Q&A With the Movie Mom

Posted on August 19, 2011 at 8:00 am

Thanks for these great questions!

I saw the trailer for a movie but I forgot what it was called. There’s a girl who goes to seek out all her exes to see if any of them are still single and if anything has changed with them. Her neighbor accompanies her on her search for these ex boyfriends. She discovers that a lot of them are better off without her. If you know what this movie is called I’d really appreciate it.

That’s “What’s Your Number?” with Anna Faris. It opens in late September.

This movie is set around in the 60s. Rich white family with a young daughter hires a housekeeper who is black with a daughter the same age. The two girls grow up together and are very close. The dark girl hates being dark skinned and blames her mother and rebels as she gets older and runs away. Her mother tracks her down years later as the mother is dying. She finds her daughter working in a strip club & the daughter denies knowing her around people, she tells the daughter she is dying. The daughter tells her she hates her and to never come around again. The mother goes back home where she’s still living with the white family and not long after she dies. The daughter comes half-way through her mother’s funeral chasing the hearse down the road terribly sorry screaming for her mum.

That’s a classic: Imitation of Life with Lana Turner and Sandra Dee and the biggest onscreen funeral scene ever. It’s a remake, and the original version with Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers is also worth watching.

There is a movie I watched partly a few years back and I don’t know its name or any of the cast or crew. All I know is that there were two ladies I think they were on a train. One of them, I think recently widowed, is off to meet her husband’s family for the first time. The other is poor and pregnant I think. There was an incident not sure what but it left the widowed woman dead and the other I think unconscious. Their identity somehow got switched in the process. Thus the poor pregnant woman was taken to meet the family (in-laws) of the one that died and she tried to fit in.

That is “Mrs. Winterbourne” with Ricki Lake and Brendan Fraser, a remake of “No Man of Her Own” with Barbara Stanwyck. Enjoy!

I remember watching a movie – racing cars – and in the movie was an Olds 442 and a Dodge Challenger. Then one guy ended up getting an old Willy’s and dropping a hemi into it for racing. It was on television. I just don’t know the name and would like to try and watch it again.

That’s Vanishing Point with Barry Newman — and great cinematography.

It is a comedy that is set in the Renaissance to the Robin Hood time period/theme. The only part I really remember about it is that there is two brothers that feel exactly what the other is going through…for example if one gets hurt the other feels it, if one has to pee the other goes for him. Its not Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

That’s Cheech and Chong’s version of “The Corsican Brothers.”

A general description of the storyline: a young man runs away from home; he is lying on a park bench, when a large head with a white beard appears. The young man holds onto the beard, and is brought to a fantasyland. He’s given a cloak of invisibility, and a sword that can cut through stone. He is to use the sword to penetrate the stone around the heart of the villain.

That’s “The Land of Faraway.” It is sometimes called “Mio in the Land of Faraway.” Enjoy!

What’s the name of the movie with a young African-American woman who was really successful in New York, but had a heart attack and was told to take some time out off work and go somewhere different? She thought carefully and decided to go live with her foster mother in a small town, where she was with her other son and they both fell in love. At the end of the movie the guy goes looking for her in New York, but she decided she should relocate to the small town to be with him?

That’s the BET movie “Commitments” with Victoria Dillard. It’s a good one!

I was wondering, if you could assist me by providing the name of a certain movie. The title has slipped my mind, but I recall exactly what it was about. The story (which I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s based on a true story…) is about a girl who is hit by a vehicle and can no longer move. She is somewhat paralyzed… but, she is extremely smart and her mother decides to go to school with her so she is able to assist her daughter. The young lady ends up going to Harvard (or some other well known college…) and her mother goes along with her. She meets a guy there and falls in love with him, but in the end, he is engaged to another lady.

That is “The Brooke Ellison Story.”

I remember this movie, probably made for TV, in the mid 70s, maybe 80s…A lot of turmoil in the country, and the youth of the country took over. Lowered the voting age, and all the ages for holding offices. The part I remember from the commercials and the movie was of this boy, acting almost possessed, and the line, “GIVE ME THE POWER…” delivered as if he was almost going into a trance…do you know the name of this movie?

That’s Wild in the Streets with Christopher Jones.

