Steve Martin hates us

Hey, do you remember back when Steve Martin didn’t completely f*cking hate us? It was an idyllic period, filled with actual remarkable work like THE JERK and ROXANNE and PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES and LA STORY. Hell, I’ll even throw in THREE AMIGOS and THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS. But then, the dreaded Eddie Murphy trajectory of excruciating remakes and junk like SGT. BILKO, THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS, BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE, and not just one but a pair (each) of FATHER OF THE BRIDEs and CHEAPER BY THE DOZENs.

I’d prefer not to mention THE PINK PANTHER, but that would negate the original point of the article, which is that a no-doubt equally intolerable sequel is on the way, and now has a director: Harald Zwart, who previously brought AGENT CODY BANKS to semi-life. I can actually hear the corpse of Peter Sellers spinning in its grave, if only to avoid being further sodomized.

Martin’s second turn as pratfalling policeman Inspector Clouseau was recently rewritten by veterans Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who count SPIES LIKE US, PARENTHOOD and CITY SLICKERS in their win column. The story will involve Martin making me desperately wish he’d do another Mamet movie or satire of Hollywood instead.