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Monday, April 30, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer #3 (spoilers)

Posted on 8:40 PM by Unknown
The final countdown begins as we have the last in a series of trailers for the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises.  There is that same foreboding feeling from the other additions and everyone acting so solemn, especially Anne Hathaway this time around (who features much more in this trailer than any of the others).  They include the scene involving seismic activity swallowing a football field as a player runs for his dear life.  There is an explosion at the NYSE.  There is a school bus that crashes on a bridge while they watch it explode. After the jump, I share what might be spoilers regarding certain relationships between characters, as well as stills from trailer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like the Queensboro Bridge.

As well, in a sure-to-be breathtaking scene, a plane's back end tears off presumably during Bane's escape yet remains tethered to the rest of the jet via cables as the craft proper continues to operate.  Bane is inside of the hanging appendage at one point climbing down.  Tom Hardy is just as intelligible as he has been in the previous trailers, though, one time, he is oddly clear in stark contrast to his muffled lines thus far.  When he says, "Your punishment must be more severe," he almost sounds like Yoda.

Hathaway is "adaptable"
Hathaway declares, "I'm adaptable" while dancing with Bruce Wayne.

She also chirps, "You should be as afraid of him as I am." (probably referring to Bane)

And seems to be consoling Batman with, "You don't owe these people any more ... you've given them everything," before they fight a group of criminals together.


And for some light humor, she says, "My mother warned me about getting into cars with strange men."  Christian Bale responds in his best Donald Trump impersonation, "This isn't a car."

Hovercraft fires at the Batmobile
Who's the mystery man in the back?

[Via The Playlist]
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Posted in Trailers | No comments

Review Request Reminder

Posted on 11:37 AM by Unknown
One of the features of Blogger allows me to see search items people use to get to Cinesnatch.  As its tools are limited, there is only a small window for noticing random terms used infrequently.  Other demands make themselves all too apparent ("Take Shelter spoiler" and "Geena Davis naked" spring to mind).  Well, it just so happened that I spotted a google search for "Cinesnatch Albert Nobbs" this morning.  The timing of me catching it was random, so there was a good chance I would have never seen it.  Anyhow, because I did, I put Nobbs back on my Netflix queue and am going to review it for the person who typed in that search term (whomever you are) when the disc becomes available later next month.  But, as a general suggestion, just in case there are films you're interested in what my take on them is, feel free to email requests anytime to vatzjr / "at" / gmail - "dot" - com.  I will do my best to serve your interests.  And, it also helps me tailer to the demands of my regular readers.  Also, suggestions are always welcome, especially concerning making this blog more interactive and interesting.  I've only been at this for a year and am always looking to improve and make things more engaging and lively.  And, if your inquiries go unnoticed, please leave a post comment in case your correspondence was caught in a spam filter.  Or, just leave a comment to tell me I suck.  I love feedback, rude, polite, or otherwise.  As always, thank you for your readership.  And have a great day.

P.S. Oscar Revisionism WILL be coming back.  We will reach our destination of 1944, even if it takes until 2044.  (It shouldn't take that long though)  Look for the 1966 post in the coming weeks if I get off my lazy ass.
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Happy Birthday Suit: Kirsten Dunst

Posted on 12:00 AM by Unknown
I will admit, though Nathaniel over at TFE and others sang her praises, I didn't get the appeal of Kiki (the nickname comes from a short she did as a kid) until very recently.  She struck me as too vanilla.  And that's probably because I waited to watch crazy/beautiful until years after it came out.  I always meant to and I finally did after accidentally catching her shockingly good work in th recent All Good Things.  You can read my review here, but be careful NOT to scroll down passed the review, as there are some plot-revealing stills from the film that follow in the spoiler summary.  The movie is weird and strange, but so was the life of the man it was based on.  Ultimately, the film is technically unclean and poorly executed, but the story is like a car accident: you just can't turn away.  And, at the center of it all to reward you for your trouble is balls-out amazingness from Kirsten Dunst.  I swear, she is THAT GOOD. And, considering her choices as of recently, she only plans on getting better.

