I’ve driven onto the Warner Brothers lot countless times over the last six years, but this is the first time I’ve imagined making this kind of entrance:

Yes, it’s a Friday afternoon in late January, and I’m striding into Building 4 on official Get Smart business.  Of the big screen kind.  Based on the classic television show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.  And you know they’re making this because you’ve seen the teaser, the international trailer and my exclusive interview with director Peter Segal at the 2007 San Diego Comic Con.  

Apparently, I made a decent enough impression on Segal to rate a visit to the editing room, where he’s currently putting the finishing touches on a film he wrapped back in June of last year.  That’s quite a long time to be in post, so the invite threw me a bit.  Generally, whenever I drop by the editing suite of a film nearing theatrical release, it’s a lot of thousand-yard stares, unkempt facial hair (Thelma Schoonmaker is famous for her “Steenbeck beard”) and spent cans of Red Bull.  You can smell the “We’re fucked!” in the room.  Sometimes a fistfight breaks out.  I once walked in on a shirtless Brian De Palma clutching Paul Hirsch in a headlock.  “Don’t worry about him, Smith. He’s been there since Thursday.”  It was Monday.  They smelled of Tuesday.

But Get Smart isn’t due in theaters until June 20th.  That’s, like, six months away.  And while Get Smart is a big summer movie for Warner Brothers, what gives with the year of post? This isn’t Titanic. And even if it is, where there’s a delay, there’s behind-the-scenes strife, right?

Not in this instance.  As I walk into the editing bay, I’m struck by the cleanliness, the relaxedness and the absence of bruises about the well-maintained faces of Segal and the 1st Assistant Editor, Sean Thompson.  These guys are downright chipper.  Though there were a few stressful weeks back in December as they rushed to finish a cut of the film for studio accounting purposes (nothing like busting your ass for the bean counters!), they’re back on schedule and performing tweaks as they prepare to lock picture.  

Still, it’s strange to have time in this business, and even stranger for that lengthy duration to be planned.  But that’s the way it was (almost) always going to be.  “They picked June 20th well over a year ago,” confides Segal.  “So we knew that when we finished it was going to be six months before it was out.  That’s never happened to me before.  It’s a nice luxury.  And luck of the draw because, for a second and a half, we could’ve been a [Christmas ’07] movie.  That would’ve been a very different schedule.”

As I settle in on a couch not cluttered with empty Fritos bags, Segal has Thompson call up the first scene he’d like to run.  Before he does, though, he gives me the thumbnail of their plot (actually, he forgot to do this until after the scene had run, but let’s pretend otherwise):  Maxwell Smart aka Agent 86 (Steve Carell in the role owned by Don Adams) is an inexperienced, confidence-challenged, recently slimmed down (not “bumbling”) agent for CONTROL who’s teamed with the lovely Agent 99 (a stunning-as-usual Anne Hathaway) to stop the nefarious organization KAOS’ latest grab for world domination.  Why assign Smart to a mission of such dire consequence?  Well, he’s the only agent whose identity wasn’t compromised when KAOS raided CONTROL headquarters.  As for Agent 99, she’s undergone extensive plastic surgery (and de-aging).  

The highly competent 99 is, of course, mortified to be heading out into the field with Maxwell, and her disrespect for her partner informs the first scene Segal’s chosen to show me.  It takes place on a commercial airliner from which Maxwell and 99 must clandestinely parachute (via the lavatory), and it’s a crisply executed mixture of banter, physical humor and big summer action.  As often happened in the show, 86 delves too deeply into their cover (they’re husband and wife), which results in his casually browbeating the older-than-she-appears 99 about her ticking biological clock (as they spat, Maxwell quips that she’d better get on with child-bearing before her “eggs dry up and fall out of” her).  After a brief back-and-forth, a flustered Max notices gum on his shoe, so he sets about scraping it off with the first implement he can find.  That said implement happens to be a match sets off a bit of a panic onboard the plane (who doesn’t love a little shoe bomber humor?).

Once that misunderstanding gets cleared up, Maxwell excuses himself to go to the lavatory, where he makes the disastrous decision to try out his gadget Swiss Army Crossbow.  And it isn’t until he’s poked himself with somewhere around a dozen arrows that he activates the drop function… inadvertently and without a chute.  So it’s 99 to the rescue, but not before they engage in a midair tussle with a bad guy who’s tailed them onto the plane.  

