Diablo Cody is back with 'Young Adult'

By Sarah Sluis

Screenwriter Diablo Cody soared with Juno and then crashed and burned with Jennifer's Body. Her next project will re-team her with Mandate Pictures, the folks that made Juno. Young Adult will center on a divorced writer of YA (young adult) books who goes back to the Heartland to stalk her ex-boyfriend, who's now married with a kid.

Charlize Theron is in contention to play the lead female role, and Jason Reitman, who showed he could translate Cody's tone in Juno, will direct. According to The Playlist blog, which read the screenplay, the script "largely [dispenses] with the annoying slang she's been tagged with and is refreshingly unhip." It also reveals that there's a third main role that needs to be cast. While she's chasing down her ex, she befriends a high school classmate who was beaten and crippled by jocks who thought he was gay, and now is overweight, disabled, and stuck in the town. It's a pretty gutsy backstory for a supporting character, almost as if a little piece of Boys Don't Cry is thrown in another movie, but for some reason I'm imagining this character as Damian in Mean Girls, who has a sense of humor about being bullied (not crippled, though) for being chubby and gay by his fellow classmates.

What's compelling about Young Adult is that the premise will once again invert audience expectations. Juno gave us a character who handled teen pregnancy in a manner against type, turning what's usually framed as a melodramatic, Lifetime TV movie situation into something upbeat and light-hearted. In Young Adult, Cody appears to do the same thing. Many a romantic comedy heroine has gone stalking and remained endearing to the audience, but Cody apparently makes her anti-hero unhinged, selfish, and not particularly likable. How refreshing!

Cody has a compelling, unique style, and I believe she has another Juno in her. Young Adult may be it.

Writing duo Lutz & Smith to tackle remake of 'Best Little Whorehouse'

By Sarah Sluis

I've had a soft spot for writing team Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten "Kiwi" Smith ever since I perused the audio commentary of Legally Blonde. The duo talked about visiting Southern California sorority houses as research for their screenplay. I can only imagine what kind of research they'll embark on when they write the remake of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

The 1982 original (based on a 1978 Broadway play) starred Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds as a madam and a sheriff who unite against a preacher trying to shut the town brothel down. Since the original story drew inspiration from the famous Chicken Ranch brothel in Texas, I wouldn't be surprised if the remake, described as a "complete overhaul," opts to set the movie in the Las Vegas/Nevada area, which tolerates prostitution.

Lutz and Smith have an impressive track record. While working within the romantic comedy genre, which misses the mark much more often than it hits it, they've churned out solid movies. They generally hew to the familiar formulas of romantic comedies, but have better details, dialogue, and nuance that helps them rise to the top of the heap. 10 Things I Hate About You (Rotten Tomatoes 56%) and Legally Blonde (67%) are two of my favorites, and Ella Enchanted (50%) had positive word-of-mouth. Though The House Bunny (39%) was a bit of a retread of Legally Blonde, it entertained--and who ever heard of a movie about an ex-Playboy Bunny getting two out of five critics to like it? I had thought She's the Man (44%) had received poor reviews, but it actually just did poorly at the box office--a tiny $33 million. By comparison, the 14%-rated The Ugly Truth, the worst of the bunch (which I haven't seen), brought in a healthy $88 million.

While these are by no means stellar aggregates, the romantic comedy genre is more likely to have sub-20% ratings like When in Rome (17%) or Leap Year (21%). These movies weren't just poorly reviewed, they also did terribly at the box office, disliked equally by audiences. Of the Lutz/Smith movies I have seen and enjoyed, they all include strong plotlines NOT involving the character's romance. Legally Blonde is actually mainly about a character's transformation and self-discovery, and getting a man at the end is really just the cherry on top. 10 Things I Hate About You has plenty of sibling rivalry and astute observations about high school life.

Lutz and Smith have a movie coming out this summer, an action comedy called Killers starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. After reading the more male-centered plot description which described an ex-assassin who has settled down with his wife when he discovers he is being hunted down, I was surprised that the trailer (which released today) had a strong alliance with Heigl. In the preview, she goes through a fairly entertaining "Oh-my-goodness-I-married-an-assassin" realization. On June 4th, we'll see if Lutz and Smith can keep up their better-than-average reputation.