Review: Showtime 150
The best way to describe this movie is good-natured. Murpy, DeNiro, Rene Russo, William Shatner and Mos Def all know what they're doing, but the script doesn't really give them much worth doing. The rather tired premise is the pairing of a tough-guy detective (DeNiro, obviously) with the wise-ass, media savvy urban black cop (Murphy), both enthusiastically manipulated by the stop-at-nothing, no-holds barred and exploitive producer (Russo). The LAPD, seeking better publicity than it's been getting the last couple of years, orders the two to participate in a cop-reality-show called Showtime. Murphy's character, who is dying to be in the movies, is thrilled, hamming it up for the cameras. He essentially plays his character in Beverly Hills Cop, which is funny enough, but a bit tired. DeNiro, a hard-ass from the old school, is ethical, horrified and reluctant to participate. While Murphy's character sees him as a dinosaur, DeNiro's sees his young partner as an incompetent hotdog.
In fact, DeNiro seems to have made a career (Analyze This, and most recently Meet the Parents), out of laughing at his own tough-guy persona, which is really a shame. He hasn't had a serious role in a few years, and this spoofing of spoofs of spoofs is getting old. In the movie, the two don't like one another, at least at first, but -- shock of shocks -- learn to deal with it, as the bad guys (a drug dealer and his gang) get their hands on shockingly lethal hand-tooled shotguns with uranium-tipped shells that can level whole buildings in just a few seconds. The movie is meant to be a satire -- Johnnie Cochran's appearance is a hoot, and so are the Jackie-Chan style outtakes at the end -- but for a satire to work, the story has to be funny and/or biting. This movie, on the whole, is neither. The plot is too stupid to carry any freight, even these talented actors. And the film says nothing about our media or celebrity culture that hasn't been said a zillion times, usually better.
The movie does have its entertaining moments, most of them clustered at the beginning and end, around all of the car chases and explosions, but you may leave Showtime thinking it's time for Eddie Murphy to find a role where he can be funnier, and for DeNiro to stop laughing at himself and start being himself again. And enough media/celebrity narcissism. We get it.
Down to the writing (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! (Score:1)
Re:Down to the writing (Score:1)
Movies. (Score:1, Redundant)
Le sigh.
Re:Movies. (Score:2)
films (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
I guess that's why you're not working for Wired anymore, Jon. *grin*
Re:Yeah... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yeah... (Score:1)
"reviews" to be stupid, but I gotta admit, he writes some good stuff from time to time. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times.
You gotta understand how publishing works (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny how all these people that hate Katz so much still keep coming back to his columns anyway. A true nerd loves a flame war, I guess.
Columnists. You see them everywhere, and the quality of the writing goes from absolutely fabulous to completely clueless. Some of the columnists writing today (with upgrades in IQ) could well have been the source of the idea for the lead character in the movie Legally Blonde. (I lump movie and restaurant reviewers in with columnists, because most of them are written in the first person and therefore qualify as columns.)
Frankly, a columnist is doing his/her job when there is a lot of reaction by the readership to what they write. It can be right or wrong, insightful or flamebait, intelligent or dumb as dishwater -- as long as the readers react, the editor feels the columnist earns the pay.
And YOU help make Katz successful in the eyes of the OSDN bosses.
Tough and stupid as it may sound, we need columnists. Clueful people [you may disagree] like Katz and Dvorak and Cringley. (And Noonan and Buckley and Safire.) Clueless people like the ones gracing the magazine pages of many national and international IT publications and big-name IT-oriented Web sites. (And non-IT sources, too.)
Their purpose is to make you, the reader, THINK, and more importantly to express your thoughts out where others can hear. This is the basic exercise of Speech. Further, the cure (in other countries, not just the United States) for bad speech, insipid speech, just-plain-wrong-facts speech is... more speech. Speech from the clueful. Speech from people who are rarely heard.
One way to get you, the reader, to do that is to goad you into telling people like Katz what a knothead they are.
(I don't work for OSDN or SlashDot in any way. Opinion not necessarily that of the owner of this website, its editors, or its moderators. Or Katz, for that matter.)
Re:You gotta understand how publishing works (Score:4, Interesting)
I can agree with that, to a point. However, the argument doesn't apply to Katz articles.
