free counter with statistics Amy Adams Leap Year | Pajiba - Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People

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We Lost Another One to the Dark Side, Folks. Amy Adams, We Hardly Knew You.

*Sigh* / Dustin Rowles

Trade News | October 17, 2008 | Comments (64)

Oh, Amy. We’ve loved you for so long here on Pajiba, even if we sometimes confused you with Isla Fisher (wait, which one of you was in Taladega Nights?) You haven’t run afoul of us yet, starting with your enchanting, heartbreaking turn in Junebug. You were adorable on “The Office,” fetching in Charlie Wilson’s War and, well, we even liked you in Enchanted, though it’s not something we advertise. We were a little disappointed when you signed on to Bride Wars, but the we realized that was Isla (doh!). So, we still loved you. Your performance in Doubt looks strong, if the trailer is any indication, and though your next project, Julia & Julia, is directed by Nora Ephron (spoon. gag.), it also stars Meryl Streep and it’s about Julia Child. We like that.

But then, you signed on to Night at the Museum 2, which we weren’t that pleased about, but how often does someone get the opportunity to play Amelia Earhart? We forgive you, Amy.

But this, ma’am, we cannot forgive. Leap Year? A goddamn gimmicky romantic comedy You are better than that, young lady. Here’s the logline: “Adams will play an uptight woman who travels to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend on leap day, Feb. 29, following an Irish tradition in which women propose to men on that day and the man has to say yes. When weather derails her trip, she enlists the help of a surly Irish innkeeper to make an unexpected cross-country trek to pull off the perfect proposal in time.” Now, here’s me crying silently in a corner (*sniffle*)

Well, premise notwithstanding, it could be good, right? Oh, wait: It’s written by Harry Elfont and Deb Kaplan, the duo behind Made with Honor? Oh, Amy. Why do you hate us so? We gave you our attention. We watched you grow. We followed your successes. We rooted for you, damnit. And this is how you repay us?


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Comments

She still has lovely hair.

Posted by: Kolby at October 17, 2008 11:04 AM

...

...

...

...

...there.

Just had to take a second to erase her from my masturbatory database. Too bad, she was a good one...

Posted by: Skitz at October 17, 2008 11:06 AM

Well, I still like her, with her flowing locks and her charming accent. I want to bake cupcakes and drink mint juleps with her even though they sound disgusting.

Posted by: Julie at October 17, 2008 11:10 AM

Well this be better or worse than "The Matchmaker"?

Posted by: Jay at October 17, 2008 11:11 AM

You're not holding her role in Cruel Intentions 2 against her?

Skitz, now you have the difficult task of promoting someone from the masturbatory practice squad to the masturbatory starting lineup. Do you go with a wiley old veteran (like Bea Arthur) or an up-and-make-you-coming rookie (like Emma Watson)?

Posted by: branded at October 17, 2008 11:15 AM

It coooould be like "French Kiss," depending on whom they cast as the surly innkeeper (not Gerard Butler, man has no talent for comedy). And HEY I like that movie. BACK OFF. My ass twitches, you people make my ass twitch.

Posted by: coveredinbees at October 17, 2008 11:19 AM

I'm siding with Julie on this one. I love Amy Adams, and even though this sounds like a steaming pile of sugar-coated sentiment, I'm still rooting for her.

Posted by: Jeremy Feist at October 17, 2008 11:21 AM

French Kiss makes me want to ride a train through the countryside, eating cheese & crusty bread along the way.

Posted by: Kolby at October 17, 2008 11:24 AM

Go watch the trailer for Sunshine Cleaning and all faith and hope will be re-stored. I promise.

Now, here's some milk and cookies. Isn't that better?

Posted by: amanda at October 17, 2008 11:27 AM

Mint juleps are tasty, Julie, I promise. What's not to love about mint, simple syrup, and whiskey? (heavy emphasis on the whiskey)

Posted by: thejodester at October 17, 2008 11:28 AM

Ew ew...ew. I'd rather drink your blood.

Posted by: Julie at October 17, 2008 11:29 AM

I'm digging the French Kiss love.

That said, I didn't see any mention of any Kevin Kline type. Yet. Here's hoping!

Posted by: Gudrun at October 17, 2008 11:34 AM

Surly Irish innkeeper? Surly yet dashing French thief? Come on!

Posted by: coveredinbees at October 17, 2008 11:36 AM

But maybe part of what makes her great is that she's not too uptight to do a lame-ass movie every once in a while. Think of Anna Faris. Would she be nearly as great if she were a total indie queen? I don't think she would be. The fact that she can be at home in anything is part of the attraction.