One can easily be forgiven for assuming that her ferocious and memorable supporting turn at eleven (!) years old as Claudia in Interview with the Vampire was her film debut, as the two other features she completed before that were little seen.  As the pint-sized, curly-haired vampiress, she had audiences eating out of the palm of her hand and delightfully sucked the life out of any prospective victim who crossed her path.  She worked steadily in TV and film, appearing in such box-office friendly films as Little Women and Jumanji, as well as Wag the Dog and Small Soldiers.  Having gotten to kiss Brad Pitt in Vampire, she also shared screen time with George Clooney years later during a 6-episode story arc on ER playing wayward teen Charlie Chiemingo, just as he was getting ready to leave the show for greener pastures.

Being that she was so young and talented, she got choice roles in high school-based movies like her beauty queen contestant in the black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous and ambitious cheerleader in mainstream hit Bring It On.  She would also have the honor of working with new director Sofia Coppola in the well-received dark independent The Virgin Suicides.  There wasn't nothing Dunst wasn't willing to try whether it be a Hollywood take on Shakespeare (Get Over It), a raw teenage love story where she really began to shine as a young adult (crazy/beautiful), or as a 1920s flapper (The Cat's Meow).

Of course, by jumping onto the Spider-Man franchise as red-headed Mary Jane Watson, Dunst would raise her public profile and Hollywood status and begin to separate herself from playing younger characters.  And, while her choices continued to be hit and miss, she began to fade into the show business periphery.  She was delightful in her mesmerizing reunion with Coppola in Marie Antoinette and had the good fortune of scoring a role in the science-fiction romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  However, featured roles in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People opposite Simon Pegg and Julia Roberts' vehicle Mona Lisa Smile, as well as Richard Loncraine's Wimbledon, and Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown would fail to push her career forward.

But, then, there was a subtle shift, that was quite noticeable for someone who had largely ignored her skills all these years.  By chance, I had caught All Good Things, and I can't reiterate enough how terribly great she is in the film.  But, nobody saw it and she failed to get an Oscar nomination, which she more than earned.  Last year, she wowed critics with Lars Von Trier's Melancholia, having also incurred bad press from his controversial choice of words during a Cannes press conference.  She'll soon be seen in the Sundance selection Bachelorette, as well as Upside Down and small roles in On the Road and a cameo in Charm.  She's also rumored to be in Coppola's latest project The Bling Ring and attached to Ronald Donaldson thriller Cities (dubiously with Elizabethtown costar Orlando Bloom) and a role as a prostitute in Red Light Winter.

I admire her for her Nicole Kidman approach to career choices as of late.  She's more interested in working with intriguing and eclectic directors than she is about her commercial appeal.  I suppose she probably expected more for signing her life away to the successful Spider-Man franchise.  But, if it gives her a good ten years working with the likes of Lars Von Trier, etc., then she didn't do too badly, did she?  She has also directed and produced short films and I imagine her to be one of the more exciting actress prospects for the next ten years.  Today, Dunst enters her 30s.

poll by twiigs.com




Check Out Other Happy Birthday Suit(lesses):
Jennifer Aniston     Ellen Barkin     Drew Barrymore     Annette Bening     Jessica Biel     Juliette Binoche     Cate Blanchett     Helena Bonham Carter     Cher     Glenn Close     Claires Danes     Geena Davis     Kirsten Dunst     Jennifer Garner     Jennifer Grey     Kate Hudson     Holly Hunter     Angelina Jolie     Ashley Judd     Keira Knightley     Jessica Lange     Andie MacDowell     Eva Mendes     Rosie O'Donnell     Lena Olin     Michelle Pfeiffer     Natalie Portman     Emma Thompson     Uma Thurman     Rachel Weisz     Debra Winger     Renée Zellweger


Jennifer Aniston #1     Nicole Kidman #1     Rachel McAdams     Julia Roberts     Winona Ryder     
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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Win a Pariah DVD Contest!

