Downsized (NBC)

In the second major piece of NBC news today,  America's version of Ricky Gervais's mockumentary The Office is ending after a final, ninth season.

This is where the expression "to put something out of its misery" comes from, right?

The Office has been limping along for seasons now ... even before the departure of the show's star, Steve Carell. (One could argue that the show lost its way once the tension of Jim and Pam's "Will they or won't they" relationship was resolved, which is probably why the British version ended after Tim and Dawn shared their first kiss.)

The last season made it clear that The Office didn't have that long to live: the ratings had dropped to those of its first, limping season, and many of Dunder Mifflin's staples already one foot out the door: writers/EPs/actors Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak  announced they were on their way out to work on The Mindy Kaling Project; head writer Daniel Chun made a deal with ABC; former show runner Paul Lieberstein (who played beleaguered HR rep Toby Flenderson) was leaving with Rainn Wilson to work on a spin-off about Dwight; series stars John Krasinski, Ed Helms and Jenna Fischer hadn't renewed their contracts, and newcomer James Spader ended his contract early.

But at least The Office might go out with a bang. According to show runner Greg Daniels:

This year feels like the last chance to really go out together and make an artistic ending for the show that pays off a lot of the stuff that matters most to fans,” Daniels said. “This will be the last season of The Office. And we’re planning a very big exciting last season. We’re going to have a lot of faces coming back … There are a lot of things that I’ve personally been wanting to do since season two … All questions will be answered this year. We’re going to see who’s behind the documentary … Now that we know we have an end date we can blow things up and take some chances and it will be very freeing, creatively."

That being said, Mr. Daniels himself only announced his return as The Office's show runner in July, after spending four years splitting his time as an executive producer of the cubicle comedy and it's time-slot follow-up, Parks and Recreation.

Knightley and Carell in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

Don’t worry about floods, earthquakes or burning to death in an apocalyptic fire. When the end comes, protect yourself with love. This is the message conveyed in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, writer-director Lorene Scafaria’s feature film debut. It’s an intriguing take on the apocalypse as a pragmatic tone poem, with comedian Steve Carell in his first deeply dramatic role (at least, the first one I’ve seen). He is very touching and unexpectedly appealing, and with co-star Keira Knightley he exhibits a romantic chemistry of which I never thought him capable.

An asteroid named Matilda 70-miles wide is hurling toward planet Earth and is expected to collide in 21 days. Cell phones are useless. Water and power are cut off. People trying to escape the cities are trapped in endless gridlock. Life has lost all meaning, and the final flights on commercial airlines have just left the ground, signalling the demise of air travel forever. Mr. Carell plays Dodge, an insurance salesman, who watches the unfolding tragedy on the network news with a mixture of horror and resignation, while his wife simply leaps from the car and leaves him on the spot. He’s introverted and already bruised by life. Now he faces death alone. “This is the Titanic,” says his best friend, “and there’s not a life boat in sight.”

Enter Penny, a flaky downstairs neighbor in his apartment building he’s always carefully avoided—neurotic, extroverted, resistant to reality. Secretly, she’s been withholding Dodge’s mail and now she delivers a letter from his long-lost high-school sweetheart. Distraught and clueless as to where to turn next, the two strangers who have met accidentally join forces and hit the highway to find his old lover in New Jersey, then travel on to locate Penny’s family in Maryland. The movie chronicles their road trip and introduces the characters they meet along the way—a man they hitch a ride with who speeds up his suicide with the help of a hired assassin, the partygoers in a roadside diner where the staff serves an orgy to desperate, oversexed customers, a highway cop determined to uphold the law right up to the final blackout by writing up a speeding ticket. Penny locates an old boyfriend living in a fallout shelter with enough potato chips to last another six months. Dodge gets as far as a reunion with the estranged father he hasn’t seen in years (Martin Sheen). The movie shows how perspectives change—or remain the same—in the face of ultimate tragedy. There is room for tears, mixed with unexpected humor. As the final blackout approaches and the TV stations leave the airwaves with one final test pattern, the announcer reminds everyone watching to set their clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time.

