Paul Newman - 1925-2008

The world lost a great actor, humanitarian, all-around cool guy, and his family a faithful and loving husband and father on Friday, September 26, 2008.

"King Cool", with his famously piercing blue eyes, wonderful acting talent, and scores of major films to his credit is gone. Another icon of old Hollywood, and a true legend.

My personal favorite films of Newman's are The Long Hot Summer (the chemistry between Newman and Woodward in this film is jaw-droppingly sexy), The Sting, Slap Shot, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Although I have many more of his in my DVD collection, those spring to mind. His legend in film will live on, as will his charitable legacy through the Newman's Own line he started years ago, and his Hole In The Wall camps for children.


The photo above is one I selected to show his hotness, which goes without saying, he was still good-looking up until his illness, but the one below is one of my personal favorites. And of course I like the little dog being included. He and Joanne Woodward celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2008. You don't see that much any more, inside or outside of Hollywood.

Let's all raise a Heineken (his favorite beer) to Mr. Newman. He will be sorely missed by all of us.



Link to the Paul Newman page on the International Movie Database:

PAUL NEWMAN ON IMDB

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

(2008)

"In May, the adventure continues."



First off: ponderous title, weak tagline.

I have to agree with many of the reviews I've read...too much CGI, not enough human interest/interactions. The warmth was lacking, and the script too. It seemed forever before Karen Allen came into it (I loved her in the first installment of the series), and she provided the *spark* here, she's still a sassy woman!

And, although Harrison Ford still looks pretty good, and I know he did a lot of his own stunts, he seemed overly grumpy and somewhat humorless this time around. Shia LaBeouf was okay, but his character seemed obviously just thrown in the film to either (1) attract a younger audience or (2) to hint at sequels with him in the title role - let's hope not! I think the series needs to give it up for good now.

There were some great scenes (loved the fight scene in the diner!) and many that seemed to really drag on - the dialogue-driven scenes just weren't written very well, they were...boring. And ALIENS? What a dopey plot twist. I was waiting for someone to say "ET! Phone home!" towards the end.

Actually, my first thought when I saw the plastic uhhhh "crystal skull" was that it looked like it could have been the skull from the monster in "Alien."

A lot of depth in the film was lost in what seemed to be a big push for show-offy CGI. That being said, I really had hoped to see Cate Blanchett's character go out in a more sensational manner, like the guy whose face melted in the first one. She just sort of went *poof* after a lot of buildup. That wouldn't have required any CGI, just a wax melting head like they used in the first one. And it certainly would have been more interesting.

Oh, and Blanchett's accent! I know it's been said but I have to reiterate it, I kept waiting for her to say "MOOSE AND SQUIRREL! MOOSE AND SQUIRREL!" I had trouble keeping from laughing every time she spoke.

As for the installments overall, the original Raiders Of The Lost Ark is still the best, although I do love The Last Crusade. Temple of Doom was truly awful, and not helped by Kate Capshaw's annoying character....a weak, stupid, shallow, whining bimbo. I liked the strong female characters in these films; Capshaw's was an insult to the series. And I won't go into a diatribe about the screechy kid.

Anyway, entertaining enough, but a big letdown I think for most Indy fans.

Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story

(2007)

"Life made him tough. Love made him strong. Music made him hard."



My husband and I rented and watched "Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story" last night.

I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life, and although I already knew that John C. Reilly is a wonderful actor, and that he could sing, I had no idea just how well he could sing until last night, when his performance blew us both completely away. And the script was very well written and paced.

Tim Meadows' performance was outstanding too, and Paul Rudd's (uncredited) impersonation of John Lennon was spot-on.

We're probably going to watch it again tonight, if only because we were laughing so hard the first time around that we are sure we missed a few lines!

Two thumbs up! My husband said "John C. Reilly was already my hero before this, but now he's REALLY my hero!" He has an amazing voice, too!"

I realize that's a simplistically gushing review, but "I'm sorry, I forgot you were here."

Films made in high school, circa 1975

"Mattel Place" - a Super8 movie made in 1975 for Film Class in my senior year of high school, using stop-motion animation with Barbie dolls, a Johnny West doll, a Skipper doll, a Francie doll, and other plastic people and assorted accessories such as my *official* Barbie doll convertible sports car, some fireworks that happened to be handy, and a very small model gun. P.S. My maiden name is listed, in case the credits confuse you.

Filmed in my childhood home's basement using sets made from cardboard boxes; also filmed in various outdoor locations such as the street in front of our house. Created very painstakingly over the course of three weeks. Transferred from the original (degraded, yes, the original footage was much sharper than what you see here) Super8 footage to DVD, with some sound added, in 2004.

It may seem rather crude, but this was filmed in 1975 with rather crude technology, including the dolls themselves, which had an extremely limited range of motion.

This was before computer animation etc, and the dolls I had weren't very "bendy". So I used a Johnny West doll as the man in it, since he had more bendable parts. The mustache is something I drew on with a permanent Sharpie when I was even younger. And unfortunately his "clothes" were permanent. No chest-baring scenes for him!

The title is a take-off on the classic "Peyton Place" which was a book, a movie, and also went on to become the first TV soap opera, starring Mia Farrow.

You can see my Monty Python-esque humor was fully developed at a very young age.

Anyway, enjoy!





