More about Movies (and More)

The Other F-Word

2011-10-11T08:17:00.000-04:00

A critic comes in from the cold

2007-12-15T17:22:00.000-05:00

The Financial Times on my switch to Beliefnet.

I'm moving.....

2007-11-18T21:26:00.000-05:00

I'm delighted that from now on my reviews, interviews, features, commentary, and blog will all be in one place: Please visit me there and let me know what you think!

Update:

Here's the official press release:

"THE MOVIE MOM” MOVES TO BELIEFNET
Nell Minow, Trusted Advisor to Parents about the Best Kid-Friendly Movies,
TV and Web Entertainment Settles in at a New Online Home

New York, NY – December 10, 2007 – Beliefnet.com, the leading online
community for spirituality and inspiration, today welcomes popular author
and parental entertainment advisor, Nell Minow, to its roster of
contributing bloggers. Blogging as “The Movie Mom,” Ms. Minow will provide
reviews, quizzes, tips and advice about which movies, DVDs, television
programs and Internet sites are most appropriate for children of varying
ages. Originally hosted by Yahoo!, “The Movie Mom” will now take up
residence on Beliefnet’s entertainment channel and will be accessible from
www.beliefnet.com. Visitors to www.moviemom.com will be automatically
redirected.
Nell Minow, as “The Movie Mom” has been featured in The Chicago Sun-Times,
USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, Parents, Family Fun and other publications.
She has been profiled by The New York Times, The Economist, Forbes, The
Chicago Tribune and Ladies Home Journal. Her book, The Movie Mom’s Guide
to Family Movies, has helped parents from all over present their children
with entertainment that is both safe and fun.
“Beliefnet is the best possible place for me because it allows me to write
about movies and popular culture in the context of family, community,
values and meaning, which is where it belongs,” says Nell Minow. “Movies
are our modern-day myths, our sagas, our dreams made real. They reflect
our history and culture back to us and reinforce and pass on—for better or
worse—those values to our children. I am very happy to have a place to
write about those issues and to enter into conversations with families to
understand how these influences are transmitted and to help them respond.”
In her blog, Nell Minow guides parents through all the hype, and helps them
reach an educated decision before they arrive at the theatre. Ms. Minow
also provides reviews for holiday DVDs to ease the pressure of shopping for
appropriate gifts for children.
“We’re so glad to have Nell’s expertise to offer Beliefnet readers. She’s
recognized, loved and respected by families in every community,” said
Deborah Caldwell, Managing Editor for Beliefnet. “She’s full of wise,
creative and fun advice to help parents navigate the often rocky terrain of
parenting in today’s media-saturated world.”
Beliefnet blogs offer thought-provoking commentary and inspiration from a
variety of spiritual voices, and cover a wide range of topics including
politics, parenting, pop-culture, mental health and more. In addition to
“The Movie Mom,” current offerings include:
Beyond Blue, A Spiritual Journey to Mental Health by Therese J.
Borchard
Flower Mandalas, A Blog About Mandalas, Art, Healing and
Transformation by David J. Bookbinder
Casting Stones, Beliefnet’s political mashup; A Boistrous Conclave on
Faith and Politics
God-O-Meter, Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ use of
Religion in the Race to the White House, in Partnership with TIME
magazine
Crunchy Con, Conservative Politics and Religion with Rod Dreher
God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis and Friends, a partnership with
Sojourners
J-Walking, a Christian view of Jesus and Politics with David Kuo
Conversations With God, a Blog with Neale Donald Walsch
Feiler Faster, the Blog of Bestselling Author and Commentator, Bruce
Feiler
Idol Chatter, Beliefnet’s Pop-Culture and Religion Entertainment Blog
Virtual Talmud, Rabbis Blogging for the Sake of Heaven
In addition, an examination of holiday culture wars is back by popular
demand for 2007’s December Dilemma Watch. Members of the new social
network Beliefnet Community—the world’s largest multi-faith social
network—are adding user generated content and posts around the clock.
###
About Beliefnet
Beliefnet, winner of the 2007 National Magazine Award for General
Excellence Online, is the largest online community for spirituality and
inspiration. Its mission is to help people find and walk a spiritual path
that instills comfort, hope, clarity, strength and happiness for people who
are exploring their own faith or curious about other spiritual traditions.
Beliefnet offers a wide variety of resources including social networking
tools, articles, quizzes, devotionals, sacred text searches, photo
galleries and intimate interviews with noted politicians, celebrities and
spiritual leaders. Beliefnet has approximately three million unique
visitors each month and a daily email newsletter readership of nearly 11
million subscribers. The company, which is a subsidiary of Fox Digital
Media and Fox Entertainment Group, is not affiliated with any spiritual
organization or movement, and has partnerships with TIME magazine, Yahoo!,
and Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Movies that make you cry (or sob or blubber uncontrollably)

2007-11-02T19:31:00.000-04:00

Desson Thomson has a wonderful piece in this Sunday's Washington Post about movies that make us cry, and a list of some examples sent in by readers. The usual suspects are there, from "Dumbo" to "Field of Dreams," but some surprises, including Adam Sandler's "Click" ("Never thought I would cry at an Adam Sandler movie -- I usually don't even admit to even going to one."), "Star Trek: The Search for Spock," and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." I admit to tearing up at the end of that one, too. Some of the other movies that have made me cry: Waterloo Bridge, A Little Princess, Steel Magnolias, the one Thomson refers to as "that Michael Keaton movie" (My Life) and yes, An Affair to Remember.

Be sure to listen to Thomson's graceful audio commentary on his own list, with such classic choices as "Old Yeller" and "Terms of Endearment." I enjoyed the quotes from experts, especially Professor Mary Beth Oliver of Penn State, who said that these movies

cause us to contemplate what it is about human life that's important and meaningful. . . . Those thoughts are associated with a mixture of emotions that can be joyful but also nostalgic and wistful, tender and poignant. Tears aren't just tears of sadness, they're tears of searching for the meaning of our fleeting existence.

Just reading those words made me a little damp-eyed. Sorry, I just need a minute here.

Hot Pick

2007-11-02T13:20:00.000-04:00

Thank you Rotten Tomatoes! My "Martian Child" review is their "hot pick" of the week.

Last Lecture of Randy Pausch

2007-11-02T06:52:00.000-04:00

The "Last Lecture" is an academic tradition. It is supposed to be theoretical, a sort of intellectual "desert island discs," what the professor would want to say as a summation of his or her life and ideas. In the case of Professor Randy Pausch, it is literally a "last lecture" because he recently learned that his pancreatic cancer prognosis gives him only a few more months to live. The 47-year-old father of three young children talks about what makes life worth living, about achieving his childhood dreams and helping others achieve theirs. The lecture is thrilling, engrossing, inspiring, hilarious, meaningful, unforgettable.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady

2007-10-24T16:01:00.001-04:00

I'm delighted to see that a neglected gem is out on DVD, A Big Hand for the Little Lady. It has a powerhouse cast including Oscar winners Jason Robards, Henry Fonda, and Joanne Woodward and a bunch of top character actors like Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ford, and Burgess Meredith. And it has one of the best surprise endings ever filmed.

Ansen's list (8000 and counting)

2007-10-24T09:59:00.000-04:00

Newsweek critic David Ansen began compiling his list of every movie he saw when he was 12. It is now 146 handwritten pages with almost 8000 movies. The essay is a little list-y but fun to read, a sort of time-lapse photography of the last five decades.

Spoiler Alert: Sad Dads go Bowling and Get Traffic Tickets

2007-10-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

Two movies in two weeks feature widower dads learning to move on with (not from) loss. In "Dan in Real Life," Steve Carrell feels that he might be able to love again for the first time since his wife died when he meets life force Juliette Binoche (she laughs, she listens, she cooks, she hugs, and she's great with kids). In "Martian Child," John Cusack feels that he might be able to love again for the first time since his wife died when he takes steps to adopt a child who is either odd or disturbed but qualifies as a life force because he is a child and therefore does not have to cook or hug or anything except for be young and need love.

The movies have some other similarities. Both use bowling(!) as a marker for happy-fun-bonding time (has the bowling association banded together for product placement? Both feature rattled and sheepish dads getting stopped by the police for traffic violations. Both have someone show up at exactly the wrong time, creating consternation and misunderstandings. But that probably happens in more movies than not. Cusack is going to be bereaved again soon. His next film, "Grace is Gone," is about a man whose wife is killed in Iraq.

Even Jar-Jar Binks looks good made of Legos

2007-10-23T09:21:00.001-04:00

This clip of the new Star Wars Lego Game is adorable.

Interview with Charles Horak

2007-10-21T21:53:00.000-04:00

My MMI colleague Charles Horak interviewed me for his NPR show. It was so much fun to talk to him about family movies -- and family and movies.

Blu-ray must be seen to be believed

2007-10-21T17:22:00.000-04:00

I have seen the future and it is in super hi-def with all kinds of great extras. There was a Blu-Ray demo at Tyson's Corner, Virginia this weekend and the quality of the picture was stunning, especially with the digitally created images in the Pixar movies. The extras include some terrific interactive features. I liked the way that kids watching "Cars" could play a game without leaving the movie, helping them with pattern recognition and encouraging active watching. I felt like Tommy Lee Jones in "Men in Black," looking woefully at the new super-small cds made with alien technology: "Now I'm going to have to buy the White Album again."

The rest of the tour: Oct. 26-28 -Burlington Mall, Burlington, Mass. Nov. 9-11 -King of Prussia, King of Prussia, Pa. Nov. 16-18 -Circle Centre, Indianapolis Nov. 23-25 -Lenox Square, Atlanta Nov. 30-Dec. 2 -The Galleria, Houston Dec. 7-9 -Barton Creek Square, Austin Dec. 14-16 -Chandler Fashion Center, Chandler, Ariz. Dec. 21-23

Quotes of the Week -- Rendition

2007-10-18T20:37:00.001-04:00

Hollywood—particularly during Oscar season—functions on the assumption that no trauma has entered the national consciousness until it's been undergone by a flaxen-haired gamine with major box-office draw.

Dana Stevens, Slate

No more fine print?

2007-10-18T08:15:00.000-04:00

A bank once put a sentence deep inside the pages and pages of mandated disclosures: "If you bring this page into the bank we will give you $10." Not one person took them up on it. No one reads that stuff. Almost no one reads manuals, disclaimers, contracts, leases, waivers, any of that dense, boring, small print stuff.

But would you pay attention if it was on You Tube? And less than two minutes?
And funny? Can a video be worth a million words? Visionary cyber-wizard Esther Dyson is offering $5000 to find out. Submit a video explaining cookies, covering:

What is a cookie?
How do cookies work?
How can cookies be used?
How is the data from cookies used with data collected in other ways, including from third parties?
How can cookies be misused?
What options does a user have to manage cookies and their use?

The winner gets $5000 and a trip to Washington DC to attend a workshop at the Federal Trade Commission on "Ehavioral Advertising."

'The Feel-Good Movie Blurb Credit of the Year'

2007-10-15T14:36:00.000-04:00

Paul Fahri of the Washington Post did a little investigative reporting and answered a question I have wondered about for a long time. Who are these critics who love all these awful movies? It turns out there is considerable affiliate inflation in movie ads, and small- and mid-market TV critics are often listed in ads as representing the views of their networks.

Marc Doyle, co-founder of the Web site Metacritic.com, which tracks critics' opinions, says the studios prefer the more impressive network title, even if it isn't quite accurate, because would-be film patrons might not be very impressed by a blurb from a reviewer from "some outlet they've never heard of."

But Paurich says titles aren't really important. "This might reflect badly on me and everybody else in this business, but unless you're Roger Ebert, people don't necessarily check the name beneath the quote [in the ad]. The quote is going to matter more to [a moviegoer] than the source of the quote."

The real motivation is in Fahri's last line:

As for critics, he says they like to be blurbed: "It's nice to see your name in the New York Times or in a TV commercial. It's flattering. It's still a kick."

