Final Destination 5

Despite the fact that the Final Destination series was supposed to have come to an end withFinal Destination 4, here we are again. New round of kids, same ol’ specter o’ death, always up to some sort of Rube Goldberg-ian shenanigans. By now, this franchise has established itself as the go-to series for “seeing people killed in inventive, gruesome ways”, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But Final 4 was genuinely terrible, the first film in the series to make me question whether or not all the scenes that weren’t drenched in viscera were worth suffering through in order to get to the money shots. Would Final Destination 5 return the franchise to its “not great, not even good, but watchable for the kills” glory? Find out in my review, after the jump.
The short answer is, “pretty much”.
None of the Final Destination films are referred to by their actual titles, but by the characteristics of the big-ass accidents that kick-start each film. Final Destination 2, for instance, is “the car wreck one”, while Final Destination 3 is “the roller-coaster one”. Final Destination 4—“the NASCAR one”—was the one that seemed to kill the franchise off once and for all, largely because of the film’s awful script and the somehow-even-more-awful acting that permeated the film (just try getting through that film’s opening ten minutes without wanting to punch every actor onscreen in the face), but also because…well, this was the fourth iteration of the series, and everything’s gotta wrap up sooner or later, right?
That’s what New Line Cinema thought, anyway. They’d insisted on calling the fourth film The Final Destination and came this close to releasing it directly to DVD. Then they said, “Eh, what the hell”, dropped it into theaters, and made a surprising amount of money during the flick’s opening weekend. That, of course, led to Final 5 The Bridge Disaster One, and, well, here we are: staring down the barrel of a fifth go-round with the world’s unlikeliest horror franchise (yes, even more unlikely than the Saw franchise). Upon learning that the franchise was taking a victory lap, I was not thrilled, but the possibilities inherent in “Final Destination death scenes + 3D” was pretty compelling, and at worst these films have always been watching at least once.
The Bridge Disaster One is definitely the best Final Destination the series has seen in a long while (probably the best since the second, and maybe just as good), but I’m sad to report that the viewing experience isn’t as fun at home as it was in theaters: for one thing, these films are always best enjoyed with a shrieking crowd; for another, New Line has made the curious decision to release The Bridge Disaster One in 2D. I just bought a big-ass, 3D, LED television about a month ago, and while I’ve been using the set primarily for gaming (you should see Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed in 3D: your face will melt), I’ll confess that I was kind of hoping to see The Bridge Disaster One at home in 3D. I can’t imagine this will be a common complaint, however, as most people still don’t own 3D TVs.
Otherwise, though, this one’s one of the better Final Destination films, and has the distinction of being the only film in the franchise that actually gave me nightmares (it was the laser eye-surgery scene, which plays upon a very particular fear I have of anything being jammed into my ocular cavities)(note: your mom has the same fear). Once again, a group of teenagers narrowly escape death, and once again two or three of their friends are killed off—by the looming, unseen specter of death—before they realize that something’s amiss, and once again they’re forced to speak toTony Todd in order to figure out what the hell’s going on (finding out how the script will work a Tony Todd appearance into each new Final Destination is one of the series’ strangest, most satisfying highlights). The kills are grislier in this one than I remember them being in installments past, and—by the end—just about everyone’s dead. You know what you’re getting into here.
The only thing that really changes from film to film is the accident that kicks off the plot (as it were). In this one, it’s a massive bridge collapse. This scene is probably the highlight of the film (with the possible exception of that still-squirm-inducing eyeball scene) and appears to be where most of the film’s budget went: there’s a level of quality on display in this sequence that’s not readily apparent in some of the other scenes, particularly in some of the obvious set-building that’s been done by director Steven Quale. It may also be worth noting that I found the characters in this one far more unlikable—as a group and individually—than any other Final Destination cast. Did this make the kill scenes even better? I suspect it did (particularly for the loud-mouth douche nozzle that gets his in an acupuncture clinic).
One final note (no pun intended): I really, really liked the ending on this one. Very clever, indeed, and completely unexpected the first time I saw the film. If you’ve been holding off on seeing this one but you’ve at least seen the first film in the series, the ending alone is worth renting this one for.
The extras are scant (a few behind the scenes featurettes on the film’s bigger disaster scenes, a few alternate death scenes, no commentary), the video quality’s solid, and the film runs at a quick 92 minutes. Beyond all that, however, I’m finding it difficult to come up with much to say about this one. Either the Final Destination films blow your skirt up…or they don’t. If you’ve been amused by the series in the past, this one’s certainly worth a rental, but I honestly can’t imagine this one’s worth owning (for non-completists, anyway) unless they’re also releasing a 3D version.

"Avatar" Director James Cameronhas Been Sued For The Second Time

James Cameronhas

"Avatar" director James Cameronhas been sued for the second time in nearly as many weeks by someone claiming to have come up with the idea for the sci-fi mega-hit.

Cameron's attorney, Bert Fields, and Fox both slammed the latest suit by science fiction writer Bryant Moore as without merit. Moore, TMZ first reported Monday, is seeking more than $2 billion -- yes, with a "b" -- from Cameron and 20th Century Fox, claiming that Cameron used his screenplays for the movies "Aquatica" and "Descendants: The Pollination" as the basis for the 2009 film.

Moore is seeking $1.5 billion in actual damages, plus another $1 billion in punitive damages.

"Mr. Cameron was demonstrably the author of 'Avatar,'" Fields told TheWrap. "We can prove that, and we intend to prove that in court." Moore's claim -- and, for that matter, any claim alleging that someone other than Cameron had authored the movie -- is "entirely without merit," according to his attorney.

A spokesperson for Fox called the suit "baseless," adding, "we look forward to vigorously defending our position."

According to TMZ, Moore cites numerous similarities between the projects, including bio-luminescent plant life, spiritual connections to environment and reincarnation, and the appearance of mist in a scene -- yes, the appearance of mist in a scene.

Earlier this month, Eric Ryder filed suit against Cameron in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that "Avatar" was largely lifted from his story idea, "and "liberally and substantially uses material" that fell under his agreement with Lightstorm. Ryder claimed to have entered an agreement with Cameron's production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, to develop a movie based on one of his stories.

Corman's World

If the ambitious, decades-spanning Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel highlights a defining trait about Roger Corman, it's that he, in his fatherly way and with a professorial posture, gives new talent a confident chance, often assigning them a role or a job they didn't even see coming. It's fitting then that the film's director, Alex Stapleton, a longtime fan without a single directorial credit to her name, was granted permission by Corman to document his world. For the uninitiated, Corman's World, like the documentary on Australian exploitation films, Not Quite Hollywood, is a valuable link to a treasure trove of undiscovered cheap and tasteless pleasures. For those more familiar with Corman's impact on cinema, Stapleton manages to enhance the film's relatively boilerplate story with tinges of emotion from the interviews she coaxed from many of the now-famous who were given their start by Corman, including a teary-eyed and grateful Jack Nicholson.

But as great as it is see myriad clips from Corman's films, the film also serves as a reminder that bio docs generally fall drastically short of a more critical interpretation of a subject's life and character than can be found in books. For example, the film quickly acknowledges the incongruity between Corman's genteel exterior that he presents to the world and the "boiling inferno," as he describes it, of his "unconscious mind," but it's unsatisfying that there's no speculation as to why. It's the typical, from-the-archives, scrapbook approach that makes Corman's World the safe bet that it is, one that respects Corman's private nature as much as it skirts opportunities to probe his overly familiar history of making enduring B films (Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000,Piranah, Grand Theft Auto) on the fast and cheap and bringing innumerable notables (Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola) into the game since the 50s.

In fact, Corman's role was so vital in the careers of so many Hollywood big shots that the idea of him pulling a George Bailey in 1955 bears repeating; you can't say the American film industry would have been a better place without him. Corman's World surely makes that clear and even slows down a bit to morally validate that claim by paying due to his under-seen The Intruder, which he made at a loss—his only, as the lore goes—to confront the "un-American" race problems in the segregated South. And that the film returns to Corman in Puerto Vallarta on the set of his newest film Dinoshark for the Syfy Channel is proof positive he takes a much more modest approach to earning his millions than, say, protégé James Cameron.

It's a Wonderful Life Review

It's fitting that It's a Wonderful Life went from beloved Christmas staple to full-blown American institution during the Reagan years, when the cozily reactionary proclivities of Frank Capra's movie seemed most in synch with the ostentatious conservatism of the times. Yet it was also during the 1980s that the film received its most caustic analysis, in the form of a Saturday Night Live sketch which imagined the classic's "lost ending." When the people of Bedford Falls ditch singing "Auld Lang Syne" and become a torch-carrying lynch mob howling for Mr. Potter's blood ("You made two mistakes, you double-crossed and you left me alive," Dana Carvey's George Bailey snarls), it's not just great snark, but also a rich glimpse at the vicious darkness that has always dwelled under the film's benign textures.