...and on a more serious note...
THE IMPLOSION OF THE DURHAM HOTEL, 1975
This is the other film from my high school film class; it was a collaboration with 3 other students/friends. I had the film transferred from its original Super8 film onto DVD at the same time I had the Mattel Place one done. However, with Mattel Place, I had someone else do the credits and add some sound, as I didn't myself have the capability for adding credits and music at that time.

For this film I added the credits at the beginning and end myself in 2006, along with the music (a mix I made from the soundtrack of "To Kill A Mockingbird", my favorite film). The Durham Hotel was a landmark of downtown Durham and held a lot of memories for a lot of people...the day it came down was a sad one. And guess what? A parking lot went up in its place, yippee. Turn your sound on first before clicking to play it, but the music doesn't start until the beginning credits are over, just so you know.

Born To Be Bad

(1950)

"Baby-faced savage in a jungle of intrigue!"



What a great movie poster! That's almost enough, right there. Why see the film?

But, no, really you should see it - if you can find it. My husband and I were flipping channels recently, and happened upon this film just as it was beginning. Neither of us had seen it before...and within minutes we wished we'd known about it beforehand, and had recorded it (I don't like to record a movie after it's already started). "Born To Be Bad" is basically a really bad variation on the classic Bette Davis film "All About Eve", without the theatre background, and it is not a good movie. It's a really bad film in fact, but bad in a great way. It's a cheesy 1950's B-film, hilarious without intending to be - the best kind of classic camp.

"Born To Be Bad" has a surprisingly stellar cast, including Joan Fontaine (in the lead, as the conniving Christabel Caine), Zachary Scott, Robert Ryan (at his hunky bad-guy best), Joan Leslie, and Mel Ferrer. The story centers around Christabel Caine, who seems innocent on the outside...but is pure opportunistic bitch on the inside.

That's about all the plotline you need.

Side note: one of the funniest unintentional jokes is the fact that Mel Ferrer's character is named "Gobby", which illicted laughter from us from the first time we heard it, and every single time thereafter:

My husband: "GOBBY? What kind of nickname is that? Must be some sex nickname!"

Me: *laughing* "EW! What kind of sex nickname could Gobby be? Wait - don't answer that!" *more laughter*

Joan Fontaine is her usual melodromatic self, complete with her signature eyebrow antics - her left eyebrow always seemed to have a mind of its own - also apparent in her performances in films such as "Rebecca", "Suspicion" and well, every film she was ever in, come to think of it), but her role in "Born to Be Bad" suits her mannerisms well. She makes a great little sweet-faced bitch. The dialogue is completely over-the-top, and coupled with the melodramatic mannerisms of most of the cast (Robert Ryan and Joan Fontaine's scenes together are some of the best), makes for a very entertaining camp film.

Nicolas Ray (who 5 years later directed the classic "Rebel Without A Cause") has created a total bomb, a classic of camp film that is worthy viewing for lovers of the genre.

Clerks 2

(2006)



All right! I brought my film review blog back from the dead. Due to time restraints and the CTS in my left hand, there won't be really frequent entries here, but I'll be doing something on occasion.

Anyway...for the first entry after alll these months, I had to say something about Clerks 2. My husband and I are fans of Kevin Smith's films, especially Clerks. We went to see Clerks 2 at a matinee at noon, the first day it opened,and we loved it. We were at the first showing, and we are people who rarely if ever go out to the theatre; we usually wait to rent/buy films. We were the only two people there (beautiful day out, and the first matinee of the day, we were hoping it wouldn't be crowded). It's a good thing we were the only ones because we were laughing so loudly we would have most likely bothered anyone sitting near us.

Clerks has a better soundtrack, but we thought that Clerks 2 was twice as funny. If you don't like profanity in movies you won't care for it, if you can't stand the word "fuck" you won't make it through the first five minutes of the film, but then again that goes for seeing the first one too.

And yes, if you didn't see Clerks, you do need to watch it before Clerks 2; if you saw Clerks and didn't like it, I doubt you'll like Clerks 2 either.

Most of the raunchiness is in the dialogue during and about events that you know are occurring, but are not actually shown, and that includes discussion at length about a certain distasteful, so to speak, sexual act.

And a scene involving a donkey. LOL

The cast has all the lead actors from Clerks, and adds a couple of great new characters to the mix, including the versatile and sexy Rosario Dawson (Sin City) as Becky, the manager of Mooby's, the fast-food joint and main hub of activity in the film. And relative newcomer Trevor Fehrman is great as Elias; his facial expressions and comic timing were really fun to watch.

Jason Lee, most recently known as the lead on the hilarious TV show My Name is Earl, has a very effective small part/scene in the film, and other actors such as Ben Affleck and Wanda Sykes have meaty little cameos.

There are also some great snarky winks to other films such as Silence of the Lambs, and Jay (Jason Mewes) remains my favorite character.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

(2006)



"He broke her heart - she broke his everything."

The trailers don't really do justice to the film - it's very funny. Uma Thurman has already more than proven her talent at comedy, and the likeable Luke Wilson is great as her hapless boyfriend. The love scenes are especially hilarious.

Bonus: Anna Faris, best known for her appearances in the "Scary Movie" franchise, has a supporting but meaty role.

It's kind of a funny twist on "Fatal Attraction", with Thurman as the neurotic ex...only with superpowers. Worth a rent.