The immensely sad story of one man’s blighted life illustrates the enormity of the child tongue-lashing carried out unnder the blind eye of the Catholic church in this moving doc. Ohio firefighter Tony Comes’ childhood trauma was reignited when he inadvertently moved his young children to the row where his own abuser was living; what follows, partly through video diary material, is his exert oneself with a Church be sure to confront its demons as good as his own anger and shame. As a descendant, Comes inaugurate his situation ‘too screwed up to question’; as an adult it has denied him the persist of allegiance and community.
CQ
Jason Schwartzman, Jeremy Davies
RS:
Not Rated
2002
Drama
More information from
As Paul, a young American working the filmmaking fringes in Paris in 1969, Jeremy Davies is desperate to make revolutionary cinema. He sets up a camera in the apartment he shares with his French girlfriend, Marlene (Elodie Bouchez), and records the details of his vim, even on the toilet. "What if it's boring?" asks Marlene. "Did you at any point think it clout not be interesting for others to see?"
Smart cookie, that Marlene. Writer-director Roman Coppola is trying to capture a time he's too young to remember, when the French New Wave reinvigorated film art. Paul is working as an editor on
Dragonfly
, a Barbarella-style sci-fi epic starring Valentine, played by American model Angela Lindvall. His chance comes when the producer (Giancarlo Giannini) fires the director (Gerard Depardieu) and lets Paul take over. Will Paul sell out? Sleep with his star? Suffer angst? Bet you can guess. Coppola has made a film of intoxicating atmosphere and little else. CQ, which is Morse code for "seek you," can't find the animating spirit that would make Coppola's idea fly.
PETER TRAVERS
June 20, 2002)
In “The Watcher,” a hodgepodge of half-baked visual styles can’t
disguise the fact that this dismal thriller is all situation and no story.
Not many thrills, either.
Nice explosions, though.
Reeves, puffy but not half as creepy as he needs to be, plays a murderer
who has stalked a burned-out FBI agent (James Spader) from Los Angeles to
Chicago. It’s a reverse nemesis kind of thing.
Now, David Allen Griffin (Reeves) is taunting Special Agent Jack Campbell
by sending him photographs of his victims, all young women, 24 hours before
he kills them.
“The Watcher” is the first feature film directed by Joe Charbanic, a
director of television commercials and music vid
eos who has done videos for Reeves’ rock group, Dogstar. At the end of
scenes, images go from positive to negative with a great thwack! on the
sound track. There’s click motion, slo-mo, blurred images and, the most
provocative of all, video.
At first, the visual mess seems to be merely the arty product of
someone’s short attention span. There is a method, however, to the use of
video, but when it starts to make some sense and gain momentum, the idea
just falls off the table. The expected follow-
through never comes.
Marisa Tomei plays Special Agent Campbell’s psychiatrist. He is a wreck.
He pops pills to go to sleep, injects meth to keep going during the day and
lives in a mess of an apartment that is an accurate reflection of his state
of mind.
He is as demoralized as the audience will become. After a while, holing
up in his ratty apartment seems a reasonable
alternative to watching the rest of this movie.
Reeves makes an effort to give the killer creepy little idiosyncrasies.
He talks to his victims in a soft, reassuring manner. After they are tied
up, he does a weird little dance in front of them.
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Without half trying, Spader is better at creepy. The killer is supposed
to have a symbiotic relationship with the FBI agent, but they should have
taken it a step further: Reeves and Spader should have exchanged roles.
There are a couple of shock cuts in “The Watcher,” but that’s about it.
What kind of thriller is this, where nothing that anyone cares about is at
stake?
A pair of infernos provide some of the better moments in this film, even
if there are holes in this story big enough to drive a flaming car through.
One of them involves the FBI man’s transformation from hollow-eyed,
strung-out medication junkie to well-
groomed agent. He looks so good they put him in charge of the investigation.
– Advisory: This film contains violence.
..
Soundly, here it is, and DreamWorks select a renowned splash approximately it in their two-disc Primary Edition coagulate. Seems understandable. “Shrek” was the monster hit of the summer of 2001 and purposes has fans lining up at video stores to become known their hands on it at this minute. Whether you´ll take to the murkiness (assuming you haven´t already) may depend on how much you like mechanical cartoons. Or how much you don´t like them.
“Shrek” works in a devious way as a stripe of anti-invigoration, doing as much to terminate the traditional Disney attitude to cartoons as anything a day has. I found its high dynamism plain and unyielding cleverness a little self-defeating in the end, but, otherwise, it´s a blast.
