Category: Movie Dramas (Page 124 of 188)

Friday movie news dump

October 16, 2009 /

It’s that time of the week when we offload the week’s last few stories.

Will Ferrell in * In the wake of his “Land of the Lost” debacle, Will Ferrell is going back to “Stranger than Fiction” territory with a more low-key form of comedy, writes Mike Fleming. “Everything Must Go” will be from first-time feature director Dan Rush and is based on a story by Raymond Carver — not an author frequently connected with hilarity though the script is apparently primarily a comedy and the premise (a newly unemployed guy’s wife locks him out and deposits his stuff on the lawn…and the guy responds by trying to sell all of it) sounds potentially pretty funny.

It’s important to remember that, once upon a time, not all comedies were expected to be laugh-riot farces and, ironically enough, they were often funnier anyhow. (The classical definition of comedy, by the way, is less about being funny and more about having a happy ending. By that definition, many black comedies are not comedies at all.)

* More from Fleming: Robert Redford’s new Lincoln conspiracy film started shooting on Monday and he has quite a cast assembled. This one could be good.

* American liberals like me complain a lot, and for very good reason, about the actions of media mega mogul Rupert Murdoch, particularly in regards to how his TV news network is essentially an arm of the Republican Party. But, it could be a lot worse. Italy’s scandal-ridden, far-right movie and TV mogul Murdoch-equivalent actually runs the freaking country and I bet Italian rightwingers cry about the “liberal media” and the evils of the Rome film-making establishment too. But, hey, at least they have health care,.

* Speaking of media moguls, Nikki Finke believes that GE may ultimately divest itself of NBC Universal, which may please ecologically minded and antiwar folks while depriving “30 Rock” of one of its best running gags. Still, Finke says it may be seven years before it’s complete, so Tina Fey & company should be able to milk it sufficiently. Also, Finke wonders about Ted Turner’s mental health in regard to Time-Warner.

* It may be last summer’s news here in the U.S., but “Up” continues to land on top of the global box office.

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Easy Virtue

October 16, 2009 /

Easy Virtue

Today we associate multi-talented playwright Noël Coward with witty repartee, a forgiving view of sexual peccadilloes, twenties pop standards by Cole Porter and Coward himself, and the heavy use of cocktails. The play, “Easy Virtue,” about a country household thrown into chaos when the family’s only son impetuously marries an American woman with a shadowy past, however, was a melodrama and the 1928 silent film version was directed by the none other than a young Alfred Hitchcock. 81 years later, Australian director Stephen Elliott (“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”) and co-writer Sheridan Jobbins have taken a very different tack, modified the plot, and turned the drama into a mostly comedic confection filled with witty repartee, a forgiving view of sexual peccadilloes, the music of Coward, Porter and, er, Tom Jones and Billy Ocean, and the heavy use of champagne and wine — but hardly any martinis.

Elliott does a good enough job finding the material’s comedic possibilities, but his style doesn’t quite fit and he gets into trouble when he indulges in some annoying Baz Luhrmann-esque musical/stylistic flourishes. Still, the main problem here is that, while Colin Firth as the family’s alienated patriarch and Kristin Scott Thomas as the repressed mother do first rate work, and Ben Barnes (a.k.a. “Prince Caspian”) is able as the young husband, Jessica Biel, in the crucial role of the extremely non-ugly American, barely registers. Her colorless performance tips the film over the edge of being an enjoyable diversion and into mediocrity.

Click to buy “Easy Virtue”

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Wild paranormal law-abiding stepdads to rule box office, almost for sure

October 16, 2009 /

Where the Wild Things Are

If you’re craving variety and unpredictability in your movie weekend, then this weekend is for you. Still, most of the smart money seems to agree that the week’s likely fiscal winner is Spike Jonze’s new PG-rated adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s multi-layered picture book classic, “Where the Wild Things Are.”  The family film boasts an outstanding cast, both onscreen and as voice talent, including Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, and Forest Whitaker. It’s also got a director synonymous with high-quality and not-quite-mainstream fare and its hep cred is further bolstered by the name of bestselling author and McSweeney’s founder Dave Eggers on the screenplay. Best of all, commercially speaking, it’s based on a book that’s been read and loved by practically everyone. All told, it seems like a canny blending of mainstream recognition, family appeal, and more than a dash of arthouse appeal, but therein may lie the difficulty.

