Just over 4 years ago I wrote an article here on The Movie Blog stating that actors Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were, at the time, overrated actors and did not deserve to be mentioned in any conversation about the best actors working today. You can imagine the stir that caused. I was called crazy, insane, stupid… and that I had no taste or knew anything about film. Keep in mind that I was NOT saying their careers were overrated. It’s impossible to overrate the careers of these two giants… careers that my never be matched in our lifetimes. No, my point was that where the two of them are RIGHT NOW as actors was overrated.

Many people still believe that because of past brilliance, that means they’re every bit as brilliant and talented today. My point was that this is not true. The sad reality is that neither Robert De Niro or Al Pacino have the chops, wisdom, passion or drive that it takes to be one of the best actors on the planet any longer. Those days are gone and the two are sadly now just hollow shells of what they used to be.

10 years ago, could you have ever imagined the possibility that Robert De Niro would make a film and NO ONE wanted to pick it up? Well, that’s what just happened at Sundance this year. De Niro’s film “What Just Happened?” played at Sundance, and no studio or distributor even gave the movie a sniff. Who could have ever imagined that? Well… today it’s not surprising in the least.

Even Francis Ford Coppola came out last year and bashed the two titans of the acting world. The hard reality is this, aside from 1 brilliant performance by Pacino in the small film “The Merchant of Venice” a couple of years ago, the two of them have done basically nothing but crap, and turned in crap performances in the last 12-13 years:

- City by the Sea (De Niro)
- Gigli (Pacino)
- Showtime (De Niro)De Niro
- The Recruit (Pacino)
- Analyze That (De Niro)
- Sim0ne (Oh gag) (Pacino)
- The Good Shepherd (De Niro)
- Two for the Money (Pacino)
- The Score (De Niro)
- 15 Minutes (gag gag gag) (De Niro)
- 88 Minutes (That’s 73 minutes more that Robert and one of the worst films ever) (Pacino)
- Hide and Seek (De Niro)
- Meet the Fockers (De Niro)

You may not think all those movies are crap… you might even have the opinion that a couple of them are pretty good, but there’s no denying that the days of The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, Raging Bull et. et. et. are miles ahead of any of the movies listed above.

Now, others are starting to point out the sad state of the careers of these two, possibly greatest of all time, actors. The other day the LA Times ran an article titled: “Pacino and De Niro: How the mighty have fallen“. Here are some of the excerpts from that article:

The two icons of ’70s New Hollywood, heroes to a generation of young actors and filmmakers, have become parodies of themselves, making payday movies and turning in performances that are hollow echoes of the electrically charged work they did in such films as “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver.”

Not every aging actor in Hollywood has to embarrass himself. While Pacino and De Niro grab the dough, working for hacks and nonentities, Nicholson, with rare exception, has picked his spots, doing movies with Martin Scorsese, Alexander Payne and Sean Penn. Clint Eastwood, who’s even older than Nicholson, has remained an iconic figure by working with the best director of all — himself.

Here’s the sad part… as bad as things are right now, they’re about to get a whole lot worse. “Righteous Kill” is on the way.

The news of Righteous Kill was greeted with great excitement from the movie fan community. Finally, a film with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together at last (they really only had 1 scene together in Heat and were never on screen together in Godfather 2)! Even I, who had lost most of my faith in the two, was pumped up about it. But that excitement quickly got a reality check about where these two actors are at when it was announced they added 50 Cent to the movie as well. A collective “What The Hell?!?!” could be heard around the websphere.

Oh, and the same director of 88 Minutes (which has a rating of 06% on Rotten Tomatoes and 17% on Metacritic), Jon Avnet, is the director of Righteous Kill… so any hope we may have been vainly grasping onto for this movie has officially been flushed down the toilet.

Yes, times have changed. There was a time when anything with either of these two legends in it would instantly get people’s attention… now it feels like their presence in a movie is actually a negative and causes some people to LOSE interest. Never thought this day would come.

So what are we saying? Are we claiming De Niro and Pacino are completely washed up and incapable of ever doing anything of value again? Not really… I think The Merchant of Venice showed us that Pacino can still pull out a great performance once in a while… but for the most part the magic seems to be gone, and what I said 4 years ago (that neither one of these guys deserves to be mentioned in any discussion about the best actors working today) is even more true today. Such a shame.

