NHL Tv And Movies

Who liked the movie 'Walking Tall'? Come on, admit it. Even though the plot was sub par and didn't have a whole lot of substance, it was FREAKING AWESOME to watch The Rock run around doing what he does best for 90 minutes -- kicking a lot of butt. Seriously, I don't know if there's been a better use of random, short fused violence since Steven Seagal made a relevant movie (OK so, I guess, never).

So long story short, I was pretty pumped when I heard from Wyshynski over at Yahoo! that Dwayne Johnson would be doing the same thing only on ice skates. Cool idea, right?

"The Rock is going to be an NHL hockey player named 'The Tooth Fairy,' and you can imagine why they call him the 'Tooth Fairy,'" said Ellis. "He's an enforcer-type character, and sometimes when he hits another player their teeth come ajar and land on the ice."

OK, so the name is a little on the weak side. Big deal. I'd love to see Walking Tall on Ice. But yeah, funny story ... That's not exactly what the deal is here. It has got the usual 'dumb subplot that probably only your six-year old will enjoy.' Total. Buzzkill.

"Johnson will play an ordinary man who's brought in to try to save the tooth fairy kingdom."

Wha ... WHAT????

Turns out that's the gist of it. IMDB.com, the best movie website there is, has a similar summation.

"A guy is forced to serve time dressed up as a tooth fairy."

Looks like I got my hopes up for nothing. It also looks like we could be in for another edition of the Love Guru. Ugh. If you're still waiting for the next great hockey movie, it looks like your wait just got a little longer.

Say, when is that Mike Myers comedy that mixes humor about spiritual self-help with NHL-endorsed hockey hi-jinks supposed to hit theaters?



Ah, thanks. As "The Love Guru" creeps closer to a multiplex near you, reviews have started to filter in from advance test screenings of the film -- in which Myers plays Pitka, a guru who attempts to mend the broken heart of a star player for the Leafs after his wife begins dating L.A. Kings star Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake).

So is the flick any good? Do we have another "Austin Powers" on our hands, or a cinematic hockey atrocity on a "Slap Shot 2" level? Ain't It Cool News offers some muted praise and potential trouble for one of the summer's biggest comedies.

When the bar is set at Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Sudden Death" and "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh," the chances that "She's out of My League" will become the best movie to feature the Pittsburgh Penguins and/or their arena are pretty darn good. This Dreamworks SKG comedy starring Jay Baruchel ("Knocked Up" and "Tropic Thunder," a.k.a. this summer's hopefully-hilarious "Three Amigos"-esque war movie with Robert Downey, Jr. in black-face) is scheduled to shoot at Mellon Arena this week.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports a few interesting facts about the film's executive producer, Jimmy Miller, whose credits include several movies with the man pictured to his right such as "Elf," "Talladega Nights," and "Semi-Pro." Like the fact that he used to be an usher in section D25 at the arena, and still has season tickets for Penguins and Pirates; and the fact that his older, slightly more famous brother is the one who got him into hockey:

He was introduced to hockey through his older brother Dennis, the acid-tongued comic and former announcer on "Monday Night Football" who now has a radio show and a game show on TV. "Dennis took me to my first game, and I got bitten by the hockey bug," Miller said. "It's my favorite sport to see live."

The original script for "She's out of My League" had its hockey scene happening in Phoenix. But it seemed natural to tweak it and move it to Pittsburgh, where both the Penguins and city officials were quite receptive to movie-making at the arena.

The film is described as "the story of an average Joe who meets a girl described as a perfect 10, both of whom are hockey fans," and she takes an unlikely interest in him. (How Apatow-riffic.) I was really unaware of Dennis Miller's puckhead past. Sort of makes me wish his show on Versus had stuck around for a while. Sort of...

And no longer just to Kenny Thomas!

Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof gave away suitcases full of $100,000 in cash to seven contestants participating in "Oprah's Big Give." From the Sacramento Bee:

"The premise is similar to the pay-it-forward idea," Gavin Maloof said. "They have to try to help as many people as possible."