Posted by: Eep at October 17, 2008 11:37 AM

OH PHEW!!! I thought you were going to say she was now a scientologist.

Wait, she's not, IS SHE???

Posted by: boo at October 17, 2008 11:38 AM

I seriously doubt that -- my blood probably tastes like whiskey.

Posted by: thejodester at October 17, 2008 11:42 AM

Has Anna Faris been in something good?

Posted by: Jay at October 17, 2008 11:43 AM

Never heard of this person.

Looks like that chick in Wedding Crasher, except not half as hot, or like her retard cousin or somethin.'

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at October 17, 2008 11:46 AM

Has Anna Faris been in something good?

Lost in Translation?

Posted by: coveredinbees at October 17, 2008 11:55 AM

As a lead, though.

Posted by: Jay at October 17, 2008 11:59 AM

Amy Adams + Isla Fisher + Eva Green = Me not being able to leave my desk for the rest of the day for fear of an akward situation. You know, the one when the teacher asks you to come to the board to answer a question at exactly the wrong time.

Pajiba is just killing me today.

Posted by: Admin11 at October 17, 2008 12:00 PM

Oooh, ooh! What if the surly Irish innkeeper were played by Stephen Rea? Yes?

Posted by: idgiepug at October 17, 2008 12:02 PM

Have you seen Amy on the cover of Vanity Fair this month? She is so luscious. I want to bite her hair and breasteses.

Posted by: coveredinbees at October 17, 2008 12:03 PM

Julia & Julia, is directed by Nora Ephron (spoon. gag.), it also stars Meryl Streep and it's about Julia Child. We like that.

You aren't allowed to hate on this unless you a) have read the book, b) hate on the book for purely personal or justifiable reasons and c) the movie fucks up all the wonderful realism and replaces it with standard Hollywood gack.

So odds are you can hate it all up and down, but the book was certainly unique and worthy of a movie treatment.

Posted by: twig at October 17, 2008 12:03 PM

Awwww, Stephen Rhea! Adorable!

Posted by: coveredinbees at October 17, 2008 12:05 PM

I loved that book twig. It made me smile and crave cow brains.

Posted by: Julie at October 17, 2008 12:06 PM

My. God.

jodester, my blood tastes like coke! You're the peanut butter to my chocolate, the peas to my carrots, the... uh, the milk to my cookies(?), the er... the... POINT IS - WE HAVE TO MIX OUR BLOOD AND COMBINE THE SPECIES! WE'LL HAVE WHISKEY COKE BABIES! PEOPLE FROM MILES AROUND WILL COme and... Geez, I guess they just... drink the blood of... drink the blood of our children. That doesn't seem right. Not right at all...

Guess it wasn't meant to be... Ah, we'll always have Paris, though jodester... We'll always have Paris.

[...cue music, dim lights, single spotlight on Mime with heart shaped balloon, small red dot appears on Mime's forehead a split-second before the top half of his head is completely transformed into a fine red mist... somewhere in the distance, a baby cries...]

Posted by: Skitz at October 17, 2008 12:07 PM

Has Anna Faris been in something good?

Lost in Translation?

and

Just Friends.

Posted by: amanda47 at October 17, 2008 12:07 PM

re: mint juleps

It's not the whiskey that's the problem, it's the mint. Since a tragic mix up between lime gumdrop wedges and spearmint gumdrop leaves when I was a tiny child, mint in general is iffy for me (with the sole exception of peppermint). Spearmint gives me a headache and makes me vomit.

re: Amy Adams

LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALAAAAAAAAA!

Posted by: PaleoLithchick at October 17, 2008 12:08 PM

[...cue music, dim lights, single spotlight on Mime with heart shaped balloon, small red dot appears on Mime's forehead a split-second before the top half of his head is completely transformed into a fine red mist... somewhere in the distance, a baby cries...]

Skitz, I think this is the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me. Richard Lewis was wrong -- a mime is not, in fact, a terrible thing to waste. A mime is a perfectly good thing to waste, to the benefit of the entire species.

Pardon me while I find something sharp to pierce my finger with -- there's no whiskey in my cubicle, so I'm going to have recycle.

Posted by: thejodester at October 17, 2008 12:16 PM

My only Amy Allen comment: "They'll never let you perform naked, I asked." Oh how I miss the Amy Adams of "Drop Dead Gorgeous."

Posted by: lawyergirl06 at October 17, 2008 12:19 PM

Jeez Skitz, "masturbatory database" sounds so dry and clinical. I much prefer the term "spank bank".

Posted by: raindog at October 17, 2008 12:19 PM

I'm not even joking. This kind of sounds like a badass concept for a film. If it were a quirky indie romantic dramedy versus a studio film, would you be hating on it as much? This kind of bizarre thing is her bread and butter. She plays quirk well, and this is just a big old barrel of condensed quirk with pulp.

