2K Replay: PAPARAZZI

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for zero awards. Winner of zero awards. This is a 2K Replay first!

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): An evil paparazzo (played by Kevin Gage) falls off a cliff and every line delivery by Tom Sizemore.

• Best Song: “I Won’t Go Hollywood” by Bleu.

• Best Merch: A “Paparazzi 2004 double sided one sheet - 27x40 rolled” for $9.99. It’s actually a pretty good poster (by comparison to how posters are designed nowadays). I like the “One good shot deserves another” tagline. The italic for emphasis is a nice touch. This poster’s evocative. Go show this poster to someone you respect and tell them it’s evocative. They’ll think you’re classy.

• Director Grade: Paparazzi was directed by Paul Abascal. This appears to be his only feature film, but he’s directed a lot of television over the years including episodes of Silk Stalking, Nash Bridges, and Witchblade. Even cooler, he directed an episode of Tales from the Crypt (“Oil’s Well That Ends Well”) which is a blah episode but has a good wraparound sequence with the Crypt Keeper playing the Tales from the Crypt pinball game. Abscal started out in makeup & hairstyling, and this is where his resume really kicks ass. He worked on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Road House, Predator 2, Point Break, Demolition Man, Judge Dredd, and more. He should write a book about his set stories. Overall Grade: A

• Double It with This 2004 Movie: Walking Tall

• Year 2004 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Kill Bill Vol. 2, Man on Fire, The Punisher

• Color of Night or Paparazzi? Color of Night but it’s close.

• Mall Movie? Absolutely. A revenge programmer headlined by Cole Hauser is tailor-made for mall cinemas.

• Only in 2004: Cole Hauser playing the hero seemingly by default because the casting director went so hardcore casting the villains. How did this end up being rated PG-13?

• Scene Stealer (tie): Dennis Farina and Blake Michael Bryan who plays Cole Hauser’s young Jonathan Lipnicki-looking son. He goes into a coma for most of the film and then totally nails his reading of “Hi Dad!” when he comes out of the coma at the end.

• I Miss: A theatrical landscape that allowed for movies like Paparazzi to get a wide release in theaters.

• I Don’t Miss: Mel Gibson. He produced the movie and has a “funny” cameo as himself going to anger management therapy.

• 2004 Crush: Robin Tunney.

• 2024 Crush: Robin Tunney.

• What I Thought in 2004: I watched Paparazzi ironically mainly because I thought the premise was silly and it ended up becoming one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies of the 2000s. It’s really fun if you can get on its wavelength.

• What I Think in 2024: It’s the same movie I remember. Paparazzi sure is some junky nonsense but its junky nonsense done well with a good sense of humor. This is a perfect watch for the following Junesploitation days: Revenge (today!), Free Space (June 4, 15, 23, 26), 2000s Action (June 22), and Vigilantes (June 25).