Another Happening from Director M. Night Shyamalan by Brad Balfour Like his work or not, director M. Night Shyamalan employs big ideas and challenges himself and his viewers with unusual and dark storylines with the framework to express them. After his incredible success with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, he was hailed as a youthful wunderkind with a … Continue reading
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman Are No Longer Strangers by Brad Balfour Sometimes there are interview opportunities and then there are interview opportunities. Consider the circumstances that came up with covering this sort-of horror/suspense film, The Strangers. A great trailer suggests a film that ratchets up the personal anxiety through the assault of three strangers … Continue reading
Ben Barnes Is Transformed in Narnia’s Prince Caspian by Brad Balfour After meeting 26-year-old actor English actor Ben Barnes, with his easy manner and disaffected attitude towards his good looks, it comes as no surprise that he was tapped to star as the lead of a film like The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Maybe he … Continue reading
Director Stephen Walker Celebrates Being Young@Heart by Brad Balfour Of the many surprises at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, one of the most charming was a little doc called Young@Heart. Filmed over a several months’ rehearsal period leading up to a concert tour, veteran British director Stephen Walker and his wife, producer Sally George, tell the … Continue reading
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Team Up to Make a Baby Mama by Brad Balfour Tina Fey and Amy Poehler — Saturday Night Live veterans and sketch comedy masters — are poised to challenge producer/writer/director Judd Apatow’s hegemony on R-rated comedy. They are the stars of Baby Mama, the opening night film for the 2008 Annual Tribeca Film Festival … Continue reading
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
ALEX GIBNEY RIDES THE TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE by Brad Balfour Having previously made The Trials of Henry Kissinger and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, documentary director Alex Gibney has become an expert on people corrupted by and abusing their power. A prize–winner at last spring’s Tribeca Film Festival, few films resonate like Taxi to the … 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
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