Adam Shankman
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What that translates to is the kids finding success — from selling Girl Scout cookies to staging The Sound of Music — by employing his Marine methods.
The Pacifier frequently references The Sound of Music, and perhaps that analogy is fitting, for both movies are essentially about an outsider walking in to a single-parent, large brood family and changing it for the better.
Seth does not refute this, prompting Shane to tail him afterschool to his supersecret hangout: the local rep house, where he's rehearsing "The Sound of Music".
Despite some peripheral spy stuff, Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant's script is primarily interested in reimagining a hulking he-man as a cuddly, studly metrosexual equally adept at humiliating a cocky vice-principal (Brad Garrett) during an after-school wrestling match and directing a stage production of The Sound of Music.
Director Adam Shankman and writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant have lots of fun with "The Pacifier's" premise, and they run with it — even getting away with Wolfe taking over the direction of a community theater production of "The Sound of Music."
Just as emotionally manipulative as fellow teen fare like A Walk To Remember and If I Stay , but less as effective as Me, Earl and the Dying Girl and The Fault in Our Stars , Five Feet Apart is typically schmaltzy and insultingly pedestrian, but, as cinematic history has demonstrated, deliver on exactly what you promise – which is often easier said than done when it comes to film – and you’re likely to end up with a product that’s remotely successful.
Almost as manipulative as “Everything, Everything,” or “A Walk to Remember,” less wrenching than “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” more medical than “The Fault in Our Stars,” almost as drawn-out as, oh, “Romeo and Juliet” — that’s “Five Feet Apart.”
With the premise being what it is, it should come as no surprise that Five Feet Apart aspires to be the kind of weepie teenage drama like A Walk to Remember, the kind of film that will be a formative experience for the right demographic due to exactly how many tears you shed in the third act.
None of these complaints were raised about Fault in Our Stars , or any other similarly themed dramas about teens in dire circumstances ( A Walk to Remember , The Spectacular Now , etc).
From A Walk to Remember to The Fault in Our Stars , the Sick Teen Movie has become a genre in and of itself.
Movies such as “A Walk to Remember” and “The Fault in Our Stars” are pop culture touchstones.
Watching Rock of Ages, I was reminded to one degree or another of three previous features: Mamma Mia! , Xanadu , and Showgirls .
Sure, if we're judging on the Mamma Mia! scale of basic cinematic competence, Rock of Ages is unabashedly and objectively the better jukebox musical: scenes are assembled coherently if not with the utmost clarity, and the actors have all generally been turned to point in the same direction, though Zeta-Jones and Cruise are by a criminally large margin the only people onscreen worth bothering with, largely because they are the only two who understand how to have much fun with what is, after all, a schlocky and disposable premise.
It ends up being "Mamma Mia!" with a dash of "Glee."
Not surprisingly, such tactics also made it onto Broadway, with the biggest success coming in the form of "Mamma Mia!" that took old ABBA songs and built a musical around them.
Based on the jukebox musical, the film should be a guyliner-and-leather infused version of Mamma Mia! — a light-hearted production with a vague and silly plot strung together clumsily by infectious songs that demand you sing along (this time by Poison, Def Leppard, Journey and Whitesnake instead of ABBA).
Directors such as Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) and Adam Shankman (Hairspray) have a much greater knowledge of film techniques, and they did a vastly superior job of using techniques to make their musicals feel less stage-y and more cinematic.
Which is O.K. Neither was Love Story , or A Walk to Remember , or any of the myriad other tearjerkers that play out in the same fashion.
In adapting the story of the star-crossed romance between two teenage cancer victims, screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber plainly know they have an uphill battle to avoid being tarred with the same schmaltzy brush as previous entries in the sub-genre (Nicholas Sparks adaptation A Walk to Remember being the dubious prototype).
Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Directed by Ivan Reitman
influenced The Pacifier (2005), Bringing Down the House (2003)
Plot
From there, it wasn't such a big leap to Arnold and Kindergarten Cop and now, God help us, The Pacifier, a yawn-by-numbers romper-room dud that is nevertheless shrewd enough to tweak its star, Vin Diesel, for becoming a joke in less time than it took him to become an action hero.
