Received an autograph request I didn’t really think I would get back. Hugh Jackman (Australia, The Prestige, X Men) sent the photo back signed. He is currently in a play in New York with Daniel Craig called A STEADY RAIN. The play ends December 5th.
Address I used
Hugh Jackman c/o A Steady Rain, Shoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45, Between Broadway and 8th Ave, New York, NY 10036
“We are family….”
The Birdcage is a remake of the French classic, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, and hopefully will be become a comedy classic all its own. Armand and Albert are a gay couple running a night club in Miami, and Armand finds out his son is getting married. It just so happens he is getting married to an ultra-conservative Senator’s daughter. The Senator is in search of some good PR as his political companion was found dead with a minor prostitute. A wholesome family wedding seems to be the Senators answer for the media, and Val, the straight son, is worried about the Senator meeting his gay parents. Hence the attempt at a transformation to be a straight couple, complete with redecorating their home and changing the way they act…and finally the dinner with the parents.
I have heard a few complaints that all the characters are stereotypical and over the top. Yes, they are. But this film works for that very reason. It is not a film that is begging to be taken to seriously. Even though over the top, the characters are well-developed and likable. Robin Williams (Best supporting Actor Good Will Hunting, The Night Listener, One Hour Photo) give s a spot on performance as Armand and Nathan Lane (The Lion King, Nicholas Nickleby) is perfect as Armand’s mate and star of the Birdcage nightly drag queen show, Starina! Gene Hackman (Best Actor The French Connection, Unforgiven) is a nice casting choice for the conservative senator. The final scene with Gene Hackman dressed in drag and attempting to sing We Are Family, is worth the price of a ticket, or a rental in this case. Ok, since we are talking about performances, by the show stealer is Hank Azaria (Run Fatboy Run, Along Came Polly) who plays the very feminine butler Agador. He nails his performance right on the head. If he is in the scene, he is stealing it! Just a wonderfully funny performance!
Overall, I would highly recommend this film. It has many laugh out loud moments and truly priceless scenes. Mike Nichols (Charlie Wilson’s War, Closer) does a wonderful job of directing this talented cast and keeps this a very colorful and bright film. Visually and emotionally. If you haven’t seen it, do so! As for me, I’ll watch it again, probably for the 15th time.
Away We Go is the 5th film from Director Sam Mendes. Known for American Beauty, Road to Perdition and last years Revolutionary Road which are very dark in tone and content, this is a step away from the norm from him and frankly is a breath of fresh air. Away We Go is the story of Burt, played by John Krasinski (The Office, Leatherheads) and Verona, who are a mid-thirties couple who find out they are going to have their first child. Burt’s parents played by Jeff Daniels (Gettysburg, Speed) and Catherine O’hara (Best in Show, Beetlejuice) decide to move to Belgium a month before the baby is born. Burt and Verona, having no ties to their home town any more, go exploring for the perfect place to raise a family. visiting lots of friends and family across the country, it is a fun adventure of possibilities.
The performances in the film are all pretty good, but the one surprise performance that stands out is that of Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary). She plays Burt’s cousin and takes the idea of being close as a family to a whole new level, to the point of being creepy. Her performance is spot on as she delivers her lines with complete confidence without batting and eye as she talks about sharing a bed with her husband….and her kids! She is so good in this role, I could see her getting a Supporting Actress nomination.
Overall I don’t think this is Sam Mendes best film as the movies mentioned previously are very powerful films, but this is a very light, intelligent and delightful film. I would recommend seeing this movie, it is something fresh and not the usual rehashing of a story line you have seen twenty times already. Worth watching for sure!
“Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house. A man has been called for as a last resort to try and save her. That man is The Exorcist“
Ok, you can tell I am still catching up on reviews from the Halloween season. So, it’s not like I am getting in the holiday season mood with a viewing of The Exorcist. In my opinion the scariest movie ever made. This is also one of the few horror movies that received critical acclaim, nominated for a total of 10 Oscars including Best Picture. If you don’t know the story, it is about a young girl possessed by a demon. Her mother turns to a local priest, who has just lost his mother and is starting to have questions about his own faith. It is this priest, Father Karras, who realizes the little Girl Regan needs a lot of help, in fact she needs an Exorcist.
This film has a great cast of characters. Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream, The Yards, and Best Actress nominee for The Exorcist) plays Regan’s mother and local actress, Chris MacNeil. She plays a very caring mother who really doesn’t have a strong religious background of any kind, yet finds herself to the point of breaking down and helpless when it comes to helping her sick daughter. Jason Miller plays Father Karras, who was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in this film. A wonderful surprise performance from Linda Blair (Airport 1975, The Exorcist 2: The Heretic) who plays Regan. She was nominated for Supporting Actress. Unfortunately she did such a great job, she fell into a Hollywood stereo type of playing in a lot of B Horror movies like Hell Night. Long time great Lee J. Cobb (12 Angry Men, The Three Faces of Eve) also has a significant role as the detective investigating the murder.
