Films

Toronto: ‘Che’ Finds a U.S. Home

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:49:40 +0000

Toronto: ‘Che’ Finds a U.S. Home

I’m hearing Magnolia Pictures has landed the deal to distribute Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” in the United States, which is expected to be announced shortly. The two-part biopic of the Argentine guerilla who worked with Fidel Castro starring Benecio del Toro premiered to mixed reviews in Cannes. A slightly shorter version — 4 hour 22 minutes total — will be showing at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals. NYFF will be screening “Che” at the 1100-seat Ziegfeld and don’t be surprised if that’s where this epic has a reserved-seat, Academy-qualification running beginning on December 12.

Toronto: Mr. Madonna Scores

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:31:54 +0000

Toronto: Mr. Madonna Scores

Starting my Toronto International Film Festival experience this year with a 9 a.m. screening of a Guy Ritchie movie seemed like a dicey proposition, but "RockNRolla'' is a lot of fun, if familiar. The plot of this jokey crime thriller is way too complicated to describe before my next screening, but I'll say that Gerard Butler, never one of my favorite, reveals a hitherto unsuspected talent for comedy as a hapless criminal who gets involved in a series of double-crosses. And Tom Wilkinson, cast way against type, channels Bob Hoskins as an old-school Cockney crime boss struggling to stay on top in a multicultural, very corrupt London. Warners, which is planning a limited release next month, reportedly has been allowing producer Joel Silver to shop "RockNRolla'' around to other studios, but while it's notably less violent than some of Richie's signatures work, it still seems like a movie for specialized audiences.

Toronto: We’ll Always Have Paris — Unfortunately

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:20:11 +0000

Toronto: We'll Always Have Paris -- Unfortunately

I'm heading off to my first Toronto International Film Festival screenings this morning, but I already spent much of yesterday here chasing a manufactured controversy. I got nothing but vague answers when I tried to find out why the festival cancelled three out of four screens for "Paris, Not France,'' a documentary about the attention-starved Hilton heir-head that went from flying completely under the radar to being the fest's hottest title. The Hollywood Reporter said on its blog that the pullback was due to legal threats from the celebutard, and documentary programmer Thom Powers said the screenings, including the only press screening, were scrapped at the request of filmmaker Adria Petty (Tom's daughter). The film's flack Mark Pogachevsky, read me a vague statement that didn't exactly contradict the Reporter's claim that "Paris, Not France'' had been pulled off the market for a potential U.S. distribution. I filed what I had to New York and my colleagues at Page Six got to the bottom of the mystery, with a Paris rep shamlessly admitting it was all a cheap stunt to drum up interest in the doc. Meanwhile, I take a look at a new documentary on the '70s Manhattan swinger's mecca Plato's Retreat and run down a list of hot Toronto titles. And no Paris, I don't consider either you or your doc "hot.''

DVD Extra: An Epic Restoration

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:09:09 +0000

DVD Extra: An Epic Restoration Before winging off to the Toronto Film Festival, I filed this report on Warner Home Video’s remarkable new version of “How the West Was Won,” which uses digitally wizardry to remove those ugly join lines that has disfigured this epic western since it was originally released in Cinerama 46 years ago. This astounding restoration took six years. (Read the full post about ‘DVD Extra: An Epic Restoration’…)

Toronto: ‘Che’ for Christmas?

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:56:20 +0000

Toronto: ‘Che’ for Christmas? There are rumors that a deal will be announced in Toronto for U.S. distribution of Steven Sodebergh’s “Che,” which may be released, at least initially, in 4 1/2 hour reserved-seat engagements before the two parts are shown separately in the hinterlands. While we’re waiting for the movie’s North American debut there, Hulu is offering a free look (with “limited commercials”) of Richard Fleisher’s unintentionally hilarious 1969 “Che” with Omar Sharif as the revolutionary and Jack Palace as Fidel Castro, which amazingly is not available on DVD. (Read the full post about ‘Toronto: ‘Che’ for Christmas?’…)

