Final Five Cut to Chase
Final Five Cut to Chase by Roxanne McDonald
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Well, sort of. Okay, not. On the road this week are the five still standing are Jason (who got the most votes and therefore gets Jerry O’Connell as actor elite this week), Zach, Sam, Adam, and Will. |
This recap dedicated to those involved in the collapse of the Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So sorry your road experiences were real and not just fictional.
Yes, much to my chagrin, Andrew received the fewest votes last week. But hey, Andrew, this frees you up to make
feature-length films of the same humor and high caliber. All the better for us!
Adam gives us “Driving under the Influence.” A guy’s car radio makes people dance against their will.
Carrie tells him he clearly has something going on with musicals, and says this is really funny. She laughed really hard, and it is tough to get her to do that.
Guest judge/commentator Gary Ross (of much fame but noted director of Seabiscuit, Pleasantville, and Dave) agrees and calls it charming and unbelievably ambitious. Gary also calls the piece technically proficient and remarks that it goes somewhere, builds cohesively. He adds that he might do something more with the end, but tells Adam he did a wonderful job.
Also a guest of sorts is Penny Marshall, filling in for brother Gary, who is back East doing Happy Days, the Musical. I don’t know if this a joke any more than I will be able to translate for you most of Penny’s profound commentaries, for, as you know, Penny has a colorful dialect and enunciation thing goin on. With Adam, we do get that she doesn’t know whether to trust the choreographer/Adam collaboration…what with the way “you” dance, she says, but adds that it is excellent otherwise.
Sam delivers “Backseat Driving Test”, an original focus on the overbearing mother in the backseat who gets a lesson of her own.
Carrie tells him this is the best thing he’s done so far; it’s relatable; everybody’s got a parent who’s a backseat driver…or an alcoholic.
Gary says Sam did a really good job technically and was proficient with the stunts; but adds that this was about a boy and his mom and having Lynn Shea, Sam could have done more with this actress who is one of the funniest comics around.
Penny tells Sam that as somebody says, “Do the best you can to be unique….” This, she says, her brother makes her do [the quoting]. Sam’s film is identifiable and unique.
Zach brings an “On the Lot” first: a sequel. But it’s a sequel to last week’s film, which almost got him booted from the competition, so he is nervous about the riskiness. Still he comes through with another homage piece—to Pirates of the Caribbean and others, in “Bonus Feature Two.”
Carrie tells Zach it was gutsy to make a sequel to a film we weren’t wild about, and says this was better. She then sighs that he is so unbelievably talented that she has to call him out and insist he be a blockbuster filmmaker and Jean Luc Godard all in one, because she expects so very much more of him.
Gary says his piece is cohesive, it held its own, and in using so many different tones he still managed to harmonize. The wink to cheesy movie-making also helped give it the right touch, so that he didn’t take it too seriously.
Penny acknowledges that Zach took notes from the judges last week and made an extraordinary sequel. She then says a string of things, adjectives, whathaveyou that even those standing a few feet away don’t get so I don’t feel badly, and then she adds for him to keep doing that…whatever that is.
Jason delivers “The Move”, which features the covet O’Connell [and co-actor Rich P—whose full name was flashed so quickly onscreen I am sorry I missed it].
Carrie says that she didn’t completely get this—that the best decision he [O’Connell character] ever made in his life was moving a tiny little Asian into the middle of the forest. And it took her off guard, she says.
Gary agrees, and says he was confused too by this kind of reversal of a set-up/practical joke—when he didn’t understand where the joke came from. In order for it to make [or have made] sense, he adds, there needs to be the proper backstory/preparation/set-up.
Penny quotes her brother but changes the baseline of the quote so all I get is that ___is the root canal filmmaking. Actually, if I may accomplish accuracy by piggybacking on the hysterically witty Gary Kirschling’s exact quoting:
This is what Penny said to Jason: ‘’But at the end, a chicken-wire fence? I don’t know what’s so great about being the mick-ah master. And make-a prettier, to go with. Let’s go words. Better. What? But — excellent filmmaker. And keep doing stuff.'’
And you know how Jason in all his dignified politeness responded with something polite when Penny asks hims something he, well, non if us, understand, saying something to the affirmative and smiling.
Will delivers “Road Rage 101,” wherein, he says, a guy beats up on his car and the car beats back. It opens the way Falling Down does, but is far more disappointing when there are no justified tantrums from the Michael Douglas type.
Carrie recaps that Will has lamps falling in love, dogs eating glass eyes, and now has a car taking revenge on its owner. That’s imagination, she says, and she enjoyed it.
Gary liked it too, saying that it was well shot, and he got to do a dolly zoom (which everybody wants so badly to do). But Gary says he didn’t feel the character of the car as much as he would have liked to. But, he concludes, a really good job.
Penny thinks Will set up more in his package than in the actual film, and she is not sure why the guy is mad at the car when it’s the traffic’s fault and all the yelling should be done at the other cars…, but, she finishes, Will is a talented filmmaker who could have done better and will do better, she trusts.
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