With Bruce Willis aging, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and Arnold Schwarzenegger getting creakier, Mel Gibson in limbo, Jackie Chan heading back to China for movies and making commercials, Steven Seagal playing lawman on TV and Chuck Norris spending his time cranking out infomercials and trumpeting conservative values, action fans wonder, “Where are the next crop of stars who can kick butt first and ask questions later?”
17 Comments »
Not-So Friendly Skies: Just as the second season of the Steven Spielberg-produced sci-fi series gears up on TNT, Falling Skies: The Complete First Season lands on the DVD shores ready to invade your home. The show tells of an alien takeover of Earth and is set a few months after the evil E.T.’s have landed. They have killed most of the Earth’s population and are out to capture and brainwash the children. Facing off against them are a group of 300 survivors from Massachusetts who have banded together to form a militia. Led by history professor Noah Wylie, the group includes doctor Moon Bloodgood and former military officer Will Patton. All ten episodes are available on three discs.
MTV Monstrosities: A hip series about creatures loose in the San Fernando Valley—no, they’re not Valley Girls—Death Valley: Season 1 (Uncensored) is a comedy in which a new division of the Los Angeles Police Department is assigned the job of rounding up the werewolves, zombies and other terrifying figures that have started to roam the streets of the Valley. The show is presented in a mockumentary fashion using hand-held cameras as the new sector of the LAPD is captured by a news crew. Bryan Callen, Charlie Saunders and Caity Lotz are among the actors who play the cops on this very peculiar beat. All 12 episodes are available, uncensored, on two discs.
There was Disney. There was Warner Brothers. There was MGM. And then there was UPA.
The animation studio UPA was in the shadow of the other three. It was best known as the home of Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing.
But it carved out a niche of its own in the animated world, offering cartoons that were simply drawn, experimental in style and subject, and sometimes esoteric.
It rarely delved into feature projects like Disney. And in most cases, it steered clear of talking mice and excitable ducks, wascally wabbits and stammering pigs, and feuding cats and rodents.
Instead, UPA chose to focus on mostly people with memorable—sometimes unusual—characteristics.
UPA: The Jolly Frolics Collection, on the way from TCM by way of Columbia Pictures, offers 38 of the studio’s most impressive and enjoyable animated shorts over the course of a three-disc boxed set. Included are critically acclaimed and award-winning works, often forgotten today.
Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
From out of the trenches of Bat Mitzvah videos, the depths of the Internet, and even the grimy street corners of North Philadelphia came Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. College friends since they met at Philly’s Temple University in the mid-1990s, the pair began cranking out DIY videos and CDs, selling them on street corners, honing their craft doing car commercials, shooting weddings and other social functions, and, eventually, after a suggestion by a film festival programmer, running their video stuff up the Internet flagpole to see if people would salute it. Their “Pumpers” music videos, in which they roam around Philly making illicit advances to the city’s landmarks, didn’t necessarily put another crack in the Liberty Bell, but it did win them a devoted cult following.
Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
Ezra Miller’s cred as a young actor to-be-reckoned- with has been growing over the last few years.
On cable TV, he’s had semi-regular stints as Damien, boyfriend of David Duchovny’s daughter on Californication, and Tucker Bryant, a teenager with hemophilia on Royal Pains. Miller’s impressive feature film resume includes attention-getting parts as an Internet-obsessed high schooler making a memorial video for a late fellow student in Afterschool (2008), a crusading college journalist in Beware the Gonzo (2010) and as Andy Garcia’s son, a kid obsessed with web porn featuring overweight women, in City Island (2010).
But the nineteen-year-old Hoboken, NJ native’s most buzzed-about part so far is in the new film We Need to Talk About Kevin. Here, Miller plays the titular character, a discontent teenager imprisoned for murdering fellow high school students, teachers and others with a high-tech bow and arrow.
Irv Slifkin | Academy Spotlight
Who says that there’s only strong competition—and controversy—in the Best Actor category of the Academy Awards?
Our recent post challenging some recipients of the Best Actor Oscar can be found here. While we didn’t have as many issues over the history of the Best Actress category, there’ve certainly been some wins over the years worth debating.
1936
A highly fictionalized account of the life of show biz impresario Flo Ziegfeld (played by William Powell), The Great Ziegfeld remains an entertaining rags-to-riches-to-rags story, with Luise Rainer as French-Polish performer Anna Held, with whom Ziegfeld was smitten, made into a star and married. The fact is that Rainer—third-billed in the film, and absent from its second half—saw herself as an also-ran in the race, and was only convinced to attend the ceremony at the last minute. She would go on to a much-deserved win of the trophy the following year, for her dramatic powerhouse role opposite Paul Muni in The Good Earth. In ’36, though, the Austrian import faced two actresses turning in memorable performances in screwball classics: Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey and Irene Dunne in Theodora Goes Wild. The remaining competition included Norma Shearer for George Cukor’s version of Romeo and Juliet, opposite Leslie Howard’s Romeo; and Gladys George in Valiant is the Word for Carrie, playing a prostitute trying to make a new life for herself after being run out of town.
