visibleotters

I’ve written a little scene about how I think this movie got made. INT. PRODUCER’S OFFICE - DAY PRODUCER and WRITER wake up on the floor, surrounded by beer bottles and cocaine. PRODUCEROh shit - it’s the first day of production and we forgot to write the script!(does line)We’ll just have to do a quick search-and-replace with another story. WRITERHow about JAWS? That’s a good movie. PRODUCERPerfect. Just replace “4th of July” with “Mardi Gras,” “Seaside Town” with “Health Club,” and “Shark” with “Serial Killer.” Writer TYPES into an 80s computer. WRITEROops. I replaced “Shark” with “Health Club” too. PRODUCERSo, our story is “In the days leading up to Mardi Gras, a Health Club is terrorized by… a Health Club?” WRITERThat’s correct. Producer considers this while he does another line. PRODUCERWe’ll figure out the details later. Let’s get these pages to set.

I was truly blown away by the art direction in this film (Household Objects Spraypainted Gold: The Movie!). It’s almost hard to believe that only 1 of the 3 set decorators ever worked in the industry again. I was pleased to see, at least, that prop maker Michael W. Moore went on to make props for such cinematic masterpieces as Toys, Theodore Rex and Barb Wire (also Munchies, Lawnmower Man, Red Heat, Virtuosity, the 1990 Captain America, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland - the guys’s IMDb page is basically a HDTGM suggestion thread). But my favorite part in the movie is right after He-man pulls that hairy Yoda out of the lake. Why is Teela’s immediate reaction to scoop up a handful of mud and smell it three separate times? What is happening here? She even looks offscreen after the first time as if asking the director “Is that good? Can you tell I’m smelling it?” Utter madness. http://giphy.com/gif...1lIG38DMXa7gtgY Also, has no one mentioned the fact that the male lead is NAMED Kevin Corrigan, but not played by Kevin Corrigan?

My favorite line comes about 18 minutes into this thing, when Teddy is first drafted into the police force. He shouts, “I gotta call my mom!” as he heads offscreen. And then, as kind of a throwaway afterthought, he says, “I don’t have a mom.” Which is kind of a bummer. I’ve heard of them bringing in writers to punch up kids’ movies with ADR’d off-screen jokes, but this is the first example I’ve seen of an ADR line actually bringing things DOWN. And on an unrelated note, why is Dr. Arbitrage Head Dinosaurologist such a BITCH? Whoopi asks her about the dead body that she’s been sitting next to all night and she yanks off her glasses and spits back: “He died of an explosion close to his snout - I really have not had a chance to look at him.” Hey, lady - how about do your fucking job? She literally seems to be just staring off into space when they show up, and now she’s copping an attitude? Ridiculous. Edit: Just finished listening, and of course June was on top of the mom line.

The title is an appalling pun based on a common expression. She's beautiful - "FAIR" - and being hunted - "GAME." I suspect there's a certain type of writer out there that starts with a book of English idioms, picks a title, and works the plot backward from possible double meanings. ("Okay, 'Heavy Duty' - so... it's a fat dude who gets picked to be in the jury for a murder trial! Now THAT'S a movie!")

This movie is incredible. An underdog sports movie, somehow built around a dream team of the best dancers in America. That's right, a national search for our best breakdancers is part of this little-engine-that-could story about Americans trying to reclaim the world breakdancing competition after 15 years of losing to France and South Korea. This is a movie that opens with a businessman addressing his boardroom with the lines "I was at a concert this past weekend and I heard some high school kids saying that B-boying is no longer cool. That scared me." A movie featuring Sawyer from LOST as an alcoholic former B-boy channeling Coach Taylor. A movie in which there's about 20 seconds of reaction after a breakdancer admits he's Jewish. A movie with about a dozen incredible real-life B-boys - and Chris Brown doing cartwheels. The A.V. Club gave it a rare "F" in this spot-on review that details some of the obscene product placement (mostly for the director's previous film): www.avclub.com/articles/battle-of-the-year,103121