“In the Star’s Trailer” Archive
Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
It’s been nearly 20 years since Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was in theaters, charming the world with its fairy tale blend of magical story, gorgeous animation, colorful characters, memorable romance and wonderful music.
For Paige O’Hara, who supplied the talking and singing voice of the book-loving heroine Belle, you would believe that watching the film in its new special Blu-ray edition would bring on a sense of deja vu.
But according to O’Hara, you would think wrong.
“Watching it on Blu-ray was actually like a new experience,” says O’Hara, 54, during a stop in Philadelphia. “The colors, the depth of field, the sound…all of the elements are spectacular.”
Working on both the new DVD and Blu-ray editions of the only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards did bring back many memories for the singer-actress.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
Even when he’s dressed smartly with a sleek black shirt and dark sports jacket, his snazzy straw hat lying on the table nearby, John C. Reilly can’t help but elicit one adjective he just can’t shake: craggy.
Perhaps it’s his hound-dog eyes or maybe it’s his mop of curly hair. Or it could be his distinctive voice, reminiscent of Tex Avery’s Droopy Dog character. Whatever. The guy looks like he just rolled out of bed.
Talk to him, however, and you soon learn that not every picture tells the correct story. The 45-year-old Chicago native and alumnus of the Windy City’s revered Steppenwolf Theater Company turns out to be smart, witty, down-to-earth and perceptive when it comes to acting. Perhaps you sort of expect the latter, since he’s been performing for 22 years, 21 years in the movies, beginning with small parts in two 1989 Sean Penn films; Brian DePalma’s Vietnam drama Casualties of War and the comedy We’re No Angels with Robert DeNiro.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
You know you’ve made it when you are an actor of British origin and you’ve been cast in a Harry Potter movie.
So even though Ciaran Hinds has been acting regularly for over 20 years, the 57-year-old actor smiled when asked about playing the part of Aberforth Dumbledore, brother of Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, opening in November 2010, and Part II (opening during the summer of 2011).
“It was, ‘Oh, hello Sir, hello Dame,” Hinds jokes, referencing the star-studded cast of British acting royalty in the final Potter outings that includes Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith and John Hurt.
The Belfast-born Hinds is in the middle of a two-week break from making another big movie—the long-awaited John Carter of Mars, in which he plays one of the leaders of a warring tribe on the red planet—when he stops off at Philadelphia, joining writer-director Conor McPherson to talk about his part in something completely different.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
As an actor, Andy Garcia is best-known for either his cool, what-the-hell demeanor in films like The Untouchables and Black Rain or his brooding intensity in movies such as The Godfather, Part III, Internal Affairs and the Ocean’s films.
In his latest, City Island, which he also co-produced, the actor reveals another side of himself, one rarely seen on screen. The 53-year-old Garcia goes for laughs in this comedy-drama that casts him as Vince Rizzo, a New York corrections officer who encounters the son he abandoned years ago and brings him home to spend time with his eccentric family.
Garcia pulls off the part wonderfully, garnering yuks and plugging into the vulnerable side of the befuddled Rizzo, who harbors a secret desire to be an actor.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
All Jeff Kinney wanted to be was a cartoonist.
While attending college at the University of Maryland, Kinney created a comic strip called Igdoof that ran in the campus newspaper. His dream was to graduate from school and draw a syndicated comic strip. When that dream didn’t pan out, Kinney went into creating material for websites and conceived the children-oriented site called Poptropica. At the same time, Kinney continued his cartooning, eventually collecting his drawings and writing in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The 2007 book focused on the misadventures of Greg Hefley and his pal Rowley Jefferson as they enter middle school. The kids encounter Greg’s trouble-making older brother Rodrick, school bullies and a mysterious piece of cheese that sits in their schoolyard.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid took off—big time. After spending weeks and weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, it spawned four sequels and a how-to book, with more on the way. So far, the series has sold over 18 million copies.
It’s no surprise, then, that Hollywood came a-calling. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie is now opening, but this is not your everyday “Hollywood-options-book—and-radically-alters-it” situation.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
It’s been 29 years since we had a big-budget movie about the Greek gods. In 1981, Clash of the Titans, was released, featuring Harry Hamlin as the hero Perseus, Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Claire Bloom as Hera, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite and Maggie Smith as Thetis. But despite these names—some of them Oscar winners—the real stars of this show were Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures, which included the winged horse Pegasus, the two-headed beast Diskilos, the serpent-haired Medusa and the sea-based monstrosity known as the Kraken.
Now, after nearly three decades, come not one but two Greek mythology-infused epics. Yes, Clash of the Titans has been remade, and is set to be issued to theaters on March 26. Once again, special effects will be employed with such big names as Sam Worthington as Perseus, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Izabella Miko.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
You may be able to take Channing Tatum out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of Channing Tatum.
That’s because the 29-year old actor keeps getting cast in roles in which he plays a soldier.
