Eric and guest co-host Ryan Magnuson (The Sports Buddaye) review Matt Damon in the new Steven Soderbergh movie “The Informant!” which is at least partially based on the true story of an agri-business VP who got into some pretty hot water in the early 1990s. Soderbergh plays the movie for laughs and Damon put on 30 lbs. to play the role, but are they trying too hard? Watch this review and read Eric’s print review of “The Informant!” to find out.

Tags: 2009, damon, film, movie, on-camera, review, soderbergh, The Informant!, video

If you are one of those moviegoers who needs simple, clear-cut reasons for the motivations behind your main character, then Steven Soderbergh’s rollicking big business satire “The Informant!” is not for you.

The director has handled this kind of corporate whistle-blowing story before in “Erin Brockovich,” but this movie is another beast completely. With a schlubby, mustachioed Matt Damon and his part-trivial part-fantasy deadpan voiceover, Soderbergh is putting the impishness of his title character front and center.

Damon gained about 30 pounds to play real-life agribusiness VP Mark Whitacre, a man whose button-down biochemist background is at constant odds with his responsibilities as a manager. Despite the fact that “The Informant!” is based on the non-fiction novel by Kurt Eichenwald, onscreen titles tell us at the outset that some true events have been altered and some characters are composites, before adding a telling kiss-off: “So there.”

That pretty much sets the tone for a movie that plays itself considerably lighter than the Coen brothers, but still pokes fun at rural Midwestern sensibilities like “Fargo,” while also managing to break down the wall of corporate power to reveal an astonishing amount of cluelessness. A summary of the movie can’t do justice to the amount of farcical goings-on.

Whitacre’s response to the falling revenue at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is to tell his boss that there is a mole within the ranks conspiring with the Japanese. When the FBI is called in, he inexplicably tells them that his company has engaged in price-fixing on the food additive lysine, and that it’s basically a matter of corporate policy across the board.

This corporate rising star may be the only person in the movies who gleefully wears a wire. Whitacre becomes the lynchpin of a massive investigation and begins to imagine himself as some kind of secret agent for the common man, even calling himself Agent 0014 because he’s “twice as smart as James Bond.”

As glimpsed by Soderbergh and his Red digital camera, the film’s setting of Decatur, Ill. is all drab office buildings, strip malls, and blown out light coming in through every window. It’s not the traditional setting for a tale of corporate espionage, and these are just a couple of the many creative choices designed to set this movie apart. At times, it’s a bit much.

The old-fashioned Marvin Hamlisch score (evocative of his work in “The Sting”), the deliberate 1970s font in the title credits (despite the fact that the movie is set in the early 90s), and the lighthearted minutia-based narration all make Soderbergh seems like he’s trying too hard to spell out the outrageousness of the story. Somewhere along the way, however, the absurdities pile up and his brassy stylistic choices become less annoying.

Soderbergh struggles more when it comes to Whitacre’s home life. There just isn’t enough time to make sense of his relationship with wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey). On the other hand, having comedic actors like Joel McHale, Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Tomkins, and Tony Hale pepper the cast throughout the film—but play it totally straight—is a gamble that pays off. (A couple of rare cameos by the Smothers Brothers are really delightful.) And Scott Bakula’s hilariously furrowed FBI agent is a real treat as well.

In the end, though, it’s the nervy lead performance of Matt Damon that makes “The Informant!” more than high camp. He grounds Whitacre with an odd mix of book smarts, bewilderment, and self-righteousness that has more in common with Jerry Lundegaard (“Fargo”) than Jeffrey Wigand (“The Insider”).

Whitacre’s actual motives and actions are obscured for most of the film, but watching the man constantly dig himself into a deeper hole has the ring of truth. A late, game-changing revelation about him proves that a story this absurd couldn’t possibly be fiction. Or at least not all of it.

So there.

Tags: 2009, damon, film, matt, movie, review, soderbergh, steven, The Informant!

Remember the cheesy live-action Sid & Marty Kroft Saturday morning TV show “Land of the Lost”? Will Ferrell is hoping that you do because he’s starring in it (although it’s not a family in peril anymore, just him and two other adults–weird). Let’s just hope this is better than “Bewitched.” Universal Studios has just released a photo of what the creepy, island-dwelling Sleestaks will look like. (see right)

Dark? Comedy? Coens? I’m in. Yahoo! Movies reports that “Burn After Reading,” a dark spy-comedy from Oscar-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen, will open this year’s Venice Film Festival. The movie, which stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, will have its world premiere Aug. 27. The movie is the story of an ousted CIA official whose memoir falls into the hands of two gym employees.

Again, I have to say to Transformers fans: “You take your movies based on talking robot toys too seriously!” EW.com says “Superbad” star and Oscar presenter (ha!) Jonah Hill is in talks to play Shia LaBeouf’s comic sidekick in the sequel to Michael Bay’s “Transformers.” Wait a minute, I thought LaBeouf was the comic role. Maybe he’s the not-as-funny guy to Hill’s funny-ha-ha guy. Either way, it sounds like a fine idea to me, but I don’t hold these movies to the sacred Hasbro text. The first one was rather fun and funny!

