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« March 2007 | Main | May 2007 »
Monday, April 30, 2007 - 07:58:57
Susan King of The Los Angeles Times reviews "Brando" a documentary airing Tuesday and Wednesday on TCM.
It's Spider-Man 3 week. David Edelstein of New York Magazine writes,
What’s missing? Momentum. A touch of meanness. A centrifugal threat like Molina’s octopus man. (In terms of dramatic stature, the three villains here don’t add up to one Doc Ock.) The script, by Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent, wears its heart on its web: It pointlessly revises the murder of Peter’s uncle so he can forgive the new culprit, and gives nothing new to J. K. Simmons, whose once hilarious snarling editor is now a tiresome fellow. I lost count of the number of times Dunst plunges from a building during the climax—enough to make you think, Put her on the ground or let her fall! It’s fun to see Raimi stalwart Bruce Campbell channel Peter Sellers’s Clouseau, but apart from the Sandman and the nightclub dance, my favorite thing in the movie is when a rejected Peter fishes an engagement ring out of a Champagne glass with a fork: small, poetic, perfect.
Anthony Lane of The New Yorker has even tougher review:
Laziness mingles with overkill, violence with mawkishness: most of the characters weep at the slightest provocation, but heads are beaten, burned, and sheared off by passing subway trains. “People really like me,” our hero says at the start, adding later, “They love me!” Not for long, Whiny-Man, not for long.
Variety critic Todd McCarthy also had bad things to say about this film. It's Spider-Man, so negative reviews may not matter, but still . . .
Dee Brown's "Buy My Heart at Wounded Knee" has been adapted for HBO. Aidan Quinn, Adam Beach and Anna Paquin star in the series described as "HBO Films teams with executive producers Dick Wolf ("Law & Order") and Tom Thayer to present a feature adaptation of Dee Brown's 1971 nonfiction best-seller Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Told primarily through the eyes of three characters Charles Eastman (Adam Beach), Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg) and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) - the film explores the United States' obsession with its manifest destiny, detailing the economic, political and social pressures that underpinned the opening of the American West in the latter part of the 19th Century, and the tragic and permanent impact this expansion had on American Indian culture. Also starring J.K. Simmons, Colm Feore and Wes Studi, with Fred Thompson and Anna Paquin.
From Wikipedia, "Born in Alberta, Louisiana, Brown grew up in Ouachita County, Arkansas and Little Rock, where he became friends with many Native Americans who made him realize that the portrayals of their people in American movies was not the true story. He worked as a reporter in Harrison, Arkansas, then became a teacher and librarian.
He [Brown] was a librarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1934 to 1942 and for the War Department after serving in the army in World War II. From 1948 to 1972, he was an agriculture librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he had gained a master's degree in library science and became professor. In 1973, he retired back in Arkansas and devoted his time to writing."
Dee Brown died December 12, 2002.
Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 16:29:50
I've got the newly released documentary "Reel Baseball: Films of the Silent Era" coming my way this week along with "Two Girls and a Guy" and "My Life Without Me." The latter two I've seen, but not in a few years.
"Little Children" is out on DVD Tuesday along with "Dreamgirls." I also noticed that "Diggers" starring Paul Rudd, which was released in theatres April 27th, also arrives on video, continuing a trend (see "Color Me Kubrick") of films showing up on DVD a week after theatrical release.
"Old Joy," a film I have been wanting to see since its release last year, also arrives on disc (It also screens at the Little Rock Film Festival May 17-20). Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com wrote, ""Old Joy" (adapted by writer Jonathan Raymond from his own short story) is only 76 minutes long, but it has the contemplative power of Buddhist meditation. Reichardt gives us long, stoned takes of rural roads; shots of birds, insects and slugs in the spectacular Oregon rain forest; interludes with Mark's dog, Lucy. Some viewers may well be bored, or monumentally irritated, by this. I found it masterly, riveting."
LA Weekly takes a look at "Killer of Sheep" at 30. Scott Foundas writes about director Charles Burnett. John Powers calls the film the "best film about Los Angeles." "Shot on 16 mm for $10,000 with a non-professional cast, this clear-eyed, poetic portrait of South Central Los Angeles isn’t merely the most sensitive vision of an L.A neighborhood — Burnett looks beneath the cliches found in movies about inner-city gangbangers — it may be the least-seen great film ever made in this country."
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"Killer of Sheep" will screen at the Little Rock Film Festival May 17-20. The film has a 92% "Cream of the Crop" rating on rottetomatoes.com.
I don't fashion myself a comic book fan and I'll admit that I didn't know about the "Iron Man" series before it was announced as Robert Downey, Jr.'s next project. Being a fan of his work, I've taken an interest.
Jon Faverau's directing the film and it co-stars Jeff Bridges, Gwenyth Paltrow and Terrence Howard. Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby ("Children of Men") along with first-timers Arthur Marcum and Matt Holloway penned the script.
Dark Horizon's links to Favreau's "Iron Man" blog where he talks about shooting for the film and discusses the "Iron Man" suit, a picture of which is copied below.
Favreau also notes,"I just got back in town. The company has been on the road for many weeks. We started off in the mountains of Lone Pine which doubled for Afghanistan. We then moved to Edwards Air Force Base. We finally closed out the out of town work with Fontana, CA."
Here's a summary of the "Iron Man" character originally created by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics.
Earlier this month, Robert Downey, Jr. talked to The Telegraph about the film. "I guess that when Stan Lee created the character back in the mid-1960s - to see if he could base a superhero on a hard-partying, womanising billionaire who manufactures weapons, and still make him likeable enough to sell comic books - he clearly won his bet."
I appeared on KARN with the Real Bob Steel on Friday talking summer movies. This may prove to be a fine summer after all. I've outlined the blockbusters I'm anxious to see as well as a whole crop of films that should make the heat of the summer tolerable. EW's summer movie preview is out.
May 4 - "Spider-Man 3"
May 18 - "Shrek the Third"
May 25 - "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"
June 1 - "Knocked Up"
June 8 - "Ocean's Thirteen"
June 15 - "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"
June 22 - "Evan Almighty"
June 27 - "Live Free or Die Hard"
July 6 - "Transformers"
July 13 - "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"
July 20 - "I Know Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"
July 27 - "The Simpsons Movie"
August 3 - "The Bourne Ultimatum"
August 10 - "Rush Hour 3"
August 17 - "The Invasion"
In addition to these traditional blockbusters, I'm eager to see the following, all scheduled for US release this summer: "Away from Her," "Paris, je t'aime," "The Ex," "Mr. Brooks," "La Vie en rose," "I Could Never Be Your Woman," "A Mighty Heart," "You Kill Me," "Evening," "Rescue Dawn," "Interview," "No Reservations," "Charlie Barlett," "Jindabyne," and "Becoming Jane".
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