The problem with Katz, is that his writing is middle-school quality. Actually, I've written better quality work during my years in middle-school than Katz has produced during his entire tenure with Slashdot.
Katz was quiet until around the point of Columbine. That's when he write his Hellmouth series, which was the first (and last) thought-provoking Katz article. Since then, he figures "Hey, I'm going to ride the coattails of the Columbine articles, and work the same edge on everything that I write." Hence, he looks for deep, meaningful issues in movies like Showtime and Tomb Raider.
It doesn't work.
Plus, people who read Katz's writing are constantly tripping over sophomoric writing, bad grammar, and worse spelling. There is no excuse for a (supposed) professional writer to consistantly make glaring mistakes in his or her writing the way Katz does in his articles. Simple mistakes that would be caught by a goddamned spell checker go uncorrected, and submitted to Slashdot's front page.
And now Slashdot is asking for money? For what? The same badly-written slop, just without the ads?
Sorry. Sure, editorials are supposed to make you THINK, but that kind of thing usually has to appeal to your level of intelligence.
So why am I reading this article? I wanted to see Showtime. However, I don't rely on Katz to determine the movie's worth, because he's a damaged scale. I quickly skim through his writing to get a grip on the movie's base, then I read the comments to see how my peers (other Slashdot readers) liked it.
If I relied on Katz to tell me what movies to see, I'd be staying home a lot.
What I like about Katz (Score:1)
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Reading Katz is like passing a really bad auto accident. You know you're going to be horrified if you look, but you look anyway.
I think that says it all.
Re:Yeah... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah... (Score:1)
Re:Yeah... (Score:1)
Re:Yeah... (Score:1)
Katz, do you even read through your own stuff once ? ~jeff
Trademark problems? (Score:3, Interesting)
Showtime is the name of a premium movie channel [sho.com] owned by Viacom.
Showtime is also a film directed by Tom Dey [imdb.com] produced by AOL Time Warner, who owns HBO [hbo.com], which competes with Showtime the channel.
Wait till Showtime the movie hits cable. Watch the legal sparks fly.
Re:Trademark problems? (Score:1)
You can have the same name for two commercial ventures if they operate in different businesses.
Showtime - a movie
Showtime - a softcore porn channel
Apple lost the 1999 lawsuit (Score:1)
You can have the same name for two commercial ventures if they operate in different businesses: Showtime - a movie vs. Showtime - a softcore porn channel
Showtime also shows feature films. So we have Showtime - a movie from one studio vs. Showtime - a movie channel owned by another studio. Now they're both in the movie business; does this complicate your analysis?
Apple Computer - Apple Records
That was true for ten years, but in 1999, Apple Computer got sued and lost [mymac.com] after the company "entered the recording industry" by introducing high-end audio functionality into the Power Macintosh line.
Re:Apple lost the 1999 lawsuit (Score:2)
I wonder if they can sue them for slander???
De Niro's roles (Score:1, Insightful)
Methinks that his part in The Score was no spoof. Or in that movie (I forget the title) in which he plays a homophobic guy felled by a stroke. They are both recent movies.
sometimes a chair is just a chair (Score:3, Insightful)
btw, please stop harping on ethics when you still haven't answered your "message from kabul" hoax.
The writing matters... (Score:4, Funny)
Somehow this phrase is even more evident when reading a Jon Katz editorial, not always in the context of what he's reviewing.
DeNiro not serious? (Score:3, Informative)
Ronin, 1998
Men Of Honor, 2000
15 Minutes + The Score, 2001
I think he's trying to not be sterotyped by doing more comic roles. They may not always succeed, but at least he's not stuck playing "Mob Boss #2" for the rest of his life.
Yup (Score:2)
cops 'n robbers stuff (Score:2)
Action movies are action movies, ie you arn't meant to take them seriously.
If you were to take either of the above movies seriously you'd keep wondering why the automatic firearms don't run out of bullets after 3 seconds.
600 rounds per minute = 100 rounds per 10 seconds = magazine load of bullets last 3 seconds on average automatic with 30 round mag.
So people blasting away with automatic firearms for heaven knows how long = equals movie that aint serious.
