Is Will Ferrell the Worst Leading Man in Hollywood?

Forbes Magazine released its annual list of Hollywood's Most Overpaid Stars yesterday, with Will Ferrell supplanting Nicole Kidman as the list's "winner."

The list complied its rating by taking the 100 biggest stars in Hollywood, meaning they must have starred in three films that opened in 500 theaters or more over the last five years. They then took all of those actors' last three films, found the operating income of those films, and divided that by the stars' total compensation for their work, creating a return on investment number. Ferrell's return on investment was a paltry $3.29 for every dollar he earned, while second-place Ewan McGregor's was $3.75.

Ferrell's time as a comedy king is clearly coming to a rapid end, as the star has performed essentially the same role in all of his recent films, including box office clunker Land of the Lost, the disappointing Semi-Pro and the successful Stepbrothers. The actor is constantly reprising the role of the idiot guy who simply refuses to grow up.

At some point, though, that role stopped being funny, as people grew tired of paying between $6.50 and $10 to watch the same movie in a different locale. Some could even argue that the last truly funny Ferrell film was Talladega Nights, while his last great role was his guest appearance as a funeral crasher in Wedding Crashers.

America's audiences simply can't afford to laugh at the same joke over and over again and, at some point, Ferrell needs to realize that before audiences begin laughing at him instead of with him or, even worse, rendering him irrelevant.

Chipmunks are the new money saver, really?

If there is one certain bet in Hollywood this holiday season, it is that Avatar will be panned by critics despite all of its supposed innovation. Fox seems to have realized this and anticipated something of a box office flub for the James Cameron film, which cost somewhere over $200 million to make and possibly as much as $300 million more to market.

The manner in which the company is hedging its bet, though, is odd, as it is relying on an old staple-"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel." The first Chipmunks movie earned $217 million at the box office in 2007, proving to be a huge money earner for Fox, which only paid around $60 million to make the film.

The concept of some type of financial padding is very interesting for the movie industry, as box office flops like "Kingdom of Heaven" have done so poorly that they put entire companies out of business. Granted, Avatar doesn't carry that kind of risk, but Fox wants to ensure that it ends up earning money this year, so it is releasing a movie that it knows will be a hit just in case its absurdly expensive blockbuster doesn't pay off (and just because critics will hate the film's merits, moviegoers will almost certainly fall in love with the fictional world of Pandora).

It is reflective of the current economic climate (and, yes, we are recovering, but that doesn't mean we're safe yet) that even movie companies are making sure they aren't hit too hard by any type of failure, even with what should be one of the biggest box office hits since Cameron's other hit, "Titanic."

Should children's classics be made into films?

It seems as if Hollywood is running out of original source material and, in a desperate effort to regenerate interest in non-Pixer blockbuster films, is turning to the one genre that people of all ages could enjoy: the children's classics.

Perennial favorites such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox have either all been made into or are in the process of being made into feature films, and this may indicate a disturbing future for these stories.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the first one of the three to have come out and, considering that it was not only my favorite as a child but that it's a claymation film, I am not interested in seeing it. I recall Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as an unintentionally dark tale of greed and unintended consequences, but the film has turned it into a fun romp featuring actors like Mr. T and Anna Faris. Furthermore, the film suffers from not being live action. Much of the draw of making the classic children's book into a movie would be showing the massive pancakes slowly floating over the town like suffering zeppelins or showing boulder-sized meatballs forcing families inside by landing violently in front yards.

Maybe this would make the story a bit too dark, but it would certainly make the world hunger subplot more prescient than the silly and outdated claymation style does.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox will also suffer from this, but hopefully the Wes Anderson-written script will protect the aesthetic of the Roald Dahl novel without sacrificing any of the book's relatability. One thing that I am worried about, particularly with this film, is Hollywood's effect on the film. Dahl, who also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its much darker sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, didn't write time-wasting dialogue into his novels. Instead, he wrote frank and clear conversation that advanced the plot. Having playful, wasteful conversation would completely ruin the story, and Anderson must be aware of that.

Ironically, at least for me, Where the Wild Things Are could be the most successful and accurate of the movies, actually adding to the value of its source material as opposed to detracting from it. As a child, I never enjoyed Maurice Sendak's novel. Something about the large, furry creatures just seemed odd to me, maybe because I was freaked out by them or maybe because I didn't quite understand just why they were there. Unlike the other two films, though, Where the Wild Things Are is live-action, giving it the benefit of added believability (and, therefore, added meaning) when compared to its two brethren.

I'm not sure that the Spike Jonze adaptation will be the gift to film that some seem to think it will be, but out of these three films it certainly seems like it will be the most entertaining and potentially important. The goal of any adaptation should be not only to do justice to the original story, but also to give it additional meaning and to open the story to new audiences. Unfortunately, only one of these films seems guaranteed to succeed on that goal.

Roman Polanski isn't worth it

Hollywood has undoubtedly produced some of the most important pieces of art of the last 100 years, but directors like Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen should keep their opinions about Roman Polanski's arrest in Sweden last week and potential extradition to the United States for raping a 13-year-old girl 32 years ago to themselves.

Polanski may have directed some very important movies, including Chinatown and The Pianist. But Michael Vick being very good at football didn't mean he was above going to prison and, last I checked, drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl was a more heinous crime against humanity than dogfighting. Being good at something does not preclude anyone from being subject to the law.

And for those who argue that being kept out of the United States for 32 years should be punish enough for Polanski, imagine if it had been someone you love who had been drugged, given champagne and raped by the director. Would you still be protecting him?

The defense for Polanski is shocking, as the 32 years between the rape and Polanski's most recent arrest don't mean that the rape didn't happen. If anything, those years only reinforce the perception that Polanski was running from a crime that he had already pleaded guilty to committing.

If anything, that proves that he is a coward and an even more despicable human being than he had already proven himself to be.

For more on this subject, check out what Kate Harding said on Salon.com or what Kate Dailey wrote for Newsweek.