Also in Tuesday morning's round-up of news briefs, G.I. Joe 2 director looks to new project based on Mattel toys; Iran may boycott the Venice Film Festival over sanctions; and Emmet/Furla Films and Envision Entertainment set significant funds for future projects.
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In this weekend’s wildly reckless financial risk fantasy We Bought a Zoo, moneyed-but-totes-normal Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), a recently widowed father of two, experiences a fit of Jerry Maguire insanity and moves his family into a zoo. Director Cameron Crowe and co-written by Aline Brosh McKenna (27 Dresses) would have you think this is a good idea, since (spoiler!) Mee’s selfish, shortsighted, and borderline negligent decisions result in an uplifting, golden-hued ending, not to mention the love of a certain crunchy-but-smokin’ hot lady zookeeper. But Movieline knows better. Study the litany of ill-advised risks and bad judgment calls Benjamin Mee makes for himself and his two young children. In these trying times, let his story not be a lesson.
Few filmmakers use music as unabashedly and emotionally as former rock journalist Cameron Crowe, the man who turned Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" into an enduring emblem of '80s teen longing and illuminated the power of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" as a late night bonding tune for even the most estranged of friends. Crowe's latest, We Bought a Zoo, is no different; the instant the reverberating beats of Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" kick in, lonely and sparse, turning increasingly anthemic by the verse as Matt Damon's son is expelled from school and Damon uproots his family to a rural fixer-upper of a zoo with the promise of new beginnings, you know you're in for yet another Crowe Moment.
Who can think about naked Scarlett Johansson photos today when the new trailer for Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo has just debuted, amirite?? Take a look at Crowe's first feature since Elizabethtown, about a single father (Matt Damon) who moves his family into a zoo to turn things around by helping animals and stuff. Also, to fall for impassioned zookeeper Scarlett Johansson. Quite a coincidence of timing, no?
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