Re:cops 'n robbers stuff (Score:1)
our comment about firearms remembered be the best firearm scene I ever saw in the movies.
It's from "saving private ryan". The dude is stuck up a tower and kept shooting soldiers coming at him with a scope-bolt-action rifle. That's shooting, not that never-end faggish automatics
Re:DeNiro not serious? (Score:1)
For the writer's-eye-view (Score:5, Insightful)
- Film five minutes of material, six different ways.
- Record test audience's reaction to all six sequences.
- Discard lowest-rated pieces.
- Lather, rinse, repeat until you have 120 minutes of material.
There are a lot of people in the "industry", especially the non-acting union-represented trades, who are worried about production flight, and rightfully so. A lot of shooting has migrated to Canada over the last few years because of tax subsidies film and TV production receives in the Great White North. The real reason Hollywood is exporting jobs to Canada is that the producers can make big, expensive mistakes for far less. (However, this is changing, I'm to understand: in the first place, Canadians are sick of paying gazigabucks for film subsidy; and in the second place, California's state legislature has passed special tax cuts for film industry types so they can fuck up more cheaply in state. I love how everyone in Hollywood is a liberal until it comes time to pay the rent.) Nobody in Hollywood knows how to make a movie. Everybody wants to be seen having a part -- hence the proliferation of credited producer and assistant producer roles. The bureaucracy beggars the lexicon. As a result, only "safe" movies ever get made, "safe" being defined as "will a teen-age boy go see it?" The consistent exceptions, unsurprisingly, seem to be coming from Pixar, which is far away from Hollywood's stinking tarpits.Important Quote (Score:1)
Re:For the writer's-eye-view (Score:3, Informative)
First, the prime reason Canada is atractive is that you can pay someone in Vancouver $40,000/yr Canadian, and they'll have a killer apartment downtown and live large on the town. Most likley a salary like that means you are into the realm of owning a condo.
Thus, you are getting cheap, highly skilled labour at a fraction (63%) of the cost of the same american labour.
But then what about the stars and higher paid folk? Well, up to last year, in British Columbia the top tax bracket (55%) started at $75,000/yr Canadian. (Thats around $40k us). Plus the numerous other taxes, 13% sales tax for example, in order to get the american talent to work up in canada, the government gives producers tax breaks and low interest loans.
All in all it works out. At first all of the production came from US companys, but quite a few Canadian production company's are starting to produce content that is doing well in the US market. You have to ask yourself, why in this global economy does all prodcution of film/video have to be centered in one small area (LA)? Why is it 'bad' that other areas in the world are starting to produce?
And as this pertains to the quality of entertainment. Alot of producers have used the lower cost to produce in Canada as an oppurtunity to try riskier more independant films. The more that something costs, the less likely people are going to take a risk.
As far as Canadians getting sick of the gazigabucks tax subsidy. Given the outcry over XFiles leaving Vancouver, the fact that the Liberal party won all but 3 seats (over the labour party NDP) on a promise to lower taxes and bring in more business, I don't know for whom you are speaking.
Re:For the writer's-eye-view (Score:1)
Re:For the writer's-eye-view (Score:1)
What is inheriantly wrong about shooting in Canada? (I am canadian btw) I think many people would say Xfiles changed for the worse when it moved from Vancouver, and a lot of good films are made. I would put "The Sweet Hereafter" as one of the most powerful films made.
Again, the 'subsidies' you mention are primarily the lower canadian dollar and the lower cost of living in Vancouver compared major american cities. And a government that encourages development by giving Movie Production a level tax field with the US, compared to the incredibly restrictive ones put on other industries.
And at its core, I still think your basic logic is still flawed. The more money that is put on the line, the more likely that investors will demand some gaurantees as to their investment. These can be given by frequent test audiences to 'gaurantee' that the public will like the show.