R.I.P. Jerry Reed

admin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:17:57 +0000

Very sad. Country music star and icon of my childhood -- Jerry Reed died yesterday at the age of 71. From CMT: "When Jerry Reed died this week, country music lost one of its most colorful characters. Yeah, he wrote some memorable songs, made some great records and developed a guitar style that was truly his own, but his image as a redneck good ol’ boy from Georgia permeated his music and ultimately led to his success as an actor. Through the years, oth'er country music artists have been in feature films, but how many of those movies have been as successful as his work with Burt Reynolds in 'Smokey and the Bandit' or with Adam Sandler in 'The Waterboy'? "Personally, though, my favorite thing about Jerry Reed was his guitar playing. Merle Travis and Chet Atkins provided the blueprint for the fingerstyle guitar technique, but Reed added elements of Ray Charles’ piano playing — and a lot of other things — to come up with an aggressive, rhythmic and funky style that no one had ever attempted before. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Atkins was to Reed what Jimi Hendrix was to Eddie Van Halen. Both Reed and Van Halen took things to a stylistic plane that few could have ever imagined." Ah yes..."Smokey and the Bandit" -- a movie I love: "Many remember 1977 as the year Star Wars became a national obsession. But while some of you played with plastic light sabers and (now priceless) action figures, there were others who busted out their Dad's CB radio ("Sheriff ... do the letters F.O. mean anything to you?") and prayed he'd buy a black 1977 Pontiac Trans AM just like the one Burt Reynolds (a.k.a., The Bandit) drives in Hal Needham's classic 'Smokey and the Bandit.' And yes, I did just say classic. A charming, laughing Reynolds teams with trucker pal Jerry Reed to transport 400 cases of Coors beer across state lines, with an apoplectic, hilarious Jackie Gleason (as Sheriff Buford T. Justice) in pursuit. Loads of light fun filled with clever, excellently edited and just plain stellar car-chase sequences, Smokey and the Bandit is, as the infectious Jerry Reed song proclaimed, 'loaded up and truckin.'" Rest in peace Jerry Reed. Let's all crack open a Coors in honor.

Don LaFontaine (1940-2008)

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:21:24 +0000

Don LaFontaine (1940-2008)

The eponymous Don LaFontaine, who lent his melliflous voice to narrating thousands of movie movie trailers (the oft-used “In a world…” was his most famous and parodied line) as well as countless commercials and other announcing gigs before spoofing himself in a famous Geico Commercial, has died at 68.

(Read the full post about ‘Don LaFontaine (1940-2008)’…)

DVD Extra: Scott-Boetticher Flicks Finally Coming

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:04:54 +0000

DVD Extra: Scott-Boetticher Flicks Finally Coming Sony has finally announced a street date for its long-rumored set of the classic Budd Boetticher westerns starring the immortal Randolph Scott: November 4. The five medium-budget titles released between 1957 and 1960 — “The Tall T,” “Decision at Sundown,” “Ride Lonesome,” “Buchanan Rides Alone” and “Commanche Station” — are considered among the finest of the genre. The set will include a full length documentary on Boetticher’s career, as well as special introductions and commentary by Clint Eastwood, Taylor Hackford and Martin Scorsese. In other Sony news, Sony Pictures Classics announced a deal to distribute Pedro Almodovar’s upcoming neo-noir “Broken Embraces” starring Penelope Cruz. (Read the full post about ‘DVD Extra: Scott-Boetticher Flicks Finally Coming’…)

If Lucy Had a Love Child, Then Who Exactly Was Loving Lucy? Waah!

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:58:15 +0000

If Lucy Had a Love Child, Then Who Exactly Was Loving Lucy? Waah!

Sure Bristol Palin's unplanned pregnancy is a real eye-opener, but the love child report that caught my eye in The Post this morning concerns an Illinois woman who claims her late mother was put up for adoption by Lucille Ball in 1947. My esteemed colleague Dan Mangan quotes Cassandra Lucianna Carlson as believing "that her mother was adopted for fear that a baby would derail Ball's plans for stardom.'' Sorry, Cassandra, I don't think so. Ball had been in Hollywood for 14 years at that time and neither RKO nor MGM had been able to make her a top star. By all accounts, Ball's biggest worry was holding onto her philandering husband of seven years, Desi Arnaz. Having a child with him would seem to be a classic marital manuever and Lucie Arnaz says her mom desperately trying to get enciente at he time. So why would Lucy give one away? Ms. Carlson believes Arnaz is her grandfather, but the scenario, if true, suggests her mom (who died in 2003) was not the spawn of Desi but born of a spite affair by the cheated-on redhead. If so, Lucy had some 'splaining to do, and it was not ununsual to give up a child up for adoption under the circumstances (see Young, Loretta). So who's the daddy? Let's speculate, since virtually all of the prospective baby daddies are conveniently dead anyway. Carlson apparently got her last name from her husband, but it coincidentally also belonged to Richard Carlson, like Lucy a veteran of countless B-movies and best known as the star of the TV series "I Led Three Lives.'' Carlson starred opposite Lucy in the musical "Too Many Girls'' (1940) -- the movie where she met Mr. Arnaz -- and the two were apparently still friends as late as the early 1960s, when Mrs. Carlson played herself on one of a series of hourline Lucy-Desi TV specials that are often referred to collectively as "Lucy in Connecticut.''