Posted on 9:28 PM by Unknown
Have you seen Pariah and want to own it?  Have you not caught it yet and a bit curious?  It's a worthwhile flic starring Adepero Oduye as a young black lesbian in high school trying to explore and embrace her true identity which runs in conflict with almost everyone around her.  Also in the cast is Pernell Walker, Charles Parnell, Aasha Davis (Friday Night Lights), Sahra Mellesse, and Kim Wayans from In Living Color in an extremely nuanced and can't-miss performance.  I have a screener.  Just email me at vatzjr at gmail dot com with "Pariah screener" in the subject headline to enter.





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Posted in Sweepstakes | No comments

Happy Birthday Suitless: Michelle Pfeiffer

Posted on 12:00 AM by Unknown
Nathaniel over at TFE has a HUGE crush on Michelle Pfeiffer (how could one not?).  Perhaps not at the same level that Matthew over at Boy Culture has on Madonna, but quite sizable none-the-less.  And I get the pfandom, being a movie-obsessed child of the 80s.  Pfeiffer began her ascent in the tackiest of eras and her blinding beauty was unmatched.  Additionally, she had an ability to capture a variety of emotions as an actress.  She could be believably sweet, innocent, and vulnerable to falling in love, or she could have an edge to her and be a complete bad ass.  The bitch could do anything and negotiate her way through any genre: musical, comedy, period, drama, fantasy, action.  ANY-THING.  My favorite Pfeiffer will be the droll way in which she effortlessly fired off bon-mots, where she quintessentially captured Catwoman in Tim Burton's Batman Returns.  While she managed to have a few hits, she was never able to consistently open films on her name alone.  I remember reading in an article in the 90s asking her what she would do if she ran Hollywood and her answer was something to the effect of,  "Probably run it into the ground."  She never prided herself on her business acumen and didn't care to offer herself up as America's Sweetheart, so, out of no fault of her own, she wasn't ever going to last commercially, which would only amount to a major loss for film-going audiences.

Red Is Her Signature Color
Born and raised in the OC/LA-area, Pfeiffer worked as a checkout girl and trained as a court stenographer before competing for the title of Miss California in 1978.  That led to an acting agent, which first started her on various television shows, including B.A.D. Cats, which I've never seen, but for some inexplicable reason, always makes me think of her birthday twin Mia Wallace's joke-telling character in fictional unaired pilot Fox Force Five.  After plenty of crappy movies on both the big and small screens, Pfeiffer scored the lead role in cult classic Grease 2.  While it never matched the critical or commercial reception of the original, there are a few catchy songs and lines quoted by a sizable group of fans.  The next year, she'd cooly saunter through Scarface as Elvira Hancock.  The girl always had better things to do and we could never get enough of her.  That led to higher profile roles working with directors John Landis, Richard Donner, and Alan Alda.  She landed on people's radars even more with her blonde baby factory Sukie Ridgemont opposite Jack Nicholson, Cher, and Susan Sarandon in the memorably John Williams' scored The Witches of Eastwick.

Pfeiffer heating up the screen with Mel Gibson
when he was hot and kept his mouth shut--well,
not in this scene
During one of the most important years of her film career, 1988, she would have three diverse movies released.  In Jonathan Demme's wacky comedy Married to the Mob, she drove the story as the tough-talking, but sweet, Angela de Marco, who goes informant on her husband.  Their professional relationship led to Demme's request that she play Clarice Sterling in The Silence of the Lambs, which she turned down.  (She would also forgo parts in Thelma & Louise, Bugsy, Basic Instinct, Disclosure, and Pretty Woman.)  She played between Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell in the steamy action hit Tequila Sunrise, directed by Robert Towne.  And she ended the year caught in the middle of a different kind of triangle with the Oscar-nominated role of Madame de Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons.

Pfeiffer heating it up on the piano
in that red dress
All those films would build up momentum for one of her best roles in The Fabulous Baker Boys.  She played the sexy and tough Susie Diamond in yet another messy threesome.  But, instead of it being romantic or part of some kind of French game of manipulation, it was as a professional and emotional cog between two struggling musician brothers.  The film is understated and touching and Pfeiffer delivers a performance that is so magnificent and nuanced, that the Academy members who are usually enamored by ingenues in knockout roles, chose to overlook Pfeiffer that year and give the Oscar to the never-nominated Jessica Tandy in the runaway hit Driving Miss Daisy.