Re: For the writer's-eye-view (Score:1)
Re:For the writer's-eye-view (Score:2)
Wow real writer type people! I'll bet with all the debate about tax breaks and job flow, it's horribly (big word) arduous to write up to one's true standards. What was it J. Joyce said of 'Finnegan's Wake' (sp) "It took me seventeen years to write it. It can take them seventeen years to read it." Whoa extreme d00d! But then he was just some crazy who didn't write for a pay check or work for some mega corporation and beef about others stealing their market share.
cheersThe movie business is an adventure in trade. It's a manufacturing concern and it produces what sells. To write for Hollywood you have to be a '...poor dumb son of a bitch.' Leave the art of crafting one phoneme to another out of the picture. Go grab a drink pool side at the Polo Club and bitch about how much money you didn't make and leave the writting to those in garrets (yea they still live in small bed sitting rooms) who go hungry and slightly mad to learn their craft.
Since I'll probably get modded down for this... Katz is just a fine fit for /. and spelling and grammar do not a writer make. I believe it was old man papa Hemmingway who said if he had to choose between the erudite writtings of T.S. Eliot and Conrad then he'd be on the way to England to grind Eliot to pepper flakes
Re:For the writer's-eye-view (Score:1)
Speaking of paychecks (Score:1)
Point being: are Slashdot subscribers subsidizing this waste of electrons?
Re:"will a teen-age boy go see it?" (Score:2)
comes down to story, not writing (Score:5, Insightful)
The screenplay followed the plan of the movie - at least, the plan as envisioned by the studio. Do you honestly think that the studio said, "Hmm.. we need to make a movie that will use satire and comedy to blow the doors on the wicked exploitation and stupidity of cop movies and reality TV?"
Of course not - just like most comedy, they took some of the more ludicrous aspects of our society and poked fun at them, while advancing a story built around two likeable characters.
That's it. No message. Jon, you went in with the expectation that the movie would be something deeper, but I have to scratch my head - what in the previews or in your previous experience with Hollywood movies made you think you'd be seeing a ringing expose of The Truth?
Re:comes down to story, not writing (Score:2)
I think the same could be said for most media. In fact, you're last sentence reminded me of being suckered by The X-Files a couple of times with their "truth revealing" episodes. The second time reminded me of the following saying:
If you plan to watch a movie or television show expecting something more than mindless entertainment, prepare to be disappointed. Then, you can be happily surprised when you get more. I think Hollywood looks much better through pessimistic lenses.
X-Files "truth" (Score:3, Interesting)
Having formerly been a DARPA contractor, I thought their interpretation of DARPA was hilarious. Instead of the well-lit hallways populated with contractors jockeying for project funds and project manager doors festooned with Dilbert cartoons and spiffy project logos printed with color laser printers, the X-Files version of DARPA was dark and sinister, with M-16-toting security guards (rather than the more passive and more effective security measures DARPA actually uses) and humorless dark-suit types everywhere.
It makes me think of that strange fuzzy line between pure fantasy, well-researched "believable" fiction, and mundane truth. So much of our entertainment these days is meticulously researched and realistically rendered on screen - witness "Saving Private Ryan" and "Blackhawk Down", but with most pseudo-realistic entertainment, it's very difficult to know whether the b.s. factor is small, medium, or large.
No wonder so many people believe the Earth is flat, and there was no moon landing.
Re:X-Files "truth" (Score:2)
Oh, man! Are you telling me that was fake? How do I know that your post isn't part of a wider conspiracy to hide the Real Truth(tm) about cloning? Just to be sure, I'm gonna keep my tin-foil hat on for a bit longer.
Re:X-Files "truth" (Score:3, Funny)
sorry, it's too late. The very fact that you responded to my post puts you in the secret RealTruth(tm) database. A representative from Area51/Microsoft will be ringing your doorbell shortly. If you want to live, you'll do as he tells you...
Re:X-Files "truth" (Score:3, Funny)
Rats. I should have realized when you mentioned DARPA that they'd have a way to track me down, it being, originally, their network. Hang on, got to answer the door. BRB
NO CARRIER
Research Katz, Research (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, DeNiro seems to have made a career (Analyze This, and most recently Meet the Parents), out of laughing at his own tough-guy persona, which is really a shame. He hasn't had a serious role in a few years, and this spoofing of spoofs of spoofs is getting old.
Katz you Jackass. You do realize that after Meet the Parents De Niro made two not funny films, 15 Minutes (not so good) and The Score (excellent). Just before Analyze This he was in Ronin, Great Expectations and Jackie Brown.