[...] "It's incredible the amount of organizations and people they were able to help," Maloof said of his experience on the show, which was previously taped. "It's an incredible, invigorating show. It was one of the greatest experiences I've had."

Giving away $700,000 is a wonderful act that shouldn't be marginalized or diminished, but for a couple of guys whose family made its fortune capitalizing on human vices, wouldn't it be cool if one of the contestants donated their suitcase to a local Gamblers Anonymous chapter or some such? Tune in this Sunday to find out. (I kid, but seriously, the Maloofs do deserve props -- they're apparently pretty good at the whole "giving money away" thing, donating $13 million to various Sacramento charities over the past decade, which is approximately $12.9999 million more than me.)

Continuing my role as NHL FanHouse's resident cinephile, here is the first trailer for the new Mike Myers comedy "The Love Guru," which has a hockey-centric plot with officially licensed references to the NHL. This film seems to play like Myers's "Austin Powers" series, what with the group dance scenes and the Verne Troyer and the immediately quotable catchphrases ("Lock it down ... break the pickle.") I laughed a few times, liked a few things -- including Romany Malco as a lovelorn NHLer getting pummeled around the rink, and Justin Timberlake's appearance as his arrogant French rival. But I'm still a little weary about building a comedy around this "Pitka" character, which seems more "Goldmember" than Wayne Campbell.

Spoiler Alert: The hockey action features the Leafs against the LA Kings, so I imagine the movie is really about Steve Stamkos.



Previously on FanHouse:

• Sexy Babe, Sexy Beast Join Mike Myers Hockey Comedy
• Timberlake to Star with Alba in Hockey Flick
• Jessica Alba: World's Hottest Hockey Owner

As you know, your friendly neighborhood ("Ahem, neighbourhood" - Jes and Mirtle) FanHouse bloggers are proud disciples of "Slap Shot," the 1977 Paul Newman classic that gave the world Reggie Dunlop, the Hanson Brothers and roughly 10,000 other references that have become currency of cool amongst puckheads in the know. Comparing another hockey film to "Slap Shot" is futile. But sometimes a comedy that skewers the conventions of another sport hits theaters, and critics compare its virtues or tone to "Slap Shot"-- much in the same way people used to compare Alexandre Daigle to Wayne Gretzky.

Following in the tradition of "Blades of Glory" and "Talladega Nights" (well, hopefully more of the latter than the former), Will Ferrell's basketball comedy "Semi-Pro" opens on Friday. Variety reviewer Joe Leydon opens his critique thusly:

Very much in the tradition of "Slap Shot," George Roy Hill's raucously funny and foul-mouthed 1977 laffer about the misadventures of a minor-league hockey team, "Semi-Pro" scores big laughs with the rowdy play-by-play of hard-luck hoopsters struggling for professional survival. For some auds, Will Ferrell doing a full-court press in a white-guy afro alone will be worth the price of admission.

I haven't seen the film -- although I plan to -- but the production photo above certainly evokes memories of that classic scene in "Slap Shot" when Denis Lemieux broke the game down. ("Icing happen when the puck come down, bang, you know, before the other guy.") Where I think most critics get it wrong is when they reduce "Slap Shot" to a "raucously funny and foul-mouthed" film, forgetting its keen observations about sex, aging and self-identity. All due respect to the screenwriter on "Semi-Pro," but somehow I doubt the man who also gave the world "Old School" and "Road Trip" will be able to match Nancy Dowd's nuance. The real question, however, when it comes to "Semi-Pro" and "Slap Shot": Which extra in the new Will Ferrell movie will end up coaching the Wizards in 30 years?

Update: The reviews are in. Twenty-seven percent on the Rotten Tomatometer as of Friday morning. This is "Bewitched" bad.

This is the teaser poster for the new Mike Myers comedy "The Love Guru," which is due out this summer. We've been covering its journey to a sticky-floored theater near you here on FanHouse for four reasons:

• 1. There's always the chance that this film will produce an iconic comedic figure like Austin Powers or Wayne Campbell rather than an annoying and then completely forgettable creation like "The Cat in the Hat."
• 2. Jessica Alba is in the film.
• 3. The NHL, and hockey in general, play a central role in the plot.
• 4. Jessica Alba is in the film.