Pfeiffer would continue to do sound work with an accent in The Russia House, adapted play Frankie and Johnny opposite her Scarface costar Al Pacino and her last (but, hopefully that will change) Oscar-nominated role in Love Field.  She worked with Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence and reunited with Nicholson in Mike Nichols' Wolf.  Within five year years, she would accumulate six lead Golden Globe nods (and one win).

Eat your heart out, Anne
Perhaps her most iconic/best/memorable role was as Selina Kyle in Batman Returns.  She's the nerdy, put upon secretary who decides she's not going to take the chauvinistic bullshit in her world when she acts upon one of her reinvented lives as Catwoman.  The movie itself was a less-than-stellar followup up to Tim Burton's first Batman caper, but she got all the killer lines, as she purred them with complete disaffected aplomb while unleashing her whip wearing that sleek, skin-tight glossy black catsuit.  Unfortunately, she would never follow her role up with a Burton sequel.  And, then, there would be that mess with Halle Berry that would follow a decade later. But, at least, we have the memories.  Meow.

Pfeiffer managed her very own box-office hit playing a real teacher in Dangerous Minds who challenges inner-city youths to read.  She followed it up starring opposite Robert Redford in the romance Up Close & Personal, which would have been more interesting if it stuck to its source material being a biography of anchorperson Jessica Savitch.  But, it did quite well, so, from a business standpoint, the alterations worked towards its benefit.  That same year, she would have some more luck romancing George Clooney in One Fine Day.  It was around this time that she and Nicole Kidman bet him that he would be a father by age 40.  Kidman double-downed at 50.  At almost age 51, Clooney remains happily fatherless.

Pfeiffer started to get a little more ambitious.  After producing One Fine Day, she drove the production of adapting Jane Smiley's King Lear update A Thousand Acres.  The epic family drama didn't pan out and turned Pfeiffer off from working behind the camera.  At this point, having two children of her own, she made a habit out of playing mothers in The Deep End of the Ocean and The Story of Us.  However, her movies didn't reach any levels of intrigue until those mothers got some bite.  In White Oleander, she played a woman convicted of murder who emotionally manipulates her daughter.  It was a brilliant turn as a heartless woman.  In What Lies Beneath, she was in every frame of the $155M-grosser about a mother suffering from empty nest syndrome who begins to believe she is surrounded by ghosts.  Director Robert Zemekis paid serious homage to Alfred Hitchcock in what was essentially a ridiculous, yet very thrilling Hollywood suspense.  She'd also try Shakespeare on film in A Midsummer Night's Dream (her one play remains to be Twelfth Night), as well as play second-banana to Sean Penn in I Am Sam.

She'd take a four-year long break before she'd return in 2007 in what looked like a possible comeback.  She had supporting roles in the fantasy Stardust, as well as the popular musical adaptation Hairspray.  Her leading turn was uniting with Amy Heckerling in the promising, but ultimately disappointing I Could Never Be Your Woman where she romances younger man Paul Rudd.  The movie went straight to DVD.  Two years later, she had another May/December romance bypass the movie theaters: Personal Effects with douche bag Ashton Kutcher.  Her highly anticipated Oscar-bait Chéri also had her as the older woman, but it too bombed.

Last year, she joined the trainwreck that was New Year's Eve, which her storyline concerned playing opposite much younger actor Zac Efron.  I guess the moral of the story here is people aren't interested in watching Pfeiffer get it on with guys a lot younger than her.  I'm not sure if she gets any lovin' from anyone her junior (or equal to her age or her senior) in her next two films, but they open fairly shortly: Dark Shadows in May and People Like Us in June.  Today, the beauty turns 54.

poll by twiigs.com



Check Out Other Happy Birthday Suit(lesses):
Jennifer Aniston     Ellen Barkin     Drew Barrymore     Annette Bening     Jessica Biel     Juliette Binoche     Cate Blanchett     Helena Bonham Carter     Cher     Glenn Close     Claires Danes     Geena Davis     Kirsten Dunst     Jennifer Garner     Jennifer Grey     Kate Hudson     Holly Hunter     Angelina Jolie     Ashley Judd     Keira Knightley     Jessica Lange     Andie MacDowell     Eva Mendes     Rosie O'Donnell     Lena Olin     Michelle Pfeiffer     Natalie Portman     Emma Thompson     Uma Thurman     Rachel Weisz     Debra Winger     Renée Zellweger


