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Extract Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:02:49 +0000

Short Version: Much like Mila Kunis’ character in the film, Extract teases – and while it’s an enjoyable journey, there’s no big payoff and it leaves us wanting more.

Screen Rant reviews Extract

Extract comes to us from Mike Judge, the same guy who brought us Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, Idiocracy and Office Space. B&B notwithstanding, Judge’s writing generally delivers low-key (subtle might be the wrong word) humor – the kind that may not cause you to fall out of your chair with laughter, but tickles the back of your brain and sits with you for a spell. Sometimes it takes a while to sink in how really funny it was.

Maybe I forgot that going in – and on the heels of such “laff-riot” comedy as delivered in The Hangover I was hoping for more belly laughs here. While Extract was funny, it left me feeling like I’d been teased by some hot babe. While enjoyable as I sat through it – I yearned for more of a satisfactory, um, conclusion.

Right up front we meet “hot in a working class way” babe Cindy (Mila Kunis) and within about two minutes we see just what sort of person she is in a rather funny opening scene where a couple of guitar shop clerks fawn over her. From there we cut over to our “hero” Joel’s (Jason Bateman) factory and are introduced to a variety of characters who work for him. His company produces extract, as in Almond Extract, the stuff your mom has in her pantry to bake cookies and cakes. He’s come up with some unique way to preserve the flavor better than the competition and they manufacture a variety of flavors. Boring? Yes, but apparently not to Cindy (much to Joel’s surprise) once she arrives at the factory.

We have some stereotypical characters on the factory floor – dude who plays in a rock band and drives a forklift (poorly), newly hired (and wide-eyed) young Hispanic guy just happy to have a job and Step (Clifton Collins Jr.) as a redneck blue-collar guy with aspirations of being the floor manager. But the one who stood out for me was Beth Grant as Mary, the curmudgeon old lady who’s worked there for 14 years – complaining every… single… day. While she played the role well, she annoyed me beyond the point of humor to where I hoped she would come to some messy end in the film.

Basically the story is about Joel feeling like his life is pretty mundane despite his financial success and his frustration with his “brother-sister type” marriage which suffers from a severe lack of sex. There’s quite a funny running joke about him having to get home before his wife (played by Kristen Wiig) puts on her sweat pants for the evening. Anyway, Cindy comes into the scene and besides being very attractive she knows how to “work it” and let out enough rope to get guys thinking she’s interested.

Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman in 'Extract'

While we also have the always enjoyable J.K. Simmons as a manager who calls everyone “dinkus” and a guest appearance by Gene Simmons as a sleazy ambulance chaser lawyer, the real stand out supporting actor was Ben Affleck as Dean – Joel’s laid back, semi-cosmic-thinking bartender best friend. Affleck was given pretty much all the best lines in the movie, including one exchange where Joel says “hot girls need jobs, too” and after a perfectly timed pause Dean replies “Do they… really?”

Back to the annoying character side of things we have Joel’s stalker-like neighbor (played with perfect annoying syrupiness by David Koechner) who seems to lay in wait for Joel to come home and is oblivious to any sense of urgency or business on Joel’s part. If nothing else the guy highlights how overly polite and whipped Joel is when he can’t even firmly tell the guy to beat it as the conversation drags on interminably. Bateman is a master of the understated character and he’s completely convincing here in the role of frustrated guy who’s too polite and weak to change his life.

There are lots of funny bits sprinkled throughout the film (among others, scenes with the young, blonde pool cleaner dude are pretty funny) – but it never gets to the point where you’re laughing out loud for more than a quick “Ha!” (if that makes any sense). However as I pointed out above, I have a feeling that this is one of those movies that you’ll appreciate more with repeated viewings (I’ll probably end up wishing I gave it an extra half star) – there are a LOT of gems in the script, all delivered in a low key way that almost underplays them too much. If you go, stay at least a couple of minutes after the credits start as a plot point is resolved (rather weakly) there.

So overall I enjoyed it as it went along but in the end I was hoping for a bit more satisfaction – especially at the end of the film, which just kind of tapers off… While I’d say it’s worth seeing, I was really wanting more from Mike Judge and Extract.

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Beavis and Butt-Head Promote ‘Extract’ Web Trailer

Ross Miller — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:46:41 +0000

Today we have a new web-only trailer for the upcoming Mike Judge film, Extract. After bringing us the likes of Office Space, King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-Head, Judge’s latest film is about a man who’s one step away from selling his flavor extract factory when a freak work accident sets in motion a series of disasters that puts his business and personal life in jeopardy.