Without overlooking its lapses into populist bathos, it's necessary to rescue It's a Wonderful Life from its spot at the centerpiece of untouchable American "classics." As with The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind (surely some kind of troika of sacred screen monsters), uncritical reverence both inflates the film's magnitude and robs it of its most interesting elements. Despite the fin de siècle gentility given its small-town setting, this is decisively a postwar work, never more visible than in the balance of hope and despair achieved by James Stewart as George Bailey. This was his first role in five years since enlisting in the Air Force, and Capra introduces his character with a freeze-frame that all but summarizes the actor's gawky persona, yet the rest of the picture gradually introduces the underlying anxiety—the subtle hysteria of a homespun performer who's seen horrors—that Anthony Mann would later bring to the fore in his great cycle of '50s westerns.

Indeed, Stewart's George is something of a cowboy, or at least a wanderer. He dreams of leaving home and traveling the world, and in the early scenes he's full of piss and vinegar. Inexorably, the picture proceeds to tame the roamer in him, draining out his youthful vigor through a series of domesticating events. When George's father dies, it falls to him to rescue the family's savings and loan association from being swallowed by desiccated plutocrat Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), Bedford Falls's own Mr. Burns. The hero's settling down is a rigid standby of classical American cinema, but what's striking in It's a Wonderful Life is how ambiguously the movement toward the stability of family life is rendered. Few scenes have expressed the suppressions and compromises upon which domesticity is erected as beautifully as the close-up of George, anguished in a mix of regret and acceptance, admitting his place by the side of childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed). George's subsequent achievements as a family man and community representative are scarcely negligible, yet his resentment never quite dissipates, it merely stays welled in him until something, like Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) misplacing the company deposit, causes it to spill over.

How can a movie so full of pain and frustration be venerated as simply, glowingly jolly? Mainly adduced from Dickens, Capra's structure is also reminiscent of Bible stories, with George, like several of Capra's other protagonists, undergoing what Andrew Sarris described as a "melodramatic parable of near crucifixion." It's no coincidence that H.B. Warner, Cecil B. DeMille's original Jesus, has a prominent role in the large cast, but George's faith-testing pileup of misfortunes brings him closer to Job than to Christ: Distraught at a bar, his prayers are answered by a sock to the jaw. He has been heard, however, and divine help comes as "second class" angel Clarence (Henry Travers) literally drops from above to save him from the edge of the abyss. The appearance of a cloying angel in the midst of so much desolation is an element that, like Spielberg's final movement in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, can either make or break a film. Yet Clarence is essential here to usher in the film's great shadow sequence, a Dantean descent in which George is given a vision of how things would have been if he had never existed. Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville, crime and sleaze run bare-assed, the people he loved are either dead or wicked—a world fit for a Christmas postcard is suddenly full of tropes from horror and film noir.

It's typical of the film's populism that the loss of a single person is portrayed as a cosmic imbalance, enough to turn an idyll into an inferno. Although Bedford Falls and Pottersville are offered as the safely separated yin and yang of a community, both are equally believable as views of a society where order is suddenly revealed as precarious at best, just as George and Mr. Potter have more in common than it first appears. "You once called me a warped, frustrated old man...Now, you're a warped, frustrated young man," the ogre tells the hero, and the film can't refute him. After such troubling discoveries, the famous climactic affirmation comes off like an escape hatch: It's a wonderful life, the message goes, and be content with it because it can always get worse. Still, there's no denying the last passage's cathartic power, charged by Stewart's tremendous depth of feeling. It's Stewart's emotional force that dries up the material's potential schmaltz, modulating from the romantic who offers to lasso the moon for his beloved to the disgruntled wreck who later asks her, "Why did we have to have so many children?" Capra views the two facets with the same intensity, and films accordingly. Maybe it takes a filmmaker so fascinated with the American Dream to see how close it can be to a nightmare.

Movie Immortals

“The director is God.” It’s a saying that has been applied to directors of both stage and screen. Directors (theoretically) control every aspect of a production and they marshal armies of various departments to bring forth a vision. Director Tarsem Singh took the saying as the subtext for his new movie, Immortals. Singh has always been an indulgent visual stylist, but with Immortals, he has bent a script to create a shining tribute to his own genius. On the page, the movie is a standard “Hero from humble beginnings”, but in the hands of Singh, it becomes lush, outlandish, baffling, and above all, vainglorious.

King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) is on a rampage across Greece so he can find a magical bow that will unleash the Titans and bring down the gods. Hyperion hates the gods because he needs someone to blame for the death of his family, but he also wants to extend his legacy by taking the Attila the Hun route of extending his bloodline and cutting off the bloodlines of others. It’s clearly a half-assed motivation that’s been tacked on to the character’s personality. Rourke doesn’t care either way since he sleepwalks through the entire movie and treats a mission to bring down the gods with the same enthusiasm as an administrator filing paperwork.

The characters are one-dimensional, the plot is threadbare, but the movie does lay out a very clear thesis statement by opening with the Socrates quote: “All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.” The story wants us to root for Theseus, a simple-but-goodhearted guy who does the right thing, but Singh couldn’t care whether or not Theseus leads the people to victory or even if he defeats Hyperion. He cares that Theseus learns to believe in the gods, and that we witness the power of those gods. Singh doesn’t care about being righteous. He cares about being divine.

A good director serves the story, but it takes a director like Singh to make the story serve him. Everyone will walk away from Immortals commenting on the eye-popping visuals and vibrant costumes (which will probably earn costume designer Eiko Ishioka an Oscar nomination). But most of the art direction and costume designs tell us nothing about the themes and character beyond “Singh sees the world in an unusual way.” Occasionally, that way is exciting and clever. It’s a smart point to make the gods youthful and attractive because why wouldn’t they choose to take that form? Singh’s spin on the myth of Theseus, the Minotaur, and the maze is brilliant and if all of Immortals was as imaginative and thoughtful, the movie would be a smashing success.

Unfortunately, most of it grows from the simple-minded thinking of “Because it looks cool.” I wondered why Hyperion was so adamant about bringing down the gods or expanding his bloodline when his true passion was clearly the design of ornate masks. Why does Hyperion’s helmet have bunny ears? Why did he bedazzle his mask? What does it tell us about the character? Singh would rather you just admire the craftsman ship and “originality” of his vision, and not care about the why.

Occasionally, Singh gets brilliant. Almost everything with Theseus is shot in brown colors filled with dirt and grime, and the only outstanding visual flourish is one long take of our hero striking down his enemies as he moves down a hallway. When it comes to the gods, Singh lets loose. He delivers one of the best and most cartoony action scenes of the year when the gods finally do battle. There may as well be a combo meter in the top left corner of the screen when the gods wreak bloody destruction and smash apart the everythings of their enemies. Even their violence is beautiful, so who cares that their plans are idiotic and that their helmets are distractingly ridiculous?

Immortals deserves credit for trying to breathe life into what would otherwise be a bland and forgettable sword-and-sandals story. The result is silly and undercooked when it comes to characters and plot, but the movie is fascinating for what it says about its director. If Tarsem Singh could have gotten away with casting himself as Zeus, he probably would have done it.

DVD For Beginners

When I received the DVD for Beginners in the mail last week, I was out of my mind excited. After all, Beginners is one of my favorite films of the year. I couldn’t wait to check out the supplemental material and I’m glad to report the disc doesn’t disappoint.

First things first: the film itself. Mike Mills’ semi-autobiographical tale follows Oliver, played wonderfully by Ewan McGregor, at two very different times in his life. The first timeline follows Oliver’s time with his father Hal (an Oscar-worthy Christopher Plummer), who has recently been diagnosed with cancer and come out of the closet. The second timeline follows Oliver as he embarks on a romance with Anna (Inglourious Basterd’s Melanie Laurent), a French actress staying in Los Angeles. Oliver is kept company at all times by his faithful terrier Arthur. Continue reading for my full review.

Both situations test Oliver greatly. With his father, Oliver is forced to parent Hal, whose mortality only makes him feel more and more youthful. With Anna, the typically shy Oliver must operate outside his comfort zone to keep up with his incredibly outgoing companion. As could be expected, comedyand drama ensues.
Beginners says a lot about what we’re willing to do for the one’s we love, and despite its somewhat typical romantic plot, it never falls into cliché. Anna and Oliver’s “meet cute” works perfectly because of how well defined they are as characters. The movie also works so well because of great performances across the board.

The DVD also includes a commentary track, which I found to be fun, funny and informative. Only Mills speaks, but given that he’s the auteur of the film, it works great. He gives great insight into the writing, production and editing of the film, all in a loose and humble style.

There’s also a behind the scenes documentary that shows a lot of great candid moments from the film’s production. At a brief ten minutes, it’s absolutely worth your time.

Overall, Beginners is without a doubt one of the best films of the year. The DVD (or Blu-Ray) is a must-own for fans of the film or anyone looking for a glance behind the scenes of a great indie romance.