I know some that have laughed this movie off, and I guess that can be expected some as much as this film has been lampooned and joked about. Just mentioning the words “Pea Soup” is iconic for the film, and even people who haven’t seen the film get this reference. Is it a horror film. Yes. Is it a religious film. Yes. The one thing this film will always remain is a true classic and the scariest film of all time.
If you have never heard of this film or maybe you have heard of it and just haven’t gotten around to seeing it, it is worth discovering. This small Austrian film took home the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2008 Academy Awards. This is a film about Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch. Operating as one of the top counterfeiters in the world, his luck finally runs out and he is captured by the Germans, and of course being Jewish, sent to the concentration camps. The Germans spot him as a counterfeiter and he is shipped to a different camp, where the largest counterfeit operation in history is being run. The Germans goal, to successfully counterfeit the english pound and the american dollar in hopes of flooding the market and destroying the economies of England and the United States.
One thing fresh about this film is that it does not deal with concentration camps in cliché ways, as well as the Germans, many are not presented in cliché ways either. For the most part the audience is not subjected to the horrors of everyday life in a concentration camp, but everyone knows it existed outside of the counterfeiting group. The talented counterfeiters were afforded clean sheets, food, showers and even classical music. This is where most of the character conflict comes from, how someone’s criminal ways are now saving his life.
In all, this is one of those films everyone should see once, even if it is just from a historic purpose as it is based on a true story. Until I saw the film, I had no idea this kind of operation was taking place. The film is very well written, and very well acted I might ad. I highly recommend his movie. You will know more about counterfeiting by the end of this movie that you ever thought you would know. It is interesting on so many levels throughout, political and human. If you can make it through subtitles (I know some don’t like them), I suggest you give this one a chance, you will be glad you did.
“Call me Snake.”
When the President of the United States is stranded in what is now a prisoned New York City, there is no one better to turn to than Snake Plissken. Snake, being sent to prison for life, has a chance for freedom if he agrees to rescue the President. Air Force One has gone down over Manhattan Island, which is now one big prison. The rest of the film are Snake Plissken’s adventures tracking down and rescuing the President.
Kurt Russell (Tombstone, Death Proof, Miracle) does a wonderful job playing Snake. An anti-hero much in the same realm as the Clint Eastwood’s “man with no name” character in the spaghetti westerns. In fact the director turns to spaghetti western film star, Lee Van Cleef (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, High Noon) as Snake’s nemesis who acts as a “warden” for the prison. The film also stars Earnest Borgnine (Best actor Marty), Harry Dean Stanton (Alien), Donald Pleasence (Halloween), and the Chef from South Park…Isaac Hayes.
I can see where Escape from New York may not be for everyone, as it is fairly low-budget, but for me John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, The Thing) makes it all work. It is a very entertaining film and has some comedic moments for relief. I would say give this one a chance if you haven’t, it is not that long and is a lot of fun.
This disaster movie turned out to be just that, a complete disaster! I wasn’t expecting much going in, in fact I knew going in that this was going to be just a special effects extravaganza and might be only that. Still, something entertaining to watch with popcorn and gummy cola bottles. As you can tell from the trailers, the film is simply about the earths crust shifting and disaster begins, and it is the mission of a family that has discovered the secret to survive by reaching an ark that will save humanity. Sound familiar? Deep Impact, Armageddon…take your pick of several.
With some of the big name actors in this, you wonder how they got this film so screwed up. John Cusak (High Fidelity, Grosse Point Blank) plays a writer who has figured out the governments secret and is trying to save his family. I use the term PLAY loosely, as he does absolutely nothing special in his role. Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, The People vs Larry Flynt) plays the obligatory crazy conspiracy theorist that has the whole thing figured out and no one seems to listen. As much as I thought he was perfectly cast in Zombieland, he is that much miscast in this one. If it was a comedic break to put this character in, it fails miserably. Thandi Newton (Crash), Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards), and Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon) are also on-screen simply getting a paycheck. The only character I was sort of interested in was Carl who was played by Oliver Platt (Frost Nixon). I thought he had a few lines that brought comedic relief to the film, but not for long. His character in the end was as flat and left for dead just like everyone else.
Ok, let’s get to the special effects. If you saw the trailer, you have seen the best of them, and there wasn’t much more than that. The effects were not even that enjoyable to watch as they had to make EVERY effect just hugely over the top….and I don’t mind over the top, but this was over kill. Every plane that took off had to escape an oncoming black cloud (Seen that one in Dante’s Peak), every car scene had to jump a chasm caused by an earthquake that just happened right in front of them. Every effect seemed to have the most unreal of circumstances happen in each one. Why not just make a scary situation and put the people on the edge of their seat? Na, just make everything so over the top and unbelievable that leaves the audience sighing and shaking their head in disbelief.
