{"id":793,"date":"2011-01-19T16:43:41","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T23:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=793"},"modified":"2011-01-19T16:44:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T23:44:38","slug":"daily-dose-ivan-reitmans-return-but-to-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"Daily Dose: Ivan Reitman returns to the directing chair, but to form?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Director Ivan Reitman announced last week that plans to develop a new “Ghostbusters” film are underway. He said he felt that the script was the best of the three. These comments were made on the red carpet for the premiere of his new romantic comedy “No Strings Attached” starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. And just judging from the luke warm reception the film is getting from critics, it might take a trip to the well for a return to form for comedy master Reitman.<\/p>\n

Perhaps no director in history has had more success in developing comedic acting talent. As a producer of \u201cAnimal House,\u201d he helped make John Belushi a house-hold name. And by working with rising stars like Bill Murray from the golden age of Saturday Night Live, Reitman gave us a string of classic comedies including \u201cMeatballs\u201d way back in 1979, the satirical \u201cStripes\u201d in 1981, and the mega-hit \u201cGhostbusters\u201d in 1984. Certainly there were challenges controlling and channeling emerging comedians managing the often wild personalities and pressing them into solid feature productions, but Reitman\u2019s work with Arnold Schwarzenegger proved that he could make anyone funny. In the late 1980s and 1990s Reitman literally gave the future Govenator action star a new career. I will never forget Arnold\u2019s line from \u201cKindergarten Cop:\u201d \u201cit\u2019s naaat a tuuumoor!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But as the 1990s came to close, Reitman\u2019s films began to lose some of the edge that made his previous efforts work. \u201cFather\u2019s Day\u201d in 1997 was a costly misstep featuring a great cast of established comic actors with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal leading the way. But that failure was nearly eraised by his romantic action comedy hybrid \u201cSix Days Seven Nights\u201d the next year that made solid money on the back of an aging but certainly very relevant Harrison Ford. <\/p>\n

Perhaps trying to create a new \u201cGhostbusters-esque\u201d mythology, Reitman opened his work in a new decade with \u201cEvolution\u201d in 2001. That film had \u201cX-Files\u2019\u201d star David Duchovny doing battle with aliens. A wacky self-aware romp, \u201cEvolution\u201d had cheesy but no doubt expensive special effects and quality casting. A critical failure that Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers called \u201crefried comic beans that smell stale,\u201d the film did not make the sizable money that its high-concept comedy science fiction premise counted on.<\/p>\n

Reitman\u2019s career was getting unfunny.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Several years passed and Reitman saw more success as a producer (on films like \u201cOld School\u201d) than he had in the recent past directing. Sadly, his next feature effort, the sporatically funny \u201cMy Super Ex-Girlfriend,\u201d had to cause folks to wonder whether the magic was gone. After all, Hollywood was giving him plenty of money with top acting talent and not only were the films not wooing the critics but they weren\u2019t making money either. If this trend continued, we might write Reitman off altogether.<\/p>\n

Then the son emerged\u2026<\/p>\n

While Reitman\u2019s big budgeted \u201cSuper Ex-Girlfriend\u201d came out and went from metroplexes his son\u2019s directorial debut,\u201cThank You For Smoking,\u201d a much, much smaller film managed to make more in it\u2019s limited to wide run than his father\u2019s platform release. Suddenly, a new talent, Jason Reitman, Ivan\u2019s son, was on the scene and credit was certainly due the father. But perhaps no one could have predicted how big that star would eventually rise. The following year, Jason found himself part of the $100 million plus club as \u201cJuno\u201d not only roared at the box office but took home an Oscar for writing as well. Jason and Ivan teamed up as director and producer respectively for \u201cUp in the Air,\u201d one of the best films of 2009.<\/p>\n

Opening this weekend, Ivan is back in the directing seat with the romantic comedy \u201cNo Strings Attached.\u201d The concept is racy but hardly high as two sexy stars (Kutcher and Portman) play friends with benefits. Advanced reviews have not been very kind, and Kutcher has made a series of movies that, well, they just aren\u2019t very good (see \u201cKillers\u201d last year, partially shot in my home town, that did not even screen for critics). Portman is undoubtedly up for an Oscar this year for \u201cBlack Swan,\u201d a weird movie that is still playing in some cities. \u201cNo Strings\u201d will likely not be her \u201cNorbit\u201d but it probably won\u2019t help her Oscar chances to have what looks to be a critically maligned movie in theaters around the time the Academy members are casting their votes.<\/p>\n

Maybe Reitman can overcome bad reviews and have a Garry Marshall-like hit with \u201cStrings.\u201d After all, last year, Marshall gave us what I thought to be one of the worst films of the year in \u201cValentine\u2019s Day\u201d and that movie took in over $100 million domestically. But trading on star power and riding that wave to profitability alone won\u2019t be enough to rejuvenate Ivan Reitman\u2019s career as a director. It will take a really good film to return him to form. Another \u201cGhostbusters\u201d will make money even if it isn\u2019t any good. But for Reitman to get back on track, a third round with the \u2018Busters can\u2019t just make money, it has to impress and make us laugh big. Ivan\u2019s got to be really funny again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NO STRINGS ATTACHED opens with a comedy directing veteran at the helm who is in need of a hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}