Category: External Movies (Page 285 of 336)

A Chat with Naoko Mori of “Torchwood”

September 11, 2008 /

If you’re an Anglo-centric sci-fi fan, then I won’t be telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that “Torchwood” is one of the best shows of its type to come around in ages. Spun off from “Doctor Who,” the series focuses on the Cardiff branch of the Torchwood Institute, an organization which was founded in 1879 by Queen Victoria to research and combat alien threats to the British Empire. If you’ve never watched “Torchwood,” it’s time to start playing catch-up. Season 1 is already available on DVD, and Season 2 makes its DVD debut on September 16th.

In conjunction with the Season 2 release, we were granted the opportunity to speak to one of the show’s cast members: Naoko Mori, who plays computer specialist Toshiko Sato. Like everyone affiliated with Torchwood, Toshiko…or Tosh, as she’s more familiarly known…has gone through quite a lot in her time with the Institute, but she definitely had more than her fair shares of issues in Season 2. We spoke with Ms. Mori about how she came aboard “Torchwood” in the first place, asked what it was like working during James Masters, quizzed her on her favorites episodes of the show, and – perhaps most crucially – asked if she still gets secretly excited when she recalls how she had a role in “Spice World.”

Stay tuned for…

Naoko Mori 1

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, External TV, Interviews, Movie Comedies, Movies, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV DVDs, TV Sci-Fi

Taking 5

September 11, 2008 /

There was never any reason to go into the movie “Taking 5” expecting anything other than a tweener-centric comedy with laughs on par with your average Nickelodeon sitcom, but it had one thing going for it: the inclusion of The Click Five. What can I say? I like the power pop, and those guys do it well. Plus, as a music fan, the premise of the film sounded funny enough: Devon (Alona Tal) and Gabby (Daniella Monet) desperately try to win a contest where the prize is a performance by their favorite band, 5 Leo Rise (played by The Click Five), but when things go horribly wrong, they decide to kidnap them and force them to play. I should’ve known, however, that there was something a little dodgy about this flick when I heard that the line-up of the band in the film included their original lead singer, Eric Dill, who left the band in late 2006. So why did this film sit on the shelf for so long? You’d like to think it’s because The Click Five lost some serious career momentum after Dill’s departure (and, boy, did they), but it’s more likely because the band originally come off sounding like the biggest assholes in the world. Oh, sure, eventually they come through and save the day, but why would they start the film by showing the object of the girls’ obsession acting like a bunch of complete dicks? Oh, wait, I forgot: chicks dig that. Well, in that case, maybe they’ll dig this movie more than I did.

Click to buy “Taking 5”

Actors, Actresses, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

Bullz-Eye’s Pacino and De Niro on the QT

September 8, 2008 /

They’ve been linked since 1974 and “The Godfather: Part II.” Al Pacino, with only one major performance behind him, had become a major star with a perfectly modulated performance as reluctant Mafia prince Michael Corleone in “The Godfather.” Two years later, Robert De Niro‘s energetic work as the young Vito Corleone in the universally acclaimed sequel transformed the respected working actor into an almost instant superstar. The laws of time and space dictated that they could not appear together as father and son (this wasn’t “Back to the Future: Sicilian Style”), and so the two remained on separate tracks. Even in Michael Mann’s hugely successful 1993 action drama, “Heat,” the ballyhooed Pacino-De Niro collaboration was mostly limited to a single scene over a cup of coffee at a pricey Beverly Hills eatery. It was as if all that intensity could only be contained in a few minutes of caffeine-fueled conversation and posturing.

The release of the new cop thriller, “Righteous Kill,” promises more Bob-and-Al interaction, but there’s no reason these two acting powerhouses with Italian surnames can’t share the screen comfortably. There’s no taking away from the power of their most iconic non-“Godfather” roles: screwed-up vigilante-in-training Travis Bickle (“Taxi Driver”); hapless would-be bank robber Sonny Wortzik (“Dog Day Afternoon”); troubled boxer Jake LaMotta (“Raging Bull“); ultra-ambitious immigrant gangster Tony Montana (“Scarface“); or quick to kill wise guy Jimmy Conway (“Goodfellas“). And there’s a lot more to these two performers than barely concealed rage, well-wrought angst and occasional bouts of scenery munching.

Take a look at our list of 20 somewhat less well known performances showcasing the less obvious attributes of these two Italian-surnamed dynamos, and then come back and let us know what performances you might have added (or subtracted).

Action Movies, Actors, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies

Nicolas Cage is not a deaf-mute…and he couldn’t be happier about it!

September 5, 2008 /

In the 1999 version of “Bangkok Dangerous,” the film’s lead character, Kong, was a deaf-mute assassin for hire. In the 2008 remake, Nicolas Cage plays the lead…but while he’s still a hitman, his name is now Joe, and he can hear and speak quite fine, thank you. There’s still a Kong in the film, however, and that character is still a deaf-mute…but now she’s a pickpocket hired by Joe as his assistant.

Was Cage, a man who has been known to enjoy an acting challenge once in awhile, disappointed about the change for the American remake?

He was not.

“I actually thought it worked out better to have the leading lady have that aspect to her behavior,” Cage told Bullz-Eye, during a conference call to promote the release of “Bangkok Dangerous.” “It made it more emotional somehow. Also, my interests were more about the story of this white man in an entirely Asian world and trying to fit in and trying to connect in some way to the culture.”

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

Woody Allen is a strange guy

September 3, 2008 /

Jennie Tabroff has a fascinating profile of Woody Allen in a recent issue of Newsweek. He’s still superstitious, he’s still terrified by death, and he’s still a depressing person.

But go to meet the director in hopes of a “Tuesdays With Woody”-style affirmation of late-life contentment, and you will be quickly disabused of that illusion. At 72, he says he still lies awake at night, terrified of the void. He cannot reconcile his strident atheism with his superstition about the banana, but he knows why he makes movies: not because he has any grand statement to offer, but simply to take his mind off the existential horror of being alive. Movies are a great diversion, he says, “because it’s much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.”

Despite his depression, he seems to get along fine. He doesn’t dwell on such things with his family as he tries to spare them from his depressing view of the world, and he manages to keep making films. Not that he enjoys it very much.

“I can’t really come up with a good argument to choose life over death,” he says. “Except that I’m too scared.” Making films offers no reward beyond distracting him from his plight. He claims the payoff is in the process—”I need to be focused on something so I don’t see the big picture”—and he is indifferent to reviews. “I was never bothered if a film was not well received,” he says, admitting that some, such as “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion,” are not great. “But the converse of that is that I never get a lot of pleasure out of it if it is. So it isn’t like you can say, ‘He’s an uncompromising artist.’ That’s not true. I’m a compromising person, definitely. It’s that I don’t get much from either side.”

Very strange.

External Movies, Movies

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