Director's Spotlight:
Greg Mottola
by Joshua Pasch
The film is almost assured a long shelf life on DVD, and its many contributors are all bound for bright futures. Stewart, while still unable to prove her starpower, continues to be a force with the Twilight series, Eisenberg hit it big with Zombieland, and has a series of high profile upcoming projects (David Fincher’s Social Network stands out), Reynolds is a certified Superhero three times over, and even Wiig is picking up steam as a potential leading lady.
Most significantly, though, despite Adventureland’s low gross, Mottola continued to show growth as a director, as this stands as his most complete work to date. It looks like we wont have to wait long for his fourth feature – a project that, while certainly not guaranteed mainstream success, is at least going to be hotly anticipated by BOP writers, readers, and many other cinephiles.
Paul
Paul reunites the duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the comedic twosome behind the brilliant British parodies Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. Where those films were both directed by Edgar Wright and written by both Pegg and Wright, Paul is written by Pegg and Frost, stars Pegg and Frost, and is directed by Mottola (sorry if that got a bit confusing).
Paul follows two British sci-fi geeks who travel to America’s Area 51, only to happen upon a real alien named Paul. As the two work to return the titular extraterrestrial to his mother ship, there will be both healthy doses of action and comedy (a Frost/Pegg specialty). The alien, a combination of CG and motion capture, will be voiced by Seth Rogen, and the ensemble cast will include other notables such as sci-fi regular Sigourney Weaver, and comedians Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, and Jane Lynch.
As a film that is both high-concept and high-tech, Paul marks a substantial change of pace for Mottola, who, up until this point has specialized in the low-concept and low-cost. Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz manage to strike a strong balance between physical comedy and witty dialogue. Hopefully Mottola can seamlessly integrate some of those more physical qualities into this feature – if he can pull it off, it would be yet another development for a director who has shown substantial growth with each of his directorial efforts. While neither Shaun nor Fuzz grossed as much as they deserved, they’ve both built up huge cult followings, and with this larger and American-friendly cast, Paul might just be a breakout success for Pegg, Frost, and Mottola.
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