Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet Aren’t Joking Around in Funny Games by Brad Balfour Ten years ago, German director Michael Haneke created a harrowing, near-psychotic film, Funny Games, about two young men – Paul and Peter – who force a couple and their son in their vacation cabin to play sadistic “games” with fatal results. A critique … Continue reading
Jim Sturgess Bets on 21 to Transform His Acting Career by Brad Balfour Based on Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book Bringing Down the House – about MIT master math student Jeff Ma and his blackjack team – 21 details the story of Ben Campbell and his card-counting crew that ravages Las Vegas casinos for little over a year (making oodles … Continue reading
Steven Strait An Actor Travels to Civilization in 10,000 BC by Brad Balfour No one ever expected a special-effects laden epic conceived and crafted by producer/director Roland Emmerich to be concerned about gaps in logic or story structure. So it goes with the German-born impressario’s latest faux-legend, the prehistoric 10,000 BC. From his civilization-destroying tentpole pictures … Continue reading
Christopher Knight My Fair Knight by Ronald Sklar Christopher Knight may have once starred on VH1’s The Surreal Life, but his own real life was as real as reality gets, at least as real as any ex-Brady could hope to have. “My dad was an actor and a struggling one at that,” he says from his … Continue reading
Samuel L. Jackson Makes the Jump Into Director Doug Liman’s New Film By Brad Balfour One thing that pulled actor Samuel L. Jackson into doing Jumper, director Doug Liman’s excursion into science fiction, was his fascination for the notion of teleporting. Although his character Roland the Paladin, does not have the power to “jump,” he has the … Continue reading
Stefan Ruzowitzky and Karl Markovics A Director and an Actor Make an Authentic Holocaust Film out of The Counterfeiters by Brad Balfour Just when you think everything that happened during the Holocaust has been chronicled, another film appears based on a true story that offers another look at that horrible experience in a way which … Continue reading
Ryan Gosling Love for a Real Girl by Brad Balfour Born in Ontario, Canada, to a strict Mormon family, actor Ryan Gosling started his career as a Mouseketeer in the early ’90s version of The Mickey Mouse Club. Sharing that distinct career boost with the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, Gosling has … Continue reading
Breckin Meyer Blue Period by Jay S. Jacobs With interest in politics at a high-water mark in the United States due to an unusually intriguing race for President, perhaps it is a happy coincidence that the film Blue State positions a breezy romantic comedy in the midst of ancient history: the fallout of the Bush-Kerry election of 2004. … Continue reading
Colin Farrell and Clémence Poésy Love and Death in Bruges by Jay S. Jacobs After a few years of toiling on big-budget blockbusters that only occasionally took flight – Oliver Stone’s Alexander and Michael Mann’s Miami Vice come to mind – Colin Farrell has definitely downsized for his latest two roles. Ironically, in both Martin … Continue reading
Ron Livingston Rescues Holly and Finds Something of Himself by Brad Balfour When I first met Ron Livingston, he was a featured personality at the New York Independent Television Fest kicking off his Fox TV show, Standoff (he starred as Matt Flannery, a senior FBI negotiator). He had come to my attention previously through the film The Cooler, but … Continue reading
