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Review: Showtime
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.
Sometimes I think Katz enjoys the ragging... bringing up the topic of boring/lame writing is just asking for it...
Le sigh.
-raph
Well if this is the best Hollywood can come up with I'll stay at home. Mind you it's been months since any new film seemed good enough to actually go and see. I suppose these are the sorts of films we get outside of the holiday season - when most people have other things to do with their time.
Video Game cheats, hints a
But is this stuff that matters? Is it?
Video Game cheats, hints a
Most of the computers in movies for several years have been Macintoshes, maybe because the Mac is the only computer that doesn't look like every other computer and therefore benefits from product placement. But this is the first movie in which an entire iMac commercial runs on TV in the background of a shot.
"It always comes down to the writing, doesn't it?"
I guess that's why you're not working for Wired anymore, Jon. *grin*
Showtime is the name of a premium movie channel owned by Viacom.
Showtime is also a film directed by Tom Dey produced by AOL Time Warner, who owns HBO, which competes with Showtime the channel.
Wait till Showtime the movie hits cable. Watch the legal sparks fly.
Will I retire or break 10K?
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.
Taxi Driver - four stars and two thumbs up.
btw, please stop harping on ethics when you still haven't answered your "message from kabul" hoax.
A "hard-ass from the old school," Jon? Do you ever wonder why you're writing for someone's weblog now, rather than Wired? If not, try running your articles past an English professor sometime, I'm sure they'd be glad to point out to you the reasons you don't deserve employment.
It always comes down to the writing, doesn't it?
Somehow this phrase is even more evident when reading a Jon Katz editorial, not always in the context of what he's reviewing.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
JonKatz was the sole creator. JonKatz would write the greatest books, the best screenplays, and be the most 31337 h4x0r in z w0rld.
In JonKatz we trust.
Heat + Casino, 1995
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.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
- 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.Dog is my co-pilot.
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?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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.
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.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
First, let me just say... where all da white people at? 90% of the audience was black, and this was in Hollywood, a half block from the Chinese Theatre, which seemed odd -- not that I'm complaining, mind you (I'm white) but I thought Murphy and De Niro were bigger draws among whites. Or maybe the distributor just handed out lots of screening passes in black neighborhoods?
[ 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.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Katz, get a real job already.
What a cooohooool movie. How soon till CGI animation makes real life actors redundant, and voice over crew become celebs. It's interesting to watch the convergence between 3d gaming, CGI animation and computer modelling.
~mark
I'd have to disagree that you can't have it all. I think the problem with mixing ideas and genres of film is that the majority of times the execution is just horrible. I have seen a few multi-genre films that pull this off quite well, the most recent was 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' which I heard referred to as the 'best kung fu, horror, fantasy, western, mystery, romance, period peice out of France' ever. (believe it or not that wasn't someone being an ass, the rest of the review was gushing about the movie). Point is I think you can cross multiple genres of film if the underlying premise of the film will hold together throughout. If the writing, or characters are weak then it will show through somewhere in the genre hopping. On the other hand if the characters are strong and well written then as the movie transitions then the characters will also and you'll end up having a good fluid experience.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I mean, don't we already know he doesn't like anything, thus making his expressing this opinion unnecessary? Seriously, I could have written this Katz review, although I would have added a chapter digressing into the future of technology and how actors didn't grok technology enough to be worthy of respect or something.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
Good one. :)
Joseph?
It's dorks like you that keep Hollywood cranking out stupid, low-quality movies. You morons keep buying tickets to every piece of dreck they shovel out the door, then whine when someone points out it is dreck. you have terrible taste and because of you good movies are not made anymore. Bastards.
You are a fucking moron.
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.)
Jon,
.. on second thoughts, Don't.
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.
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
"When direction is taken by committee, art ceases to be art and instead it becomes propaganda."
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
This post will try to make Showtime qualify for the 'News for Nerds' motto of Slashdot.
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
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Jon Katz is a moron who couldn't be bothered to go to imdb.com before spouting off with his malformed biasies...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I mean, come on, I've had Showtime off and on for at least 15 years now.
I remember reading a while ago, a comment from some sci-fi author saying that most of what was passed off as "sci-fi" these days was not, but rather fiction set in a familiar world pioneered by the sci-fi greats. Not any different then fiction set in the Wild West or whatever. The author singled out star wars as an example. No real science, but rather a story that drew on the readers understanding of the 'sci fi world'
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The other day I submitted a link to an article about the long-term problems of Internet-based "distance learning". Needless to say, that was ignored, but the latest dreck from Hollywood is newsworthy? Anyone know any better forums about new technology and society?
Playing Tux Racer would be a better use of JohnKatz's time.
Showtime was a good movie, full of laughs.
By this point, if something Katz says keeps you from seeing a movie you would have went to otherwise, you might want to visit a doctor for your head problems.
John, people go to the movies to WATCH movies. They don't go in order to try and pick apart scenes and out-guess the intentions of the writer.
Heat, Ronin, etc are not serious movies.
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.
A funny cop movie staring Eddie Murphy? I fail to see the slashdot relevance. I think Katz couldn't bring himself to review Resident Evil. Now there's a movie!
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 after the company "entered the recording industry" by introducing high-end audio functionality into the Power Macintosh line.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this site is now dumber for having read to it.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Since when did you guys let Katz do movie reviews? Not only is this not stuff that matters, but it was reviewed by someone who doesn't matter. I thought that Katz skill (or lack there of) was reserved for techno-buzzword crap where he can ramble mindlessly for 8 paragraphs about stuff he has no clue about. It's clearly obvious he did not watch this movie as his review was limited to only 4 paragraphs.
