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Paul Newman Dead at 83
Jack Rico
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2008/09/27 at 12:00am

Movies

Paul Newman Dead at 83

09.27.2008 | By |

Paul Newman Dead at 83

Newman died Friday only a few months after pictures surfaced of him looking frail and thin as he was wheeled from the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, where he was said to be receiving treatment for lung cancer.

During Newman’s rise to fame in the 1950s, cigarette smoking was used in the movies and on television to convey masculinity, sophistication and sex appeal.

Late in his career, Newman — who at one time was considered a heavy smoker — famously quipped, “It’s absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.”

It’s been reported that he quit smoking some 30 years ago.

The Lucky Ones
Mack Chico
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2008/09/26 at 12:00am

Reviews

The Lucky Ones

09.26.2008 | By |

Rated: R for language and some sexual content.
Release Date: 2008-09-26
Starring: Neil Burger, Dirk Wittenborn
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.theluckyonesmovie.com/

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The Lucky Ones

I can’t believe I’m going to say this, and probably never will again, but this is one of those rare times that I found a soldier film to be ‘delightfully lovable’. Yes, I said it. It is due in part to an endearing story concocted by director/writer Neil Burger and a great group of actors who turned on the charm.

In ‘The Lucky Ones’, three wounded soldiers come back from the war cherishing to return to a life of normalcy, or at least what is left of it. With flight delays threatening to hinder their plans, they rent a car to St. Louis where they hope the city’s airport will have a batch of planes ready to depart to Las Vegas. The road trip back home is where the true journey begins for these three servicemen.

Tim Robbins is a wonderful every-man’s actor. He manages to capture the reality of daily living in all his characters. Michael Peña continues to deliver solid performances demonstrating a range of emotion in his roles, even if they are confined in lawmen and soldier characters. I mustn’t dismiss though, the unexpectedly comical, yet solemn performance of Rachel McAdams, who in my mind, was the star of the film. I would dare say, this is an Oscar nominated performance. She is not known for her comic timing, nor delivering amusing lines with deadpan expressions, but McAdams not only proved she is actually funny, she showed she can carry and steal a movie from under the nose of a proven veteran actor such as Robbins.

If you are feeling lucky and in the mood for a small, independent, but very good film in the tradition of Little Miss Sunshine, do yourself a favor and see ‘The Lucky Ones’.

Eagle Eye
Mack Chico
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2008/09/25 at 12:00am

Reviews

Eagle Eye

09.25.2008 | By |

Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and for language.
Release Date: 2008-09-26
Starring: John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz, Dan McDermott
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.eagleeyemovie.com/

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Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye has all the trademark elements of a box office hit: it is a a political thriller, it has action, car chases, explosions, sarcastic one liners, good acting and – the film begins with a great action sequence and ends on the same note. For a Friday night out with your friends, what else do you need?

Shia LeBouf has been Hollywood’s “It” boy for a year now and he has been delivering on the hype. With blockbuster after blockbuster, he is positioning himself as the A list actor of the future. Eagle Eye is his new Tom Clancyesque’ project about a kid who has been summoned to kill the president by a god-like computer owned by the government.

Even though the film is surprisingly good – Billy Bob Thornton deserves plenty of credit for that – expect the ridiculous and the absurd, a la Diehard. Most of those films were fun, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

Nevertheless, some thought did go into the premise. Director D.J Caruso (Disturbia, Two for the Money) wants us to be aware of several key messages – to what extent does technology control our lives, the invasion of privacy by the government and the ineptitude of our political commanders.

Since most of us know how this is eerily similar to real life, the film serves as an inside look at how things would play out if someone had the “cojones” to do something about it. Eagle Eye is pure high-octane fun and exactly what going to the movies is all about.

Leatherheads
Mack Chico
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2008/09/23 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

Leatherheads

09.23.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.0

Rated: PG-13 for some strong language.
Release Date: 2008-04-04
Starring: Duncan Brantley, Rick Reilly
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.leatherheadsmovie.com/

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Top 5 scenes from Julianne Moore’s "Blindness"
Mack Chico
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2008/09/23 at 12:00am

Movies

Top 5 scenes from Julianne Moore’s "Blindness"

09.23.2008 | By |

Top 5 scenes from Julianne Moore's "Blindness"

Here are the top 5 scenes from ‘Blindness’, directed by brazilian director Fernando Mereilles. The film stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal.

In essence, the story is a psychological thriller about the fragility of mankind. Adapted from Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s masterwork, the film revolves around a plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

This week we’ll bring you the film review and our recommendation on whether you should see it or not. If you can’t wait any longer and you want to see video from the premiere, interviews with the cast, stills from the film and more, click here.

Nights in Rodanthe
Ted Faraone
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2008/09/22 at 12:00am

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Nights in Rodanthe

09.22.2008 | By |

Rated: PG-13 for some sensuality.
Release Date: 2008-09-26
Starring: Ann Peacock, John Romano, Nicholas Sparks (novela)
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA, Australia
Official Website: http://nightsinrodanthe.warnerbros.com/

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Nights in Rodanthe

“Nights in Rodanthe” could have been a world class chick flick on the order of “Now Voyager.”  It has everything going for it:  Beautiful photography, a tear-jerker plot, and a great cast.  Instead it barely makes the “Lifetime Original Movie” cut.  The adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ eponymous novel (by Ann Peacock and John Romano) squeezes every moment of angst and despair until the audience cries “uncle.”
 
