smash-ups than anything in the main event.
Pulling double duty, Nelson also covers the show's memorable theme song, "Good Ol' Boys", which was made famous by his old buddy, the late Waylon Jennings. But like everything else about this wayward production, it's a pale imitation of the original.
The Dukes of Hazzard
Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures presents
in association with Village Roadshow Pictures
A Bill Gerber production
Credits:
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Producer: Bill Gerber
Executive producers: Eric McLeod, Dana Goldberg, Bruce Berman
Screenwriter: John O'Brien
Based on characters created by: Gy Waldron
Director of photography: Lawrence Sher
Production designer: Jon Gary Steele
Editors: Lee Haxall, Myron Kerstein
Costume designer: Genevieve Tyrrell
Music: Nathan Barr
Cast:
Luke Duke: Johnny Knoxville
Bo Duke: Seann William Scott
Daisy Duke: Jessica Simpson
Boss Hogg: Burt Reynolds
Gov. Jim Applewhite: Joe Don Baker
Pauline: Lynda Carter
Uncle Jesse: Willie Nelson
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 105 minutes...
Let's be honest: The hourlong series, which ran for 6 1/2 seasons (and was even able to bounce right back after its stars sat out the 1982-83 season in a contract dispute), would never be mistaken for high, or even middling, art.
But nowhere to be found here is any of the goofy charm of the original and its indefensible ability to keep the testosterone humming thanks, generally, to the revved-up General Lee and, more specifically to Daisy Duke and her, uh, Daisy Dukes.
Instead, there are a ton of dead-end car chases and remarkably few laughs, meaning this would-be action comedy quickly sputters out on both counts.
Aside from the unknown quantity represented by those who have been aching to see if Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson have what it takes to become big-screen sensations, this Warner Bros. Pictures release likely will stall upon arrival.
Called upon to fill the boots of Tom Wopat and John Schneider as hell-raisin' cousins Luke and Bo Duke, Knoxville and Seann William Scott spend an awful lot of time riding around in their trusty orange Dodge Charger, but John O'Brien's script doesn't give them any real place to go.
That goes double for the rest of the characters, including Burt Reynolds as a decidedly trimmed down Boss Hogg (played by Sorrell Booke in the series) and Willie Nelson, subbing for Denver Pyle as joke-crackin' Uncle Jesse.
After having proven himself with the offbeat cult comedies "Super Troopers" and "Club Dread", both featuring fellow members of his Broken Lizard sketch troupe, director Jay Chandrasekhar might have seemed like a good choice to put a fresh spin on the material. But he seems lost without the rest of his team (who manage to pop up in assorted cameos), demonstrating a tin ear for the purported comedy and a lead foot for the daredevil sequences that wouldn't have cut it on an installment of "Jackass".
Recruited to fill out that item of apparel made famous by the underrated Catherine Bach, meanwhile, Jessica Simpson and her attire make equally brief appearances. More of her actual performance might turn up on DVD, but the bits that make it into the theatrical version play like outtakes from her more entertaining "These Boots Are Made for Walkin' " video.
Speaking of outtakes, those that show up in the end credits prove to be a lot funnier and feature cooler smash-ups than anything in the main event.
Pulling double duty, Nelson also covers the show's memorable theme song, "Good Ol' Boys", which was made famous by his old buddy, the late Waylon Jennings. But like everything else about this wayward production, it's a pale imitation of the original.
The Dukes of Hazzard
Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures presents
in association with Village Roadshow Pictures
A Bill Gerber production
Credits:
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Producer: Bill Gerber
Executive producers: Eric McLeod, Dana Goldberg, Bruce Berman
Screenwriter: John O'Brien
Based on characters created by: Gy Waldron
Director of photography: Lawrence Sher
Production designer: Jon Gary Steele
Editors: Lee Haxall, Myron Kerstein
Costume designer: Genevieve Tyrrell
Music: Nathan Barr
Cast:
Luke Duke: Johnny Knoxville
Bo Duke: Seann William Scott
Daisy Duke: Jessica Simpson
Boss Hogg: Burt Reynolds
Gov. Jim Applewhite: Joe Don Baker
Pauline: Lynda Carter
Uncle Jesse: Willie Nelson
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 105 minutes...
- 8/25/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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