list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around I Spy on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/I_Spy/210998/default.aspx Title: I Spy
Year: 2002
Director: Betty Thomas
Plot: Yet another classic television series from the 1960s gets a big-screen update in this action-comedy inspired by the Bill Cosby/Robert Culp vehicle I Spy. Alex Scott (Owen Wilson) is a federal intelligence agent who has been assigned to find a particularly expensive and valuable weapon which has gone missing: a special stealth fighter jet which can not only hide from radar, but also turn invisible to the human eye. Scott learns a rogue agent has sold the jet to Gundars (Malcolm McDowell), a powerful and unscrupulous underground arms dealer. After blowing his opportunity to catch Gundars in the act, Scott formulates a Plan B -- it seems Gundars is a rabid boxing fan, so in order to get inside his organization, Scott recruits Kelly Robinson (Eddie Murphy), a longtime middleweight champion whose ego nearly exceeds his talent in the ring. Robinson is excited by the prospect of a life of espionage, but Scott and Robinson's personalities are like oil and water, and matters are hardly helped by the efforts of less-than-helpful fellow agents Rachel (Famke Janssen) and Carlos (Gary Cole). This adaptation of I Spy was directed by a woman who starred in a memorable television series herself, former Hill Street Blues regular Betty Thomas, who has gone on to a successful career behind the camera. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 6
Number of Lists: 5
Number of blog posts: 2
SpoutRating: 2
]]>Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:57:21 GMTI Spy2002Betty ThomasYet another classic television series from the 1960s gets a big-screen update in this action-comedy inspired by the <a href="/players/P____85992/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Bill Cosby</a>/<a href="/players/P____16110/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Robert Culp</a> vehicle I Spy. Alex Scott (<a href="/players/P___200996/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Owen Wilson</a>) is a federal intelligence agent who has been assigned to find a particularly expensive and valuable weapon which has gone missing: a special stealth fighter jet which can not only hide from radar, but also turn invisible to the human eye. Scott learns a rogue agent has sold the jet to Gundars (<a href="/players/P____47319/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Malcolm McDowell</a>), a powerful and unscrupulous underground arms dealer. After blowing his opportunity to catch Gundars in the act, Scott formulates a Plan B -- it seems Gundars is a rabid boxing fan, so in order to get inside his organization, Scott recruits Kelly Robinson (<a href="/players/P____51440/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Eddie Murphy</a>), a longtime middleweight champion whose ego nearly exceeds his talent in the ring. Robinson is excited by the prospect of a life of espionage, but Scott and Robinson's personalities are like oil and water, and matters are hardly helped by the efforts of less-than-helpful fellow agents Rachel (<a href="/players/P____35232/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Famke Janssen</a>) and Carlos (<a href="/players/P____14045/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Gary Cole</a>). This adaptation of I Spy was directed by a woman who starred in a memorable television series herself, former <a href=/films/270969/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Hill Street Blues</a> regular <a href="/players/P___114011/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Betty Thomas</a>, who has gone on to a successful career behind the camera. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide6Taggedy Taggged (6-10)522http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t26910r9bve.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/I_Spy/210998/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/16/32629.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/16/2008 2:00:50 PM
Body: The latest Eddie Murphy comedy, Meet Dave, debuted at a dismal 7th place this past weekend with only $5.3 million (on Monday it had already dropped down to #8), marking the worst wide-release opening for the actor since The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Can you spot the connection between these two movies? If you noted that they’re both sci-fi comedies, you’re smarter than the average movie exec, apparently. After comedy subgenre failures like Pluto Nash and Vampire in Brooklyn, you’d think producers would have known better than to cast the broad comedy star in something like Meet Dave. Actually, its distributor, Fox, may have started growing wise to the issue when it threw away the original title, Starship Dave. A few writers have now addressed some of the reasons why Meet Dave failed, and it should be clear how to avoid such a bomb in the future. At the L.A. Times, Patrick Goldstein argues the sci-fi comedy case, though figured out the subgenre can sometimes go blockbuster, as the Men in Black movies show us. He also notes all the horrible crap that Fox has been putting out lately, displaying how shocking it is that this particular film did so much more poorly than garbage like Alvin and the Chipmunks and even What Happens in Vegas. Still, there seems to be some debate over whether or not Meet Dave suffered from