Contest: Clash of the Titans

Posted on July 31, 2010 at 3:56 pm

It’s time to release the Kracken! I have FIVE copies of “Clash of the Titans” with Sam Worthington and some amazing stunts and special effects to give away to my beloved readers. The first five to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Clash” in the subject line will be the winners.

And don’t forget the contests for James and the Giant Peach and Prime Suspect are still going!

Related Tags:

 

3D Action/Adventure Contests and Giveaways Fantasy Remake

Harper’s: The Worst Movie Ever?

Posted on July 31, 2010 at 8:00 am

There are a lot of contenders for the title of Worst Movie Ever. But clearly one of the most popular is the 2003 film, “The Room,” written by, directed by, and starring Tommy Wiseau, now a cult favorite at midnight screenings. Audience members line up to see it, many of them carrying plastic spoons.
Harper’s has a superb piece by Tom Bissell about “The Room,” unfortunately behind a firewall and accessible to subscribers only. But this is worth buying the issue or checking it out at the library because it is not only hilarious and oddly heart-warming in its dissection of the film and its weirdly compelling appeal, it is very sharp about the way that “The Room” mangles the very essence of film narrative from a combination of hubris and incompetence.

tried to make a conventional film and wound up with something so inexplicable and casually surreal that no practicing surrealist could ever convincingly ape its form, except by exact imitation. It is the movie that an alien who has never seen a movie might make after having had movies thoroughly explained to him….Wiseau understands the placement and required tone of certain conventions but not at all their underlying meaning. What makes him interesting is the degree to which his art becomes a fun-house mirror version, an inadvertent exposé, of a traditional film.

Related Tags:

 

After the kids go to bed Understanding Media and Pop Culture
Breakthrough Performer: Laura Breckenridge

Breakthrough Performer: Laura Breckenridge

Posted on July 30, 2010 at 8:00 am

LB Color Headshot 2.jpgI make no pretense of objectivity. But even if she was not my friend I would appreciate Laura Breckenridge as one of the most talented young actresses working today. She has appeared on television (“Gossip Girl,” “Related”), in movies (“Loving Annabelle,” “Southern Belles”), and on- and off-Broadway (“The Crucible” and “The Cherry Orchard”). Because I know her, I can appreciate her professionalism, judgment, and dedication. And because I have seen her on stage, on television, and in films playing a wide variety of characters, I can appreciate her talent and her ability to captivate an audience.
I was thrilled to hear that Laura will appear on “Drop Dead Diva,” this weekend, co-starring with Cybill Shepherd in a plot she describes as “‘Devil Wears Prada’ with a twist.” First, I can’t wait to see it. Second, it gave me an excuse to catch up with her and congratulate her on her graduation this spring from Princeton. We chatted a bit about the movies we’ve enjoyed lately and then I asked her about her latest role.
Tell me about “Drop Dead Diva!” People love that show.
It’s a really good show! It’s very well done and very smart. They handle the fantastical element very well and make it very real, and at the same time it’s a lot of fun to watch. I watched a bunch of episodes to understand the tone of the show when I was preparing, and loved them. I now watch the show whenever I can. The cast is very talented and I can see why it is a big hit.
I’m in an episode called “Queen of Mean,” airing August 1. It stars Cybill Shepherd. She plays Ellie Tannen, head of a fashion line, and I’m her former assistant who has written a tell-all book, and she’s suing me now. Then you see there’s a few other things that happen and I may not be as innocent as I seem. The character is a lot of fun, and one of the things I am most thrilled about is that I got to sit on a witness stand. I don’t know if I’d ever want to do that in real life, but I’d never done it in a show and there’s something about sitting in that box! They have built most of their sets on a soundstage and they replicated a courthouse that they used in the first season, down to the last detail, so it felt very much like a courtroom.
What did it feel like to be cross-examined?
It was fun but not so fun at the same time. She is good! What I think Brooke does so well is that she will be the smart lawyer Jane and then have a flash of Deb, the model. She balances it so well and I think she lights up the screen. She’s just like that in the room. So she looks at me and I think, “Oh, no, she’s got me!” It was easy to play rattled in the scene. She is a great scene partner because she has a theater background so she is always very present, very there. She’s so talented.
Another thing that was fun was the scene where we all enter. Because Cybill Shepherd’s character is such a famous person we are surrounded by paparazzi, all these photographers. There were a lot of people involved, and a lot of components to the scene, so everyone had to coordinate and work together. It was the first scene I shot, and it gave me a chance to meet everyone and get into the flow. There was so much happening it was exciting, and I felt so lucky to be there. It reminded me how much I love being on set, where all the various parts of a show come together.
How long did it take to shoot the episode?
It took eight days. After I got the job I found out that shooting began on the day before my last exam. They were really accommodating and worked out the schedule so I could go to Atlanta, where they film, right after my last exam. It was nice to finish my exam and go right to work. We were in Peachtree City, Georgia, which is about 40 minutes outside of Atlanta. It is a planned community with 90 miles of golf cart trails. There are cars on the main road but everything in the city is attached by golf cart paths. So there was something relaxing about traveling around the town in the golf carts.
Did you have to go to Atlanta to audition?
I did it in New York. Most agencies have tape rooms, a teeny room with a camera, where you can do an audition on tape. The benefit is that you can do it over if you want to, but the drawback is that the casting director is not there to give you feedback. I did an audition for an earlier episode, and then they asked me to come back and do another one for this one.
Tell me about working with Cybill Shepherd.
Cybill is so knowledgeable. It’s not just that she’s been doing it for a long time. She is very observant. She knows eye-lines as well as any director of photography. She understands camera angles, knows where she needs to be, she just knows it all, so just watching her was amazing. And she is very sweet and very lovely to work with. When she was doing her scene on the witness stand it was amazing to watch; she was just so good.
I know the schedule for shooting television is very fast. How do you coordinate with the other actors?
With TV, there’s no overall rehearsal. You have a blocking rehearsal and then back in hair and make-up or on the set after the wide shot is when you have a chance to talk. There’s definitely a collaborative aspect, but it’s more on the moment.
You had quite a contrast this summer because you did a big budget scripted television series and you also did a microscopic budget 24 Hour Plays in New York. What was that like?
A friend told me it was the most amazing, thrilling, frightening experience of her life — and it’s true. You meet at 9 pm and everyone brings a costume and a prop and contribute it to a pile. There are six writers and they pick the actors, costumes, and props they want. They write until 6 or 7 am. The directors show up and pick their plays. And then the actors show up and you have 12 hours to rehearse and memorize. You’re going on instinct so sometimes things happen on stage and you just go with it. It’s a wonderful experience, very collaborative, all of us just holding hands and diving in and hoping for the best.
I did it last year, and was so happy to be invited back, because I loved the experience. This year I did a play called “Hero Dad,” about three different dads. I played three different versions of the same type of girl, to come into these dads’ lives and remind them of their responsibility, going from kind of funny to very serious. It was an intense and challenging play to learn in twelve hours, but that type of experience is always the most thrilling and enjoyable. 24 Hour Plays really re-awakens your instincts and helps remind you to rely on your fellow actors, use their energy and act off of it.
It sounds like theater is your favorite.
I really do love all three. I like the challenge of different ways of working. I value rehearsal time and the energy of live theater, where it’s different every night. Sometimes the audience does not know it, but they are a part of the performance. They bring the final piece to it, and every audience is different. I will always love theater, but it is hard to pick a favorite. With film and TV you are able to capture things that happen in one specific moment, and because they are filmed, they are captured forever. The challenge in film and TV is to find the precise moments right there and then, with only the energy of your fellow actors to help you. Once the scene is done, it’s done; it won’t change as it can in theater. What I love about TV is it’s constantly evolving and you’re evolving with it. TV characters feel like they’re in our lives, not just because they are in our living rooms every week but because we get to see them grow and develop and you get to see how the same character takes on new challenges and new perspectives. I feel fortunate to have had experiences in theater, film and TV, and I hope that I will have a career that balances all three.