Recently I’ve been having flashbacks about a movie I once watched when I was little, about a little girl who has an imaginary friend ( I think he dresses in all green, like a leprechaun) and he’s very annoying, makes her steal and break things (which she gets blamed and punished for) so she locks him away (in a jewelry box, I think) but later starts missing him… and then there seems to be a big chunk of the movie missing from my memory but all I remember is that the girl forgets about him over the years and the imaginary friend re-appears but this time the girl’s grown up (in her 20’s) so he has to leave her which makes her very sad. In the end that imaginary character moves on to being another little girl’s imaginary friend and the movie ends shortly after.

That’s Drop Dead Fred with the wonderful Phoebe Cates.

I remember watching a movie at least ten to fifteen years ago, perhaps even longer than that where a young professional male dancer loses his usual dance partner and has to find another. He ends up with a geeky girl with glasses, frizzy hair tied back in a ponytail who doesn’t look like she can do much dancing. When she shows him her style he is shocked to see she can dance and she has a special style that he learns from her. She loses the glasses does her hair and starts looking prettier until she goes from ugly duckling to swan and a romance between them forms. There’s a scene where he visits her family who I think are either Latina or Mexican where her dance style originates. I can’t for the life of me remember what it is called and I’ve looked around. It’s an American film and my guess is it could be anywhere between 1980 to 2005 though I’m guessing it’s more likely to be in the 90’s. That was when I watched it so it may be older than that but not by much.

I love that movie! It’s Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom.

I want to know the name of a movie about a guy who realizes that he is actually a character in a book and is about to be killed. He wants to find the author to get him to not kill him. It starts out with a narrator who describes the life of this guy, whose life is very regimented, what time he gets up, how long he brushes his teeth, goes to work and so on. I know I saw it quite some time ago, and I can’t remember the name of the movie or the star…

One of my favorites! That’s Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson.

About 15 or more years ago I saw a movie that I thought was called “Bug”. It was about these beetle like bugs that came out of a earthquake. They were able to produce electric and in one scene I remember spelled words on the wall with their bodies. I think it was a “B” flick but I would love to see it again. If you could also let me know if I could purchase it somewhere.

That’s Bug from the great William Castle.

This is a old movie about children that passed through this fog or smoke would act really strange and would try to get adults to hug them. If you hugged them it was like they drained all your life from you and of course you died.

That is The Children of Ravensbeck.

Synopsis; a computer expert has to save his girlfriend from a serial killer 8 – 12 hours in the future. His only help is his computer, now strapped to his wrist “Excalibur 8.” I believe Richard Moll is in the movie and plays the role of “the grim reaper” type who took him and put him in this predicament! Please, I hope you can help!

Yep, that’s Dungeonmaster, also known as “Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate.”

This movie is about a young couple who I think give up a son, the son becomes a great piano player I think. The parents through fate find their son years later.

That lovely film is August Rush.

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Q&As

The Hedgehog

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 6:59 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Shocking and very sad death
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, class prejudice
Date Released to Theaters:	August 19, 2011

It’s hard to imagine a less cinematic novel than The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Author Muriel Barbery is a professor of philosophy, and the book reads more like a series of essays than a story. What made it work was the way Barbery created engaging voices for the two characters considering all those abstruce and arcane philosophical and literary concepts. The movie gives us those characters without the ideas. It is pleasant enough but it is like a frame without a picture.

The two characters, a middle-aged woman and an 11-year-old girl, barely know one another but they have three important things in common. They live in the same building. They are both autodidacts with prodigious intelligence. And both are invisible to everyone around them. Renee (Josiane Balasko) is the building’s concierge. No one pays any attention to her unless they need something and that is fine with her. She has a hidden room filled with books and her inner life is rich and satisfying. The husband who may not have understood her but truly appreciated her has died. She has just one friend, a warm-hearted woman who has no idea that Renee has read more than most college professors. Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) feels so isolated by the superficial concerns of everyone in her family that she cooly decides to kill herself on her 13th birthday.

The way that these two discover each other and the sweetness of their friendship is touching. Balasko and Le Guillermic bring a lot of intelligence and sensitivity to their performances. Togo Igawa is lovely as Mr. Ozu, a new resident of the building, but his character is too perfect a Prince Charming to make his relationship with Renee meaningful. And, as with the book, the ending is jarring and unearned. Without the depth of the book, it seems like an arty Hallmark movie.

