Friday, January 27, 2012
Stay Away From The Problems With The Best Portable Generator
Shadow Dancer: Sundance Film Review
Clive Owen and Andrea Riseborough
The Bottom Line
James Marsh?s gripping thriller set in Northern Ireland demands patience and concentration of its audience, but the impeccably crafted film is well worth the effort.
Venue
Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)
Cast
Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Aiden Gillen, Domhnall Gleeson, Gillian Anderson
Director
James Marsh
PARK CITY ? While best known for the documentaries Man on Wire and Project Nim (one a 2009 Oscar winner, the other criminally overlooked in this year?s nominations), director James Marsh spreads himself between non-fiction and narrative features. He?s working with riveting assurance in the latter field in Shadow Dancer, a slow-burning, intricately plotted thriller set during a tense transitional period in Northern Ireland.
A television correspondent in that country in the 1990s, Tom Bradby adapted the screenplay from his novel. He brings a cool-headed understanding of the political canvas and a highly disciplined approach to the drama, both of which mesh well with Marsh?s restrained style.
PHOTOS: The Scene at Sundance 2012
Both the director and writer also show a healthy disdain for pandering exposition, instead shaping atmosphere in early scenes with a minimum of dialogue. That may make the grim film a little challenging for wide commercial exposure, but discerning audiences will find that its carefully crafted suspense exerts an ever-tightening grip.
A terse prologue set in residential 1970s Belfast shows young Collette McVeigh (Maria Laird) too immersed in the girly pastime of stringing beads to go to the shop for cigarettes as her father requested. Instead she sends her little brother, who gets caught in crossfire and killed. Stunned guilt is written all over the girl?s face as she stares mutely at her anguished family gathered around the body, her brightly colored new necklace seeming to reinforce her culpability.
PHOTOS: Sundance 2012's Hottest Films
Years of self-recrimination are etched into the features of the older Collette (Andrea Riseborough), who reappears 20 years later, a single mother and active IRA member in a family of hardline radicals. Arrested in London during an aborted 1993 subway bombing attempt, she is presented with a dossier by MI5 officer Mac (Clive Owen), whose detailed knowledge of her life reveals years of close surveillance. He also shows her photographic evidence indicating that her brother may have been killed not by British gunfire but an IRA bullet.
At first, Collette is defiantly uncooperative, demanding a lawyer. But when Mac presents her with the alternative of 25 years in prison hundreds of miles from her son, she reluctantly agrees to return home and act as a mole, reporting on the activities of her brothers, Gerry (Aiden Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson).
While Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and, to a lesser extent, David Hare?s recent telemovie, Page Eight, indicate a possible resurgence of the British espionage thriller, this is something more intimately combustible. Having the spying take place within a deeply scarred family creates an unsettling dynamic of torn loyalties and betrayals both personal and political, with the opposing forces of self-preservation and sibling love ratcheting up the tension.
There?s also the traumatic effect on her young son (Cathal Maguire) of Colette?s unexplained absences and of watching his mother dragged from her bed by police for questioning after she fails to show for her first meeting with Mac. These clandestine encounters are atmospherically scheduled on a lonely pier, invariably lashed by rain. Even getting away from the house without triggering the suspicions of her watchful mother (Br�d Brennan) becomes nerve-wracking for Collette.
Outside the immediate family unit, other threats are closing in and friction is growing between the moderate and extremist Republican factions. When a planned IRA hit on a British Security Forces detective is botched and the shooter killed, IRA operatives conclude that the squealer must be someone close to the McVeigh brothers. A scene in which Collette is grilled by an IRA heavy (David Wilmot) while a thug lays plastic sheeting on the floor of the next room to prepare for her possible dispatch is bone-chilling.
At MI5, different tensions mount. Through the circumspect behavior of his supervisor (an icy Gillian Anderson), Mac begins to realize there are other agendas in play and that his informant may be a pawn in a larger operation. Denied access to that intelligence and increasingly concerned for Collette?s safety, he conducts his own investigation, uncovering shocking information that adds new layers of complexity to the secrecy within the McVeigh household.
The story in itself is first-rate. However, it?s the very measured handling that makes it distinctive. At one or two points, things appear to be moving in a more predictable direction, notably with a step toward possible romance between Collette and Mac. But Bradby?s unerringly intelligent script never makes a move that?s not vital to the narrative fabric.
Planting spoken and visual clues with methodical patience, Marsh eschews flashy suspense-building tricks. He works with cinematographer Rob Hardy to give the film a somber look, using low light, unsettling angles and washed-out colors that make the red coat Collette wears to her meetings with Mac pop like a bloodstain. Dickon Hinchliffe?s moody score and Jinx Godfrey?s unhurried editing also go hand in hand with the overall scheme to coax intensity out of deliberately subdued drama.
The same goes for the compelling performances, which are contained and for the most part unemotional, in keeping with the story?s emphasis on what?s hidden.
