Dude. What’s Wrong? Somebody Shoot Your Pajiba?
The Daily Trade Round-Up / Dustin Rowles
Trade News | July 9, 2007 | Comments (56)
I only have one industry item for you today, but I wanted to offer it to you through an extended metaphor. After some thought and reflection, I’ve concluded that this is the only way I can truly express how this bit of casting news has affected me. I should warn you, however, that those with sensitive stomachs or those who don’t care for gratuitous gore ought to just skip down to the Trailer Watch. For everyone else, pay attention — it’s going to get ugly:
First, the scene: Let us imagine the musty scent of fall winds devouring a thinning forest of trees. The colorfully faded leaves flutter in the gentle breeze and land atop their crumbling counterparts. The leafless branches barely obstruct the view — a Vaseline horizon blurring the glowing orange of a sun soon to set. On the outskirts of this forest, there is a dried creek bed full of dead leaves — flowing rivulets lead down the gray silt embankment. The air is bitter, but not too cold.
In the midst of this forest, a lost puppy is following a leafless trail in desperate search of its master. It’s just about the cutest little critter you’ve ever seen. His runty tail wags friendlily at the gentle harmonies of birds chirping; his little pink tongue droops and lolls playfully. He has a matted coat of tan fur covering his pudgy little body, and right above his brow, he gets little wrinkles whenever he lets out one of his tiny yips.
“Yip! Yip! Yip!”
The puppy espies a grasshopper hopping across the trail — he starts after it. He raises his front paw and scratches at the insect. It jumps away, and the puppy covers its right eye with one paw and lets out a soft whimper. His grasshopper friend bounds down the trail, and the little pupper lets out a few squeaky barks before the wind picks up and blows a rotten leaf into its face, startling the little varmint. He runs. Approaching the creek bed, he slides down silt bank on all fours, crashing at the bottom in a pile of crackling leaves. He frolics, accumulating a few leaf fragments in his fur before he jumps out and runs circles, chasing his tail.
If the puppy’s master — a cute eight-year-old girl in a blue dress — were to witness the scene, she’d jump into the pile of leaves herself, pick up the little mutt, let it lick her, and rub its cold black nose against hers. Unfortunately, the girl is half a mile away, searching through the forest, calling out, “Sweet Pea! Sweet Pea! Where are you, Sweet Pea!”
The puppy, hearing its master call from the distance, looks up — it hears the sweet sounds of the little girl. Its heart rate quickens. Its tail wags frantically. But, in front of him, stands another man — a mid 30s doofus with a scruffy beard. The puppy looks into the eyes of this man and gives his cutest, cuddliest little yip. “Yip!” And this man returns the favor by pulling out his shotgun and blowing a fucking hole through its head. As the puppy yelps his last tiny yelp, his tongue is sucked back into his strewn throat. His skull cracks — congealed gray matter soars through the air; droplets of blood screech into his newly mutilated fur. The fear that strikes the pooch’s fragile little body shoots a steady stream of shit out of his ass and into a pile of leaves. The bullet sends the doggy spinning through the air, breaking its limp body against a nearby tree, surging a final wage of his shit-ridden tail before the dog’s unforgiving death.
… now, back to our industry item. In our extended metaphor, Steve Carell is the puppy and that puppy’s poor fate is a metaphor for Carell’s career after the film, Dan in Real Life, is released this fall. Why? Because Dane motherfucking Cook is the guy with the shotgun. I don’t even care what the movie is about (a widower, Carell, who finds out he fell in love with the girlfriend of his brother, Cook) because Carell is sharing screen time with Dane motherfucking Cook. Do you hear me, people?! The 40-year-old virgin, Michael Scott, “Daily News Show” correspondent, Steve freakin’ Carell, is starring in the same film as the lead in Employee of the Month, the guy who thinks it’s hilarious to pronounce sandwich as sangwitch, who thinks the best way to be remembered is to shit on someone’s coat at a party, and who thinks it might be funny to name child Optimus Prime. Yeah. That guy.
I know it hurts. Just let it all out. There you go. There there.
(Thanks to Manny for the heads up.)
On DVD this week: The Astronaut Farmer and The Last Mimzy. That’s it.
Finally, in the trailer watch, what do you get when you put Robert Redford both in front of and behind the camera, a cast that also includes Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, and a political thriller storyline? Actually, a pretty bland trailer. Here is it, for Lions for Lambs:
Comments
Posted by: Sharon at July 9, 2007 12:18 PM
Vivid metaphor. I might be having nightmares for days. And yet . . . you're not wrong. Not even kinda.