Related Tags:

 

Actors Behind the Scenes Breakthrough Perfomers Interview Television

The Kind Campaign

Posted on July 29, 2010 at 3:59 pm

How can we teach girls to be kinder to each other? We see a lot of movies and television shows and ads about the importance of being thin and looking young and smelling good and making money and being quippy and snarky and fast with put-downs and winning by vanquishing everyone around you but we don’t get many positive images of the simplest and perhaps the most powerful quality that is available to everyone: the quality of kindness.

Last September, Lauren Parsekian and Molly Stroud began a month and a half long journey across the country in a Kind Campaign decorated minivan donated by Toyota. They traveled over 10,000 miles collecting stories from hundreds of girls and women all over America. That is the basis for a documentary and a campaign to help girls and women learn to be kind.

You can take the pledge of kindness, share your stories and even your apologies

As one woman says in the movie, we may not all be beautiful, we may not all be smart, we may not all be talented, but we can all be kind. I’ve made the pledge. Will you?

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Parenting Teenagers Tweens

Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Movie Mom Website

Posted on July 29, 2010 at 8:00 am

Fifteen years ago this week, when there were only a few thousand websites and not one from a corporation or publication, I decided to publish movie reviews online from a parents’ point of view.
At that time, just about every site on the Web was put there by a college student or someone in the military or was part of a university’s in-house system for publishing notices of meetings and conferences and trading papers and data. I had been online since 1986, when it was just pre-Web bulletin boards and listservs. I was very interested in the technology, but I didn’t want to create a the typical “Here is a picture of me and here are my ten favorite links” website. And I wanted to write movie reviews. So I decided to combine the two.
It is hard to remember, now, how new and exotic and primitive the web was in those days. I did all my own code for the first four or five years, and was very proud of myself for figuring out how to post pictures of movie posters and embedded links. And I watched the Web grow up all around me. When I began, there was no Yahoo and no Google. AOL was Macs only. I had to use dial-up. There were no cable modems, either.
Five years later, Yahoo asked me to become its film critic, around the time that I began reviewing movies on radio station across the country (thank you, Froggy in Fargo for getting me started) and seven years after that, I got a call from Beliefnet, where I am living happily ever after.
As I typed away on that little computer in the study off our bedroom, the one that probably had less power than I currently have in my iPhone, I could never have imagined where it would take me. I am blessed by this journey and by all of you who are kind enough to visit me here. On to the next 15!

Related Tags:

 

Media Appearances
THE MOVIE MOM® is a registered trademark of Nell Minow. Use of the mark without express consent from Nell Minow constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. All material © Nell Minow 1995-2024, all rights reserved, and no use or republication is permitted without explicit permission. This site hosts Nell Minow’s Movie Mom® archive, with material that originally appeared on Yahoo! Movies, Beliefnet, and other sources. Much of her new material can be found at Rogerebert.com, Huffington Post, and WheretoWatch. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments, and she can be heard each week on radio stations across the country.

Website Designed by Max LaZebnik