Owen is at his best in these coolly intelligent man-of-integrity roles, and the shades of ambiguity that creep into Mac?s businesslike rapport with Collette give their scenes an intriguing edge. Riseborough?s work is exacting in its focus. Her face appears hardened by bitter experience and painful choices, or clenched in fear, but there?s always more going on behind her eyes. In the key family roles, Gillen, Gleeson and Brennan all convey a lot with intentionally underwritten characters.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)
Production companies: Unanimous Entertainment, Element Pictures, Wild Bunch Production, in association with LipSync Productions
Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Aidan Gillen, Domhnall Gleeson, Gillian Anderson, Br�d Brennan, David Wilmot, Stuart Graham, Martin McCann
Director: James Marsh
Screenwriter: Tom Bradby, based on his novel
Producers: Chris Coen, Andrew Lowe, Ed Guiney
Executive producers: Joe Oppenheimer, Brahim Chioua, Norman Merry, Vincent Maraval, Tom Bradby, Rita Dagher
Director of photography: Rob Hardy
Production designer: Jon Henson
Music: Dickon Hinchliffe
Costume designer: Lorna Marie Mugan
Editor: Jinx Godfrey
Sales: CAA, Wild Bunch
No rating, 102�minutes
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Monty Python Reunion: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin And Terry Jones Join 'Absolutely Anything'
And now for something completely different: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones -- better known as members of Monty Python's Flying Circus -- will reunite for the science-fiction comedy "Absolutely Anything."
Per TheWrap, Eric Idle, the other surviving member of the crew, may join the project as well. But before you go thinking this is an official Monty Python get-together, heed Jones's words.
?It?s not a Python film,? he said. ?It?s a different thing. It?s not really that we?re all getting back together.?
To be fair, they sort of are: Jones is set to direct, with Cleese, Palin and Gilliam "playing aliens and possibly several other additional roles, in true Python tradition."
Producer Mike Medavoy told TheWrap that Robin Williams will join the cast as well. The film will have a budget of $15-20 million and being shooting in England this summer.
No word yet if the Killer Rabbit will also make an appearance.
[via TheWrap]
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?Invincible? Vol 1 & 2 ?Ink Hero? (VIDEO REVIEW)
20324No Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thinkhero.com%2F2012%2F01%2F26%2Finvincible-vol-1-2-ink-hero-video-review%2F%27Invincible%27+Vol+1+%26+2+%22Ink+Hero%22+%28VIDEO+REVIEW%292012-01-26+20%3A23%3A29Dennishttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thinkhero.com%2F%3Fp%3D20324 to ??Invincible? Vol 1 & 2 ?Ink Hero? (VIDEO REVIEW)?
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present: Sundance Film Review
The Bottom Line
Challenging art is made accessible in doc about performance-art sensation Marina Abramovi?.
Venue
Sundance Film Festival, U.S. Documentary Competition
Director-Director of photography
Matthew Akers
PARK CITY ? A personally revealing look at an artist most famous for maintaining stone-faced silence for three months, Marina Abramovi?: The Artist Is Present makes performance art accessible (if not totally comprehensible) to newbies and depicts a figure many viewers will want to know better. The HBO-presented doc has a broad enough appeal (and copious nudity never hurts) that an arthouse run might be warranted.
PHOTOS: 10 of Sundance 2012's Films With Buzz
Abramovi?, a Belgrade-born New Yorker who has been at the forefront of performance art since the 70s, made her name with works that tested her body's limits and even invited others to harm her. If she was never a household name, a 2010 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art made her a sensation in New York: By the show's end, people were lining up overnight to participate in a performance for which the artist sat motionless, from opening to closing every day, and stared into the eyes of whoever sat across from her.
PHOTOS: The Scene at Sundance Film Festival 2012
One thing The Artist is Present succeeds at is conveying just how hard this performance was: Really doing nothing for hours on end is a physically demanding chore, and the artist's colleagues worry for her health throughout the show's run. Museumgoers, however, become almost freakishly eager for the chance to share in the performance; we watch dozens of faces sit across from her, many moved to tears for reasons viewers can only guess.
Audience members who are skeptical of this phenomenon, deeming it more showbiz than art, may find justification in scenes of the artist doing fashion-like photo shoots and shopping for couture; she clearly has a taste for extravagance and theatricality. At the same time, Matthew Akers' film shows enough of her early career -- in which pain and self-negation often played a part -- to establish the seriousness of her artistic agenda. Notably absent among interviewees, though, are any critics trying to put this work into context, convincing skeptical viewers that what she does is legitimately art.
The film's most accessible thread is the reappearance of Ulay, a German performance artist who for over a decade was Abramovi?'s partner both artistically and romantically. The two artists have been estranged for years when Akers films their reunion, and as we see footage of their work together in the 70s and 80s, we have the sense of a grand lost love.
The work Akers chooses to show here is consistently intriguing, even for casual viewers, and the filmmaker's experience as a cinematographer shows in beautiful photography, particularly in a sequence shot at the artist's home in the Hudson Valley. The Artist is Present may not create a vast new audience for performance art, but it's successful in conveying the earnest enthusiasm that overtook so many New York museumgoers in the spring of 2010.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival, U.S. Documentary Competition
Production Company: Show of Force
Director-Director of photography: Matthew Akers
Producers: Jeff Dupre, Maro Chermayeff
Executive producers: Sheila Nevins, Stanley Buchthal, Maja Hoffmann, David Koh
Music: Nathan Halpern
Editor: Jim Hession
Sales: Submarine
No rating, 105 minutes
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Lea Michele for Candie's: Cute!
