A “Word-of-Mouth Sensation”?
“Ladies are gonna love Magic Mike,” enthuses Variety‘s Peter Debruge. “A lively male-stripper meller inspired by Channing Tatum‘s late-teen, pre-screen stint as an exotic dancer, it supplies more low-calorie fun than any Steven Soderbergh movie since Ocean’s Eleven. This breezy offering ought to be subtitled ‘How Steven Got His Groove Back,’ as its typically high-minded director drops pretentions like tear-away pants.
“Meanwhile, enlisting a squad of Hollywood hunks to strip down to their thongs alongside him, Tatum (backed by producing partner Reid Carolin) drains the shame from a profession that gets no respect, serving up a guiltless girls’ night out likely to rank among the summer’s word-of-mouth sensations.
“Soderbergh is in excellent form here, putting aside the ambitious experimentation that threw a wet blanket on such ostensibly sexy projects as Full Frontal and The Girlfriend Experience, while re-embracing the shooting techniques missing from Contagion and Haywire. (Once again, he serves as his own d.p., under the pseudonym Peter Andrews.) Tatum reportedly first approached Nicolas Winding Refn about making Magic Mike, but here he has the benefit of not only Soderbergh’s commercial savvy, but also the good-humored generosity and keen anthropological interest the helmer brings to every project.
“No moment captures that sensibility better than an oblique glimpse of backstage ‘fluffing’ — sure to rank among the year’s most amusing shots.”
Magic Mike opens on Friday, 6.29.
Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer.
Sure, women will love it but like the Sex & the City films, no straight man worth anything would be caught dead in a theatre showing the latest example of “Mommy Porn.”
Yes, straight men should be absolutely terrified by the male body and any possible homoerotic overtones. (Unless there are literal guns involved, in which case we’re talking an 80′s Schwarzenegger action flick.)
Da fuck is Debruge yammering on about? Contagion was really good and largely well-received. And The Informant! was only 3 years ago and deserved a better reception. That was “fun.”
I was totally down with Contagion..saw it twice, could see it again right now. I loved Haywire, enjoyed and got The Informant and totally worship Che — saw Parts 1 & 2 three times in theatres and own the Bluray — and approved of The Girlfriend Experience, particularly Glenn Kenny‘s under-appreciated performance as a porn blogger. And yet I wasn’t that enthralled with any of the Ocean’s films. And I met my Soderbergh Waterloo with Full Frontal. I’m seeing Magic Mike tomorrow with high expectations.
“Tatum reportedly first approached Nicolas Winding Refn about making Magic Mike…”
I don’t really understand this sentence. This surely was made before or around the time DRIVE dropped, so how did genial workaday actor Channing Tatum have an in with some Danish arthouse guy two or three years ago? How would Refn have been on Tatum’s radar? And how does some American journeyman actor “APPROACH” some Danish hotshot filmmaker?
Like Tatum goes to see BRONSON at the Nuart and is all “HEY MAN I THINK THAT DUDE SHOULD DIRECT MY LIFE STORY” and just calls him internationally?
How would anyone from AMERICA approach or CONTACT some dude in Denmark or wherever Refn’s from?
Thanks, Jeff. “Underpaid,” too. (Just kidding.) (Maybe not.)
Uh Lex, they have phones in Denmark? Also, agents.
I agree with Lex. I understand how he got in contact, but why? Refn is an arthouse director that seems to do personal projects in a particular way. His style and mood and tone doesn’t seem right for a movie about a male stripper.
I’ll just skip this and watch the inevitable Lifetime documentary movie: “From Breaking Dawn to Magic Mike: One Girl’s Cinematic Journey Into Womanhood”
Message from the marketing team: “If you don’t have a six-pack like Tatum or Manganiello, you can cover up with a wife-beater.” That’s a relief.
@The Thing – So instead of Refn, Tatum got an American arthouse director that seems to do personal projects in a particular way who’s style and mood and tone doesn’t seem right for a movie about a male stripper. Soderbergh must leave out the metaphors.
LOVE Soderbergh (totally with Jeff all the way on Contagion & Haywire), Tatum seems like a pretty agreeable screen presence, and I’m totally down with gay rights across the board (been a long time comin’, frankly).