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Stooge-Mania: Just when you thought Sony picked the bones off the last Moe, Larry, Curly et al. properties, pop goes the weasel, and along comes The Three Stooges: The Ultimate Collection, an impressive 20-disc compendium chockfull of goodies and surprising elements. We start with all of the team’s 190 shorts, along with the features Rockin in the Rockies and Have Rocket Will Travel. On top of these, Sony has included a batch of solo shorts headlined by the remaining ”third stooges”—Joe Besser, Joe DeRita and Shemp Howard—plus three Columbia cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s in which the comedy troupe cameoed. Overall, it’s “Stooge Heaven,” and just in time for that “heavily anticipated” feature film from the Farrelly Brothers.
Is this great for Stooges all over? Why soitainly!
George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Who doesn't remember Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (or, more accurately, Mr. Newman's and Mr. Redford's stunt doubles) jumping off that cliff? Can cinema fans ever forget James Bond skiing off the edge of Mount Asgard? (Well, I did indeed forget that it was Mount Asgard, but I did the honorable thing and credited the Bond fan who helped me fix my careless mistake) And, what movie maven doesn't treasure the hair-raising work of Harold Lloyd or the (still) record-holding 220-foot freefall of the late and legendary stuntman Dar Robinson, tumbling backwards out of a skyscraper in Sharky's Machine?
With these immortal gags in mind, let's Ask Movie Irv to share what filmic feats top his list of favorite movie stunts:
Agreed? In the age of digital effects, we may have lost a little of our appreciation for the stuntperson's craft. Rectify that by adding your own memories of your favorite jaw-dropping movie moments below!
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Sweet Prince, Hot Showgirl: The DVD and Blu-ray release of My Week with Marilyn, the Oscar-nominated chronicle of a film gopher’s experience on a 1957 film starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Oliver, has prompted Warner Home Video to return that very movie—The Prince and the Showgirl—to the DVD market. Also directed by Olivier, the film tells of the unlikely relationship between the prince of a Balkan country and an American showgirl who can understand German. It’s a light, romantic comedy-drama based on a play by Terrence Rattigan, but Oliver’s exasperations with Monroe behind the scenes drove him away from directing for 13 years.
All's Welles that Ends Welles: We're happy to announce that we can now make available the much-demanded The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Orson Welles' ill-starred follow-up to Citizen Kane. The wunderkind filmmaker's take on Booth Tarkington novel of the power struggles facing a prominent 19th century Midwestern family wound up being wrested from his grasp by RKO and heavily cut, but what survived of Welles' vision has only grown in repute over the generations since. Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Delores Costello head the cast.
Irv Slifkin | Academy Spotlight
Wherever Oscar goes, controversy follows.
In the past, Movie FanFare has looked at the films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture that probably shouldn’t have taken home the big prize. Now we’re going to put our magnifying glass on some of the miscues that may have made in the Best Actor category. (We’ll follow this soon regarding the Best Actress category, as well.)
1940
After losing to Robert Donat (Goodbye, Mr. Chips) the year before, James Stewart won his only gold statue for his turn as the reporter covering a wacky Main Line marriage in the classic romantic farce The Philadelphia Story. Stewart was perfect as the newshound, trading quick-paced dialogue with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Ruth Hussey, but his previous year’s turn as the wholesome Boy Ranger leader tackling politicians in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a downright tour-de-force that went unrewarded. In 1940, facing off against Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath, Raymond Massey in Abe Lincoln in Illinois and Laurence Olivier in Rebecca, this seems almost like a makeup Oscar.
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Paramount Gets Back In the Game: We never understood why a film studio would suddenly take some of their best—and best-selling—DVDs off of the market. We understand there are rights issues sometimes, and licenses expire, and there are other reasons that go into making DVDs available or not available. But why take DVDs completely out of circulation just to take them out of circulation?
We’re not sure why Paramount dropped a nice portion of their library a while ago, but we’re happy to report they are putting a lot of it back into action. This is the 100th anniversary of the studio, and we have seen some special releases from them—including the unexpected issuing of Wings, the first Academy Award winner for Best Picture—on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time. So now we’re happy to welcome back Paramount favorites like Chinatown, Breakdown, Juice, Shaft, The Presidio, Death Wish, The Greatest Show on Earth, Ordinary People, Nevada Smith, Catch-22, Witness, Serpico, Nashville, Sunset Blvd. and others.
In the City of Angels, crime often pays big dividends when it comes to the movies.
To some, Los Angeles is a Dreamland, feted in song, film and all matter of art, where warm weather, style and show biz glitz perfectly mix. To others it is a cesspool, where graft, shifty wheeling and dealing, racial unrest and all sorts of violence lurk around the corner.
The movies have had no problem depicting both sides of the L.A. coin, and if ever the twain shall meet, all the better.
Consider Rampart, a new film set in the late 1990s starring Woody Harrelson as Dave Brown (not to be confused with the former Philadelphia Flyers enforcer), a veteran police patrolman with some odd habits, evidenced by his nickname: “Date Rape.” A former lawyer, he lives with two ex-wives (Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon), and likes to take justice into his own hands, putting a black cloud over the oft-criticized Rampart division of the L.A. police force. He roams bars looking for one night stands and befriends an attorney (Robin Wright) who may or may not be investigating his evil ways. Despite all of this—and the fact that even his daughter sees him as a prime creep—Brown is not totally unlikable: He’s smart, quick-witted and thinks well on his feet when forced to, which, in his case, is often.