Posted by: Robert at October 17, 2008 12:27 PM

FRENCH KISS love!!

Posted by: Leigh at October 17, 2008 12:44 PM

After Michael Caine and Robert Duvall did "Second Hand Lions," I stopped expecting good taste out of actors. I opened this page thinking she had become a Scientologist or something. She's still good in my book.

Posted by: Lucas at October 17, 2008 12:51 PM

Julie, I really did enjoy the book. I loved that the writer had flaws and didn't try to hide them. I loved that she was married to her highschool sweetheart but wasn't sentimental about it. I loved the Julia sections.

I loved that their kitchen sounded like an absolute nightmare and in no way up to the task of producing the entire first volume of the Art of French Cooking.

The first thing I did when I heard about the movie was IMDB to make sure they made her still married (yes). The second thing I did was hope desperately that they don't movie-up her apartment so it's Pottery Barn perfect.

Posted by: twig at October 17, 2008 12:56 PM

Also, if you're ever in Boston, I know where to get cow brains.

Posted by: twig at October 17, 2008 12:58 PM

My mint juleps: good bourbon, peppermint not spearmint, crushed ice not cubed, and not too heavy on the simple syrup.

Delicious and strategic. Mint juleps cool you down for about 3 minutes, but if you have two or three, you're drunk enough that you don't notice the heat as much.

Amy Adams seems talented, and um, has boobs and other girl parts, if you're in to that kind of thing. I wish her well.

Posted by: marya at October 17, 2008 12:58 PM

After Michael Caine and Robert Duvall did "Second Hand Lions," I stopped expecting good taste out of actors.

What the hell was wrong with Secondhand Lions?

Posted by: twig at October 17, 2008 12:59 PM

Amy Adams can do no wrong. Well, she did kiss that fuckwad Patrick, my-hair-acts-for-me Dempsey, but I can forgive her because she was pretending to be a ditzy princess.

Posted by: Cindy at October 17, 2008 1:03 PM

Jay I fucking love The Matchmaker, so, you know, don't go there!

Overuse of commas hurrah!

And blargh, Rowles, what's with mentioning something related to Ben Stiller twice today? Are you TRYING to depress us?

Posted by: figgy at October 17, 2008 1:10 PM

I knew that sentence was a mess.

Posted by: Cindy at October 17, 2008 1:19 PM

Hey, I've never seen it, figgy, it just has that air about it (as Denis Leary movies often do), but I'm not disappointed to hear that there's fans.

I certainly hope you don't mean to apologize for having a shit ton of commas, I believe in utilizing all the punctuation you can.

Posted by: Jay at October 17, 2008 1:23 PM

Has Anna Faris been in something good?

Lost in Translation?

and

Just Friends.

And May.

And Brokeback Mountain.

And as far as I'm concerned, she stole the show in all four films (Bettis is the reason to watch May, but Faris outshines her in some scenes; freaky, I know).

She's also the only good thing in My Super-Ex Girlfriend, aside from the shark.

Posted by: Robert at October 17, 2008 1:39 PM

Lost in Translation?

and

Just Friends.

And May.

And Brokeback Mountain

And Smiley Face, as the frikkin' lead.

Seriously, Smiley Face was one of the smartest and most pleasant stoner comedies I've ever seen, and Anna Faris was why it worked.


(re: Amy Adams - I read an interview somewhere with her, where she said she found it difficult to refuse jobs because she struggled so much to find work for a decade. Who could say no to a high-paying romantic comedy when you still have Ramen flashbacks?)

Posted by: lastpolarbear at October 17, 2008 1:48 PM

I think she's overrated. And she has a sickly pallor.

Posted by: Andrew at October 17, 2008 2:12 PM

Let her sellout once or twice and take the paycheck. All actors and actresses do it given the chance. It gives them industry currency to get less mainstream projects done in this town.

If we check back in a few years and she's made a habit of it, then I'm with you.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at October 17, 2008 2:12 PM

¡Jay, awesome, dude! ¡¿How about punctuation overload!?

And heh, there IS an air about this type of movie...quaint Irish town, quaint Irish people, embarrass-the-tourist situations...all very predictable. The Matchmaker has Jeanene Garofalo, though, so it's great by default.

Ana Faris is dead to me. One too many Scary Movies.

Posted by: figgy at October 17, 2008 2:22 PM

Meh...never liked her anyway. Enchanted was a tall glass of mint juleps (I couldn't think of anything more disgusting at the moment). I'm sorry, I just find the whole "oh look how precious I am with my cute southern accent and vacant look" thing a little grating.