That’s not your usual premise (I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that’s about the same thing), but it’s definitely a pretty good reason to go and see the film. On top of the new Extract trailer, we also have Judge’s classic slacker morons, Beavis and Butt-Head on hand to help promote the film.

Thanks to FirstShowing and Yahoo, check out the first new Extract trailer since April this year, and then the Beavis and Butt-Head promo:

Judge gets my money every time; Jason Bateman is pretty much always good for a laugh (it’s nice to see him leading a film); Mila Kunis is… well let’s just say she’s nice to look at; and I just love it when Ben Affleck does comedic roles (he was great in Dogma).

As for the B&B promo: It’s fun to watch the two characters promote and yet poke fun at the movie at the same time (it shows Judge has no problem with looking in the mirror, so to speak).

I’ll certainly be in line when Extract opens on September 4th (this Friday!).

Sources: FirstShowing and Yahoo

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New Posters: Saw VI, Extract, Gamer & Lots More

Ross Miller — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:57:55 +0000

Question: What do the movies Saw VI, Extract, Gamer, A Serious Man, Whiteout, The Hole, and Law Abiding Citizen have in common? They all have new posters that Screen Rant has for your viewing pleasure, that’s what!

First up is Saw VI, yet another installment in the surprisingly highly successful torture-porn horror franchise, Saw. Maybe it’s the fact that they kicked off this kind of horror movie trend, maybe it’s the marketing, who knows, but for some reason people keep going to see these movies. They lost any intellectual stimulation for the audience a few movies ago, and it’s now all really about how to cram as much gorey traps into the runtime as possible. Saw VI looks to be no different.

The posters show of a peculiar and sinister looking nurse with some sort of weird prosthetic half-face mask. Ever since the first movie, this “Blood Drive” ad campaign has been going on (you can check out some of the rest here, here and here), and this may just be the best example yet. Even if the sixth Saw turns out to be crap (as I suspect it will), I’ve gotta admit these posters are effectively creepy. Check them both out:

Saw VI hits theatres on October 23rd, 2009.

Click here to see the other new posters.

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Comic-Con 2009: Extract

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:42:13 +0000

Josh Horowitz from MTV News moderated. Writer/Director Mike Judge, Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis were in attendence at the Extract panel. The opened with the very funny trailer and followed up shortly thereafter with an extended clip showing the introduction of Mils Kunis’ character.

FYI, if you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you can check it out here:

[See post to watch Flash video]

The first clip was followed up with another showing Ben Affleck trying to help hire a male prostitute to try to seduce Jason’s character’s wife so he wouldn’t feel guilty about hitting on Mila’s character.

The next clip showed the next day were Bateman tried to stop the young guy from going to his house, but by the time he gets him on the phone it’s too late. Bateman was great in this kind of staccato, awkward way. Affleck was great in all the scenes as well – he seemed really “easy” for lack of a better word, very relaxed and things just flowed.

A couple of people asked about Idiocracy and it seemed like based on that (terrible) experience that Mike self-financed this film and put things in place to give it a reasonable release (as opposed to Idiocracy, which was buried with a 100 screen release). At the time he was told that film was “commercial” but obviously things didn’t turn out well – so he didn’t want to worry about “being commercial” but just make a great film that could be seen as a follow up to Office Space.

Someone asked Bateman about the Arrested Development movie. He said that “it’s not dead,” but it didn’t exactly sound like things were forging ahead. He did say that due to time constraints opening up the script would probably start being written soon. He says that the folks who would ended up working on the production (including Ron Howard) are all very excited about doing a film.

Someone asked if we might ever see a sequel to Idiocracy, but Mike said he doubted it would happen as a film although he’d love to – but there might be an animated TV series coming.

Jason Batman closed by saying he hoped people would come see the movie, but not at matinees, at night time full prices.

Extract opens on September 4th.

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Countdown To San Diego’s 2009 Comic-Con!

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:51:53 +0000

Wow, Comic-Con 2009 is already less than three weeks away. Seems like only a couple of months ago since we were there. Last year was a ton of work but also a blast (click here for our wrap up of the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con), and this year we’ll be providing even more extensive coverage for you with additional staff to cover the event.

