MVP of the Week: Nathan Fillion

Posted on June 19, 2013 at 8:00 am

Nathan Fillion is this week’s MVP, with performances in two very different films. In Pixar’s animated “Monsters University,” he provides the voice for the obnoxious campus jock. And in Joss Whedon’s swanky, black and white, modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” Fillion plays the comic law enforcement character, Dogberry. There’s a terrific interview with Fillion about making the film in New York Magazine’s Vulture blog.

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Actors

New From SpiritClips: Hallmark Hall of Fame and More For Families

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 10:33 pm

New from SpiritClips: unlimited access to Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, thoughtfully selected Hollywood classics and original short films via the web and stream-to-TV devices. This is a great source for inspiring, heartwarming stories that you won’t find anywhere else. The app will be out in July. Take a look!

Linda Holmes: Where Are the Women in Movies?

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 3:59 pm

Linda Holmes of NPR’s Monkey See blog has written a piece that is more than the usual “Why aren’t there more women in/making movies?”

There are 617 movie showings today — that’s just today, Friday — within 10 miles of my house.

Of those 617 showings, 561 of them — 90 percent — are stories about men or groups of men, where women play supporting roles or fill out ensembles primarily focused on men. The movies making up those 561 showings: Man Of Steel (143), This Is The End (77), The Internship (52), The Purge (49), After Earth (29), Now You See Me (56), Fast & Furious6 (44),The Hangover Part III (16), Star Trek Into Darkness (34), The Great Gatsby (16), Iron Man 3(18), Mud (9), The Company You Keep (4), Kings Of Summer (9), and 42 (5).

Thirty-one are showings of movies about balanced pairings or ensembles of men and women: Before Midnight (26), Shadow Dancer (4), and Wish You Were Here (1).

Twenty-five are showings of movies about women or girls: The East (8), Fill The Void (4),Frances Ha (9), and What Maisie Knew (4).

Of the seven movies about women or balanced groups, only one — the Israeli film Fill The Void — is directed by a woman, Rama Burshtein. That’s also the only one that isn’t about a well-off white American. (Well, Celine in Before Midnight is well-off, white and French, but she’s been living in the U.S.)

There are nearly six times as many showings of Man Of Steel alone as there are of all the films about women put together.

I want to stress this again: In many, many parts of the country right now, if you want to go to see a movie in the theater and see a current movie about a woman — any story about anywoman that isn’t a documentary or a cartoon — you can’t. You cannot. There are not any. You cannot take yourself to one, take your friend to one, take your daughter to one.

There are not any.

I love her description of what’s in theaters now: “Dudes in capes, dudes in cars, dudes in space, dudes drinking, dudes smoking, dudes doing magic tricks, dudes being funny, dudes being dramatic, dudes flying through the air, dudes blowing up, dudes getting killed, dudes saving and kissing women and children, and dudes glowering at each other.”

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Claire LaZebnik Remembers A Visit from Patricia Neal

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 8:00 am

Claire LaZebnik wrote a beautiful piece in the Wall Street Journal about a visit from the late Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal. The first movie I ever reviewed — for my high school paper — was Neal’s comeback film, “The Subject Was Roses” (with a very young Martin Sheen as her son). Neal was at the top of her profession, starring with Gary Cooper and Paul Newman, happily married to author Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach), and pregnant with their child when she suddenly suffered a severe stroke. Her recovery is a testament to her determination and Dahl’s.

LaZebnik writes about finding out that her home was where Neal and Dahl were staying in 1965 when she had the stroke. Neal visited them there.

She looked more like a grandmother than a movie star, but the voice was as husky and gorgeous as ever. And those eyes. They were large and luminous and expressive. You could drown in those eyes….She was funny, wicked, charming, spellbinding. Every one of us fell in love with her that day. We didn’t want her to leave and we begged her to come back. She promised to return soon for a night of parlor and board games, which she said she loved.

But she became ill with cancer soon after and was not able to return. Many thanks to her for sharing this lovely story.

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Actors

Opening This Week: World War Z and Monsters University

Posted on June 17, 2013 at 3:59 pm

Monsters_University_poster_3 It’s one of the biggest weeks of the year at the movies with two huge openings. It’s the zombie apocalypse vs. monsters, Brad Pitt vs. Mike and Sully.

Pitt stars in a movie based on World War Z, a book by Max Brooks (son of Oscar-winners Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks). It is directed by Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger than Fiction, The Kite Runner, Quantum of Solace). Pitt plays a former UN executive who travels the world to try to stop the zombies. Two sequels are already in the works.

“Monsters University” is the prequel to one of my favorite Pixar films, Monsters, Inc. Mike (the ball-shaped guy with one big eye voiced by Billy Crystal) and Sully (the enormous furry guy voiced by John Goodman) are roommates in the frat house. They study scaring (remember, their world is fueled by the fears of children) and they participate in fraternity competitions. The cast includes Helen Mirren as the school’s dean, Alfred Molina as a professor, and Nathan Fillion as a big monster on campus.

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Opening This Week