The Sly Oyster | culture & entertainment on the sly

Proving once and for all that self-absorbed members of the intelligensia don’t make for interesting movie subjects (see: The Squid and the Whale).  Here we get Dennis Quaid as a miserable college professor, who pretty much stays a miserable misanthrope, socially retarded widower, who doesn’t change or grow until the final credits dictates he has to.  Not even Ellen Page, as his also miserable too smart daughter yet quick witted!, or Thomas Hayden Church as the not smart hang loose adopted brother-in-law can save this movie.  Well, Page and Church try hard and their chemistry is the most interesting aspect of this misfire of a film.

Word to the marketing staff - if a movie isn’t funny and doesn’t try to be, don’t sell this to me as some sort of Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, this year’s quirky indie comedy.

Regular readers know we’ve been following the developments of the live action G.I. Joe movie.  We’re fence sitting.  Some stuff seems good, some bad, other stuff completely indifferent.  Today, photos have been popping up online all over the place of the cast.  Thankfully, Peter gathered them all together.  His analysis that the images are all lame might be overreaching, but it certainly is in the ballpark.  We get first looks at Destro, General Hawk, Duke, The Baroness, Storm Shadow, Breaker, Heavy Duty and Ripcord.

The problem with G.I. Joe is the cartoon, when looking back on it, was probably pretty lame.  And it’s almost impossible to adapt something that is kitschy to begin with.  Especially given the outfits and uniforms.  And that’s just from a design standpoint.  Never mind on a story, believability, funness or whatever other metric you want to use to judge the end product.

Sometimes, when a product starts off bad, there’s almost no recovering from it.  That certainly looks to be the case here.  Not across the board.  Some of the stuff has me intrigued, but has left me skeptical until proven otherwise.