Tom’s really being a sarcastic jerk in today’s comic, isn’t he? I think I will hide behind the “making my characters unlikable gives them depth” defense, Your Honor!
Julia Roberts bashing aside, I’m actually interested in seeing Duplicity at some point this weekend. It’s written and directed by Tony Gilroy and this is his follow up to the brilliant and tightly wound Michael Clayton. Duplicity looks to be a little more effervescent, but it still swims in the waters of dubious corporate behavior.
Post-economic meltdown, I wonder how that will play? Roberts, along with co-star Clive Owen play ex-spooks and full time lovers representing two corporations who team up to con their respective bosses and steal a profitable new product. Will the audience find tolerance for a movie about corporate shenanigans – even if it’s the corporations (not the consumers) getting screwed at the end?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe they just want to see Roberts flash that ivory billboard she calls a smile. Ms. Roberts? The Joker called. He wants his mouth back.
Ya’ burn!
I keed. I keed. Hey, Duplicity looks like a lot of fun. And even though Cami and I will be seeing I Love You, Man this weekend instead, I’d still like to try and squeeze this one in – if for no other reason than to see Clive Owen put on the charm.
Owen has been locked down by a lot of serious drama’s and thrillers lately. I like him best when he’s self-effacing. I mean, Shoot ‘Em Up was a real turd of a movie, but he made it a lot of fun by putting on the airs of an afflicted, tough guy anti-hero.
Real quick, some site news.
I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I’ve moved the ShareThis application under the comic and above the comic navigation (before it was hidden in the lower left hand corner of the blog posts).
If you’re not familiar, ShareThis gathers up the links to nearly every social networking site there is and offers you, the reader, the opportunity to share links to Theater Hopper among your friends and peers.
I’ve been trying in vain to get some traction with social networking and I realize not everyone is on board with it yet. I also don’t want to mention it too much, lest it come off like begging.
But if you’re already on board with the social networking bandwagon, it would be really great if some of you could get into the habit of spreading links back to Theater Hopper around a little bit.
The ShareThis app has connections to StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Del.ico.us, Furl, Technorati and more. It even has connections to Facebook and MySpace – and I know a lot of you have accounts out there.
Anyway, using ShareThis to link back to Theater Hopper is something really easy that you can do to help the site. I appreciate those of you willing to test it out. Thanks.
In the meantime, it looks like a pretty strong weekend for movies. In addition to Duplicity and I Love You, Man, Nicolas Cage is starring in the new apocalypse thriller Knowing. It’s directed by Alex Proays who directed The Crow and also wrote and directed Dark City. So I’m always kind of interested to see what he’s up to even though Knowing kind of looks like it’s covering ground that Jim Carrey movie – The Number 23 – covered a few years back.
What do you guys think? What looks interesting to you? Leave your comments below and I’ll talk to you soon!
Are you as excited as I am?
Oh, I'm totally excited!
Julia Roberts is SO awesome. I love ALL her movies!
I THINK ABOUT DUPLICITY ALL THE TIME!
Are you being duplicitous with me right now?
Completely.
I liked “Duplicity” better when it starred Michael Keaton as a guy who cloned himself.
I think you’re thinking of “Multiplicity,” Julia! š
hahah i love tom’s expression!!
nice burn on Julia i wish i had come up with that. should use it in a strip or something. maybe a t-shirt?…
just a suggestion
wanna see I Love You, MAn but probably wont get a chance been hearing good things so far from early reviews.
Duplicity also has me interested but will more then likely be a rent for me.
dont even wanna see Knowing. not at all. even if it is directed by the same guy that did the Crow.
What disaster-related dates are on the list in “Knowing?” The release dates of the last ten Nicolas Cage movies? Ya’burn!
As a random comment about the site – I really miss the “This week in the Box Office” thing you had for a little while. Maybe you could considering bringing it back? It was always interesting to see how movies stacked up over the week.
Mirror, I might bring back the box office report if I can find a place to fit it in. Maybe on the right next to the blog. Food for thought. Thanks.
