Hot Rod - Stuntman Forever

If there's one thing we can rely on every summer, it's the release of some fun movies. A great example is the zany offering "Hot Rod". This film builds on the premise that Rod Kimble's step-father (Frank) is a bully and Rod needs to take him down a notch or two. The problem we soon see is that Daddy Dearest has major health problems. Rod plans to raise money to save Frank by performing a never-before-completed stunt jump.

In the meantime we learn that Frank has a biological son named Kevin Powell, who turns out to be a supportive step-brother for Rod. To learn more about how Rod trains for his mission and to donate money for Frank, be sure to visit Kevin's site.

This Paramount Pictures, Michaels/Goldwyn Production "Hot Rod" will come to theaters on August 3, 2007. Many familiar names compose the cast as well as some on their way to sure stardom. They include Andy Samberg of Saturday Night Live (SNL) fame; Isla Fisher noted for her role as the sex-crazed sister in the equally zany "Wedding Crashers"; Ian Mc Shane television and film star (Deadwood (for which he won a Golden Globe, Lovejoy, and "Sexy Beast" among a multitude of others; and Sissy Spacek, another award winner who's career spans over 35 years. You may remember her from "Carrie" or "Coal Miner's Daughter". Pam Brady ("South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut) wrote the hilarious script, and Akiva Shaffer directed. He currently writes for SNL as well directs their Digital Shorts and music videos. This film is not yet rated.
You'll find short videos, photos, and more information on "Hot Rod" as well as "Stuntman Forever" on My Space as well as their individual websites.

Movie Plot
Rod Kimble fancies himself a talented stuntman and spends hours perfecting his art. In the meantime Frank, his step-dad can't seem to harass him enough. During their sparring sessions Frank throws Rod around, humiliating him at every turn. When Frank becomes so ill he needs major surgery, it's a mixed blessing for Rod. He gets the chance to showcase his biggest stunt ever and if he pulls it off he'll not only become famous, he'll also be able to pound the daylights out of Frank. If he fails he faces the ultimate debasement because if Frank lives he'll have the last laugh and Rod's audience will quickly disappear.
Rod idolizes the now aging and retired Evel Knievel, who ultimately jumped over 13 double-decker and 14 Greyhound buses while perched on his motorcycle. Rod sets a goal of soaring over a total of 15 buses. With the money raised from ticket sales he'll become famous and be able to pay for Frank's operation.
Andy Samberg
Whether or not you've seen Andy on SNL, you'll fall in love with this loveable goofball. His and Chris Parnell's hysterically funny short video "Lazy Sunday: Chronicles of Narnia", released in December 2005, broke viewing records for My Space and NBC. He and all the talent in and behind the scenes of "Hot Rod" and "Stuntman Forever" provide some rollicking good fun that you'll want to see over and over.

The Godfather (DVD) Review

Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Godfather was nominated for an additional eight Oscars. The brainchild of celebrated author Mario Puzo, the film is considered the crowning achievement of Francis Ford Coppola's directing career. With intriguing depth, it provides audiences with a glimpse into the notorious underworld of warring New York crime families. As a result, The Godfather transformed a number of relatively unknown actors into Hollywood legends, among them being James Caan, Al Pacino, and Robert Duvall (all three of whom were nominated for Best Supporting Actor). In addition, Marlon Brando turns in, arguably, the most memorable performance of his career. Certainly among the top five films of all time, an excellent case could be made that The Godfather is the most perfect movie ever produced...

The film opens as "Don" Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) hosts his daughter's wedding, where he actively entertains his friends and business associates. Vito's favorite son Michael (Al Pacino) has come home from the war (World War II), and he's determined to do something different with his life, and his ambitious plans don't include joining the family business. An idealist at heart, the young Michael seduces his girlfriend Kay (Diane Keaton) with inspiring tales of the fine and upstanding things he will do with his life. Through the eyes of Michael, the audience learns of the family's various business methods and the hierarchy of its system. Vito's eldest son Sonny (James Caan) is the heir apparent to his father's empire. Middle son Fredo (John Cazale) performs his part in the business, but few consider him a possible successor. Providing legal council to the family is Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), a long-time friend of the family who Michael treats as a brother.

Life is good for the Corleone family until the day Vito is approached by an opportunistic newcomer named Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), an ambitious leader who aspires to become the number one distributor of illegal narcotics in New York. He asks for the Don's blessing so he can expand his operations. But Vito sees a big difference between the traditional mafia activities of gambling and prostitution and the less-than-noble profession of selling drugs in schoolyards and family neighborhoods. The Don's preference for placing family above all else creates a direct conflict with the changing landscape of his business world.

When competing crime families are more accommodating to Sollozzo's business proposal, the enterprise sparks a deadly conflict between the crime families which quickly escalates into all-out war. Despite Vito's attempts to put an end to the conflict in its early stages, his beloved firstborn, Sonny, becomes the target of gangland assassination. When an attempt is made on Vito's life, Michael is drawn into the family business despite his reservations, and the overriding theme of "family first" comes to dominant his life in much the same way it's dominated that of his father...