One Day

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 6:32 pm

A gimmick that sort of worked in a novel becomes an obstacle that trips up this love story based on best-seller by David Nicholls. It is better at telling us to care about the two characters than it is at making us feel anything for the couple who stumble their way toward each other for almost 20 years.

The gimmick is that we check in on Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dex (Jim Sturgess) every year on the same day, July 15, known in England as St. Swithin’s Day, less a holiday than a Groundhog Day-style harbinger of the weather. So instead of following them on days when especially significant or illuminating events happen, we see whatever happens to be going on each July 15. Sometimes it is an important moment but most often it is more indicative than revealing. In the book we had their internal perspective on what was going on. Dex’s dead-on assessment of Emma’s room in the first chapter was as revealing about himself as it was about her. It was so astute that it made up for his cluelessness about himself and frequent boorishness for many years to come. On screen, even Hathaway’s radiance and Sturgess’ charm cannot persuade us that these two people would have stayed in touch, much less been dear friends, over decades.

The gifted director Lone Sherfig (“An Education“) resists the temptation to throw in a lot of signifiers of time passing, but inevitably we get distracted by the shifting hairstyles and conversion from typewriters to laptops and phone booths to cell phones. Covering 20 days over two decades means that there is very little time for each update, and without the interior monologues that gave the novel’s characters more substance, it feels more like a perfume commercial than a story. There is more wit in the interplay of the digits of the passing years with the action of the scene than in most of the interactions between Emma and Dex. Nicholls, who adapted his book for the screen, is too attached to details that do not work in a movie. It would have been much better to jettison as many as half of the days to give us a chance to catch our breath and see how the friendship actually works. There is too much of Dex’s “VH1 Behind the Music”-style descent into alcohol, drugs, and one-night stands (even in the book, he seemed hardly worthy of the loyal and principled Emma) and too little of the characters around them who are supposed to have been an influence. And there is much too little of actual events. It is Emma’s experiences as a teacher that lead her to find her voice as a writer. How do I know that? From reading the book. It all feels rushed and abrupt and unsupported, and the ending feels like a maudlin cheat.

(more…)

Help Tell The Story of Rwanda

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 5:57 pm

My friend Jennifer Merin writes about documentaries for About.com. She has a thoughtful new post about a new project from film-maker Anne Aghion to create a repository for historical documentation about Rwanda, including a huge cache of footage shot during the ten years she was on location in the country.

On the Kickstarter page about the project, which has already exceeded its funding target, Aghion says:

Since 1994, all Rwandans share genocide as their central legacy. As they search for a path to long-lasting recovery and peace, discovering—or re-discovering—their common history and cultural identity is essential to moving forward and to consolidating peaceful coexistence. Our goal is to give free and open access to that history in picture and sound.

The Iribia Center for Multimedia Heritage, whose name means “the source,” will gather films, photographs and audio recordings dating from the start of colonial rule in East Africa, more than a century ago, to the present day.

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Documentary

Audition Online for the ‘Christmas Story’ Musical

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 5:28 pm

Ralphie will be not only waiting for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring and hoping for a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle but also singing and dancing in a new musical production based on the classic movie (which was based on Jean Shepherd’s stories about his childhood). Co-producer Peter Billingsly, the original Ralphie, is now looking for kids to star in the show’s five-city tour over the holiday season. You can audition online via LetItCast. The audition will not be made public — the only people who will see it are the creative team doing the casting.

If you are interested, here’s what you do:

1.     Record a video of yourself singing a brief song that is rhythmic and that shows your voice, high notes, and personality. A classic Broadway or a holiday song is suggested and it should be no more than 90 seconds.

2.     Get a recent digital picture or headshot of yourself and your resume. (If you don’t have a resume, just prepare a brief paragraph about yourself in a Word Document.)

3.     Go to www.AChristmasStoryTheMusical/casting and follow the link to register with the online casting site, LetItCast®, and follow their instructions to submit your video, photo, and information.

Casting directors are seeking to fill the iconic lead role of Ralphie and his troupe of friends and classmates, including: Randy, Flick, Schwartz, Scut Farcus, Grover Dill, Mary Beth, and Esther Jane. They are looking for children, between 8 – 13 who are extraordinary actors, singers, and dancers. The production seeks young actors of all ethnicities who are 4’ 11” and shorter. (Boys, your voice should not have changed yet.)

Break a leg!

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Actors Behind the Scenes Live Theater