This is an unusual film, resistant to the usual end-of-mankind clichés. The script is full of surprises, even when the parts don’t always come together with the desired impact. The pace sometimes drags, and the focus wavers. Yet the film asks a lot of valid, disturbing questions to which Lorene Scafaria’s screenplay provides no easy answers. What would you do? Take up smoking again? Drink all the vodka in the liquor cabinet? Eat every fattening food the nutrition Nazis warn about? Have sex with anyone you want because “nobody is anybody’s anything anymore?” In the overlapping hours of their search, Dodge and Penny find a new definition of love that is irresistibly moving. If nothing else, see it for the two central performances. Keira Knightley finds a role without a trace of her usual glamour, while Steve Carell finally stretches his talents with more depth and quiet thoughtfulness than he’s ever been invited to previously display.

After so many hellish apocalypse movies, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is intelligent, dignified and emotionally satisfying. The message is simple. If the end is inevitable, then it’s better to face it with your arms around someone you love than alone and forlorn in an empty bed. The choices you make can lead to something oddly akin to optimism.

rreed@observer.com

SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

Running Time 101 minutes

Written and Directed by Lorene Scafaria

Starring Steve Carell, Keira Knightley and Melanie Lynskey

3/4

Gosling and Carell.

What to say about an uphill slog called Crazy, Stupid, Love? It’s not nearly crazy enough to clear the clogged arteries of summer comedies, and when the love appears, it’s in all the wrong places. Oh well, at least they nailed the stupid part.

This movie is so hapless that not even two directors could get it right. Guided with a sledgehammer by the team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and written with a No. 2 soft-lead kindergarten pencil by Dan Fogelman, this snore stars a number of  talented people who should have known better. After 25 years of marriage, square suburban doofus Cal (Steve Carell, who invents these roles as vehicles, and produced this one to prove it) is devastated to learn that his wife, Emily, (Julianne Moore) is committing adultery with her boss (Kevin Bacon) and filing  for divorce. Their creepy 13-year-old son is in love with his 17-year-old babysitter, but she’s in love with Cal, who doesn’t know it. Drowning in self-pity, Cal lands in dating hell, hanging out at a local bar for the depressed and displaced, sipping vodka and cranberry with a straw. A supercilious stranger and self-anointed King of the Babe Magnets named Jacob (a dismally miscast Ryan Gosling) says, “I don’t know whether I should help you or euthanize you,” but takes on the task of helping Cal get his mojo back while sticking him with a bar bill for $837.

This is the kind of movie in which real men drink scotch instead of Cosmos and wear suede instead of Ralph Lauren. After all the counseling and all the hours at the gym and the new wardrobe, the woman Cal chooses to try out his new sex appeal is Marisa Tomei, who turns out to be his son’s eighth grade English teacher. Meanwhile Jacob, who is supposed to be all man (but with a weakness for buying things on the Home Shopping Network), blows his own cover when he meets a girl he calls a “game changer,” played by Flavor of the Month Emma Stone. It’s the first time he’s ever taken a woman to bed and talked himself to sleep. Of course the “game changer” turns out to be the movie’s only big surprise. I’d be a cad to reveal her identity before you have a chance to head for the doors marked “Exit.” From here, this thumping snooze rattles and woofs its way into a crazy quilt of mistaken  identity with almost the  entire cast punching it out in a massive donnybrook in Cal’s back yard, where he sometimes shows up in the middle of the  night to water his  old rose bushes. Before it all ends at a junior-high graduation that has to be seen to be believed, they all grow up, learn to be  better people and discover the true meaning of love in  a finale that can only be described as utterly preposterous.

