Ouch!
It was no secret on the Toronto set of The Love Guru that Mike Myers was basically a complete and total tool. Sad news for those of us who bought into his lovable hoser personality. And, interestingly enough, it seems karma may finally have gotten to the erstwhile Austin Powers. The Love Guru made less than $15 million at the box office last weekend and finished fourth, behind Steve Carell, a more-animated-than-normal Jack Black and a cranky Ed Norton. That's not good for a guy who was once the biggest name in comedy. The brutally unfunny promotion on American Idol didn't help his cause and neither, it seems, did the movie itself. Here's the opening paragraph of Dana Stevens' review on Slate:
"There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse). And once in a while there is a movie so bad that it takes you to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there, shivering and alone.
"There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse). And once in a while there is a movie so bad that it takes you to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there, shivering and alone.
posted by Jen @ 12:54 p.m.
4 Comments:
At 10:07 a.m.,
Jason Carlin said…
There was a good article in Entertainment Weekly (you probably saw it) about how one of Myer's failures is to change with the times. He plays these broad characters that are a throwback to the 90s, while tastes have changed and audiences seem to prefer more "realistic" characters like in the Apatow comedies or Juno. And Apatow isn't immune to the failure of character-based comedy - "Walk Hard" wasn't exactly relatable. And even Will Farrell's characters are losing their appeal, indicated by the box-office of "Semi Pro".
When I think of character based comedy, all I can think of is Dana Carvey in "Master of Disguise" or Eddie Murphy in "Norbit" (cost him an Oscar I tells ya').
And frankly, Myers just wore thin with dick jokes and plugging the movie everywhere he could.
At 10:39 a.m.,
Anonymous said…
I saw that review as well and thought if I had a blog I would be posting that line. I actually cringed when I read it. Amy
At 4:04 p.m.,
Jen said…
I dunno about humour evolving past him. I read the article that said Judd Apatow's humour was more character-based and less skit-like, which I'm ot sure I buy. A lot of the humour in Austen Powers came from a pretty fully realized character. At least a real as Seth Rogen's pals in Knocked Up. And I wouldn't say Superbad was woefully short on dick jokes either.
At 5:00 p.m.,
Jason Carlin said…
Ah, but Superbad had funny dick jokes. And illustrations.
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