The Movie 'Shame'

Alcoholics are told they’ll never find love in a bottle and drug addicts are told they’ll never find happiness in a needle. But what about sex addicts whose compulsion precludes them from intimacy and love? Steve McQueen‘s Shame delves deep into the life of a sex addict and with laser-like focus examines the pain and torment that can drive such a person away from heartfelt interactions and towards self-destruction. McQueen’s inspired and confident direction coupled with a heart-breaking performance from star Michael Fassbender makes Shame far more than a PSA or a righteous condemnation. McQueen and Fassbender make Shame a devastating powerhouse.

Brandon (Fassbender) is a sex addict who has closed off his life from any emotional contact. He wakes up naked and strolls around his apartment because there’s no one to cover up for, no one to impress. He feeds his sex addiction with hookers, random pick-ups, masturbating in the restroom at work, a steady stream of porn, and hides it all under a cool, calm veneer. His tranquil downward slide is accelerated by the arrival of his ne’er-do-well sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan). Sissy is Brandon’s inverse. She’s overly emotional, feels everything deeply, and voices her need for comfort. They’re equally messed up, share the same loneliness, but while Sissy has no problem crying for help, Fassbender runs away from any intimacy, especially from his only family and the one woman he’ll never want to sleep with. As Shame unfolds, Brandon’s failed attempts to connect with other people only send him deeper into his own pain and anguish.

Coupled with his debut film Hunger, McQueen demonstrates that he may be one of the smartest directors working today. He once again takes advantage of long, uninterrupted takes that provide his actors with the room to give full, rich performances, but the direction is never stage-y. McQueen always frames his shot perfectly for maximum effect. I was taken in by the subtle power of how the frame almost always keeping Brandon to the far right of the screen. This oft-repeated shot keeps the character trapped, isolated, and unable to cross over and connect with anyone else. It’s a beautiful visual metaphor that never feels heavy-handed.

Just as he can create beautiful tracking shots and exquisite framing, McQueen also knows how to be unrelentingly harsh. There’s a horrific claustrophobia to Brandon’s world. He’s cruelly taunted every time he sees a woman that he can fuck but never love. When McQueen opens the film showing Fassbender’s full-frontal nudity or a nude shot of Mulligan or any of the film’s countless sex acts, it’s not to titillate but to drive us into Brandon’s mindset. McQueen forces us to live in a world where sex is completely joyless. Any director who can take copious amounts of sex between attractive people and make it completely unappealing without being overtly disgusting is some kind of mad genius.

The other mad genius of Shame is Fassbender. He has already given three outstanding performances this year with Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, and A Dangerous Method, butShame is his best. Fassbender brings ugliness to charm, anguish to intimacy, and a devastating range of emotions that show a man who clearly can’t even remember the last time he was happy and is clinging to what remains of his corroded soul. On the surface, Brandon shouldn’t be a pitiable character. He’s handsome, wealthy, and gets to have sex with beautiful women. But through Fassbender, we feel every moment of Brandon’s torment.

Fassbender and McQueen are the major stars of Shame but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Mulligan. She has to stand as Brandon’s mirror, convey just as much suffering, and has less screen-time to do it. Mulligan rises to the occasion and her performance is even better than her acclaimed breakthrough role in An Education. Sissy is a singer and I don’t know if its Mulligan’s voice in the character’s performance of “New York, New York” but it’s a scene that will absolutely break your heart.

Shame is not an easy film. It’s not a film you “enjoy”. It puts you in a choke-hole and then forces you down further and further into the depths of one man’s pain. There’s no humor, no relief, and it’s not a film you want to watch again immediately after seeing it. But you respect every moment.

Water For Elephants

Water for Elephants is tasteful. Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz are all good actors, Francis Lawrence knows his way around a camera, and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese knows his way around a sentence. It’s an adaptation of a popular novel about a circus show. One of those books that find an audience with women, is often well regarded, but not taken all that seriously.

Robert Pattinson is famous for Twilight. But like any actor he wants to show that he’s not just the captain of Team Edward. Christoph Waltz won an academy award, but he needs to show he can work in Hollywood, so why not play a slightly less evil character than last time? Reese Witherspoon is a bankable actress – or at least used to be – and who else are you going to cast if Angelina Jolie is out of your price range? Francis Lawrence is a director who wants to show he’s not just a genre filmmaker after Constantine and I Am Legend. You can clearly see everyone’s motivations for making the movie. That the end results are half-cooked is also not surprising. Our review of Water for Elephants on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

The film starts in present day with Hal Holbrookplaying the older version of Robert Pattinson’s character. R-Patz stars as Jacob, who sees his whole life ahead of him until a car crash kills his parents and leaves him penniless. He was studying to be a veterinarian, but with no way to finish school he jumps a train. It happens to be a circus train for the Benzini Brothers travelling circus, which is run by August (Waltz). Jacob gets to working, but his skills with animals lead him to a job as the circus’s vet, and that gets him closer to Rosie (Witherspoon), who rides the show horse that Jacob quickly diagnoses as terminal.

Needing a new star attraction, August finds Rosie, the titular elephant. August uses violence to move the mammal, Jacob uses tenderness. Jacob is also attracted to Rosie, and though August courts this attraction by keeping Jacob close, he also doesn’t approve of it. So tensions are rising much like the show’s attendance.

Water for Elephants is beautifully shot, but wounded – if not ruined – by the need for digital effects to compensate for period locations. There are a number of train shots that would have been majestic if they were live action, but digitally enhanced shots have all the romanticism of the 1’s and 0’s they’re made of. There’s no majesty in that sort of substitution when you could watch something like Days of Heaven.

Perhaps with stories like this, the only way to go is to pretend that they’ve never been told before. But that’s not the approach here; it feels like everyone is going through the motions. The film is ultimately undone by its casting, and it’s not Robert Pattinson’s fault – Reese Witherspoon is so painfully wrong for the role. As a performer she’s rarely conveyed much sensuality, and though she’s a fine actress and capable at both heavy drama and light comedy, as the role of the mysterious and sexual woman in the middle of a triangle, she gives off all the heat of a well-used computer. The story might be familiar, but if there was anyone in the role who could project knowing and or sensual it would make this at least something to watch. But with this casting of talents based more on availability and awareness than how they interact, you watch three actors you never believe want to or did have sex with each other.

And that’s the make or break with films like this, and it’s so strange that the system is so backwards that the pieces were put in place without seeing how they fit. You can enjoy watching Waltz have fun with the role, and he’s not close to phoning it in, and Pattinson and Witherspoon are trying, but it’s a nothing film. Something sure to be forgotten but all of the most faithful of readers.

Twentieth Century Fox’s Blu-ray isgorgeous no doubt. The Blu-ray comes with a digital copy, and the film is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and in 5.1 DTS-HD master audio. The film comes with a commentary by director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Richard LaGravanese, and seven featurettes. “Raising the Tent” (16 min.) is the standard making of with comments from the cast and crew, “Secrets of the Big Top” (12 min.) gets circus historians to talk about the film and circuses, “The Star Attraction” (9 min.) focuses on the film’s elephant and the work that went into getting the elephant into the movie, “The Traveling Show – Page to Screen” (9 min.) puts author Sara Guen and the story in the spotlight, “Working without a Net: Visual Effects for Water for Elephants” (23 min.) shows where all the digital trickery was done. Robert Pattinson (4 min.) and Reese Witherspoon (3 min.) get their own “they were great to work with” featurettes, and the set rounds out with a theatrical trailer.

This Is The Most Honored Film

Ben-Hur (1959) is MGM's three and a half hour, wide-screen epic Technicolor blockbuster - a Biblical tale, subtitled A Tale of the Christ.

Director William Wyler's film was a remake of the spectacular silent film of the same name (director Fred Niblo's and MGM's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)). Wyler had been an 'extras' director on the set of DeMille's original film in the silent era. MGM's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), featuring a cast of 125,000, cost about $4 million to make after shooting began on location in Italy, in 1923, and starred silent screen idols Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman. This figure is equivalent to $33 million today - it was the most expensive silent film ever made. Both films were adapted from the novel (first published in 1880) by former Civil War General Lew Wallace.

The colorful 1959 version was the most expensive film ever made up to its time, and the most expensive film of the 50s decade. At $15 million and shot on a grand scale, it was a tremendous make-or-break risk for MGM Studios - and ultimately saved the studio from bankruptcy. [It was a big dual win for MGM, since they had won the Best Picture race the previous year for Gigi (1958).] It took six years to prepare for the film shoot, and over a half year of on-location work in Italy, with thousands of extras. It featured more crew and extras than any other film before it - 15,000 extras alone for the chariot race sequence.

Ben-Hur proved to be an intelligent, exciting, and dramatic piece of film-making unlike so many other vulgar Biblical pageants with Hollywood actors and actresses. Its depiction of the Jesus Christ figure was also extremely subtle and solely as a cameo - it never showed Christ's face but only the reactions of other characters to him.