actually being a sci-fi comedy or from Fox’s failure to own up to the fact and market it as such. Meanwhile, at Defamer, Stu Van Airsdale offers the simple idea that kids today just don’t give a rats ass about Eddie Murphy. And neither does anyone else. But enough people cared to allow Norbit to come really close to grossing a million bucks, and the people tend to enjoy him, as Anne Thompson claims, when he’s in disguise (of course, he also makes big bucks when his face is visible and he’s surrounded by talking animals or rambunctious kids). Considering his recent Oscar nomination (for Dreamgirls), he probably just needs to go serious for a bit. Or merely stay away from the spacemen roles. It’s definitely not too late for Murphy, despite Vulture blog’s call for his retirement. Personally, I stayed away from Meet Dave because it seemed a lot like a cross between What Planet Are You From? and Innerspace, neither of which I particularly enjoyed (well, I have a soft spot for the latter as a huge Joe Dante fan). That, and I guess I’m in the Stu-designated camp since I haven’t bothered with any of Murphy’s films since I Spy (and honestly I stopped caring after The Distinguished Gentleman — I didn’t even see Beverly Hills Cop III). As for the people who have cared in the past, neither the little kids nor the older fans likely saw any appeal in Meet Dave. Maybe Murphy needs to decide to go directly for the family films or directly for the raunchy stuff (it still works well enough for Martin Lawrence and others). Trying for the middle clearly isn’t working. What was your reason for avoiding the flop? The star? The subgenre? The fact that a ton of other bigger blockbusters are out right now? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:00:50 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/16/2008 2:00:50 PMThe latest Eddie Murphy comedy, Meet Dave, debuted at a dismal 7th place this past weekend with only $5.3 million (on Monday it had already dropped down to #8), marking the worst wide-release opening for the actor since The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Can you spot the connection between these two movies? If you noted that they’re both sci-fi comedies, you’re smarter than the average movie exec, apparently. After comedy subgenre failures like Pluto Nash and Vampire in Brooklyn, you’d think producers would have known better than to cast the broad comedy star in something like Meet Dave. Actually, its distributor, Fox, may have started growing wise to the issue when it threw away the original title, Starship Dave. A few writers have now addressed some of the reasons why Meet Dave failed, and it should be clear how to avoid such a bomb in the future. At the L.A. Times, Patrick Goldstein argues the sci-fi comedy case, though figured out the subgenre can sometimes go blockbuster, as the Men in Black movies show us. He also notes all the horrible crap that Fox has been putting out lately, displaying how shocking it is that this particular film did so much more poorly than garbage like Alvin and the Chipmunks and even What Happens in Vegas. Still, there seems to be some debate over whether or not Meet Dave suffered from actually being a sci-fi comedy or from Fox’s failure to own up to the fact and market it as such. Meanwhile, at Defamer, Stu Van Airsdale offers the simple idea that kids today just don’t give a rats ass about Eddie Murphy. And neither does anyone else. But enough people cared to allow Norbit to come really close to grossing a million bucks, and the people tend to enjoy him, as Anne Thompson claims, when he’s in disguise (of course, he also makes big bucks when his face is visible and he’s surrounded by talking animals or rambunctious kids). Considering his recent Oscar nomination (for Dreamgirls), he probably just needs to go serious for a bit. Or merely stay away from the spacemen roles. It’s definitely not too late for Murphy, despite Vulture blog’s call for his retirement. Personally, I stayed away from Meet Dave because it seemed a lot like a cross between What Planet Are You From? and Innerspace, neither of which I particularly enjoyed (well, I have a soft spot for the latter as a huge Joe Dante fan). That, and I guess I’m in the Stu-designated camp since I haven’t bothered with any of Murphy’s films since I Spy (and honestly I stopped caring after The Distinguished Gentleman — I didn’t even see Beverly Hills Cop III). As for the people who have cared in the past, neither the little kids nor the older fans likely saw any appeal in Meet Dave. Maybe Murphy needs to decide to go directly for the family films or directly for the raunchy stuff (it still works well enough for Martin Lawrence and others). Trying for the middle clearly isn’t working. What was your reason for avoiding the flop? The star? The subgenre? The fact that a ton of other bigger blockbusters are out right now? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/6/16/31288.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 6/16/2008 5:01:14 PM