Diane Lane as Adrienne Willis, mother of two, separating from womanizing Jack (Chris Meloni), delivers a nuanced performance that aspires to Vanessa Redgrave’s territory.  Richard Gere as middle-aged Dr. Paul Flanner neatly captures the emotional disconnection, impatience, and intellectual arrogance of many successful careerists.  Viola Davis (Jean) as Adrienne’s sexy best friend steals her every scene.  Lensing by Affonso Beato is top notch, and a hurricane, which marks pic’s turning point, is so real that one wants to run for higher ground.
 
A coincidence puts Adrienne and Paul together as sole residents of a beachfront inn on the island of Rodanthe on the outer banks of North Carolina.  Adrienne gave up a promising career as an artist to marry Jack.  Paul abandoned surgery after losing a patient on the table.  He’s at the inn because of a summons to the island from the dead patient’s husband (Ted Manson).  She’s there because she promised to spell Jean, who is off to Miami.  His family has fallen apart.  Hers is in danger of doing so.  The pair fall for each other.  Paul heads to South America to re-connect with his son, a physician, who runs a clinic for the poor – after a contrived emotional showdown with Adrienne over his handling of the widower.
 
The rest of the story is told through love letters and another contrived scene:  Paul misses a dinner date with Adrienne on his return from South America.  The next morning she answers her door to find Paul’s son (James Franco) with a box of his dad’s belongings.  Franco’s voiceover of sepia tinted scenes of dad working with him in the mountain clinic (culminating in a fatal mudslide) could have ended the flick.  Instead, it goes on for another agonizing reel, in which Adrienne’s despair is milked dry.  Blame helmer George C. Wolfe and editor Brian A. Kates.  Not even Lane can lift the platitudinous dénouement off the ground.  All main characters are redeemed, but at what a cost!  And it is borne by the audience.
 
But wait!  There’s more!  A final scene appears to have been tacked on in the interest of a happy ending.  It is set up by a couple of script references to wild horses on Rodanthe.  They appear not a moment too soon.
 
The 97 minute Warner Bros. release carries a PG-13 rating due to some sexual content.

Sex and the City: The Movie will have a part 2
Mack Chico
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2008/09/22 at 12:00am

Movies

Sex and the City: The Movie will have a part 2

09.22.2008 | By |

Sex and the City: The Movie will have a part 2

Where to celebrate the launch of the Sex and the City: The Movie DVD?

Why, the same place where, in the film, Carrie Bradshaw gets stood up at the altar. Thursday night, the film’s stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon reconvened at the New York Public Library, which was lit up in pink and decorated with a custom-made interlocking-C white Chanel couch.

A radiant and friendly Parker, in Alexander McQueen, said she was ecstatic that her film was one of the year’s blockbusters. “I was surprised and thrilled and gratified and shocked,” said Parker. “I think we felt very honored that people connected to the story.”

Said Cattrall: “This has been an amazing year. It’s poignant that the year after we started shooting, the DVD is coming out. It just seems to get better.”

And now, word is, there’s a sequel in the works.

“I guess there’s been a lot of talk except that Michael Patrick and I haven’t spoken,” said Parker, referring to the film’s writer and director Michael Patrick King. “We’re going to have a conversation sooner rather than later. If Michael feels there’s a story worthy of an audience leaving their home and plunking down a significant amount of money for a ticket, then I assume we’ll move forward. We feel very indebted to this audience and it would be a disservice to them to make a movie because we can.”

If a second installment of Sex comes to fruition, Parker wants it to “be thoughtful and something that has some meaning — (we want) to tell a good story and produce it well.”

Cattrall too hopes it happens. “The deal is they’re making the deal and Michael Patrick King is writing the script. I don’t envy him that task. I’m very excited because Samantha is single and that’s real fun to play,” she said.

‘Lakeview Terrace’ is #1 at the box office
Mack Chico
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2008/09/22 at 12:00am

Movies

‘Lakeview Terrace’ is #1 at the box office

09.22.2008 | By |

'Lakeview Terrace' is #1 at the box office

“Lakeview Terrace” (Sony/Screen Gems), the new thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson as a policeman terrorizing his new neighbors, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington, earned $15.6 million, ousting the Coen brothers’ “Burn After Reading” from first place at the box office over the weekend, according to estimates from Media by Numbers, a box office tracking firm. “Burn After Reading” (Focus Features), starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, slipped to second place with earnings of $11.3 million. It has made $36.4 million in two weeks. New releases grabbed third and fourth positions: “My Best Friend’s Girl” (LionsGate), the romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson, Dane Cook and Jason Biggs, earned $8.3 million and the animated comedy “Igor” (MGM) was close behind with $8 million. “Righteous Kill” (Overture Films), the action film starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, took fifth place with $7.7 million for the weekend and $28.8 million in two weeks. Over all the weekend was relatively weak with revenues of $93 million, 4 percent lower than the same weekend last year.