If this is the scale on which all of the action in Get Smart happens, color me impressed (Segal says the aerial unit performed eighty dives to get all the necessary footage).  According to Segal, this is in keeping with Carell’s desire to suggest the open-throttle velocity of the Bourne films (when the director ran this by Mel Brooks, he adored the idea).  So it helps that Segal’s editor on the film is Richard Pearson, the Oscar-nominated cutter* who worked with Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse on The Bourne Ultimatum.  And before you start worrying, know that he’s an experienced comedy editor as well (his credits include Bowfinger, Blades of Glory and Men in Black II).  

Still, when comedies go big like this, there’s always the danger of the action overwhelming the laughs (John Landis and Ivan Reitman used to be the masters of maintaining that balance).  But Segal, who counts David Zucker as a mentor, never loses sight of the gag.  This is evident in the next sequence he shows me, which finds Maxwell and 99 infiltrating a lavish cocktail party at the palatial home of one of the bad guys.  First, there’s an unintentional dance-off initiated by Max (he gets jealous watching 99 gallivant with the suave host); then, there’s the parody of the Entrapment break-in sequence (snippets of which can be seen in the international trailer).  True, these aren’t the most original comedic situations, but it’s not like Top Secret was the first film to stage a ludicrous dance number.  The trick is to do it well.  And Segal works a crowd-pleasing variation on both stock scenes.

And just how might I adequately judge the “crowd-pleasing” nature of anything when I’m sitting in an editing bay with two other people?  I’m glad you asked.  As you know, it’s common for comedy filmmakers to record audience reactions in order to gauge the effectiveness of jokes; Segal takes it a step further than most by putting night vision cameras on the house** so that he can not only see where they’re laughing, but where they’re yawning, too.  So he ran some of this footage for me.  And I’m glad he did, too, because it’s difficult to watch this stuff cold (with people who’ve obsessed over each pixel).  Also, I’m a fan of invading folks’ privacy; I could watch this shit all day (I didn’t ask, but I’ve got to think they’ve caught some serious hanky-panky doing this).

Undoubtedly, Segal has dragged Maxwell Smart into the twenty-first century.  He had to.  The old physical schtick and so-corny-it’s-brilliant humor won’t play for today’s audience (see The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle).  But Segal is adament that he hasn’t lost sight of what made Maxwell Smart endearing.  “It kind of bothers me when I read a logline that says ‘The bumbling Maxwell Smart and his more capable partner 99’,” says Segal.  “I never thought of Max was bumbling in the original series.  Especially in the pilot.  He was very capable: a good fighter and good with a gun.  We used the rule that ‘if it happens accidentally, it doesn’t make you dumb.  It could’ve happened to anyone.’  If you look at the pilot, one of the jokes is that, in the middle of a concert, he goes into a closet to answer the shoe phone, and he gets locked in.  That doesn’t make him dumb; that’s just a funny moment based on circumstance.”

Is the sexuality more pronounced than in the series?  Absolutely.  They cast Anne Hathaway.  But her performance is a love letter to Barbara Feldon in that you can actually see why she might fall for a guy like Maxwell.  The chemistry between Feldon and Adams was an integral element to the series’ longevity, and Carell and Hathaway honor that.  

Before I bolt, Segal also lets slip that he’s hidden “easter eggs” all over the film for fans of the series (there was apparently one in the airplane scene, and I missed it).  The faithful might’ve been reticent about this production at first, but, tonally, they’re getting a film that feels exactly like a Get Smart episode.  They’re also getting David Koechner as Larabee, which is a stroke of genius in and of itself.  But when you team him with Terry Crews (as Agent 91)?  And throw them both into a ridiculous argument with Dwayne Johnson (as the suave Agent 23) over a jammed copier?  Explaining comedy is death.  Just trust me: it works.

Warner Brothers releases Get Smart wide on June 20th, 2007.

*For United 93.

**This, incidentally, is how they caught a guy recording a test screening of Anger Management.

AVAILABLE VIA THE PLAYSTATION NETWORK
PLATFORM: PS3
ESRB RATING: E
PUBLISHER: Sony
DEVELOPER: Q Games

This is almost two reviews for the price of one.

I can’t talk about PixelJunk Monsters unless I begin with Desktop Tower Defense. The free flash game is a compelling and addictive time-waster with simple rules and intuitive controls. A couple lines of monsters march across a big empty space; it’s your job to build towers to destroy them. Dead monsters become gold, which purchases and upgrades new towers. These can be placed in a straight line, in little clusters or, if you want to play for a while, in a maze shape to herd the monsters all over the board and give you more time to chip away at the really tough ones.

Like all free things, however, there are limitations. A save system is notably M.I.A., so you have to play through the entire game every time you want to get to the point where you failed last time. Failure is assured, but with no easy way to get back to the point where you kicked it, eventually the appeal wears down.

