Posts with tag TheLoveGuru
Posted Jul 30th 2008 10:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Comedy, RumorMonger, Scripts
What do you do when your new movie turns into one of the biggest bombs of the summer? You go back to what you know. Take
this rumor for what it's worth -- probably not much given its "anonymous insider" source -- but the word is that
Mike Myers has shaken off (or maybe learned from) the disaster that was
The Love Guru, and has set to writing a fourth
Austin Powers flick. According to the same rumor, he'll be collaborating on the screenplay with
Michael McCullers, the
SNL vet who wrote and made his directing debut with this year's considerably more successful
Baby Mama. The plot will have a "father and son theme loosely based on his own life" (??!!) which suggests a prominent place in the cast for
Seth Green.
I didn't think
The Love Guru was very funny -- and neither did anyone else, I don't think -- but I did appreciate how giddy Myers got about fart jokes and lame double entendres. Genuine enthusiasm can go a long way in comedy, and Myers has never lacked for
that, which is largely the reason why I'm not ready to give up on him just yet. Well, and also the fact that I thought all three of the
Powers movies were pretty good.
And I'll say this: I laughed at the Guru Pitka's use of "
Mariska Hargitay" as a patented mantra. Sue me.
Posted Jul 7th 2008 9:02AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
The biggest movie star in the world has another July 4th notch in his belt. His fourth huge Independence Day release (fifth if you count
Wild Wild West, which came out June 30th) is also his biggest: the outrageously underappreciated
Hancock had a $66 million 3-day weekend, and $107 million over the five-and-a-half days from Tuesday night through Sunday. It's the third-best 3-day of the year, behind only
Iron Man and
Indiana Jones. The figure is skewed since the movie came out on Tuesday and Friday was a national holiday, but that's the stat.
The wide release of the critically acclaimed
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl didn't go over too well: the movie took in $3.6 million on over 1800 screens. Not too surprising given its extremely narrow target demographic, but I was expecting it to expand a little bit stronger.
Wall-E took a pretty harsh 47% hit in its second weekend -- 30-40% has been more standard for recent Pixar releases -- but its $128 million cume is nothing to cry about.
Wanted had it even worse after last week's surprisingly robust debut, dropping 60% to $20.6 million for the weekend and $91 million total. And no one wants to see
The Love Guru, which dropped out of the top 10 in its third week and won't make it to $40 million.
The full 3-day top 10 after the jump.
Continue reading Weekend Box-Office: Happy Will Smith Day
Posted Jun 30th 2008 8:02AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
Notwithstanding the best attempts of
some to smear
Wall-E as being somehow hypocritical or disdainful of consumers, the little robot gave Pixar the third-best opening weekend in its history, behind
The Incredibles and
Finding Nemo (and roughly tied with
Monsters, Inc.). Its $62.5 million take was on par with expectations, though the lack of the usual family film
Saturday and Sunday bump suggests that
Wall-E attracted an impressive number of kidless Friday night moviegoers. And that bodes well for the weeks to come: the movie is quite sophisticated and not all that toddler-friendly, so word-of-mouth among adults will be key.
Given
Wall-E's apparent cross-demographic appeal, one might have expected
Wanted to struggle a bit as the weekend's "adult counterprogramming," but nothing doing: at $51.1 million and a strong second place, we may have a new franchise on our hands. The two combined to make this the strongest three-day weekend of the summer at the box-office overall; in fact, to find a higher combined top 12 gross, we have to go back to Memorial Day 2007 and the debut of
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
The rest of the chart looks unremarkable.
The Love Guru dropped almost 61% to 6th place, prompting the unsurprising conclusion that the Guru Pitka didn't connect with summer audiences.
The Incredible Hulk continues to run behind
Hulk, ruling out the possibility that it will have the staying power to do appreciably better than the embattled 2004 film.
Wall-E gave
Kung Fu Panda its first significant hit, dropping it to 4th place.
Indiana Jones will break $300 million by the end of Monday, if Sunday's final numbers don't push it past the milestone. And
The Happening looks like it will top out around $70 million.
The full numbers after the jump.
Continue reading Weekend Box-Office: 'Wall-E' Takes to the Skies
Posted Jun 27th 2008 4:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Sony Classics, Fandom, Contests, Insert Caption
Welcome to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game that's so much more dope than it is wacked. Last week, we asked you to bend down, lean forward and give us your best captions for a photo from
The Love Guru. I don't know if you all brought in your own Caption Gurus (or if there was some other mystical power at work), but we received some of the most awesomest captions yet. Good job!