A dramatic story of family and change, of youthful idealism and the pragmatism of adulthood, The Godfather is the greatest mafia film ever produced, and perhaps as the best drama in all of cinema history. Al Pacino would soon follow up his masterful performance with The Godfather II, and countless other films in the decades since, forever cementing his place among the immortals Hollywood. As such, The Godfather is a film all movie lovers should see at least one. Widely heralded as one of the best written films in existence, it's a definite "must-see" for any serious cinema aficionado...

The 6th Day

After 20 years, his producers seemed to be having trouble coming up with new big action thrillers for Arnold Schwarzenegger; this 2000 release was the next to last one he made except for the third Terminator, which I don’t count because it was a sequel. At least the producers gave us a villain who was neither a terrorist nor a machine this time, eh?

In The 6th Day, set a few years in our future, the Governator plays Adam Gibson, partners with Hank Morgan (Michael Rappaport) in a leading edge helicopter taxi service. One beautiful day the two are hired to fly multi-billionaire Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn) up to a nearby mountain for some skiing. Actually Gibson is hired but he and Morgan switch without telling Drucker’s people as Adam needs to run an errand.

There’s a big surprise when he gets home to his lovely wife (Wendy Crewson) and daughter and it isn’t just the surprise birthday party for him: he’s already inside celebrating. Then, after four hard cases come along and try to kill him, Ah-nold is off and running. We already know who’s chasing him: Drucker is sponsoring cloning research by superscientist Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall), and while the research has pretty much succeeded cloning humans is still against the law. No one outside Drucker’s inner circle can be allowed to know about the active program.

6th Day was written by the husband and wife team of Carmac and Marianne Wibberly and directed by veteran Roger Spottiswoode; it’s the first big production for the writers, who went on to write the I Spy movie, the Charlie’s Angels and Bad Boys sequels, Tim Allen’s Shaggy Dog remake and Nic Cage’s National Treasure, while Spottiswoode previously gave us the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, the Robin Williams/Kurt Russell The Best of Times and Sly Stallone Stop! Or My Mother Will Shoot comedies and the AIDs docudrama And the Band Played On.

Here the first half is entertaining because we know what’s happening but Schwarzenegger’s character is struggling to figure it out for himself and then the movie kicks into top gear after the two Adams connect and work together to take down Drucker. Dr. Weir gives a major assist after finally growing himself a conscience.

Of the big guys post-True Lies action flicks, The 6th Day is my favorite though it doesn’t really reach the same heights as that one, Last Action Hero or the first Terminator.

recommended

DVD Releases For Tuesday September 4, 2007

Man, is anyone else surprised that we’re already doing posts on DVD releases for September?  I mean, 2007 has just flown by without a second’s notice, I tell you.

Well, another Tuesday, another Lindsay Lohan movie release.  I know you can’t wait to go out there & grab the Georgia Rule DVD, so don’t lie.

Here they are folks, the DVD releases for Tuesday September 4, 2007:

30 Rock: Season 1
The Astronaut Farmer
The Black Donnellys: The Complete Series
Bobby Z
Chill Out Scooby-Doo!
Delta Farce
Desperate Housewives: Season 3
Georgia Rule
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Seasons 1 & 2
Nip/Tuck: The Complete Fourth Season
The Office: Season Three
Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
Prison Break: Season Two
Robot Chicken: Season Two Uncensored
Rules of Engagement: The Complete First Season
Spongebob Squarepants: Fifth Season, Vol. 1
Wind Chill

Source: http://www.filmsy.com/dvd-releases/dvd-releases-for-tuesday-september-4-2007/

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Based on the classic John Le Carre novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold strikes me as perhaps the first major feature film taking an overtly cynical posture on the way intelligence agencies on both sides of the iron curtain did business. In 1965, released amidst the massive success of the first James Bond movies and just before the anti-war movement went mainstream, the film’s attitude and low tech approach–it was one of the last major releases shot in black and white–didn’t go over well and the film pretty much sank from sight.

Forty years later those are no longer obstacles to appreciating the quality of the acting, direction and screenplay. Richard Burton has one of his best outings as the title character, a spy called Alec Leamas returned from a decade of service running the Berlin station, though one wonders just how difficult playing a burned out drunk was for the former Mr. Elizabeth Taylor.

Some fine supporting performances by Claire Bloom as a beautiful, naive young English communist, Cyril Cusack as Leamas’ MI-6 controller, Oskar Werner as a Jewish East German spy boss at war with Peter van Eyck, his anti-semitic boss, and Beatrix Lehmann as the stern chief of the tribunal where Leamas and the two East German spies face off.

