Posts Tagged ‘Peter Deming’
Tuesday, August 18th, 2026
July 26, 1996
I talked earlier in this series about HARRIET THE SPY and how it was a Nickelodeon production that sort of had its roots in an interstitial-turned-special-turned show made by quirky, creative people with vision. A major cable network farm-teaming artists and giving them opportunities. Now we have JOE’S APARTMENT, the first theatrical film from Nick’s older-sister network MTV, expanded from a CableACE Award-winning 2-minute short they’d used as filler. Writer/director John Payson had worked on the animated intros to MTV shows including Remote Control, The Big Picture and Just Say Julie, plus been a producer on Liquid Television and the Henry Selick short Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions. That’s great work and an incredibly cool world to come out of, but does it translate to knowing how to write and direct a mostly live action feature film?
In this case no. Maybe yes in other cases, I don’t know.
In the feature version the titular Joe is played by Jerry O’Connell (STAND BY ME) in only his fifth movie, even including “uncredited kid at beach” in POLICE ACADEMY 5: ASSIGNMENT MIAMI BEACH. He’s a hapless dork who takes the bus from Iowa to New York City and has kind of the “Living For the City” experience.There’s a joke that he’s narrating his trip as a letter to his mother but he gets interrupted by three different muggings.
The movie is premised not only on the city’s reputation as a crime-ridden hellscape, but also as a refuge for art weirdos thanks to rent control. Joe meets a guy named Walter Shit (Randee of the Redwoods himself, Jim Turner) of the band Shit by being the only person to check on him laying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood (as an art project). It’s Walter who finds Joe the titular apartment because they happen to be walking by when an old lady is thrown to her death out of her window and Walter pushes Joe to pretend he’s her son. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bam Bam Bigelow, BD Wong, Billy West, Blue Sky, Carol Spier, Carter Burwell, Chris Wedge, Don Ho, Jerry O'Connell, John Payson, Megan Ward, MTV Productions, Nick Zedd, Pepa, Peter Deming, Rick Aviles, Robert Vaughn, Tim Blake Nelson
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 6 Comments »
Thursday, February 20th, 2025
THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: GLASS ONION, BLINK TWICE, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS [though they end up on the island by accident there]). Juror #2 Nicholas “Nux” Hoult plays Tyler Ledford, a food-nerd who proudly paid $1250 a plate to bring his less-interested date Margot, played by Furiosa #2 Anya Taylor-Joy, to a private island where celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, THE AVENGERS) presents extravagant themed meals for exclusive clientele. Right away you know Tyler sucks because he calls Margot “babe” and lectures her about her palate, and that Margot is the final girl because she’s the only one looking back to see the boat leaving and the doors closing behind them. We side with her anyway because when Tyler raves about the lemon caviar and raw oyster with mignonette and mansplains that alginate is made of algae she says, “Yeah. Pond scum.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anya Taylor-Joy, best picture nominees, Carlos Diehz, Edward Berger, Hong Chau, Isabella Rosellini, Jacek Koman, Janet McTeer, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Judith Light, Lucian Msamati, Mark Mylod, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Deming, Ralph Fiennes, Reed Bierney, Seth Reiss, Stanley Tucci, the pope, Will Tracy
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Horror, Thriller | 37 Comments »
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022
And now in our journey through the films of Sam Raimi we have arrived at a difficult spot. We have come to the film that was at the time “the new Sam Raimi” but for a few years became “the last Sam Raimi?” I enjoyed OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL well enough when it came out in 2013 (here’s my review), even though a big commercial Disney movie that’s an unsolicited prequel to a famous story wasn’t high on the list of what I wanted to see from him. And it definitely wasn’t what I wanted to see him go out on.
Luckily he has now actually filmed his next movie, so a comeback is on deck. But isn’t it crazy that it’s been 9 years since the last Sam Raimi movie? To remind you of how long ago this was, it’s when FURIOUS 6 and MAN OF STEEL came out. It’s when they were on the first film of MCU Phase Two, IRON MAN THREE. We’re talking seven David Gordon Green movies ago (he was on PRINCE AVALANCHE, starring Paul Rudd, who was not yet Ant-Man). It’s when Franck Khalfoun’s remake of MANIAC came out, and Spike Lee’s remake of OLDBOY, and Ryuhei Kitamura’s WWE Films joint NO ONE LIVES. Remember those? No? You weren’t born yet? That’s what I’m saying – it’s been a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abigail Spencer, Bob Murawski, Bruce Campbell, Danny Elfman, David Lindsay-Abaire, James Franco, Joey King, L. Frank Baum, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, Mitchell Kapner, Peter Deming, Rachel Weisz, Robert Stromberg, Sam Raimi, Tim Holmes, Tony Cox, Zach Braff
Posted in Family, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 46 Comments »
Wednesday, January 12th, 2022
“Then let’s head down into that cellar and carve ourselves a witch.”
After the financial and (perceived) artistic failure of CRIMEWAVE, Raimi and company were itching for a win, and knew their best bet was to return to the one that had worked, THE EVIL DEAD. When they couldn’t find financing, their savior was the same guy who arguably made their careers by raving about THE EVIL DEAD: Stephen King. One of the crew members Raimi and friends had interviewed for the potential sequel was working on King’s directorial debut MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, and happened to mention to King that Raimi was having trouble getting a greenlight. King was like Are you kidding me? There could be an EVIL DEAD part 2 but nobody will let them do it!?, called up his producer Dino De Laurentiis and convinced him to meet with Raimi. So give that man a medal.
De Laurentiis was skeptical of the project, especially after Raimi and friends rejected filming at his Wilmington, North Carolina studio. But he agreed, allowing a $3.6 million budget, small enough to rule out their plans to set it in medieval times, but giving them more to work with than either of their previous films. And the studio gambit worked exactly as intended – the three hour drive to the locations made it harder for higher ups to pull any CRIMEWAVE shit..
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Campbell, Dan Hicks, Denise Bixler, Dino De Laurentiis, Doug Beswick, Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, John Peakes, Joseph LoDuca, Lou Hancock, Mark Shostrom, Peter Deming, Robert Kurtzman, Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel, Steve Wang, Tom Sullivan, Tony Gardner
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 30 Comments »
Tuesday, March 24th, 2015
HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE is the definition of a D.I.Y. movie. Comedian Robert Townsend got tired of fighting for the shitty roles that Hollywood had available to him as a black man, so he ran up his credit cards to produce and direct his own movie, casting himself as Bobby Taylor, an actor not quite yet tired of fighting for the shitty roles that Hollywood has available to him as a black man. But it’s also a sketch movie in kind of the way UHF was later. The main story tangents into parody TV shows and fantasy sequences and stuff where he gets to play different roles.
Bobby is auditioning for what seems at first like a bit part as a mugger or something, but I guess it’s supposed to be the title role in a movie called JIVE TIME JIMMY’S REVENGE. He earnestly practices his improperly ebonic dialogue with his little brother Stevie (Craigus R. Johnson), doing some kind of cartoonish pimp voice and strut that only get worse in front of the white casting directors, cast and filmmakers.
He just goes along with the bullshit like people in the real world do. He treats the #1 sitcom star – who wears a funny bat-shaped hat and mugs up a storm while being swatted at by white people – as a V.I.P. Even in a daydream about being personally boycotted by the NAACP for playing Jive Time Jimmy he’s asked if he makes “those faces” (minstrel show type mugging) in bed, and he answers innocently, “Uh, sometimes.” It works as satire because he doesn’t know any better. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brad Sanders, Helen Martin, John Witherspoon, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Peter Deming, Robert Townsend, Steve James
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 9 Comments »