1. "This is hard to say, but the reason I called the four of you in to my office is to let you know that you are being downsized." --
Anthony G.2. "We're sorry, we thought this was a shrink's office." --
Kurt P.3. "Honey, I shrunk the agent." --
Suraj C.See full image and all captionsThis week, you're gonna have to bring out those mad skillz for a movie that's hotter than a McSkillet, ya dig? (What does that even mean?) Yup, we're shellin' out some lovin' for a little indie called
The Wackness, featuring mad rhymes, dope flava ... Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen and Ben Kingsley. Holla! But check it: One grand prize winner will take away a ridiculous
Sony DVP-FX820 portable DVD player. Word. Seriously, though,
The Wackness is a blast -- great soundtrack, fun movie, take your friends, the whole nine. Flick hits theaters on July 3. Sound off punks!
Read the official rules for this contestPosted Jun 23rd 2008 9:33AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
Both of last week's new releases dropped like a rock to make room for Warner Bros.'
Get Smart, which landed smack in the middle of expectations with a nice $39.2 million bow. As many people guessed, toxic word-of-mouth on
The Happening led to a steep drop -- 67% -- and a fifth place, $10 million finish for the Shyamalan thriller. The $50.3 million cume is far from an embarrassment, but the descent is hopefully a signal to the filmmaker that he needs to, if not go back to the drawing board, at least steal a glance at it.
Slightly more surprising is the 61% drop for
The Incredible Hulk, which finished third with $21.6 million. That's a measurable improvement on the 69.7% hit that
Ang Lee's
Hulk took in 2003, but the new film is still running behind the old one, and its lack of legs in a summer where big movies (
Iron Man,
Indiana Jones) have held up admirably might be an indication that the "less arty" reboot didn't solve the problem with the franchise, whatever that may be.
Continue reading Weekend Box-Office: 'Get Smart' Wins; 'Love Guru' Can't Hack It
Posted Jun 20th 2008 4:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Fandom, Contests, Insert Caption
Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game where you don't have to be a guru in order to win fabulous movie-related prizes. Last week, we asked you to point, laugh and get your caption on with a photo of two heads (belonging to Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway) from the film
Get Smart. And that you did! Congrats go out to
David R. for turning us on
and off in the same sentence.
1. "That better be your shoe-phone, Max." --
David R.2. "Um, I think we are just about in over our heads." --
Cherlyn3. "I told you the Marie Antoinette spa treatment was a bad idea!!" --
Tim
See full image and all captions
This week, we're searching for a little love (and advice) from Guru Pitka (
Mike Myers) in
The Love Guru. Our old friend returns to live-action comedy with this flick about a self-help guru who travels from India to the states to help a star hockey player whose wife left him for a rival athlete. Sound familiar? Have you found yourself in a similar romantic squabble as of late? And are you seeking advice from all the wrong people (like that guy with the wooden leg who keeps asking to square off against you in a game of naked Twister)? Well, look no further my fellow caption-ers, because the three winners from this week will prance away with one
The Love Guru Guru Pitka magic 8- ball action figure (pictured right, click to enlarge). This way, next time trouble comes knocking at your heart, you'll have your own personal guru to help steer you in the right direction. Sound off below ...
Read the official rules for this contestPosted Jun 19th 2008 9:02PM by James Rocchi
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Paramount, Theatrical Reviews
If you don't count his vocal work in the
Shrek films,
The Love Guru marks the return of
Mike Myers to the big screen after a five-year absence. Last seen in 2003's
The Cat in the Hat, Myers is now unveiling -- or is that unleashing? -- a new character, Guru Pitka, a self-help maven who brings the spiritual teachings he learned from Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley) in India to America. Much like Austin Powers, Guru Pitka gives Myers an opportunity to play to what he thinks of as his strengths, giving us an outlandish-looking character with a thick accent and a fish-out-of-water back story. The problem is that Pitka's entirely too much like Austin Powers -- not a character, but instead a series of catchphrases, makeup appliances and goofy mannerisms that lets Meyers indulge in his penchant for sex gags, bodily-function gags and constant, self-satisfied glances at the camera.
Any time you review a film like this negatively, people ask "Why can't you just enjoy a few laughs?" And I can't give a simple answer to that, but I think it comes down to the fact that I can't
just enjoy a few laughs if they're surrounded by a much larger chaotic mass of things that aren't funny. So it is with
The Love Guru, as Pitka's brought to Toronto to help Jane Bullard (
Jessica Alba), the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, get her broken-hearted star player Darren Roanoke (
Romany Malco) over his girlfriend Prudence (Megan Good) leaving him for L.A. Kings goalie Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (
Justin Timberlake) so that the Leafs might win the Stanley Cup. The occasional funny bit is drowned out by the mass and might of Meyers's self-indulgent eagerness to wallow in his obsessions -- poop, accents, naughty talk, makeup and innuendo.