First, Britney Spears. Then, Vanessa Hudgens. Now, Lea Michele.
The Glee star just is the latest in a long, cute line of female stars to appear in a Candie's campaign, as examples from her photo shoot - on behalf of the clothing brand, which is featured exclusively at Kohl's - went viral this week.
"Britney Spears is definitely my favorite past Candie's girl," Michele says.
"Her campaign that she shot was gorgeous and she's just such an icon, so when you pair her with the iconic brand of Candie's, it was just, like, amazing."
"It's just really important, I think, for fashion to be affordable because everyone should have the opportunity to wear cute things and be happy and comfortable in what they're wearing. That's definitely how I like to shop and how I like to think about clothes and fashion."
And this is definitely how we like to see the actress. Hot stuff!
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Jay-Z Isn?t Gonna Stop Saying ?Bitch? Bitch!
It?s gonna take a lot more than the birth of his baby girl to get�Jay-Z�to stop saying ?bitch!?
There have been�rumors�floating around that�Beyonce?s baby daddy was inspired by his daughter�Blue Ivy Carter�to stop referring to women as ?bitches? in his songs.
But alas, he plans he still plans on call?n bitches bitches.
Questo�from�The Roots�tweeted a�message�from papa Jay to the world, to clear up any confusion. He wrote:
this just in: @S_C_ [Jay-Z] to me:
?B*aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch!!!!!!!! and tweet that.
Guess that settles that. LOL!
http://perezitos.com
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Matt LeBlanc Says There Are No Plans For A Friends Movie?Not That We Were Expecting One
It?s ok, Matt! We came to terms with the fact that�Friends�is 100% over back in 2004! LOLz!
During a recent interview,�Golden Globe�winner�Joey Tribbiani�Matt LeBlanc�reminded the world that there are NO plans for a movie version of his classic sitcom�Friends:
?There?s no plans.�Friends�was about this finite period in six people?s lives. Your imagination as to what these characters have moved on or done with their lives is going to do more justice to those characters than putting them back in the room together.?
Honestly, we hadn?t given any thought to a�Friends�movie in a looooong time, but we?re sure there are some hardcore fans out there who will be bummed to hear this.
Are U sad to hear that a�Friends�movie�isn?t happening???
[Image via�WENN.]
http://perezhilton.com
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Newt Gingrich on Mitt Romney: He Thinks We're All Stupid!
The Florida Republican primary is less than a week away and the gloves are off.
Having been whomped in South Carolina, Mitt Romney came out firing in Monday night's Florida debate and has kept up the pressure on his GOP rival all week.
New pro-Romney ads are calling Gingrich a liar who's exaggerating loose ties to Ronald Reagan and drops names instead of touting his own policy credentials.
Newt lashed out at Mitt today for questioning his conservative values. Watch:
"This is the man who stood up the other night to question my credentials as a Reaganite? This is the kind of gall they have to think we are so stupid, and we are so timid," Gingrich said at an outdoor campaign event in Orlando, Florida.
Newt has slipped a bit in recent polls since his demonstrative win. Can he shift the momentum back his way when the candidates debate again tonight?
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Lily Collins Drops Out Of 'Evil Dead' Remake
Bad news, "Evil Dead" fans. It seems as though the upcoming reboot has lost the one actress who was actually attached to the project.
Lily Collins has apparently dropped out of the Fede Alvarez-directed flick. The Hollywood Reporter is saying that the "Mirror Mirror" lead opted not to follow through with the upcoming horror film due to "scheduling issues." While there are several other main characters left to be cast, Collins was the only person currently attached to the project.
It wasn't too long ago that Collins first entered discussions for "Evil Dead." Her potential involvement was announced in early January, where it was said that she would play a female version of Bruce Campbell's character in the original flick. That role, Mia, would be the main character in this new take on the horror film franchise.
This new "Evil Dead" is going to take a bit of a different tone than Sam Raimi's original cult classic. A spoiler-filled synopsis was released in early December courtesy of Moviehole. "The redo plays it a lot more serious. These aren?t cartoonish heroes like Bruce Campbell?s Ash was in the original films, these are real folks with real world problems. And by golly are they in for some scary ? not at all amusing s---," the breakdown began.
"Young Adult" scribe Diablo Cody was brought on board the project to offer some script rewrites a few months back. She caught up with MTV News to explain the connection this movie will have with the original.
"It was really important again to the filmmakers that it remain totally grounded in reality and timeless. They weren't trying to make some hip trendy horror movie full of pop culture references. I really hope people don't think that that's what I was hired to do," Cody said. "I came in and worked on characters and relationships, things like that."
"Evil Dead" is due out in theaters on April 12, 2013.
