“Movie Buzz” Archive
Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
The Mighty Macs is not a new movie about a fast food sandwich.
In fact, “Mighty Macs” is the nickname for the women’s basketball team at Immaculata University, a team that won three consecutive AIAW national championships from 1972 to 1974.
The film based on the Mighty Macs’ first season took almost as long to come out as the Macs’ reign.
In the movie, Carla Gugino plays Cathy Rush, a former hoops star who becomes the Catholic college’s novice coach. Married to NBA ref Ed Rush (David Boreanaz of TV’s Bones), the blonde-haired force of nature faces the absence of a gym, little funding and no support from the school’s Mother Superior (Ellen Burstyn).
Written and directed by Tim Chambers, the film was completed in 2009, but only is now making its way into theaters. The G-rated indie effort sounds like—and often plays like—Hoosiers in skirts, which is not such a bad thing. Along with the Cinderella story of the underdog winning all and the formula sports stuff you’d expect, there’s a girls’ empowerment theme that speaks to kids, ‘tweens and young adults alike.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
At the memorable end of 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Yankee bank robbers Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) face off against scores of sharp-shooting lawmen and soldiers in Bolivia. After Butch informs Sundance that the bandit duo should consider Australia with its beautiful beaches and easy banks their next stop, they run out of the alcove where they are hiding, pistols in hand, where they are greeted by hails of bullets as the picture freeze-frames on the outlaws. The color fades to sepia tone as the gunfire continues. The End.
Or is it? Not according to Blackthorn, a new film that proposes that Butch Cassidy survived the ordeal, and lived a good 20-plus years beyond that altercation in the guise of Bolivian farmer James Blackthorn.
The film is an old fashioned western, actually shot in Bolivia, filled with wide open spaces, gorgeous, rugged scenery, and an interesting take on the Butch and Sundance legend. In many ways, it is the opposite of George Roy Hill’s box-office smash. The pace is leisurely, the film has a solemn tone and there are no raindrops falling on anybody’s head to keep the non-western fans entertained. Instead, we get a meditative work, more in tune with such elegiac sagebrushers of the Butch Cassidy era as Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand or Frank Perry’s Doc.
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George D. Allen | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Is George Clooney awesome or what? It's OK to admit it—I already confessed while Playing the Movie IFs Game that, were I (Movie Irv's producer) to be trading places with one of cinema's power players, he'd be the one. The star of Out of Sight? The director (and co-star) of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind? The star, co-writer, and director of Good Night, and Good Luck? Who wouldn't envy this career?
OK, Leatherheads might not have been all that, but that's a minor glitch on a pretty spotless record. Michael Clayton himself is back in the co-writing, directing, starring...and co-producing chairs for the much-anticipated political thriller The Ides of March, which co-stars Ryan Gosling, the up-and-coming leading man who helped make Drive a movie to talk about.
What's Movie Irv's verdict on the latest Clooney? Let's find out:
George D. Allen | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
This is not as easy as it sounds, but it is fun. Think of your favorite movie directors: How many of them would you say have helmed not one, not two or three...but five great films in a row?
Sure, Steven Spielberg was on a roll with Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind...but in between Raiders of the Lost Ark and E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial came a little--well, not so little--bomb called 1941. (Though that movie does have a champion here at MovieFanFare!) As a preproduction exercise, I (as Movie Irv's producer) went through the list of some of my own favorite auteurs, and finding five in a row even from those directors I admire most proved tough going! As far as I'm concerned, Marty can do no wrong, but I have trouble voting The Color of Money (much as I enjoy the work of Tom Cruise) into the same stratosphere as Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, and The Last Temptation of Christ (his sequel to The Hustler comes in at #4 in that sequence).
If I had a vote to be squeezed in at the end of the credits, I'd champion the great Werner Herzog (again), whose Aguirre the Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Stroszek, and Nosferatu the Vampyre all rank as bona-fide greats. Now, check out what Irv and Mark have to offer before you have your own say:
Think that was easy? Name your own favorite director's five-greats-in-a-row. They all have to be great (and all in a row, one right after the other), so no cheating!