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First, it´s computer animated, so maybe comparing it to older, pre “Toy Story” Disney would be unfair. Let´s just respond it´s very up-to-epoch, with figures that are three-dimensional and highly textured. Next, it´s bleeding hip. I´ve said ahead in these pages that I try to escape reviews of films before I have a endanger to keep one’s eyes peeled them for myself on DVD, but, of course, that´s unworkable to do altogether. In the in the event that of “Shrek,” my students (high school) were telling me destined for months that “´Shrek´ was “really cool,” “totally awesome,” a film they all “loved.” Well, now that I´ve had a chance to see it, too, I´d have to bring to light, “Shrek” is really wilful and fully awesome; I loved it. Dialect mayhap I didn´t love it as much as I did “Toy Record 2,” which has more humanitarianism, but “Shrek” takes that verve, cuts it out, slow roasts it, and serves it up as a buffet someone is concerned ravenous viewers. Delicious.
The movie´s basic gambit is to drawing power on all the conventions of children´s cartoons and fairy tales and turn them upside down in everywhere as irreverent a deportment tenable within the bounds of a PG-13 rated film. This is begun in dignified phraseology by setting the gag in a long-ago land where the evil (and puny) Sovereign Farquaad (voice characterized by John Lithgow) is rounding up and deporting all the fairy-tale creatures in his kingdom. They´re being “relocated,” as he calls it, to improve the neighborhood, thereby touching on racism and bigotry right off. Gepeto sells faulty his puppet, Pinocchio, the bears and Red Riding Hood are herded together, and Tinker Bell, the Gingerbread Man, and the Devilish Witch are carted remote, along with the Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the dwarfs, and every goblin, gnome, and pixie in the land. They´re all kicked out to the swamp. Shrek´s swamp.
Shrek is a huge, green ogre, who doesn´t systematically disavow to all these new critters squatting on his property. Shrek looks mean but has the axiomatic magnanimity of gold. “Sometimes things are more than they put in an appearance,” he says. He is voiced by Mike Myers, who has shown a significant talent for creating new personas in each of his films. Here he recycles his Scottish pronunciation from the second “Austin Powers” movie, and except for what I thought were occasional lapses in dialect, he does a more than credible job. In points, I intellect at premier the convey was being done by Robbie Coltrane; in any case, Myers leaves a noticeable run with the viewer, something not every actor can do with decision alone.
However, even Myers is upstaged by Eddie Murphy as the talking, in the know about-ass ass, Shrek´s comical sidekick known only as the “Donkey.” I daresay, Murphy´s nonstop chatter (”Yeah, getting him to shut up´s the thing”) and fixed smart remarks are what a lot of viewers will in all probability reminisce over most about the video long after its plot and secondary figures have faded into obscurity. Contrastive with some of Murphy´s equally acrimonious comedic contemporaries, he still has the knack of being able to vamoose his characters come up irksome and repugnant anyhow lovable and endearing at the same time.
Anyway, Shrek is annoyed by all these newcomers and goes off to Lord Farquaad to try one’s hand at and get his swamp secretly and regain some peace and quiet. Farquaad, meanwhile, has more schemes of his own. Not only does he want to charge the most orderly community in the Terra, he wants to rule it as a real prince, not a stark “Lord.” So he consults his Magic Reproduction, which tells him he must marry a princess to become a regent. And the most likely candidate for such a marriageable arrangement is the Princess Fiona, voiced by Cameron Diaz. Trouble is, she´s imprisoned in a manor-house surrounded by molten lava and heedful by a fire-breathing dragon. Now, here´s the deal Farquaad makes with Shrek: If Shrek can release the Princess and offer her back for Farquaad to spliced, Shrek can have his swamp no hope in compatible. Thus, the adventure begins, with Shrek and Donkey off to rescue the beautiful Princess Fiona.
You can see that the plot resembles, in part at least, a traditional fairy falsehood. But along the distance, almost entire lot you´ve even read or seen about plucky knights and guts rescues is turned inside out. Recompense one thing, a moderate degree of grossness is the to the end that to of the day. Yielding bathroom humor abounds, flatulence jokes, that sort of thing. Kids will especially love bits like Shrek pulling earwax from his ear to fashion a candle. For adults, matters can sometimes look as if a fraction too juvenile, but one can see it´s all in proof fun, and nothing is period outrageously insulting or outright unrefined.
