Michel Gondry and Leos Carax French Directors Take on Tokyo! by Brad Balfour As if it were a creative corollary to the act of cinematic deconstruction, this strange tri-parted feature, Tokyo!, was released on the same weekend as Watchmen – a film based on a huge graphic novel that’s all about deconstruction. This strange absurdist-cartoon interpretation of the ultimate … Continue reading
Sara Paxton Takes a Sharp Left Turn to the Last House by Jay S. Jacobs It’s never easy for a child star to make the jump to serious adult roles. For every Jodie Foster or Elijah Wood there are dozens of actors who can’t seem to get work once they hit puberty. Sara Paxton has … Continue reading
Ari Folman An Israeli Director Dances with the Dogs of War In Waltz with Bashir by Brad Balfour Of all the films nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar this year, director Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir reaped substantial press and stirred the most controversy. A documentary fashioned as an animated film, it is as much an imagined … Continue reading
Patrick Warburton Always Challenging the Rules by Jay S. Jacobs Patrick Warburton isn’t all that manly. Hollywood thinks it has Warburton figured out. Because he cuts such an imposing figure – with his strong, impressive frame, his chiseled aging-model looks and his distinctive baritone voice – television and film has a tendency to cast him as funny, … Continue reading
Anne Hathaway Celebrates Rachel Getting Married and Her Oscar Nom by Brad Balfour There is loads of irony that 26-year-old actress Anne Hathaway was featured in two vastly different films about weddings this season. Bride Wars was a noxious bit of inconsequential fluff (directed by once credible Gary Winick) loaded with cringe-inducing clichés about the madness … Continue reading
Steph Green Living on the Short Circuit by Jay S. Jacobs It’s not like film directors just appear working feature films with no prior experience. Most great directors have gotten their feet wet working on short films: including Steven Spielberg (“Amblin’”), Martin Scorsese (“What’s A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?”), … Continue reading
Mickey Rourke A Requiem for Rourke — Battling His Way Back To Stardom and the Oscar Nom Through The Wrestler by Brad Balfour You got to hand it to roughhouse actor Mickey Rourke. When he makes a comeback, he makes a helluva comeback. For thirteen years, the now-aging actor — once the superstar who had made 9 … Continue reading
Melissa Leo Down by the Frozen River by Brad Balfour There was early Oscar® buzz about the work veteran actress Melissa Leo has done in Frozen River ever since the feature won last year’s Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for director Courtney Hunt (her feature film debut). Now, of course, her first nomination for Best Actress … Continue reading
Tea Leoni and Kyle MacLachlan Have Fun Playing in Manure by Brad Balfour Don’t do it. Don’t let publicists put actress Tea Leoni together with any of her co-stars, because it prompts such an assault on serious answers. But there she was, with her co-star Kyle MacLachlan gabbing about their comic turns in the Polish … Continue reading
Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer With Valkyrie, They Illustrate That Slide Down the Slippery Slope to Fascism by Brad Balfour Though he totally missed the Oscar loop, you have to give some credit to media magnet Tom Cruise for releasing his World War II drama, Valkyrie at the end of 2008 despite the surge of … Continue reading
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