Category: Movies (Page 322 of 498)

Movie moment: “7 Faces of Dr. Lao”

Seeing as the latest Harry Potter film is burning up the box office, I thought I’d take a look back at scenes from notable fantasy films this weekend.

I haven’t seen “The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao” in many years, but it’s easily one of the best fantasy films of the 20th century. Directed by George Pal, best known for his versions of “War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine” and adapted from a novel by Charles Finney by Charles Beaumont, one of the three main outstanding writers on “The Twilight Zone” television series, it’s one of the few examples where the casting of a non-Asian in an Asian role seems to offend no one. I think it’s the combination of the depth and humanity of Tony Randall’s performance, the fact that he plays a number of characters of different ethnicities, and the way the film toys with Asian racial stereotypes that’s given it something of a pass.

Anyhow, this scene (sorry, no efx, though the film has some pretty brilliant ones, including some cool stop-motion work from Jim Danforth) with young Noah Beery, Jr. is as close to expressing the Tao as anything you’re likely to see from Hollywood.

Your Friday evening movie update

Gambon is Dumbledore!* The weekend hasn’t even started in terms of box office reporting, but “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is already netting huge deposits for Gringott’s. Variety is estimating an “$80.1 million domestic cume” and $125.9 million worldwide. And I can remember when only geezers were named “Harry.”

* Charlie Matthau is dipping into the frequently profitable writing well of the frequently adapted author Elmore Leonard, with “Freaky Deaky.”

* Entertainment newshound Nikki Finke has a funny idea of taking a vacation, because her blog is still being updated by her rather heavily for someone whose supposed to be taking it easy (well, you don’t get that famed $14 million pay day by being all easygoing). In any case, Finke is apparently happy to sorta be called “thuggish” by business writer David Carr in the New York Times. Good article, possibly slightly inaccurate editorializing aside. Pull quote: “I’m not mean, I just write mean.”

* The same folks who gave Ms. Finke her money are doing something similar for the lighter side of the showbiz fence and have brought on mega-gossip monger Bonnie Fuller.

* Consider yourself a cinephile or film geek? Really? Well, if so, Prof. Snape has a challenge for you but beware or it might be 200 points from Gryffindor.

A Chat with Cassandra Sawtell (“Harper’s Island”)

You asked for it, you got it: another “Harper’s Island” interview, this time with the young lady who played Madison, the creepiest little girl on the island. Rest assured, however, that it’s a testament to Cassandra Sawtell’s acting abilities that she was able to pull off her role on the series. I spoke with her this afternoon, and she couldn’t have been more pleasant, and she even managed to surprise me with an upcoming film appearance of hers that isn’t mentioned within her IMDb listing…and, wow, what a high-profile film it is!

Stay tuned for…

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The best unsubstantiated rumor I’ve read all week

Bloody Disgusting is reporting, if that’s really the word for more or less passing on rumors, some potentially huge, or at least hugely interesting, casting news. According to one of BD’s “regular scoopers who enjoys remaining anonymous” (because he “enjoys” being employed?) mega-thesp Robert DeNiro and Apatow-hilarity-bringer Jonah Hill will both be accompanying mega-macho character actor Danny Trejo on a trip to possible cult nirvana in the long-rumored feature-length film version of “Machete.” (H/t AICN)

“Machete,” for those less fortunate amoung you who did not see Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s mostly hysterical “Grindhouse” in its original theatrical form, was the first of a number of rather brilliant gag trailers featured in the film. It’s your basic tale of an assassin getting double-crossed and taking his revenge, in this case with the help of his priest brother (Cheech Marin, a deity who walks amongst us who I pray will be in the feature as well). Except it wasn’t really such a gag in that Rodriguez said he had hopes of doing the tale as a feature all along.

Rodriguez has a gift for achieving a kind of greatness out of complete silliness, though he also has a problem with writing/presenting coherent stories (Jason Zingale loved “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” but I couldn’t make head or tail out of it). Still, as in the original “Spy Kids” and his “Planet Terror” segment of “Grindhouse,” things can come together — assuming he doesn’t let Hill or that scamp De Niro camp it up too much.

If you’ve never seen the “Machete” trailer, below is your chance. However, due to violence, language, and the appearance of six nipples, only two of which belong to Danny Trejo, this would qualify as NSFW…and it’s Rated X!

And the geek overload begins in earnest…

And why would that be? Well, next Wednesday night is the kick-off of San Diego’s now humongous Comic-Con, an event I’ve been attending off and on, but mostly on, since I was a barely pubescent geekling, and both me and the con have changed a little over the years.

The con has grown into something truly enormous and become less fun, and I’ve definitely grown (a little) bigger. I’ll leave the “fun” judgment to others. Like the con also, I’ve also definitely grown less comics-obsessed and more exclusively film/television focused — partly as a function of cost and partly of time. I’m not sure what the con’s excuse is.

In any case, I find myself unable to focus on any one topic right now and am fretting about things like whether or not there will be free wi-fi again this year, but as the event I call “Cannes for geeks” grows ever closer, we’ll be visiting with our old family friends, the Asterisks.

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