I laughed a lot at this cinema. I peculiarly liked the parody of Mel Brooks´s own make a monkey out of, “Men in Tights,” with reference to halfway into done with the tall tale, and a brief homage to “Crouching Tiger.” But bear in mind I said a moment ago that “almost” everything with reference to accustomed fairy tales is tossed on its deeply. I urge the movie had maintained its cordial digs and prods until the very end, but, as opposed to, it concludes with a wholly comforting even so vexingly common fairy-narration finish. I have no idea how the movie might have ended any other nature, but I felt a tinge of lament that its charming irreverence had fire up at the last.
If you are shabby ample, or interested ample supply in musicals, you may about that there was a time in the mid twentieth century when Broadway and Hollywood filled their musicals with appealing stories and memorable songs. “Oklahoma,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “My Unbiased Lady,” “The Music Gentleman’s gentleman,” “Camelot,” “Cabaret,” and dozens more communistic audiences humming the melodies as they left the theater. Instanter, we get mostly downbeat musicals with a single piece-goods e freight tune hammered out in boundless variations. It’s no wonder the movie musical has gone into public notice of favor.
Anyway, MGM produced “Gigi” because of the guard in 1958, at the apex of the genre’s popularity, where it not only won audience approval but nine Academy Awards in the activity, for Best Image, Director, Screenplay, Number, Song, Editing, Cinematography, Costumes, and Skill Format. It’s spectacular, it’s fun, it’s fresh, and, most of all, it’s overflowing with charming characters and remarkably respected music. Yes, honest if you’re not already familiar with the music, you’ll be humming it by the time you finish this 50th Anniversary, Two-Disc Specialized Edition.
MGM asked the noted songwriting team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to do the screenplay, music, and songs, based upon a 1944 book by Colette. There had already been a 1949 French movie version (included with this set) and a 1951 Broadway entertainment version (which introduced Audrey Hepburn to the world of acting), and now the studio wanted to continue music to the chronicle. Lerner and Loewe (”An American in Paris,” “The Bandeau Wagon,” “Brigadoon,” “My Fair Lady,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “On a Clear Time You Can See Forever”) were at first reluctant to write directly for the screen, but MGM persuaded them to do it. Then the studio got Vincente Minnelli (”Meet Me in St. Louis,” “The Buccaneer,” “An American in Paris,” “Brigadoon,” “Kismet”) to operate and Cecil Beaton (”My Pretty Lady”) to do the vestment design, Andre Previn (”Kiss Me Kate,” “Kismet”) to supervise and run the music, and a cap-notch cast. How could they lose?
The movie was a smash swat.
The studio hoped that “Gigi” would be another “My Fair Lady” (which had not yet reached the big scan but was one of Broadway’s most celebrated showbiz musicals), and, indeed, the organize of “Gigi” is virtually the same Cinderella fairy allegation as “My Unbiased Lady.” But, while “Gigi” won a ton of awards at the antiquated, it has not proved very much as durable as “My Fair Lady,” perchance because “Gigi” looks at fixation and love from a guts of seascape very different from that of “My Fair Lady.” In “My Okay Lady,” we conduct an author (George Bernard Shaw) poking fun at courtly manners, shrill society, and pretentious ways. In “Gigi” the story is a bit kinder to exhilarated fraternity, and we see a recital that in many respects glorifies their licentious ways, despite a conventional cock-a-hoop, moralistic ending. Let me expound.
In the information, set in Paris in 1900, Leslie Caron plays Gigi, a young woman whose family are grooming her to be a courtesan, a paramour owing fat and powerful men. There are women only in Gigi’s family, and it is the aunt (Isabel Jeans) and the grandmother (Hermione Gingold), personally experienced in such matters, who are training the girl in a spring to which they were themselves raised. The point is that in those days in the money and weighty men frequently had mistresses, whom they treated very well, and there was the ready in being a well-kept lady. Basically, then, the family are raising Gigi to be a high-class tart. That notion didn’t customary trickle with the Hollywood censors, but the started the movie treats the subject, hardly anyone notices. It’s sort of take pleasure in how Audrey Hepburn played a call on girl in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” without audiences seeming to mind.
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So, as the motion picture opens, Gigi is adolescent and still too naive and tomboyish to understand the customs of Parisian life and infatuation or why her aunt and grandmother are teaching her the proper civility of eating and speaking and behaving. Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jordan) is a comfortable, spoiled, idle, prepubescent man connected with town, bored by the social whirl of Paris, who is also a friend of Gigi’s bull’s-eye-rate family and visits them often. As Gigi matures, Gaston begins, slowly, to notice her and become attracted to her. Unaffectedly, the aunt and grandmamma begin to groom Gigi specifically to snare young Gaston. The question is, What are Gaston’s intentions, and is the in a nutshell a quarrel “marriage” in his vocabulary?