Simply Irresistible

2007-10-11T12:39:00.000-04:00

I get several questions a month through Allexperts, usually about half-remembered films (many questions begin: "I might have made this up, but I sort of remember..."). I get a big kick out of identifying the films when I can. Sometimes that is not possible -- one recent query could provide no details other than it was a scary movie that included a scene of someone running out of a dark house screaming.

But for some reason, the most frequent movie I get asked about is a minor romantic comedy about a chef with magical powers called "Simply Irresistible." For some reason, people love that movie. I guess it is...irresistible.

Women On Movies/Women In Movies/Women About Movies

2007-10-11T09:17:00.001-04:00

Salon has an article with an extended version of a discussion in this month's "Elle" magazine by women film-makers.

The panel was moderated by one of Tinseltown's great brains, producer Lynda Obst ("Contact," "Sleepless in Seattle," "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days"). She nimbly guided panelists Nora Ephron (screenwriter, director, "When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle"), Laura Ziskin (writer, producer, "Hero," "To Die For," "Spider-Man"), Callie Khouri (screenwriter, director, "Thelma & Louise," "Something to Talk About"), Patty Jenkins (writer, director, "Monster"), Cathy Konrad (producer, "Walk the Line," "3:10 to Yuma"), Kimberly Piece (writer, director, producer, "Boys Don't Cry"), Andrea Berloff (writer, producer, "World Trade Center"), Margaret Nagle (writer, producer, "Warm Springs"), and that rarest of Hollywood breeds, a female studio head, Universal president of production Donna Langley, in a conversation that touched on issues that cut to the heart of the Robinov story. They spoke of the remaining handful of female movies stars as if they were the last hope of the Jedi order -- Luke ... Leia ... Julia ... Reese -- and maybe they are. If these female machers are to be believed, the business of making movies for women remains one of constant juggling between progress and regress, of compensation and compromise.The panel was moderated by one of Tinseltown's great brains, producer Lynda Obst ("Contact," "Sleepless in Seattle," "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days"). She nimbly guided panelists Nora Ephron (screenwriter, director, "When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle"), Laura Ziskin (writer, producer, "Hero," "To Die For," "Spider-Man"), Callie Khouri (screenwriter, director, "Thelma & Louise," "Something to Talk About"), Patty Jenkins (writer, director, "Monster"), Cathy Konrad (producer, "Walk the Line," "3:10 to Yuma"), Kimberly Piece (writer, director, producer, "Boys Don't Cry"), Andrea Berloff (writer, producer, "World Trade Center"), Margaret Nagle (writer, producer, "Warm Springs"), and that rarest of Hollywood breeds, a female studio head, Universal president of production Donna Langley, in a conversation that touched on issues that cut to the heart of the Robinov story. They spoke of the remaining handful of female movies stars as if they were the last hope of the Jedi order -- Luke ... Leia ... Julia ... Reese -- and maybe they are. If these female machers are to be believed, the business of making movies for women remains one of constant juggling between progress and regress, of compensation and compromise.

A lot of the discussion is the usual (and inevitable) "if a man goes home because his kid has an ear infection, he's a hero, but if a woman does it, she's unprofessional" but I loved the discussion of "Knocked Up."

Paul Schneider

2007-10-11T08:34:00.000-04:00

Two of the best performances I have seen this year were from the same actor, Paul Schneider. In the broody western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" he played Dick Liddil, the ladies' man of the James Gang. He brought maturity and depth to the seduction of a young wife and the description of his conquests to the other men, both scenes that could easily have been mishandled and become slick or snickery. And in the lovely little indie "Lars and the Real Girl" he plays brother to the title character, who believes that a "fun doll" is his girlfriend. Many actors would not have been able to resist a sit-com vibe in reacting to this gentle delusion, but Schneider again shows a range of often conflicting emotions with great restraint, delicacy, and humanity. I see he is now directing a film based on his own screenplay and that he has assembled an extraordinarily appealing cast, including Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup, and SNL's Kristen Wiig. Sounds wonderful.

Southland Tales -- at last

2007-10-08T18:06:00.000-04:00

I am really looking forward to "Southland Tales," the much-discussed, often-delayed second film from Donnie Darko's Richard Kelly (he also co-wrote the script for the movie star's daughter-model-turned-bounty hunter movie "Domino" about which no more need be said). I was a little concerned after footage at Comic-Con in 2006 was a little disappointing. Then there were the delays, and did I mention "Domino?" But the trailer for this one is a knock-out and the movie looks like it will fulfill the promise of the masterful "Donnie Darko." It has a sensational cast including "Darko" alums Holmes Osborne and Beth Grant, SNL stars Cheri Oteri, Jon Lovitz, Amy Poehler, and Nora Dunn, and other luminaries from The Rock to Justin Timberlake. Can't wait!

Showing and Telling

2007-10-03T10:06:00.000-04:00

I've seen four movies based on books in the past week and all made me think about the perils of adapting novels to the screen. I once heard Peter Hedges speak about the difference between plays, novels, and movies. His novel, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, was adapted into a fine movie by Lasse Hallström, and he described the experience as a master class in understanding the difference between print and film. He said that novels are about what people think and feel, plays are about what they say, and movies are about showing what the characters think and feel, most often without saying anything.

I did not think much of the book The Jane Austen Book Club. If any other author's name was in the title, it would not have been a best-seller. The movie version is far better, genuinely enjoyable. Feast of Love and O Jerusalem did not live up to their source material. The Dark is Rising, The book that inspired "The Seeker" was so diluted in the final script that it had the same relaitonship to the source material that a homeopathic remedy has to its active ingredient. And the result was less efficacious.

It is not just about the acting. "The Jane Austen Book Club" has first class actors who bring more subtlety and complexity and life to the characters than the author ever did, but "Feast of Love" has Morgan Freeman, Jane Alexander, and Greg Kinnear, who all do the best they can but never make the relationships on screen feel immediate or alive. It just has to do with showing, not telling, and "The Jane Austen Book Club" manages that act of alchemy where the others fail.

DVD picks for kids

2007-09-26T20:06:00.000-04:00

Recommended new DVDs for kids:

Great Moogly Moogly! The intrepid adventurer and her best friends salute the power of imagination and the joys of friendship.

The last animated film personally supervised by Walt Disney himself has some of Disney's most memorable songs, including "The Bear Necessities" sung by Phil Harris and "I Wanna Be Like You" by the inimitable Louis Prima.

One of the freshest surprises of the summer of 2007 was this animated mockumentary about surfing penguins starring the voice talents of Shia LeBoeuf ("Transformers"), Jeff Bridges, and Jon Heder ("Napoleon Dynamite").

As in Dorothy's famous story, this is the tale of someone who thought found that there's no place like home.

Simpsons movie parodies

2007-09-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

This site has some great shot-by-shot comparisons of Simpsons episodes to the movies that inspired them, including "Citizen Kane," "Steamboat Mickey," and "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Emile Hirsch goes Into the Wild

2007-09-24T08:33:00.000-04:00

Emile Hirsch gives a magnificent performance in one of the year's best films, Into the Wild. I met with him in Georgetown to ask him about making the film.

What does Sean Penn as an actor bring to directing?
He has that whole wealth of experience since he's done it on the actor's side. So you trust him so much. Everything he asked me to do, certain things I was hesitant to do, he did first. He ate squirrel. He went first on the Colorado River. He let me know I could do it. Sean was an incredible director. He let me learn for myself, He helps you bring out the best in yourself and there's no greater gift.

All of the movies Penn has written and directed are in some way about lost children. Why do you think that is?
He is a man of high intellect but also a very keen instinct. A lot of his choices are on an instinctual level in a very pure way. One of the things I admire about him so much is the kind of strong-willed instinct that he has and the confidence to trust that instinct and move forward. Where so many people are in the back rubbing sweaty palms, he is doing it. He wanted to do this movie because he always had a really strong wanderlust, as do I. It was infectuous, the idea that you want to go out and live your life all the way and have more meanng, live it while you have it.

You play a real-life character who died of starvation in Alaska. Did he have poor judgment? Was he self-destructive? Where would he have gone next?
He made a couple of really crucial errors, not bringing things with him like a map. But he purposefully did not bring them because he wanted to shave he margin of error. He shaved it a little too much. He had amazing wanderlust and also had a lot of personal problems.

Did he learn from the people he met or were they just way-stations on his journey to sever all ties?
He was very determined. The people on the road started to open his eyes, but it took the total solitude for him to find himself and what the meaning of his life could possibly be.

It's quite a contrast to go from this film to your next film, "Speed Racer." How do you prepare for such different genres?
The directors of "Speed Racer," the Wachowski brothers, the guys who did The Matrix, have a particular sensibility about performances they expect. It was like being in a sauna for eight months and jumping into an ice bath without a break -- with the lid locked!

Were there elements of the real-life story that were especially meaningful to you in portraying Chris McAndless?
The abandoned bus he lived in, which he called "the magic bus." It was like a waystation, always symbolzing the journey, Where he learns about himself. It symbolizes the question, "Where is he going?" And I read the books he was reading, Walden by Thoreau, Emerson, Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak, Jack London's Call of the Wild. What Chris did was very similar to what Thoreau did.

About.com Guide to Documentary Films

2007-09-23T13:25:00.000-04:00

My colleague from the MMI Film Critic Institute, Jennifer Merin, has established a new About.com Guide to Documentary Films, an immediately indispensible resource for fans of this vitally engaging category of movies. Her initial selection is superb and I was especially glad to see one of my recent favorites, "The King of Kong" on her list. And I'm glad to hear that she'll continue with her work for the New York Press and the online magazine Women on Film as well.

Quoted by Peg Rosen

2007-09-21T09:59:00.000-04:00

ParentCenter's Peg Rosen has some thoughtful advice for parents about television and families and I am honored to be quoted.

Quote of the Week: Meet the Beatles

2007-09-20T08:45:00.000-04:00

Critics borrowed from the Beatles to express their disappointment in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe.

Contrary to what you may have heard, love isn't all you need.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

I saw a film today, oh boy. (Headline: Hey Dudes, You Made it Bad)
Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly

Nothing is real. (Headline: She can't work it out.)
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

And my favorite:

I wanted to turn the sound down on them and say rude things.
J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

(On Rotten Tomatoes, there's a perfect follow-up comment from Captain Siberia: "Then Julie Taymor is that posh bird who gets everything wrong?")

Gmail Gvideo

2007-09-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

Gmail invited its users to help them create a video about the journey of a gmail message. This collection of the best of what they received is adorable -- I am particularly partial to the sequence of animals, the jive dancers, and the old school flipbook.

Best Satans on film from EW

2007-09-13T18:42:00.000-04:00

Nice going, Dalton Ross! If you are going to put together a list, it's always best to back it up with clips. Best Satans on film: Dalton's (Pacino-free!) list

Duck-ing with writer-director Nic Bettauer

2007-09-13T17:54:00.000-04:00

Nic Bettauer wrote and directed an independent film called "Duck," starring Philip Baker Hall and the duck from the Aflac commercials. We spoke by phone:

Philip Baker Hall is one of my favorite character actors and it was a real pleasure to see him in a lead role. How did that come about?

I’ve been known to try to do things backwards, but in this case there was no way other than protocol. I made an offer through his agent and the system worked. I did not have him in mind while I was writing it because if you picture a patticular actor you get lazy and think of all the wonderful things he could do with the role, but once I’m done, I like to think about what the actor can bring to it, sometimes things I never thought of. With Philip, this was different than a lot of the roles he’s been playing. I like to offer someone something he hasn’t done on every level. That’s how without having a lot of money you take a risk on people. It is also how you make it worth it for them in other ways than money.

He has a gorgeous voice, wonderful for this movie because so much of it is essentially a monologue.

His voice is a stunner, it just cuts to the quick, love to have him read the audio book.

Most directors worry about working with animals, especially those not easy to train. How did you come to write a movie starring the Aflac duck?