It's Kindergarten Cop by way of Three Men and a Baby (with a little Home Alone cartoon violence thrown in for good measure), with Diesel as a military man whose hard nose slowly softens when he is charged with the protection of a fallen comrade's family.
The film�s antecedents are Kindergarten Cop and Mr. Mom, with Shane�s granite machismo (Diesel even looks sort of phallic) yielding to the cockle-warming force of the adorable moppets as he protects them from terrorists and a bullying vice-principal (Brad Garrett).
Vin Diesel's bid to follow in Arnold Schwarzenegger's massive footsteps has reached the Kindergarten Cop stage.
The Pacifier sounds like the worst parts of Mrs. Doubtfire and Kindergarten Cop, yet director Adam Shankman ( Bringing Down the House ) and writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant (the guys behind the flop Taxi ) put together an amiable and sometimes amusing movie.
And while The Pacifier isn't even remotely as engaging and enjoyable as something like Kindergarten Cop, there's no denying that the film is breezy enough and wacky enough to warrant a very mild recommendation.
Ever since Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet it's been somewhat of a maxim that mismatched couples are eventually doomed, romantically if not otherwise.
By embracing these Hollywood trappings, he foreshadowed his eventual move into the industry where he proved highly successful with "Hairspray," "Cry Baby," and "Serial Mom."
Focused on the backbiting world of a downscale, early-'60s "American Bandstand," this cheery tale of a plus-sized teenager who twists her way to the top while bringing racial integration to the airwaves certainly wasn't the assault on American sensibilities that Waters' earlier "Pink Flamingos" (1972) and "Female Trouble" (1974) were.
Back when prankish writer-director John Waters was shocking midnight-movie audiences by showing an obese transvestite devouring dog feces in Pink Flamingos, his 1988 movie Hairspray was almost unthinkable: How could Waters make a movie that the whole family could enjoy?
I've always suspected that John Waters made the original Hairspray in order to trick suburbanites into renting Pink Flamingos.
When John Waters made Hairspray back in 1988, he'd already thrown a dimmer switch on his patented "outrageous" quotient, considerably toning down the in-your-face satire and campy gay sensibility that brightened the likes of Polyester and Pink Flamingos.
Mandy Moore had A Walk to Remember, Shailene Woodley had The Fault in Our Stars, and never forget the patient zero of these movies: the ’70s cancer tearjerker Love Story.
The other type is the A Walk to Remember variety where the afflicted youth ultimately succumbs to their disease but before doing so, makes the decision to truly live, which usually means “date a boy.”
You may know what to expect, if you’ve seen “A Walk to Remember” or “Everything, Everything” or even “The Fault in Our Stars.”
Familiar films such as A Walk to Remember, The Fault in Our Stars, The Vow and gender-reversing Me Before You weren’t groundbreaking Oscar winners; they just knew how to tug at your heart strings with panache.
The problem, and it’s a big one, is what happens when Midnight Sun decides to follow the trail of previous attempts, like A Walk to Remember, The Fault in Our Stars, and Everything, Everything.
In films such as “Sweet November” and “A Walk to Remember” grieving becomes a character-building growth exercise for our hearty heroes, with the doomed gals granted about as much depth as a beloved pet that gets hit by a car.
Babyteeth avoids the nauseating and twee history of dying teenager cinematic history from A Walk to Remember and Me And Earl And The Dying Girl.
But Murphy’s film, based on the hit play by Rita Kalnejais, is basically the antithesis of melodramatic schmaltz like A Walk to Remember or The Fault in Our Stars.
From “A Walk to Remember” (2002) to “The Fault in Our Stars” (2014) and “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” (2015), it’s a surefire trope in storytelling.
Jamie does not stride through the high school beating her Good Book; Hollywood doesn't like their religious folks to get too religious, lest they turn into Piper Laurie in Carrie.