Caron works well as the adolescent inamorata (although the actress was in her mid twenties at the time, married, with a child of her own, and her singing voice dubbed by Betty Wand; it’s called acting, and Caron sparkles). Plus, Jeans and Gingold precisely suit the stuffy older ladies. But the real star of the show is out of date trooper Maurice Chevalier as Gaston’s uncle, Honore Lachaille, the confirmed bachelor and boulevardier who has had a string of mistresses through the years and conditions tutors his nephew in the artfulness of fondle and women. That most people today would probably summon up Honore’s ideas antiquated and repellant is beside the point. He narrates the horror story, and he gets the A-one songs, including the poignantly risible and showstopping “I Remember It Well,” with Ms. Gingold.
Yikes. Last week, I had a numerous of fun revisiting Mission: Magic!, the Filmation Studios’ funky animated model from 1973, starring future recording unparalleled Rick Springfield. Unfortunately, I can’t stipulate I had the unvarying experience watching Filmation’s Hero Sybaritic: The Total Series. Isolating all 26 Superstar Far up short cartoons from their assemblage mortify The Kids Wonderful Power Hour with Shazam! makes little sense as far as fans of the original show are upset, and only serves to emphasize the relatively poor quality of these cheaply impassioned and generally poorly constructed shows.
The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! debuted in the fall of 1981 on NBC. Conceived as a live-action showcase for a cast of young performers dressed as superheroes who sang and told jokes to a live studio audience full of kids, The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! featured short animated cartoons of Shazam!, based on the DC Comics character, and Hero High. Hero High featured a cast of teenagers with extraordinary super powers attending a high school designed for their particular talents. Main characters included Captain California, who rode a super surfboard named Wipeout, Glorious Gal, who had super strength and who could fly, Misty Magic, a beautiful magician, Punk Rock, a shades-wearing, Mohawk-sporting guitarist who could shatter glass with his voice or instrument, Dirty Trixie (I kid you not), who could fly and who had a ton of dirty tricks devices, Weatherman, who could control the weather, and Rex Ruthless, the “villain” of the show who’s an egomaniac and troublemaker.
Running either eight and a half or twelve and a half minutes, the cartoon Hero High segments rarely rise above the most primitive Saturday morning kids fare. Lacking the funky Filmation house style that enlivened so many of their earlier fun series (like Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids and The Brady Kids), the Hero High cartoons have a boring, generic look that does little to distinguish them as true Filmation products. Originally conceived as an Archies superhero show (the rights fell through), producer Lou Scheimer simply created his own superhero characters, but they fail to make much of an impression, particularly since the scripts are frequently inane. As well, there’s a lot of repetition in using the same animation sequences from show to show - something that Filmation was roundly criticized for by animation buffs. But most seriously, these little shorts just aren’t that funny. At least the older Filmation series had the timing down right for the slapstick and the corny old jokes, but sadly, here at Hero High, there’s precious little evidence of the old Filmation moxie (criminally, even the celebrated Filmation laugh track is missing).
Of course, none of this would have mattered in the slightest, had Entertainment Rights and Ink & Paint released the complete The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! shows, with the cartoons integrated back into the episodes. While The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! came out after I had quit watching Saturday morning cartoons (my Saturdays in 1981 were filled with my first part-time job), I do remember the occasional stray glimpse at the show - and with good reason. There’s a character on the live-action portion of the show, Glorious Gal, played by actress Becky Perle, who was one of the best looking girls on TV at the time (back when TV rarely if ever showed girls in skimpy costumes). So other than a few fond memories of teenage infatuation, I don’t really have a strong connection with the show. But I do know what vintage TV fans want in a DVD set - they want the complete episodes, not just parts of them.
The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! was Filmation’s undertake to mimic Sid and Marty Krofft, and while it didn’t have the patented Krofft outrageousness (where are the feathers, balloons, ice skating rink, and puppets?), it probably does get a kitschy appeal to the young kids who grew up on the superheroes’ songs and ancient jokes. So why didn’t they impartial put out that show in its entirety, in preference to of isolating the weakest essentials of the series: the Protagonist Expensive segments? Without a doubt, the Hero Turbulent cartoons were later syndicated as a half-hour show in their own right, but it’s hard to tell who would deceive enjoyed them without the benefit of The Kids Wonderful Power Hour with Shazam!. It may be it’s a pith of rights acquiring (although two live-action wrappers are included here on the DVD -without the Shazam! cartoons, unfortunately), but the missing The Kids Wonderful Power Hour with Shazam! footage plainly puts the Hero High: The Conclude Series shorts in a lesser light.