None of this is much fun to watch. The pace drags. The acting is without contrast or color. Farce is not Ryan Gosling’s style; he looks like he’s coming down with something contagious. Steve Carell plays this kind of nerdy, squarely dressed, aging dweeb in his sleep. He has a patent on the role, but hasn’t got a clue about how to make it look anything more than ossified. Crazy Stupid Love is an alleged comedy comprising currents of disconnected irony. For it to work those threads should meet in some believable fashion. Instead, they unravel faster than the drawstring on a pair of 32-inch gym shorts worn by a man with a 42-inch waistline.

rreed@observer.com

CRAZY STUPID LOVE

Running time 117 minutes

Written by Dan Fogelman

Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore

1/4

Despicable Me

What's the story: Otherwise known as the 3D animated movie that isn't Toy Story 3. Or Shrek Forever After. Universal's entry into the Summer of Animation feels a bit mysterious, if only because the trailers remain fairly vague. But here are the basics: Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is a supervillain who gets thwarted in his attempt to steal the moon when three orphaned girls come into his life. Touching life lessons and hilarious 3D effects ensue. Jason Segal, Russell Brand, Will Arnett and Julie Andrews provide supporting voice work. If you have kids - and don't feel like seeing Toy Story 3 for a fifth time - this is your winner.

Who should see it: Buzz and Woody.

Predators

What's the story: Have you been sitting there waiting for a sequel worthy of the 1987 endlessly quotable Arnold Schwarzenegger action romp Predator to hit theaters (sample dialogue: "Get to the chopper!")? Well good news! Producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal -- real name, fyi -- bring you Predators, which despite the presence of three other Predator sequels appears to be the heir apparent to the original film. Adrien Brody leads a motley crew -- Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne -- as a group of criminals and hardened military types try to outwit a bunch of massive alien monsters who can become invisible at any moment. The reviews have been solid -- calling Predators a midnight movie classic in the making. Hey, Brody didn't win that Oscar for nothing, right?  

Who should see it: Arnold.

The Kids Are All Right

What's the story: The best reviewed movie of the summer -- non-Toy Story 3 and Inception division. Lisa Cholodenko's Sundance favorite has found near unanimous critical approval -- our Rex Reed gave it three eyeballs -- and it seems to be the one-stop-shop for all your summertime Academy Award withdrawals. To wit: Annette Bening and Julianne Moore star as a lesbian couple raising two children (Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson) who have their life upturned when their sperm donating father (Mark Ruffalo) comes back into the picture. Expect new age family values and a whole lot of bathed-in-sunlight California vistas.

Who should see it: People who already saw Cyrus.

Ricky Gervais

While some people might assume that replacing Carell with Gervais would be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic because of how similar their Office characters are, consider: Not only would the return of Gervais' David Brent allow for even more closure of his character, it would create a maelstrom of culture shock. Plus Gervais is inherently "meaner" as a comic actor than Carell, something the staid Office could use to create a major jolt. Also: Gervais is hilarious.

Zach Woods/Ed Helms

Brought on last season as a liaison for Dunder-Mifflin's parent company, Sabre, Zach Woods' persnickety Gabe is—at the very least—organizationally inline for Michael's job. But there is no way NBC and The Office will leave the reigns to a very funny bit player who is most famous for the criminally underseen In the Loop. So, workaround! Make Gabe the boss and then shift the focus of the series onto Ed Helms' Andy Bernard. The Hangover made Helms a big star, and it's about time The Office cashed in on that completely.

Maya Rudolph

30 Rock has Tina Fey. Parks and Recreation has Amy Poehler. So why shouldn't The Office have Maya Rudolph? Putting aside Grown Ups for a second, she's shown herself to have not only impeccably wacky comedy chops (Saturday Night Live), but also the capacity for dramatic pathos as well (Away We Go). And as any fan of The Office knows, both are necessary in bushels to make the series work.

