“Abbott Elementary” just might do it. After winning for casting, the ABC hit freshman sitcom could make history in many significant ways. After Quinta Brunson made history by becoming the first Black woman to be nominated for comedy series, acting and writing categories in the same year, she would be only the second Black person ever to win as a producer in the comedy series. The first was Winifred Hervey for “The Golden Girls” back in 1987. Also, forecast to go along with the top category a win for writing (Brunson would be the third Black person after Larry Wilmore for “The Bernie Mac Show” in 2002 and Lena Waithe for “Master of None” in 2017) and Sheryl Lee Ralph in supporting actress (she would be the second Black woman to win the category after Jackee Harry for “227” in 1987).
Let’s be clear, I’m aware I may be “overthinking much of this,...
Let’s be clear, I’m aware I may be “overthinking much of this,...
- 9/8/2022
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provides inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.
To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Emmys Collective
Visit each category, per the individual awards show from The Emmys Hub
To see old predictions and commentary,...
To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Emmys Collective
Visit each category, per the individual awards show from The Emmys Hub
To see old predictions and commentary,...
- 8/18/2022
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Centering on an upwardly mobile couple who resort to robbery to maintain their way of life, this comedy remake boasts an all-too-timely premise. But while the 1977 "Fun With Dick and Jane" was a reasonably diverting sendup of conspicuous consumption with a subversive if not always razor-sharp comic edge, the new version, with Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni stepping into roles originated by George Segal and Jane Fonda, replaces smart performances with tired shtick.
The film, directed by Dean Parisot ("Galaxy Quest") from a script by Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller, makes some clever updates, setting the story in 2000 -- "a long, long time ago" in that pre-war-on-terrorism bubble of supposed innocence. In the process, though, it undercuts the potential satire with obvious swipes at that barn door of a target, corporate greed, and does so in a way that feels disingenuous, phoned-in and borderline cynical. Fans of Carrey and those looking for a break from serious awards-season offerings could give "Dick and Jane" a run at the boxoffice, but it's not likely to be a spectacular heist.
In the original film, a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses SoCal exec and his wife turn to crime after he loses his aerospace job. The wise and witty comedic acting of Segal and Fonda was one of the movie's sure strengths, though it served to make its selfish protagonists more likable, perhaps, than they should be. The setup of the new film muddles things in a different way, turning its central couple into victims of corporate shenanigans. Meant to be sympathetic, they come off as shrill and hard to embrace.
A rising exec at vaguely defined media enterprise Globodyne, Dick Harper (Carrey) tosses around meaningless mouthfuls of words like "consolidator," "synergy" and "platforms." His wife, Jane (Leoni), is the quintessential harried, multitasking working mom. At Dick's urging, she quits her stressful job as a travel agent after he scores a big-league promotion to vp communications. But Dick, it turns out, won't be in the executive suite long; he's only being set up by sleazy chief financial officer Frank Bascombe (Richard Jenkins) and company topper Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin, putting a Southern drawl on the kind of bastard he could play in his sleep). They toss their new spokesman to the cable-talk dogs -- a snarling money-show host and a deeply disappointed Ralph Nader -- just as the company disintegrates in an Enron/WorldCom-type implosion of shell companies and cooked books.
Dick and Jane's entire savings was in now-worthless Globodyne stock, and the company's demise has sent the local real estate market on a dive that would leave them owing the bank if they sold their home. Relying on visual gags and slapstick, the film milks the silliness of the situation as the Harpers remain in their superhouse sans water or electricity, among neighbors who proudly demonstrate their voice-operated Mercedes. With dozens of desperate laid-off execs vying for the same coveted positions, Dick and Jane lower their expectations with ill-fated gigs as day laborer and drug-company guinea pig. Looming foreclosure sends Dick over the edge, and soon he and the missus are wielding their son's squirt gun (no real weapons because they're not really bad) in a series of elaborately costumed stickups.
The script's jabs at Kenneth Lay and George W. Bush, however deserved, lack real sting, and Parisot puts most of his energy into dumb action, generating only a few laughs. Carrey and Leoni get the physical comedy right. They also convey the required chemistry for a couple who once scheduled dates for sex and now find lawlessness a spontaneous turn-on. But mostly they're asked to flail around in over-the-top "funny" acts.