Here are the 26, eight and a half or twelve and a half minute episodes of the two-disc box set, Hero High: The Complete Series, as described on the trivia-packed booklet included in the set:
DISC ONE:
Boo Who
When the kids go to a haunted house, they find scares around every dark corner and behind every creaking door!
Starfire, Where Are You?
After a top-secret shuttle named “Starfire” is stolen, the Hero High kids go into action to return it safely.
The Art of Ballot
Showing that girls can be just as good as boys, Glorious Gal runs against Captain California in the school election. Let the battle of the sexes begin!
The Captives
Two jewel thieves hiding in the mountains take Misty Magic and AWOL captive, and the others must come to their rescue.
Do the Computer Stomp
The big dance is coming up at Hero High, and the new computer will decide which couples get paired off, leading to hilariously unpredictable results!
A Fistful of Knuckles
The Hero High students accidentally help a criminal get out of jail, and they must team up with Captain Marvel to return the evil-doers to justice. Shazam!
Rat Finx Rex
Rex is assigned to be the new Hero High Honor Guard, but the power goes to his head, and he begins to drive the students and faculty crazy!
High Rise Hijinx
A valuable statue is being hidden in a penthouse apartment, and the Hero High kids must rescue it from some thieves.
Off Her Rocker
After Misty messes up a trick, the others make fun of her. A short while later, Misty disappears completely! Where has she gone?
A Clone of His Own
When Police Chief Hardy is replaced by a clone controlled by criminals, the Hero High kids must find a way to save their friend before the clone can cause too much trouble.
Follow the Litter
Rex and Trixie play dirty when the other students begin a campaign to clean up Hero High.
Game of Chance
At the carnival, the Hero High kids discover that the games are rigged, and uncover a diamond smuggling operation!
Malt Shop Mayhem
As part of their training, the kids are given jobs. Glorious Gal and others are soon working at their favorite Malt Shop, but things don’t go as planned.
The Umpire Strikes Back
Chief Hardy traps a spy at the baseball stadium, but the crafty crook masquerades as the umpire to get away. Good thing that the Hero High kids are enjoying the game!
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DISC TWO:
The Not So Great Outdoors
On their way to a football game, the Hero High kids are on a bus that breaks down in the “great outdoors.” Forced to spend a night under the stars, the super teens find surprises galore!
Track Race
The governor is riding on the new high-speed train when a saboteur sends the locomotive on a fast course to disaster…unless the Hero High kids intervene in time.
Cover Twirl
When super-heroine Isis comes to Hero High for the day, Captain California is in love. Complications ensue when Glorious Gal tries to keep Cap’s heart away from the older woman.
The Human Fly
The tiny thief known as the Human Fly has big plans to steal “The Tiger’s Eye” emerald from the museum, unless the Hero High team can swat him!
My Job is Yours
Chaos ensues when the Hero High students get to take over the school for one day!
The Big Bang Theory
The Big Brain and his partner Tiny have some explosive plans for a munitions factory and bank vaults, unless the students from Hero High can out-think them!
The DVD:
The Video:
Unlike the recent Mission: Magic! DVD release, the full screen video image of Hero High: The Complete Series is quite good, with solid, bright colors, no contrasty wash-outs, and a clear, focused image (at least during the animated shorts — the live action wrappers are discussed in the Extras section).
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo mix is clear and strong. There’s an optional Spanish language track for the episodes.
The Extras:
There are quite a few fun extras on Hero High: The Complete Series. First, there’s commentary from producer Lou Scheimer, actors John Berwick and Johnny Venakur, hosted by Andy Mangels, for episode A Fistful of Knuckles. As well, the group discusses the live-action wrappers for The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam!. This discussion, though, is cut short, so only a few minutes of commentary are available here. Two shows worth of live action wrappers are included, also, with complete opening credits, commercial bumpers and the final credits — but without the integrated cartoons. It’s fun to see what this DVD box set could have looked like, had they released the entire, complete shows instead of just the Hero High cartoons. The video quality of these wraparounds is pretty poor, however. There are fun, informative interviews (almost an hour’s worth) with John Berwick, Johnny Venokur, Lou Schiemer, writers Tom Ruegger and Robby London, and storyboard artists Michael Swanigan and Darrell McNeil. There’s an Art and Photo gallery, which included character guide art sheets, promotional photos, and cast reunion pictures. DVD-ROM features include 12 scripts for Hero High, plus four sets of storyboards. As well, there are trailers for other Ink & Paint titles.