Are you bummed Collins won't be a part of this movie? Who would you like to see play Mia? Tell us in the comments section below or on Twitter!
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Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present: Sundance Film Review
The Bottom Line
Challenging art is made accessible in doc about performance-art sensation Marina Abramovi?.
Venue
Sundance Film Festival, U.S. Documentary Competition
Director-Director of photography
Matthew Akers
PARK CITY ? A personally revealing look at an artist most famous for maintaining stone-faced silence for three months, Marina Abramovi?: The Artist Is Present makes performance art accessible (if not totally comprehensible) to newbies and depicts a figure many viewers will want to know better. The HBO-presented doc has a broad enough appeal (and copious nudity never hurts) that an arthouse run might be warranted.
PHOTOS: 10 of Sundance 2012's Films With Buzz
Abramovi?, a Belgrade-born New Yorker who has been at the forefront of performance art since the 70s, made her name with works that tested her body's limits and even invited others to harm her. If she was never a household name, a 2010 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art made her a sensation in New York: By the show's end, people were lining up overnight to participate in a performance for which the artist sat motionless, from opening to closing every day, and stared into the eyes of whoever sat across from her.
PHOTOS: The Scene at Sundance Film Festival 2012
One thing The Artist is Present succeeds at is conveying just how hard this performance was: Really doing nothing for hours on end is a physically demanding chore, and the artist's colleagues worry for her health throughout the show's run. Museumgoers, however, become almost freakishly eager for the chance to share in the performance; we watch dozens of faces sit across from her, many moved to tears for reasons viewers can only guess.
Audience members who are skeptical of this phenomenon, deeming it more showbiz than art, may find justification in scenes of the artist doing fashion-like photo shoots and shopping for couture; she clearly has a taste for extravagance and theatricality. At the same time, Matthew Akers' film shows enough of her early career -- in which pain and self-negation often played a part -- to establish the seriousness of her artistic agenda. Notably absent among interviewees, though, are any critics trying to put this work into context, convincing skeptical viewers that what she does is legitimately art.
The film's most accessible thread is the reappearance of Ulay, a German performance artist who for over a decade was Abramovi?'s partner both artistically and romantically. The two artists have been estranged for years when Akers films their reunion, and as we see footage of their work together in the 70s and 80s, we have the sense of a grand lost love.
The work Akers chooses to show here is consistently intriguing, even for casual viewers, and the filmmaker's experience as a cinematographer shows in beautiful photography, particularly in a sequence shot at the artist's home in the Hudson Valley. The Artist is Present may not create a vast new audience for performance art, but it's successful in conveying the earnest enthusiasm that overtook so many New York museumgoers in the spring of 2010.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival, U.S. Documentary Competition
Production Company: Show of Force
Director-Director of photography: Matthew Akers
Producers: Jeff Dupre, Maro Chermayeff
Executive producers: Sheila Nevins, Stanley Buchthal, Maja Hoffmann, David Koh
Music: Nathan Halpern
Editor: Jim Hession
Sales: Submarine
No rating, 105 minutes
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George Lucas Talks To Oprah About ?Star Wars? & Directing (VIDEO)
Here are some clips of an interview that Oprah did with George Lucas on his beautiful Skywalker Ranch in Northern California. �Lucas is normally a private person, so it?s nice to see him opening up on camera about Star Wars, Directing and relationships. �What do you think?
-David Griffin (Follow @griffinde on Twitter)
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Segunda Mano: Movie Review
Like it or not, it seems that Kris Aquino has actually become the unofficial face of Philippine horror as throughout the past half decade, she has been cast countless times to be the lead on various horror films. Most of them did gain critical acclaim so she actually has a good track record. As for her latest outing in the horror genre, "Segunda Mano" is certainly the weakest by a mile. Now, it's not all bad mind you as "Segunda Mano" actually dared to mold one genre into another and along the way it was able to create a story more unique and deeper than the usual. It was a tease for sure but just like everyone else's mistake in the horror genre, one thing is sorely missing in "Segunada Mano" - it being scary even for one bit. What's a horror film without the scares? The ensuing result just leaves us dumbfounded until now.
Mabel Domingo (Kris Aquino) owns an antique shop to support her mother. Her mother is still obssessed over her sister Mari who died of drowning twenty years ago on her seventh birthday. Ivan Galvez (Dingdong Dantes) was left by his wife for another man and left him with their daughter. As fate would have it, Ivan and Mabel meet each other and instantly falls in love. As Ivan proposes to Mabel and his daughter starting to accept Mabel as possibly her new mother, strange things start to happen to Mabel. It seems that a ghostly presence is haunting her. Things take a turn for the worse when people close to her and Ivan begin to end up dead one by one.
