Category: External Movies (Page 272 of 336)

“Gulliver’s Travels”: still animated, but forgotten no more!

March 10, 2009 /

Right about this time last year, Bullz-Eye pulled together a feature entitled “Animated and Forgotten,” where we shined the spotlight on some of our favorite animated films that hadn’t gotten nearly as much love as we thought they deserved. The piece opened with a look at Max and Dave Fleischer’s 1939 take on Jonathan Swift’s “Gullliver’s Travels,” about which our man Bob Westal wrote…

After Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” became the top grossing picture of 1938, Paramount Pictures turned to Disney’s best known competitor, Max Fleischer (animator of the hugely popular Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons) for an animated feature of its own. That was the good news for Fleischer. The bad news was the studio wanted it in less than a year, and “Snow White” had taken three years to complete. Turning to Irish satirist Jonathan Swift’s fantasy classic — which, strangely enough, had already been transformed into a pro-Communist parable by stop-motion animators in the Soviet Union — Max and brother Dave Fleischer discarded their original concept of using Popeye as their Gulliver. Instead, they went with a conventionally heroic characterization, relying on timesaving rotoscopes of actor Sam Parker. (If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, rotoscoping was an animation process invented by Max Fleischer that involved tracing over filmed images.) The rushed production was marked by innumerable problems, including a bitter feud between west coast and east coast animators. While no gunplay resulted from the cartoony clash, it didn’t help the final result. When the film was released at Christmas, critics were unimpressed, but the Fleischer shop’s visual invention and broad comedy was enough to make the film a hit; animated features were still very much a novelty and Paramount’s gamble actually paid off. A follow-up film, the fanciful musical bug fable, “Hoppity Goes to Town” might have done as well. But it was released on Dec. 9, 1941 — two days after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Ouch.

Fortunately for you, however, E1 Entertainment has released “Gulliver’s Travels” on DVD and Blu-ray…and unlike the cheap-ass versions that are regularly popping up in Only-A-Dollar stores, this time it’s been digitally restored and re-mastered. Investigate it a bit more with the widget below:

External Entertainment, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movies, News

Robert Benton on “Kramer vs. Kramer,” 30 Years Later

March 10, 2009 /

Robert Benton has seen more than one cinematic revolution in his time. He and his late screenwriting partner, David Newman, were major players in two films that forever changed movies: 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” which brought European New Wave aesthetics into mainstream American cinema and permanently altered the portrayal of violence in American pop-culture, and 1978’s “Superman,” which created the big-budget superhero flick and convinced the world Christopher Reeve could fly. But as the writer and director of a little movie without violence, groundbreaking special effects, or even a whole lot of controversy, Robert Benton actually helped change real life with 1979’s “Kramer vs. Kramer,” about a careerist father (Dustin Hoffman) raising his son alone after being left suddenly by his wife.

Drawn from a novel by Avery Corman, the film was an immediate critical and box-office success, ultimately making over $100 million. It proved to be a star-making role for the twenty-something Meryl Streep, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Hoffman’s ex-wife, who endures a change of heart and sparks a painful custody battle. Moreover, it racked up a historic Oscar nomination for seven-year-old Justin Henry in the crucial role of Billy Kramer, and garnered both a Best Picture award and a Best Directing Oscar for Benton against an exceptionally strong group of nominated films that included “All That Jazz” and “Apocalypse Now.” Still, lots of movies have received acclaim, Oscars, and a tidy profit. “Kramer vs. Kramer” is a different story.

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVDs, Movies

A Chat with Joe Lo Truglio (“The State,” “Role Models”)

March 8, 2009 /

If the words “rub a dub dub” conjure images of a bearded man in chain mail rather than three men in a tub, then you’re probably one of the people who saw and laughed at “Role Models.” The film was directed by (and features a cameo from) David Wain, late of The State, but he’s not the only alumnus of that particular comedic organization to be found within its frames. There are actually a couple, if you’re counting, but only one managed to spend the duration of the film dressed in Medevial garb and spouting laughably earnest comments using mock Elizabethan phrasing…and – what luck! – we actually had the opportunity to speak to the gentleman in question.

Stay tuned for…

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, External TV, Interviews, Movie Comedies, Movie DVDs, Movies, TV, TV Comedies, TV DVDs

Campbell Scott talks “Phoebe in Wonderland,” “Singles,” and more

March 6, 2009 /

Although Campbell Scott is one of those actors who’s been happily flying under Hollywood’s radar for the past several years (he estimates the time frame as somewhere between eight and ten), his appearance within the ensemble of the buzz-heavy indie flick, “Phoebe in Wonderland,” may change that. And if it doesn’t…well, as he reveals in his interview with Bullz-Eye.com, it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy being able to ride the subway in relative anonymity.

Campbell Scott on “Singles”:

“I’m 47, I have gray hair, and yet people still come up to me on the street who are in their twenties, who weren’t even born when ‘Singles’ was made…well, they were pretty tiny, anyway…and they say, ‘Oh, I love that movie.’ And I always say, ‘How OLD are you?”

Campbell Scott on “Phoebe in Wonderland”:

“When you go and watch it, even if you’re thinking about being a parent or if you have a little sister, anything like that, it becomes this little journey. And people either go for it or not. It ain’t ‘Die Hard,’ let’s face it! But it’s very, very provocative, I think.”

Campbell Scott on “The Spanish Prisoner”:

“Steve (Martin) is fascinating. I really like that guy. He’s really smart. You know, the thing I always think about Steve is that, like most really, really brilliant comedians, he’s a very serious dude. People who are funny in a profound way, when you meet them, they are totally serious. I don’t mean they’re severe or boring or unfunny to be with – they’re hysterical – but they are definitive in their work habits.”

Check out the entire interview by clicking right here…or, of course, you could always just click on this big ol’ image below:

Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, External TV, Interviews, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, TV, TV Dramas

“Watchmen” week

March 4, 2009 /

Get ready for the most anticipated movie event of 2009.

Bullz-Eye’s Ross Ruediger has an excellent preview of the film after his set visit from last year.

An unquestionable highlight of the set visit was getting to stand smack in the middle of Karnak, the enormous Egyptian-themed palace that serves as the setting for the film’s climax. Painstakingly constructed to appear nearly identical to how it’s shown in the comic, the set was roughly the size of a gymnasium, with marble floors, an elaborate staircase, a lengthy dining room table and giant, awe-inspiring pillars and statues. (They were actually made of Styrofoam, but you’d never know it by looking at them.) Standing in the middle of it all, it was so easy to picture the core characters of the novel squabbling amongst themselves as they do in one of the scenes set in that massive room. On the flip side of Karnak, was the slightly smaller yet equally impressive Owl Chamber, Nite Owl’s underground lair. If Karnak was sleek and expansive, this set was the opposite: intimate and cluttered. Much to my delight, I was allowed to wander around and just poke around the laboratory as if it were my own. It was here that I first saw the now-infamous picture of the movie’s original superheroes, the Minutemen, behind glass in a case amongst the rest of the little details. Being in the Owl Chamber actually felt like leaving the set altogether and finding myself transported to an actual superhero lair. The attention that had been paid to “getting it right” was mind-boggling, and it was as if I’d stepped directly into the book itself. Now if only the Owl Ship could actually fly…

ScreenCrave has an exclusive interview with Jackie Earle Haley who plays Rorschach.

The reviews are already coming in at Rotten Tomatoes.

Action Movies, Actors, External Movies, Interviews, Movies, News, Trailers, Video

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