Final Thoughts:
Isolated from The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam!, the Hero High: The Complete Series cartoons suffer, losing their kitsch value without the garish live-action segments of the complete show. The cartoons themselves aren’t particularly funny, and the funky Filmation house style is largely missing. To be fair, my very young children found something to laugh at in the cartoons, so you might do alright with Hero High: The Complete Series if you want something relatively innocent for the kids to watch. But fans of the original The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! should rent this until they come out with the complete The Kids Super Power Hour with Shazam! series.
Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a colleague of the
Online Film Critics Society, and the author of
The Espionage Filmography.
“The documentary styled pic
though entertaining was nevertheless irrelevant.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Oily Paramount film mogul Bob Evans tells his side of things in this
biopic. It’s hard to warm up to this self-promoting lightweight, but his
story has some interest for those tuned into the shallow side of Hollywood.
Evans keeps things funny with his rapid-fire delivery and knack for doing
uncanny voice imitations of the celebs. The co-directors and producers
Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen (”On the Ropes“) are clearly on
Evans side and do a fine job keeping the egomaniacal Evans’ story amusing,
and supply some gorgeous photos and interesting archive footage to go along
with the film’s breezy tone. Even though Evans might be a jerk and lacks
artistic taste, he did run Paramount and has been associated with them
for 35 years (which might tell you, that one doesn’t have to be genius
to run a studio). It was under his helm that such greats as Rosemary’s
Baby, The Godfather, and Chinatown were produced. There was also Love Story,
a smash at the box office but one of the vilest cliché movies ever.
Other noted films he was involved in as an executive include: The Odd Couple,
Harold and Maude, Urban Cowboy, True Grit and his big flop The Cotton Club.
Evans narrates his sudden rise in Hollywood lore with a mixture of
schmaltz, self-importance, and mock surprise and pleasure at his success
(as if it just came to him and he didn’t seek it out!). He opens his narration
stating “There are three sides to every story: my side, your side and the
truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each one differently.”
The slickly handsome New Yorker was involved in a sportswear line called
Evans-Picone, where his older brother was in charge. He had no luck breaking
into Hollywood even though he started as a child actor. His film career
got started in 1956 as a result of a lucky encounter. He was mingling poolside
at the Beverly Hills Hotel when the great screen legend Norma Shearer approached
him about a small role in the Cagney picture “Man of a Thousand Faces,”
to play her late movie mogul husband Irving Thalberg. The next year legendary
producer Darryl F. Zannuck spotted the ladies man in NYC’s famous El Morocco
nightclub and offered him a bit part as a bullfighter in Hemingway’s The
Sun also Rises, which he trained three months for. Zannuck was sent a telegram
voicing most of the casts displeasure at his hiring, those signing included
Hemingway, Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner. and Eddie Albert. But Zannuck shot
back: “The kid stays in the picture, and anybody who doesn’t like it can
quit!” Evans never took himself seriously as a potential great actor, and
from then on resolved he’d rather be a Zanuck than a movie actor. Evans’
starring role in his next film, “The Fiend Who Walked the West,” was the
one that was so bad it ended his acting career.
Though going nowhere in the film biz as far as his acting career,
Evans tells us he got lucky and through a newspaper story he finds himself
in 1967, at the age of 37, as head of European production at Paramount
with no experience as a film executive. The studio was going through a
difficult economic period and of the nine major studios, it was ranked
last. Charles Bluhdorn, the chief of Gulf & Western, which had just
acquired the studio, had been swayed by a New York Times piece on Evans
written by Peter Bart to let Evans choose the films for the studio. The
inexperienced Bart was rewarded for his good publicity by the new ‘boy
genius’ and became his right-hand man. Through whatever means it takes
to turn a studio around, Evans did it and saved the studio from ruin. In
a matter-of-fact way he relays some gossip about working with Mia Farrow
on Rosemary’s Baby and how he fought to get Roman Polanski to direct it
above the objections of the New York boys. He ran the productions for the
studio for about seven years, and in 1974 he opted to be a freelance producer
while still maintaining lucrative connections to Paramount.