Dragon, I LOVED Shoot ‘Em Up. It was a total cartoon. I love how it make fun of action movies by going so far over the top. I thought Clive Owen did a great job kind of mocking his solemn persona by playing it straight.
Giamatti was great, too.
I’d probably see Duplicity, since I’d follow Clive Owen to the ends of the Earth. And he does need more ‘serious’ movies, he was excellent in Children of Men after all.
Also: You didn’t like Shoot ‘Em Up? Madness. Madness! That was a great movie (brain-dead yes, but still hilarious and with good action).
Tom:
Even thought I kinda like Julia Roberts, I thought today’s comic was cute. I used to love Julia, and then she stole Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar, and that has earned my ire forever and a day.
As for the releases this weekend, I cannot remember the last weekend with more than one major opening where I wanted to see all of the releases. I have good reasons for all three, too. Nary a superficial, OMG he’s so gorgeous reason in the bunch (even though Clive Owen is a man’s man,and I have been in love with Paul Rudd since ‘Clueless’ and Jason Segel since ‘How I Met Your Mother’ started).
Duplicity looks sharp, and, as you stated, is directed by Tony Gilroy, who not only made the brilliant ‘Michael Clayton,’ but wrote the Bourne movies as well. The man in genius, and he has a free pass until he seriously screws the pooch.
‘I Love You, Man’ just looks funny to me. I love a lot of the actors in the piece, and it has been getting good word of mouth from people I know and respect who were able to get into an advanced screening (why they didn’t invite me is uncertain).
I have to admit, that I didn’t initially want to see ‘Knowing,’ because Nicholas Cage has made a lot of crap lately, and that saddens me, because it means a lot of people miss out when he is in something good like ‘Matchstick Men’ or ‘Lord of War.’ Of course, then I found out Proyas was behind it and decided it had to be worth something. Both ‘The Crow’ and ‘Dark City’ were brilliant (see the DC director’s cut, seriously, it’s really good), and I enjoyed ‘I, Robot’ (mostly because I decided right away to forget I ever read any Asimov before entering the theatre, and also because I love, love, love Alan Tudyk, who played the robot).
OK, I’ve rambled enough here. Can’t wait to see Monday’s comic and listen to the Triple Feature podcast. Trying to keep up and listen to the archives.
Love Tom being a smart ass, as a sarcatic jerk myself, this comic speaks to me.
On seeing the ads for Knowing my girlfriend also mentioned a similarity to The Number 23 – I haven’t seen that one, but my understanding was that it’s about a guy who killed some people, wrote a book about it, lost his mind / memory, found the book, and became obsessed with the clues in it. Knowing (from the ads) seems to be about Nic Cage finding a prophetic list of disasters that will befall the world. I may be missing something, but the comparison seems to be that it’s related to numbers, but in Knowing numbers just happen to be the language in which the predictions are written, while The Number 23 was actually about the number twenty-three. Knowing seems closer to Contact when it comes to that- a message of world-changing importance, written in Math. I could be wrong.
Also, I love Cami’s expression in panels 3&4
I thought of Multiplicity too when I heard of this. And I too though it was better. I guess if you only get 40 minutes into the film, you could well end up with Duplicity, before the third and fourth incarnations of Keaton are made. I miss Keaton making good movies. But Duplicity looks okay, since Clive Owen’s always pretty good, and as a sort-of-not-James-Bond character, he’s rather appropriate.
Alright, just making sure we’re all on the same page (sorry, I’m a tad defensive when it comes to SEU :P).
Early reports from my various movie friends say that Knowing is actually worth watching, something that surprises me slightly. I really like Nicolas Cage, but his choice of projects lately haven’t been near the caliber he deserves (what ever happened to the Adaptation and Lord of War Cage?). Plus, yeah, that movie just seems to close to comfort to The Number 23. Still, I’ll give it a shot.
I can see, in a way, why this is similar to 23, but that was a mathematical film, all about division, multiplication, subtraction and the like. This just looks to be about a tally.