The great Jeremy Smith of CHUD.com provides the details:

The Love Guru is about an American child named Pitka whose upbringing in an Indian ashram prepares him for life as one of those self-help kooks. Pitka's expertise is called upon to help resolve marital discord between Darren Roanoke, the star center of the Toronto Maple Leafs (Romany Malco), and his wife. When Roanoke's wife takes up with Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake), a rival player from the Los Angeles Kings, the Maple Leafs' star falls into a slump. The only way for the Leafs to salvage their season is for Pitka to reunite Roanoke with his wife. I'm already in stitches.

Aw, c'mon. To be fair, Romany Malco was comedy gold as Jay in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." And if Timberlake has an extended music video about giving his lady a phallic gift "In a Penalty Box," we're in business. But more than anything, this film could be the tip of the iceberg for the NHL's takeover of Hollywood. More on that, and a larger "Guru" poster image, after the jump.

In a rare moment of an NHL player not named Crosby getting celebrity treatment in America, Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins hosted this week's edition of VH1's VSPOT Top 20 Countdown. The show, which was filmed at the NHL Store in New York City, counts down the top 20 videos of the week, as voted on by VH1 viewers. Chances are that you missed the show this morning if you were like me and couldn't bear the excitement of getting up at either 3 am or 9 am on a Saturday morning. That's OK, because the show re-airs at 8 am tomorrow and 9 am on Tuesday (all times Eastern). I can't say I'll be awake for either of those airings, but maybe you will.

For me, the most surprising part of all this is that the show chose Savard as the NHL player best suited to make a celebrity appearance. If any hockey player is going to make a celebrity appearance in the States, Sidney Crosby would be the most likely candidate. Crosby would probably be out of the question for VH1 though, as he's likely too expensive and was also sidetracked with appeasing the masses in Western Canada this week. Scott Gomez and Chris Drury would be my second and third choices to make a guest appearance, since the show was filmed in NYC after all, but VH1 over looked them as well. To be fair to Savard, I would guess that he is better looking than either Drury or Gomez. Who knows, maybe he had a great screen test. Anyway, there you have it. An NHL player from an American team who isn't named Crosby actually getting some attention in America. I had no idea that it could actually happen.

Taking time out from shilling for Rudy "Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven" Giuliani, hosting his nearly undetectable radio program and grumbling "what, exactly, does this Kornheiser guy bring to the dance that I didn't" every Monday night during football season, actor/comedian Dennis Miller ("Bordello of Blood," "Joe Dirt") will have his own weekly sports talk show on Versus.

According to Variety, Miller and "Hell's Kitchen" producer Arthur Smith will bring the one-hour "Sports Unfiltered With Dennis Miller" to the network every Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET beginning on Nov. 6:

While "Sports Unfiltered" will tackle tough issues in sports, "it's also going to be comedic and sarcastic," Smith said. "It won't be as out there as 'The Daily Show,' but we're going to have fun."

Segs will include Miller's rant, a "Weekend Update"-style review of the week's headlines and interviews with newsmakers. "I'll call 'em as I see 'em, and hopefully, I'll see 'em better than the home plate ump in the San Diego Padres-Colorado Rockies tiebreaker game," Miller said.

God, Miller's lost it, hasn't he? Ten years ago, that joke reads "hopefully I'll see'em better than a pre-lasix Magoo, babe."

Once glance at the lineup for Versus, and you can understand how adding a "Daily Show"-esque talker hosted by a former "Weekend Update" superstar might be good news for the network's most prominent asset, "The Bucks of Tecomate with Jeff Foxworthy" the National Hockey League.

I mean no disrespect to pheasant hunting and cage fighting, but Dennis Miller may attract a slightly more mainstream sports fan to a network that can then bombard them with hockey promos; and, in turn, the show can provide the NHL with a droll new venue to exhibit the personalities of its top players -- if they can hang with the barrage of sardonic humor and random Sylvia Plath references, babe...