From Paul Weitz, the director of American Pie, Chris Rock’s Down to Earth and that Hugh Grant “romcom” About a Boy, Cirque du Freak meets its vampire quota through a story of a bored kid looking for a little adventure, a way out of his bored little life in his bored little town, and how he turns himself into a vampire to do it. That’s its story. But we all know better. The story isn’t what’s important here-what is, is that there are vampires, having them onscreen and not missing an opportunity to cash in on a craze. Que Mugatu from Zoolander leaning over and whispering, “Vampires, they’re so hot right now.”

To be completely honest, I don’t think the movie looks as terrible as I’m making it out. But what I’m surprised about is John C. Reilly’s involvement. I mean, this is a guy who’s repeatedly worked with Martin Scorsese and PT Anderson. This is a guy who across the board is critically lauded. I know he enjoys making comedies–and he’s great at it–and it should be fun to watch him in a trench coat and ‘fro, flying around and debunking the lore–but really, what is he doing here?

The Vampire’s Assistant is based off of the first novel in the British “Vampire Blood” trilogy, which comprises the first 3 of 12 books in the The Saga of Darren Shaw series. So definitely expect more of these to come because this is trying to be a franchise. I just wonder if they’ve waited too long, whether people will still care come movie 3, or even 2.

Dust off those Bill Compton fangs (Dracula was so 20th century) and catch Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant just in time for Halloween on October 23rd.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Unrated DVD)
Director: Jake Kasdan
Released: December 21, 2007
** 2.5/5

Some movies are all about expectations. Sometimes you’re looking for something more, something to challenge you and speak volumes on the complexities of the human condition. Others, you just want popcorn and something to stare at. Walk Hard was made for those popcorn days, uncomplicated in the best and worst senses of the word. It’s John C Reilly dressed up like Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan, and John Lennon, doing drugs and talking to the ghost of the brother he accidentally cut in half when he was a boy. In the case of Dewey Cox, you really do get exactly what you pay for–and if you don’t pay too much, you probably won’t be disappointed.

With a kind of SNL-meets-Airplane! self-referential humor, Jake Kasdan (who also directed a handful of episodes of Judd Apatow’s great Freaks and Geeks) makes something here that rides the line between being over-the-top and just funny enough to keep you from completely dismissing it. Its saving grace is, like it seems is so often the case, John C. Reilly’s performance and how unflinchingly genuine he is, never nodding to the camera or playing it tongue-in-cheek.

There definitely is some funny here, but where the movie goes wrong it goes really wrong. The over-silly humor gets old and predictable, so much so that after a enough jokes fall flat they start to get embarrassing to watch–like the excruciatingly unfunny BEATLES scene, with the constant song references and inner-band fighting. It’s bad. These are simple jokes that may have packed a punch the first go-round but by the 80min mark start wearing thin, too thin to support the other 40min without breaking.

I mean, the sheer mileage they get out of Dewey’s last name, the wordplay of it, is really just flat-out impressive. That in itself is like a crash course in milking a one-trick pony for all its worth…or, in teaching an old dog how to hide the fact that it’s aging while keeping a high self-esteem about never having mastered the whole “rolling over” thing. Or something like that. I’ve always been bad with proverbs.

At the end of the day, Walk Hard isn’t a terrible movie. It’s stupid, sure, often headshakingly so, but it works well as a spoof and offers a pretty decent amount of laughs. It’s like a comic strip you half-read in the morning with your coffee or find on the bus in the empty seat next to you. It keeps you company, takes up some time, maybe even makes you chuckle. But when you go to bed that night, do you ever really remember whether it was the fax or the copy machine that spurred all the hi jinx in Dilbert’s cubicle? Or do you just remember Dilbert, playing his guitar and chopping his brother in half with a machete?