Date Night

What's the story: A funny thing about Date Night: If it starred anyone but Tina Fey and Steve Carell, you'd probably view the comedy as cinematic arsenic. Ms. Fey and Mr. Carell play a married couple who attempt to spice up their boring routine by going out for the night in Manhattan. Unfortunately, a case of mistaken identity sends them running from cops, crooks and a whole assorted mess of trouble. The premise seems like some studio amalgam of The Out-of-Towners and After Hours, but since Shawn Levy (he of Night at the Museum fame) directs, don't go in expecting Neil Simon or Martin Scorsese. The reviews confirm as much, so consider yourself warned.

Who should see it: Liz Lemon and Michael Scott.

Also opening this weekend: La Mission, in which Benjamin Bratt gives the performance of his career, and the highly skippable horror film After.Life. (Beware movie titles with innovative punctuation.)

OMFG! It really must be Fall, because our DVR runneth over with all the shows coming back this week (thank you, universe). Tonight, it’s the recession-proof Gossip Girl with season three. Most of the gang are in college now (though we can’t keep it straight how many of these guys have now “opted” to go to NYU instead of Yale – this play, btw, was totally trail-blazed by Andrea Zuckerman way back when. Suck it, new 90210!), and judging from the previews we can expect the usual: Chuck and Blair trading witticisms, Chase Crawford and his remarkable bone structure, and Blake Lively and all that hair. Yay! Um, also, we all agree that this show is totally silly, right? OK then. [CW, 8 p.m.]

TUESDAY: The Biggest Loser

Say what you will about former NBC wonderboy Ben Silverman, but let’s give the man some credit, at least, for The Biggest Loser. Gosh, this show! This eighth go around looks more emotional than ever (we totally got misty during the preview for heaven’s sake). They’ve brought back one of the guys who didn’t make it last time around: Daniel, a sweet pink-faced boy who weighed in at 454 lbs making him the heaviest contestant ever – and if you think you won’t be hearing that phrase about a thousand times, you’d think wrong. Also, there is a very nice-looking lady competing who lost her husband and two children in a car crash in 2006. Good lord, lady, we’re already rooting for you (note to NBC: you are evil, evil geniuses and we sorta love you). [NBC, 8 p.m.]

WEDNESDAY: Roger Dodger

Back in 2002, the very first year of its existence, the Tribeca Film Festival awarded Roger Dodger its top prize. And you know what? This thing holds up pretty well, if only to see the truly excellent performances by Campbell Scott (who really should be working more and not just popping up in crappy TV shows every once in a while) and Jesse Eisenberg, making his feature film debut as an impressionable youth being schooled in the ways of love by his deeply-troubled Uncle Roger. Remember when Mr. Eisenberg was Michael Cera before there even was a Michael Cera? We’re thinking he might end up winning the sensitive nerd-off eventually. [IFC, 6:05 p.m.]

THURSDAY: The Office

Season six premieres tonight – and isn’t it crazy that this thing has not only trudged along right up to the line of greatness that was the British original and then kept on going? Anyway, tonight’s episode has the office drones gossiping about the interns (the Observer wouldn’t know anything about that) while Michael (Steve Carell) searches for something juicy to share while Andy (Ed Helms) struggles with his heterosexuality. Also, not for nothing, but how great was it to see B.J. Novak show up in Inglourious Basterds? [NBC, 9 p.m.]

FRIDAY: The Abyss

Want to feel really old? James Cameron’s The Abyss came out twenty years ago. Now, while everyone is all whipped up into a tizzy over Avatar (which, no matter how insistent every Comic-Con nerd is, still just looks to us like a Led Zeppelin album cover come to life) let’s remember this one, which totally blew our minds (twenty years ago, when we saw it in the theater, sigh). Most of the action takes place under water (and there are all sorts of things happening in there) and perhaps this is the film that made us realize that the ocean is really just outer space but wet. Gah! Starring hunky Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (doing all the curly-haired ladies right) and Michael Biehn (who will always be hot man-from-the-future Kyle Reese, AKA John Connor’s father, from Terminator). [HBO, 6 a.m.]