Evans narrates from his kingly home he bought from Norma Shearer,
the Beverly Hills estate, Woodland, whose posh grounds has a swimming pool
and lush gardens and enough luxuriously decorated rooms to comfort the
entire cast of any of his films. There are photos of the vain man escorting
some of the loveliest stars in Hollywood, schmoosing with Henry
Kissinger, and affectionately telling how Jack Nicholson did him a big
favor by flying to France to talk an industrialist into selling him back
his estate. The bachelor swinger married starlet Ali MacGraw, but
things started to change when she dumped him for The Getaway costar Steve
McQueen while he toiled day and night producing The Godfather. By the early
’80s, Evans started losing some of his glamor. There was a cocaine arrest
from a DEA sting, a rumored involvement in the murder of an unethical businessman
backer of his The Cotton Club, years of obscurity when Paramount rejected
him, and mental problems that caused him to check into a loony bin. But
the 72-year-old is a survivor, and when Stanley Jaffe took over as head
of Paramount, he payed back the favor Evans did for him as a young man
and brought him back to the studio.
The documentary styled pic though entertaining was nevertheless irrelevant.
I know as little about Bob Evans as I did before seeing the pic. There’s
not an ounce of introspection to be had in this self-serving mogul. Evans
is the kind of producer who gave us Chinatown and Love Story, and is proud
of both as if the films were equal in worth. That should tell you all that
you have to know about him.
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The vast catalog of animated creations from William Hanna and Joseph Barbera really became staples to anyone growing up from the recent 1950s without difficulty completely into the late 1970s. In those pre-cable, pre-VHS, pre-DVD days, their cartoons, in most cases, weren’t “a” desirable, they were “the” fitting.
Hanna and Barbera made their big splash with a plethora of Tom & Jerry shorts in the 1950s, but it was things like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, Pixie and Dixie, Peter Potamus, Magilla Gorilla (among countless others) that were the amusement lifeblood of television-addicted youngsters, of which I was gleefully in unison. Laughable how time has a opportunity of making things appearance of better than they were, which is really what nostalgia is all helter-skelter in the maiden place.
To mine those nostalgic dollars, Warner has uncorked an impressive four-disc slip-up-case collection of the 1962 prime time season of The Jetsons. The set sports a fairly steep MSRP, but matches the look of the previously released The Flintstones: The Complete First Season, as surge as the upcoming Jonny Voyage of discovery collection, so no doubt Hanna-Barbera-aholics whim yearning the entire library.
In hindsight, these were not the greatest cartoons till the end of time made, but they were (and still are) akin to comfort aliment, and things like the minimalist handling of repeated backgrounds or other minor incongruities were glaring to me even back then. Needing to add this set to your solicitation on its iconic merits is all good-naturedly and good, but I remember there would be more whole satisfaction if the series was truly amusing (which it sadly isn’t, despite what you memories may tell you), instead of being single comparatively clever.
I don’t want to pee in the punchbowl, but the show was to be sure spotty in the humor department, and as Hanna-Barbera did with The Flintstones—who were happily stuck plying Noachic menage hijinks—the futuristic antics of George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy Jetson went in the other handling. Using advanced technology as a defeat for most of the gags was a lightning discipline exchange for material; it really was the show’s trademark, and as a substitute for of funny dialogue, we got wacky futuristic visuals that were intended to poke fun at the modern conveniences 1960s suburban America dreamt about. Episodes about the kinsmen buying redone car, getting a pet (in this case, a robot dog), or Jane learning to drive were pinched thematic threads peppered with set out period horse feathers meant to sell the jokes. Every once in a while it worked advantage than others, but not time enough.
It’s true that some elements don’t seem as cut a swath b help-fetched today as they once did, but things like their refreshing bubble-topped flying cars (which folds up into a suitcase) or George’s bed that pops him free like a toaster were always on my gadget wishlist as a kid. But the truth is, prior to sitting down with this first season set, I couldn’t exceedingly return any critical episode of The Jetsons, except bits and pieces about the one where Astro’s real name is revealed to be Tralfaz (Matter 15). And this is coming from someone who probably maxim every instalment a thousand times over the years. As a kid I watched the drama because my options were limited, not because it cracked me up.
