Garfield/Garfield: The Movie (2004) - Davies' comical cat in dull movie debut

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An amusing poster for the movie adaptation of the famous comics feline, Peter Hewitt's Garfield

Lazy house cat Garfield's owner John acquires a dog to make an impression on a girl, but when said dog gets stolen by an amoral TV host, Garfield gets overlooked, and so he decides to get the woof-meister back!

Garfield is written by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow (Toy Story (1995), both), based on the long-running same-titled 1978-? comics by Jim Davies (U.S. Acres (1986-89)), and directed by Peter Hewitt (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)).

Both script and direction are uninspired, and Breckin Meyer (King of the Hill (2000-10)) and a stiff-as-an-ironing-board Jennifer Love Hewitt (Heartbreakers (2001)) are inauthentic and bereft of charm as the film's main human stars. Bill Murray (Coming Attractions (1978)) voicing the title character is the film's biggest draw.

Garfield is a far-fetched and by-the-numbers exploitative attempt at cashing in on Davies' beloved creation. It will entertain children without giving them anything real in return for their time and attention. It is a fairly vapid flick.

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 50 mil. $

Box office: 203.1 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 4.06 times its cost)

[Garfield premiered 6 June (Los Angeles) and runs 85 minutes. Murray has explained his performance in the film as given due to his mistakenly thought that (master filmmaker) Joel Coen had co-written the script, not Cohen, - but the anecdote is described by Sokolow as "complete horse shit." Shooting took place from March - June 2003 in the UK and in California, including Los Angeles. The film opened #4, behind holdover hit Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, fellow new release The Chronicles of Riddick and holdover hit Shrek 2, to a 21.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 75.3 mil. $ (37.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were 17.4 mil. $ (8.6 %) and Spain with 10.1 mil. $ (5 %). Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches over this one. Despite Murray's later story about his involvement (given in 2010 in GQ magazine), he returned with Meyer and Love Hewitt for flop sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006). Hewitt returned with Zoom (2006). Murray returned first in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Garfield is rotten at 14 % with a 3.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Garfield?

54 (1998) or, Disco, Baby, Yeah!

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+ Best Music Movie of the Year + Best New York Movie of the Year + Best Period Movie of the Year

Glamorous poster for Mark Christopher's 54

QUICK REVIEW:

We are at New York's Studio 54 disco, and the 80s are right around the corner: A young dreamer from Jersey arrives and is lucky enough to get a job there; sex, drugs, some fame and lots of disco follow.

54 is an excellent guilty pleasure full of lovely young people: Ryan Phillippe (Flags of Our Fathers (2006)) is criminally hot here, and so is Salma Hayek (30 Rock (2009-13)). Neve Campbell (Scream 4 (2011)) does well, and Mike Myers (Wayne's World (1992)) is phenomenal here in his first dramatic movie role as the cynical, superficial impresario of the seemingly never-ending party.
The development of the story is pretty imperceptible, sometimes nearing banality, elegantly avoiding real crises.
54's original 93 min. cut appears as a celebration of Studio 54, disco and good parties. I ate it raw.
However, the film was envisioned quite differently by its writer-director Mark Christopher (Pizza (2005)), who was forced by Miramax to re-shoot and cut out several parts of his original vision, downgrading gay and sex scenes. A 105 min. director's cut, which includes 30 min. of footage that is not in the original cut, has since been released to acclaim. - I really want to see this version as well!
If you want to read more about how a bad test screening and the infamous Weinstein brothers took apart Christopher's original version, you can do so here.

 

Related post:

 

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

Watch the infectious trailer for the film here

Cost: 13 mil. $
Box office: 16.7 mil. $ (US only)
= Big flop, with some uncertainty
[54 made a paltry 99k £ in the UK, which is the only foreign result I've been able to find. - It was a big flop. Had Miramax left it alone, it might have succeeded as a more risqué film, similar to Boogie Nights (1997). - We will never know now.]

What do you think of 54, original and director's cut, depending on what you've seen?