It was one of the most honored, award-winning films of all time. It was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Actor (Charlton Heston - his sole career Oscar), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Best Director (William Wyler), Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Film Editing, Best Color Costume Design, Best Special Effects, and Best Screenplay (sole-credited Karl Tunberg). It was the first film to win eleven Oscars - it lost only in the Screenplay category due to a dispute over screenwriting credits (Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Fry, and Gore Vidal were all uncredited).Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) are the only films to tie this phenomenal record, although unlike this film, they came awaywithout any acting Oscars. Many felt that Heston's performance was inferior to other nominees in the Best Actor category: Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot or Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top, and James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder.

The top of my list of films

Annie Hall has long been at the top of my list of films. It combines a sense of classic New York, a bonkers Woody Allen and really good clothes. For whatever reason I’ve re-visited Annie Hall several times in the past few weeks, and continually noticed the quality of the wardrobes. It then comes as no surprise that the one and only, Mr. Ralph Lauren (no secret to film fashion fame, see Redford in The Great Gatsby) was behind all the stitches. Firing on all cylinders, Annie Hall is filled with tweed, military jackets, summer whites, Paul Simon, and female neck wear; all paired with narcissism, vintage cars and a complete disdain for Los Angeles.

People are quick to forget Annie Hall, the major turning point in Woody Allen’s long, storied, and ever-growing career. They’re quick to forget that it won four of the big five Oscars (winning best director, actress, writing, and picture), the one loss coming in the best actor category. They’re quick to forget it beat Star Wars for Best Picture. No, not the crappy prequelStar Wars, the freakin’ Star Wars. They’re quick to forget that Allen revolutionized humor, romance, and storytelling in one quirky swoop. But if you actually take the time to sit down and watch this amazing film, you would never be quick to forget it.

It’s honest, it’s depressing, and it’s hilarious. I chose this film as my favorite not just because it’s an outstanding film, but it is largely a representation of Allen’s whole career and what he would do after this. Annie Hall is more than just Annie Hall, it represents films such as the gorgeously shot Manhattan, the character-driven Purple Rose of Cairo, the dark, philosophicalCrimes and Misdemeanors, and the family-drama, Hannah and Her Sisters. You could argue that Woody Allen has done better since Annie Hall, depending on what film you chose to make your case, I might not argue. But there’s no denying that without Annie Hall, we would not have gotten the filmmaker and films we have today and that is why the tie-wearing, naive, arachnophobic, Grammy Hall-loving, Annie Hall tops my list.

The most Adventure and Romance Film In Africa - The African Queen

In The African Queen, you get Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, their little boat, and a very hokey—but very enjoyable—mismatched romance as they careen downriver toward a German gunship. World War I has broken out in Europe, and Hepburn’s spinster is determined to strike a blow for England. Bogart’s drunken river captain wants nothing to do with heroics—he’s like Casablanca’s Rick gone to seed (the part earned him an Oscar). But wouldn’t you know he gradually softens to Hepburn and embraces her cause? Director John Huston shot the 1951 Technicolor picture on location in Africa, where Hepburn got very sick while Huston and Bogart got very drunk.

One fascinating aspect is the ripples of war that have touched even the shores of Africa after the outbreak of World War One. The central premise of the plot - at least the part that will contain more action than character interplay - involves traveling the river into its mouth, a large African lake. Charlie has told Rose about a German warship, the Louisa, which has been carried overland in sections and assembled, and now with its big gun controls the region. Quickly Rose questions "Mr. Allnut" about the supplies aboard his own craft, and arrives at a scheme in which they will do their part for the crown, and sink the German gunboat! This serves as a singular goal for the plot, and assists in highlighting the development of the love story: after all, Charlie and Rose are alone for most of the film, going through their ups and downs. A reminder of the importance of the romance is the motivation it supplies to Charlie. Would he have straightened the shaft and rebuilt the propeller, had it not been for his love of "Rosie"? Would he have shot rapids and braved rifle fire?

Much has been written about the making of The African Queen, the seeming high adventure and romance of Huston and Bogart and Hepburn filming in Africa. The whole shooting smacks of the hyped atmosphere of a Hemingway safari. But judged purely by what we see on the film that's been passed down to us, the story holds up well and the acting holds up as almost flawless. Perhaps the far ending is a bit abrupt, but the climax has been reached, and the viewer has a good idea where the characters are headed. After watching Bogart and Hepburn, it is hard to disagree with the 1999 American Film Institute poll that placed them as the number one male and female actor in the first fifty years of film history.

I Like The Movie Kung Fu Panda

Did you see the movie Kung Fu Panda? I can honestly say that I have yet to see the movie. I don’t know why. It looked really cute and I think Jack Black is funny. For some odd reason I never got the chance to see it, until now. My family has the DVD and I was able to watch it. I’m glad I had the opportunity. It wasn’t a type of movie I would normally go for but it was a lot of fun.

Soon Kung Fu Panda 2 will be in theaters across the country. To celebrate the movie’s release General Mills is offering a Kung Fu related toy in specially marked packages of cereals including Cocoa Puffs (11.8 oz.), Trix (10.7 oz.), Golden Grahams (12 oz.), Reese’s Puffs (13 oz.), Cheerios (14 oz.), Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (12.9 oz.), Cookie Crisp (11.25 oz.), Lucky Charms (11.5 oz.), Cinnamon Toast Crunch (12.8 oz.) and Honey Nut Cheerios (12.25 oz.). We ♥ Honey Nut Cheerios and regular Cheerios. I love Lucky Charms too. I love to pick out the marshmallows and eat them first, then the cereal.

Kung Fu Panda (Gongfuxiongmao, Gongfu Xiongmao, is an animated film about a panda Po who is a kung fu fanatic whose shape doesn't exactly lend itself to kung fu fighting. In fact, Po's defining characteristic appears to be that he is the laziest of all the animals in ancient China. That's a problem because an evil Warrior named Tai Lung has escaped from his prison, and all hopes have been pinned on a prophesy naming Po as the "Chosen One" to save the day. A group of martial arts masters are going to need a black belt in patience if they are going to turn this slacker panda into a kung fu fighter before it's too late. The film stars the voices of, among others, Jack Black as Giant Panda Po, Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress,Dustin Hoffman as shifu,Jackie Chan as Master Monkey, Lucy Liu as Master Viper. Kung Fu Panda is directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne and produced by Melissa Cobb. The idea for the film was conceived by Michael Lachance, a DreamWorks. Animation executive. The film is due for release on.

The spin fighter actually spins in the air. I’m not sure how you get it to hit the targets from the General Mills cereal boxes. We had a hard enough time trying to get the spin fighter from not hitting the ceiling fan.

Who Is Hollywood's Highest-Paid Actor

From Johnny Depp to Ben Stiller, the stars who command a couple more zeroes than everyone else in Tinseltown.
Before 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean, no one would have pegged Johnny Depp to become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. The quirky leading man was best known for starring in offbeat movies like Tim Burton's Ed Wood and the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

But it turns out mixing Depp's oddball performance tendencies with a big-budget Disney ( DIS - news - people ) concept is a recipe for success. The first Pirates movie earned $654 million at the global box office. The franchise has gone on to earn a total of $2.7 billion, and a fourth film is slated for 2011 (in 3-D, natch). Depp's most recent star turn for the studio, a 3-D update of Alice in Wonderland, has brought in $1 billion at the box office.
His ability to almost guarantee a big box office (even Public Enemies earned $214 million) means studios are willing to pay whatever it takes to get a bit of the Depp magic. Between June 2009 and June 2010, Depp was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, earning a total $75 million.
This year's top 10 highest-paid actors banked a total of $349 million between June 2009 and June 2010. To figure out earnings, we talked to agents, managers, producers and lawyers to determine what the stars earned as upfront pay on movies they are currently shooting, as well as back-end pay earned after a movie hit theaters. We also looked at any money actors might have earned from doing ads.

Ranking second behind Depp is Ben Stiller with $53 million. The comedian earns big bucks for films like Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and the upcoming third installment in the Meet the Parents franchise because those films pay out at the box office. But Stiller has also started doing smaller, more personal films. This year's Greenberg, about a lonely man rapidly approaching middle age, earned only $6 million.
In third place: Tom Hanks. Between June 2009 and June 2010 the actor earned $45 million. Much of that came from movies like Angels & Demons and the upcoming Larry Crowne, which co-stars Julia Roberts. But Hanks also earns from films and TV shows he produces. He was behind HBO's recent mini-series The Pacific and produced 2009's Where The Wild Things Are.
Adam Sandler ranks fourth with $40 million. His most recent film, Grown Ups, started slow but is now Sandler's third-highest-grossing film of all time at the box office with $230 million in ticket sales worldwide. The fact that his humor can bring in fans over time, in the U.S. and abroad, means studios are willing to pay him a hefty salary.