For example, in 2008’s Stop-Loss, directed by Kimberly Peirce, he played a young veteran of the Iraq War who returns to his Texas home with fellow townie Ryan Phillippe who decides to re-enlist in the service in order to become a sniper. And in last year’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, he was Duke, a buzz-cutted human incarnation of a 1980s Hasbro cartoon/action figure. Down the road there’s The Eagle of the Ninth, a sword-and-sandal epic directed by Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) in which he plays a Roman centurion in the year 108 A.D.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
Regina King has been one busy actress over the years. And her plate seems completely full now, too.
Over the last few years, she’s provided two voices for Adult Swim’s The Boondocks animated TV shows. Movie roles have included This Christmas, Year of the Dog and the upcoming Living Proof on Lifetime. And then there’s the role in the intense L.A. cop drama Southland, returning to TV on TNT after a quick stint on NBC.
It’s the latter that’s brought her to Philadelphia to host a screening party and talk to the press. She considers it a crusade to keep Southland going and gaining an audience, after getting the “too edgy” tag on the network. She thinks TNT, with series such as the Ray Romano middle age dramedy Men of a Certain Age and Timothy Hutton’s thriller Leverage, could be the perfect fit for the impressive ensemble show Southland.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
Just in from Toronto and contemplating a workout and rest before a DVD signing of his movie The Marine 2 at a local music/movie shop, Ted DiBiase feels a cold may be coming on.
For this reason, he supplements the generously portioned cheeseburger he orders in a Philadelphia hotel restaurant with a big bowl of chicken noodle soup.
A few sips in, he decides it’s just what the doctor ordered. Automatic penicillin for a guy with a tough schedule and a plan to head out of Philly in a day, destined for Minnesota, where freezing weather will greet him for another DVD signing and an appearance grappling in Minneapolis on the nationally televised wrestling program Monday Night Raw.
DiBiase, 28, is a third-generation wrestler, so he’s aware of the grind all too well. “This schedule is actually more grueling,” says DiBiase between spoonfuls of the hearty elixir. “When I’m home I get to the gym every day for at least an hour. I used to train longer, but you don’t want to overdo it. If you do one hour of constant training, put the headphones on and get into the zone, that should be it.”
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
A friend asked his 14-year-old daughter’s pals who their favorite male actors were. Surprisingly enough, the answers ranged from Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg to Alan Rickman (!) to Sean Bean (!?). Not surprisingly, another name mentioned was Michael Cera.
The last name was not a stunning revelation, because Cera has won a spot with young audiences for his portrayals of befuddled teenagers trying to find their way to adulthood—and discovering romance in the process—in such films as Superbad, Juno and Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. Before he scored with those efforts in theaters, he was admired by a small but devoted cult of followers for his portrayal of George Michael Bluth, a frozen banana stand manager obsessed with his female cousin, in the Ron Howard-produced dysfunctional family TV sitcom Arrested Development. Additionally, the Canadian-born actor has been writing, directing and starring in the Internet-based series “Clark and Michael,” a “fictional reality” inside-Hollywood show in which he stars with pal and fellow actor Clark Duke (Sex Drive).
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
Here lizard, lizard, lizard.
No, it’s not a new Taco Bell commercial. But is the return of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, coming to a movie theater near you with their first film project in a few years.
It’s called The Slammin’ Salmon, and the quintet of yuksters who gave us such cinematic efforts as Super Troopers, Club Dread, Beerfest and the 2005 Dukes Of Hazzard film are up to their old tricks again, offering wacky characters, raunchy comedy and themselves in a cast peppered with familiar names and faces.
The story revolves around the title establishment, a Miami seafood eatery owned by a boisterous former boxer named Cleon “Slammin’” Salmon, played hysterically by—of all people—Michael Clarke Duncan. The ex-champ needs thousands to settle a wager owed a yakuza gangster. In order to pay off, Salmon asks his manager to raise the funds, who, in turn, runs a contest with his wait staff to see who can dig up the most loot by the end of the night.
The film comes to in theaters in early December, offering a reprieve of sorts from the family-oriented films and Oscar contenders out there in the multiplexes. In addition, Broken Lizard—whose members met when they were attending Colgate University in the early 1990s—has several projects in development, including Super Troopers 2, Potfest (a sequel to Beerfest) and an Animal House-like collegiate comedy in which the Lizards play university professors.
But it was in mid-November that the five members of Broken Lizard parked their bus in Philadelphia for a set of live shows at Philly’s Trocadero Theater and to talk about their new movie and other topics with Movie Fanfare.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
As a character actor, Bruce McGill never looks a gift horse in the mouth.
So, when he was about to sign a contract to trade an acting gig for a free vacation, he was ready to sign on the dotted line. Then things changed.
“I was set to go on a cruise and swap doing a show for the vacation,” says the 59-year-old performer. “It was a half hour from when the contracts came in the mail, when I got a call to be in Law Abiding Citizen. I looked at my wife and she looked at me in the eye and said, ‘What have you been working all your life for?’ So I knew I had to do it.”
Tags: Disney Animation, Disney Movies