411 Fact Or Fiction Movies/TV 11.07.08: Week 151

Posted by Ben Piper on 11.07.2008

Will Madagascar 2 help dethrone High School Musical 3 as box office champ? Does NBC's Life deserve to get better ratings in its new timeslot? Is anyone taking Joaquin Phoenix's "retirement" seriously? 411's DC Perry and Bryan Kristopowitz debate these and other topics in week 151 of 411 Fact or Fiction: Movies/TV!



Why, hello there. Welcome back yet again to the one column sure to raise the roof and set the comments section on fire, Fact or Fiction. This week we've got newcomer DC Perry butting heads with B-movie enthusiast Bryan Kristopowitz. Let's see what they have to say for themselves.

1. Madagascar : Escape 2 Africa will prove kid-friendly enough to cut into High School Musical 3's profits and help dethrone it from the top of the box office mountain.

DC Perry - Fiction. Not that I'm happy about it. As a parent, I would much rather sit through Madagascar 2 than High School Musical 3. At least Madagascar 2 seems to target adults for a laugh or two. The commercials alone have surprised a laugh out of me a couple times. ("Will it fly?" "Yes. If we fold it here, and here." – Yeah, well I laughed, anyway.) Granted, they could be giving away all the good gags in the previews, but it still shows promise. The High School Musical movies are three things I don't like: self important, melodramatic musicals. Still, DreamWorks ain't Disney, I ain't the target audience. For lots of pre-teens, High School Musical isn't a movie, it's a lifestyle. They're going to go back and see it again because the Great Mouse says to. Madagascar 2 is probably the better movie, but that doesn't count for as much as it should when it comes to raking in the coin.

Bryan Kristopowitz- Fact. While I agree with DC that High School Musical is a "lifestyle" for the tween set and that the movie's continued box office take will be in a large part from repeat business I think Madagascar 2 has enough buzz surrounding it that it will ascend atop the box office and "vanquish" HSM3. What did HSM3 do last week, like fifteen million? I think Madagascar 2 can top that.

Score: 0 for 1

2. NBC's Life is a quality show that deserves to earn higher ratings in its new Wednesday night time slot.

DC Perry- Fact. I usually don't get into detective shows. They're formulaic, and they bore me to tears. The weird disease/strange murder/horrible accident will be solved by some esoteric thing I've never heard of, but I'll be made to feel like I wasn't paying attention because I didn't see it coming a mile away. Life doesn't play like that. Naturally, there's the Plot of the Week, but there's an arc revolving around Charlie Crews (Damien Lewis) trying to solve the triple homicide he spent twelve years in prison for. Basically, he's O.J. Simpson, except he really didn't do it and he has actual authority. Plus, there's Donal Logue, which is always a blessing in terms of quality, but a curse in terms of viewers for some reason. The show was a victim of last year's writer's strike, and a lot of people who might have noticed it never got the chance. Getting the god-awful Knight Rider relaunch as its new lead-in doesn't help, either. Watch this show. You won't be disappointed.

Bryan Kristopowitz- Fact. I love this show. Damian Lewis' Charlie Crews is quickly becoming one of the better "new" TV detectives (he's not as good as Vincent D'Onofrio's Detective Robert Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but then again no one is). I love how Lewis can make Crews goofy and serene in one scene, and then in the very next scene scary intense. I think that intensity, if enough people give the show a chance, will keep them coming back week after week. And, yeah, Donal Logue, good old Sean Finnerty hisself, is always a hoot on TV.

Score: 1 for 2

3. While Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott have proven to be reliable comedic second banana's in the past, you don't think that the two of them teaming together to star in Role Models will be enough to make a dent on the public's radar.

DC Perry- Fact. People aren't going to flock to their local Cineplex for a movie with no star unless the premise is over-the-top awesome. This movie looks funny enough, but we've seen it before. Nice guys do something wrong and are sentenced to a series of misadventures, and in the end, their hearts grow three sizes and they learn that people are just plain swell. I thought Dodgeball pushed it by putting Vince Vaughn in the lead role, and Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott are no Vince Vaughn. Paul Rudd is great as a supporting actor, and in some movies he absolutely steals the show (Brian Fantana made me name my iPod Dr. Kenneth Noisewater). But he's not ready to carry a movie on his own. And Sean William Scott – all of the above, but even less so. I don't think even Jane Lynch can save this movie from tanking. This may turn out to be a hidden starless gem a la Happy, Texas (though I doubt it), but it won't draw at the box office.

