Category: External Movies (Page 206 of 336)

Hit and run

October 26, 2009 /

I’m a busy guy tonight, so let’s see how brief I can manage to be tonight with bits and pieces of movie news…

Ricky Gervais in * Ricky Gervais will be hosting the Golden Globes. I’m usually a one-award-show-yearly kind of a guy (and guess which show it is) but the fates and cool hosts like Gervais and Neal Patrick Harris are forcing me to actually watch more of the things.

* This post by Nikki Finke doesn’t really add much of anything new that I could see to a very good two week old L.A. Weekly piece about “coming out” PR specialist Howard Bragman, but it does underline the big changes that are surely coming in terms of how Hollywood, and the world, treats gay people.

* The Coen Brothers first ever real western — a new version of the not terribly critically or cinephile acclaimed 1969 John Wayne Oscar-winner, “True Grit” — may have a pretty high flying cast: Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are “in talks” to play bad guy and foil to Jeff Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn. Presumably Brolin is stepping into the role played by Robert Duvall, who was not quite famous a couple of years prior to “The Godfather,” while Damon will be playing the character first performed by my older sister’s all-time crush, singer-guitarist temporarily turned actor and TV variety host, Glen Campbell.

* A movie theater that serves samosas — that’s what I call movie going living, American Bollywood style.

Okay, that was pretty quick. Why can’t I do this every time?

Action Movies, Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News

RIP Lou Jacobi

October 26, 2009 /

Another more recognized than well known character actor has departed the planet with the passing of the apparently born-middle-aged Lou Jacobi at the age of 95. In a town full of Jewish actors and behind-the-camera talent, Jacobi and the late Ned Glass, who was as skinny as Jacobi was chubby and who made a recent cameo appearance here, were mid-century Hollywood’s central casting Jews, male division.

Appropriately enough, he began his career in the Broadway cast of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and appeared in George Stevens’ 1959 film version. From then on, he played an endless string of both fathers and uncles who were explicitly Jewish or, as they say in film classes, “coded” as Jewish, in innumerable TV and film roles. The one major exception was his role as the worldly wise bartender, Moustache, in Billy Wilder’s “Irma la Douce.” Still, within or without his usual niche, he was as reliable as comedic clockwork as you’ll see in these two rather amazing scenes.

First, a sketch from Woody Allen’s utterly loose 1972 non-adaptation of Dr. David Reuben’s huge and now ultra-dated bestseller, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex *But We’re Afraid to Ask.” The book was originally seen as the height of sexual rationality but quickly became passe in more enlightened quarters with, among other issues, its assumption that homosexuality was a disease. (At the time, Gore Vidal commented that Reuben was “not a man of science but a moderately swinging rabbi.”) The question behind this scene reflects those attitudes but, right up until it goes soft right at the last second, it’s mostly pure comedy greatness with Jacobi’s utterly sympathetic portrayal of a garden variety hetero transvestite who gets in just little over his head.

And here is a scene penned by another great seriocomic writer of the alienated Jewish variety, cartoonist-turned playwright Jules Feiffer. In a scene from 1971’s “Little Murders,” Jacobi is a bombastic judge who has a thing or fifteen to say about being asked by Elliot Gould and Marcia Rodd to remove any mention of God from a wedding ceremony.

Jacobi was someone I already missed seeing, and though he was no spring chicken, it’s sad to see him go. Edward Copeland has more.

Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, test

1960, the year graphic horror broke, part 3

October 25, 2009 /

So, as we saw in part 1 of this brief series of trailers inspired by this week’s box office rivalry between “Paranormal Activity” and “Saw VI,” in England in 1960 director Michael Powell made an artful but, at least by today’s standards, gently disturbing film — without a speck of blood or gore — about a sympathetic serial killer. The film scandalized the press and essentially ended his British filmmaking career, despite his status, apparently forgotten, as arguably the greatest English director. Around the same time, in part 2, we saw that France’s Georges Franju made an ultra-creepy tragedy with a notorious surgery scene that took decades to develop its international reputation as a horror classic.

In the U.S., Michael Powell’s old contemporary, Alfred Hitchcock, took on a film with a very similar killer to “Peeping Tom.” However, his approach was sneakier. First, we became sympathetic, then we learned who was actually doing it. The angle of voyeurism was present, but downplayed. But as for blood — well, in just under three minutes Hitch broke one small taboo by showing a toilet and by the end, he made it acceptable to show a naked women being hacked to death on screen in a mainstream Hollywood film. He was already probably the most famous director in the world but, as a result, he became even richer and more famous and as identified with horror as he had already been with suspense. The sad part is, I’d argue that “Psycho” isn’t nearly as good a movie as “Peeping Tom,” though I know that’s a controversial statement and I say it as a huge fan of Mr. Hitchcock.

On the other hand, the promotion of Hitch’s film was a million times better and more canny than “Peeping Tom.” That, my friends is how movie history usually works. And now, my vote for the greatest, smartest movie trailer of all time. Don Draper himself must have been impressed.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movies, News

Chills win as the “Paranormal” phenomenon grows

October 25, 2009 /

paranormal activity

It was a weekend of surprises at the box office. The most pleasant for those of us who prefer a chill up the spine to a gag reflex was the outstanding performance of “Paranormal Activity,” which handily defeated the dismemberment sweepstakes of “Saw VI” despite being in over a thousand fewer theaters than its horrific competitor.

As documented by Carl DiOrio of The Hollywood Reporter and the bean counters of Box Office Mojo, Paramount’s extremely wise ultra-ultra-ultra-low-budget paranormal pick-up earned an estimated $22 million as it expanded to 1,945 screens this week with a outstanding per screen average of $11,321. That’s compared to an estimated $14.8 million for the latest “Saw” entry (two more are still scheduled, including the inevitable 3-D installment) with a per screen average of $4,875, less than half of its spooky competitor.

The irony in all this is that, now that critics have had to paid their shekels to see the unscreened “Saw VI,” not only has it gotten better reviews than the last few entries — which is, of course, not the same thing as getting good reviews — it turns out to have at least an attempt at political content with a plot that involves both the sub-prime mortgage and health care debacles.

Seems to me that Lions Gate really had nothing to lose by screening this for critics and the political angle might have generated a bit more interest. “‘Sicko‘ for real sickos! ‘Capitalism: A Hate Story’! says Geekboy Moonraker of ‘Ain’t it Bloody Disgusting'” might have at least captured a bit more attention. Though, reading Owen Gleiberman‘s highly negative review, it’s interesting to note that both “Zombieland” and “Saw VI” do call attention to our nation’s obesity epidemic.

Continue reading »

Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies, TV Anime

1960, the year graphic horror broke, part 2

October 24, 2009 /

Another trailer from the year when, all of a sudden, major filmmakers around the world started to go where almost no one had gone before cinematically.

Georges Franju’s haunting “Eyes Without a Face” certainly doesn’t rely on graphic horror. However, it’s highly clinical skin grafting scene reportedly terrified audiences and — full disclosure — caused me to look at the New Beverly’s historic floor for the entire length of the scene. (I did the same thing for half an hour when they showed my class the notorious “Red Asphalt” in school.)

Still, that scene would I’m sure be tame by today’s standards  as it managed to pass through the censorship of the day. True, it wasn’t a major worldwide hit — in the U.S., it was retitled and sent out in 1962 on the bottom of a double bill with a low-budget U.S-Japanese horror programmer, “The Manster.” Still, you can’t keep a great film down forever. It stands for me as one of the most intense experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theater not just because the movie is so terribly creepy, but also because it’s so terribly sad.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movies

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