Jennifer Aniston #1     Nicole Kidman #1     Rachel McAdams     Julia Roberts     Winona Ryder     
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Saturday, April 28, 2012

Film Review: Jewtopia

Posted on 3:51 PM by Unknown
Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson wrote the play Jewtopia in the early 2000s about two best friends, one a Jew, the other a gentile, who crave romantic religious opposites.  It turned out to be a successful production that played to sellout crowds and inspired a coffee table book.  Naturally, dollar signs and presumably fondness for their love child led them to the next logical step in Hollywood: writing the screenplay.  They both produced as well and Fogel directed, so one has to imagine that they exercised limitless creative control over the integrity of the film version and must solely be held responsible for the results.  Of course, certain stories play differently, depending on its medium, and, sometimes, an objective viewpoint from an outsider can make ALL the difference.  Hence, you get Jewtopia, this year's opening selection for the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Star Ivan Sergei from 15 years ago in The Opposite of Sex
The film's plot borrows from the play's conceit: Adam Lipschitz (Joel David Moore)--who has a funny name, because ha-ha "lip-shitz" (for those who haven't see the musical Chicago)--is a Jew, with very Jewish parents, who want to see him marry a very Jewish girl.  He's currently engaged to Hannah Daniels (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), a controlling, high-maintenance doctor with overbearing Jewish parents herself.  His gentile best friend Christian O'Connell (Ivan Sergei) from childhood reenters his life suddenly in hopes of Jewifying him so he can find a woman to make all of his decisions for him in life.  Adam schools Christian on the worst of Jewish cliches--material we've already heard before squeezed into its 89-minute running time.  Yet, if the stereotypes it examined were as smartly executed as its reference to a typical "Jewish" trait involving over-complicating a restaurant order only to send it back after one bite, the whole experience would have been much more enjoyable for those who have already been around this block a couple of times.

I miss The Sopranos, don't you?
After a unique and well-executed title sequence, the tone is set with quirky, overly cute Desperate Housewives musical interludes.  The cast is chalk-full of well-known TV actors: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sigler Nicollette Sheridan, Wendie Malick, Jon Lovitz, Camryn Manheim, and Tom Arnold (who was actually quite good in Happy Endings, the film).  Also in the cast is Mrs. Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson.  The ample scatological humor increases the stench, and we're talking way beyond Farrelly brother territory.  I'm sure copulating with an inflatable water toy could be hilarious in another context, but it doesn't quite work here.  And the horrendous Hispanic stereotypes and gay jokes are just too dumb to be offensive.

Questions plague the venture, such as, if Christian wanted to marry a Jew, why did he wait until his late 30s to start looking for one?  Does it take that long to mend a broken college heart?  Are we to determine that his lazy work ethic precluded him from actually going through the steps of ever even looking into converting?  These are major issues that undermine the very premise of the film and render it impossible to enjoy in its many unsavory moments.  The major perspective-change a couple of characters experience after another's outlandish lies doesn't add to the missing plausibility permeating the story.

Comedy is subjective and it can range from innocent to offensive stereotypes.  But, regardless of what you think makes something humorous, true comedy speaks to universal truths about the human condition.  And, when one tries to be funny, because they're assuming they've rooted their jokes in something real, in a rather stale manner, they alienate and punish their audience.  However, there were many people in the audience laughing uproariously at various points in the movie.

Afterwards, the gala event included food sampling booths from 35 select OC restaurants, as well as hosted bar and a performance by a touring production of Million Dollar Quartet.