[Source : The Movie Blog]

Action films are one of my favorite genres. They aim to deliver some of the best reasons to go to the movies: Escapism and excitement (if they’re done well that is). Unlike say… Romantic Comedies (which are basically all the same), Action films can be quite diverse and unique from each other (some are cookie cutter for sure though), except for in one major area: The vast majority of action films (even more than other genres) usually have a male lead.

Many people insist that an action movie with a female lead just can not work, and you can at least see where they’re coming from. They’ll be quick to point out attempts like:

Catwoman
My dear sweet heavenly tender bits… how terrible was this movie? It wasn’t just bad, it was legendarily bad. So bad that I have it on my top 10 worst films of all time list. It takes a special movie to instantly kill any momentum an actor’s career had coming fresh off an Oscar win…. and Catwoman was that kind of special!

Aeon Flux
Yet another film with an Oscar winning actress that nearly ignites involuntary bowl movements. While not as hopelessly bad as Catwoman, I don’t recall being able to say 1 good thing about this mess of a movie.

Electra
Should have been a great movie. Jennifer garner rules the mystical land in my pants and I really liked her in Daredevil. What the hell they were thinking with this movie is totally beyond me.

Ultraviolet
Ultra-awful. I don’t know why some people hold on to this false notion that Milla Jovovich has the potential to be good in anything. Oh sure, she was in a great movie once (5th Element), but being in a great movie and being great in a movie are two VERY different things. Her “Resident Evil” films are all terrible too… but not as bad as this one.

So yes, with films like these out there polluting our movie theaters (Al Gore should look into this) you can forgive some people for jumping to the radical conclusion that women in action films just can never work. But after you get past the knee jerk reaction and really start to think about it, you start to remember that there are several examples where female leads really did work in films. Projects like:

Aliens
This film needs to be at least mentioned in any conversation about “best action films of all time”. Heart pounding, exciting… and I swear the term “keeps you on the edge of your seat” was originally made up to describe this flat out awesome movie. Ripley rules.

Tomb Raider
No, this movie wasn’t great (or even good really) but you can’t deny that Laura Croft as a female action lead does indeed work. Everything about her just screams “bad ass” and yet still sexy as hell. If there was a female equivalent to Indiana Jones, Laura Croft would be it.

Kill Bill
I’ve never seen a movie where a normal (non-superpowered) women goes around kicking the living crap out of men so damn believable. There is something so special about Uma Thurman’s character in these films… even as an action star.

Underworld
Kind of like the situation with Tomb Raider, some people don’t really like Underworld (I did, but not so much the second one), but again you can’t discount how effective Kate Beckinsale’s character was as an action lead in the film. She just worked.

So while I agree that finding action films with female leads that actually work is rare, the above examples prove that it CAN work. It’s not impossible. Perhaps the above movies are exceptions to the rule, but they’re enough to prove you can’t just discount an action film just because it has a female lead in it.

But the cold hard reality is that the vast majority of action films with women in the leads don’t do well at the box office. Even out of the examples above, only Tomb Raider actually made over $100 million at the box office. So the question I pose is this: If we’ve proven that action films with female leads can work, why don’t they have much success at the box office?

I’m sure there will be lots of various answers to that question, but for now I’d like to propose a few observations about why these action films with women leads don’t do well (Please note, I’m suggest why they DON’T do well… not why they SHOULDN’T do well)

1) Men Can’t Identify With Female Leads
It doesn’t take a pulitzer prize winner to point out that “men and women are different” Duh! But it’s a point that is particularly relevant when it comes to this question. We often find ourselves attached and invested in film characters that we either identify with or aspire to be. For men, that’s a hard sell with female characters. Add to that the fact that the audience for the Action genre is predominately male, and the point become even more relevant.

2) Believability
I remember a lot of discussion about “Charlie’s Angels” revolving around a lot of men complaining that “I’m sorry, but how can I get into a movie like this? There is no way that stick figure (they were talking about Cameron Diaz at the time) can take me in a fight”. Is that a neaderthalic thing to say? Maybe… but it is nonetheless at the root of why many men don’t buy into a female lead action film. I can raise the objection that “Movies aren’t always supposed to be about believability… as a matter of fact, quite often it’s supposed to be about the suspension of believability” and I’d be 100% correct, but it wouldn’t change the fact that men have a hard time (for right or wrong reasons) buying into a female character kicking a lot of male character ass. Women in prison movies on the other hand is a totally different story.

