Contest: Win a DVD of “Bankstas”

Posted on March 15, 2015 at 11:06 pm

Copyright 2014 Arcenter Entertainment
Copyright 2014 Arcenter Entertainment

“Bank$tas” is a wild, raunchy comedy about a couple of guys trying to outsmart the crooks running a corrupt investment bank. Alan Thicke, Laura Vandervoort, and Joe Dinicol star, and I have a copy to give away!

To enter, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Bankstas” in the subject line and tell me your favorite movie criminal. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only). I’ll pick a winner at random on March 24, 2015. Good luck!

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Contests and Giveaways

Would President Frank Underwood’s Plan Be Legal?

Posted on March 15, 2015 at 3:24 pm

SPOILER ALERT

If you’re watching the new season of “House of Cards,” you may wonder whether the trick now-President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) to create jobs and boost the economy has up his sleeve would be allowed in real-life politics. Business Insider consulted an expert, Harvard Law School professor and Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe. The answer? Well….maybe.

“If the deed is done before the courts can get around to ordering the hypothetical President Underwood to cease and desist and put the money back in the federal piggy bank, then any lawsuit over the matter … would become technically moot,” Tribe says. “In practical political terms, if the President’s violation of the Constitution is sufficiently popular, the prospects of impeachment and conviction are obviously slim to none.”

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Trailer: Where Hope Grows

Posted on March 15, 2015 at 8:00 am

Where Hope Grows is the story of a former professional baseball player sent to an early retirement due to his panic attacks at the plate. Even though he had all the talent for the big leagues, he struggles with the curveballs life has thrown him. Today, he mindlessly sleepwalks through his days and the challenge of raising his teenager daughter. His life is in a slow downward spiral when it is suddenly awakened and invigorated by the most unlikely person – Produce, a young-man with Down syndrome who works at the local grocery store.

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Trailers, Previews, and Clips

If You Miss Downton Abbey: More From Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern

Posted on March 14, 2015 at 3:43 pm

Copyright PBS 2015
Copyright PBS 2015

“Downton Abbey’s” season is ending and it will be months before we get new episodes. Now might be a good time to check out some of the other roles played by your favorite Downton-ites.

Maggie Smith (the Dowager Countess) may not have hit superstardom until she was in her 70’s, but before that she had a long and highly successful career that included two Oscars. In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie she plays a fiercely independent but free-spirited teacher whose efforts to have her students live out her fantasies results in tragedy. In California Suite ensemble comedy from Neil Simon, she was heartbreaking as a movie star herself up for an Oscar, escorted by her husband, a man she loves and who loves her, but who is gay in an era where he could not be honest about it. I also love her in Room With a View as the spinster aunt who does not see much but who can tell everyone sees her as fussy and in the way, in The VIPs as the loyal secretary who saves the day for the boss she secretly loves, and in Travels With My Aunt, a wild story based on the book by Graham Greene.

Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley) has a central role in one of the cleverest comedies of all time, three plays known as The Norman Conquests. They all take place at the same time, one in the living room, one in the garden, and one in the dining, so an entrance in one of them is an exit in another. She co-starred with Helen Mirren in Calendar Girls (based on the true story of a group of middle-aged women who pose nude for a fundraising calendar) and with Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel.

Hugh Bonneville (Lord Grantham) stars opposite a Peruvian bear in the popular 2015 release Paddington. You can also find him as Hugh Grant’s inept and awkward friend in Notting Hill, as the foolish Mr. Rushworth in Mansfield Park, and as the unfortunate M. Bovary in Madame Bovary.

Elizabeth McGovern (Countess of Grantham) appeared in the Oscar-winning Ordinary People as a high school student and romantic interest for the main character played by Timothy Hutton. She was touching and funny in Ragtime as real-life performer Evelyn Nesbit, whose wealthy young husband shot and killed her lover, the renowned architect Stanford White. In Clover she played the white widow of a black man, fighting his family for custody of his daughter.

Also: Allen Leech (Tom Branson) is in The Imitation Game Phyllis Logan (Mrs. Hughes) is in Secrets and Lies, Richard E. Grant (Simon Ricker) is in Withnail and I and The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Lily James (Lady Rose) is in this week’s live action “Cinderella.”

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