Well, you don’t have to guess whether I would recommend this one or not. This movie is basically an insult to an audiences intelligence. For example a girl whistles for a dog that is 100 yards away and among 1000s of rioting people, and goes to the girl. Ok, so maybe a dog’s hearing is good, the dog is a King Charles Spaniel, and very sweet dogs, but dumb as a bag of hammers (If I can borrow the line from George Clooney in O Brother). Yet this dog tight rope walks a steel cable like nothing else. My brothers King Charles is a connoisseur of Barbie Clothes and small rocks, so tightrope walking, give me a break. Also, this film gets very old as each character, (conveniently representing different nationalities and races) are given the chance to say good-bye to loved ones. I couple of scenes, OK, I will live with it, but give me a break.
This movie is not worth seeing at all, and not even a rental for me. It is terrible acting and absolutely no story. Had I not seen Year One, this film would have got my vote for worst picture this year.
You can tell it is around Halloween by the amount of horror movies I am put through by my better half. Unfortunately Dying breed does not offer anything you haven’t seen already, and is horror movie cliché number #14. Group of teens go into woods, find backwoods locals who seem to be inbred, stalked while out camping. Sound familiar? Reminded me of Wolf Creek which was mediocre at very best or The Hills Have Eyes. Not anything new to offer.
Dying Breed was directed by Jody Dwyer, who really hasn’t done much else…thank goodness. This is an Australian made film and takes place in the forests of Tasmania. A group of young adults go to the backwoods to seek out proof of the Tasmanian Tiger. I would like to tell you more of a story here about what this film was about, and I realize I would be repeating myself from the first paragraph, that is how shallow this movie is. A lot of the horror is gratuitous violence that is not even done well. The acting isn’t much better with often times silly dialog between characters that are they basic group, hot girl who is the leader, obnoxious guy who dies the most violent death (so you don’t really care), smart brainy guy, and attractive girlfriend. Ok, you can fill in from here…you know this story and have seen it many times.
Needless to say, I wouldn’t recommend this at all. Nothing fresh comes from this film in any category, acting, directing, story or special effects…it has all been done before and done much better. My advice, pick another movie.
To be honest, when I saw this in the theatre, I was on the fence about liking this film. After watching this again on bluray, I certainly enjoyed it more the second time around. Maybe because my expectations are were lowered a bit since going into it the first time, I really was wanting laugh out loud funny, and it didn’t deliver on that. Seeing it for what it is now, it is a light-hearted film with pleasantly funny scenes.
George Clooney (Oceans 11, Best Supporting actor for Syriana, Michael Clayton) directs and stars as “Dodge” Connelly, one of the veteran players in a dying professional football league. Clooney is adequate in this movie, but doesn’t deliver on the funny lines like O Brother Where art Thou. He still has some good chemistry going with Renee Zellweger (Chicago, Bridget Jones Diary), especially in the scene when they first meet. Trading one liners back and forth was great and could almost used a few more of those type of quick witted fast talking scenes in the movie. The Film also stars The Office regular, John Krasinski (Away We Go) who is nicely cast as the young college super star.
Ok, would I recommend it to people, yes. Not to mention enjoying period pieces, especially from the roaring 20’s era, this film is solid, and enjoyable from start to finish. It is a lot of fun seeing the old-time football, leather helmets, wooden scoreboards, very few rules and half empty stands. Nothing groundbreaking or innovative from this film, but it is film that is well done in all areas. Just sit back and enjoy this easy-going and lighthearted journey about the beginning of professional football.
Originally shot for 3-D, this one still works as one of the classic horror movies. Professor Henry Jarrod is betrayed, and is burned badly and thought to be dead. After disposing of his partner, Jarrod decides to reopen his House of Wax paying tribute to the macabre, making his Palace of Wax a true House of horrors.
The great Vincent Price (The Pit and the Pendulum) plays Henry Jarrod. He plays a good portion of the film with very heavy make-up, and in my opinion, maybe a little too much make-up. There is just something about his performances that are naturally creepy, down to the tone of voice and the way each line is delivered. Also if you think you recognize Igor, yes, that is Charles Bronson (Death Wish), even though he is credited under his real name Charles Buchinsky.
If you are in the mood for classic horror with style, you should watch this one. Since it was originally a 3-D movie, there a few shots that would not make it into a normal film, or at least be cut back. Still, this movie is all classic horror movie fun. Throw it on late at night with a big bowl of popcorn.