Continue reading Review: The Love Guru
Posted Jun 19th 2008 3:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Fandom, Polls
I caught a screening of
Hancock last night. We still have a couple weeks to go before we get to that film, but I am
very curious to hear what you folks think of this flick. It's certainly ballsy (especially for a Fourth of July weekend), and I loved that about it -- so we'll see. My mouth shall remain shut for now. That said, this weekend is a peculiar one because we have two comedies competing against one another. Sure, one (
Get Smart) could probably pass itself off as an action-comedy, but it will be fascinating to watch the old school (Mike Myers) go up against the new school (Steve Carell).
On paper (and from what I've been hearing),
Get Smart seems like the better all-around choice if you only have cash for one film and want a taste of typical, popcorn summer entertainment. Then again, Mike Myers hasn't starred in a live-action film since 2003's
The Cat and the Hat, and so fans might be itching for that familiar Myers absurdity (with a twist of Mini Me thrown in for extra punch). If you choose your films based on the female factor, well,
Get Smart gives us the beautiful Anne Hathaway, while
The Love Guru features the equally-as-beautiful Jessica Alba. My opinion: Hathaway's the better actress, but Alba's the fan favorite. As far as directors go,
Love Guru gives us a first-timer, and
Get Smart is brought to us by the guy behind films like
Tommy Boy, Anger Management and
50 First Dates.
So, based on my shoddy analysis, which film will you be seeing this weekend?
Posted Jun 18th 2008 8:02PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Home Entertainment, Movie Marketing
I really, really love movie trailers, yet for some reason I can't stand movie commercials on television. Maybe it's because they're repeated over and over and over again, like the current spot for
The Love Guru, which has been driving me nuts all week. I hardly even watch TV (with no more
Lost til 2009, there's nothing good on
) and yet I believe I've seen it about a thousand times over the past few days.
Apparently I'm in the minority, however, because
TiVo has just released data showing that ads for movies are one of the few kinds of commercials that its subscribers actually watch rather than fast-forward through. The DVR company also revealed the movie that had the least-fast-forwarded spot:
Forgetting Sarah Marshall. A single FSM ad that ran during an episode of
The Office was the single-most popular (or, at least most-viewed) for the month of April. Second least-fast-forwarded in that month was a spot for
Hancock. Also considered "DVR-resistant" are those amusing Mac vs. PC commercials, while an ad for Ford that ran during an episode of
American Idol placed high for April, as well.
Continue reading TV Viewers Like Movie Commercials
Posted Jun 18th 2008 4:02PM by Matt Bradshaw
Filed under: Comedy, Box Office, Box Office Predictions
The Incredible Hulk took first place last weekend, but notably pulled in about $6.5 million less than Ang Lee's 2004
Hulk. M. Night Shyamalan's
The Happening took third but still exceeded expectations. Here's last weekend's top five:
1. The Incredible Hulk: $55.4 million
2. Kung Fu Panda: $33.6 million
3. The Happening: $30.5 million
4. You Don't Mess with the Zohan: $16.4 million
5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: $14.7 million
Both of this week's new releases are comedies, putting them in direct competition with one another, so this should be interesting.
Get Smart
What's It All About: Steve Carell and
Anne Hathaway star in this adaptation of the classic 60's spy comedy. Carell is Maxwell Smart, an eager but inexperienced analyst for an espionage agency called CONTROL. Max is suddenly promoted to field agent when the evil organization KAOS learns the identity of nearly every Control agent in the world, and he is teamed with the lovely agent 99 played by Hathaway.
Why It Might Do Well: There's nostalgia appeal at work here, plus Steve Carell's presence will stir up memories of hits like
The 40 Year Old Virgin and he's still got plenty of fans from NBC's
The Office. Why It Might Not Do Well: How well a spy caper created during the Cold War translates to the 21st century remains to be seen. Also, the 58% rating at
rottentomatoes.com isn't thrilling me.
Number of Theaters: 3,700
Prediction: $40 million
Continue reading Box Office: Love Smarts
Posted Jun 17th 2008 11:02AM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Paramount, Distribution, Dreamworks, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg
Over the weekend, Paramount Pictures International
went over the $1 billion mark, reportedly thanks to the success of its distribution of summer blockbusters
Iron Man ($210 million),
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($350 million) and
Kung Fu Panda ($41 million), as well as earlier releases
The Spiderwick Chronicles ($91 million),
Cloverfield ($90 million) and
No Country for Old Men ($86 million). Paramount is the first studio to reach a billion bucks in international grosses this year, and it did so faster than in 2007, when it didn't top the figure until late July.
But is it really fair for Paramount to be bragging so much?