When I was writing I tried not to censor myself but then when it got to making it I was like wow. It was important that it was all live, so I went after the best quality duck. We had great ducks and trainers. Ducks are very social. Our "hero duck" #30 was the best listener and we had stand-ins with different personalities. So we would say, "Is this a job for #27 who liked to walk ahead?" or for another who loved to be held. You might have to switch ducks because you could not have it all in one shot. But they were very charismatic. We had to know the ducks and think like a duck in a way. With three different ages of ducks in the movie, we had 1-2 babies, some teenage, and about 6 big ducks, always more than one on the set just in case. At one point we wanted the duck to look grubby but we learned the derivation of the expression "water off a duck's back." They just always look pristine.

What is the duck's purpose in the story?

Philip Baker Hall is so real and his character's relationship with the duck was like the one I have with my dog, who is my writing partner. Philip plays it so straight. When he was working with the duck he was looking at his alter ego, almost speaking to the part of himself that was keeping him alive. He is almost speaking to himself or treating the duck like a replacement for his son or his wife. As long as he is teaching or learning life is worthwhile, so taking care of the duck gave him a purpose. Now Philip and I have been intellectualizing it but it’s not really the way I think when I write.

How did French Stewart become involved in this project?

I really adore him. He is so interesting. He came in and read. It is problematic not to be typecast when you are so huge on a TV show. He was doing a lot of theater, smaller projects. He was a bit different than I had thought of the character and that is so exciting, it brought so much to the film. People capable of being funny are usually capable of the exact opposite.

The one smart thing I did unbeknownst to myself at the time -- because the movie is a set of vignettes, we would end up filming one additional character a day. Some really interesting people worked with us because we only needed a day of their time. People really came through for us, a nice influx of creative energy, a breath of fresh air each day.

The movie is set in 2009. Why set it in the future and why just a couple of years in the future?

I wanted it to be slightly in the future so that it was a bit of a cautionary tale about where we were headed but still with hope to make a change. I not want to make it so far ahead that it was irrelevant. It is a fable. It’s not what I necessarily predict. At one point he says the President is Jeb Bush. That was not a prediction. I did not want to use a realistic candidate because it would be distracting. By chosing Jeb Bush as the answer I was talking about this administration.

What's next?

Next is my version of a cop movie, a character piece, an anti-hero cop, and I am currently obsessing over Chris Cooper [to play the lead]. The character says everything I wish I could but shouldn’t in polite company. I would love to keep this character, maybe a series. I grew up on the 70’s NY cop films.

Duck is bittersweet, but also funny, isn't it?

I do think there’s a lot of humor in "Duck." It is a bit surreal, a bit acerbic, a little Sartre. You never know what people will see, absurdist kind of humor but also sad. I like to find the funny in sad, if you can do that in real life you’ll be okay.

20 best big-screen comic book heroes - Times Online

2007-09-13T08:43:00.000-04:00

Another list.

I don't take these things too seriously. But the fangirl in me has to squawk a bit. Tim Burton's Batman has to be number one. It is way ahead of "Batman Begins," which has the same problem as the first "Fantastic Four" and "The Hulk" -- too much time on origins and not enough interest in the bad guys (plus "The Hulk's" CGI made him look almost weightless and let's face it, the Hulk is about Bulk). Yes to "Blade" and "Hellboy" and the Christopher Reeve "Superman" but there are some awful movies on this list, movies hugely disappointed by failing to do justice to the comic book characters like "The Punisher," "Daredevil," and "Ghost Rider."

Dorothy, I don't think we're at the multiplex anymore

2007-09-08T22:08:00.000-04:00

Looking for something exotic? Still haven't watched that Netflix DVD that's been sitting on top of your television set for two months and want something new right now? Your friends are lovely people, but they'd rather wait for the Hollywood remakes than watch Japanese horror films or French comedies? Try Jaman, where you can download a wide range of independent and foreign films and then discuss them with a myspace-style community. And you won't be tempted to spend $5.00 on 30 cents worth of popcorn.

The art of the comic book movie parody

2007-09-03T11:40:00.000-04:00

Charles Fulp loves movies and he loves comics. His day job is being owner of One-Stop Cellular, a chain of independent wireless retailers. But his labor of love, through "Fulp Fiction" is a series of comic book movie parodies.

Fulp spoke to me by phone about the comics which he bills as "More powers than Austin, more flash than Gordon, and more dick than Tracy." In other words, these are not literary satires requiring a knowledge of classical literature to appreciate the subtlety of the puns. These are comics with titles like Harry Johnson and the Case of the Crabbes, "a two-fisted two-pack for one low price of 3.95."

Fulp said, "'Raiders' is one of my favorites. I wanted to write a screenplay that spoofed it in the same way "Austin Powers" spoofed James Bond. I wrote it and could afford to turn it into a comic book but not a movie. I was thrilled to get Dean Yeagle to do character design. He's a Playboy cartoonist -- this was a clever ploy to get invited to the Playboy Mansion. I then approached artists who had worked for DC and Marvel. Next I would like to have it turned into a movie, and I am currently working toward some sort of adult swim animated series or live feature."

Ben Foster and "3:10 to Yuma"

2007-09-03T09:45:00.000-04:00

Ben Foster stars with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in "3:10 to Yuma," one of this fall's two big westerns. This is a remake of an earlier film by the same name, starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, a tense thriller about a rancher who must deliver a captured outlaw to the train station, so he can be taken to trial. Both movies are based on a story by Elmore Leonard, better known as the writer behind stories of modern-day crooks and tough guys. This new version is directed by James Mangold of "Walk the Line" and "Girl, Interrupted."

Ben Foster took time to talk with me by phone between interviews when he was in Washington to promote the film. He was very engaging and very forthcoming about his tactics in approaching this role.

Jim [Mangold] really re-created and modernized the film and really delved into the character development. Fans of the original film will be startled. I decided not to watch the original film. I related to being in an accident where it seems like everything slows down. My research was going through the archival photographs of outlaws at the time. We concluded they were the rock stars of their day. They were like pirates or rock and roll stars, living outside of the law, where murder becomes your show, performance. So I watched glam rock footage, David Bowie and INXS. These outlaws were also indiginous to the environment and its elements. They were predators. That idea seemed to resonate the most, so we looked at mountain cats, how they move and approach their prey. We also thought of matadors because there is a certain elegance to the character. I play the second in command, so finding a certain kind of deviant loyalty was also important.

Foster started acting professionally when he was very young, so I asked him about his influences.

Gary Oldman is brilliant. Barry Levinson gave me my first job in Liberty Heights and really shaped me with his approach to work. I was hoping to be told what to do and his direction was by asking questions, making it your own. Nick Cassavetes (Alpha Dog) works in that same way and so does Jim Mangold.

His future plans:

I'm heading to Belfast to shoot a film called "50 Dead Men. I want to keep doing what I am doing. I'm fortunate to stay busy and not feel that I am repeating myself.
I've never avoided a genre or pursued one. It's always the material and who the other players are. What’s important is I've never taken a job because I know how to do it. I look for a sense of recognition. Ideally in conspiracy with the director you create a fouidation that lets the character come in, making room for that person to come through, so you’re experiencing through them rather than through you. I believe you do the research and preparation so you can experience what is going on for the first time.

He admires his co-star:

Russell Crowe was incredibly supportive. He went out of his way to make sure that I felt good on my horse. I had never ridden a horse before and that’s not something you can really fake. He is really misrepresented in the press. He is a remarkable actor. If you’re hardworking and you mean it, you’ve got him on your side.

And the most important thing to know about this film:

There's a stigma with westerns that makes people think there’s no dialogue and it's all people scowling at each other. This is more of a character-driven action film great acting, great ride, not a dated western, it really moves.

Superbad and the birds and the bees

2007-09-03T08:04:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post's Desson Thomson has a sweet, touching, and very funny piece about taking his 15-year-old to see Superbad.

As I sat there with him, the exploits of three socially maladroit high school seniors on a mission to lose their virginity and become cool in the process no longer seemed like the sleaze-fest I had initially thought it to be, but an extended empathy encounter for him.

Thomson finds the movie communicates with his son the way his birds-and-bees talk did not. And that the movie gives them a way to connect that is very precious at an age when kids find it hard to express their feelings to their parents.

Ironic, I thought, that an R-rated comedy tells it like it is for moviegoers who are too young to actually go see it on their own. Finally, I asked my son that potentially groan-inducing, must-immediately-walk-away-from-Dad question: "What did you learn from this movie?"

"I learned that people that age are obsessed with sex -- a little bit too obsessed," he answered. And he didn't walk away.

Andy and Alan

2007-09-03T07:48:00.000-04:00

Andy Horbal and Alan Abbott, two of my wonderful Film Critic Institute colleagues, had a conversation about the role of the committed movie critic in bringing audiences to the best in film, not just by writing reviews but by seeking out movies that go beyond the usual multiplex fodder and helping to bring them to the community.

Catsoulis on Sequels

2007-08-29T07:40:00.000-04:00

Leave it to Jeanette Catsoulis to bring a fresh approach to the subject of stale sequels. Movie sequels have been around since the silent days, of course, and the 30's and 40's gave us popular series like The Thin Man, Blondie, and Dead End Kids. And let's not forget James Bond.

It's not called "show art" or "show originality;" it's called "show business," and that means that if there is money to be squeezed out of the public by showing them more of the same, Hollywood will provide, whether by establishing a franchise like "Rush Hour" or "American Pie" or following up a success like "Saw" with not only sequels but rip-offs ("Captivity," anyone?).

I think one of the differences between movie audiences and critics is that people who buy tickets are looking for a sure thing, and if they've seen and liked it before, that means their $11 investment (before popcorn) is low-risk.

Mumblecore

2007-08-20T22:57:00.000-04:00

Meeting the brilliant Dennis Lim was one of the highlights of the Film Critic Institute at the Museum of the Moving Image. His article on a new genre of independent films called mumblecore. "Specimens of the genre share a low-key naturalism, low-fi production values and a stream of low-volume chatter often perceived as ineloquence." Examples include "Funny Ha Ha" and "Puffy Chair."

Thor Halvorssen - Documentaries - Movies - New York Times

2007-08-20T22:50:00.000-04:00

The New York Times has a profile of Thor Halvorssen , described by First Amendment activist Nat Hentoff as "the embodiment of the nonpolitically correct person." He is a half-Norwegian Venezuelan who has founded a nonprofit to support and distribute documentary films. "At a time when the most successful documentaries on political or social issues all seem to be anti-corporate, anti-Bush, pro-environmentalist and left-leaning, the Moving Picture Institute has backed pro-business, anti-Communist and even anti-environmentalist ones." I have seen four of their films so far, including "Indoctrinate U," about suppression of free (right-wing) speech on college campuses and "Mine Your Own Business," which "portrays environmentalists as condescending elitists while impoverished locals insist they would welcome the jobs and development the mines would bring." Like the films of Michael Moore and other left-leaning documentarians, these films do not pretend to be balanced. And like those films, they make important points that shift the burden of proof to the other side. I look forward to seeing how the films of Halvorssen's Motion Picture Institute are received by audiences and by the people they portray. And to seeing whatever they come up with next.

Movie Locations Guide: Maps and Directions to Filming Locations

2007-08-19T19:44:00.000-04:00

A friend sitting next to me at "The Invasion" this week passed the time by whispering "Washington, Baltimore, Baltimore, Washington" as Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig drove around what was supposed to be DC but which included some footage of Charm City to the North. Just to make it more confusing, there were also scenes set in Baltimore, too. If you've ever wanted to find a movie location, take a look at Movie Locations Guide: Maps and Directions to Filming Locations. So far, they have 131 Movies/TV Shows in the database with a combined total of 276 filming locations. Each location includes a map, an address and a link to see the filming location in Google Earth.