"Segunda Mano" has a lot of positive things working for it. It just so happened that it falters badly on areas that are obviously key to a horror film and that significantly affects how we felt about it overall. One of those key areas is it being scary. It's ironic that by being daring with its story and its genre-combining decision, the story is forced to deal with a rather friendly ghost. A ghost that "kills" just would not make sense with the overall story arc. Simply put, having a ghost appear from time to time does not make something scary or a horror film. But that shouldn't be an excuse really - we're pretty sure there are other methods to make the film scream-filled than the usual suspenseful music or fake surprises. They should have just made this into a suspense-thriller if they couldn't deal with the horror aspect properly. Beyond the half-ass implementation in the horror side of things, the film had a good story. Definitely better than usual fare but it still ended up rather predictable. It leads the audience to the "twist" midway or a third of the way and at times, like Mabel's sister, things get a little forced, uncomfortable and unbelievable. The acting was spectacular for some specifically Dingdong Dantes and Bangs Garcia. Dingdong was highly-versatile making a believable good boyfriend and an even better psychotic, possessive killer. Bangs on the other hand brought much needed humor and life to a rather dull feel for the film. This is in part due to Kris Aquino being a huge letdown. She played her character without any semblance of emotion and naturality. She just felt dead all throughout the movie. The visual effects were consistent but not the best we have seen.
In summary, "Segunda Mano" wastes all the good it has by forgetting to make it creepy. They should have just forgone with the horror aspect and they could have made a better, bigger, more daring film by concentrating a hundred percent on suspense alone. This is simply a suspense film masked in a veil of a horror film and who would want to watch a fake?
Rating: 2 and a half reels
Why you should watch it:
- the genre-combining story was pretty good though predictable
- Dingdong and Bangs performed very well in this movie
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- Kris Aquino is just a huge failure overall
- another "horror" film that forgets to be scary. What's happening to our local horror films?
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Wit: Theater Review
Joan Marcus
Cynthia Nixon
The Bottom Line
Cynthia Nixon?s unsparing performance makes Margaret Edson?s celebrated play a powerfully moving experience.�
Venue
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York (runs through March 11)
Cast
Cynthia Nixon, Suzanne Bertish, Michael Countryman, Greg Keller, Carra Patterson
Playwright
Margaret Edson
Director
Lynne Meadow
NEW YORK ? A deserving winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Margaret Edson?s Wit is a work of delicately calibrated opposites. It pits detached clinical observation on one side against raw human emotion on the other, while somehow making dry humor and wrenching pathos travel hand in hand. In Lynne Meadow?s unerringly focused staging for Manhattan Theatre Club, and above all in Cynthia Nixon?s shattering performance, that balancing act is rendered with piercing accuracy.
Inspired by Edson?s experience working in a hospital oncology unit, Wit was an awards magnet in its original Off Broadway incarnation for Kathleen Chalfant in the demanding lead role of Dr. Vivian Bearing, a distinguished academic being treated for stage IV metastatic ovarian cancer. Emma Thompson played the role in 2001 in an HBO film directed by Mike Nichols. This revival marks the play?s first appearance on Broadway, returning Nixon to the same stage where she gave a Tony-winning performance in Rabbit Hole.
Nixon?s brittle intensity and cool intelligence make her an ideal match for the uncompromising Vivian, known for the rigorousness of her classes in 17th Century poetry, particularly the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Looking like skin and bones in a hospital gown, her hairless head covered with a baseball cap, she addresses the audience throughout the ordeal of receiving eight months of chemotherapy at a university research hospital. But she doesn?t ask for empathy, the very notion of which seems foreign to her.
Sharing the basics of her condition in the play?s opening monologue, Vivian observes with mild disapproval that ?irony will be deployed.? She appears put out that something so frivolous will factor in the telling of her story.
From the outset, it?s clear that words are of enormous importance to this woman, and she chooses them with care. Receiving the prognosis from her doctor, Harvey Kelekian (Michael Countryman), she latches onto key terms used to describe her disease, such as ?insidious? or ?pernicious,? admiring the thoroughness and exactitude of medical discourse.
Informing us that stages II and III of her cancer went undetected, Vivian adds that there is no stage V. ?I think I die in the end,? she says in one of many instances where she discusses the workings of the play with amused candor. Underlining that she is looking in on the drama from outside, she adds, ?They?ve given me less than two hours.?
What happens during that time ? actually a terse hour and 40 minutes ? is far more complex than the regrets, self-recrimination, redemption and release that often characterize terminal-illness dramas. Those elements do figure in the story to a degree. But what makes it so affecting is the sorrow of Vivian?s growing awareness that ultimately, neither science nor her formidable intellect can help her.
As someone who has devoted her life to the study of metaphysical poetry, she has done her share of contemplating mortality. In the first of two exquisite scenes with her academic mentor, Dr. E.M. Ashford (Suzanne Bertish), Vivian remembers an exchange from her student days. The imperious professor scorns the excessive punctuation used in Donne?s ?Death be not proud? in an inferior edition, pointing out the beauty of a simple comma separating life from death everlasting.
Vivian notes with morbid fascination the process by which a lifelong scholar becomes the object of someone else?s passionate research. Dr. Kelekian?s internist, Jason (Greg Keller), is in many ways her perfect counterpart. One of her former students, he credits her classes with sharpening his analytical skills, something he nurtures far more assiduously than his bedside manner.