It's 2 a.m. and you awake with a jerk, alone in your fully lit apartment and still on the couch. On TV, the credits of some movie you've already seen a billion times are scrolling by. It feels like rock bottom. And we know, because we're just like you: single.

Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can't keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Get Smart [starting @ 10 p.m. on HBO Signature]

Why we’ll try to stay up and watch it: Count us among the people who were worried about Steve Carell’s movie career. Since Little Miss Sunshine debuted in the summer of 2006, our favorite master of awkward pathos has seen his movie career go kinda stale—Evan Almighty? Really?—and, with the exception of Date Night, co-starring Tina Fey, his upcoming slate of films seems filled with similar middle-of-the-road mediocrity. It was his participation in Get Smart, though, that really stuck in our craw. To wit: Why would a talent like Steve Carell waste his time taking on the role of Maxwell Smart in an ill-advised, big-budget adaptation of a long forgotten television series? And then we saw Get Smart and figured it all out. Simply, this is a movie where Steve Carell gets to play James Bond and make out with Anne Hathaway. If you can't get behind an actor wanting to partake in something like that, you should probably reevaluate your priorities.

This isn’t to say that Get Smart is a pinnacle of comedic filmmaking. Director Peter Segal, best known for the highly underrated 50 First Dates, is the type of comedy director who still thinks jokes about the noise someone urinating makes are funny (spoiler alert: they’re not). But he’s at his best when he just points the camera at Mr. Carell and lets him act silly.

That being said, most of our enjoyment of this thing stems from the chemistry between Mr. Carell and Ms. Hathaway. Hatchi matchi! Against all odds, these two actually burn up the screen together. We know. It doesn't make any sense to us, either (Mr. Carell is 20 years Ms. Hathaway's senior), but we totally buy their hastily sketched relationship. Huzzah’s for this probably should go to Ms. Hathaway, who has proven herself to be one of the most charming—and lets face it, straight-up gorgeous—actresses working in film today. She looks like she’s having a blast in Get Smart and shows enough comedic range to stand toe-to-toe with Mr. Carell. Imagine if Knocked Up had actually starred her, like it was originally supposed to, instead of Katherine Heigl?

When we’ll probably fall asleep: Can we make a rule that Alan Arkin has to appear in every movie, well, ever? The Oscar winner shows up in Get Smart as The Chief, and while he's only onscreen for roughly 10 minutes, he’s flat-out hilarious; the interactions he shares with Mr. Carell are simply to die for. So we’ll make it to 12:32 a.m., 92 minutes into the movie, when Mr. Carell’s Agent 86 crashes his car into a plaster swordfish (you can see for yourself) and asks aloud, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” To which The Chief deadpans, “I don't know. Were you thinking, ‘Holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went through my head?’ If so, yes.” Someone cast these two as father and son and get it over with already.

“If I were a football player, I would be a quarterback,” Erin Andrews, ESPN’s blond bombshell of a sideline reporter, told the Daily Transom on Friday night, April 24.  “It’s the most important!”

We would have guessed tight end.

Sporting a blue dress and heels, Playboy's 2009 Sexiest Sportcaster of the Year–fresh off her opening-day coverage at the New York Mets' brand-spankin' new Citi Field, where she sampled the culinary offerings of rookie stadium concessionaire Danny Meyer ("I really enjoyed the barbeque sandwich," she said)–joined former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan and New York Jets offensive lineman D’Brickashaw Ferguson, among a smattering of entertainers and a few football heroes of the past, present, and future, at Seth Greenberg's posh party spot Espace in far west midtown for ESPN The Magazine’s sixth annual pre-NFL draft party.

The boozy event kicks off each year on the night before college football’s elite performers get snatched up by NFL teams and signed to multi-million-dollar contracts. (Top pick Matt Stafford wound up taking home a whopping $72 million!)