Most of Slashdot thinks "Resident Evil" refers to the installations of Windows and Office on their home computers.
...aren't we boycotting the Hollywood movie industry because jackasses like Valenti are trying to get the government to pass draconian anti-freedom laws?
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.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Yes Katz.
Now perhaps you are one step closer to realising why we HATE YOUR FUCKING GUTS YOU STUPID WAFFLING PRAT.
Ta.
I don't think JonKatz wrote this review, or else there's a new JonKatz.
Based on this review, I am definatly taking my so to see Showtime as soon as he gets to Northern VA for his spring break.
I was undecided before, but we like real guy movies and if Jon hates it we will LOVE it!
Thanks Jon!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Everytime I start to feel bad about downloading a movie over the web, I think of all of the terrible movies that I wasted money on and then I feel better.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
Who needs legislation like the DMCA or the SSSCA when you have movies like this to kill piracy?
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
only "safe" movies ever get made, "safe" being definted as "will a teen-age boy go see it?"
I don't know if I can agree with that. I've been praying to god for sequels to Showgirls and Basic Instinct!
Go see Resident Evil!
;)
Help support Gamer Theater
Keep the ebonics in Harlem:
"...and a dis on reality..."
I don't know who Mr. Ruso or Mr. Deniro, or any other italian
guy is -- I haven't seen the sun light for days.
But I know the correct spelling of LAPD is LDAP.
Katz is like the man who finds a potato shaped like Jezus and thinks he has found a Macintosh... or something like that
but is mostly boring and lame. It always comes down to the writing, doesn't it? Well Jon that pretty much sums you up, scary.
Not even if they can make a photorealistic human being.
The mobs want stars, not pixels. They want real human beings that might someday answer a letter to them. They want to fantasize about being married to a big time movie star (Divorce statistics of Hollywood notwithstanding), even though, in their hearts, they know it will never happen. They want to dream of being stars themselves, of living 'the good life', staying in high class hotels.
Take a few minutes and hit Google. Look at how many fans blindly worship stars. Look at them writhe in pleasure when an actor tosses them a bone and agrees to an interview.
This is what will make sure actors are never hurting for work. There's a difference between, "Wow! It's a photorealistic human!" and, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I just saw Sean Connery in McDonald's!!!!!"
God it was awful. I wonder if Kubrick would have done a better job, or if it was doomed from the beginning? I think they should have gotten Coppola to finish it instead of Spielberg.
I figured out everything Jon said from watching the previews. This seems to be a running thread in Jon's movie reviews.
Jon, from now on we would like to see a digital scan of your movie ticket as proof you at least paid for the movie (we still have no proof you watched it).
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I've never really played with the slash code or any of the filtering things, but is there a way to just filter out anything he writes?
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?
The Internet is generally stupid
The dude hasn't been the same since that Saving Private Ryan review.
Sometimes it hurts more to tell the truth that to listen to it.
It is possible to make a movie that is a parody of its own genre. Just look at Scream. It's one of the best horror movies of the last 20 years (I know that's not saying much, but it is a very good movie from an absolute standpoint as well as a relative standpoint), yet it is also a biting (and unsubtle) satire of the horror movie cliches.
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.
Another dead on article. Bravo Katz!
and to katz haters... well if you dont like katz then you are a FAGOT
In Hollywood, it's NEVER about the writing! Do you honestly think that what you're seeing on the screen is anything like the original screenplay? By the time the producer has said, "More Explosions!", the director has demanded, "More SFX!", and the actors have improv'ed it out the door, there's nothing of the original left for the editor to fuck up in post.
You're in for one hell of a shock if you ever sell a screenplay, Katz...
If I had only stayed logged in I wouldn't have noticed. I'm blocking all Katz written articles. That should be default for all slashdot accounts.
Personally, I'm going to institute a new policy. Every time I read something this bad on /., whether it's a Katz-ism, CT being totally devoid of composition skills, or whatever, I will boycott the site for two or more days, depending on how bad the offense was. This one deserves a three days. If enough of us do this, it will lower traffic enough to force the /. editors to get their act together.
And for the record, I saw Showtime, and it was a very enjoyable flick, taken on its own terms. It's not Citizen Kane or Metropolis, but then it's not meant to be. DeNiro and Murphy have some moments of real chemistry, and any movie that teams up those two plus Shatner and Rene Russo (yum) is worth watching.
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.
That is all.
Why didn't Katz review Resident Evil?
/. mob.
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
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 actually has been doing this for years and did it best in Midnight Run
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
He hasn't had a serious role in a few years, and this spoofing of spoofs of spoofs is getting old.
/. just keeps you around so that their hits per week stay up. Even if people are just coming around to bitch about you, they're still numbers to pitch banners for /.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0227445
Have a look. The Score was from last year! It was a serious role for De Niro. I'm convinced that
You are not a has been. You are a never was nor will ever be.
I don't always like what Katz has to say, it's the things he gets others to say that I enjoy. His reviews make for some very interesting discussion that I like to read.
Sucker sell out. Nice try. Jon Katz's book Geeks has been sold to New Line, a division of Time Warner AOL to be turned into a motion picture. How's that stand up to the first line of your "review"?
The sad... nay the REALLY sad and pathetic thing is that it works...
Try The Score
Is Katz getting paid by Slashdot for these lousy articles?
Point being: are Slashdot subscribers subsidizing this waste of electrons?
come what was the movies the score, 15 min and men of honor like action hard nose roles