As it happens, Carlson was often confused with Richard Denning, who had a longer but more fraught relationship with Lucy closer to the alleged blessed event. Denning, another handsome B-movie vet best known for playing the governor on "Hawaii Five-O,'' starred opposite Lucy in the title role of the popular radio series "My Favorite Husband'' (pictured above) beginning in 1948. When CBS wanted to move the series to TV in '51, Lucy had two conditions -- she wanted to own all the rights, and she demanded that Denning be dumped and replaced with her straying real-life hubby so she could keep an eye on him. So it was reworked as "I Love Lucy'' -- some of the earliest episodes are actually remakes of "My Favorite Husband'' shows -- and when "My Favorite Husband'' finally aired as a TV series on CBS from 1953-1955 Barry Nelson, not Denning, played the title role. By that point, Lucy had two acknowledged children with Arnaz. If she had the third, unacknowledged one earlier, perhaps the father was another one of her tall, dark and handsome co-stars from that era. The list is as intriguing as the titles are suggestive: "The Dark Corner'' (Mark Stevens), "Two Smart People'' (John Hodiak), "Lover Come Back'' (George Brent, divorced from Ruth Chatterton and Ann Sheridan), "Her Husband's Affairs'' (Franchot Tone, one of the ex-Mr. Joan Crawfords) and "Lured'' (George Sanders, future husband of both Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor). I think we can safely rule out the only one of the bunch who is still with us, the flamboyant redhead Van Johnson ("Easy to Wed''). And I don't even want to think about the possibility that Bob Hope or Red Skelton provided the alleged sperm.

DVD Extra: MGM, Fox Milk Musicals; Borzage, Murnau Titles Revealed

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:46:50 +0000

DVD Extra: MGM, Fox Milk Musicals; Borzage, Murnau Titles Revealed

"Whoopee'' (1930), Eddie Cantor musical that's one of the best surviving examples of two-strip Technicolor, will be making its DVD debut as part of a 50 title, 61-disc "Hollywood Musicals Collection'' being released Nov. 11 by Fox and MGM. With a whopping $500 suggested retail price, it's a followup to last year's 90-title tribute to the 90th anniversary of United Artists, which MGM seems to have prematurely stopped celebrating. The disappointing news is that almost all the titles, which span seven decades ending with "Moulin Rouge'' (the one with Nicole Kidman, not the 1934 version with Constance Bennett) are already available on DVD, and many in existing box sets from Fox (Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Temple, Elvis, Rogers & Hammerstein) and MGM, which put out two collections of musicals just last year. As Warners controls all of the pre-1986 MGM musicals, MGM's offerings are mostly those released by United Artists (post-1952 except for "Hallelujah I'm a Bum,'' a delightful Rogers and Hart curiosity with Al Jolson) plus a few leased from the Goldwyn library (like the Hal Roach-produced "Babes in Toyland'' with Laurel and Hardy, which was in an MGM Christmas set last year). The Goldwyn library is also the source for the other two DVD debuts in the set: "Kid Millions'' with Cantor, and the appalling bad three-strip Technicolored "Goldwyn Follies'' (1938) with Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, Kenny Baker, Edgar Bergen, the Ritz Brothers and Vera Zorina. Meanwhile, Classic Flix reports the Frank Borzage set I wrote about last week -- a followup to their John Ford blockbuster last year -- will be coming out from Fox on Dec. 9 and will also include titles by his contemporary F.W. Murnau, most notably a new two-disc special edition of "Sunrise,'' the only film to win an Oscar for "artistic achievement.'' Classic Flix cites a list price of $239 and says the other titles are mostly ones I alluded to: "Lucky Star,'' "Liliom,'' "They Had to See Paris,'' "Seventh Heaven,'' "Bad Girl,'' "Song O' My Heart,'' "Lazy Bones,'' "Street Angel'' and "City Girl.'' DVD Empire insists the set will also include a couple more Borzages, "After Tomorrow'' and "Young America.'' Get ready to break open your piggie banks, cinephiles.