Sleuth

2007-08-15T16:18:00.001-04:00

This morning I saw the remake of "Sleuth." Like the original, it stars Michael Caine, but this time he plays the role of the older man, a mystery writer whose visit from his wife's young, handsome lover turns into a battle of wits and power. In 1974, the older man was played by Laurence Olivier. In 2007, the younger man is played by Jude Law, took over another of Caine's iconic roles in "Alfie." The original was an entertaining potboiler with one of theater and movie history's cleverest surprises (incomprehensibly omitted from the new version). In 2007, it gets a high literary sheen with a new screenply by Harold Pinter and direction, in between Shakespeare adaptations, from Kenneth Branaugh.

The play was written by Anthony Shaffer, identical twin brother of Peter Shaffer, who wrote "Equus" and "Amadeus." The themes of competition, identity, and duality run through the work of both brothers. I think their story would make quite a movie.

NPR commentary

2007-08-14T14:55:00.000-04:00

My essay on Robin Hood kicks off a week of Marketplace commentary on what we can learn from "beach books" about business.

What is ABC's idea of family programming

2007-08-13T21:25:00.000-04:00

The ABC Family channel is heavily promoting a new animated series called "Slacker Cats" with a commercial that includes the word "perv." One review notes:

The humor isn't dirty so much as disgusting. In tonight's show, Buckley and Eddie borrow Flat Man and have Dooper climb inside his corpse in order to collect reward money from the family who lost their cat. The jokes will appeal mostly to 14-year-old boys - or 35-year-olds who either never grew up or who have decorator bongs on their end tables.

According to the show's website, future episodes include one where the cats sell their friend to a lab to raise stakes for a poker game. Whose idea of family programming is this again?

Lessons from the Movies about Money

2007-08-13T15:32:00.000-04:00

In Eight golden lessons from the silver screen, one of my favorite columnists, Kathy Kristof of the LA Times, uses movies to illustrate principles of investing and saving (and quotes me -- thanks, Kathy!).

Be Kind Rewind Trailer

2007-08-10T19:22:00.001-04:00

This is unquestionably the movie I am most looking forward to before the end of the year.

More lists from EW

2007-08-10T18:39:00.000-04:00

Always fun to read and debate, or just to take a look at the video clips.

The best dance moves on video. Props for some great categories here, like "best awkward solo" (odds are that Napoleon Dynamite takes that one, though always a pleasure to see Dr. McDreamy do that anteater dance), and best dance-off (I love that they included "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," my all-time favorite sequel title), separate categories for Michael and Janet Jackson, and a best "shock the audience" award.

And then there's Best Movie Endings. Also some great choices, though, interestingly, they include my personal choice for best movie ending, "Godfather 2," but describe a different ending. The ending I love is the flashback to the Godfather's surprise birthday dinner, when everything that will happen over the two movies begins -- Connie's introduction to Carlo, Michael's enlistment in the Army. They focus on the last shot of Michael in the movie's present day. They do the same thing with "A League of Their Own," omitting the flash-forward, which always makes me cry. I love EW's mix of canon films, undisputed classics like "The Third Man" and "Gone With the Wind" and guilty pop pleasures like "Valley Girl."

The war on film critics

2007-08-08T08:13:00.000-04:00

This defense of film critics seems rather cowed -- talk about damning with faint praise. We have to be able to do better than to say that local critics are better at responding to reader complaints. Thought the point about Metacritic is a good one. It won't be very Meta if the number of critics shrinks.

I was surprised when my positive review of "Bratz" elicited a barrage of angry and outraged comments over at Rotten Tomatoes, especially since it was clear that the posters had neither (1) read anything from my review but the pull quote or (2) seen the movie. It seems odd to me that people would come to a forum for the expression of a wide range of opinion and then freak out when someone does not agree with the majority. It also is ironic considering that one of the reasons I liked the movie was its low-key but sincere message in favor of rebelling against the tyranny of those, like clique-ish high school kids, who want everyone to act only according to established norms. Too bad the posters are too cool -- and too worried about not seeming cool -- to actually go to the movie. They might learn something.

More Bad News for Baby Einstein

2007-08-07T16:15:00.001-04:00

From Slate:

A study suggests "Baby Einstein" and other baby videos are bad for kids. Findings: 1) "32% of the babies were shown the videos, and 17% of those were shown them for more than an hour a day." 2) "For every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them." Theories: 1) By spending time with "DVDs and TV instead of with people," the babies lose interaction with humans who "instinctively adjust their speech, eye gaze and social signals to support language acquisition." 2) Baby DVDs are worse than educational TV shows, because the DVDs "have little dialogue, short scenes, disconnected pictures and … linguistically indescribable images." Researcher's conclusion: Your kid is better off watching American Idol with you than watching Baby Einstein alone. Human Nature's view: You knew Baby Einstein had to be poison when President Bush extolled it.

Of course readers of this blog already knew all about that.

Jeffrey Blitz on "Rocket Science"

2007-08-05T22:20:00.000-04:00

Jeffrey Blitz, director of the award-winning spelling bee documentary Spellbound, was in Washington to talk about his first feature film, the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story, "Rocket Science." He and I had a wonderful talk at the Georgetown Ritz hotel. We got off to a good start when we discovered we were both on our way to Comic-Con.

Most people would say that the lifetime period of greatest anxiety and misery is ages 13-15. What is it about that time of life that interests you so much?

You live an inwardly raw life at that age, you haven't got an ability to protect yourself from your own emotions and the world. You are ripe --when you fall in love you really fall inlove, when your heart is broken, your heart is really broken, you don't yet have the inner resoures to protect yourself or be anything less than completely that feeling.

It must be a challenge to ask kids to access and express emotions that are still unfamiliar to them. How do you work with these young actors?

The biggest part of it is casting. When you cast well you are casting someone who can access what needs to be accessed for that part. It was a low budget movie but we put whatever resources it had into casting. The great story about finding Reece [Thompson, who plays the lead] is that we had looked for six months and finally HBO, who was financing, gave us a two week grace period, or we'd have to shut down. And then one day someone was walking through the production office with a bunch of tapes that had been sent in unsolicted. Normally, we would not have watched them but we were ready to try anything. Reece's came from Vancouver and his agent sent it in. It was like when yiou meet someone you want to be friends with or fall in love, you don't ask why It's him, he thoroughly inhabits the role.

The big challenge was that in this case, we had a main character who stutters. It's like learning a very difficult accent. Sometimes a performance suffers because the actor's brain is working on the mechanical stuff their mouth has to do instead of what they need for the scene. We looked for six months, everywhere, we tried actual stutterers, but this character had a very particular kind of stuttering that is more amenable to the way of comedy, to set-ups and punchlines, it has a rhythm.

Our female lead, Anna Kendrick, came in very early into the process. After her audition, I wrote down Anna Kendrick is Ginny Ryerson, but because it was so early we thought we should keep looking. But she was one of the few girls we auditioned who could grasp everything she was saying, not just rattle off all those serious SAT words.

Boys and girls at that age seem to be from completely different species. How would you describe their differences and how does that affect their ability to communicate with each other?

We tried to get out of the idea that boys and girls are of completely different realms. Everyone in the movie is lost when it comes to love and romantic relationships and that defines them more than any differences. Ginny is very ambitious, not a typical girl role. They're all kind of gender neutral in a way, all striving.

The adults in the film all seem to be dealing with their own difficulties. Despite the fact that the characters are surrounded by parents and teachers who theoretically have a commitment to concern for the kids, most of them do not seem to be capable of it. What is their role in the story?

We were not trying to make a comment about adults in general or say that adults are useless. If my main character is lost and all he needs to do is turn to his parents, there's no story. It is so much more interesting if he has to solve things on his own. It's not about debate, not about who wins; it's about kids who are trying to grapple with questions that are bigger than they are. You can love but still not feel you understand it. The adults are childlike, all at the mercy of the mystery of love. The Violent Femmes (whose song is played in the movie) are so expressive of the anger of love gone bad. I love the idea that the adults' idea of therapy is to do a cleaned up, dainty version of the songs that are roiling with such anger.

In a movie about the power of speaking to express oneself, why have a narrator? He seems to be omniscient, not just older and wiser. Who is he and what does he contribute to the movie?

Hal is a character who essentially has no voice and is struggling to find his voice. He has a fantasy of a voice like James Earl Jones. With a narrator, we had one character with no voice and one who is noting but a disembodied voice, a purely articulate voice. It shows the gulf between who Hal is and who he wishes to be. You are given Hal's dream voice and confronted with his real voice. I love the idea of a torrent of words. When you grow up as a suttterer you are very aware of the power of words.

What do you want to do next?

I'm working on a documentary about lottery winners. It is another low budget scrappy project, just me operating the camera and producer/sound man. It is a great thing to go back and forth between big productions with a crew of 100 people and this little two-person movie. In a bigger production, you speak in a different language to the cinematographer and the production designer and the cast, many different languages all day long, saying the same thing over and over again. On this new film, I just put the camera exactly where I want to put it. I don't have to say anything to anyone, I just start to shoot. There are two American myths about the lottery. One is the Protestant work ethic, it's tainted, bad, and you're cursed if you did not earn the money. The other is that it solves all your problems. The reality is that your sense of scale shifts, your sense of the money that you need or want shifts. If you have more money, you have more financial concerns. And family members and friends expect you to help them out.

Can you give examples of the kinds of movies and directors who have inspired you?

Hal Ashby -- I watched his films again and again, the cinematography and production design. He has a masterful blending of absurd comedy and naturalism. His characters do outrageous things that are not of the real world and yet I feel like he's someone I know. I did not want a Wes Andersen snowglobe artificial world. I wanted characters with real human emotion but exaggerated. I watch a lot of Billy Wilder films, the way he brings intelligence and humanity into whatever genre he was working in. I love the idea of being able to genre-hop the way he did. He brought his stamp to every one of his films, and I would love to be able to do that.

Quote of the Week: Jeanette Catsoulis on "The Ten"

2007-08-04T18:19:00.000-04:00

From the New York Times: With “The Ten,” David Wain uses the Ten Commandments the way a suicide uses a bridge.

Bratz

2007-08-03T13:52:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the Kansas City Star for running my review of Bratz!

And here's my interview:

Talking to the girls who play the Bratz on screen is like being at the coolest lumber party in town. Like their characters, Skyler Shae (Cloe), Janel Parrish (Jade), Logan Browning (Sasha), and Nathalia Ramos (Yasmin) are big time BFFs, very different but utterly supportive, all talking at once but somehow always somehow hearing, loving, supporting, and responding to what the others are saying. In Washington, they went on a night-time sight-seeing tour of the monuments in Washington, signed autographs for fans who were all but levitating in excitement, and stopped by to visit the patients at Children’s Hospital before sitting down with director Sean McNamara for an interview.

McNamara sat back and let the girls do most of the talking – it was easy to see that he was used to that. It was also easy to see how much he genuinely enjoyed and respected the young performers. “When we announced that we were making the movie online we had 1400 submissions in one hour,” he said. “We saw over 5000 girls. We didn’t have fixed characters in mind, so we asked what they could bring that no one's ever seen before. We looked for the ability to act, to make us believe their performance, and that special something that comes between the words. These girls got it; they created believable, interesting characters that came through.”

What's on your iPod?

All four at once: Everything!

LB: I love everything! Let me just tell you my playlists: Country, Bumpin', Poppin’, Rock, Indie, and Musical.

SS: I've got David Gray, Lonestar, Justin Timberlake

JP: I'm a theater freak. I was in "Les Miserables" on Broadway, so that is my favorite. I listen to tons and tons of Broadway. It's my dream to be in "Miss Saigon." I've also got classic rock, oldies --- that's the foundation of music. I love artists that play their own stuff, especially Holly Brook, Robin Thicke, and Alicia Keys.

NR: A little of everything, but my passion is classic rock. My dad has over 2000 records at home, lots of vinyl, (Peter) Frampton, (Eric) Clapton, Supertramp, and The Beatles. I love "Go Your own Way" by Fleetwood Mac.

You never met before the movie. How did you find ways to connect to each other to make your onscreen friendships seem real?

SS: We hung out all the time, went shopping, had our nails done.

JP: We did a lot of dancing and singing together, and we had the most fun set, with constant humor, constant jokes.