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Posted in 2012 Movie Review, Newport Beach Film Festival | No comments

Review: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

Posted on 2:07 PM by Unknown
Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard were musical icons of the 1970s.  A&M Records sold them as a wholesome family-friendly duo that fed into the puritanical image that was slowly slipping away from modern American society's grasp.  The kids grew up in Downey, CA on the southeast outskirts of Los Angeles.  They wore their success unassumingly, while the pressures of fame proved to be too thick for the sister component of the sibling duo.  Hollywood has a way of taking a microscope to all its major players who engage the entertainment beast.  While Karen was just your average young adult with a perhaps younger mindset, who just happened to have an unusual voice, she also had body image issues like a lot of females, and even males today.  Having not sorted through her problems or even realized them when she started her climb to popularity, the worldwide exposure would only exacerbate her anorexia nervosa.  And, unlike some diseases and addictions which can easily be concealed for a great length of time, Karen's gradual drop to a deathly weight would be lived out before her family as well as the media spotlight.

Director Todd Haynes, one of the most preeminent and audacious voices of independent cinema is known for his shorts from Poison, cold, clinical suburban nightmare Safe and 1970s glam bio Velvet Goldmine, as well as the Douglas Sirk-styled Far From Heaven, the untraditional take on Bob Dylan I'm Not There, and the recent HBO miniseries remake Mildred Pierce.  In the late 1980s, while cutting his teeth as a film student, he created the short Superstar: The Karen Carpet Story.

The movie is almost exclusively told with modified Barbie dolls often operating within the context of a dollhouse.  This seemingly elementary conceit serves the story perhaps more effectively than had it been relayed with traditional real-life actors, accentuating Karen's body dysmorphia as being reinforced by unrealistic, strict socialized definitions of beauty.  It also creates a surreal distance that allows for an emotional connection viewed through the filter of seeing her situation for what it was: a disease that was only casually treated and inadvertently enabled.  While I never saw any hands manipulate the dolls, as some have reported, the range of motion is appropriately limited, giving the characters a stilted appearance and robotic understanding of what's happening before them.  These choices complement the disbelief and horror the viewer may experience as to why a person should be allowed to starve themselves to death in the name of distorted vanity.  The accompanying voice-work is pretty solid.

Superstar opens with one of the only "non-doll" scenes where we watch the discovery of Karen's dead body in 1983 from the point-of-view of her mother, as well, the short includes some exterior shots of Downey and Century City again from the perspective of some of the characters.  Documentary footage details the Carpenter's rise and Karen's demise,  as well their relationship with their parents and Karen's struggle with her eating disorder, and commentary concerning the musical group's role during a time in U.S. history where the optimistic, innocent tone of their songs and Karen's smooth, relaxing vocals, as well as their clean-cut image, were what the country needed during a time of a never-ending, fruitless, abandoned war and a president who resigned in disgrace.

The subtitles are often difficult to read due partly to the quality of the bootleg copy it was viewed on, which adds a dated nuance, but also involves poorly-made/limited production choices.  While some of the doll faces are rather grotesque at times, it's not totally clear if the degree of crudeness was entirely intended because of the poor viewing material.  I had never seen the short and always wanted to for years when some friends shared it with me recently.  The soundtrack contains a litany of songs, naturally including many by the Carpenters themselves.  While the portrayal of Karen is sympathetic, her parents come off as unfortunately clueless and unhelpful, and her brother career-obsessed.  In 1990, Richard, possibly offended by nondescript personal insinuations made in the film (while many interpret them to be gay innuendo, one might also consider the fact that he ended up marrying his cousin), successfully filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Haynes who didn't obtain proper clearance at that time of production and had the movie pulled from circulation, where it remains today: underground.  And, if you ever get a chance to watch, do yourself a favor and do it.  What's strange is that times really haven't changed that much when you have entertainers like LeAnn Rimes who, as recently as February 2012, has asserted that she was "fat" when she was younger.  When you look at photos when she was a teenager and compare them to shots of her skeletal body on the beach over the last few years, you really have to shake your head.  Denial still isn't just a river in Africa.



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Happy Birthday Suit: Uma Thurman

Posted on 12:00 AM by Unknown
If it weren't for Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman may not have a career.  While she showed a great deal of promise in her early years convincingly playing the gamut from sweet and innocent to cold and calculating, the only roles that have really stuck with audiences have been her Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction and The Bride from the Kill Bill movies.  In those movies, she gave audiences iconic performances that she'll mostly be remembered for.  Yet, after every one of those successes, she mismanaged the career lift each brought, quickly sinking her A-list status each time.


