Posted on September 19, 2008 at 8:28 am
Arrrrrrrrrrr! Avast me hearties, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day! If you have not read the classic Dave Barry tribute to this most wonderfully silly of holidays, you are in for a treat.
And what better way to celebrate than with some great pirate movies!
1. The Pirates of Penzance
2. Pirates of the Caribbean
3. Shipwrecked
4. Peter Pan
5. Captain Blood
Posted on September 12, 2008 at 8:00 am
Scott Weinberg of Cinematical is recovering from oral surgery, which is of course the perfect time to watch some “comfort movies.”
I often say that movies should be rated on two scales — good to bad, of course (and we can debate forever what that means) and “watchability.” Some movies just go down easy for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with whether they are good or classic or smart or creative. And those are movies that are very good when you’re a little bit feverish or achy.
Of course the choice of “comfort movie” is very personal. Each of us has movies that are special to us just because we loved them when we were younger and have seen them so many times. I agree with some of Weinberg’s choices — “Finding Nemo” and “Princess Bride” will cheer anyone up. But while I respect his affection for “King Kong” (the original), “Raising Arizona,” “Lord of the Rings,” and “The Blues Brothers,” those are all too loud and frantic to be my idea of good convalescence watching. I like “Happy Texas” and “Galaxy Quest” and classic musicals like “Bells are Ringing” and “The Music Man.” I also like to watch some of my favorite television shows when I’m sick in bed. 22 minutes is about right for my attention span when I’m feeling sick. “Mad About You,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Sports Night,” “Will and Grace,” “Barney Miller,” “30 Rock” — pure video penicillin. I also like to listen to director commentary tracks when I’m sick, something I don’t usually have time for. I especially love the one for “Charade.”
I have loved movies for as long as I can remember but I first began to think about them when I spent the summer in bed with mononucleosis at age 16. Even though I only had a black and white television with just five channels, it was not a bad way to spend the summer — and not a bad way to learn about movies.
Posted on September 10, 2008 at 8:00 am
Last week, I wrote about movies with all-star casts. Some movies have all-star casts — retrospectively. When they are made, the actors are not well known but soon afterward many or most of them become superstars. One classic example is a movie that is (incredibly) celebrating its 25th anniversary, “The Outsiders.”
One of three movies based on books by teen favorite author S. E. Hinton to be filmed in 1982-83, “The Outsiders” is the story of rival gangs the Greasers and the Socs (for “socials”). Director Francis Ford Coppola, who also cast a group of future superstars in “The Godfther,” put together an extraordinarily talented collection of young actors including Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Maccio, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estavez, and Diane Lane. Hinton herself appears briefly as a nurse and Coppola’s daughter Sofia, who would become famous behind the camera for “Lost in Translation,” appears as a child.
Posted on September 9, 2008 at 11:01 am
From 1982-1987 actress Shelly Duvall produced and hosted a series of fairy tales on Showtime, starring some of Hollywood’s top performers. Christopher Reeve and Matthew Broderick played very charming princes, and princesses included Bernadette Peters as Sleeping Beauty, Susan Sarandon as Beauty, and “Flashdance’s” Jennifer Beals as Cinderella. The costumes and sets were low-budget but very creative, inspired in part by the classic fairy tale illustrations of Maxfield Parrish and Howard Pyle.
The series has just been re-released on DVD and I have FOUR copies to give away! This is such a special prize I want to make sure everyone has a chance to participate. So post a comment, telling me which is your family’s favorite fairy tale and why. The most imaginative and creative responses submitted by the end of the day Sept 30 will win the box set of the complete Faerie Tale Theatre series. U.S. addresses only, please. I look forward to hearing from you!
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Posted on September 4, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Loyal reader jestrfyl left a provocative comment about my post on the 1939 and 2008 versions of “The Women.” He’s a skeptic about all-star casts. He writes:
There is no Constellation that is made of all first magnitude stars, and I wonder if that lesson from nature should apply to films. However, if they can gel as a company and not only work with each other, but encourage and embolden each other, it could be an amazing experience. Are there any other films that are good examples of many combined super-celebrities?
It is sometimes called “stunt casting” when the point of selecting a particular actor relates not to talent or fitness for the part but to what the audience knows outside of the movie that they bring with them when they watch. As that suggests, it can be a distraction. And stars used to, well, star treatment can have a clash of egos that can lead to scene-stealing. But there’s a reason stars are stars and those who are truly talented and committed love to work with people who can challenge them to do their best.
Some good, bad, and ugly examples of all-star casts:
1. Oscar-winners Shirley Maclaine, Sally Field, and Olympia Dukakis are joined by force-of-nature Dolly Parton and all of them are eclipsed by then-newcomer Julia Roberts in one of the great weepies, “Steel Magnolias”
2. One of the first high-profile all-star casts was in 1956 Best Picture Oscar-winner “Around the World in 80 Days.” Mike Todd (who was married to Elizabeth Taylor until his tragic death in an airplane crash) produced and used his considerable charm to get extra publicity by coaxing just about everyone in Hollywood to appear in the film. For example, when a honky-tonk piano player turns around for a moment we see that it’s Frank Sinatra. Todd made it seem like a tiny part was not disrespectful. On the contrary, it was something special and highly coveted. He even coined the word for a brief appearance by a big star, using the name of a small, valuable piece of jewelry: a cameo. (And Shirley Maclaine is in that one, too!)
3. One of the most popular recent all-star casts was “Oceans 11” and its sequels. Just like the original, which had “the Rat Pack” (Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., etc. — and Frank Sinatra), this one was filled with big-time Hollywood names. It was like a People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” reunion with winners George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt. (And Julia Roberts is in that one, too, with joke billing “introducing” her.)
4. One of the most prestigious all-star casts was in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” with Oscar-winners Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, and Al Pacino, and equally brilliant work by Alec Baldwin, and Ed Harris.
5. One of the smallest all-star casts was a film, recently remade with one of the original stars. The original is the only movie with the entire cast nominated for Oscars. Any guesses?
6. “How the West Was Won” and other episodic or compilation films like “O. Henry’s Full House” or “Zeigfield Follies” have all-star casts. Disaster films like “Airport” and “The Towering Inferno” also frequently have all-star casts.
7. “Murder on the Orient Express” had a train car full of suspects, every one of them played by a star.
8. “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World” had a big big big big big big cast of almost every comedian in Hollywood, including Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, the Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle…and Spencer Tracy.
9. “Bobby,” about the night Robert Kennedy was killed, stars Sharon Stone, Anthony Hopkins, Lindsay Lohan, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and Elijah Wood.
9. And then there’s the ugly. Some all-star casts have no-star scripts. Stay away from the original “Casino Royale,” with David Niven, William Holden, Ursula Andress, Deborah Kerr, Orson Welles, and Woody Allen.
