Posted on January 9, 2008 at 11:55 am
Another highlight of my visit in Los Angeles was a personal tour from Harry Medved, co-author of the wonderful Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors
Here is my photo of the carousel Paul Newman repairs in “The Sting.”
Posted on January 5, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Before there were scary movies, there were scary plays. Before there were scary plays, there were scary stories. Scary has been very popular for a very long time. The top twenty box office champs are all scary, from Titanic
Did you hear the story about the man who chopped up his enemy’s children into a pie and fed them to him? It was written by the same guy who wrote about suicidal teenagers and murderously ambitious would-be kings — Shakespeare. And then there’s the one about the guy who killed his father and put out his own eyes — written around 429 B.C.
Scary movies are especially popular with teenagers. They serve as a sort of training wheels for social interaction and a way of letting off steam. Teens watch them in groups, grabbing each other and screaming, then talking afterward about the experience.
The two best pieces I have read recently on the subject of scary movies are Desson Thomson’s article in the Washington Post about the difference between what is scary and what is gory and a piece by Grady Hendrix in Slate about the grisly and very popular “Saw” movies.
Posted on January 2, 2008 at 2:49 pm
It is a shame that Will Smith’s reasonable comments have been taken out of context and he has been forced to apologize.
Here is what he said:
Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I’m looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic.
I hope he still thinks so. What he was saying is that even people who inflict great evil on the world usually believe that what they are doing is right. Recognizing that is an essential element of understanding the nature of evil and how to prevent it. No one who understood Smith’s point — or who has ever spent five minutes observing his behavior — could imagine he was in any way endorsing Hitler’s actions. Tim Gordon, as usual, has it right: “this is a situation where an actor gave an opinion and the interviewer twisted the context only after he received an answer that left room for further interpretation.”
Posted on December 26, 2007 at 7:30 am
My favorite movies this year, all pretty much tied for first place:
The Namesake
Charlie Wilson’s War
Atonement
Gone Baby Gone
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
Juno
Once
No End in Sight
Lars and the Real Girl
And runners-up:
Sicko
King of Kong
Persepolis
American Gangster
The Savages
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
There Will be Blood
Michael Clayton
Waitress
The Lookout
Posted on December 26, 2007 at 7:28 am
This was a very good year for family movies. Here are the best:
Bridge to Terabithia
Golden Compass
Surf’s Up
Enchanted
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Hairspray
Transformers
Stardust
The Water-Horse
Ratatouille
Runners-up:
Bratz
The Last Mimzy
Game Plan
Meet the Robinsons
Shrek 3
The Astronaut Farmer