As a post-modern atomic family, I suppose the Jetson clan seemed fairly run-of-the-mill, likeable souls. There’s nothing blatantly unpleasant about them, but in terms of comedy the humor was usually a elfin affected, and never laugh-away from-loud eccentric. But I did forge some variety of affinity for the characters. As a kid, I really wanted to grow up to be Elroy (voiced by perennial Hanna-Barbera predilection Daws Butler), and tease my extraordinarily own nearly-talking dog feel attracted to Astro (voiced by Don Messick). George (voiced by George O’Hanlon) and Jane (voiced by Blondie’s Penny Singleton) seemed equivalent to cool parents—slightly elsewhere-minded but well meaning—and who wouldn’t hold wanted a hip older sister as if Judy (voiced by Janet Waldo)? Poor Jean Vander Pyl, best known as the verbalize of Wilma Flintstone, had the misfortune of being cast as one of the series least consistently appealing characters—Rosie The Puppet, the Jetson’s faithful maid. In spite of reasons I don’t indigence to go into, I had a obstreperous with her 35 years ago, and I yet do today.
I don’t as a matter of fact want to be too intently the Jetson blood, but decades of reruns acquire pretty much pooped the comedic impact of the series down to a nubbin. By no means do I discount the hospitable fuzzy feelings a series like this can generate—I can relate to the allurement of warm and fuzzy.
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From where I’m sitting, though, The Jetsons doesn’t have any tangible entertainment value all these years later EXCEPT for those over become less antagonistic and fuzzies. The ask you make to ask yourself: is that satisfactorily?
Two young anti-globalisation activists are looking for ingenious ways to unsettle the middle-classes and get them to re-think their comfortable lives. Peter and Jan break into houses in well-to-do districts when the owners are away on holiday. They shake up their possessions, steal nothing, hurt no one and leave an unsettling calling card.
The dynamic changes when Peter decides to let his girlfriend Jule in on the secret. This leads to sexual tension as Jule and Jan starts to have feelings for each other unbeknownst to Peter. Also, a simple break in goes awry when they spend too long at one of the houses. When the owner comes home, one thing leads to another and the next law they break is more serious - kidnap - and worse, there's no proper thinking going on as to what they are going to do next.
This is the first German film to be selected for competition at Cannes in 11 years - and justifiably so. It manages to be freethinking, tense and funny and may make cinemagoers question their teenage years. If anything, this is a rites-of-passage movie for young adults, but it would be wrong to see it just in that light.
Austrian-born director Hans Weingartner, who is also a neuroscientist, was an archetypal angry young man who admits that the story is inspired by his frustration at the lack of political ideals in those of his own generation.
Good performances from the three main leads: Daniel Bruhl will be remembered for Good Bye Lenin!, in which he made a strong impression on Western audiences, and newcomers Julia Jentsch and Stipe Erceg will be a lot better known after their solid work in this film that has little wrong with it and much to be recommended
IGBY GOES DOWN *
TOSS: Kieran Culkin, Susan Sarandon, Ryan Phillippe,
Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Amanda Peet, Jared Harris
NUMERO UNO: Burr Steers
Susan Sarandon, noisily sawing wood in her swank bedroom, is about
to snore her last snore. That's because Kieran Culkin and Ryan Phillippe,
her two warped sons, are coolly preparing to pull a plastic pocket
over her premier and snuff out what's left of her desolate sentience. I'm
not spoiling what passes because of a story here, since this location–which
is neither shocking nor funny, a moment ago crude–comes at the decidedly beginning
of writer-director Burr Steer's numbingly eccentric portrait of
a rolling in it, loveless kids. Except also in behalf of a hardly minutes at the end,
the set of the integument is one desire flashback with exact bit flash.
Why Sarandon (who would be well advised to look around for another
agent) is such a frivolous, castrating bitch we never be sure. But it's
lenient to understand why her elemental husband, played by a trapped-looking
Reckoning Pullman, drinks and smokes himself silly and winds up in the
booby hatch. Mommie dearest dotes on spookily conservative son Phillippe,
never seeming to inform that he finds her abominable. On the other
hand, the egomaniacal oppressor can barely tolerate being in the same
range with 19-year-old Culkin, an allegedly brilliant and responsive
misfit whose teens reading confidently included "Catcher in the Rye."
After disgracing himself at a New Jersey military academy, he receives
the harshest punishment all from old mum–the menace of a transfer
to a infuse with in the Midwest! That does it–the kid takes open for
Manhattan, with his clueless mother's credit plan tucked into his
wallet.
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So what does the minor juvenile find in the Big Apple? He finds his
creepy, lecherous godfather (Jeff Goldblum), the godfather's horny,
drug-addicted concubine (Amanda Peet), her dope-dealing buddy (Jared
Harris), and a drab Bennington bedmate who, as it turns out, has
the hots for arrogantly bro Phillippe. But this is far more than you stress
to know about a movie that, unless you're a masochist, you will
never see. It's "The Splendid Tenenbaums" without humor, pluck, style
or the thinnest shred of credibility.