Unfortunately if you want to attend this year and don’t already have tickets you’re probably out of luck as it’s been sold out for a while. But fear not, we’ll try to give you all the goods here on the site over the course of the event. It starts with preview night on Wednesday, July 22nd and runs through Sunday July 26th.

Included among the movies and TV shows that will be covered this year are:

James Cameron’s Avatar (with 3D (rumored) footage from the film)
The upcoming Sci-Fi alien invasion flick with a twist: District 9 (including an appearance by Peter Jackson).
Mike Judge will be on hand to promote his new comedy Extract.
The premiere of Mystery Team.
Where the Wild Things Are.
Tron
Sherlock Holmes
Jonah Hex
2012
Thirst
Ninja Assassin
Lost
The pilot for the TV series remake V.
Doctor Who (with an appearance by David Tennant)
FlashForward
Caprica & Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

Oh, and of course Iron Man 2, for which I’m sure director Jon Favreau has something very special planned.

Also, this year Screen Rant has been invited to participate in the “Masters of the Web” panel (shocking, I know – I certainly didn’t expect it!). The panel will be moderated by director Kevin Munroe and will include an appearance by Brandon Routh and Sam Huntington, along with a preview of their upcoming film Dead of Night.

Here is the list of panelists:

Robert Sanchez (IESB.net)
Ryan Rotten (ShockTilYouDrop.com)
Mike Sampson (JoBlo.com)
Jeremy Smith (AintItCool.com)
Brad Miska (Bloody-Disgusting.com)
Drew McWeeny (HitFix.com)
Devin Faraci (CHUD.com)
Paul Christensen (MovieWeb.com)
Wilson Morales (BlackFilm.com/AOL Black Voices)
George Roush (LatinoReview.com)
and me, Vic Holtreman (ScreenRant.com)

It will be held Thursday, July 23rd at 3pm – 4pm in Room 32AB.

Robert Sanchez of IESB.net organizes the panel and puts together what is arguably the most awesome party every year at Comic-Con: The Wrath of Con party (one of my highlights of Comic-Con).

Last year at the Masters of the Web panel tickets to the party were given away to some lucky winners. Here’s my favorite pic from last year’s party.

Doug Nagy, Alex Billington and me with the beauties from the movie 'Bitch Slap': Erin Cummings, America Olivo and Julia Voth.

As Comic-Con approaches, keep up to date with our San Diego Comic-Con updates (check the logo on the right) here on Screen Rant and on Twitter.com by searching for #sdcc or #cc09. I’ll be there along with SR writers Kofi Outlaw, Bruce Simmons, Rob Keyes (and maybe) Paul Young. We’ll be doing live-blogging, panel summaries and hopefully we’ll get you an exclusive or two.

We may try to schedule an impromptu dinner, probably on Sunday night, where we’ll get together to decompress after the whole thing. If you’re around downtown San Diego maybe you can join us. We’ll firm this up as we get closer to the actual date.

Anyway, we’re all looking forward to it and we hope you are, too.

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Finally, A Non-Apatow Comedy!

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:43:31 +0000

Yes, I know, God forbid I say anything that is not amazingly positive about Judd Apatow. He’s the latest comedy golden boy and he’s brought us Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Pineapple Express. But he’s also been the guy behind Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Drillbit Taylor and Stepbrothers.

The first batch was funny, but you couldn’t pay me to go see the second bunch. (I tried to sit through Talladega Nights but failed.)

But now we have another film from a guy I really like: Mike Judge.

The film is called Extract, and we have the trailer for you below.

Mike Judge has been involved with such iconic funny stuff as Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill. High on fans’ niche/cult lists is his most excellent film Office Space – but one movie that he made and I loved was buried by the studio (20th Century Fox – SURPRISE!): Idiocracy. In that film, a less than average intelligent guy ends up 500 years in the future, where stupid people have out-bred intelligent people, and society consists of a vast population of ignorant, dumbed-down morons.

Personally, I found the movie hysterical and more than a little prophetic, but I guess it hit too many people too close to home and ended up not doing so well.

Anyway, his latest film is called Extract, and it looks pretty damned funny. It stars Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, J.K. Simmons and Mila Kunis.

Here’s the synopsis:

Joel, played by Jason Bateman (”Juno,” “Arrested Development”), is one step away from selling his flavor extract factory and retiring to easy street when a freak workplace accident sets in motion a series of disasters that puts his business and personal life in jeopardy.