The pair dance around the usual teen hurdles as Jamie initially tries to remain cool with his friends, his friends pull a "Carrie"-light on Jamie, Jamie's father stands in the way, etc. Once the ultimate cliche is announced, however, the film never quite recovers from what had, against all odds, been working.
Author-turned-screenwriter Nicholas Sparks tailor-made "The Last Song" for Miley Cyrus (2009's " Hannah Montana: The Movie "), who was looking to branch out from her Disney Channel roots and tackle a dramatic feature along the lines of 2002's " A Walk to Remember ."
Critics eager to tear into THE LAST SONG, yet another three-hanky picture based on the works of “A Walk to Remember,” “The Notebook” and “Dear John” author Nicholas Sparks, ought to take a look at film history.
Still, it's not likely that "The Last Song" will do for Miley's dramatic career what Sparks' "A Walk to Remember" did for teen pop star turned actress Mandy Moore in 2002.
So Ronnie is some kind of psychotic amalgam of what might have passed for "the bad kid" back in 1962 with the the mores and edginess of 2009, almost like Sparks looked at the inane mash-up for the 1950s and 1990s in the woebegone film version of A Walk to Remember , and thought it looked absolutely great, and he should do one of his own just like it.
With “The Notebook,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember,” and the recent “Dear John,” Sparks has hit pay dirt, and it’s hard to blame the guy for essentially recycling the same elements of romance and doomsday to make millions from readers all over the world.
I know that worked in " A Walk to Remember ," but I'm not pulling a Mandy Moore here.
After a kinetic opening sequence that recalls a nearly identical scene from The Lost Boys while giving false hope that A Walk to Remember will be an agreeably nostalgic diversion, the film becomes a vaguely surreal morality play scripted along the straitjacket genre conventions that indicate each of Sparks' novels.
The film may look like a relative to the Freddie Prinze Jr. vehicle She's All That (1999), but it's more like a cousin to Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon (1991).
This may look like a Nicolas Sparks knockoff, but the difference between “A Walk to Remember” and “Me Before You” is the difference between “2001” and “Chappie.”
The difference is — and it’s quite a difference — Will isn’t dying like Fault in Our Stars’ Hazel or A Walk to Remember’s Jamie; Will wants to die.
The chemistry she shares with Robbie Amell (2005's " Cheaper by the Dozen 2 "), as Wes, is always there; even when the two are sparring, there is an unspoken connection pulling them closer.
And even the clichés that aren’t avoided don’t crash the movie; Bianca’s jock neighbor pal Wesley may be played by an actor (Robbie Amell: Cheaper by the Dozen 2 ) who is long past high school and looks it, but this isn’t fatal.
Her reaching out to Landon isn't the least bit contrived, nor is her determination to find the good in him, even turning the other cheek when he belittles her in front of his buddies in the early stages of their friendship (a la John Travolta in "Grease").
This uninspired bit of silliness begins like “You’ve Got Mail,” with ladder-climbing attorney Peter Sanderson (Martin) chatting online with “Lawyergirl” (Latifah), who finally says she’s coming to visit.
The plot centers on Peter Sanderson (Martin), the recently divorced tax attorney who, shades of “You’ve Got Mail,” has an Internet chat room romance brewing with “lawyer-girl.”
After its "You've Got Mail" beginning, director Adam Shankman ("A Walk to Remember") wastes no time establishing Peter as the type of guy who lost his wife Kate (Jean Smart, "Sweet Home Alabama") to his incessant cell phone and who constantly reneges on promises to the kids.
Landon (Shane West) is a long way from Jesus, doing Rebel Without a Cause at the local reservoir with the bad kids.
But he does, and the two endure "West Side Story"-style criticism -- he with his cool-but-cruel crowd, she with her concerned father (Peter Coyote).
The Intouchables (2011)
Directed by Éric Toledano
influenced by Bringing Down the House (2003)
Themes
It’s certainly not as racist as Queen Latifah funking up Steve Martin in “Bringing Down the House,” or Michael Oher becoming the shallow supporting character in his own story in “The Blind Side.”