NR: We learned acting skills from each other and dance moves. Logan really inspired me.

LB: We feed off each other's energy and make each other laugh by imitating each other. Janel has cute little baby voices. And Nat is always practical, a great advice-giver.

In the movies, the Bratz get their name from a “mean girl” who tries to boss around everyone in the school. What makes people behave that way and what makes the Bratz the only ones who don’t do what she says?

SS: People want to fit in, so they are afraid to say no to her. Because she is beautiful and controlling and powerful, and people want to go to the coolest party.

NR: She wants attention. She is insecure, so she overcompensates.

JP: I think some people who truly believe they're better than everyone else. The Bratz show that the good relationship with their family is the foundation for having the confidence to say no to her.

LB: All the Bratz are anti-stereotypical; they do not feel they have to do what everyone else is doing.

What makes Bratz dolls so popular?

NR: They're cute, trendy, different, young, and diverse. Each girl can relate to one of them. And we’ve seen that girls do not necessarily pick the one of the same race as their favorite.

LB: The idea behind it was girls expressing themselves different ways, finding their own way.

Bratz all have “a passion for fashion.” How do clothes help you express yourself?

SS: Chloe loves sports and film-making, so that affects her look, jeans and hoodies.

LB: We all have unique and different styles in the movie, and it helps us show who our characters are, what makes each of us unique. We all have different color palates. Sasha is very Beyoncé, very classy, and animal prints are her signature.

ND: Yasmin wears fun, flirty dresses.

JP: Jade loves very funky, old stuff, loves to take something and “Jade-ify” it, with lots of chunky skull jewelry and lots of black.

What makes girls' friendships so special?

JP: To have someone that's always there for you not matter what, even though you have little fights and get torn apart.

LB: I have five best friends back in Georgia. We are there for each other with family situations, with school, they're the ones that will help you when everyone is against you, exactly like in the film.

Even more pics from Comic-Con

2007-08-03T09:54:00.001-04:00

Adam Bernstein on Movie Geeks podcast

2007-08-03T07:40:00.001-04:00

The Washington Post's Adam Bernstein, whose wise, erudite, and lyrical tributes to Ingmar Bergman and Michelangeo Antonioni ran this week, will be discussing Bergman on the Movie Geeks Unlimited podcast this weekend. After it runs, you can click on the link any time to hear the interview.

Even the list made me cry -- Best movie tearjerkers ever

2007-08-01T22:30:00.000-04:00

A brief break from Comic-Con highlights for another list -- Entertainment Weekly's best movie tearjerkers ever.

Erin Moran and Irwin Keyes

2007-07-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

One of the best parts of Comic-Con is getting a chance to chat with the stars who show up to sign autographs. It was a treat to shake hands with Irwin Keyes, a friendly giant who told me how much fun it was to make Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses," even though there were two weeks of sandstorms. He also told me that after Roger Ebert praised his performance as one of the highlights of "Intolerable Cruelty" without mentioning his name, Keyes went to his book-signing to ask him to give the names of character actors when he was impressed with their performances. And Ebert said he would. My favorite part was when his friend took our picture, and Keyes asked me, "Regular or choking?" I chose choking, of course!

Erin Moran of Happy Days was warm and friendly, and I loved seeing her interact with the fans. She made each one feel welcome and appreciated. It rocked me a bit to hear that her most recent pilot is for Retirement Living TV. It's a talk show called "Wise Words," with retirees giving advice to callers. I hope it gets picked up. She said she also tried out for "Hell's Kitchen."

The Ray/Ray interview: Harryhausen and Bradbury at Comic-Con

2007-07-31T17:21:00.000-04:00

When Ray Harryhausen was a young boy, his parents took him to a movie called King Kong and he decided to devote his life to creating the same kinds of effects that made him believe there was a giant ape on the Empire State Building. "For me it stimulated a dramatic imagination of a gothic nature." He taught himself the same stop-motion animation techniques that were used in King Kong and the dinosaur movie, The Lost World. In films like The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and It Came from Beneath the Sea he took movie special effects to an entirely new level of fantastic realism.

Mr. Harryhausen was at Comic-Con to promote a new 50th anniversary release of 20 Million Miles To Earth with lots of DVD extras. On Friday night, he provided live commentary for the film, noting at least three times that the Venusian reptile monster (called Ymir by the film-makers but not identified that way onscreen) never attacked anyone until he was attacked first. It was clear that he had more affection for the creature than he did for the story's human characters. Understandable -- the reptile was a better actor. On Saturday, he sat down with a small group of reporters to talk about his career.

I began by asking Mr. Harryhausen if he thought that what he was doing was acting as well as animating.

Of course! You're working with actors so you can't let them upstage you. I learned from King Kong you have to get sympathy for the villain. Hard to do with a Tyrannasaurus Rex! You can get sympathy for a humanoid form, but it is harder to get sympathy for an animal. So we adapted the original design for Ymir to make him more like a human, his torso anyway. He originally had one eye, like a cyclops. We had to wiggle the tail a lot to distract the audience. I always did a lot of research but was not bound by it, just inspired by it. The Ymir was from Norse mythology originally, but we changed our mind.

I brought in the story; I was very modest in those days. It took me 50 years to learn that modesty is a dirty word in Hollywood. Originally, we had the rocket ship land in Chicago, but I wanted a trip to Rome, so we moved the landing to Italy so I could go there and scout locations. We added our ruins to theirs.

He did not feel that his artistic vision was compromised by colorizing the new release.

We would have shot them in color if we had the budget. We had to do them on the cheap and not let them look cheap.

He does not admire what he calls the "hyper-realism" of today's CGI special effects or DVDs that reveal too much about how the effects were created.

When you try to make fantasy too realistic you defeat the fantasy. It is a shame that DVDs tell everyone how everything was done. It spoils the fantasy.

Fantasy was a word he came back to several times.

I did not do horror; I did fantasy. Fantasy is "what if" -- it's stretching your imagination. We don't want to be associated with horror. I don't like them to be called monster films.

He liked to run things himself and seemed pleased he was getting credit not just for the special effects but for the movies.

I liked to work alone because I didn't like anyone telling me what to do. This was not director's picture in the European sense of the word. In our films, the director's job is to get the best out of the actors. And these were not films built around the actors. We had three different Sinbads. We shot the live action first, planned very carefully. Everything is probably the first take.

He said his two biggest challenges were the multiple characters in Jason and the Argonauts and the Medusa in Clash of the Titans.

The most challenging creature was Medusa with twelve snakes in her hair. I did not want to animate a cosmic goddess, so we gave her a snake's body. We did not want to go with the classical concept of a pretty woman with a pretty face and snakes in her hair; we wanted to make her furious. We borrowed the bow and arrow from Diana. We borrowed the seven heads from Hercules; you always had to remember which head was going in which direction. With the multiple figures in "Jason," We couldn't do rotting corpses coming out of the ground at night in "Jason;" we had to do clean-cut skeletons in the daylight. The things you see today would frighten the devil.

Even in the days before CGI, there were issues of changing technology.

We had the advantages and disadvantages of changing technology in building our creatures. Originally, we used foam rubber, which shrinks 10-15 percent so the clay models were a little fat and you can see that some of the stand-ins were a little stouter. It depends on how long you cook it, how long it holds up. It is fine material, but it will rot. We have a big display of the models in Germany at the Sony Museum.

His childhood influences continued to inspire him. He mentioned King Kong and She several times.

You'll see shades of She in First Men in the Moon.

It sometimes took years of planning before any footage was shot.

My complicated pre-production drawings had two purposes. To help with planning and to let the actors know pretty well what it will look like. Actors have imagination -- an actress might have to make love to a teapot. I have to be very careful to draw things I know I can do because we used them to raise the money.

Toward the end of the interview, we were joined by Mr. Harryhausen's lifelong friend, sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury, nattily attired in suspenders and a tie featuring grinning jack o'lanterns.

We met through our mutual love of dinosaurs. King Kong inspired us both. "The Lost World" -- nothing like it had been done. My first influence was Lon Chaney. I have total recall from birth on, and I can remember when I was very young seeing "Hunchback of Notre Dame." Then "Phantom of the Opera." These things teach you about love, falling in love, stories for a lifetime. Then there was Buck Rogers when I was nine. I got the job of reading the comic strips on the radio. My pay was tickets to the movies -- "King Kong," "Murders in the Wax Museum." I was rich! Because we are surrounded by reality, which is stupid, we fall in love with Beauty and the Beast, Jack the Giant Killer. When I was five years old, I fell in love with fairy tales. Love what you do and do what you love and forget about the money. I wanted to become a magician, and I did, didn't I?

Mr. Harryhausen had one final comment:

And don't let anyone talk you out of it.

More pics from Comic-Con

2007-07-31T10:05:00.000-04:00

Comic-Con -- preview of coming attractions

2007-07-29T22:45:00.000-04:00

I'll be posting the Harryhausen interview and other notes and pictures shortly, but for now, some quick thoughts on Comic-Con 2007.

Last night was the Masquerade, one of the highlights of Comic-Con every year. People line up for hours to get tickets and then line up for hours again to get a seat. And the contestants spend all year on their costumes and skits, some very intricate. Many of them feature the exact same joke -- an iconic comic/videogame/movie character dancing to a pop song. And yet, and you'll have to trust me on this, it is funny every single time. One of last night's most elaborate featured the students of Gryffindor and Slytherin singing the songs from "Grease." There was a Josie and the Pussycat Dolls mash-up that even managed to get in references to "Cats" and a back-up from famous felines Felix, Tigger, and Cheshire. Three different contestants came as the ice queen from Narnia. There was an excellent Beetlejuice in the incarnation with the spinning carousel hat and long arms with hammer hands. Pinky and the Brain were an audience favorite, many of whom happily sang along. And the sand people and Jawas of "Star Wars" are a perennial hit.

In other highlights, I:

1. Attended an academics' panel discussion of the Jewish themes in superhero comics, especially (I am not kidding) Captain America and Thor (who knew?) -- one book cited is called "Up, Up, and Oy Vay",
2. Spent two hours in a press session on behalf of the 25th anniversary five-disk definitive director's cut (as opposed to the previous director's cut) of "Blade Runner, featuring four of its stars (see photo), its production designer, effects guy, and the legendary Syd Mead (who did the vehicles and other designs), Philip K. Dick's daughter Isa, and director Ridley Scott,
3. Talked with Erin "Joanie" Moran of "Happy Days" (take a deep breath, everyone -- her latest project is a pilot for THE RETIREMENT CHANNEL (think Nickelodeon for the AARP crowd),
4. Was (nicely) choked by Irwin Keyes of "House of 1000 Corpses" and "Intolerable Cruelty" (see photo above),
5. Took a lot of pictures of people in cool costumes,
6. Listened to "The Film Crew" (formerly the "Mystery Science Theater" guys) comment hilariously on Killers From Space and Wild Women of Wongo
7. Heard the wonderful Alison Bechdel talk about her brilliant graphic memoir of the suicide of her closeted mortician/high school English teacher/obsessive home-rennovating father, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,
8. Watched a restored and colorized version of 20 Million Miles To Earth (50th Anniversary Edition) (aka "The Beast From Space") with in-person commentary from special effects master Ray Harryhausen and the actor who played the obnoxious little boy "Pepe" in the film,
9. Had our pictures taken being embraced by armored bear Iorek Byrnison of The Golden Compass (I also had mine taken as a corpse in a corpse-stuffed mattress for a movie called "Amusement"), and
8. Had a blast through it all.

Welcome to Comic-Con 2007

2007-07-27T01:11:00.000-04:00

Roving Mars on DVD

2007-07-20T21:24:00.000-04:00

One of my all-time favorite interviews was the people behind the glorious IMAX film, "Roving Mars." I'm delighted it's now out on DVD. This gives some idea of how meticulously the film brings the audience inside the mission.

Quotes of the week: Chuck & Larry

2007-07-20T09:26:00.001-04:00

Most critics didn't much like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry," and many pointed out its essential hypocrisy, as I noted earlier.