Her exotic looks got her started in modeling at age 15.  That soon led to a film career, where she started batting movies out one after another, including a high school comedy and a thriller featuring her as Lolita-type robber (you rob her virginity and she robs her pocketbook, I guess).  She also won small roles in Oscar-nominated projects like Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (she shares a birthday with her costar Michelle Pfeiffer).  She also scored central roles with directors such as Philip Kaufman and John Boorman.  Some of Thurman's scenes in Kaufman's Henry & June were reasons why it was one of the first films to be rated NC-17.

From a box-office standpoint, she didn't always have the best of luck.  Science-fiction/fantasy films tended to be an anathema to her career.  Movies like Gattaca, Batman and Robin, The Avengers, Paycheck and My Super Ex-Girlfriend would make big splats with movie audiences.  And her decisions to play objects of beauty in big-budget Hollywood affairs like Final Analysis, Jennifer Eight, and Mad Dog and Glory, wouldn't amount to much either.  Films like Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues would show that she didn't have the opening power to draw audiences into quirky films.

It wasn't until Tarantino came along and cast her in Pulp Fiction did she get an Oscar nomination and a second wind in her sails.  The black bob that rested atop of the crown of her groovy and adventurous Mia made audiences finally notice her.  One of her biggest box-office successes which followed, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, mostly relied on the acerbic charm of Janeane Garofalo who was a much bigger deal in the mid-90s thanks to her star-making turn in Reality Bites.


Unfortunately, all of her stabs at prestige projects wouldn't pan out.  A Month by the Lake, Les Miserables, Vatel, Merchant/Ivory's The Golden Bowl and her work with Woody Allen in Sweet and Lowdown wouldn't raise as much as a blip for her.  Hot off her impressive work in the two Kill Bill films, she tried to continue her momentum with reuniting with Pulp Fiction costar John Travolta in Be Cool.  She starred opposite Meryl Streep as the older woman in a romance with her shrink's son in Prime and took a singing role in the ill-received film adaptation of the popular musical The Producers.  She couldn't extend the good-will she received from Kill Bill beyond two years.  Her next four films were either huge failures and/or went straight to DVD: Super Ex, The Accidental Husband, The Life Before Her Eyes, and Motherhood.

Mia Wallace: "I'm going to go to
the bathroom and powder my nose."
She won a Golden Globe for her convincing performance as a New Jersey singleton on the 80s dating scene in Hysterical Blindness.  And she was quite charming in the little-seen Ceremony, where she plays a woman about to be married, who is aggressively pursued by a much younger man.  Strange that so much beauty and promise from the start should evaporate and only reappear in infrequent whims.

Tomorrow, Thurman turns 42.  This Summer, she will be appearing opposite Twilight sensation Robert Pattinson in Bel Ami, as well as a nominal role (I don't recall her being in the trailer) in Oliver Stone's Savages.  At the end of this year, she'll star alongside chauvinist swine Gerard Butler in Playing the Field.  Possible future projects include a romance with Clive Owen, a nun saving soldier children in South Africa, and a feature based on the character of Eloise.  She can currently be seen on that TV show about the making of a Marilyn Monroe musical.

[Picture via Amy Grindhouse]



poll by twiigs.om


Check Out Other Happy Birthday Suit(lesses):
Jennifer Aniston     Ellen Barkin     Drew Barrymore     Annette Bening     Jessica Biel     Juliette Binoche     Cate Blanchett     Helena Bonham Carter     Cher     Glenn Close     Claires Danes     Geena Davis     Kirsten Dunst     Jennifer Garner     Jennifer Grey     Kate Hudson     Holly Hunter     Angelina Jolie     Ashley Judd     Keira Knightley     Jessica Lange     Andie MacDowell     Eva Mendes     Rosie O'Donnell     Lena Olin     Michelle Pfeiffer     Natalie Portman     Emma Thompson     Uma Thurman     Rachel Weisz     Debra Winger     Renée Zellweger


Jennifer Aniston #1     Nicole Kidman #1     Rachel McAdams     Julia Roberts     Winona Ryder     Reese Witherspoon
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Posted in Actress Retrospective | No comments