Every time he was playing a variant of the tough guy he's famous for. He hasn't had a serious role in a while? Go rent The Score you idiot. Yeah the spoofing is a little silly and predictable, but it isn't all the man is doing with his career.
I like most of your articles, I think you contribute to this site in many ways and are an important part of it. Your tendency to make sweeping asinine statements with no factual basis is starting to annoying. It is devaluing your contribution by undermining your credibility. Try researching things occasionally.
Re:Research Katz, Research (Score:1)
I must strongly disagree. I think the only role Katz plays at Slashdot is in being the cash cow per se. Especially with the recent explosion of Salon.com style advertising on Slashdot, I think Katz articles are only there to generate massive hits. Genuine interest and genuine hatred results in numerous messages, flames or otherwise, all which generate quite a bit of money.
As far as Katz' writing style goes, I think it is absolutely horrible. It must be a massive ego trip for Katz being the only editor on Slashdot who can write a semi-coherent paragraph without major spelling and grammar mistakes. The problem there is Katz thinks he's extremely smart or something, searching for deep meanings in the most meaningless movies, and attempting to write eloquently but always coming up short.
I really don't know what it is about Katz' writing that really makes me think he tries to pretend to be well educated, but next time I see something, I'll point it out.
A different perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife and I went to Showtime on Friday and walked out giggling.
On the one hand, it wants to be a movie about [blah, blah, blah] and also a [blah, blah, blah]. It also wants to [blah, blah, blah]. And then, inexplicably, it wants to [blah, blah, blah]. [...] And the film says nothing about our media or celebrity culture that [blah, blah, blah].
Who cares what the movie "wants" to be or say? I didn't go expecting an insightful deconstruction of the Hollywood ethos, I went for a couple of hours of chuckles, a few serious belly laughs and, overall, a bit of light-hearted entertainment. While I never had to worry about spewing Coke on the woman in front of me, I was quite satisfied with the experience and counted it as an evening and $14 well spent.
Re:A different perspective (Score:1)
I saw this in a screening a couple weeks ago in LA (Score:2)
[ Warning: Minor spoilers ahead ]
Anyway, this movie is strange. It's about two cops who end up working on a reality TV cop show together -- one a serious, real cop who's forced into it, and the other a lousy cop who really wants to be an actor. In the context of their TV show, they mock all the buddy-cop TV show/movie clichés... but then the movie's framework (about some illegal gunrunning) is ITSELF full of all the SAME clichés, done in such a way that you can't possibly believe they did it on purpose. It was very bizarre.
William Shatner kicks ass, though.
Re:I saw this in a screening a couple weeks ago in (Score:1)
That's not to say that Showtime is either a good cop movie or a good satire. But it could feasibly have been done right with the proper resources.
Re:I saw this in a screening a couple weeks ago in (Score:2)
Oh give me a break! In this film he couldn't even play himself well. Shatner sucked balls.
And, BTW, Katz is right. This movie was lame. If Murphey and De Niro want to keep their stardom, they need to figure out that the first step is to make sure they (or their agents) read the script before accepting the part.
just got back from ice age (Score:1)
~mark
Re:just got back from ice age (Score:2)
Re:just got back from ice age (Score:1)
CGI will NEVER make actors redundant, in the same sense that cel animation didn't make actors redundant. There's a time and place for each.
Re:just got back from ice age (Score:2)
Re:Yet it still won't affect actors. (Score:2)
Re:just got back from ice age (Score:2)
Re:just got back from ice age (Score:2)
much fucking money asking test audiences to write their endings for
them. So, what we get are technologically perfect movies with no soul.
That's Ice Age: millions of dollars of computers thrown at a
bland script full of pooping and animals getting bonked on the head.
It looks great, but where its heart should be is a hack screenwriter
doing exactly what a bunch of play-it-safe executives and focus groups
ask for. It's like having a CD of a shitty album when it's way better
to have a vinyl copy of a great one."
...and for an even more accurate look at "Ice Age", go to http://bigempire.com/filthy/ [bigempire.com]
multi genre films (Score:2)
Wow.. (Score:4, Funny)
This is a movie, not a prostate exam. You look WAY too deeply into a simple slapstick comedy. Take some valium and write an auto-biography
Jon Katz: Still on Slashdot because we love to hate him.