Body: The best time for a Get Smart movie would have been the late ’60s, when the original television series was still on the air. In fact, there was a theatrical Get Smart film in the works during the run of the show, but it was canceled when the theatrical release of Munster, Go Home! bombed at the box office. Many years later, in 1980, a Get Smart feature titled The Nude Bomb was released to theaters, but it also performed poorly. Now we’re getting a remake version starring Steve Carell in the role that was so iconically defined by the late Don Adams. Will it do the show justice? Reportedly the budget was $80 million, a significant amount of which was probably put towards pointless effects. But the best thing Warner Bros. could have done with that money is to give a large amount to series creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, who probably even today could churn out a better script than Failure to Launch scribes Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember. Despite its lack of original Get Smart talent, though, it could still be marginally funny. Yet the real problem is that it may be too outdated and obsolete for audiences to care. In the four decades since the show went off the air, there has been plenty of similar-themed movies, from spy spoofs to films with bumbling heroes. The following ten titles are the best evidence of why this new Get Smart movie is completely unnecessary: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery - It’s interesting that Get Smart is going up against a Mike Myers movie this weekend, because in a way it’s also going up against Myers’ Austin Powers movies, as well. Sure, spy parodies have been around in spades since around the time of the first James Bond movie, but nothing has been as popular as this series, which of course includes the much bigger-grossing sequels, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember. Inspector Gadget - The original animated series was based on Get Smart and even featured the voice of Don Adams. Also like Get Smart, it was remade into a feature film with a different cast. However, it did find room to employ both Adams (as the voice of the dog, Brain) and Andy Dick (who had played Maxwell Smart’s son in a 1990s Get Smart series). Regardless, it was still a failure, both in terms of its box office gross and the way it ruined our childhood memory of the beloved cartoon. Perhaps if the Get Smart movie is good enough, then it could make up for Inspector Gadget (and its sequel), but it would have to be really, really good. The Pink Panther - You might say that Get Smart came about as a response to both the Bond films and the original Pink Panther movies, which featured a bumbling police inspector instead of a bumbling spy. The recent remake of The Pink Panther already showed us that some characters should really be forever remembered by their most iconic portrayer. In this case Steve Martin was nothing compared to Peter Sellers, while in the case of Get Smart, Steve Carell is only muddying the memory of Don Adams. Even if he does a good job, he’s just not the real Maxwell Smart. He should just be in another lame generic spy spoof instead. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy - Want to see Steve Carell act clueless? Watch Anchorman again, because he can’t top his performance as Brick Tamland. “I love lamp.” The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! - The show Police Squad was in a way like Get Smart, only with a clueless detective rather than a clueless spy (I guess it could be seen as more like The Pink Panther then?). Fortunately that series only took a few years to spin-off a feature film, and thanks to the genius of Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Bros., who are almost equal in spoofing ability to Mel Brooks, it is funnier than any single episode or film of Get Smart can be without Brooks’ involvement. Spy Hard - Leslie Nielsen starred as the bumbling detective in the Naked Gun movies and then later played a bumbling spy in this spoof. The result: if Nielsen hadn’t already supplanted the Maxwell Smart character earlier, he did so here, even if really, really poorly. The Man Who Knew Too Little - More clueless spy stuff, this one an underrated movie starring Bill Murray. It actually made less money than The Nude Bomb (even without an inflation adjustment), but I enjoyed it a lot, probably more than I’ll enjoy Get Smart. Johnny English - Yep, I’m still just listing the other recent spy spoofs. But, really, there’s a point. When even Rowan Atkinson has done the bumbling spy bit, it’s time to hang up on the idea. I Spy - Did I already point out that #s 6-10 are more spy comedies? And there’s a lot that I’m not even including! This one is significant because it’s also based on a hit TV series. And it was a huge bomb. Spies Like Us - The thing I like best about the original Get Smart, as well as a number of the films on this list, is that the incompetent hero isn’t really aware of how incompetent he really is. The best movie to utilize this premise, though, has to be Spies Like Us. But that movie came out toward the end of the Cold War, when spy stuff was seeming ridiculously outdated. Comparatively, Get Smart arrives post 9/11, when the fact that American intelligence is incompetent is not so funny anymore. I think that now audiences would much prefer to see more serious spy films, like the Bond reboot Casino Royale (note the significance of this film being kind of a remake of a Bond parody) and the Bourne Identity franchise. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:01:14 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/16/2008 5:01:14 PMThe best time for a Get Smart movie would have been the late ’60s, when the original television series was still on the air. In fact, there was a theatrical Get Smart film in the works during the run of the show, but it was canceled when the theatrical release of Munster, Go Home! bombed at the box office. Many years later, in 1980, a Get Smart feature titled The Nude Bomb was released to theaters, but it also performed poorly. Now we’re getting a remake version starring Steve Carell in the role that was so iconically defined by the late Don Adams. Will it do the show justice? Reportedly the budget was $80 million, a significant amount of which was probably put towards pointless effects. But the best thing Warner Bros. could have done with that money is to give a large amount to series creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, who probably even today could churn out a better script than Failure to Launch scribes Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember. Despite its lack of original Get Smart talent, though, it could still be marginally funny. Yet the real problem is that it may be too outdated and obsolete for audiences to care. In the four decades since the show went off the air, there has been plenty of similar-themed movies, from spy spoofs to films with bumbling heroes. The following ten titles are the best evidence of why this new Get Smart movie is completely unnecessary: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery - It’s interesting that Get Smart is going up against a Mike Myers movie this weekend, because in a way it’s also going up against Myers’ Austin Powers movies, as well. Sure, spy parodies have been around in spades since around the time of the first James Bond movie, but nothing has been as popular as this series, which of course includes the much bigger-grossing sequels, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember. Inspector Gadget - The original animated series was based on Get Smart and even featured the voice of Don Adams. Also like Get Smart, it was remade into a feature film with a different cast. However, it did find room to employ both Adams (as the voice of the dog, Brain) and Andy Dick (who had played Maxwell Smart’s son in a 1990s Get Smart series). Regardless, it was still a failure, both in terms of its box office gross and the way it ruined our childhood memory of the beloved cartoon. Perhaps if the Get Smart movie is good enough, then it could make up for Inspector Gadget (and its sequel), but it would have to be really, really good. The Pink Panther - You might say that Get Smart came about as a response to both the Bond films and the original Pink Panther movies, which featured a bumbling police inspector instead of a bumbling spy. The recent remake of The Pink Panther already showed us that some characters should really be forever remembered by their most iconic portrayer. In this case Steve Martin was nothing compared to Peter Sellers, while in the case of Get Smart, Steve Carell is only muddying the memory of Don Adams. Even if he does a good job, he’s just not the real Maxwell Smart. He should just be in another lame generic spy spoof instead. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy - Want to see Steve Carell act clueless? Watch Anchorman again, because he can’t top his performance as Brick Tamland. “I love lamp.” The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! - The show Police Squad was in a way like Get Smart, only with a clueless detective rather than a clueless spy (I guess it could be seen as more like The Pink Panther then?). Fortunately that series only took a few years to spin-off a feature film, and thanks to the genius of Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Bros., who are almost equal in spoofing ability to Mel Brooks, it is funnier than any single episode or film of Get Smart can be without Brooks’ involvement. Spy Hard - Leslie Nielsen starred as the bumbling detective in the Naked Gun movies and then later played a bumbling spy in this spoof. The result: if Nielsen hadn’t already supplanted the Maxwell Smart character earlier, he did so here, even if really, really poorly. The Man Who Knew Too Little - More clueless spy stuff, this one an underrated movie starring Bill Murray. It actually made less money than The Nude Bomb (even without an inflation adjustment), but I enjoyed it a lot, probably more than I’ll enjoy Get Smart. Johnny English - Yep, I’m still just listing the other recent spy spoofs. But, really, there’s a point. When even Rowan Atkinson has done the bumbling spy bit, it’s time to hang up on the idea. I Spy - Did I already point out that #s 6-10 are more spy comedies? And there’s a lot that I’m not even including! This one is significant because it’s also based on a hit TV series. And it was a huge bomb. Spies Like Us - The thing I like best about the original Get Smart, as well as a number of the films on this list, is that the incompetent hero isn’t really aware of how incompetent he really is. The best movie to utilize this premise, though, has to be Spies Like Us. But that movie came out toward the end of the Cold War, when spy stuff was seeming ridiculously outdated. Comparatively, Get Smart arrives post 9/11, when the fact that American intelligence is incompetent is not so funny anymore. I think that now audiences would much prefer to see more serious spy films, like the Bond reboot Casino Royale (note the significance of this film being kind of a remake of a Bond parody) and the Bourne Identity franchise. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/comedy/MemberTagFilms.aspxcomedy
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