In Time Out New York, Melissa Anderson wrote:

Chuck and Larry wants it both ways, indulging in ass obsession and the lamest queer stereotypes since Franklin Pangborn was in short pants, then hoisting the rainbow flag at half-mast in a panicky cry for tolerance.

At the Washington Post, Desson Thomson says:

Essentially, "Chuck & Larry" is an oafish chance for audiences to laugh at gay-bashing jokes and then feel morally redeemed for doing so -- courtesy of an obligatory wrap-up scene that reminds us that homosexuals are humans, too.

But at the Village Voice, Nathan Lee (who, like Anderson, is gay), argues that this film is a major step forward because of its intended audience -- while "Brokeback Mountain" presented its call for tolerance within a genre of stately, dignified, romantic tragedy, likely to appeal to those already halfway there, this movie, Lee says, subverts assumptions even more audaciously by putting them in front of those less likely to be willing to consider questioning them.

Somewhere in the cafeteria at GLAAD headquarters, girlfriend is about to choke on her quiche, but here goes: Tremendously savvy in its stupid way, "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" is as eloquent as "Brokeback Mountain," and even more radical...Where the clowning queers of "Birdcage" invite us to laugh at their antics, the faux-mos in Chuck and Larry disarm prejudice by unabashedly reveling in its idiotic assumptions. "I used to wrestle in high school," is the gayest thing Chuck can think of, "and, uh, I liked it." The movie isn't effective despite the egregious gay stereotypes; it couldn't work without them. Through the medium of an Adam Sandler comedy, with all the requisite vulgarity, we're given access to what it feels like to be ostracized, to live under false pretenses, to suffer a sham marriage. It does with crass what Brokeback did with class, slipping dangerous sentiments into the safest of genres.

Harryhausen at Comic-Con

2007-07-20T09:17:00.000-04:00

I am thrilled that I will get a chance to interview legendary special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen at Comic-Con -- stay tuned.

Spoiler Alert: "Chuck & Larry" and "Hairspray"

2007-07-18T19:35:00.000-04:00

Two movies opening this week purport to be all about inclusiveness and tolerance. Both are lighthearted comic fantasies but both manage to undercut their happily ever after endings with choices that are insensitive or even bigoted.

"Hairspray" is as irresistible as its irrepressibly sunny heroine, and it deserves credit for addressing a serious issue (segregation in 1962 Baltimore). And it has some strong black characters and a sweet interracial romance. But did the great leader of the fight for integration have to be the white heroine?

More troubling is "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry," with Adam Sandler and Kevin James as heterosexual fire fighters who register as gay domestic partners to retain one's pension benefits. Despite a Shylock-esque call for tolerance and understanding, the movie perpetuates so many gay stereotypes and includes so much underlying homophobia that not just the movie's story but its comic sensibilities are undermined. A statement from FIREFLAG/EMS, an organization of LGBT members of the NYPD, shows far broader tolerance and generosity than the movie's main characters:

"Chuck and Larry" is, of course, a comedy and some of the humor may be considered offensive to some, but the growth of the principal characters during the course of the film is the ultimate measure of how to judge the intent and heart of the filmmakers.

Paul Dergarabedian Must Be Stopped -- Vulture -- Entertainment & Culture Blog -- New York Magazine

2007-07-18T08:05:00.000-04:00

New York Magazine has started the Dergarabedian Watch. Every week, Paul Dergarabedian provides a "comment" on the weekend box office.

Paul Dergarabedian has the easiest job in the world. His job is to take box-office numbers and say something lame about them. That's why today we're launching our Summer 2007 Paul Dergarabedian Watch.

Every time a news organization uses this zero-content quote machine in place of actual box-office analysis, we'll point it out. Every time Paul says something particularly stupid, we'll call attention to it. We're doing this in hopes of forcing entertainment writers to find a new way to fill their boilerplate Hollywood stories...You can help! Send your Paul D. sightings to vulture@nymag.com. Together, we can make a difference.

Spoiler Alert: Transformers and Bratz

2007-07-18T06:37:00.000-04:00

Work with me on this -- I think that "Transformers" and "Bratz" are pretty much the same movie. Or rather, they're the gender-specific sides of the same movie. On the side of the snips and snails and puppy-dog tails, we have "Transformers." Over on the sugar and spice and everything nice side, we have "Bratz." But they have more in common than both being essentially dramatic infomercials to sell dolls, I mean action figure robots and dolls and having Jon Voight as an ineffectual authority figure. They are both about the power of transformation (girl terminology: makeover), that ultimate metaphor for adolescence and growing up. And they are both about high school kids triumphing over big, powerful monsters who want to control everything. The Transformers have Megatron. The Bratz have a Mean Girl named Meredith.

Comic-Con 2007

2007-07-18T06:33:00.000-04:00

I am thrilled to be going back to Comic-Con next week with my husband and will be blogging about our adventures.

For a refresher, check out last year's postings and pictures.

Spoiler Alert: Restaurant Dreams

2007-07-13T11:06:00.000-04:00

SPOILER ALERT: "Ratatouille" and "No Reservations"

Two summer movies about characters with a passion for cooking have identical (happy and delicious) endings.

Bratz!

2007-07-13T09:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a blast with the stars of "Bratz," the adorable new movie inspired by the popular dolls: BFFs Chloe (Skyler Shaye), Sasha (Logan Browning), Jade (Janel Parrish) and Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos). Details when the movie is released in early August.

Puppets!

2007-07-09T17:13:00.000-04:00

I grew up in the golden age of puppetry, or at least the golden age of puppetry that has been preserved on film and video.

My parents took me to watch "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie" live when it was broadcast in Chicago and puppeteer Burr Tillstrom was a close family friend. Later, I got to meet Shari Lewis and Jim Henson. So I was thrilled to find out that the wonderful Emmy-winning PBS documentary "Stories of the American Puppet," covering those brilliant puppeteers and Edgar Bergan, Paul Winchell, and many others, will be available on DVD in September. DVD extras include full performances expanding on the excerpts in the show.

For those who can't wait, the earlier documentary from Mark Mazzarella is available on VHS.

Slate's action movie catchphrase contest

2007-07-08T09:46:00.000-04:00

In the distinguished tradition of the Bulwer-Lytton first line of a bad novel competition, Slate's action-movie one-liner contest has produced some hilariously authentic-sounding catch phrases that almost make me want to see the movies they might be part of.

[S]everal readers incorporated new media into their catchphrases. From Demolicious: "Consider this negative eBay feedback." Michael Martin provides a variation on the theme with "Myspace friend add … denied!"

Calaphin captures the latent jingoism of the genre with "Welcome to America, douche bag." And Chris Larson taps into a related action trope—the comeuppance of the pretentious European bad guy—with "You shouldn't have said shed-yul, asshole."

Spoiler alert -- t-shirt edition

2007-07-07T16:33:00.000-04:00

The ultimate spoiler -- a t-shirt from Oliver Moss that gives away everything.

Mirror/Stage » Film criticism in "the blog era"

2007-07-06T19:06:00.000-04:00

Hurray! Andy Horbal of "No More Marriages" is back online with a new blog, Mirror-Stage. He kicks it off with a superb essay, Mirror/Stage » Film criticism in "the blog era", staking out his territory and defining his genre:

These are new times, and they call for a new criticism; I believe that we are entering the age of the “termite critic.” It is no longer necessary, desirable, or even possible for film critics to be “movie experts,” to be King of the Mountain, Arbiter of Good Taste. Instead, the critics of tomorrow will devote themselves to some small part of the Cinema and nibble away at it until sated, at which point they will move onto another....Perhaps most importantly, termite critics actually live and write from within the Cinema itself. voyage-in-italy-1.JPGThey don’t merely tell, they show; film is a visual art, and theirs is a visual criticism. They are critics and cinephiles, but they are also artists, filmmakers. Their criticism is always an act of creation, never destruction.

This, then, is termite criticism, the future of film criticism. It is an active criticism, written (drawn! shot!) by active critics who do not passively wait for today’s Hollywood film release, for this month’s celebrity birthday, or for this year’s uninspired AFI list to tell them what to write about. Termite critics dig, fight, and research; they cajole, exhort, and implore. They are responsive, never more than an e-mail away; they are organizers (of screenings), they are directors, photographers, writers.

Welcome, Andy. We look forward to your digging, fighting, researching, and responding.

Hey, the Folks at the Tribune Walk Out on Movies -- You Can, Too! - Cinematical

2007-07-06T19:02:00.000-04:00

Kim Voyner of Cinematical follows up on confessions in the Chicago Tribune of movies people have walked out on in this piece, and provides a list of movies Voynar wishes she had missed. I may look at my watch a lot, but I never think about walking out of movies. Voynar's skewering of the films she wishes she had missed was so much fun to read (even though we disagree on some of the titles) that I, for one, am glad she stayed to the (very) bitter end.

PG-13 Transformers movie marketed to children

2007-07-01T18:31:00.000-04:00

I suppose it should not be a suprise, coming from a television series that was created to sell toys back in 1984, but the new "Transformers" movie and its various tie-ins and toys are being marketed to children much younger than the PG-13 rating suggests for the viewing audience.

Citing the widespread and irresponsible marketing of the PG-13 Transformers movie to preschoolers, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to expand their investigation of the marketing of violent entertainment to children to include PG-13 movies. The film, which opens on July 4, 2007, was rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor, and language” by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). A review by CCFC found more than one hundred Transformers’ toys for children under six; Transformer promotions by Kraft and Burger King clearly aimed at young children; and advertisements for the movie on children’s television programming rated appropriate for kids as young as two.

CCFC has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, available here.

Film Techniques of Alfred Hitchcock - suspense, camera angles, style, editing, basics

2007-07-01T17:44:00.000-04:00

Many years ago, the book Truffaut/Hitchcock made me look at movies and at the idea of the way we look at and write about movies -- in a completely different way. That book and other sources are the basis for the Film Techniques of Alfred Hitchcock, a thoughtful and provocative discussion of how Hitchcock made his films unforgettable.

Isaiah Washington -- not Dancing this September

2007-06-29T08:17:00.000-04:00

Isaiah Washington needs to stop talking. He got into trouble for using an anti-gay epithet in an argument on the set of "Gray's Anatomy," then denying it, then using it again. And now the show has released him and he has given an interview to Newsweek, claiming that he is the victim, not the perpetrator of bigotry.

Washington can’t stop himself from doing what he’s been doing a lot lately: explaining away a situation that has already cost him a beloved job and could ultimately cost him much more...."Well, it didn’t help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn’t a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn’t speak like I’d just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime," he says. "I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that 'some people' were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I’m a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn’t go around saying ‘Yessah, massa sir’ and ‘No sir, massa’ to everyone? It’s nuts when your presence alone can just scare people, and that made me a prime candidate to take the heat in a dysfunctional family.’’

"Gray's Anatomy" is one of the few major network television programs in history to be created by an African-American. It is an insult to the achievement and integrity of writer-producer Shondra Rhimes to suggest that she is calling anyone "massa."

And it is ironic that Washington starred in one of the finest, most thoughtful, insightful, and honest movies ever made on the subject of racism and compromise in show business, Dancing in September. There he played a network executive who at first supported and then undermined a young black writer's vision of a television program that would "keep it real," an expression that became the ironic catchphrase for the show's main character as the actor portraying him spins out of control.

Washington might want to sit down and watch that movie again, this time focusing on what happens to the kid in front of the camera who thinks the world revolves around him.

List vs. list vs. list

2007-06-25T19:47:00.001-04:00

The AFI has come out with an updated list of the best American movies of all time. The best thing about their list is the list of what they left out.

Tim Gordon of FilmGordon writes that while he is a fan of the films on the list, it leaves off too many outstanding films featuring black performers and made by black film-makers. He suggests:

The Defiant Ones
A Raisin in the Sun
Nothing But A Man
In the Heat of the Night
Sounder
Lady Sings the Blues
Claudine
The Color Purple
Glory
Malcolm X
Boyz 'N the Hood
What's Love Got To Do With It
The Hurricane
Ray
Ali

And the Alliance of Women Film Journalists has announced its own top 100 list with emphasis on females in front of and behind the camera.

