It's not that we don't like Jack Black. We do. When he's on comic form, like in "School of Rock" or "Tropic Thunder," he tickles our funny bone, and he's capable of surprising dramatic range when he wants to be. And it's not that we don't like writer Nicholas Stoller, who's proven with the likes of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Get Him To The Greek" that he knows his comedy.
But in a season promising the painful-looking likes of "Burlesque," "The Next Three Days," "Yogi Bear" and "Little Fockers," few films looks to be as wretched as 20th Century Fox's "Gulliver's Travels." The buzz is fairly poisonous, with the usually-pliant Comic Con audience booing the clip they saw, the trailer looks hideous, and the marketing materials, including the new poster that Fandango premiered over the weekend, continue to make the film look like one of the films-within-a-film in "Tropic Thunder" or "Funny People."
Indeed, there seems to be something of a belief among general audiences that the film is fictional: anecdotally, an advert for the Orange cellphone network currently running before every film shown in the UK, featuring Black (watch it below), has made friends think that the film is a specially-created spoof, rather than an actual release — possibly the definition of "Gulliver's Travels." Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised: the cast is quite strong, with Jason Segel, Romany Malco, TJ Miller, Catherine Tate, Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet, Emily Blunt and Chris O'Dowd (although Blunt was forced to take the role through contractual obligations to Fox, and we tend to take against anyone that forces our beloved Emily to do anything against her will...). But with "Monsters vs. Aliens" director Rob Letterman in the chair, we wouldn't count on it. "Gulliver's Travels" opens December 22nd, when the sound of cash registers ringing will drown out the sound of Jonathan Swift spinning in his grave.
Update: THR confirms Matthew McConaughey and in additional news that Rip Torn has joined the film. Torn will play Bernie's defense lawyer. Matthew McConaughey "plans to" reunite with director Richard Linklater for the self-described "Fargo"-esque Texas-set crime thriller/black comedy, "Bernie," which will starJack Black and Shirley MacLaine.
Renowned for his fair share of fluffy rom-coms and a tendency to appear topless, McConaughey has failed to live up to the promise of his cult-favourite character, David Woodersen, in Linklater's 1993 comedy "Dazed And Confused." Though briefly linked to Linklater's spiritual sequel to 'Dazed' titled "That's What I'm Talking About," the actor looks set to reunite with Linklater once more for "Bernie," a true crime story set in East Texas.
"It's a film I wrote about ten years ago," Linklater told us. "[And it's] set in a little town of Huntsville, East Texas, kind of a little black comedy. It's my 'Fargo' in East Texas, where I group up, so it's crazy local with fifty characters. It's about a funeral home assistant who befriends this old lady. It's kind of a true crime story." McConaughey's strong Texan roots probably didn't hurt his chances of joining the project with the actor apparently being lined up to play real-life district attorney Danny Buck Davidson; the man tasked with prosecuting the much-loved soft-spoken and bulldog-faced titular character (Black) who oddly finds himself backed by his fellow townspeople despite being accused of murdering his old lady friend (MacClaine) and stealing her money. It's without doubt an interesting premise but is lifted further by Linklater's involvement as well as the promising pairing of Black and MacClaine.
At the very least, it's good to see Linklater back behind the camera after a string of bad luck that found "That's What I'm Talking About" getshelved last summer, his roadtrip buddy dramedy which hadRebecca Hall and Kat Dennings attached scrapped when Miramax collapsed) and his last effort "Me & Orson Welles," barely limp into theaters long after it was completed. We hope his newest project finds those difficulties -- which were frankly out of this control -- behind him. Shooting on "Bernie" is set begin next month with Castle Rock and Mandalay Vision backing the production. Story originally posted 9/30/10 at 9:06 AM
It's not that we don't like Jack Black. We do. When he's on comic form, like in "School of Rock" or "Tropic Thunder," he tickles our funny bone, and he's capable of surprising dramatic range when he wants to be. And it's not that we don't like writer Nicholas Stoller, who's proven with the likes of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Get Him To The Greek" that he knows his comedy.
