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Robert De Niro Buckles Under Pressure and Apologizes for "Racist" Remark
Maybe Bob just didn't have f-words to enhance and protect his reach for blithe, topical irony. His reliance on those and various epithets is the lubricant of his attempts at wit in "Being Flynn." The man's career is a demonstration that the articulation of feelings had better not rely on words.— March 21, 2012 8:29 p.m.
Casablanca Returns to Big Screens for 70th Anniversary
Might as well also add Carmen Miranda and her tutti-frutti hat. The Stooges can pass it around as Little Richard sings "Tutti Frutti."— March 16, 2012 3:47 p.m.
Casablanca Returns to Big Screens for 70th Anniversary
It is a cultural tragedy that the Stooges were never let loose in a full scale "Casablanca" parody. Three members of the movie's cast were clearly ripe, ready and willing to join them: John Qualen as Burger, the little Norwegian supporter of the Free French; Leonid Kinskey as the Russian bartender Sascha; and Richard Ryen as bald, glowering Col. Heinz of the Third Reich. They could have given the boys a run for the funny money. Martha Raye could have dropped in to play Ilse.— March 16, 2012 2:54 p.m.
Coriolanus, Crazy Horse, Friends with Kids, We Need to Talk About Kevin: Movie Reviews
Those must have been mashed or stewed tomatoes. But clearly meant to suggest blood. Anyway, thanks for attending to the nuances. As a famous architect said, God is in the details.— March 8, 2012 5:38 p.m.
Wim, Vigor, and Vitality: An Interview with Wim Wenders, Pt. 1
Fine questions and fine, lavish answers. The insights into 3D are remarkable. I would only add an asterisk: depth was not really missing from Wenders's tools. Thanks to Wenders and Robby Muller, not only are the spaces deeply expressive in "Paris, Texas," but with the courageous cast as a profound "third dimension" (and let us not forget Sam Shepard as writer) the film achieves emotional and even spiritual 3D. Being able to shoot Western spaces as John Ford never did would not have been a major advance. Wenders had already pushed classic iconography to a new level. Obviously, with a dance movie 3D provides a very clear, tangible payoff.— February 24, 2012 5:24 p.m.
Review: Act of Valor
It was an act of some valor for you to review this. These used to be called "service pictures," the crowning definition and deflation of the genre being John Wayne's "The Green Berets," with red-clay Georgia subbing for tropical Vietnam. The campaign name Operation Iraqi Freedom was sadly never changed to Operation Interminable Agony. After the White House had done its worst, so many brave souls gave their best.— February 24, 2012 3:34 p.m.
What Happened? Clive Owen
Ace reflections, Matt. Nice photo gallery, too. Maybe Owen is too subtle for the mass-meat market, not quite refined enough for the art-theater regulars (they're all at home, anyway, glued to 'Downton Abbey'). It isn't all that easy for good British actors to really "cross the pond" into big stardom. Owen seemed set to be a new, slightly more vulnerable Bob Mitchum (Stanley Baker tried for that, 50 years ago, but was too emotionally walled-off for it to work). Might still happen for Clive, if he can get a movie that really merges 'Brighton Rock' and 'Out of the Past.' I could see him pulling off Holly Martins or Harry Lime in a new 'Third Man,' but that movie is unrepeatable. He would have been a better Jason Bourne than Matt Damon is.— February 21, 2012 5:05 p.m.
One Facebook Ban is Lifted, Another Levied
Scott, Sorry if my unloading on Madonna's pathetic, google-eyed movie on the royal idle rich got you flushed by the censors (calling them the Facebook Gestapo will not endear you further, or even Fuhrer). In Madonna's movie the Nazoid sympathies of the Windsors are dismissed as mere "rumor," yet in this photo for over 70 years is public visual evidence that Hitler grasped (to kiss?) Wallis's hand as they prepared to lick his boots. Even when the Duke was put superficially in charge of the Bahamas during WWII, far from Hitler, the British secret service kept very close watch on W and E. Sadly, he was not made ambassador to Argentina after the war. By the way, Hitler's famous mountain retreat was not "the Berchtesgaden," like Ye Olde Biergarten in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, or Der Surf und Turf. But then, you were never a welcome guest there, as I often was. Sieg kitsch, D— February 16, 2012 4:56 p.m.
Pina, W./E., and Safe House Reviews
Monaghan, You saw "Pina"and then remembered a good stunt. No, a terrific dance movie was not for you, only for those "oldsters" (and youngsters) who relish how an artist's inventive 3-D salute to another artist can combine two arts (dance, film) beautifully. As to the AMC La Jolla 12, can alcohol keep that pleasant plex afloat? My feeling is that booze and movies, like booze and driving, don't really mix. However, I admit that a bottle of Scotch, plus a Green Goddess salad and slab of meat, would enhance any viewing of "The Oscar."— February 16, 2012 4:24 p.m.
Leonardo Live Slated for San Diego Movie Screens
The show and its film sound fascinating, and thanks for calling attention to the ongoing cultural competition of the two Leonardos. Alas, Mr. DiCaprio is bound to move ahead again in mass appeal as 'Titanic' comes back to theaters in 3-D. Still, I doubt that his doodles rival Da Vinci's. For refined beauty you just can't beat, even with 3-D, his 'Lady With an Ermine' in Krakow, or the great drawing 'Virgin and Child with St. Anne and John the Baptist' in the National Gallery, London. Viva Da Vinci!— February 10, 2012 2:01 p.m.