Chick Flicks On Demand to Support Breast Cancer Research

Posted on October 2, 2010 at 3:55 pm

Warner Brothers Digital Distribution will support Susan G. Komen for the Cure in the fight against breast cancer every time one of 16 special movies is watched On Demand during a special initiative this month. So get a bowl of popcorn (and a hanky — there are some real weepies here) and settle back with “The Notebook,” “City of Angels,” “In the Land of Women,” “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and more, and enjoy the movie while you feel good about helping to end this terrible disease. (If you feel more like laughing than crying, try some of the other choices like “Miss Congeniality 2,” “Fool’s Gold,” or “Music & Lyrics.”)

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After the kids go to bed Television

City Island

Posted on August 23, 2010 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual content, smoking, and language
Profanity:	Strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 26, 2010
Date Released to DVD:	August 24, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0036TGT8Y

This warm-hearted dysfunctional family comedy-drama benefits from an exceptionally strong cast, including producer Andy Garcia as the father, Julianna Margulies as the mother, and Steven Strait as the young man just released from prison who sets off a series of revelations.

Everyone in the Rizzo family is hiding something. Daughter Vivian (Garcia’s real-life daughter, Dominik GarcÃa-Lorido) is not in college as her parents think. She is supporting herself as a stripper. Her brother Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller) is struggling with his desire to see heavy women eat, especially his next door neighbor, who has a website called “Feeding Denise” and one of his classmates. Mom Joyce (Margulies) has not given up smoking. But it is Vince, Sr. who has the really big secrets. One, he has a son from a relationship before he met Joyce and he has just met the young man for the first time, at the prison where he is a corrections officer (don’t call him a guard) and his son (Strait, superb as Tony) is about to be released. Two, he wants to be an actor. He is taking classes with Michael Malakov (Alan Arkin) and has made friends with a classmate, Molly (Emily Mortimer).

Writer-director Raymond De Felitta has obvious affection for his characters and he keeps the developments from going too far. The situations may be outrageous, but deft performances keep the battles from being shrill and the situation more fairy tale than soap opera. This is one of those little indies that inspired a great deal of enthusiasm from its audience and should make even more fans on DVD.

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.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Posted on July 5, 2010 at 9:49 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for disturbing violent content including rape, grisly images, sexual material, nudity, and language
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Very graphic and disturbing violence including rape
Diversity Issues:	Strong female character, character with possible Asperger syndrome
Date Released to Theaters:	November 7, 2009
Date Released to DVD:	July 6, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003FBNJ4U

If you have not read any of the Millennium trilogy of novels by Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson, someone near you has. A worldwide sensation published after the death of the author, the books follow the title character, Lisbeth Salandar, a slight but tough and determined young woman who is a genius with computers but possibly Aspergian in her inability to connect to other people.

This film, based on the first of the books, comes out on DVD just as the second film with the same cast is released in theaters and the third book has been published in the US. It won the Swedish equivalent of the Oscar for best film and best actress for Noomi Rapace as Salander.

They are already working on an American version, but it is hard to imagine that it could match this superb adaptation, utterly true to the book and yet completely cinematic. As the story begins, a character much like Larsson takes center stage. He is Mikael Blomkvist (superbly played by Michael Nyqvist), a journalist in disgrace and about to go to jail for publishing false information about a powerful businessman. As he waits to begin to serve his term, he is offered an intriguing opportunity — a wealthy man hires him to investigate the disappearance of his favorite niece, forty years ago. Salander finds out what he is doing and begins to help him, at first anonymously, and then more directly. Together, they get tangled up in a world where every rule is violated, every promise broken, every loyalty betrayed.

Beliefnet’s List of Great Movie Marriages

Posted on April 7, 2010 at 8:00 am

Be sure to check out Ten Movies that Celebrate Marriage by Kris Rasmussen. There are a zillion movies that celebrate falling in love but relatively few take on the more challenging task of showing what happens next — what living happily ever after really means. I was glad to see Julie & Julia on the list. The portrayal of the real-life marriage of Paul and Julia Child as passionate, supportive, understanding, and deeply loving was one of the great cinematic treats of 2009. And the wordless depiction of a decades long marriage that began Pixar’s Up conveyed more in a few brief moments than most movies do in two hours. I liked her mentioning both versions of “Shall We Dance” and “Father of the Bride.” And of course there is special sweetness in the Spencer Tracy speech she quotes from “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” because it was clear that he was really speaking about his love for his co-star, Katherine Hepburn.

My own list of great movie depictions of marriage would include Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in Two for the Road. But because we follow them over time, I think television does a better job in showing us great marriages — think of Ricky and Lucy, Rob and Laura, Cliff and Claire, as well as the couples in “Mad About You,” “Growing Pains,” “Home Improvement,” and many, many more.