Jason?s professional detachment is countered by the compassion of Susie (Carra Patterson), the nurse who walks Vivian through her resuscitation options. Susie?s humanity places her at odds with the researchers? desire to keep Vivian alive for as long as her tortured body will continue yielding knowledge.
Mirroring the economy and laser-like precision of Edson?s writing, Nixon conveys the realizations of Vivian?s self-examination with the subtlest of insights. The play avoids grand epiphanies. Instead, an incremental understanding illuminates Vivian as the scholar considers her life and work, both on their own terms and weighed comparatively against the methods of her medics.
Considering how little is revealed about Vivian?s nonprofessional life (she?s 47, unmarried, both parents deceased), the character?s multidimensionality is remarkable. Nixon makes Edson?s intoxication with words contagious. Parsing language is what she lives for ? whether it?s Donne, or Beatrix Potter (in a lovely interlude in which Countryman doubles as five-year-old Vivian?s father) or grim medical jargon.
Without pushing for them, Nixon finds every laugh in Vivian?s spiky commentary and droll self-mockery. And when she finally concedes to the uses of kindness ? a quality she has never held in high regard ? the moment is devastating. Her stoicism for so much of the play is so persuasive that when she surrenders and howls in pain we feel her agony. Likewise her joy when Susie inadvertently causes her to erupt in a stream of laughter that rings with gratitude.
There?s strong, understated work from the supporting cast, particularly Patterson, Countryman and Keller, who makes the brilliant Jason less cold than obsessive. Bertish merits special praise. Dr. Ashford is the one visitor who comes to the hospital to see Vivian, and the unsentimental tenderness of that scene is heartbreaking.
Meadow?s tight direction is attuned as much to what?s unsaid as to what?s being spoken. Her fluid scene-to-scene and past-to-present transitions are aided immeasurably by Santo Loquasto?s unfussy set and Peter Kaczorowski's lighting, conjuring sterile hospital environments out of simple structures against a black void. In every detail, the production is crisp and precise yet emotionally penetrating, just as the play and its central character demand. It?s an uncommonly stirring piece of theater.
Venue: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York (runs through March 11)
Cast: Cynthia Nixon, Suzanne Bertish, Michael Countryman, Greg Keller, Carra Patterson, Pun Bandhu, Jessica Dickey, Chik� Johnson, Zachary Spicer
Director: Lynne Meadow
Playwright: Margaret Edson
Set designer: Santo Loquasto
Costume designer: Jennifer von Mayrhauser
Lighting designer: Peter Kaczorowski
Sound designer: Jill BC Du Boff
Presented by Manhattan Theatre Club
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Carrie Underwood Readies Fans for New Music [Video]
With season 11 of American Idol underway, we have exciting news from the most successful show champion in history:
Carrie Underwood will soon release a new album and is preparing fans for that event via the following video tease. It hypes the release of ?Good Girl," the first single off the CD, which will be available on February 23.
"I?m so excited - I love this song,? Carrie says below. ?I think it?s going to blow you guys away and... I cannot wait for you to hear it!?
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Lea Michele for Candie's: Cute!
First, Britney Spears. Then, Vanessa Hudgens. Now, Lea Michele.
The Glee star just is the latest in a long, cute line of female stars to appear in a Candie's campaign, as examples from her photo shoot - on behalf of the clothing brand, which is featured exclusively at Kohl's - went viral this week.
"Britney Spears is definitely my favorite past Candie's girl," Michele says.
"Her campaign that she shot was gorgeous and she's just such an icon, so when you pair her with the iconic brand of Candie's, it was just, like, amazing."
"It's just really important, I think, for fashion to be affordable because everyone should have the opportunity to wear cute things and be happy and comfortable in what they're wearing. That's definitely how I like to shop and how I like to think about clothes and fashion."
And this is definitely how we like to see the actress. Hot stuff!
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Anna Tooze Fine Art
And she just recently got her website and Etsy shop set up for her artwork!
Okay, now go visit her websites!!!
Oh, and one more thing...
How would you guys like Anna to sponsor a giveaway for me, here on God's Daughter??� Would you be interested in having one of her art pieces are your very own??
Comment and let me know ;)
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A Review of Brandon Heath's - Don't Get Comfortable
This is a song that I can picture Chris Tomlin singing.� Such a beautiful worship song?could totally be used at a church?s worship service.
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George Lucas Talks To Oprah About ?Star Wars? & Directing (VIDEO)
Here are some clips of an interview that Oprah did with George Lucas on his beautiful Skywalker Ranch in Northern California. �Lucas is normally a private person, so it?s nice to see him opening up on camera about Star Wars, Directing and relationships. �What do you think?
-David Griffin (Follow @griffinde on Twitter)
Share and Enjoy:
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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: Movie Review
"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" promises to be bigger, better and more devious than its first salvo two years ago. With an antagonist that pits Sherlock Holmes' intellect equally, who could doubt that fact. But here's the thing, while the sequel does a lot more than its predecessor when it comes to being stylish and fun, it forgets what made the first one so good even perfect - and that is bringing depth and interest on how Holmes will connect the dots by the end of the film. Mind you though, the film is still a romp to watch even adding better segments than the first (and funnier ones at that) but there are also moments where everything feels forced, obvious and lacks that "wow" factor. The potential that the character of Professor Moriarty could have and should have brought in feels wasted.