I'm so glad you told me the names of the people who wrote "Made of Honour". I can now google map their houses and bomb them. Seriously. I watched the movie while stoned and I STILL kept looking for sharp objects to insert directly into my frontal lobe to ease the pain.

Posted by: Joker at October 17, 2008 2:43 PM

Smiley Face made me stare at it, never once laughing, for half an hour, and I will not forgive it.

Gregg Araki has no talent whatsoever. None.

But I love Anna Faris, despite her sins.

Posted by: Gordon at October 17, 2008 2:56 PM

Funny story... While watching the Oscars this year, Amy Adams did her song from Enchanted and both of my roommates were watching as well.

Roommate 1: Aw, she's so cute! I loved her in Definitely, Maybe.
Me: That was Isla Fisher.
Roommate 1: No, that was Amy Adams.
Me: No, that was Isla Fisher. You know, the one in Wedding Crashers who was crazy?
Roommate 1: So... Amy Adams?
Roommate 2: Yeah, Amy Adams!
Me: No, I KNOW I'm right on this. Trust me.
Roommates 1 and 2: No, we really think you're wrong.

Of course I wasn't... Roommate 1 was also the one who insisted Emily Blunt was nominated for an Oscar for The Devil Wears Prada and I pwned him by reciting all five of the people who were nominated that year. Amateurs.

Posted by: whatBENwatches at October 17, 2008 3:12 PM

Any chance that this Irish moview turns out to be something like Groundhog Day? I know it is feeble, but you have to hope for something, don't you?

Posted by: richmac at October 17, 2008 3:13 PM

Re: Julie and Julia-

My mom bought me this book this summer vowing its greatness on all sorts of sacred objects. I started to read it and the first chapter exceeded my maximum amount of clothing description by 57% (I don't need to read about vintage dress-suits and high heels, especially not in a book about food). Anyway, since my mother is known the world round for her questionable taste- she liked Norbit and freaking loved Alvin and the Chipmunks- I haven't given the book a second chance. However, I do love food and the culinary arts in general. Is it worth it to muscle through the girly crap?

Posted by: antoinette jeanine at October 17, 2008 3:36 PM

When Laurence Olivier was asked why he did The Betsy, he repled "for the money, dear boy."

Posted by: legaleagle at October 17, 2008 3:55 PM

Squee! They're finally making a movie where Leap Year is part of the plot?! Yesssssss . . . .

Posted by: Lauren at October 17, 2008 7:22 PM

God, this is a blatant ripoff of "I Know Where I'm Going," which is one of the sweetest romantic comedies ever made. This, however, will be a steaming turd.

Posted by: growler at October 17, 2008 8:20 PM

Are you guys forgetting "The Wedding Date"? She was in that back in 2005 and it blew chunks. She had blonde hair but it was still her.

If you could forgive (and forget) that one, maybe you can do the same for this new one. She's pretty talented, if not always the best judge of which projects to take on.

Posted by: lucy at October 18, 2008 7:21 AM

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt AND Alan Arkin are all in Sunshine Cleaning. I, personally, can't wait for this flick. Bring on the shmalz. And Lobster-man.

Posted by: amanda at October 18, 2008 5:17 PM

Heh - I'm with Boo and Lucas. From the subject line, I assumed she'd joined Scientology. Imagine my relief to learn she's just trying to make some easy, if craptastic, money.

Posted by: Edith at October 18, 2008 7:20 PM

That's an Irish tradition? I never knew that was specifically ours, and confess myself slightly baffled. And please, not Gerald Butler for the surly barman...his Irish accent is woegeous.

I second the comment that she has beautiful hair.

Posted by: Fionna at October 19, 2008 5:05 PM

Don't forget her role in Drop Dead Gorgeous!

Posted by: Melissa at October 20, 2008 3:09 AM

Obliviously, she'll still be great even if the rest of the film sucks donkey balls. One can't fret her for wanting to make some cash.

Posted by: Mrs. Malaprop at October 20, 2008 7:25 AM

The title worried me. I thought she had become a Scientologist. You can always bounce back from romantic comedies, but Scientology is forever disappointing.

Posted by: M at October 20, 2008 5:34 PM

Antoinette, it IS worth it. In fact, I felt like the fluff in the beginning was a counterpoint to the downward spiral her life takes. I would describe most of the book as black humor - and her relationships with her husband, family, coworkers and girlfriends are realistic, not quirky or stereotyped. She was also dealing with a pretty serious illness, as was her husband. My point is keep reading and I swear you will be rewarded.

Posted by: AM at October 23, 2008 1:02 PM