Leonardo DiCaprio ranks fifth with $28 million. The star went through a period with underperforming films like Body of Lies and Blood Diamond, making it increasingly difficult for DiCaprio to justify his large payday.
But he's recently turned that around with Shutter Island and Inception. The latter (which hit theaters after our June deadline) is now DiCaprio's second highest grossing film, behind Titanic, with $700 million so far. DiCaprio will end up making at least $50 million from the film, which should rank him much higher on next year's list.

Roland Topor's Three Favorite Reasons to Endit

Before anyone out there begins to worry: a little back story. I was tooling around the Web site of the Dalkey Archive Press, a great, tiny nonprofit press, and found the new issue of their literary review, “Context.” One of the articles has the too-good-not-to-click-on-it title “100 Good Reasons to Kill Myself Right Now.”
Here are my three favorite from the list:
2) It’ll throw off the last census.
78) To watch the movie of my life at a very exclusive screening.
89) Because I’ve read all the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The author is Roland Topor, a French writer and illustrator I’d never heard of. (I was reassured that I am not alone in this by his appearance on the Tumblr blog, “Writers No One Reads.”) Apparently, Topor helped found something called the Panic Movement in the 1960s. According to the British blogger Jonathan McCalmont, the Panickers were famous for “slitting the throats of geese, covering naked women with honey, attaching snakes to their chests and, most famously, re-staging the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish using toads and lizards for Jodorowsky’s film ‘The Holy Mountain’ (1973).”
Personally, I prefer the lighter stuff. Read the rest of Topor’s reasons to end it all here. I’m not sure if he was riffing on Camus, but his list certainly reminded me of that famous line from “The Stranger”: “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”

Film producer Gest promises fresh take on Jackson

　　Reality TV star and concert promoter David Gest​ has promised fans a fresh insight into Michael Jackson in his documentary about the late "king of pop" which has its premiere in London on Wednesday.

Gest has teamed up with Universal Pictures​ to make "Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon," released this week on Blu-ray and DVD with the blessing of Jackson's mother Katherine.
"This is not a rehashed story," Gest told Reuters in a recent interview to promote the picture. "It's totally new in what you learn."
The producer, a long-time friend of the "Thriller" singer, is also involved in a singing and spoken-world tribute tour to Jackson which kicks off in Britain next spring.
His projects are part of a series of Jackson-related events that have been staged, screened or planned since the star died in June 2009.
"Michael Jackson's This Is It," a 2009 documentary film about rehearsals for his comeback tour which never took place, made more than $260 million at the global box office.
A posthumous album entitled "Immortal" is due out this month, a $60 million Cirque du Soleil extravaganza recently launched in Canada and Wales hosted a tribute gig last month attended by Jackson's mother and three children.
Jackson, who was 50 when he died of an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol which he used as a sleep aid, was one of the most successful recording artists of all time.
Asked if he felt such projects were merely attempts to cash in on the singer's name, Gest replied:
"There's a place if it tells a story that nobody knows and you enlighten the public (as) to who he is.
"I think if a project is interesting and new and different people are fascinated by Michael Jackson," the American added.
"I think the Cirque du Soleil (show) is brilliant. I think people will by entertained (by my film). This film is so different because I would say 90 percent of it is new information you have never heard.
"You see who the man was behind the music."
The Life of an Icon features interviews with Katherine Jackson, the singer's siblings Tito and Rebbie and friends and colleagues including Smokey Robinson​, Dionne Warwick​ and Whitney Houston​.
Tito discusses what the family went through during the child molestation trial in 2005 where his brother was eventually acquitted on all counts.
The film traces Jackson from his breakthrough in the Jackson 5​ to his rise to fame as a solo artist through to his sudden death in Los Angeles.
"You see Katherine Jackson in a totally different light," said Gest. "She's very honest and she's very open and you really feel for her, especially when you see her talking about his death and how it affected her."
Gest promised amusing anecdotes as well as moving recollections.
One, he said, involved Houston recalling a visit she made to Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California where she was involved in an embarrassing mealtime mix-up between Jackson and his pet chimpanzee Bubbles.

Singer Andy Williams says he has bladder cancer

BRANSON, Mo. (AP) — Singer Andy Williams told the crowd at his Christmas show Saturday night that he has bladder cancer.
The Tri-Lakes News reports the 83-year-old Williams appeared early in the show at the Moon River Theatre and vowed to return next year to celebrate his 75th year in show business (http://bit.ly/uaedcs).
"I do have cancer of the bladder," Williams said. "But that is no longer a death sentence. People with cancer are getting through this thing. They're kicking it, and they're winning more and more every year. And I'm going to be one of them."
The silver-haired "Moon River" singer missed planned performances this fall with an undisclosed medical condition and the theater announced recently that he would likely miss his holiday schedule as well because of the condition. The newspaper reported he has not started treatment, though it did not identify the person who provided that information.
Williams' appearance Saturday was a surprise and brought a standing ovation from a nearly full house. The golden-voiced singer had a string of hits in the 1950s and '60s, including "Can't Get Used to Losing You" and "Butterfly, but he is best known for his version of "Moon River." He earned 18 gold and three platinum albums in his career.
Williams hosted annual Christmas specials on television and performed Christmas shows on the road for many years. His 1963 recording, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," is a Christmas standard.
The Iowa native also hosted an Emmy-winning variety television program "The Andy Williams Show​," from 1962-71. He published an autobiography, "Moon River and Me: A Memoir," in 2009.
Williams sang "The Christmas Song" (known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") at the theater he started in 1992 and said he would be back next September and October to celebrate.
"I'm going to do the shows I've planned to do," he said.

Comic Actor Sid Melton Dies at 94

Sid Melton, a comic character actor best known for his work on three shows starring Danny Thomas, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was 94.
During a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Melton appeared in about 140 television and film projects. They included the 1951 films Lost Continent with Cesar Romero and Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet and Diana Ross starrer Lady Sings the Blues (1972).
On the 1950s TV show Captain Midnight, Melton co-starred as the hero’s sidekick, Ichabod Mudd. His signature line was, “That’s Mudd with two D’s.”
On The Danny Thomas Show (aka Make Room for Daddy), The Danny Thomas Hour and Make Room for Granddaddy that spanned 1959 to 1971, Melton played Uncle Charley Halper, the owner of the Copa Club where Thomas performed.
Melton also had a recurring role in the late 1960s on the sitcom Green Acres as Alf Monroe, half of an inept brother-sister carpenter team. (Mary Grace Canfield played his sister, Ralph.)
The Brooklyn native also appeared in flashbacks as the husband of Estelle Getty’s widowed character on The Golden Girls and on such other shows as Peter Gunn, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Munsters, Love American Style, Hunter, Empty Nest and Dave’s World.
The son of Isidor Meltzer, a comedian in Yiddish theater, Melton made his acting debut in 1939 in a touring production of See My Lawyer and appeared in 1947 on Broadway in The Magic Touch.
Melton also appeared in Shadow of a Thin Man (1941) and directed two films, Bad Girls Do Cry (1965) and … And Call Me in the Morning (1999), in which he also starred opposite Frank Sinatra Jr.
Melton’s older brother was Lewis Meltzer, a screenwriter who worked on Golden Boy (1939) starring William Holden, The Jazz Singer (1952) starring Thomas and Man With the Golden Arm (1955) starring Frank Sinatra.

Romola Garai

Graced with a classic, timeless beauty and equally adept at both high drama and low comedy, British actress Romola Garai had long drawn the admiration of film critics, although early in her career that had not been entirely advantageous to her. Born and raised throughout Asia and southeast England, Garai was first spotted by a casting director while performing in a school play in London. Cast in a small role as the young Judi Dench in the ITV teleplay "Last of the Blonde Bombshells," the 17-year-old soon was soon inundated with offers for more work. Skewered by the British critics for her early starring role in the BBC miniseries "Daniel Deronda" (2002), Garai dove into subsequent assignments with a greater sense of purpose and was soon winning raves for her performances in the feature films "I Capture the Castle" (2003) and "Vanity Fair" (2004), as well as for her work in the made-for-TV movie "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant" (2005) and the miniseries "Emma" (2009). Losing several plum roles to rising star Kiera Knightley did not deter Garai from persevering and the actress soon found herself collaborating with such internationally renowned filmmakers as Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh and Joe Wright, scooping up critical accolades along the way and becoming a talent to be reckoned with.

Romola Sadie Garai was born on July 1, 1982 in Hong Kong, then a British crown colony. Her given name - a female variation of the Italian Romulus, after one of the mythical founders of Rome - Garai grew up in the Far East, relocating with her family to Singapore when she was five. Of Hungarian-Jewish descent on her father's side, Garai's great-grandfather, Bert Garai, founded the Keystone Press Agency in London in 1924. At the age of eight, Garai was brought to the United Kingdom by her banker father, Adrian, and mother Janet, a journalist. The third of four children, Garai spent the remainder of her childhood in the southeastern county of Wiltshire, England. At the age of 16, she went to live in London with her older, adopted sister Rosie, and enrolled in the City of London's School for Girls. She continued her studies at London University, majoring in English. While performing in a school play, Garai was spotted by a casting director seeking a fresh face to play a young Judi Dench in the ITV teleplay, "Last of the Blonde Bombshells" (2000). In short order, the then 17-year-old landed the job, hired an agent, and began her life as a professional actress.


