Interview: Della Reese of “Me Again”

Posted on May 9, 2012 at 4:09 pm

It was an honor to speak with show business legend Della Reese, who stars in the the heartwarming film, Me Again, the story of an unhappy minister who gets to find out what it is like to be someone else, and learns to appreciate being himself.  Earlier I spoke to Ali Landry, who plays the minister’s wife.

How did you come to this project?

The script was submitted to me and it gave me a chance to be involved with something I espouse.  It’s done in movie form but we’re all trying to regain ourselves and prove who we really are.  That’s how you get to know who you are by identifying who you are not.

Why do stories touch us so deeply?

The Bible is an allegory. The stories say to us, “These things have happened before” and “With the proper understanding of your relationship with God, you can handle anything.”  The Bible is my directions, a how-to book for me.  Depends what valley I’m in or what mountain I’m on.  There’s healing in the Bible.  You have to find the one that speaks to you.  The lady who touched the hem of his garment knew she did not want to be what she was.  The man was sitting by the pool and could not get in the healing water.  The nice thing about a direction book is there’s different directions for different people and everyone can find what he needs.

What is your character’s role in the film?

She is giving him love and understanding.  She is the bridge over troubled water to him.  She understands him and she wants what is best for him.

You have succeeded in every aspect of show business.  When your fans come up to greet you, what do most of them talk about first?

All of them!  People come to bring me love and I am receptive to them.  It’s really a love affair between my audience and I.

In a way, you are a performer as a member of the clergy, too.  Is that a different way of reaching people with the same message? 

If you’re open to being reached, anything can reach you.  There’s a little girl at the church and her mother has been taking classes and straightening out her life.  But one day she was nervous and too involved and her six-year-old daughter said, “Why don’t you stop and sing something and you’ll feel better?”  And she did.  If you are open, the message will come.  God supplies  everything you need if you will be consciously aware of him.  You can learn to do it.

The clergy’s job is to tell the truth.  God doesn’t need fixing.  He isn’t broken.  We need to speak it in a way that people understand it so they can apply it and benefit from it.  It’s not what I want them to get.  Whatever part you need it is there for you.

You began as a singer.  Why is music so important in church?

Music is important to our  lives – the way we can speak the things we can’t speak without the music.  Some people can’t say they’re in love but there’s a song that says it, some happiness you want to share, some music that’s good for you.  You can just hum or stnap your fingers.  Music is a great force in our lives.  The first songs I sang were part of the church service.  And I love all of the people who write music that says something.  I’m not too much for only the rhythm and repetitiousness, I’m a lyricist, so I like lyrics.  It all comes down to telling the story.

 

 

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Actors Interview New on DVD/Blu-Ray

“The Vow” An Exclusive Clip and an Online Chat with Star Channing Tatum

Posted on May 5, 2012 at 8:00 am

“The Vow,” starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, is based on the real-life love story of Kim and Krickett Carpenter, who had to start all over again when she lost her memory in a car accident shortly after their wedding.  The DVD will be released on Tuesday, May 8.

Channing Tatum will be doing an online chat with his fans to support the DVD release on May 11th at noon Eastern/3PM Pacific.

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New on DVD: ‘Beastly,’ ‘Sucker Punch,’ and More

New on DVD: ‘Beastly,’ ‘Sucker Punch,’ and More

Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:00 am

Beastly This modern-day version of Beauty and the Beast is surprisingly appealing. In an era of bullies and mean girls, “Gossip Girls” and “Pretty Little Liars,” it’s nice to have such a tenderhearted fairy tale.

Sucker Punch Girls in thigh-hi stockings and tiny spangled miniskirts take on steam-powered corpses, WWI bi-planes, samurai robots, and an angry dragon, along with a series of odiously predatory men in the latest film from Zack Snyder. His versions of “300? and “Watchmen” overwhelmed the storylines with striking, provocative visuals. Here, he solves that problem by pretty much not having any storyline at all. He literally and metaphorically cuts to the chase. It’s not so much punch, a bit more sucker.

Season of the Witch.  This is sword-and-sorcery film named after a Donovan song that features a joke swiped from “Jaws” — a priest looks balefully up at a looming demon and actually says, “We’re going to need more holy water.” It is a hopeless mish-mash that feels like they were making it up as they went along. It’s also dull.

The Eagle The classic book for kid by Rosemary Sutcliff is an epic story, lavishly filmed, but empty at the core. Without a reason to care about the quest, it does not matter how skillfully the battle scenes are filmed.

Unknown There are some good chases through Berlin and even twistier plot developments even if the end is kind of silly in this story of a man on the way to an academic conference who wakes up after an accident with amnesia and finds that someone else has taken over his life.  Worth seeing for one scene between veterans Bruno Ganz and Frank Langella.

Barney’s Version Paul Giamatti makes us understand and even forgive a man who leaves his own wedding reception (second marriage) to run after a woman he has just met (Rosamund Pike), who will be the great love of his life.  Based on the last novel by the great Canadian author Mordecai Richler, this is a sprawling, episodic story of a man who is not always likable but the performances by Giamatti, Pike, and Dustin Hoffman has his policeman father over the decades are magnificent.

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On DVD This Week

Posted on June 20, 2011 at 7:45 am

DVD pick of the week: The Adjustment Bureau is thought-provoking, exciting, and swooningly romantic. Writer/director George Nolfi takes on the biggest questions of all — faith and doubt, fate and free will, God, love, the meaning of existence — with an absorbing story about who we are and why we do what we do.  I have a copy to give away, so send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Adjustment Bureau” in the subject line, and don’t forget your address.

Also out this week:

Cedar Rapids “Hangover’s” Ed Helms stars as a small town insurance guy who goes to the title “big city” for an industry convention and suffers some hilarious misadventures in this very adult comedy.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Roderick Rules The second in the series based on the wildly popular book for grade and middle-schoolers has our hapless heroes facing the humiliations of middle school.

“Happythankyoumoreplease” is a smart and endearing indie from writer/director Josh Radnor of television’s “How I Met Your Mother.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce1WFYB3t5k
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