"It's a special occasion and you have to look good," said Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who, dressed in all black, nearly crushed the Daily Transom's writing hand with his death-grip shake. (We can see why he never fumbles!)

Both New York teams–the Giants and Jets–had important choices to make at Saturday's draft, which weighed heavily on players' minds at the pre-party.

Brandon Jacobs, the Giants' star fifth-year running back, hoped the team would pick a wide receiver to help replace the beleaguered Plaxico Burress, whom the team recently released amid weapons charges against the one-time Super Bowl hero. (A noted party hound, Mr. Burress did not attend the ESPN shindig.)

“I like the group of receivers that we have now,” the tank-like, 264-pound Mr. Jacobs diplomatically stated, “but if we can draft a receiver that could help us I hope we do that.” Giants General Manager Jerry Reese must have been listening because the team selected towering University of North Carolina wide-out Hakeem Nicks.

As for the Jets, who narrowly missed the playoffs last year and have a new head coach going into the season, Darrelle Revis, the team's star defensive back, wasn’t sure who he wanted his team to draft. “It’s tough,” he told the Daily Transom, “we need help at a lot of different positions.” (The Jets ended up picking University of Southern California quarterback Marc Sanchez in the first round.)

Toward the end of the evening, the Daily Transom caught up with actor Idris Elba, who played the ruthless drug lord Stringer Bell on HBO’s The Wire for five seasons. We asked him what position he thought that character would play on the gridiron. “I have no clue,” the dashing 36-year-old actor replied. Turns out, Mr. Elba is a Brit, and thus more of a football (read: soccer) fan; he roots for the London-based team Arsenal.

Mr. Elba had just finished up a six-episode arc on NBC’s The Office and is currently starring in the box-office blockbuster Obsessed alongside silverscreen sirens Beyoncé Knowles and Ali Larter. We wondered who Mr. Elba preferred working with, Office funnyman Steve Carell or the ubiquitous Beyoncé? “That’s a tough one,” Mr. Elba replied. “Steve is a funny, funny guy, but of course, Beyoncé is prettier.”

Do Date Night!

When we read about this project last summer, we had to pinch ourselves to make sure it was an actual reality. Date Night would match Mr. Carell with his fellow NBC stable mate Tina Fey, as the two would play a married couple who decide to spice up their marriage by … going out on a date. Predictably, hijinks ensue. The idea of matching comedy titans Ms. Fey and Mr. Carell within the structure of the always-reliable "one crazy night" movie is enough to make us faint. Not even director Shawn Levy, he of Night at the Museum infamy, could temper our excitement. Mr. Carell, find room for this film before it’s too late!

Don’t do Get Smart 2!

And don’t find room for this. Though the first Get Smart ended up being a pretty decent success for Warner Brothers last summer (amazingly, it grossed $130 million), we hope Mr. Carell flat-out avoids the sequel. For an actor with so many opportunities, it seems like doing Get Smart 2 would be a total waste of his time. And if Mr. Carell is worried about losing his family-friendly sheen, we’re sure Dinner for Schmucks, which he’s already committed to, will have the same broad appeal as Get Smart 2. Of course, the truck full of money Warner Brothers backs up to his front door will have more to do with his decision on this film than anything creative.

Do The Beaver!

That sounds much dirtier than we had anticipated. Anyway! The Beaver has been called the funniest script on the 2008 Black List—Hollywood’s list of unproduced screenplays—and it seems like the type of film that is both tailor-made for Mr. Carell’s strengths and different enough to push him into areas he’s never dared go. First time screenwriter Kyle Killin’s script centers on a man who walks around with a beaver puppet on his hand, treats it like a real thing, and uses to it express his feelings. Part Lars and the Real Girl, part Jim Carrey and part Paul Schrader, The Beaver could be a step forward for Mr. Carell from his pathos-laden work in Little Miss Sunshine. He can do something like Get Smart 2 or Dinner for Schmucks in his sleep; we want him to take a role that actually challenges him. The Beaver would be perfect.