Even so, the appealing hand-drawn items and cute little sound effects keep me coming back. I know the game will piss me off after an hour, but I can’t help myself. I might walk away for a few days, but then I hit the bookmark and it’s like day one.

So, then. PixelJunk Monsters is a sort of Japanese PlayStation3 take on the tower defense genre DTD does so well. The basics are quite similar: You’re a little shaman protecting a hut crowded with timid little village people. Monsters are on the move; wave after wave of cute and dangerous beasts. Build towers to wipe them out, one by one.

The differences, however, turn out to be massive.

First, you can only build where trees stand — each tower requires one tree. You’ll build with two resources: gold and gems. Gold is relatively plentiful but gems are far more limited. You’ll use gold to place individual towers (and as in DTD can recoup a bit by selling off unneeded ones) while gems either buy fast upgrades to individual towers or research new technology.

The biggest change, and key to the game’s challenge, is that everything is done by a little guy on foot. Your unnamed shaman has to stand near a tree in order to build a tower there, and he’s got to stand near a tower to upgrade it. Stand around long enough and he’ll dance, giving a little upgrade boost. General McShaman also has to gather every coin and gem dropped by dead monsters. (He’ll occasionally find some in trees, too.)

That’s the thing that gets to me every time. In addition to being in the right spot to build a new tower as soon as there’s enough gold to do so, you’ve also got to be somewhere else grabbing gold and gems. They disappear before long, so much racing around the field ensues. Run into a monster and you’ll drop gold and gems and be stunned for a few seconds. Even the flying ones, which is a bitch since they can fly above ground weapons.

Before you even start to factor that pedestrian warchief into the mix, the game is already heavy on trial and error. Get used to the idea of the first attempts with any map being a trial run as you figure out where to place the first towers and, in some instances, where the monsters are going to come from and what path they’ll follow. Once you know the monster starting point and in what order the waves will come you can play the level for real.

There is at least a Super Mario World style map used to select levels; unlike DTD you won’t have to play through a long string of encounters again when you blow it. And once you’ve got the basic movement of a map down, you can start to figure out how the trudging shaman fits into the picture.

As in other tower defense games, your biggest threat is often going to come from the sky. Some levels have only one or two waves of flying enemies; others have several, which attack at varying speeds. Since the area-effect ground weapons (cannon, fire, etc) don’t affect flyers, you’ll have to have some anti-air guns in place and (ideally) upgraded before each wave. It’s easy to forget about doing this, and even when you do, you might often feel like the anti-air guns aren’t all that effective.

I’m not convinced about the overall weapon balancing. Cannons, anti-air guns and the basic arrow towers seem severely underpowered, even when upgraded. Fire towers, on the other hand, are a near guarantee of success. Plop a couple down right where monsters enter the board, spend a few gems to upgrade them immediately, and you’ll be knocking down 75% of any ground wave right off the bat.

Like DTD, the visuals are low-fi (not as low-fi, but considering this is the PS3 it’s all relative) and the sound effects are cute and appealing. The effects are good enough, with neat little blasts from the fire, laser and Tesla towers.

In a nod either to longevity or broad appeal, there’s also a co-op mode where two players oversee the same map and share gems, but have unique treasury. In addition, there’s the option to play PixelJunk Monsters on a PSP via Remote Play, which is pretty neat; if my PS3 didn’t suck energy and shit heat like a jumbo jet I might leave it on when I left the house so I could take advantage of that feature.

The question is whether you’ll be more into the military-type strategy of tower defense, or whether the nuts and bolts of resource gathering and management become the game’s real hook. I’m in the first camp, and can’t see going back to the relatively short campaign more than a few times. If I didn’t have to walk a little shaman from one end of fantasy Gettysburg to another I’d be a lot more likely to experiment with varying strategies. As is, I can only play a board or two at a time; the experience isn’t as addictive as it could be and I’m left loading up Desktop Tower Defense in my browser once again.

(Note: while the screens have Japanese text, the US release is all in English; these are the only screens I have that accurately represent the current build.)

They mystery of Amelia Earhart continues to fascinate; what happened to the first woman to try to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane? She disappeared in July of 1937 over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to find the next landing strip on her journey. Insert a women drivers joke here if you’re really boring. Of course Earhart did more than just disappear; she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for it. She was an outspoken women’s rights advocate and author, and she made huge breakthroughs for women in aviation.