After his two Spanish-language Che Guevara pics, Steven Soderbergh will direct “The Informant,” starring Matt Damon. Then he will turn to his second low-budget, simultaneous DVD/theatrical/cable-release film (after “Bubble”) called “The Girlffriend Experiment,” which Variety reports may have a porn star in the lead role. I like Soderbergh’s adventurous spirit; at least he’s not content just doing ”Ocean’s Fourteen.”

The newest poster for “The Dark Knight” seems to be some kind of tribute to Tim Buton’s “Batman Returns,” which featured Michael Keaton, Danny Devito, and Michelle Pfeiffer evenly spread out horizontally. The excellent Film Experience Blog compares the two and has a poll to vote for your favorite Batman incarnation. In other bat sightings, a Joker-vandalized trailer was released to the press this week, which if you pay close attention, has a lot of really funny stuff in it. Click here to check out “The Dork Knight.”

One of the most interesting directors working today, Fernando Meirelles (“City of God,” “The Constant Gardener”) has just been added as a last-minute Cannes film, according to the Toronto Star,  and will also compete for the festival’s Palme d’Or prize, unusual for an opening-night movie. Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Sandra Oh, “Blindness” is about an international epidemic that causes–you guessed it–blindness. Many of the actors wore contact lenses that blocked their vision. See the trailer below.

In the 2007 movie “Transformers,” the Autobot scout Bumblebee helps Sam (Shia La Beouf) get laid while disguised as a 1976 Chevrolet _____.

Tags: , blindness cannes, burn after reading venice, Fernando Meirelles, jokerized trailer, jonah hill transformers, sleestacks, sleestax, soderbergh, the dork knight, the girlfriend experiment, will ferrell land of the lost sleestaks

The official lineup for the 61st Cannes Film Festival was unveiled yesterday in Paris. “Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie and directed by Clint Eastwood, and Steven Soderbergh’s two Che Guevara films, were last minute additions. Soderbergh’s films, “The Argentine” (starring Franka Potente, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and, of course, Benicio del Toro in the title role) and “Guerrilla,” (starring all three again, plus Julia Ormond, Benjamin Bratt, and Lou Diamond Phillips) will screen back-to-back at a running time of four hours on May 21. I suppose if you started with Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries” (which concentrated on the revolutionary’s formative years),  one could have six and a half straight hours of full-on Che action. I don’t think anyone has undertaken this kind of a mammoth project on the same subject since, well, Eastwood put out “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima” four months apart in 2006.

You know, I am excited that summer is right around the corner and the big event movies are finally here, but every year around late August, I need an antidote. It is nice to know now what some of the big-time heavyweights will be that will arrive in the Fall.

One movie in the main competition that I’m super-excited about is Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, “Synecdoche, New York” (which wins the award for the most unpronouncable film title ever) starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson and Catherine Keener. Kaufman is well-known for writing “Being John Malkovich,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Adaptation,” but this is the first time he has also stepped behind the director’s chair. Hell, it worked for Tony Gilroy, a screenwriter whose first foray into directing last year was “Michael Clayton,” which won him an Oscar nomination for Best Director and put him at the forefront of A-List “serious” film directors. Of course, Kaufman already has his Oscar (for writing “Eternal”), so expectations are even higher. I don’t care what the film is about, I’m so there already.

Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” screens out of competition on May 18 and it will be his first trip to Cannes since 1985’s “The Color Purple.” Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” which stars Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz, is screening out of competition. This year, Sean Penn presides over the jury, along with Natalie Portman. Other big names in the lineup are Wim Wenders with “The Palermo Shooting,” Atom Egoyan with “Adoration,” and Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’ “Linha de Passe.” Marina Zenovich’s documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” which competed in Sundance, will get a special screening.

Also of note: Ang Lee is directing a movie revolving around the Woodstock music festival. From a sensationally-titled article on the movie in Yahoo!: “Taking Woodstock” centers on the colorful life of a Greenwich Village-based interior designer and part-time Catskills hotel manager who headed the Bethel, N.Y., Chamber of Commerce. He issued the permit for the legendary 1969 concert on his neighbor Max Yasgur’s farm. It is based on Elliot Tiber’s 2007 memoir “Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life,” which he wrote with Tom Monte.

And, from Variety: “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” helmer Nick Stoller is reteaming with Judd Apatow for the comedy “Get Him to the Greek,” with Jonah Hill and Russell Brand attached to star. Stoller has been tapped to write and direct the laffer, which centers on a fresh-out-of-college insurance adjuster (Hill) who is hired to accompany an out-of-control rock star (Brand) from London to a gig at L.A.’s Greek Theater.

Finally, from MTV.com: After co-directing “Sin City” and single-handedly helming the upcoming adaptation of Will Eisner’s “The Spirit,” Frank Miller has decided that the only person he’d want directing a “Hard Boiled” movie is himself. “I’m in love with directing,” he gushed. “I’ve found a way to expand my career. Comics and directing are really two sides of the same coin. That’s what Robert Rodriguez taught me…good drama is good drama.”

Tags: cannes, changeling, clip, eastwood, film festival, guerrilla, hollywood, joint, kaufman, new york, soderbergh, synedoche, the argentine