After appearances on the BBC drama "Attachments" (2000-02) and in the ITV teleplay "Perfect" (2001), Garai made her feature film debut as the beleaguered younger sister of "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002) in Douglas McGrath's adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel. That same year, she enjoyed a starring role as the aristocratic Gwendolen Harleth in "Daniel Deronda" (2002), based on the final novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). Although the two-part BBC miniseries received mostly negative reviews - with Garai herself singled out for a critical barracking - the Victorian romance solidified the actress' standing as a talent to watch. Garai fared better in her second feature film, "I Capture the Castle" (2003), heading a cast of British and American actors in the whimsical tale of an eccentric but impoverished novelist who moves his family into a tumbledown Suffolk mansion. Seen in limited release outside of the United Kingdom, "I Capture the Castle" won critical kudos in America, where critic Roger Ebert singled out Garai for particular praise.

Garai traveled to Puerto Rico for "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" (2004), a belated follow-up to the 1987 sleeper hit; this time, set in Cuba during the tense days before Fidel Castro's Communist takeover. Based on the Havana childhood of choreographer-executive producer JoAnn Fregalette Jansen, the film attended the social/sexual awakening of Garai's transplanted Midwestern teenager as she becomes the after hours dance partner of hotel waiter Diego Luna. The filmmakers had originally wanted Natalie Portman and singer Ricky Martin in the leads but settled on Garai and Luna despite the fact that neither had any dance experience. Ten weeks of intensive training in San Juan (subbing for Havana) was required to bring Garai and Luna up to speed. Critics were unanimous in their disdain for the sequel, although Roger Ebert again showered praise on Garai that he could not spare for the film itself. The actress was more in her element playing the gentle Amelia Sedley to Reese Witherspoon's ambitious Becky Sharp in Mira Nair's "Vanity Fair" (2004), a brisk but lavish abridgement of William Makepeace Thackeray's 700-page satirical novel.

Next up, Garai scored the title role in the "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant" (2005), based on the true story of a Cornish peasant convicted of petty theft and exiled to Australia's Botany Bay penal colony in 1787. This coproduction of Great Britain's Granada Television and Australia's Network Ten was the most ambitious and expensive miniseries in the history of Australian television, realized at a budget of $15 million. Garai drew respectful critical notices for her performance as the uneducated but resolute heroine, who engineered a daring ocean escape from the brutal prison, but in the process loses her entire family. In a lighter vein was Garai's cameo in Woody Allen's comic murder mystery "Scoop" (2006), as a helpful friend to Allen's cut rate magician-turned-sleuth and leading lady, Scarlett Johansson. The actress was back in period costume for "Amazing Grace" (2006), playing the wife of 18th Century British social reformer William Wilberforce, who lobbied to bring about an end to the slave trade. For Kenneth Branagh, Garai was Celia in a film adaptation of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" (2006) set in 19th Century Japan.

Early in her career, Garai had twice lost prestigious roles to younger actress Keira Knightley - in Granada Television's three-part miniseries "Dr. Zhivago" (ITV, 2002) and in Joe Wright's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" (2005). Despite their unintentional professional rivalry, Garai and Knightley remained friendly and had the chance to appear onscreen together in "Atonement" (2007), Joe Wright's Academy Award-winning adaptation of the 2001 novel by Ian McEwan. In the film, Garai played the older, wiser and contrite Briony Tallis, a once precocious 13-year-old girl (played in her youth by Saoirse Ronan) who wrongly accuses an innocent boy of rape and in doing so, ruins several lives, including that of older sister Knightley (who was initially offered the role of the teenaged Briony but settled for the older Celia). Joining the production later than her co-stars, Garai had to mesh her performance to match that of the younger Saoirse Ronan and also Vanessa Redgrave, who played Briony at the end of her life in the film's bittersweet coda.

After appearing as the embittered daughter of cuckolded software designer Liam Neeson in Richard Eyre's infidelity drama "The Other Man" (2008), Garai was offered a lead role in Stephen Poliakoff's conspiracy thriller "Glorious 39" (2009), set in England at the tail end of the edgy interregnum between world wars. As the plucky daughter of Tory cabinet minister Bill Nighy, Garai shouldered more than her share of the expository heavy lifting as her character sussed out a plot among British aristocrats to help overthrow incoming prime minister Winston Churchill rather than fight a war with Germany that they feel they cannot win. Poliakoff's first theatrical film in over a decade was savaged by the British critics, most of whom retained a kind word for Garai and a supporting cast that included the veteran likes of Julie Christie and Christopher Lee. The actress was back in Jane Austen country that same year, taking the leading role in the four-part BBC miniseries "Emma" (2009), for which she received a 2010 Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

In Time

　　Writer and sometimes-director Andrew Niccol

　　fixates on the future and doesn’t offer a sunny outlook, whether it’s in Gattaca, The Truman Show, or S1m0ne. It should come as no surprise, then, that In Time is yet another trip into the dystopian world of tomorrow, where lifespan has replaced money as the commodity of choice, and people stop aging when they reach 25. If they’re lucky—or well-off—they can earn or exchange days, weeks, months, and even years, thereby extending their time on earth.
Yes, this is a story of haves and have-nots. Justin Timberlake plays one of the latter, who ekes out an existence from day to day until he chances to meet—
—a wealthy man who feels he’s lived too long, and transfers more than a century’s worth of life to his new acquaintance. This harvest of “time” enables Timberlake to buy his way out of the ghetto and visit the wealthy part of town to see how the other half lives. It’s there that he meets time-mogul (and hoarder) Vincent Kartheiser and his beautiful daughter, Amanda Seyfried, who has no idea how difficult life is for poor buggers like Timberlake.

　　The concept is mildly interesting at first—even the cops are called timekeepers—but the novelty wears off pretty fast, and In Time becomes a dreary exercise in which the central metaphor is both obvious and heavy-handed. (Rich people exploit the poor, you see.) The characters are one-dimensional, leaving the actors with no place to go.
Future worlds can be fascinating, funny, or thought-provoking. This film is none of the above.

Anonymous

　　
　　There are great moments in Anonymous, from its arresting opening scene (with Derek Jacobi​ rushing into a Broadway theater and striding directly onstage) to recreations of the first performances ever given of Henry V and Hamlet before a spellbound throng of groundlings. I, too, was captivated during those thrilling scenes, which is why it’s so frustrating that Anonymous nearly drowns itself in a sea of confusion.
Because no one wants to tell a story in chronological order any more, this saga hopscotches back and forth through three separate time periods (not counting the modern-day framing device with Jacobi). I know this because we see David Thewlis as Queen Elizabeth’s advisor William Cecil in three different makeups: as a middle-aged man, then older, then elderly. It’s easy to keep track of the Queen because she’s played in the two later stages of life by the magnificent—
—Vanessa Redgrave​, and as a young woman by Redgrave’s real-life daughter Joely Richardson​.

　　If only the rest of the film and its dramatis personae were that clear!
Rhys Ifans​ plays Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who arranges for his plays to be produced on stage, where they are credited to a somewhat screwloose actor named Will Shakespeare​, played with brio by Rafe Spall​. This is not the Earl’s doing, as his choice for “front man” is struggling playwright Ben Jonson​ (Sebastian Armesto), but that’s one of the film’s many twists.
The question of who may have actually written the Great Bard’s works would seem to offer enough fodder to fuel a compelling story, but John Orloff​ places his (apparently well-researched) material within a larger, more labyrinthine historical drama involving complex court intrigues, affairs of the heart, and the fate of illegitimate children so detailed—and ultimately, confounding—that the movie nearly sinks under its own weight. What a shame.
Director Roland Emmerich, who’s best known for such apocalyptic epics as Independence Day and 2012, has done an excellent job of recreating 17th century England and making us feel as if we’re there, whether we’re watching men carefully walk on planks to avoid the muddy streets or witnessing the first utterances of the immortal characters from Romeo and Juliet on an open-air stage. (Vast overhead shots of London, especially those showing the Globe Theater, are so realistic that I find them vexing—like watching a magician perform an “impossible” trick and concentrating on how he did it rather than enjoying the illusion.)
But vivid atmosphere and fine performances can’t salvage this long, ultimately ponderous production. If only the script had been simplified—perhaps I should say clarified—and shortened this could have been a smashing film. Instead, it’s a major disappointment.

Jessie’s a movie star at the age of 83!