This is a film that really should bit a big hit with critics, and its advertising certainly sells the film’s visual beauty — always a plus with cinephile critics. However, it turns out our David Medskar’s very mild 3/5 star review is pretty typical of the critical reaction. Rating a good-but-not-great 68% Fresh on the Rotten Tomatoes scoreboard, critics are expressing sentiments similar to Dave, who found it “lacking in terms of emotional weight.” Since emotional weight — laughter and tears, etc. — not arresting filmmaking technique — is what most people are looking for at the movies, you have to wonder about whether the film will show any legs over the long term. Still, jolly Carl DiOrio’s prediction of a $25-30 million dollar weekend seems more than reasonable given the audience’s voracious appetite for strong family films with cross-generational appeal. On the other hand, Disney’s decision to extend the run of the 3-D double bill of “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” could cut into the “Wild” numbers just a bit with a terrific package of tried-and-true family fair bolstered by the appeal of 3-D.

Gerard Butler and Jamey Foxx in For some decidedly non-kid-friendly fair, Director F. Gary Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer’s “Law Abiding Citizen” boasts two more or less A-list leads as Jamie Foxx portrays as a careerist D.A. pitted against against tragedy stricken family man turned imprisoned vigilante serial killer played by Gerard Butler. I think Butler has starred in like 200 million mainstream movies this year. None of those movies has been a hit with the critics so far, and “Citizen” is no exception.

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Recapturing lost youth

October 14, 2009 /

I missed yesterday’s big geek film blogger story, which was the possibility that, having successfully headlined the reboot of “Star Trek” as the James T. Kirk for a younger generation, Chris Pine may now star in reboot #3 of the Jack Ryan series of Tom Clancy adaptations.

Anyhow, in penance, below is the trailer for the first film in the long, intermittent series, 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October.” One kind of shocking thing to consider is that while some think Pine is a little young to play the adventure-prone CIA analyst, Alec Baldwin slightly less than two decades back doesn’t look much older than Pine does today.

And just because I’m a sadist/masochist, and I love good comic timing, here’s a more recent — and very NSFW for language — moment with Mr. Baldwin. In 19 years Chris Pine, too, might become…a character actor.

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Three losses

October 14, 2009 /

he old saw about deaths coming in threes appears to have come true over the last couple of days with the passing of three individuals, all noteworthy to the movie world, though in very different ways.

* Al Martino spent most of his career as a well known lounge singer, but his moment of cinema immortality came with his casting as mob-connected singer-actor Johnny Fontaine in “The Godfather.” According to this rather sensational obituary in The Telegraph, his life  — including even how he obtained the role in the 1972 classic — may have had more in common with Fontaine’s than Frank Sinatra, who most filmgoers assumed was the model for Fontaine. Martino, who got the role after another Italian-American crooner, Vic Damone, dropped out of the running, also appeared in both “Godfather” sequels. He also sang the hit version of the movie’s “Love Theme,” “Speak Softly Love.”

Al-Martino-as-Johhny-Font-001

* On Monday, Anne Thompson posted a moving remembrance of her friend, film scholar Anne Friedberg, who died of cancer at age 57 on October 9. She was the chair of the Department of Critical Studies at USC’s film program. She was married to screenwriter Howard Rodman, who heads the screenwriting program at USC, and her past students included critic Manohla Dargis of the New York Times. Ms. Thompson also included a quote from famed magician/writer/character actor (and David Mamet regular) Ricky Jay, so she obviously had her share of interesting friends as well.

* Former MGM and Columbia Studio executive and producer Daniel Melnick also died yesterday from lung cancer at age 77. He oversaw a number of classic and notable films at the studio and also was personally involved with a number of significant hits and a few classics ranging from “Footloose” (a hit, definitely not a classic) and Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz” (a classic, not that huge a hit) to Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs,” to “Altered States” and my favorite Steve Martin movie, “L.A. Story.”

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