The production package is straightforward and polished and makes good use of Los Angeles-area locations, especially the Malibu spread -- one of the many homes of Baldwin's "Walden"-quoting villain -- that bears a striking resemblance to another movie home of a hypocritical executive, that of Campbell Scott's in "The Dying Gaul".
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE
Sony Pictures Entertainment/Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment presenta Brian Grazer, JC 23 Entertainment and Bart/Palevsky production
Credits:
Director: Dean Parisot
Screenplay by: Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller
Story by: Gerald Gaiser, Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller
Producers: Brian Grazer, Jim Carrey
Executive producers: Jane Bartelme, Peter Bart, Max Palevsky
Director of photography: Jerzy Zielinski
Production designer: Barry Robison
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Co-producer: Kim Roth
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Don Zimmerman
Cast:
Dick Harper: Jim Carrey
Jane Harper: Tea Leoni
Jack McCallister: Alec Baldwin
Frank Bascombe: Richard Jenkins
Veronica: Angie Harmon
Garth: John Michael Higgins
Joe: Richard Burgi
Oz: Carlos Jacott
Blanca: Gloria Garayua
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 90 minutes...
The film, directed by Dean Parisot ("Galaxy Quest") from a script by Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller, makes some clever updates, setting the story in 2000 -- "a long, long time ago" in that pre-war-on-terrorism bubble of supposed innocence. In the process, though, it undercuts the potential satire with obvious swipes at that barn door of a target, corporate greed, and does so in a way that feels disingenuous, phoned-in and borderline cynical. Fans of Carrey and those looking for a break from serious awards-season offerings could give "Dick and Jane" a run at the boxoffice, but it's not likely to be a spectacular heist.
In the original film, a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses SoCal exec and his wife turn to crime after he loses his aerospace job. The wise and witty comedic acting of Segal and Fonda was one of the movie's sure strengths, though it served to make its selfish protagonists more likable, perhaps, than they should be. The setup of the new film muddles things in a different way, turning its central couple into victims of corporate shenanigans. Meant to be sympathetic, they come off as shrill and hard to embrace.
A rising exec at vaguely defined media enterprise Globodyne, Dick Harper (Carrey) tosses around meaningless mouthfuls of words like "consolidator," "synergy" and "platforms." His wife, Jane (Leoni), is the quintessential harried, multitasking working mom. At Dick's urging, she quits her stressful job as a travel agent after he scores a big-league promotion to vp communications. But Dick, it turns out, won't be in the executive suite long; he's only being set up by sleazy chief financial officer Frank Bascombe (Richard Jenkins) and company topper Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin, putting a Southern drawl on the kind of bastard he could play in his sleep). They toss their new spokesman to the cable-talk dogs -- a snarling money-show host and a deeply disappointed Ralph Nader -- just as the company disintegrates in an Enron/WorldCom-type implosion of shell companies and cooked books.
Dick and Jane's entire savings was in now-worthless Globodyne stock, and the company's demise has sent the local real estate market on a dive that would leave them owing the bank if they sold their home. Relying on visual gags and slapstick, the film milks the silliness of the situation as the Harpers remain in their superhouse sans water or electricity, among neighbors who proudly demonstrate their voice-operated Mercedes. With dozens of desperate laid-off execs vying for the same coveted positions, Dick and Jane lower their expectations with ill-fated gigs as day laborer and drug-company guinea pig. Looming foreclosure sends Dick over the edge, and soon he and the missus are wielding their son's squirt gun (no real weapons because they're not really bad) in a series of elaborately costumed stickups.
The script's jabs at Kenneth Lay and George W. Bush, however deserved, lack real sting, and Parisot puts most of his energy into dumb action, generating only a few laughs. Carrey and Leoni get the physical comedy right. They also convey the required chemistry for a couple who once scheduled dates for sex and now find lawlessness a spontaneous turn-on. But mostly they're asked to flail around in over-the-top "funny" acts.
The production package is straightforward and polished and makes good use of Los Angeles-area locations, especially the Malibu spread -- one of the many homes of Baldwin's "Walden"-quoting villain -- that bears a striking resemblance to another movie home of a hypocritical executive, that of Campbell Scott's in "The Dying Gaul".