The Box-Office Top Five

#1 “Lakeview Terrace” ($15.6 million)
#2 “Burn After Reading” ($11.3 million)
#3 “My Best Friend’s Girl” ($8.3 million)
#4 “Igor” ($8 million)
#5 “Righteous Kill” ($7.7 million)

Ghost Town
Mack Chico
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2008/09/19 at 12:00am

Reviews

Ghost Town

09.19.2008 | By |

Rated: PG-13 for for some strong language, sexual humor and drug references.
Release Date: 2008-09-19
Starring: David Koepp, John Kamps
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.ghosttownmovie.com/

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Ghost Town

Ghost Town is one of those romantic comedies that never quite clicks. At times, its humor is effective, provoking chuckles and laughs. At other times, the comedy feels forced and awkward. The romantic element is equally hit-and-miss. The chemistry that emerges between the leads during the film’s second half is largely absent from the first 45 minutes. And the premise, rich with promise and pregnant with possibilities, is reduced to a plot device that allows Ghost Town to turn into a low-rent, modern-day version of A Christmas Carol.

The movie’s opening scene is a winner, with philanderer Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) having a phone conversation with his wife, Gwen (Téa Leoni), who has just discovered he’s having an affair. Frank wraps up the call just as the curtain falls on his time on Earth. Director David Koepp orchestrates his end brilliantly, with a sleight-of-hand that is both funny and surprising. However, instead of making his way to the next life, Frank finds himself stuck in Manhattan as a ghost. He can see and hear everything, but is invisible and unable to do more than observe. Enter Bertram Pincus, D.D.S. (Ricky Gervais), the most unpleasant dentist in the city.

Ghost Town’s comedy is maddeningly inconsistent. Masterful sequences such as the opening one in which Frank meets his demise are interspersed with episodes that not only don’t work on a comedic level, but run on for too long. Consider, for example, an interchange between Bertram and his doctor (played by Kristen Wiig) in which both continuously interrupt each other. Like a bad, unfunny segment of Saturday Night Live, this drags on seemingly without end, becoming increasingly frustrating with every new interruption. Comedy is supposed to be funny, not annoying.

Those who take a glass half-full approach to Ghost Town will probably enjoy it the most. There is romance, there is comedy, and there is a feel-good ending. For some, those things will be enough, and the fact that they’re not as well developed or effectively nurtured as they might be will not be a significant detraction. Ultimately, however, the movie cries out for an offbeat approach such as the one Marc Forster utilized in Stranger than Fiction. Ghost Town’s unwillingness to escape from a safe orbit keeps the movie trapped in mediocrity.

Lakeview Terrace
Mack Chico
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2008/09/19 at 12:00am

Reviews

Lakeview Terrace

09.19.2008 | By |

Rated: PG-13 for intense thematic material, violence, sexuality, language and some drug references.
Release Date: 2008-09-19
Starring: David Loughery, Howard Korder
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/lakeviewterrace/

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Lakeview Terrace

Lakeview Terrace is the latest thriller from Neil LaBute. LaBute began his filmmaking career with the scathing In the Company of Men, but his previous effort was the deservedly reviled remake of The Wicker Man. While Lakeview Terrace isn’t as horrendous as The Wicker Man, it’s nowhere close to the level LaBute attained with his debut. The first two-thirds of Lakeview Terrace offer a little more subtlety and complexity than the seemingly straightforward premise would afford, but the climax is loud, dumb, generic, and over-the-top. Those hoping for something more interesting will be disappointed by the level to which the filmmaker stoops to get an unearned visceral rush. In pandering to Hollywood standards about how stories like this should unfold, LaBute has lost his edge.

The story goes like this: a young couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) has just moved into their California dream home when they become the target of their next-door neighbor, who disapproves of their interracial relationship. A stern, single father, this tightly wound LAPD officer (Samuel L. Jackson) has appointed himself the watchdog of the neighborhood. His nightly foot patrols and overly watchful eyes bring comfort to some, but he becomes increasingly harassing to the newlyweds. These persistent intrusions into their lives ultimately turn tragic when the couple decides to fight back.

The film’s last fifteen minutes are so over-the-top that they’re almost impossible to take seriously and Abel’s motivation during a critical sequence near the conclusion is difficult to fathom. It’s the kind of thing that results from a screenwriter not knowing how to end a movie. Considering that the screenwriter in question is David Loughery, the man who was in part responsible for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. Meanwhile, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington are okay as the couple in the crossfire but, in comparison to Jackson, they’re boring. That’s the problem with sharing the screen with a man who’s a force of nature.

There are times when Lakeview Terrace seems to be striving for something more interesting than the basic “cop from hell” movie, but any pretensions it may have of escaping this orbit come crashing down as the script veers more and more into generic territory. Going in, you might think you know how it’s going to end, and you’d probably be right. If LaBute sews some doubts along the way, it’s a testament to the way the first half of the film is constructed. It’s too bad the movie’s moderately intriguing qualities are buried under the final half-hour’s avalanche of predictability.

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