Having said all three of those things? Still not a chance in hell I’m eveeeeeer going to see this fucker in a theater (HarryWarden = truth). ’80s action is obviously fine (a little homoeroticism is always welcome!), and I’m even down with watching Xavier Dolan or Almodovar films in the local arthouse (although I usually wear a baseball cap or a football jersey to offset things a bit; not gonna risk walking into All About My Mother in a pair of skinny jeans, open-collared dress shirt, and a Bogdanovichian scarf [not that I'd ever wear any of those things separately let alone in combination; weird example!]), but not particularly interested in watching a summer multiplex tentpoler (or is that a ten-foot-poler? ZING!) about a guy that strips off his clothes for women for a living (now, a guy that fucks other women for a living? Completely different — I dig Boogie Nights or Wonderland as much as the next straight guy).
Besides, if for whatever reason I do feel the sudden urge to suck off a guy? That’s what Adult Friend Finder was built for.
if Refn made a male stripper movie it would probably have a bit where the guy owed some money and some goons are going to cut him into little pieces ….
@Baxter
While Soderbergh is an artistic director, he’s got a more witty, slightly sarcastic and fun tone to his movies. Even Che had moments that made you smile and laugh quietly to yourself. I would also point to Ocean’s 11-13, Erin Brockovich, and The Informant as films that showed off his more “playful” side, if you will. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think of him for a movie about strippers (especially after The Girlfriend Experience).
Refn, on the other hand, has only made very serious, gritty, tough movies in his career. He has a very specific vision and tone for his films. Don’t get me wrong, I love Refn. But he just isn’t the first name I would think of being attached to a movie about Male Strippers, or a biopic about Channing Tatum. It’s just too silly for him.
Sorry, I can’t get over “mommy porn.” First, that would not be what this is. That would be porn involving mommies. But secondly, how offensive can you get. You know, we have to deal with “mom jeans” and “mom rock” but I draw the line at so-called porn. This is ANY WOMAN OF ANY LEGAL AGE catnip. Okay?
If straight men are nervous about their own sexuality they will stay away. If they are confident about it, they’ll see the movie. It’s as simple as that.
Sorry, I can’t get over “mommy porn.” First, that would not be what this is. That would be porn involving mommies. But secondly, how offensive can you get. You know, we have to deal with “mom jeans” and “mom rock” but I draw the line at so-called porn. This is ANY WOMAN OF ANY LEGAL AGE catnip. Okay? If straight men are nervous about their own sexuality they will stay away. If they are confident about it, they’ll see the movie. It’s as simple as that.
I flew solo for Shame, I can roll into this. Besides, if I go late enough, there might be some horny babe in the theatre trying to get her rocks off to the movie while craving for the real thing. You never know.
Sasha has apparently been living in a cave for a few years. Critics coined the term “Mommy Porn” in reference to 50 Shades of Gray originally to mean a work that functions as a sexual fantasy for older women and has since been applied to other similar works. Magic Mike fits that definition. The trailer even mentions the fantasy element because apparently, women are never happy with their real-life boyfriend or husband.
And to say that self-confident straight men would want to see this is dumb. A straight guy, by definition, wants to see movies about scantily-clad women, not men. It’s not too difficult a concept to understand.
I haven’t been living in a cave and I don’t care who coined the term it’s wrong. Gay porn, lesbian porn – seeing a pattern?
Harry, I see you have a problem having a discussion without resorting to “dumb” and “it’s not too difficult a concept to understand” and “living in cave.” So, my conclusion: you really don’t have a point. Cheap insults will only get you so far. Sooner or later you’re going to have to really think.
For Lex,
“After “Bronson” in 2008, Refn was lining up the thriller “The Dying Of The Light,” which would’ve starred Harrison Ford and Tatum in a Paul Schrader-penned film about a CIA agent who becomes afflicted by blindness. The project fell apart, but it seems Tatum and Refn were talking about reuniting on something entirely different.”
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/nicolas-winding-refn-was-originally-in-talks-to-direct-magic-mike-steven-soderbergh-has-no-desire-to-make-another-important-movie-20120626#