All around the globe, powerful and rich men are mysteriously killed one by one. For everyone else, the deaths have no connection with each other but for Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.), he believes that a single man is behind all the killings - Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). Not only is Professor Moriarty Sherlock Holmes? intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective of Scotland Yard. When the two meet personally, they start a game, a deadly game that will not only involve Holmes' family and friends but also at stake is the risk of starting a world war.
Almost everything in "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" feels like a roid up version of the first one (emphasis on the almost because one thing was clearly left out). The action sequences are more epic in scale, the lines are wittier and funnier, the stand-offs between Holmes and Moriarty a definite favorite of ours and the "omniscient"-like analysis of Holmes when it comes to fighting baddies are more elaborate and complicated. In fact, if we can judge this film on visuals alone, the film would set the bar very high. Guy Ritchie did a great job on the cinematography once again by building up on what he started on the first film. Everything looks and feels so familiar but just simply bigger. As for the actors, every one did as expected meaning pretty damn good. Although we still had a hard time understanding Holmes' English. Where the film seems to falter is the plot and how everything eventually is revealed. It's not a bad story but it feels less intellectual than the first. Considering how Moriarty is supposedly as devious and smart as Holmes, we just felt a disconnection. Overall, "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" is a pretty good try at a sequel. It's almost better than the first one but a simpler plot fails to impress us.
Rating: 4 and a half reels
Why you should watch it:
- Guy Ritchie amps up the visuals and cinematography. This films is a beauty.
- the acting was almost too perfect again, even better than the first
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the simpler plot fails to impress us
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Nicolas Cage's Latest Nicolas Cage Film Gets New Title, Poster, Trailer
Back in September, the trailer for Justice revealed to us a world in which Nicolas Cage accidentally becomes embroiled in some sort of Guy Pearce-managed vigilante business scheme: someone will murder an unpunished criminal who wronged you (you being Nic Cage), but in a surprise exchange, you will later be called upon to return the favor and murder someone else's unpunished criminal. The lesson? Vengeful murder has a cost, and it turns out that cost is vengeful murder, Nicolas Cage.
Well, Justice now has a new name: Seeking Justice, a title the film had already been going by before being renamed Justice and after being called The Hungry Rabbit Jumps. Why they won't just tuck in with the more descriptive Murder it Foward, Starring Nicolas Cage is beyond me, but whatever. In lieu of the change and the imminent March release, here's the film's new poster and trailer.
Note: despite the poster and trailer's failure to highlight this point, to the best of my knowledge, Nicolas Cage will eventually appear in a Mardi Gras mask in this film. No, I do not know why, and I do not care.
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Girl to Boy
Girl: Will you pick me up if I ever fell down?
Boy: No.�
Girl: Would you wipe away the tears when I?m sad?
Boy: Never.
�Girl: Will you still love me when I look my worst?
Boy: Nope.
�
---
Sorry, readers...just having one of my moments! ;)
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This Certainly Is a Michel Gondry Commercial
If the childlike magic of Michel Gondry's sweded hand-crafted Taxi Driver remake has worn off, leaving your whimsy levels far too low to effectively piece together logical thought balloons of cotton batting, here's a new offering to once again...
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'Rio' (The CGI Thing? With the Birds?) Getting World Cup-Timed Sequel
The voices of Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway will once again be returning to the CGI beaks that earned over $484 million worldwide. In other words, there's going to be another Rio movie, and in an effort to once again appeal broadly to international markets--over 70% of the massive gross came from non-domestic sales--this time it's going to align itself with f�tbol instead of the popular American sport of sitting around playing Angry Birds.
As Rio song contributor S�rgio Mendes told Hitfix:
Mendes said "Rio" director Carlos Saldanha may want to tie the sequel to the 2014 World Cup, which will take place in Brazil.
"I think the plan is for the movie to come three or four months before the World Cup," Mendes said Tuesday afternoon."Fox has been talking about (it) and it looks like it's going to happen," he continued. "We're going to have a meeting I think next week and [director Carlos Saldanha] is coming to town to tell us the story, and it looks like it's a go."
Now that Blu and Jewel, the last of the blue macaws, are together, I guess we'll at last get to the business of watching them repopulate their species. About time, too, because I was just thinking how I don't know what birds fucking looks like, and I was going to give in to YouTube if 20th Century Fox wasn't going to take care of it in 3D.
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Not Humanly Possible, Is It?
Pat Farmer (Photo: Pole to Pole Run)
Close your eyes. Imagine what it would feel like to run a marathon.� Now imagine that you?ve run not just one marathon, but two marathons in a single day. Seems crazy. Now imagine you?ve run two marathons in a day, every day, for 10 months straight without a day off!
Meet Pat Farmer.� He?s an ultramarathoner from Australia who is in the process of running from the North Pole to the South Pole. He covers 50 miles a day, except when he is using snow shoes near the poles. He only manages 16 miles a day in snow shoes.