Showtime was our big FX film for the year (Score:5, Interesting)
You might not think of this as a big FX movie, after all, it's just a cop buddy movie, right? Well, it turns out that my little company did over 140 digital FX shots for this film. This demonstrates among other things that computer graphics effects are a big part of almost any film these days -- it gives the director and writers freedom to shoot things more effectively, and allows the director and writer the freedom to improve the film in the post-production phase.
I'll try not to reveal too many plot points to those of you who haven't seen the film -- but if you don't want to know anything about the film you can stop reading right here.
Ok. The biggest thing that we did was build the environment outside the penthouse -- buildings, reflections, and helicopters. The challenge was to keep that environment alive (without the cliche flocks of pigeons.) We did this mostly by observing that windows in skyscrapers flex somewhat in the wind, so that the distortions of the reflections in the windows are always changing. There are a few places that you can see near the ground, and we added little sparkles of light from car windshields, things like that.
We also added a bunch of lasers to the guns, and a bunch of sparks in the gun show sequence. Finally, we did all the 'videoization' and changed the license plate of Eddie Murphy's car for some shots. There were a few dozen other little things here and there, but that's the majority of the shots. By the way, in reality there is a heliport on the roof of the Westin Bonaventure in downtown
Los Angeles.
All of this work was done by a team of 10 or so people over about six months. We used a combination of SGI and Linux boxes to do the animation design, and our render garden (it's too small to be a proper render farm) of Linux boxes to do all of the batch rendering.
thad
This is a good thing. (Score:2)
I do have a point
If this movie can be made without the pretense of needing to explain how reality shows and the media are exploitive and cynical, it means that we as a people are 'familiar' with the thing. They don't need to be told it, they know it already.
Stuff that doesn't matter (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Katz: (Score:2)
Speaking of Ethics... (Score:2)
Fuck sakes, people, only one thing is going to shake up the industry, and that's you having the integrity to stand up for your beliefs and hit 'em where it hurts: their bottom line, by not purchasing their product.
Skeptic (Score:2)
Re:Skeptic (Score:1)
Based on this review... (Score:3, Funny)
I was undecided before, but we like real guy movies and if Jon hates it we will LOVE it!
Thanks Jon!
Crappy Movies (Score:1)
Movies like this. (Score:1)
Nitpick. (Score:1)
guy is -- I haven't seen the sun light for days.
But I know the correct spelling of LAPD is LDAP.
Filtering Katz (Score:2)
Or do you have to pay for the subscription to get rid of Katz?
It's not that I don't care for people going deep into films, it's just painful when they are so off base and out of touch.
What's next? A Katz review of 'SuperTroopers' where he thinks it's a serious examination of police corruption?
Why not Resident Evil? (Score:2)
Showtime has very little pertaining to "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Resident Evil on the other hand is a movie adaptation of a video game. Whom decides what movie reviews by Katz are greenlighted?
I say that CmdrTaco and the rest audition other folks for movie reviews. They can at least find someone as adept as Katz at reviewing movies and deciding to review movies that are closer to the
Re:Why not Resident Evil? (Score:1)
Re:Why not Resident Evil? (Score:1)
Why do I bother reading
I thought RE was ok. Good start, decent finish, and a very mediocre middle. I like Mila as an actress but the movie slowed down when she showed up. I don't think it was her, I blame the writer/director (which I think are the same person in this movie).
For it's genre I would give it a 7 out of 10 (no grade inflation in my world, 7's are decent movies, I think The Matrix would be around 9 or so, just to give you a feel for the scale
I agree with another's post that the sudden cut/big noise technique to get a jump out of the audience was over-used. Which of course was in the middle of the flick.
I did like the flashback/memory recall technique though. Nice way to do some quick, visual exposition.
Like I wrote, an enjoyable movie, not a horrible way to waste a few hours.
Re:Why not Resident Evil? (Score:1)
Katz, you ignorant slut (Score:2)
He actually has been doing this for years and did it best in Midnight Run [imdb.com]
No serious role in years? (Score:1)
hello katz (Score:1)
Re:Screw SHOWTIME! (Score:2)