　　
　　Jessie Baxter
A STRATHMIGLO pensioner has become a local movie star after selling more than 100 copies of a charity DVD offering villagers a trip down memory lane.
Jessie Baxter (83) produced a documentary film sharing her memories of Strathmiglo High Street in the 1930s.
The DVD proved a huge hit in the village, being snapped up by local people to send to friends and relatives all over the world.
It has raised over £500 for Cancer Research through the proceeds.
Jessie has now filmed a new DVD — the first of a two-part series — detailing her early life growing up on Westmill Farm.
She said: “My first effort at producing a DVD has proved more popular than I could ever have imagined and this has spurred me on to continue my reminiscence and pass on my life stories when growing up on the farm through the difficult years of the Second World War.
“There are so many stories to tell, some amusing, some informative, that I have had to split it into two DVDs, the first of which is available now and the second will be ready by Christmas.
“I’m so pleased that the blethers of a pensioner has so far raised over £500 for such a worthwhile cause as Cancer Research and hope that people enjoy this DVD as much as the first and continue to support a charity which is close to all our hearts.
“Many families like my own have been affected by cancer, which is why I support Cancer Research in any way I can.”
Jessie produced her first DVD with the help of daughter Shona Peebles.
It shows Jessie sitting in her own living room reminiscing about the way the High Street used to be.
She recalls the shops that have long since disappeared and shares tales of some of the families and characters who used to live there.
The DVDs are available for £5 each and can be bought directly from Jessie on 01337 868950.

A Hollywood legend

There aren’t many behind-the-scenes Hollywood figures worthy of a one-person show, but Edith Head wasn’t just anyone. She was synonymous with costume design for the movies, with eight Oscars, 35 nominations, and over a thousand films to her credit. She became a TV personality and author who was recognized by the public, famous for her work with everyone from Clara Bow to Grace Kelly. (She even inspired a character named Edna Mode in the Pixar animated film The Incredibles.) Now actress Susan Classen is bringing her to life onstage in a play called A Conversation with Edith Head, which opens at the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles this Friday, October 28, and runs through November 13. Glancing at the actress in character it’s hard to believe it isn’t Edith Head herself.
Classen co-authored the play with Paddy Calistro, a former fashion journalist who interviewed Head for the—
—designer’s posthumously published autobiography, Edith Head’s Hollywood. She had thirteen hours of taped interviews to draw on for this play, which has been performed around the world and sold out its engagement at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the launchpad for many successful shows. In real life, Classen is Managing Artistic Director of The Invisible Theater in Tucson, Arizona, while Calistro operates Angel City Press, a savvy Los Angeles publishing house.

Head was a Character with a capital C, unafraid to blow her own horn yet scrupulous in protecting her public image. One of her more famous quotes: “I hate modesty, don’t you?” Because of Calistro’s wealth of interview material, much of the dialogue in this play consists of direct quotes from the designer.
I’m fond of Paddy and her Angel City Press, which is responsible for many wonderful books about Los Angeles and the movie world (the latest being Darrell A. Rooney and Mark Vieira’s beautiful Harlow in Hollywood), which is why I’m happy to promote this play. I wish it a long life here and hope it travels to other cities around the country. After all, Edith Head wasn’t just a Hollywood legend: she was a household name.

Margin Call

Margin Call manages to put a human face on the current economic crisis—but I wish it was as good as its trailer, which is forceful, well-edited, and dramatically scored. The film itself has many good qualities, and an exceedingly strong cast, but it’s a bit dry.
The setting is a major investment bank in Manhattan, where the story is set in motion by a series of peremptory firings. As risk-management specialist Stanley Tucci is escorted out of the office he gives some information to his protégé, Zachary Quinto (and, curiously, the security guard doesn’t stop him), urging him—
—to follow up on it, but warning him to be careful. What Quinto gleans from this data could implode the entire company, a revelation that leads to a series of all-night meetings and showdowns.

Among the key players: thirty-seven year veteran Kevin Spacey, high-living Paul Bettany, self-absorbed Simon Baker, straight-talking Demi Moore, and finally, head honcho Jeremy Irons, who’s willing to do whatever is necessary to save the firm.
You couldn’t ask for a better cast; Spacey and Irons are particular standouts. But when the movie was over I didn’t feel satisfied: there’s something missing, even though the screenplay (by first-time feature director J.C. Chandor) is completely credible. There is a missing ingredient; perhaps it’s an urgent music score, as we hear in the trailer. Maybe it’s just that the film is as insular as the people it portrays.

Elmo and the Electric Car

Sesame Street, which debuted on PBS in 1969, has introduced many memorable Muppets to pop culture: Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Cookie Monster, Bert & Ernie, and my personal favorite, the Count. However, the little red monster Elmo has made a bigger impact over the last 15 years or so than any of the others. With his high-pitched voice and unconditionally loving attitude, Elmo became a media sensation, sparked a "Tickle Me" toy craze and, most importantly, continues to touch the lives of children around the world.
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, which opens this weekend in New York and November 4 in Los Angeles before expanding nationally, is a totally enjoyable documentary as sweet-natured as Elmo himself. It primarily explores the life of Elmo's operator and spokesman, Kevin Clash, but also features the Muppets' late creator Jim Henson as well as commentators Frank Oz and Rosie O'Donnell, plus Whoopi Goldberg as narrator.
Inspired by Henson, Clash began making his own puppets while still a boy growing up in Baltimore. He was teased by his siblings and schoolmates for his eccentric hobby, but Clash had the last laugh when he was hired right out of high school to perform on a local TV series. This led to gigs on Captain Kangaroo and The Great Space Coaster. Clash worked with Muppets designer Kermit Love on Coaster, and Love eventually introduced Clash to Henson.

Clash recounts how thrilled he was when Henson subsequently offered him a job on his and Oz's revolutionary big-screen epic The Dark Crystal, as well as how conflicted he felt when Clash couldn't take the cut in pay he would have if he left his two popular TV shows to work on the film. By 1985, though, Clash's series had both been cancelled and he was all too happy to accept Henson's invitation to work on Labyrinth.
Destiny united Clash with Elmo once another Muppet performer, Richard L. Hunt, couldn't figure out what to do with their workshop's latest creation. Following Oz's advice to "find one special hook" for each character, Clash decided Elmo should personify love. Elmo's voice and propensity to hug and kiss whomever he meets quickly emerged. The rest is history.
Clash and Being Elmo are absolutely inspiring. The film becomes unexpectedly moving when Clash fulfills a terminally-ill child's wish to meet Elmo, and also when Clash speaks about his struggle to be a good father to his daughter given the demands of Elmo's success. Previously unseen footage included from Jim Henson's private memorial service likewise doesn't fail to touch viewers.

I was riveted by Chris Paine's expose Who Killed the Electric Car? while watching it at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Using a murder-investigation approach, Paine revealed that the nearly 5,000 initial models of an environmentally-safe, exceptionally fuel-efficient electric car were recalled by their manufacturers. Most of them were destroyed, while others were left to rust in a remote area outside a Phoenix suburb. A perceived loss of profits, not safety concerns, was the motivation behind the publicly well received cars' demise.
Five years later, sales of more recent models of electric cars are surging and Paine is back with a new documentary: Revenge of the Electric Car, opening today in LA and NYC. Though not as engrossing as the first film, Revenge pulls back the cover on the major car manufacturers' more recent efforts to create and sell electric cars without hurting their financial bottom line. These include Tesla Motors, Nissan and GM, and their CEOs (Elon Musk, Carlos Ghosn and Bob Lutz, respectively) are observed and interviewed in depth about both their past missteps and current strategies.
As Paine states in his latest film's press notes, "Sometimes change, like a train in the old West, gets stopped dead in its tracks... so it's a rare privilege to be able to tell the story of how sometimes change has too much momentum to be stopped." His documentaries have certainly made me a believer in the electric car. Now if they'll just get a little more affordable for us middle-class folks, that will be real progress.
Reverend's Ratings:
Being Elmo: B+
Revenge of the Electric Car: B

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Even if it had nothing else to offer, Martha Marcy May Marlene would be worth seeing to witness the debut of an extraordinary young actress, Elizabeth Olsen. But writer-director Sean Durkin’s feature, which earned him a Best Director prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has a lot going for it aside from this striking performance.
It’s not an easy film to watch: it’s intense, discomforting, and slowly-paced. What’s more, Durkin has chosen to leave some things unsaid, forcing us to—
—ponder the whys and wherefores of his characters at different junctures in their lives. He pulls us in right from the start, as we witness Olsen’s desperate escape from a communal farm somewhere in upstate New York. She doesn’t know where she is, but she telephones her sister (played by Sarah Paulson), the only family she has. Her sibling takes her in, despite the fact that she hasn’t known her whereabouts for the past two years.
From this point on, the film deftly skips back and forth in time, allowing us to share Martha’s life in the past and present—just as she attempts to leave her experience under the influence of the commune leader behind and re-enter “normal” society. The problem is that she’s forgotten what normal is. Fresh-faced Olsen is a natural in front of the camera, and conveys her character’s breakdown, confusion, and wall of denial without ever resorting to histrionics.
Using intimate camerawork, evocative locations, and well-chosen actors, Durkin weaves a compelling emotional tapestry. His screenplay is canny in the way it introduces us to the farm and its father-figure, played by the great John Hawkes. This is no stereotypical cult leader: he is at turns friendly, commanding, and cruel. He knows how to be persuasive when the situation demands, and sharp when he feels he has no recourse. That’s what makes him so real, and ultimately so frightening: he has a silver tongue and can justify anything he does, leading to extreme acts of sex and violence. Hearing his younger converts parrot some of his “teachings” is especially chilling.
Martha Marcy May Marlene doesn’t provide the answers, or resolution, a conventional Hollywood movie would. What’s more, it dares to take its time. But it covers fresh territory and draws us into its characters’ lives with an intimacy (and credibility) that make it a standout among this year’s indie releases.