Phil Noyce was set to direct a biopic about Earhart, with Hilary Swank as the star, but he had to drop out around Christmas – he said that while he had done tons of scouting and storyboards it didn’t look like the film was moving ahead, so he had to go to greener pastures (a Mary Queen of Scots movie starring ScarJo, apparently). But now Moviehole, who broke that original news, is reporting that maybe the Earhart movie isn’t that dead and a new director has come aboard: Mira Nair, who recently directed The Namesake. Nair has the Johnny Depp-starring Shantaram on her potential future slate, but that one took a smack from the strike and is currently way up in the air. If the Earhart movie has a script ready, she could move right in and get shooting soon.

The biggest question that must be asked about an adaptation of Brian K Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s Y The Last Man comic book is how do you fit it all into a movie? The story, about aplague which kills all males on Earth except for Yorick Brown and his helper monkey Ampersand, stretches over the course of 60 issues which span almost five years of time. While the story has some meandering and digressions, there’s a thick story to tell, one which could work in two hours but wouldn’t have the same scope.

It turns out that DJ Caruso, the guy attached to direct the film, feels the same way. He sees the story as a trilogy, with the first film covering the first 14 issues (does he mean the first ten? The first 14 puts the plot smack dab in the middle of the series’ third storyline, which [spoilers] involves a trio of astronauts in Earth orbit – two of whom are men. The tenth issue ends with the reveal of their existence, and that would be a killer cap to the first film). He’s also excited about the movie from a thematic point of view, which is always music to these movie snob ears: “For me, thematically, the most important thing and the reason I want to do this is … I don’t want to say it’s the end of the innocence, but it’s actually a man-child who has to become a real man now,” Caruso tells USA Today. “I think it’s a really simple, beautiful theme, but at the same time, the movie’s really pop-culture entertainment.”

Shia Labeouf is currently attached to play Yorick in the film, which would continue the relationship between Caruso and the star of his Disturbia and Eagle Eye. I like Shia a lot, but I do think that someone like Justin Long might be my personal choice for the role; Yorick could use Long’s goofiness and the role could give him a chance to be a little more serious than most of his recent movies have allowed.

I’ve had a couple weeks to get used to the idea of Zac Efron starring in a Richard Linklater film, particularly one about Orson Welles, but it still doesn’t quite register. Not that I’m knocking Efron — my exposure to his work is limited to the trailer for Hairspray and those seemingly ubiquitous ads that ran for the High School Musical DVD, and I would be ecstatic to discover we have a great new young actor. Something about it just feels a little off, though.

On the other hand, I do understand why Linklater would put Efron in Me and Orson Welles, in which Efron will play a young man who meets Welles one day in front of his theater and receives a small part in Welles’ production of Julius Caesar. Linklater needs a hit, and Efron might deliver. That’s enough recapping of old news; I’ve got new news to report!

Efron and the guy who is to play Welles (Christian McKay) will be joined by the eclectic foursome of Claire Danes, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill and Imogen Poots; the announcement did not say what roles they’d be taking. Thankfully, I’ve got nothing negative to say about anyone in this group, but that’s not for lack of trying; I’ve seen Bill only in a handful of small roles (I’ve liked what I’ve seen), and I’ve only seen Poots in 28 Weeks Later (also liked).

I would certainly call myself a fan of both Marsan (Vera Drake, 21 Grams, The New World) and Danes (Stardust, Shopgirl, T3, Igby Goes Down), however. You might not recognize Marsan’s name, but if you’re the kind of person who visits this place regularly (meaning you watch a lot of movies), you probably know his face, as he’s an excellent character actor and a pretty distinctive-looking fellow.

And Danes is both very attractive and talented, though she tends to only excel when in the right hands. I think Linklater has pretty good hands, so I have confidence in her for this one.

This is one for all you Robert Jordan fans. Jared Hess is going to follow up Nacho Libre with a flick called Gentlemen Broncos, in which a high school kid (Michael Angarano) goes to a writers’ camp where a famous fantasy author (Jemaine Clement) rips off his idea. The comedy won’t just stick with reality; it’ll also bounce back and forth between the honest and fantasy version of the story in question, with Sam Rockwell playing the lead character in both versions.

It’s a great idea, and one that could be mined for either a treasure trove of easy gags or a more lean but barbed set of takedowns. And face it, the fantasy novel exists on a landscape so ridiculous that even the easy jokes would kill.

But Jared Hess is two for two in making movies that fail to capitalize on easy premises, so you can understand why I might be more than a little wary. Hess and his wife Jerusha wrote the script, so it’s not like there’s some impeccable creative pedigree behind it.