Martin Ritt, who also directed such classics as Woody Allen’s The Front, Sounder, a couple of Paul Newman hits (Hud and The Long, Hot Summer) and Norma Rae, has his A game on Cold, using lighting as a powerful tool to convey emotions and framing shots precisely to help viewers see beneath the dialog. The script by Guy Trosper (Jailhouse Rock and Birdman of Alcatraz) and Paul Dehn (Goldfinger, the second Bond movie), who came on to finish it when Trosper passed away, does very well in getting the meat of Le Carre’s novel on screen with some very crisp dialog and plot construction.

Le Carre is the pen name of David Cornwell, a real life an MI-6 spy. He was still active when this movie was made but shortly thereafter left the agency as one of the dozens of western agents betrayed to the Soviets by Kim Philby; one expects he’d have not stayed much longer in any case as his literary star bloomed. Many Le Carre novels have been made into acclaimed films and mini-series, including his best known work Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy starring Alec Guinness, The Little Drummer Girl with Diane Keaton and ex-Bond Pierce Brosnan starrer The Tailor of Panama as well as the 2005 critical favorite Constant Gardener.

recommended

Source: http://billsaysthis.com/movies/2007/09/the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold

Film Academy Sues to Stop Sale of Oscars

LOS ANGELES -- The Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences is suing to stop the public sale of two Academy Awards given to silent film star Mary Pickford.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the academy claims it has the right to buy the historic statuettes and one owned by her late husband for $10 each.

The academy contends an heir to the Oscars demanded $500,000 for one statuette alone in July — an offer the academy refused.

Pickford won the Academy Award for best actress in 1930 and was given an honorary Oscar in 1975.

When she died in 1979, they went to her one-time husband, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, the lawsuit said.

In 1986, Rogers won the academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and when he died all three awards went to his second wife, Beverly.

She died in January, leaving the statuettes to her heirs, who are co-executors of her estate.

The lawsuit names three of the heirs, in their roles as co-executors. It alleges anticipatory breach of contract.

The suit claims that academy bylaws dating from 1950 and agreements signed by Oscar winners give the academy the first chance to buy Oscars for $10 each if they ever go on the market.

"If the public believes that any multimillionaire can buy an Oscar, then it becomes cheapened," David W. Quinto, an attorney representing the academy, said Friday. "It becomes an article of commerce rather than a very prestigious award."

Quinto said Pickford was a founder of the academy and helped approve the Oscar design.

"From the academy's point of view it's just unthinkable that Mary Pickford ...

would ever consent to do anything that would ever cheapen it in the eyes of the public," he said.

A call to John Shevlin, an attorney representing Beverly Rogers' estate, was not immediately returned.

X-Men - The Last Stand

info10:01 pmAdd comment

I am an advid fan of both the x-men comic books and the movies. I have been a fan of Marvel Comics for over twenty years. I feel that the characters depths were reached in the first two movies but were not carried on to the third, yet they seemed to add many more to the mix, and the special features were a travisty. These things lead to my actual review being closer to 2.5 stars.

I feel that the addition of new characters enhanced the movie and hindered it at the same time. Beast, played by Kelsey Grammar was very well done, to the point of him saying “Oh my stars and garters.” The Kitty Pryde character seemed one dimensional with no depth at all. She is shown to be a bit intelligent in the class room discussing Plato’s view of ethics, but then used as a third wheel of a love triangle dissolves the hope of any furhter depth. Colossus’s use of the “fastball special”, at the beginning the movie, was awesome to the point of ingenious, but that is where his character loses his appeal. He has next to no lines and begins to blend into the background in many scenes.

The plot is based very losely on the story arc “The Dark Pheonix Saga” and when I say losely, I truly mean losely. The comic story involved a much greater deal of internal conflict within Jean, in which Jean solves by comitting suicide. In this movie, her death only comes by the hand, or claws of, yup you guessed it, Wolverine. The depths of emotional conflict in Jean is never brought to the screen, except for her saying thank you to Wolverine at the end of her life. I felt no pythos or pain, that her life needed to be forfeited. I was unimpressed and unmoved by the representation of the pheonix/Jean saga.

Extras/Special features? These were all things picked up off of the floor of the editing room and pasted, any way they could, back into the movie.
3 Alternate endings that have no rationale behind them or connection to the movie. The world of Marvel, this section is a cheap way for Marvel to exploit the viewer into purchasing some of the lesser quality superhero movies. They show the trailers for Daredevil, Electra and FF. Ther is no in depth look into the world of Marvel Comics at all. For those who really want to be cheated out of their hard earned cash, buy the colectors edition of the DVD, it has different packaging and a comic that stars San Lee. Yeah!!!

The whole presentation from the coverr of the actual DVD to the Special Features seem as thrown together as the actual Movie. I as a viewer feel a bit let down by the conclusion of the trilogy. Marvel, does not seem to shy away from the open handed, gimmie your money approach to commerece, just look at the Civil War Strory in stores now, so I would have to say wait a few months and you will probally see a new release of the DVD that does not seem so thrown together.

Source: http://www.bestfilms.info/2006/10/21/x-men-the-last-stand/