On her Variety blog, Anne Thompson weighs in on the news, pointing out that all three of the studio's summer blockbusters were produced outside the main studio.
Indiana Jones was Lucasfilm;
Iron Man was Marvel;
Panda was DreamWorks Animation. Of course, Paramount deserves a lot of credit for the marketing of these films, but Thompson wonders what it will be like if DreamWorks really does break away soon. Fortunately it has a good looking slate for the next few years, thanks to next year's toy-based titles
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and
G.I. Joe, and then the next four or five Marvel Studios releases in 2010 and 2011.
Continue reading Paramount Boasts Billion Dollar B.O. Overseas
Posted Jun 5th 2008 9:02AM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Movie Marketing, Images
While my kids probably would have preferred to have the Hulk Smash hands that Erik got this week, they were temporarily jazzed with this week's cool swag: The Love Guru Magic 8-Ball! He's groovy! He looks like a molded plastic Jesus, only with a Madonna-esque birthmark and an unfortunate discount eyebrow-waxing job! He wears flowers and love beads!
And he answers all your deepest life questions with such sage responses as "Yo Momma," "The Only Way Out is In," and "Touch the Holiness."
Continue reading Groovy Swag of the Day: It's the 'Love Guru' Magic 8-Ball, Man!
Posted Jun 3rd 2008 5:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Celebrities and Controversy, Religious
Mike Myers' latest,
The Love Guru, has been sparking up a lot of controversy. There were (and still are) Hindu protests based on the trailers. Then, the British Film Institute
declared that it wouldn't screen the film, nor would it be involved with any release of the comedy. Now, we're getting some positive press about the film -- straight from Deepak Chopra.
He wrote a post in
his blog called
Love Guru: Hindu Lions and Hollywood Lambs? back in April, and it's now hitting the wire, since he says that the protests are unwarranted. He discusses previous films and their impacts, the importance of comedy in faith, and his own involvement with the film. "As viewers will find out when the movie is released this summer, no one is more thoroughly skewered in it than I am --- you could even say that I am made to seem preposterous. If I don't take offense and some Hindus do, that doesn't make me superior or more mature or even innately tolerant. I just know the difference between a belly laugh and a diatribe."
The Hollywood Reporter fleshes out the story, discussing Chopra's relationship with Myers -- his books reportedly helped Myers through depression and led to the new character, he got Chopra's blessing before making it, they've popped up together on
Iconoclasts, and Myers wrote the forward for
Why is God Laughing? Are the Hindu protesters jumping the gun? Is Chopra being too forgiving? We'll find out soon enough -- the film opens on June 20.
Posted May 14th 2008 12:35PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Fandom, Newsstand, Images
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Yup, she's at it again. Not long ago, Jessica Alba
recreated several memorable scenes from classic horror movies for
Latina Magazine. Now she's back, and in honor of her upcoming comedy
The Love Guru, the actress posed for a photo as comedy legend Charlie Chaplin for the June issue of
Allure magazine. It's actually a pretty funny photo, considering Alba's pretty pregnant under all those clothes. Definitely not as bad as those horror shots; in those pics, the gal barely looked like she was trying. Here, at least, she widens her eyes and does a little something with her mouth. Eh? Can you tell I'm reaching here? Let's not even touch the fact that she's posing as Chaplin to promote
The Love Guru. I think we should make a rule right now: No one is allowed to pose as a comedy icon unless, ya know, that person also happens to be kinda funny on the big screen.
Check out Alba's last "recreation stint" in the gallery below.
%Gallery-16544%
[via
People]
Posted May 13th 2008 5:32PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Comedy, Paramount, Celebrities and Controversy, Distribution, Politics
Well, for a
tempest in a teapot the controversy over
Mike Myers' comedy
The Love Guru seems to be heating up by the day. CJ Report
confirmed that the British Film Institute has responded to Hindu protests, and has issued a statement that the prestigious institution will "not be screening this title nor will be involved with a possible release of it." Now this doesn't mean the film will not be shown in the UK, but the BFI's refusal to support the film must come as a blow to Myers, a committed anglophile.
Guru is the story of an American-born guru who returns home to help coach a lovelorn hockey player with a struggling marriage. Sure, it looks silly, and
a little stereotypical, but so did
The Party and a lot of people seem to like that movie. According to CJ Report, "Hindu groups have recently been approaching film distributors associations, exhibitors groups, regulatory bodies, government ministries, theater owners, etc., in various parts of the world urging them not to distribute/screen
The Love Guru till Paramount Pictures makes necessary changes to it." Paramount still maintains that they will screen the film for Hindu audiences, but they have not agreed to make any significant changes to the film.
Continue reading The British Film Institute Refuses to Screen 'The Love Guru'
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