Then there’s the Jemaine Clement thing. I had enough of Flight of the Conchords about three episodes into the debut run; when I did enjoy it, usually that was thanks to Bret McKenzie. I actually feel like Sam Rockwell and Jemaine Clement are matter and anti-matter. Rockwell has the sort of effortless, charming presence that arch hipsters would die for, while Clement so often comes across as the desperate hipster sitting in the corner, pining for popularity.

(I’ll give him credit for the backing vocals on ‘If You’re Into It’.)

In fact, this project would make a lot more sense if Rockwell and Clement’s positions were reversed. Rockwell could nail the sleazy writer and Clement might actually be ideal for the real/fantasy version of the novel’s lead. Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with casting right in line with type. The trick is in knowing when to say when.

I’ve been wanting to see the microbudget indie horror film Paranormal Activity ever since it played at LA’s ScreamFest to major acclaim from a lot of people I trust. I tried (half-assedly) to get myself a screener DVD, and I was unable to make any of the screenings here in LA, and Slamdance was like a foreign country to me while I was in Park City. Now the film has been picked up by Dreamworks, which means I’m going to have to wait for two things: the direct to DVD release who knows when and the eventual big budget remake.

It’s the remake that apparently really interested the studio, and they’re likely to begin work on a new version as soon as possible. Everything I’ve heard is that the original is legitimately scary (and that’s saying something when you hear it from horror guys – they’re so jaded nothing scares them, short of the news of Rob Zombie remaking a movie), so why bother redoing it with stars and no scares when you have a perfectly reasonable version ready to go? Stop trying to gild the lily, boys! The original is a mockumentary about the haunting of a house, and apparently the film uses the fake doc angle more convincingly than most others in the genre.

In the meantime, if you have a copy of Paranormal Activity (especially if you’re one of the filmmakers/producers), hook a brotha up. I’m dying to see this movie, have the shit scared out of me and write it up on the site.

While I wait for that hook up, here’s the trailer:

Last month it was announced that Majesco was bringing back the team behind Parappa the Rapper. NY artist Rodney Alan Greenblat (the guy who created all the characters) and musician and game designer Masaya Matsuura would be reuniting to work on a new music game project, but no details on what it would be were given. A new press release issued today tells us just what it is-

Ahhh, alliteration. I’m not sure if they thought the name was cute, or they just want you to feel embarrassed to ask for the game at a store.

As you can probably tell from the title, the game’s about a marching band, and you’ll play the role of the conductor. The game will make you use your Wii remote as a baton to keep your band members in tempo to the music, and also to snag items and recruit new members. There will be 8 locations that you conduct parades through, with 15 instruments to add to your crew. Also available are 30 “well-known” marching band tunes in original compositions.

There’s even a suitably goofy storyline-

In a town where marching bands are prevalent and everyone is looking to be the best, Major Mike Minor is fairly ambivalent towards marches despite hailing from a long line of illustrious Drum Majors. After his parents present him with a “special” baton that magically attracts band members to fall into rhythm behind the leader, will Major Minor finally fulfill his potential and share the joy of marching with the world?

While it’s cool to hear hear the Parappa guys getting back together, a marching band game? Really? A rapping dog is one thing, but c’mon. Let’s just hope the songs are catchy, and the thing’s got some length to it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt… the Parappa games have all been great (that needless PSP remake notwithstanding.)
 
With this, Wii Music, and a new Samba De Amigo on the way, could the Wii become the best system for music games?
 
(Without a DLC-equipped Rock Band, no, but it’s a nice thought.)

You don’t have to search so hard for Bobby Fischer these days – just make a right at the maggots*. The formerly alive chess champ is getting a movie made about his early days, when he acheived fame by going head to head with Russkie chess tsar Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland. The Cold War was so hot at the time that the nation was transfixed by an American versus Commie bout, and the matches were televised like real sports games. Fischer later went into isolation – thus the title of the famous chess movie Searching for Bobby Fischer – and then reappeared as something of a lunatic and an anti-Semite. Doh. I somehow doubt this stuff will make it into the film, which is being directed by Last King of Scotland‘s Kevin Macdonald after he finishes his cursed adaptation of State of Play. Or maybe it could be the dark ending, sort of like ‘Way of the future’ closed out The Aviator. We could fade out on Bobby Fischer cradling the Queen, mumbling ‘Goddamned Jews! Goddamned Jews!’

The script is written by Shawn Slovo, based on the book Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds and John Eidinow. Universal and Working Title will produce. Macdonald may actually direct another film before getting on this one, a Roman drama called Eagle of the Ninth.

*too soon? If I wait any longer he’ll be well past the maggot stage.