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE
Sony Pictures Entertainment/Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment presenta Brian Grazer, JC 23 Entertainment and Bart/Palevsky production
Credits:
Director: Dean Parisot
Screenplay by: Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller
Story by: Gerald Gaiser, Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller
Producers: Brian Grazer, Jim Carrey
Executive producers: Jane Bartelme, Peter Bart, Max Palevsky
Director of photography: Jerzy Zielinski
Production designer: Barry Robison
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Co-producer: Kim Roth
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Don Zimmerman
Cast:
Dick Harper: Jim Carrey
Jane Harper: Tea Leoni
Jack McCallister: Alec Baldwin
Frank Bascombe: Richard Jenkins
Veronica: Angie Harmon
Garth: John Michael Higgins
Joe: Richard Burgi
Oz: Carlos Jacott
Blanca: Gloria Garayua
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 90 minutes...
Opens
Friday, Jan. 16
"Along Came Polly" might be a lame, formulaic comedy, but it sets up entertaining sequences cleverly designed for the talents of three of its stars and has the good sense to get out of the way and let audiences enjoy their performances. Writer-director John Hamburg, who penned roles for Ben Stiller in the past, notably "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander", again crafts a character -- a compulsive, vulnerable anal-retentive urbanite -- that is not just up Stiller's alley but up that alley, into the elevator and smack dab in the New York apartment where his Reuben Feffer lives. Similarly, Jennifer Aniston gets to play a free-spirited bohemian cheerfully out of touch with anything approaching normalcy and Hank Azaria is handed one of those foreign-accented nuts from which he can extract delirious comedy.
All this should be enough for favorable though perhaps modest boxoffice returns for Universal in mid-January. The film too often takes a clumsy approach to its comedy, overstating the obvious, running gags into the ground and stranding such talents as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Bryan Brown with annoying, one-note characters. Throw in running gags about gastro-intestinal distress and a blind ferret, and you've got a movie that sets its comedy bar too low for the talents involved.
Reuben's profession and lifestyle are interchangeable. A risk assessor for an insurance firm, he spends his life minimizing all risk. So when he marries Lisa (Debra Messing), a woman selected by him and his computer software as the perfect mate, why are you not surprised that on the first day of his honeymoon on St. Bart's he discovers Lisa with a French scuba instructor (Azaria) deep sea diving on dry land?
Returning to New York alone, jilted and rejected, Reuben gets dragged to an art opening by his impossibly gross best friend, has-been actor Sandy Lyle (Hoffman). Here, Reuben meets grade school friend Polly Prince (Aniston), a rolling stone who likes to live life on the edge. As quickly as you can say "opposites attract," these two wind up in the sack, and Hamburg sets his own virtually risk-free course to a happy ending through dates at restaurants that serve spicy food to upset Reuben's delicate stomach, a salsa club to display his physical ineptitude and the sudden return of Reuben's wife to disrupt the budding romance.
Sequences in which Stiller deals with his gastro-intestinal anguish, awkwardly learns salsa steps from smooth Javier (Jsu Garcia) and lectures Polly on the germs in a bar's communal nut bowl are classic Stiller. Aniston's take-life-as-it-comes waitress is funny without turning into a parody. Essentially, she is a woman who ascribes her romantic failures to lifestyle preferences rather than poor relationship choices.
The remaining characters fall just shy of grotesque buffoons. Even Hoffman, who has rapidly become the character actor of choice for many directors, cannot find anything funny in the loser who is Reuben's best friend. Why would a risk assessor risk terminal embarrassment by showing up anywhere with such a personality? Ditto for Baldwin as Reuben's crude boss, Messing as the blushing bride who turns into a whore at the drop of a beach bum's drawers and Michele Lee and Bob Dishy as Reuben's parents, caricatures that only pay off in the final scene. Brown, in his first Hollywood film in a decade, gets stuck with a Richard Branson-like, risk-taking entrepreneur who is an insurance company's worst nightmare.
In his second outing as a director -- he helmed the Sundance film "Safe Men" -- Hamburg surrounds himself with a veteran crew including cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, designer Andrew Laws, costumer Cindy Evans and composer Theodore Shapiro, all of whom help him to deliver a slick package.