Check out the trailer below:

[See post to watch Flash video]

Extract gets a limited release on September 4, 2009 and hopefully goes wide a week later.

Image source: EW

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: August 24, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:27:01 +0000

Yes folks it’s that time of the week! Once again we troll through the overlooked movie news to give you a fully comprehensive overview of what’s been happening in Hollywood.

This week:

Nicolas Cage decides to Kick Ass, every-one’s favorite Journeyman Kevin McKidd may be a Highlander, Ben Affleck Extract’s something for Mike Judge, Samuel L. Jackson eyes Red Tails for George Lucas and The Sweeney gets shafted by the British Film Industry.

1. Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson and Lyndsy Fonseca have signed on to Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of the Mark Millar comic book Kick Ass. According to The Hollywood Reporter the plot:

“…centers on a high school dweeb named Dave Lizewski who decides to become a superhero even though he has no athletic ability or coordination. Things change when he eventually runs into real bad guys with real weapons.Johnson plays title character, while Fonseca plays the object of the teen’s infatuation who believes Dave is gay. Cage is a former cop who wants to bring down a druglord and has trained his daughter (Chloe Moretz) to be a lethal weapon.“

It sounds like an interesting enough premise, but it also appears that there might be a bit too much going on to make for a focused film. At least Cage appears to be scratching his comic book itch these days, which should keep him away from Superman!

The crazy haired Elvis loving actor will next be seen in Bangkok Dangerous on September 5.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. It looks like Journeyman star Kevin McKidd may be the new Highlander. According to Joblo the actor was talking on Dublin radio and he stated that he’d been approached to star in the reboot of the series which originally starred Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert.

Is there truth in this? Who knows – but he is from Scotland and he has been known to wield a sword (see Rome) so there is a chance that there may be something to this.

Source: Joblo.com

3. Ben Affleck is in negotiations to star in Mike Judge’s new film Extract. According to Variety Affleck would play a lawyer who is the best friend of Jason Bateman’s lead in the new film.

“The Arrested Development actor stars as ‘a flower extract factory owner dealing with workplace problems and a streak of bad luck, including his wife’s affair with a gigolo.’”

It sounds quirky, but I don’t think that it’s going to break Affleck’s losing streak at the box office.

Source: Variety

4. It would appear that Samuel L. Jackson has been approached by George Lucas to direct the long gestating Red Tails.

Jackson told IGN :

“I just read it like two weeks ago. It’s a pretty good script. At one point (Lucas) was asking me if I’d ever want to direct anything. I said, ‘I don’t know, man. I’m trying to find things.’ He said, ‘Well, let me send you this thing. Maybe you might want to direct it.’ Well, I guess if I was gonna direct something George would be a great guy to kind of mentor me through that, especially a big ass special effects flying picture. The script’s good. I like it.”

However, Jackson isn’t too certain that he wants to direct:

“I don’t know. I don’t have a year and a half of my life where I wanna stop acting.”

Not earth shattering news, but it is interesting. Will Red Tails ever get made? Probably, but hasn’t the story already been told in the 1995 TV movie Tuskegee Airmen starring new CSI star Laurence Fishburne?

Source: IGN

5. The film version of the iconic British cop show The Sweeney has been put on hold. The film was due to star Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s Ray Winstone as Jack Regan, but producers were worried that without a major star the film wouldn’t recoup its $16 million budget.

It’s a shame – the show is hugely influential in the UK and the British Film industry could be doing with a good home grown franchise. Harry Potter and James Bond films are not included as they are made with American money. The 1970’s detective show helped inspire the recent quirky sci-fi cop series Life on Mars. Even with something as small as a budget of $16 million British producers are still afraid to roll the dice on a film.

The British Film industry really needs a good kick in the ass to get motivated and start producing more commercial material for the rest of the world. Romantic comedy aside the UK isn’t really known for producing commercial cinema, and when they do make a good movie it hardly gets a release (if at all).

Every few years we do get a good British film that has commercial and critical success. In the last fifteen or so years we have had films like Trainspotting, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Dog Soldiers and The Full Monty which have been very successful around the world. However, what followed the release of these movies was a series of cheap imitations that ran the respective genres into the ground.

The UK really must get it sorted if it wants to have a selt sustaining film industry that can survive on it’s own.

Source: Variety

That’s it for another week.

See you at the movies!

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