“Clint Eastwood’s ‘Jersey Boys’ opens in theaters this weekend” is a sentence I never thought I’d write, but there it is, in all its completely factual glory. It was only a matter of time before Hollywood got their hands on the insanely popular property, but I never thought that Dirty Harry would be in the director’s chair.
Eastwood hasn’t had a huge box office hit since “Gran Torino” back in 2008, and ‘Jersey’ has serious potential to be his biggest moneymaker to date. The Broadway show has grossed over $450 million since opening in late 2005, and if the aggressive marketing for the film is any indicator, Warner Bros. is expecting (or at least hoping) that the film will pay off just as well.
Clint Eastwood has never tackled something quite like this before, and here are five examples of other established directors who have gone out of their comfort zones and crafted something outside of their own mold.
1. Robert Altman / Popeye (1980)
While Robert Altman may be a household name solely for creating “M*A*S*H”, film buffs regard him as one of the best American directors of all time. Prior to making this odd little flick, Altman was coming off a streak of now-classics like “McCabe & Mrs. Miller”, “The Long Goodbye”, “Nashville” and “Three Women”, just to name a few.
“Popeye” was Altman’s take on the popular comic strip-turned-animated series and it’s one of the strangest, goofiest and just plain weird comic book adaptations ever made. “Popeye” is a musical, and the song-and-dance numbers are just as kooky and bizarre as everything else on-screen.
Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall are both fantastic and Altman’s direction turns what could have been a complete mess (and many, including critics and audiences at the time, believe this to be the case) into something that has stood the test of time and gained cult status.
2. Mike Nichols / Wolf (1994)
Yup, the director of “The Graduate”, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Working Girl” made a movie about a werewolf starring Jack Nicholson. Nicholson is great and the supporting cast is full of amazing actors like Christopher Plummer, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, and Richard Jenkin, but the movie just isn’t all that great.
It’s tonally very strange; at times it plays like a comedy and others it tries too hard to be a thoughtful art film with an obvious agenda. For example, the transformation from man to wolf is framed by a lame metaphor, and honestly all I want to see in a movie called “Wolf” is Jack Nicholson wreaking some havoc.
Nichols went on to direct the Nathan Lane comedy “The Birdcage” a couple years later and the most recent movie he made was the underrated “Charlie’s Wilson War” back in 2007. Both of these films are better than “Wolf.”
3. David Lynch / Straight Story (1999)
Between “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive”, David Lynch directed a G-rated Disney movie. Yes, the same David Lynch that brought the world “Eraserhead” and “Dune” made a sappy film that my parents would probably enjoy more than myself.
The film stars Richard Farnsworth in his final screen appearance (which earned him an Academy Award nomination) and also features the always fun to watch Sissy Spacek and Harry Dean Stanton. “Straight Story” distinctly lacks any of the elements commonly associated with the work of David Lynch.
This isn’t a head-scratching, surrealist piece of avant-garde work of art, but rather a simple family drama oozing with sentimentality that likely airs frequently on The Hallmark Channel. I’m not quite sure what compelled Lynch to take the job, but he certainly did it justice, as the film is his best reviewed and most universally liked by critics. Hardcore Lynch fans may find little to work with, but this isn’t for them.
4. Paul Verhoeven / Showgirls (1995)
Three years after the wildy popular “Basic Instinct” and two years before the underappreciated “Starship Troopers”, Paul Verhoeven was given a large budget to make an NC-17 rated “adult” film.
“Showgirls” gets a bad wrap, but there are many, myself included, that believe the film is a cleverly over-the-top satirical romp that just so happens to feature a lot of naked women (including star Elizabeth Berkley). While the subject matter may be markedly different for Verhoeven, the goofy, sardonic tone that runs through all his films remains in tact. Theatrically, “Showgirls” was a huge bomb — it only grossed $20 million domestically during its entire run and the film’s budget was $45 million.
5. David Gordon Green / Pineapple Express (2008)
David Gordon Green’s career has to be one of the most perplexing in the history of Hollywood. He started out on the art-house indie circuit and first broke through with his debut feature “George Washington”, which would later be released on home video by the prestigious Criterion Collection. He followed that with a few more indie releases (I’m a big fan of 2008’s “Snow Angels”), and then seemingly sold his soul to Hollywood and cranked out three studio comedies in a row.
To be fair, I find “Pineapple Express” to be loads of fun, but as much as I wanted to enjoy “Your Highness” and “The Sitter”, they just didn’t work. He’s also a huge part of one of my favorite TV series “Eastbound & Down”, having directed twelve episodes over the course of its three seasons. So while I do enjoy the occasional juvenile comedy, I’m glad to see that Green’s last two films have been substantially smaller and it appears he’s going back to his indie roots.
“Prince Avalanche” starring Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd (available on Netflix) was a fun but ultimately forgettable venture back to low-budget indie territory, but this year’s “Joe” starring Nicolas Cage (in one the best performances of his career) is one of my favorites of the year and a true return to form.