I'm in favor of everyone seeing all of the movies on all of these lists. And I am delighted that my friend Tim and my Film Institute colleague Jennifer Merin are there to remind us of films every bit as worthy as the more conventional and traditional choices made by AFI.

AFI list (2007 edition)

1. Citizen Kane, 1941.

2. The Godfather, 1972.

3. Casablanca, 1942.

4. Raging Bull, 1980.

5. Singin' in the Rain, 1952.

6. Gone With the Wind, 1939.

7. Lawrence of Arabia, 1962.

8. Schindler's List, 1993.

9. Vertigo, 1958.

10. The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

11. City Lights, 1931.

12. The Searchers, 1956.

13. Star Wars, 1977.

14. Psycho, 1960.

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968.

16. Sunset Blvd., 1950.

17. The Graduate, 1967.

18. The General, 1927.

19. On the Waterfront, 1954.

20. It's a Wonderful Life, 1946.

21. Chinatown, 1974.

22. Some Like It Hot, 1959.

23. The Grapes of Wrath, 1940.

24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982.

25. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962.

26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939.

27. High Noon, 1952.

28. All About Eve, 1950.

29. Double Indemnity, 1944.

30. Apocalypse Now, 1979.

31. The Maltese Falcon, 1941.

32. The Godfather Part II, 1974.

33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975.

34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937.

35. Annie Hall, 1977.

36. The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957.

37. The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946.

38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948.

39. Dr. Strangelove, 1964.

40. The Sound of Music, 1965.

41. King Kong, 1933.

42. Bonnie and Clyde, 1967.

43. Midnight Cowboy, 1969.

44. The Philadelphia Story, 1940.

45. Shane, 1953.

46. It Happened One Night, 1934.

47. A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951.

48. Rear Window, 1954.

49. Intolerance, 1916.

50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.

51. West Side Story, 1961.

52. Taxi Driver, 1976.

53. The Deer Hunter, 1978.

54. M-A-S-H, 1970.

55. North by Northwest, 1959.

56. Jaws, 1975.

57. Rocky, 1976.

58. The Gold Rush, 1925.

59. Nashville, 1975.

60. Duck Soup, 1933.

61. Sullivan's Travels, 1941.

62. American Graffiti, 1973.

63. Cabaret, 1972.

64. Network, 1976.

65. The African Queen, 1951.

66. Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981.

67. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966.

68. Unforgiven, 1992.

69. Tootsie, 1982.

70. A Clockwork Orange, 1971.

71. Saving Private Ryan, 1998.

72. The Shawshank Redemption, 1994.

73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969.

74. The Silence of the Lambs, 1991.

75. In the Heat of the Night, 1967.

76. Forrest Gump, 1994.

77. All the President's Men, 1976.

78. Modern Times, 1936.

79. The Wild Bunch, 1969.

80. The Apartment, 1960.

81. Spartacus, 1960.

82. Sunrise, 1927.

83. Titanic, 1997.

84. Easy Rider, 1969.

85. A Night at the Opera, 1935.

86. Platoon, 1986.

87. 12 Angry Men, 1957.

88. Bringing Up Baby, 1938.

89. The Sixth Sense, 1999.

90. Swing Time, 1936.

91. Sophie's Choice, 1982.

92. Goodfellas, 1990.

93. The French Connection, 1971.

94. Pulp Fiction, 1994.

95. The Last Picture Show, 1971.

96. Do the Right Thing, 1989.

97. Blade Runner, 1982.

98. Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942.

99. Toy Story, 1995.

100. Ben-Hur, 1959.

Slate: Evan is no Noah

2007-06-25T10:47:00.000-04:00

David Plotz, who recently blogged the Bible for Slate, writes about Evan Almighty's appalling effort to pander to religious moviegoers. What makes it appalling, according to Plotz, is the way it tries to have it all ways -- to sell it to religious audiences as a parable and to secular services as entertainment. I don't have a problem with the movie's not replicating the devastation of the Noah story (God did promise never to do it again). But I entirely agree that removing any sense of Evan's righteousness or responsibility and any real threat or implication undermines both the meaning and the narrative of the story.

Racially blind or blindly racist

2007-06-23T09:20:00.000-04:00

Teresa Wiltz has a very thoughtful piece in today's Washington Post about the controversy of the casting of

Angelina Jolie, American, pale of skin and plump of lip, playing the part of the real-life Mariane Pearl, a French-born, brown-skinned, kinky-curly-haired woman of Afro-Cuban and Dutch heritage. Ponder the societal implications of Jolie sporting a spray tan and a corkscrew wig. Discuss: Is this the latest entry in the American canon of blackface --21st-century style?

Wiltz gives space to both sides, those who are offended by casting a white actress (Wlitz notes that Jolie's mother was "reportedly part Iroquois") and those who consider it a step toward race-blind casting, like Halle Berry's forthcoming appearance as a real-life politician who is white. And then she puts the discussion in the context of Hollywood history, casting white performers as non-white characters -- Mickey Rooney, John Wayne, and Katherine Hepburn as Asians, Ava Gardner and Jeanne Crain as black characters, turning real-life minority characters into more box-office-friendly Caucasians -- as recently as in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center."

I have paid special attention over the years to some of the absurdities and atrocities in racial issues in casting. One of the most absurd is Ricardo Montalban's being cast as a Japanese man -- in a movie about racism ("Sayonara"). Apparently the idea is that all minorities are the same. I did not have a problem in casting Chinese actresses in "Memoirs of a Geisha," though I think the protests hurt the movie's ticket sales. I don't think you have to be Jewish to play a Jew (though at least one critic noted that when Jews play Jews they overact and I would add so do non-Jews -- I wouldn't wish Laurence Olivier's performance as an Orthodox Jew in "The Jazz Singer" on anyone), gay to play a homosexual, Southern to play a Southerner (Brit Vivien Leigh got two Oscars for playing Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Dubois, and "Cold Mountain" had English Jude Law playing a Confederate soldier and Aussie Nicole Kidman playing his true love). That's why they call it acting.

Wiltz perfectly captured the confusion of this moment in a way that was both sensitive and balanced and her article had a reassuring sense that we are moving toward something better. In the original Broadway production of "Once Upon a Mattress," a black actress (and the daughter of the head of the NAACP) was required to put on whiteface every night to play the queen. I thought of that when I read about the casting of Audra Macdonald in Broadway's "110 in the Shade" without any silliness about racially matching her with the people who play her family. (This is something my high school did back in 1970.) And Kerry Washington in "Fantastic Four" plays a character who is white in the comic. I don't think we'll see Queen Latifah appearing as Princess Di. But she did play a role originated by an English white male -- Alec Guiness -- in "Last Holiday."

Also on the front page of the Post is William Booth's piece about the documentary "Reel Bad Arabs," based on the book by Jack Shaheen. The portrayal of Arabs in Hollywood has been limited to "the three Bs" -- belly dancers, billionaire sheiks and bombers."

And thus we have the Timeline of International Villainy. To create drama, especially in action and war movies, Hollywood needs bad guys, and in their time, the Japanese and Germans, and later the Koreans and Vietnamese, served that role. For a long while, commies were useful foils (with their taste for world domination, nukes and vodka), but with the end of the Cold War, the Soviets became the Russians, and the Russians only worked if they were gangsters, and Hollywood already had the Italians to do that job. Colombian drug traffickers were employed as handy replacements, but then coke just felt . . . dated. Transnational corporate evildoers are okay, if not that sexy. But there just has been something about those Arabs. They've got legs.

The Silverdocs winner: "Please Vote for Me"

2007-06-17T18:12:00.000-04:00

And the winners are:

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME by Weijun Chen Wins Sterling Award Best Feature

Special Jury mention to ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS by Eva Mulvad

LOT 63, GRAVE C by Sam Green Wins Sterling Award Best Short

Honorable Mention went to I WANT TO BE A PILOT by Diego Quemada-Díez

Music Documentary Award Goes to NOMADAK TX by Raúl De la Fuente

KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON by AJ Schnack Wins The Cinematic Vision Feature Award

MY EYES by Erlend Mo Wins The Cinematic Vision Short Award

The WITNESS Award Goes to THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg

Witness Award Honorable Mention went to THE PRICE OF SUGAR by Bill Haney

BIG RIG by Doug Pray Wins the SILVERDOCS/American Film Market Award

Feature Audience Award to SOUVENIRS by Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat

A SON'S SACRIFICE by Yoni Brook Wins Short Audience Award

ACE Grant winner is THE CONCRETE JUNGLE by Rachel Buchanan and Don Bernier

KC Star and Nancy Drew

2007-06-16T23:23:00.001-04:00

Many thanks to the Kansas City Star for publishing my review of Nancy Drew.

Silverdocs Festival at AFI

2007-06-16T18:17:00.000-04:00

I was out of town this week, so only made it to the last day of the Silverdocs film festival. Next year, I'll do my best to see it all. In just five years, it has become the top documentary festival in the US, possibly the world. The two films I saw today happened to have similar themes -- they were both about children and competition. Both were excellent.

"Doubletime" is like a cross between "Spellbound" and "Rize," the story of two Carolina teams that go to New York to compete at the Apollo Theater in the National Double Dutch competition. Jump-roping has been divided for decades between single (skipping) -- mostly white -- and double (double dutch) -- mostly black. Everything comes together in Harlem as American kids of both races take on some tough new competitors -- from Japan.

In "Please Vote for Me," third graders compete in a hotly contested election to be elected class monitor. In China. Previously, class monitors had always been selected by the teachers. But one classroom was persuaded to try "democracy." Three students are nominated and the next thing you know they are surrounded by their own Karl Roves and James Carvilles -- parents who help them try to buy votes and write their speeches and classmates who heckle their friends' opponents. It is hilarious when the eight year olds replicate the emotions and tactics of adult campaigns -- but with less ability to hide their ploys and emotions. And it is touching when we see how much it matters to them -- everyone breaks down in tears at some point. As much determined by the one-child culture as by the communism, it is an enticing glimpse of a world both familiar and exotic.

Jaguar Stalks

2007-06-13T12:18:00.000-04:00

Check out my friend Lauren Verlaque's Zazzle store,
jaguarstalks's Gallery.

SPOILER ALERT -- "Nancy Drew" and "Ratatouille"

2007-06-11T22:06:00.001-04:00

Two movies for kids coming out this month devote a significant amount of story-telling time to plot twists involving secret out-of-wedlock children whose fathers were never told that they existed. One is the PG "Nancy Drew" and the other is the G-rated "Ratatouille." Is there anyone who thinks that this is an appropriate storyline for movies marketed for children? Is there anyone out there who looks forward to questions from a six-year-old about what a DNA test is for or how a father could be surprised to find out that he has a grown-up child or why a mother would want to keep such a secret?

It is not as though either of these is a sensitive treatment of a subject that may be of interest or concern to children living in a world of blended families and reproductive technology. In both cases, they are tossed into the plot more for convenience than for the expression of art or creativity. If the film-makers could not show some effort in designing a plot with more imagination, they could have taken the time to think about finding a plot with more resonance for children.

Could Paris be doing a Cagney?

2007-06-10T14:10:00.000-04:00

When I saw the reports (who could avoid them) about Paris Hilton shrieking and crying as she was taken back to jail, I thought of that famous scene at the end of Angels With Dirty Faces when priest Pat O'Brien asks his childhood friend, a hoodlum played by James Cagney, for one last favor. Cagney's character is in prison, sentenced to death. His cocky bravado has made him a glamorous figure to the local teenagers, who all want to be like him. O'Brien asks him to help him show the kids that he is not a hero. And so, on the way to the chair, Cagney pretends to be a coward, and the kids lose all respect for him.