3) We’re Conditioned To See Women For Their Sexuality And Intelligence In Film
Follow me here. I liken this point to things like black and white films or subtitled films. I think one of the reasons people don’t give subtitled films more of a chance is because it’s just not what they’re used to. People aren’t accustomed to having to read the dialog (even though it’s the easiest thing in the world) and so they pass on some magnificent films. I think in the movies we’ve become conditioned to see female characters just in terms of their sexuality (this is age old) or their intelligence (this is new… but at least a step in the right direction). Seeing female characters as tough or bad ass… ready willing and able to kick your ass at a moments notice is just outside of what we’re accustomed to seeing or processing. At most we’re used to seeing women as the damsel in distress or as the love interest in action films… not participating in the whopass party.

So there you have it. Some of my theories why female lead action films don’t succeed. Do you agree with them? Disagree with them? Do you have more thoughts on why these (some of them great) movies don’t attract more of an audience?

[Source : The Movie Blog]

The title may be a little shocking, so before I go on with my thoughts here, let’s take a look at the Webster Dictionary definition of fascism:

“a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”

FORCIBLE SUPPRESSION OF OPPOSITION

As most people know, I was not a fan of the Writers Strike. I thought the whole thing was very avoidable, but also that much of the blame laid with the Producers as well.

During the strike I had several opportunities to talk and email with (I’m currently in Los Angeles) a few WGA members who were less than thrilled with the way the strike was going and how the WGA leadership was handling the situation. I always wondered why, if they were even a little unhappy, they didn’t speak up and try to effect some change. Well know I know why they kept their mouths shut. If they didn’t, the fascist WGA leadership would seek to destroy them.

Here’s the situation:

“The vast majority of the WGA’s 12,000-plus members patiently stayed away from their word processors during the recent three-month writers strike, notwithstanding dwindling finances or a threat to their careers. But a few members decided to go “financial-core,” an irreversible decision that made them only limited, non-voting members of the guild and allowed them to return to work. (This, if you recall, is the move George Clooney made, before the strike, in response to the WGA’s decision to deny him credit for the Leatherheads screenplay.) ”

So there were a few writers who exercised their totally legitimate, legal and union constitutionally valid option of going “financial core” during the strike so that they could keep their jobs. Fair enough right? Going financial core has a price… you can’t vote in union affairs any more, you can never run for Union office, you can’t participate in the WGA awards or be a part of official meetings or events. But if you’re willing to pay that price, then it is a valid option that is consistent with the law and guidelines.

But on Friday, the WGA fascist leadership decided it was time to drop the hammer (and sickle) on those who dared disobey them during the strike. Paying the aforementioned price is not harsh enough… Ze Feurs (said in my best German accent) want more blood. And so they want those who dared to disobey to be publicly humiliated, shunned and basically blacklisted by all other members of the WGA.

Here is the open letter send out by the WGA. See if you can identify the blatant hypocrisy:

If this wasn’t so unspeakably evil I would have laughed out loud. As the strike was going on, the WGA leadership negotiated a couple of side deals with smaller production companies so that a fraction of the WGA membership could go back to work…. go back to work as the rest of the WGA membership had to stay on the strike lines not making any money! This was a move that even my most supportive colleagues of the WGA had to do a double take at, and was the main point of contention of the small number of writers I spoke with who were bitter that some writers went back to work, while they had to stay on the lines.

For the WGA leadership to come out now and condemn the actions of those few people who exercised a legal and legitimate right of “financial core” while they themselves did the exact same thing by sending a select few back to work while others had to stay on the line is beyond hypocrisy.

The strike is over. Let it go. Calling on the obedient (not that there was anything wrong with WGA members following the Union leadership) to shun those who did not obey and then treating them like sex offenders by publishing their names so everyone else can know who to throw stones at is childish, counter productive, and just proves that you are indeed, by the very definition of the word… fascist:

FORCIBLE SUPPRESSION OF OPPOSITION

It’s bad enough that so many had to suffer during the strike… now some writers have to suffer even more… only this time at the hands of their own colleagues and fellow writers. For SHAME!

So if you ever catch yourself wondering why… if the South Park guys were right about just how many writers were unhappy with how the WGA leadership was handling the strike… more writers didn’t speak up… now you know. And knowing is half the battle. HEIL VERRONE! HEIL WINSHIP!