ALONG CAME POLLY
Universal Pictures
Jersey Films
Credits:
Writer-director: John Hamburg
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Executive producers: Jane Bartelme, Dan Levine
Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey
Production designer: Andrew Laws
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Costume designer: Cindy Evans
Editors: William Kerr, Nick Moore
Cast:
Reuben: Ben Stiller
Polly: Jennifer Aniston
Sandy: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lisa: Debra Messing
Stan: Alec Baldwin
Leland: Bryan Brown
Javier: Jsu Garcia
Vivian: Michele Lee
Irving: Bob Dishy
Scuba instructor: Hank Azaria
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Friday, Jan. 16
"Along Came Polly" might be a lame, formulaic comedy, but it sets up entertaining sequences cleverly designed for the talents of three of its stars and has the good sense to get out of the way and let audiences enjoy their performances. Writer-director John Hamburg, who penned roles for Ben Stiller in the past, notably "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander", again crafts a character -- a compulsive, vulnerable anal-retentive urbanite -- that is not just up Stiller's alley but up that alley, into the elevator and smack dab in the New York apartment where his Reuben Feffer lives. Similarly, Jennifer Aniston gets to play a free-spirited bohemian cheerfully out of touch with anything approaching normalcy and Hank Azaria is handed one of those foreign-accented nuts from which he can extract delirious comedy.
All this should be enough for favorable though perhaps modest boxoffice returns for Universal in mid-January. The film too often takes a clumsy approach to its comedy, overstating the obvious, running gags into the ground and stranding such talents as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Bryan Brown with annoying, one-note characters. Throw in running gags about gastro-intestinal distress and a blind ferret, and you've got a movie that sets its comedy bar too low for the talents involved.
Reuben's profession and lifestyle are interchangeable. A risk assessor for an insurance firm, he spends his life minimizing all risk. So when he marries Lisa (Debra Messing), a woman selected by him and his computer software as the perfect mate, why are you not surprised that on the first day of his honeymoon on St. Bart's he discovers Lisa with a French scuba instructor (Azaria) deep sea diving on dry land?
Returning to New York alone, jilted and rejected, Reuben gets dragged to an art opening by his impossibly gross best friend, has-been actor Sandy Lyle (Hoffman). Here, Reuben meets grade school friend Polly Prince (Aniston), a rolling stone who likes to live life on the edge. As quickly as you can say "opposites attract," these two wind up in the sack, and Hamburg sets his own virtually risk-free course to a happy ending through dates at restaurants that serve spicy food to upset Reuben's delicate stomach, a salsa club to display his physical ineptitude and the sudden return of Reuben's wife to disrupt the budding romance.
Sequences in which Stiller deals with his gastro-intestinal anguish, awkwardly learns salsa steps from smooth Javier (Jsu Garcia) and lectures Polly on the germs in a bar's communal nut bowl are classic Stiller. Aniston's take-life-as-it-comes waitress is funny without turning into a parody. Essentially, she is a woman who ascribes her romantic failures to lifestyle preferences rather than poor relationship choices.
The remaining characters fall just shy of grotesque buffoons. Even Hoffman, who has rapidly become the character actor of choice for many directors, cannot find anything funny in the loser who is Reuben's best friend. Why would a risk assessor risk terminal embarrassment by showing up anywhere with such a personality? Ditto for Baldwin as Reuben's crude boss, Messing as the blushing bride who turns into a whore at the drop of a beach bum's drawers and Michele Lee and Bob Dishy as Reuben's parents, caricatures that only pay off in the final scene. Brown, in his first Hollywood film in a decade, gets stuck with a Richard Branson-like, risk-taking entrepreneur who is an insurance company's worst nightmare.
In his second outing as a director -- he helmed the Sundance film "Safe Men" -- Hamburg surrounds himself with a veteran crew including cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, designer Andrew Laws, costumer Cindy Evans and composer Theodore Shapiro, all of whom help him to deliver a slick package.
ALONG CAME POLLY
Universal Pictures
Jersey Films
Credits:
Writer-director: John Hamburg
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Executive producers: Jane Bartelme, Dan Levine
Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey
Production designer: Andrew Laws
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Costume designer: Cindy Evans
Editors: William Kerr, Nick Moore
Cast:
Reuben: Ben Stiller
Polly: Jennifer Aniston
Sandy: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lisa: Debra Messing
Stan: Alec Baldwin
Leland: Bryan Brown
Javier: Jsu Garcia
Vivian: Michele Lee
Irving: Bob Dishy
Scuba instructor: Hank Azaria
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
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