Friday, April 27, 2012

Opening this Weekend: Hopefully the Horizons of Emily Blunt's Career

Posted on 12:00 AM by Unknown
Wow, so many "choices" this weekend.  We have John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe, Jason Statham playing himself for the 25th time, and an obnoxious Pirate-themed stop-motion/CGI hybrid feature.  Perhaps one might hold out hope for Jason Segel and Emily Blunts' new movie The Five-Year Engagement, but it sounds like a gamble, as it might go by way of Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Get Him to the Greek.  Depending on your tastes, these might be good, bad or mixed odds.

On (much fewer) screens, we have Jack Black as Bernie, who appears to be a con man romancing older woman Shirley MacLaine.  The movie closed out the L.A. Film Festival last summer.  I saw Mamitas during that time.  It's a decent coming-of-age film about a Hispanic high schooler struggling to get it right.  Of a completely different economical class, Juliette Binoche plays a fashion magazine writer in Elles who discovers her own sexual repression while interviewing prostitutes.  It screened last year at Toronto.  My favorite part of the movie was the commentary from the lady sitting next to me with her husband.  "Once upon a time, they called this pornography."

Restless City depicts a Senegalese man trying to make it in New York City as a musician.   You can watch the first eleven minutes of Sound of My Voice from Brit Marling.  I tried Another Earth a few months ago and couldn't get passed the first couple minutes.  Not sure if I could handle this movie about cults either.  The Scandinavian Headhunters is an action film involving a man in debt who loves money.  Taiwan offers epic movie Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale covering a part of their history involving their indigenous people standing up to their Japanese occupiers in the 1930s.  There is also documentary Payback, an examination of what we as individuals owe to nature and society in terms of what we take from it.  Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment details a once popular Jewish communal alternative lifestyle that is slowly dying.


poll by twiigs.com

Previous OTW:
April 27
April 20
April 13
April 6
March 30
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Posted in Opening This Weekend | No comments

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Theatre Review: Iris

Posted on 12:00 PM by Unknown

Friends have shared positive feedback about Cirque de Soleil and insist that Iris’--currently the in-house continuing project in the space formerly known as the Kodak Theatre--is nothing close to its amazingness.  If that is the case, then, Iris is a great place to start.  There is a cute pre-show with an assortment of characters dressed in quirky and stylish getups that exaggerate features and clothing that feels quite like early 20th Century French vaudeville filtered through the Looking Glass. 


As you can expect with any Cirque show, the feats are mind-boggling.  Synchronized trapeze unfolds wowing the audience from above, when their jaws aren’t dropping from the contortionist act that turns into a house of cards.  Tumblers cross the stage in a rooftop sequence that manages to manipulate time by moving backwards and forwards with mere bounces set to the music of Danny Elfman.  The set decoration is quite lovely, especially during a fun bit flattening the proscenium with a dark scrim that reveals various levels and activity in an apartment building.  As the theme is film, there is play between light and shadows, as well as live feeds projected on various screens around and within the stage. 

There is a homoerotic strap act between two male trapeze artists that is quite family-friendly, but raging with sexual subtext.  It’s the most poetic and effortless act of the entire show.  The duo was actually incorporated into this year’s Academy Award ceremony during an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest where the two gentlemen were dressed as Cary Grant.  The iconic simple beauty their moment provided during the Oscars was often missing from the production of Iris.  Rather than rely on a pastiche of homage trusting the audience’s movie knowledge to relate and/or appreciate various nods to film history, the production squishes its magical elements and truly amazing series of never ending stunts into a cumbersome narrative. 

Iris’ main challenge is the same problem faced by the industry it showcases, which is ironically performed in the very venue that self-congratulates itself every year around February.  By imposing an contrived story on beautiful visuals in order to make the production easier to digest for audiences, it comprises the integrity and beauty of the work.  While stunning puts the efforts of this production mildly, there are perhaps greater Cirque pastures to explore.  Yet, if you can get passed the innocuous narrative antics, you could find worse ways of spending an afternoon.  
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Posted in Theatre Review | No comments
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