That’s just my view on things. (Source: Cinematical)

[Source : The Movie Blog]

If Loki, the trickster god of the Norsemen had avatars on earth, verily Ramis would be one of them.

If you look over the list of projects Ramis has been involved in, many of them would be considered to be comedy gold. In the pile of gold, many of the films would be among the greatest comedies ever made. This man is extremely talented, and is among the most important comedic minds of our time.

Animal House, Meatballs, Back To School, Ghostbusters, SCTV, Groundhog Day are my picks from the list of Ramis’ work. Animal House being my standout favorite. This film spawned an entire genre of comedy that lives on to this day. The frat comedy was birthed with the arrival of Animal House and we have Ramis to thank. Old School, Revenge Of The Nerds, PCU, Van Wilder ….and the lis goes on. Whenever the words “TOGA” are yelled, a candle should be lit in remembrance of him.

Ramis has the ability to take an idea and milk it for every possible laugh. A film about 4 guys that hunt ghosts for a living doesn’t sound like a funny premise. For Ramis, it was an opportunity to shine not only as a writer, but as an actor in the character of Egon Spengler. Ghostbusters was a huge movie when I was a kid, I fuckin’ loved it and still do to this day. When someone asks you if you’re a god - you SAY YES!

SCTV is a sketch comedy show that is under appreciated and delightfully hilarious. I didn’t have cable when I finished my education and was living alone in an apt. My rabbit ears were able to get a local channel that broadcast SCTV reruns daily. I was surprised how funny the sketches were and how many well known comedic players were employed by the show in their youth. Ramis was the head writer of the program and his tenure there no doubt sharpened his wit to a razor fine point. Like the folded metal of a samurai sword; so his funny bone was tempered.

Those that love comedy have Ramis to thank for not only fantastic films, but for continuing to write the textbook on how they should be made. Ramis has set the bar, drawn the map and paved the way for many to follow. He is an architect of hilarity and his influence should never be forgotten nor should his contributions be ignored.

International Friends: Please share with us your favorite Ramis work, and thoughts on the man himself.

[Source : The Movie Blog]

No matter how often I do it or how long I’ve been doing it for, going to the movies is still one of my favorite things to do. I suspect that’s the case with most of us. There’s something about the experience of going out to the theater that watching a dvd at home (which I also love doing) can’t compete with. Maybe it’s the event atmosphere, maybe it’s the big screen or maybe it’s just the popcorn… we all have our own reasons.

However, as much as we love going to the movies, we all also have our own set of annoyances that are drawbacks to our movie going experience. Over the years we’ve talked about things that bother us about going to the theater. Back in 2005 I put up the following exhaustive list of thing I personally don’t like about going to the movie theater:

1. Cost of admission ($10 for a ticket!?!?)

2. Cost of Concession stands ($14 for 2 cokes an a popcorn?!?!?!)

3. Huge Concession stand line ups

4. Commercials running when the movie was supposed to start

5. No pre-selected seating

6. Parents who don’t take their crying kids out of the theater

7. Teenagers who don’t shut the hell up

8. The guy in the back who thinks everyone wants to hear his oneliner joke

9. Theaters designed so that line ups are outside instead of inside

10. Theaters with outside line ups that don’t spend $500 to set up overhead shelter to protect people in the line from the rain. It’s very simple to do.

11. Theaters that have the “Ticket checker” set up past the concession stand. There are 30 people behind me waiting to get into the theater because I can’t get at my ticket in my pocket since my hands are full carrying 2 cokes and a bag of popcorn that cost me $14. And they don’t even set up a place to set down your stuff to get at your ticket for them!!!

12. I know this falls under “Concession stand prices”… but it deserves to be mentioned on it’s own: $3.50 for a SMALL BOTTLE OF WATER!!!

13. Bad sightline design. Theaters that don’t take into consideration that a tall person MAY actually sit in front of you and you may have a hard time seeing the movie you overpaid for. Increase the slope of the seating… raise the screen a little.

14. Bathrooms with no paper towels and weak air hand dryers. I hate standing there trying to get my hands dry on the 1 operational dryer with 6 impatient guys standing behind me waiting to use the same one.

15. People kicking the back of my seat (this doesn’t happen often… but when it does…)

16. Sitting in an empty row with your buddy… and then 2 sweet looking woman come and sit in the same row… and you think “Oh yes”… and then 2 minutes later their bodybuilder boyfriends show up with the popcorn. Well… at least they had to pay $14 for it. Jerks.