Norman Corwin

　　Norman Corwin was one of my heroes; I never dreamed that one day I would also be able to call him a friend. When you’ve accomplished as much as he did, still have all your marbles as you turn 100 and live to be 101, it’s difficult to complain…but I’m still saddened by his death yesterday. Norman had a healthy ego and told Cris, his wonderful caregiver, that he hoped he would die on an unimportant day so people would take notice. I think he would be pleased by the news coverage of his passing. I expressed my feelings about Norman in a centenary piece that ran last spring; in case you missed it, I’m reprinting it today as my epitaph for a great man.

I asked Norman to pose with this 78rpm album of his most famous radio broadcast and he graciously obliged; this was nine years ago when he was just 92.
HAPPY 100th, NORMAN CORWIN
Norman Corwin is widely referred to as “the poet laureate of radio.” That won’t have much meaning to people who didn’t grow up in the 1940s or haven’t sought out his brilliant audio dramas. But if you love great writing…if you have a curiosity about the world around you… if you wonder why Americans were so galvanized by World War Two…or if you’d like to learn why performers from Charles Laughton to Groucho Marx were eager to work with one brilliant writer-director above all others, you really ought to check out Corwin’s work.
For an overview, you might start with Mary Beth Kirschner’s loving and informative tribute that aired—
—this past Monday, on NPR’s All Things Considered. The occasion: Corwin’s 100th birthday. When you hear such devotees as Ray Bradbury, Philip Roth, the late Studs Terkel, Charles Kuralt, and Robert Altman speak their piece, you begin to appreciate what a wide net this man cast on an entire generation.

Norman with William Shatner, who loved him and participated in many recent broadcasts and readings of his work. This was taken at Peggy Webber’s production of the Ray Bradbury piece “Leviathan 99,” which coincided with Norman’s 99th birthday in 2009.
While most of America was tuning in to Jack Benny and Fibber McGee and Molly, and mainstream drama often consisted of adaptations of popular Hollywood movies (as on Lux Radio Theater), Corwin conceived a series of original radio plays. You never knew what you were going to hear, from week to week: his work could be whimsical, somber, poetic, pointed, or provocative. He had no commercial sponsors to please; CBS was required to fill air time, and gave him carte blanche, knowing he would always deliver something interesting—and just possibly, something great.
He composed many patriotic programs during the 1940s, none more famous than the hour-long show he was commissioned to write for VE Day in 1945—the moment of victory in Europe after four long years. That night, some sixty million listeners tuned in, on all four radio networks, to hear a unique and thrilling program that not only rejoiced in our victory but asked Americans to stop for a moment and ponder what we had fought for, what we sacrificed, and what we learned that might help rebuild a world of peace. There has never been anything like it since. It is called On a Note of Triumph, and it was issued as a record album and a book. Martin Gabel’s sonorous voice narrates the text, set to music by Bernard Herrmann. Five years ago, Eric Simonson directed a documentary about Corwin and called it, with good reason, A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin. It won the Academy Award as Best documentary Short Subject.
Although radio gave him his greatest platform, he has never stopped writing, teaching, or thinking. He is incapable of uttering an inelegant phrase, and at least one volume of his letters have been collected in book form. (Most recently, Continuum published One World Flight: The Lost Journal of Radio’s Greatest Writer.)

The word “all-star cast” surely applies to this gathering, assembled one week after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 to perform Norman’s script about The Bill of Rights called “We Hold These Truths.” Top row: Orson Welles, Rudy Vallee, unknown, composer Bernard Herrmann, Edward G. Robinson, Bob Burns, James Stewart, Corwin, Walter Brennan, Edward Arnold. Front row, seated: Lionel Barrymore, Marjorie Main, Walter Huston. Norman never quite forgave Welles, who narrated the show, because he reached such a fever pitch during dress rehearsal—and was so roundly complimented for his work—that he started the broadcast at that level of intensity and had nowhere to go from there!
Getting to know this astonishing man has been one of the joys of my life, and last Saturday I was honored to host a tribute to Norman, organized by the indomitable Peggy Webber, founder of CART (California Artists Radio Theatre) and one of Norman’s most devoted followers. The Writers Guild of America theater was nearly full for the matinee program, which consisted of two full-length Corwin pieces—one lighthearted, one serious—and a series of tributes spoken by such friends and admirers as Carl Reiner, who remembers performing Corwin scripts under the auspices of the WPA; Hal Kanter, the unfailingly funny comedy writer-director-producer who’s been mistaken for Norman over the past sixty years; Phil Proctor, who as a cofounder of Firesign Theater continued the tradition of creating entertainment for “the theater of the mind,” and his wife Melinda Peterson; and Norman Lloyd, who in his 90s continues to deliver forceful performances in CART productions—including those by Corwin.
For someone who’s best remembered for his “serious” work, Norman wrote some very funny pieces as well, including the one Peggy decided to highlight, Mary and the Fairy, which originally aired in 1941 with Elsa Lanchester in the leading role. An amusing jibe at the lofty promises of advertising to free ordinary people of their everyday problems, it’s just as relevant as ever. Joanne Worley and Marvin Kaplan did a beautiful job as the naïve heroine and her wish-granting fairy. This was followed by an excerpt from the first play of Norman’s to be broadcast by CBS, in 1938, The Plot to Overthrow Christmas, and a slice of Soliloquy to Balance the Budget, a puckish, blatantly bare-bones entry in his “26 by Corwin” series performed by Shelley Berman.

Norman Corwin, as I will remember him.
But the piece de resistance was Our Lady of the Freedoms and Some of Her Friends, a latter-day radio drama commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1997 and not nearly as well known as it ought to be. Norman has always been an independent thinker, but he is patriotic in the fullest sense of that word, and his paeans to all things American are among his finest works. Ed Asner took the role of narrator in this eye-opening (and well-researched) saga of how the Statue of Liberty came to be. The ensemble included Samantha Eggar, Ian Abercrombie, Shelley Long, Phil Proctor, Tom Williams, Richard Herd, Paul Keith, Shelley Berman, Marvin Kaplan, Simon Templeman, and John Harlan. (As always, Tony Palermo provided live sound effects and Kenneth Stange composed and arranged the music cues.) But it was Asner—who started out in New York radio as a young man, back in the 1950s—who grabbed hold of Corwin’s soaring prose and brought it to an emotional crescendo at the end of the performance. The audience cheered its approval along with its praise for the playwright, who beamed in appreciation. (In the course of time, audio recordings of this event will be available through CART. In the meantime, you can check out their other offerings HERE.
Norman Corwin’s greatness as a writer-director for radio never quite translated to other media, although he did work in television and penned some screenplays including The Blue Veil, The Story of Ruth, and most notably, Lust for Life, the Vincent Van Gogh biography (directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Kirk Douglas) which earned him an Academy Award nomination. But he never completed one project for which he seemed uniquely suited, the adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. In all my discussions with Norman I had never discussed this aborted project, so at a recent lunch I asked why he left the production. His answer was immediate and candid: “I struck out on that,” he said. “I failed so miserably [that] I did not contest for a minute Bob Rossen’s decision to drop my screenplay. I have no defense; sometimes we just screw up and I screwed up.” Robert Rossen fashioned his own screenplay and directed the celebrated film. I told Norman that if it was any consolation, one of the smartest screenwriters of our time, Steven Zaillian, struck out just as miserably with his 2006 adaptation of the novel starring Sean Penn and Jude Law.
Radio Spirits has just released a new boxed set of CDs that includes many Corwin classics, including his Bill of Rights special We Hold These Truths, which aired just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, with a cast headed by Orson Welles, James Stewart, and Lionel Barrymore, and his masterpiece, On a Note of Triumph. Corwin’s use of heightened language and blank verse may not be fashionable today, but it still retains its enormous power. You can learn more about it or make a purchase HERE.
A private birthday party—and a special citation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which he served for many years—wrapped up three days of celebration. Norman’s reaction was simple: if he’d known how pleasurable these events would be, he would have reached 100 even sooner!