Irv Slifkin | In the Star's Trailer, Movie Buzz
Jonah Hill is everywhere.
He showed up on the MTV Video Music Awards, bantering and handing out a statue with Niki Minaj. He then took the stage at ESPN’s ESPY Awards, where he was dwarfed by the Minnesota Timberwolves’ power forward Kevin Love.
Hill’s picture has been snapped at the Toronto Film Festival for the world premiere of his new film Moneyball, getting into theaters now. Also at your local multiplex: the trailer for The Sitter, a December release in which he plays a college student unprepared for watching his neighbor’s three wild kids.
Meanwhile, the animated hit Megamind, featuring Hill’s voice, has been popular on home video over the past few months; on TV in October comes Allen Gregory, an animated comedy for Fox about a seven-year-old genius forced into attending regular school. Hill co-created the series, for which he provides the lead character’s voice.
That’s not even mentioning the various projects on the not-so distant horizon.
He’s managed to make time to get to a Philadelphia hotel suite, albeit for a brief stop. The purpose is to discuss Moneyball, but, really, how can you ignore everything else, all the work—and all the weight the slimmed down- actor has lost?
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Nicolas Winding Refn is tired. He’s been up since 5 AM, working on a TV commercial via Skype from his Philadelphia hotel room.
No rest for the weary, even if the weary is a serious multitasker.
“I wish I could get more commercial work,” says the 40-year-old filmmaker, who has a handful of films in various stages of pre-production. “I welcome that.”
A publicity stop for Drive has brought Refn to Philly. The movie stars Ryan Gosling as a mysterious auto mechanic known only as “the Driver,” who uses his skill behind the wheel by day for stunts in movies, and by night in getaways for criminals. The sleek action film, which co-stars Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks and Albert Brooks, won Refn the award for Best Director at the most recent Cannes Film Festival.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Many people know about Serge Gainsbourg from his scandalous recording he did with girlfriend Jane Birkin in 1969 called “Je t’aime…moi non plus,” in which the then-couple sang and writhed on vinyl and got banned in many countries for their efforts.
For years (and even now in many ways), Gainsbourg was France’s leading celebrity, an all-media king proficient in singing, songwriting, novel writing, acting and directing. Then, of course, there were the high-profile women—scores of them, ooo-la-la!—including Birkin, Brigitte Bardot and “chanson” singer Juliette Greco among them. And let’s not forget the heavy drinking, the thorny TV talk show appearances and the chain smoking, which eventually led to his death at the age of 53 in 1991.
Joann Sfar, the French comic illustrator behind the acclaimed graphic novels The Rabbi’s Cat, Klezmer: Tales from the Wild East and the Dungeon fantasy series, makes his directorial debut with Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, a look at the Franco-Jewish entertainer from a childhood during the Nazi occupation of France to his attention-getting stunts and artistic world to his death.
But this is not your typical biopic. Here, Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino) confers with an imaginary big-nosed, large-fingered creation that looks like a sports mascot version of Gainsbourg himself (played, oddly enough, by Doug Bradley, “Pinhead” of Hellraiser fame). The film is anecdotal, filled with flights of fancy like musical interludes and an animated sequence that exists more to delve into his subject’s psyche than to get the facts right in his story.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Apocalypse...POW!
You know that any movie that starts with a quote from Lord Humongous, the monstrous goalie mask-wearing bad guy from The Road Warrior, isn’t going to be a quaint rom-com.
Bellflower isn’t.
The film has been buzzed about in the blogosphere since its Sundance debut earlier this year. And the buzz is warranted.