17. Late shows that start too late. Ok… I can’t get there on time to see the 7pm show… THE NEXT ONE DOESN’T START TILL 10:30!?!! I’ve gotta work in the morning!

18. Early shows that start too early. “Yeah baby, we’ll do dinner and a movie… but we have to have dinner at 4:30pm because the STUPID FRICKEN MOVIE STARTS AT 6:10!

19. People who stand in line to buy tickets and don’t actually start to decide what they want to see until they get up to the ticket girl… with 50 other people waiting behind them as they go “ummm… how about that one? Oh no… I don’t like that actor… how about that other one?”

20. Theaters without free available parking

21. Seats designed by some guy who really hates people and wants to inflict suffering

22. People who don’t turn off their cell phones. How hard is that? DIE DIE DIE!!! (no kidding, I once had a guy whose phone rang 3 different times in the same movie… justifiable homicide your honor).

23. Cup holders that aren’t actually big enough to hold the large cup. WHY!?!?!

24. When the movie you invested $40 bucks in for tickets and snacks and 2 hours of your life ends up sucking.

Still, as many items are on that list, I still love the movies (hell, there are people in my life who love me, but if you ask them to put together a list of stuff that annoys them about me their list would probably be longer).

Here’s an interesting observation though. Over the years I’ve found that when I ask readers what bothers THEM about going to the movies, things like ticket prices and commercials before the movie are often on the lists, but rarely the MAJOR complaints from people. Quite often I find that the biggest complaints people have about going to the movies revolves around OTHER PEOPLE rather than things immediately associated with the theater or movie itself. Things like:

- Cell phones - Talking - Disruptive teenagers - Babies

These are the types of things that seem to get under most (not all) people’s skin the most when discussing things that bother us about going to the movies. Rude people drive us all crazy, especially in a movie theater.

It’s one thing for someone to act obnoxious on a bus or in the grocery store. After all, them acting like idiots doesn’t effect how fast my bus will get me to my destination or my ability to pick up a pound of apples. But in the movie theater, where we just paid $40 to get us in with our dates with some popcorn so we could watch and enjoy a movie…. people acting stupid detracts from our enjoyment and experience at the theater.

So the question is: What do you do about rude people in a movie theater?

Sure, we’d all like to walk up to the guy who let his cell phone go off 3 times and punch him in the mouth, but that just causes even more of a disruption for everyone else in the theater. Yes, you’d like to go up to that teenage girl who keeps babbling with her friends and kick her in uterus to shut her up and ensure she never breeds… but that’s not considered “socially acceptable”.

Here’s a great example. Last year me, Doug and the Pleasure Witch (Doug’s amazing girlfriend) went out to catch the Jim Carrey movie “The Number 23″ (which was a mistake in and of itself). The PW is a busy lady and doesn’t have much opportunity to get out to a movie. So we get there, grab our seats and get ready to enjoy the flick. Unfortunately, a group of 4 babbling teenage girls were sitting right behind us. They were talking loudly, but we never said anything because we were sure they were intelligent enough to shut up once the movie started. NOPE!

Even when the show started they just kept yapping and yapping and yapping… I think Doug started looking around to see if there were any handy axes on the floor. So finally I couldn’t take it anymore… I turned around and asked very politely (almost begging): “Hey guys, we just came here to enjoy the movie. Please please please stop talking so loudly”.

Well, apparently that was the worst thing I could say, because this little group of idiots all decided in their heads they had to look cool in front of their fellow idiots. So each of them started barking back at me loudly “Why don’t you mind ya own fucking business!” blah blah blah. Doug turned around and suggested to the young ladies something about all going to the bathroom, finding a coat hanger and helping each other with their 8th or 9th abortions. You might be surprised to find out that didn’t defuse the situation (although it made me feel better).

Eventually I just had to stop trying because I realized us attempting to get these little bitches to shut up was causing more of a disturbance for everyone around us (it was a sold out theater) than the girls on their own already was. So we just had to deal with it.

So what do you do? Some people keep talking… you can’t yell “Shut up” from the back of the theater, because you KNOW they’re just going to yell back “You shut up”. Then what? Do you just keep the yelling match going that no one wants to hear?

A lot of people are apprehensive about getting an usher because it makes them feel like a rat or something.
So how have you handled situations like this in a movie theater before? What do you find usually works? What things have you tried that haven’t worked?

[Source : The Movie Blog]