Unfortunately, Farmer isn?t as good at attracting attention as he is at running.� He is doing the run to raise money for the International Red Cross. His fundraising goal before he started was $100 million, he?s almost done with the adventure and only $100,000 has been donated.
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Beasts of the Southern Wild: Sundance Film Review
The Bottom Line
An exceptional American independent feature that deserves the best efforts to tap audiences that would surely embrace it.
Venue
Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director
Benh Zeitlin
Cast
Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry
One of the most striking films ever to debut at the Sundance Film Festival, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a poetic evocation of an endangered way of life and a surging paean to human resilience and self-reliance. Shot along the southernmost fringes of Louisiana, cast with non-actors and absolutely teeming with creativity in every aspect of its being, Benh Zeitlin?s directorial debut could serve as a poster child for everything American independent cinema aspires to be but so seldom is. A handcrafted look at the struggles of some of the poorest people in the United States is no prescription for commercial success, but the presence of a dynamite little girl at the center of things could, along with critical praise and enlightened handling, push this most unlikely but entirely elating drama into a successful specialized theatrical release.
The first few minutes alone establish Zeitlin as some kind of heir to Terrence Malick in the way he makes nature register onscreen. The images of thick green flora and fauna, the wetness, the wildlife that is always ?feedin? and squirtin,? ? in the words of young heroine, the proximity of water and land and sense of the area?s precariousness, stuck out on its own away from the mainland but within sight of a hulking industrial area, all back up six-year-old Hushpuppy?s contention that she and her dad live in ?the prettiest place on Earth.?
PHOTOS: Sundance 2012's Hottest Films
At the same time, the area, called The Bathtub, is also grimly depressing. Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) and her father Wink (Dwight Henry) live in filthy, jerryrigged quarters propped up on precarious stilts and Wink?s boat consists of the rear end of a rusty pickup truck set atop oil barrels. The locals, who run the racial gamut, love to party and dance and are always drinking. But they possess the fierce pride of outcasts, holdouts and mavericks, determined to survive as they always have in a place where nature is partial to playing its whimsical games.
The tough-minded local schoolteacher instructs the kids about how they?re all simply meat, just like all the other creatures that surround them, and while Hushpuppy firmly believes that everything in life is interconnected, she?s warned by the teacher that, ?Any day now the fabric of the universe is coming unraveled.? While this sort of statement might suggest an imminent big ecological lesson, the forecast seems entirely organic to a place that was so recently ripped apart by Katrina and where outlying areas are diminishing in size at an astonishing rate.
PHOTOS: The Scene at Sundance 2012
More importantly, the characters here are not intellectuals, scientists or politicians. To the contrary, they live more in accord with the ways of the animal world, a notion fostered not only by the constant scenes of fish, crabs, birds and even alligator being harvested, cooked and consumed but by the occasional sight of a few animals that resemble giant wild boars and are called aurochs thawing out from prehistoric ice and eventually merging with the world of The Bathtub. Major CGI-reliant scenes are not what one expects in a defiantly independent film like this, but they are very nicely rendered and are all of a piece with what surrounds them.
At home, life is not so harmonious. Having been told that her mother just ?swam away,? Hushpuppy has to contend with a father who, when not off hunting or fishing, is often drunk, angry and not above striking her. But he?s all she?s got and he does teach her how to be tough in the face of horrific adversities. It?s part of the wonder of Wallis?s amazing performance that her tenacity and fortitude seem absolutely real, not posed or artificially induced. Like Wallis, who was selected from among a reported 4000 applicants for the role, Henry had never acted before and registers powerfully as both a caring and quite scary character.
Things go from bad to worse after a big storm and the subsequent dynamiting of a levee by Wink, his daughter and some cronies, upon which The Bathtub is declared a mandatory evacuation area.� An inadvertent visit by Hushpuppy to a ?Floating Catfish Shack? filled with friendly prostitutes possesses a magical fantasy element that is as entrancing as it is entirely unexpected.
Undetectably based on a play, by co-scenarist Lucy Alibar, Beasts unequivocally casts a spell, one that emanates from the strange world it inhabits and evokes , as well as from the extraordinarily sensitive and expressive way Zeitlin and his colleagues have rendered it.� The director, who made a short film called Glory At Sea in 2006, assembled a sort of collective of artisans to collaborate on this feature, and what has come of it, in the way the exquisite images, fleet cutting,� exotic music, vivid naturescapes, native people and local language merge so seamlessly, is a movie that pulsates with the stuff of life. It?s very much an art piece, to be sure, but it feels like a genuine one that, while meditated, speaks fluently and truly for the place, people and culture it so indelibly depicts.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Production: Cinereach, Court 13
Cast: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Screenwriters: Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin, based on Alibar?s play ?Juicy and Delicious?
Producers: Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Josh Penn
Executive producers: Phillipp Engelhorn, Paul Mezey, Michael Raisler
Director of photography: Ben Richardson
Production designer: Alex DiGerlando
Editors: Crockett Doob, Affonso Goncalves
Music: Dan Romer, Benh Zeitlin
92 minutes
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