James McAvoy
James McAvoy, you are ON NOTICE. After being a black hole of suck as Mr. Tumnus in Narnia, I decided to give you a second chance by seeing Starter for 10 with Frank the other night. Perhaps you would be better in a coming-of-age-at-University movie, rather than prancing around a forest with no shirt? But then the movie turned out to be bad, and you, while certainly better than in Narnia, were still annoying. The fact that you are apparently in every movie coming out over the next six months not only worries me, but irritates me. I can just hear Liz saying "But you need to see Last King of Scotland!" And while I still have yet to see that movie, are you so good in it as to make up for two, count 'em, TWO strikes? I doubt it. Watch your back, McAvoy.
So yeah, Starter for 10 is a bit crap. Frank and I were lured in by the coming-of-age-at-University promise, but the whole thing is incredibly by-the-numbers. I did like that so much of the plot revolved around "University Challenge," since that made me think of the "Bambi" episode of The Young Ones, but the movie's weak. Go read Tom Perrotta's Joe College instead, and hope they make a faithful adapatation of that. The last two Perrotta adaptations came out okay, right?
One thing seeing the movie did for me was to solve the mystery of those "Brian Jackson Knows EVERYTHING!" banners hanging around various parts of town (there's one up at DeLongpre and Highland). So if you see one of those, it's from this movie, and the movie is bad.
So yeah, Starter for 10 is a bit crap. Frank and I were lured in by the coming-of-age-at-University promise, but the whole thing is incredibly by-the-numbers. I did like that so much of the plot revolved around "University Challenge," since that made me think of the "Bambi" episode of The Young Ones, but the movie's weak. Go read Tom Perrotta's Joe College instead, and hope they make a faithful adapatation of that. The last two Perrotta adaptations came out okay, right?
One thing seeing the movie did for me was to solve the mystery of those "Brian Jackson Knows EVERYTHING!" banners hanging around various parts of town (there's one up at DeLongpre and Highland). So if you see one of those, it's from this movie, and the movie is bad.
posted by Jeff at 12:36 PM
4 Comments:
Completely unrelated: Thank you for getting me to check Achewood every now and then. Yesterday's strip had me rolling.
Completely related: I can't get the image of Dave Chapelle singing "All this pubic hair," out of my head.
"Spaghetti! Spaghetti! Potato sauce! That's what I said 'cause I'm the boss!"
"Bah! Bah! Bah-buh-bah-baaah!"
Remember when we used to recite that a couple times an hour?
I'm not suprised to hear that Starter for 10 is crap, given that the book was also tragically formulaic, and that the trailer sucked, and that McAvoy sucked in said trailer.
I will not give up on my pro-McAvoy stance, though. In fact, this whole conversation just makes me want to watch the miniseries State of Play again, wherein McAvoy plays Bill Nighy's underachieving and rascally son (State of Play has possibly the best cast ever).
McAvoy may only be good when he's playing someone vaguely disingenous. The doe-eyed gaze required for coming of age is too much for some shoulders to bear.
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