Bryan Kristopowitz- Fact. While Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott are fine comedic actors and are actors people like watching in a movie, I don't think their combined presence can save Role Models from dying at the box office. It looks like every other buddy comedy we've seen over the last two years. It'll probably be a bigger hit on DVD.

Score: 2 for 3

Switch!!!

4. You have a hard time taking Joaquin Phoenix's announced retirement from acting seriously.

Bryan Kristopowitz- Fact. What kind of hip and edgy pseudo artist bullstuff is this? Maybe if Phoenix had said "I'm burned out from acting and I'm going to take some time off to relax and play music," it'd be a tad bit credible. But it just isn't. It's ridiculous. Unless, of course, he's a really great musician and he's been waiting for the right moment to break out and take over the world. I guess that could be possible. Maybe.

DC Perry- Fact. See Jordan, Michael -1994. Can't he get this out of his system some other way? Couldn't he find some band to let him come up on stage and sing on a couple songs? Maroon 5, I'm looking in your direction. He's got money. He'd probably pay you. Let's go ahead and start the betting pools on his unretirement.

Score: 3 for 4

5. Soul Men will prove to be worthy of Bernie Mac's legacy.

Bryan Kristopowitz- Fact. From the trailers I've seen, Soul Men looks like a blast. Bernie Mac looks like he's having the time of his life. Like Role Models, though, while I'm sure the movie will be good (I already said it would be a hoot), I think Soul Men will tank at the box office and eventually find its audience on DVD. It looks like that kind of movie. Samuel L. Jackson needs a hit, but I don't think this will be it, at least not right now (again, this movie will probably find its audience on DVD. We'll probably be quoting from it in a few years like we all do with The Big Lebowski).

DC Perry- Fact. Bernie Mac's legacy is that he was in great movies that didn't get the audience they deserved (Pride, Friday, Get on the Bus) and that he was the best part of terrible movies that didn't deserve the audience they got (Transformers, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Mr. 3000). Soul Men could fall into either category, judging from the commercials. If it does end up being awful, there's another posthumous Bernie Mac movie, Old Dogs, scheduled for 2009. From the brief plot summary I've seen (Mac and John Travolta are cared for by seven-year-olds), this is definitely the last, best hope for one more good Bernie Mac movie, America.

Score: 4 for 5

6. You're going to tune in to find out how well Jeff Goldblum meshes with the Law And Order: CI formula.

Bryan Kristopowitz- Fact. I love Criminal Intent (it's my favorite of the Law and Order franchise) and have been anxiously awaiting Goldblum's entrance into the show. When Chris Noth's Mike Logan was a part of the show Logan provided a "serious," less quirky type detective as compared to Vincent D'Onofrio's Robert Goren, so every week (they basically shared the leading man role) it was a different show, a different vibe. But with Goldblum now a part of the show, I'd imagine the show will turn into a "quirky every week" kind of thing. I mean, why would you hire Jeff Goldblum and ask him to play a straight laced, non-quirky detective? On a side note, wasn't Goldblum great on Raines, that show that lasted about seven episodes a few years back?

DC Perry- Fact. And for me, that's saying something. Straight, by-the-numbers procedurals have never appealed to me. I don't like CSI or Law and Order, as a rule. However, oddball, idiosyncratic procedurals do appeal to me. I love Bones and Monk. And I loved Raines. If Jeff Goldblum gets to play a character anything like Michael Raines (and there's every reason to believe he will), then I might have a new show to add to the rotation. If they try to force him into the "stern yet dedicated" mold, I'll be done with it pretty quickly.

Final Score: 5 for 6

And there you have it. DC and Bryan are almost in complete agreement about a good many things. Thanks to them both for taking part.

Check back next week for more great Fact or Fiction: Movies/TV!
-BP