However Bad You Think The Jimmy Stewart Biopic Trailer Is Going To Be, I Promise It's Worse
Must be seen to be believed.
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I silently curse Hollywood every year, when awards season is inevitably dominated by up-and-coming actors doing their best impressions of prominent people and dead celebrities, and impersonating existing humans is yet again held up as the ultimate expression of acting talent. Yet after seeing this new trailer for Jimmy, apparently a biopic of the actor Jimmy Stewart, I think I may owe everyone an apology. This trailer seems to prove that doing an impression of a dead famous guy for a biopic and not having it seem painfully on-the-nose is maybe much harder than I imagined.
Even knowing KJ Apa’s Jimmy Stewart impression was going to be over-the-top (as is usually the case when a friend texts me a video and says “you gotta see this shit”) I still almost fell out of my chair when he hit “don’t I have a right to serve my country like everyone else does?”
It must be seen to be believed. Apa previously played the “Hot Archie Who Fucks” in the cult adaptation of Riverdale, which I still haven’t seen but I’m told was very fun.
Jimmy is set to focus on the life and work of Stewart, including his Oscar-winning performance in A Philadelphia Story, his stint in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and his career-defining role in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Later in the footage, Apa says, “Someday, I’d like to be able to look at myself in the mirror and see a good man looking back at me.” [THR]
The uncanniness continues with supporting performances from Jason Alexander, Rob Riggle, and Vinny Delpino from Doogie Howser (Max Casella, who actually shreds in Killing Them Softly and Inside Llewyn Davis). As Josh Billinson put it on Twitter, “I have never seen a movie more perfectly capture the vibe of a 30 ROCK cutaway gag.”
I kept waiting for the “Angel Studios” logo to come up at the end (that’s the Utah-based studio that distributed the Sound of Freedom movie, about which some have alleged sketchy business practices) but apparently it comes from something called Burns & Co. Productions, and director Aaron Burns. I haven’t heard of Burns & Co. before, but Jimmy is giving off big Jobs vibes—the infamous Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher bankrolled almost entirely by a “a publishing, communications and conference production company” magnate from Dallas.
In America, anyone with enough money can squander it on a Quixotic biopic project and I think that’s beautiful.
Oh, Steven Spielberg Has a Trailer Out Too
Elsewhere, here’s the just-dropped trailer for Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg’s new alien movie starring the divine Emily Blunt, Hot Rodent Man Josh O’Connor, Bono’s hot daughter, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo. It’s set to open this summer.
Is it just me, or did Spielberg steal the guttural alien noises from 1996’s The Arrival, starring Charlie Sheen?
Do you want to see the ruins, my friend?
Jello Biafra is Selling His 1989 Toyota Celica
Jello Biafra, former(?) lead singer of the seminal punk band Dead Kennedys, is selling his 1989 Toyota Celica, which, the Instagram post notes, “he has owned and driven since 1995.”
Proceeds from the auction will benefit @AlternativeTentacles, Biafra’s long-running independent record label.
The T160-generation Celica served as Biafra’s daily driver for decades and currently shows over 212,000 miles on the odometer. Despite its visible wear—described as proudly displaying its “battle scars”—the car “runs, rides, starts and stops top notch.”
Maintained with “no expenses spared” to ensure reliability, the car’s cosmetic condition was intentionally left untouched, allowing it to develop what is described as a natural “punk rock patina” earned on the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area.
I bring it up because a 90s Toyota Celica was arguably the unsung star of one of my favorite movies of the year, Caught Stealing, in which it’s driven by Cockney punk character played by Matt Smith, in full The Exploited-era punk styling (with Caught Stealing’s punky soundtrack coming courtesy of The Idles). Reddit says the car is a “fifth generation” Celica, which would be any year between 1990 and 1993. Did Darren Aronofsky know what car Jello Biafra drove, or are late 80s/early 90s Toyota Celicas just that punk rock-coded?
This is not to be confused, of course, with the other break out movie car star of the year, Bob Ferguson’s 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R that Leonardo DiCaprio drives in One Battle After Another.
Either way, it seems high time to declare that boxy Japanese car from the 80s-90s renaissance is upon us. I’m just sad that I crashed my dad’s 1986 Honda Accord hatchback into a tree a month after I turned 16.
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