So, could it be that somewhere, somehow, someone got to Paris and said, "It's time for you to make a contribution to society. This whole Britney/Lindsay/Paris bad girl thing has gone too far. So, could you help us out, honey, by behaving like a total looney-tune spoiled girl princess sissy instead of the cool and haughty heiress that launched a million paparazzi?"

Well, it's a better theory than the alternatives. I'd hate to think she really is a total looney-tune spoiled girl princess sissy.

The KC Star runs my review

2007-06-09T23:02:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to the Kansas City Star for asking me to review Surf's Up.

Great black movie musicals (yes, another list)

2007-06-08T20:22:00.000-04:00

My friend Tim Gordon has a great list of his favorite black movie musicals, in honor of Black Music Month. I was especially glad to see the underrated "Sparkle" included, as I am a huge Lonette McKee fan. I was also very happy to see him list classics like "Cabin in the Sky" and "Carmen Jones," and one of my favorite films in any category, "School Daze."

Long shots (literally)

2007-06-08T20:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my DH for showing me another great list, this one from Daily Film Dose, of the greatest long tracking shots in the history of film, with clips.

AOL Music's 77 Most Unforgettable Movie Songs

2007-06-07T08:56:00.000-04:00

Another indefensible but irresistable list, this one from AOL, The 77 Most Unforgettable Movie Songs. What makes this list fun is that it includes the movie clips, everything from "Top Gun" ("Take My Breath Away") to "Napoleon Dynamite" (Jamiroquai) to "Beverly Hills Cop" (Alex F). Of course many of the choices are quibble-worthy, but unlike EW, I think #1 is an excellent choice. And the sidebar lists (best Bond themes, movie musical groups we wish were real) are a treat.

Which critic shares your taste?

2007-06-06T15:13:00.001-04:00

Wisegeek has some up with a test to help you determine which movie critic is closest to your taste in movies. Not much range in movies or critics, but fun to try.

If Rives controlled the internet

2007-06-03T17:19:00.000-04:00

I am a huge fan of poetry slam star Rives and of the fabulously provocative and entertaining TED Talks series. Put them together and you get this clip:

SPOILER Alert! Jeff Bridges coaches.....

2007-06-02T12:51:00.000-04:00

Last night I was thinking about next week's animated release, "Surf's Up" -- cute and unprenentious -- and realized that it reminded me of one of my favorite guilty pleasures of the last few years, Jessica Bendinger's deliciously kinetic Stick It. Both are films about young athletes getting ready for the big, defining competition. Both learn that winning isn't everything -- in fact, both learn that winning can be the opposite of coming in first. What's important is loyalty, self-respect, expressing yourself, and having fun. And both young athletes are coached by ex-athletes played by Jeff Bridges. Hmmm...

Quotes of the Week -- "Knocked Up" and Mars/Venus

2007-06-01T15:18:00.000-04:00

Can it be that there is a gender difference among the critics who reviewed "Knocked Up?" Not a split exactly, but a slant. Male critics were more likely to be unabashedly positive about the film, finding it not just funny but smart, even profound.

At the New York Post, Kyle Smith gave the film a "Standing Ovulation" (that was the headline), calling it

an era-defining comedy classic to rank with "Little Miss Sunshine." It's this generation's "When Harry Met Sally," and it's even better than "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," because the freakish situation it uses as a setup is life....
Like Rogen's character, "Knocked Up" is a lot more mature than it looks. It's a brilliant comedy disguised as a dumb one.

Adam Graham of the Detroit News says it

is full of huge laughs and witty pop culture banter but also offers insightful and honest explorations of marriage, relationships, friendship and parenthood.

Bob Longino of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls it

more than just laugh-out-loud funny. It's the relationship comedy of the summer and likely the best boy-meets-girl movie of the year.

At the New York Times, A.O. Scott says it is

an instant classic, a comedy that captures the sexual confusion and moral ambivalence of our moment without straining, pandering or preaching.

We're talking about a movie that draws much of its humor from arrested development, pot jokes, very crude and raunchy references, and a childbirth scene that gives new meaning to the term "up close and personal."

Female critics seemed more ambivalent. Slate's Dana Stevens calls it a "raunchy, guy-centric summer comedy...[that] is a crossover movie both in gender and in age." But she says that as she thought about the film, she realized

[Writer-director Judd] Apatow writes men with far more insight and acuity than he writes women. As a result, his portrait of contemporary gender relations is unbalanced: Crude and hilarious in Guyville, he seizes up when he gets to Ladyland and allows himself to take refuge in comfortable clichés. It's not that Knocked Up is misogynistic—if anything, Apatow is uxorious to a fault, scrupulously respectful of chicks and the chick stuff they do. He just doesn't seem to get exactly what that stuff is....

Paradoxically, the tenderest, most emotionally intimate scenes in "Knocked Up" aren't the romantic ones between Alison and Ben, but those involving Ben and his profane posse and his growing relationship with the developmentally stunted Pete....in his next film, maybe he could honor women by striving to create female characters with the depth of humor and humanity he gives to men.

In The Reeler, Michele Orange says the movie makes her want to be a dude. In Apatow's world, the dudes get to live in slacker heaven -- they get to be funny. But it is the treatment of

the sympathetic, if undeveloped Alison (what does Ben, who lives for one-liners, see in his bland goddess?) that confirms the essential zoological status of the female of the species in Apatow-land. They can’t make you laugh but they can certainly make you cringe.

Another critic weighs in on why critics (should) matter

2007-05-27T17:36:00.000-04:00

Richard Schickel defends professional critics in the LA Times:

Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities.

Opinion — thumbs up, thumbs down — is the least important aspect of reviewing. Very often, in the best reviews, opinion is conveyed without a judgmental word being spoken, because the review's highest business is to initiate intelligent dialogue about the work in question, beginning a discussion that, in some cases, will persist down the years, even down the centuries... I don't think it's impossible for bloggers to write intelligent reviews. I do think, however, that a simple "love" of reading (or movie-going or whatever) is an insufficient qualification for the job. That way often leads to cultishness (see the currently inflated reputations of Philip K. Dick or Cornell Woolrich, both easy reads for lazy, word-addicted minds).

And we have to find in the work of reviewers something more than idle opinion-mongering. We need to see something other than flash, egotism and self-importance. We need to see their credentials. And they need to prove, not merely assert, their right to an opinion.

I don't think anyone has to do anything to prove the right to an opinion and I certainly don't believe credentials are anything but incidental to a critc's value or qualifications. I believe that we prove (or don't prove) ourselves with every word we write. I loved seeing Dana Stevens move from a blog to writing for Slate and the New York Times. But she did that exclusively on the basis of her writing, not her credentials (which happen to include a PhD, but not in film). One of the greatest columnists of the 20th century was Mike Royko, who used to drive a cab until one of his passengers happened to be a newspaper editor and offered him a job at the paper. I do agree that the recommendation is not the most important part of the review and that a good review requires more than a love for movies (or books or whatever) and the impulse to express one's feelings is not enough. What matters is strong, involving writing grounded in full engagement with the subject of the review and enough understanding to appreciate its context.

My War, My Story

2007-05-26T18:11:00.000-04:00

Every American owes it to our troops to watch the new documentary from Wolf Gang Pictures called My War, My Story. Eighteen veterans of the war in Iraq tell their own stories, simply and directly. We hear from one through the letters he sent home and the family he left behind.

It is impossible not to be moved and inspired by the dedication and integrity and sacrifice of these young people. They have earned our respect and gratitude with their service and they have earned our attention as well. The film is well-organized but must important it gets out of the way and lets its subjects speak for themselves. Many of them now oppose the war, but not all of them. They have their problems with politicians, the war in Iraq, and with their own re-entry but they speak of their colleagues and superiors in the service with the deepest respect and admiration. One says that he still likes to think as he looks at each person he walks by that he was willing to sacrifice his life for each one of them. The honor and dignity they demonstrate is deeply moving and inspiring. They deserve our attention as well as our infinite respect and gratitude.

Those who think of Memorial Day as a time for picnics and sales should take an hour and a half out of their three-day weekend to hear what the people who have been there fighting for us half a world away have to say. And to think very carefully about what "Support the Troops" really means.

Quote of the Week -- Pirates 3

2007-05-25T07:11:00.000-04:00

From my friend and colleague Ally Burguieres:

I didn’t include a plot summary because the Internet didn’t have enough space.

Stephen Hunter has "A Bad Case of Summer Movies"

2007-05-25T07:10:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter loves to be the enfant terrible, and here is his rant on summer movies. My favorite line:

Irony should be licensed and should require a seven-day waiting period to see if the proposed user is mature enough to deal in it.

Shrek Shills

2007-05-23T21:20:00.001-04:00

The Department of Health and Human Services is using big green ogre Shrek to teach children to be healthy. But the junk food companies of America are using Shrek to urge kids to eat fat and sugar. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has called on HHS to "stop partnering with the poster ogre for junk food marketing - and start getting serious about combating childhood obesity by advocating for policies that protect children from commercial exploitation."

They have also published a list of food promotions affiliated with Shrek and other characters from the movie. The list as more than seventy products, including "McDonald's Happy Meals, Kellogg's Marshmallow Froot Loops cereal; Keebler E.L. FudgeDouble Stuffed cookies, "ogre-sized" Peanut Butter M&M's, Cheetos, and Kellogg's Frosted S'Mores Pop Tarts." Shrek Cheetos turn your tongue green! Shrek M&Ms come with a toy Shrek car! Shrek Donkey chatterbox offer on a box of Kellogg's Eggo Chocolate Chip waffles!

If HHS wants to urge kids to lead a healthy lifestyle, they can begin by prohibiting the use of cartoon characters to push unhealthy food.

100, 99, 98, 97.....

2007-05-21T18:12:00.001-04:00

Thanks so much to Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch for pointing out this fabulous selection of movie clips counting down all the numbers from 100-1. It's astonishing how immediately identifiable so many of the clips are.

Quotes of the Week: Underwhelmed by Shrek the Third

2007-05-18T10:16:00.000-04:00

Most critics found the latest installment of Shrek to be not quite up to the happily ever afters of the first two, except for The New York Times, where A.O. Scott said:

[T]he movie’s liveliest humor and sharpest drama take root in decidedly grown-up situations. Shrek’s anxious, less-than-overjoyed reaction to the prospect of becoming a parent is not something most youngsters will relate to. (In one brilliantly executed sequence he has a nightmare of being besieged by hundreds of gurgling, saucer-eyed ogre babies.) And the depiction of Cinderella (Amy Sedaris), Rapunzel (Maya Rudolph) and Snow White (Amy Poehler) as bored, catty moms is likely to tickle fans of “Little Children,” a group that I hope doesn’t include any actual little children.

Whether these bits would seem as fresh or incisive if they were not embedded in a noisy cartoon remotely based on a beloved picture book is an open question. The strategy of the “Shrek” movies has always been to appeal to the easy, smirky cynicism of the parents while whetting their children’s appetite for crude humor and plush merchandise. “Shrek 2” pulled off the trick in a way that struck me as coarse and overdone, turning travestied fairy tales into the stuff of hackneyed Hollywood satire. But “Shrek the Third” seems at once more energetic and more relaxed, less desperate to prove its cleverness and therefore to some extent smarter.

Cinemablend's Joshua Tyler got nicely meta:

The problem is, Shrek the Third doesn’t take its own advice. It isn’t itself. The first two movies were family films with an adult edge. This third one is a watered down kids’ movie through and through, and the script plays out like something written for one of those assembly line produced direct-to-DVD sequels Disney is fond of releasing to fill up Wal-Mart bargain bins. Except this isn’t Disney, this is the franchise that makes fun of Disney for doing things exactly like that. Instead of sticking to what made it great, Shrek has become a part of the homogenized mediocrity it was railing against in the first place.

Perhaps Nick Rodgers of Springfield, Illinois' State Journal-Register summed it up best:

The series has jumped the Shrek.

Tucson Weekly : The Definitive Summer Movie Preview

2007-05-17T09:34:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Jim Judy of Screenit.com for recommending this hilarious Summer Movie Preview.