Evan Glodell wrote, directed and stars in this low, low, low budget (how low? –how about $17,000 low) saga about twentysomething friends Woodrow and Aiden (played by Glodell and his real-life compadre Tyler Dawson) who tool around cruddy Ventura, California in a custom tooled muscle car, drinking and talking about the apocalypse. The shy Woodrow meets the sharp blonde Milly (Jessie Wiseman) cute (at a cricket eating contest in a local bar), falls for her and begin spending time with her. The relationship spurs bad vibes from Aidan and Milly’s friends, which leads to some nasty complications and ugly repercussions and in which reality and fantasy may or may not blend.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
For 20 years, documentarian Kenneth Bowser had wanted to make a film about seminal protest singer-songwriter Phil Ochs. But he was continually greeted with apathy on many fronts.
“I knew it was a great story,” says Bowser during a phone call from New York City. “He lived in interesting times and affected the time. People kept saying: ‘Why did you want to make a movie about a dead folk singer?’ They liked my take on the story. I always felt there was lots of interest in the story.”
Ochs’ story, however, was a tragic one, the saga of an immensely talented, politically committed artist who took his own life in 1976 at the age of 35 after struggling with alcoholism and being diagnosed with depression and bi-polar disorder.
As in the case in many aspects of independent filmmaking, Bowser learned that good things come from those who wait, especially those who wait for funding. He kept in contact with Michael Ochs, Phil’s brother, known for his rock archives collection, and the songwriter’s widow, Megan.
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George D. Allen | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
John Wayne playing a cowboy? Nobody bats an eye. Cast him as Mongol ruler Genghis Khan? Now you've got people talking.
Viewers used to take Leslie Nielsen "seriously"...Airplane! and Police Squad! changed all that. If moviegoers were surprised to see comic actor Michael Keaton take on the lead role in the serious drama Clean and Sober, they were positively bowled over when he accepted the title role for the "dark" re-imagining of legendary comics character Batman. Halle Berry was generally regarded as a lightweight performer—the hottie from The Flintstones, BAPS, and X-Men—until she scorched the screen with her unforgettable performance in Monster's Ball.
One of moviegoing's great pleasures is to watch an actor defy expectations and change up their game right before your eyes. Sometimes the surprise is a great one; other times, the shock can do serious damage to a career. Movie Irv and his guest are here to share picks for their favorite "surprise" performances on the screen:
Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig has been directing films and TV shows for 25 years. But after work on such acclaimed efforts as Italian for Beginners and Wilbur (Wants to Kill Himself), she moved into the limelight with 2009’s An Education, the critically applauded dramedy set in the 1950s about a working class British teen’s decision to forgo studying at Oxford in order to carry on a relationship with a wealthy older man. Unknown Carey Mulligan’s tour-de-force lead performance helped the film to become an international hit and also catapulted the actress onto the list of much-coveted young leads.
As a follow-up, Scherfig, 52, headed back to Great Britain for One Day. The film is based on a best-selling book by David Nicholls, who also adapted it for the big screen. It centers on the ongoing relationship between Emma and Dexter, who meet while attending college in Edinburgh and find their lives intertwined over the decades. She grows out of her awkwardness, gets a job as a waitress and aspires to write a book; he uses his outgoing personality (and busy sex life) to take him to TV success, then faces tough times. One Day centers on what goes on during a given particular day throughout their young lives.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Poor Paw Paw.
Paw Paw, a cat, is at the vet’s office with an injured paw. Paw Paw now has to wait 30 days to be moved into the apartment of his new human owners.
Sophie and Jason are the pussy’s new parents to be. Until the month is over, Paw Paw will narrate a movie in its feline voice.
Such is the premise of Miranda July’s new film The Future. Besides writing and directing the film, July provides the voice of Paw Paw. She also takes the lead as Sophie, a thirtysomething kids’ dance instructor who quits her teaching gig to perform moves on YouTube like some of her associates. Hamish Linklater (The New Adventures of Old Christine and much stage work) is a tech support specialist for a computer company who quits his job to sell trees door-to-door. The couple figures they have 30 days until their lives are changed forever when a recovered Paw Paw becomes part of their family.
And what exactly can happen in a month’s time? According to The Future, a lot.
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