Tag Archives: Morgan Freeman

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards.  I also got on twitter and made a lot of snarky comments.  People seemed to enjoy it and for that reason, I say, “Yay!”

Why Was I Watching It?

Because I am an awards show junkie!  Seriously, those glue sniffers on Intervention don’t have anything on me when it comes to craving the excess, glamour, and foolishness of a big, silly Hollywood awards show!  Add to that, this is still a fairly wide open Oscar season and the Golden Globes are, as they always say on E!, a “precursor to the Oscars.”  Winning a Golden Globe usually guarantees at least an Oscar nomination.  Plus — Ricky Gervais was back to host and like a lot of people last night, I spent the minutes before the ceremony asking myself, “What ever will he say!?” in feverish anticipation.

What Was It About?

For the past 69 years, the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have thrown a big banquet in January and given out a lot of awards to various TV and movie stars.  Nobody’s really sure who the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are and, to be honest, the Golden Globes always have a slightly unsavory air to them.  There’s always more than a few nominations that mostly seem to be designed to get famous people to show up at the ceremony,  Last year, they nominated the Tourist, this year they nominated The Ides of March.  Anyway, the Golden Globes are distinguished by the Oscars by the fact that they serve alcohol during the show and, in the past, someone’s always ended up giving a drunken acceptance speech or launching into an incoherent political rant and, for the past few weeks, we’ve been told that with Ricky Gervais returning to host the 69th annual banquet, anything could happen and probably would!  Yay!

What Worked

Last night, I mentioned on twitter that if nothing interesting happened on the Globes or if Ricky somehow failed to deliver the expected amount of snark then I would devote this section of my review to talking about my boobs. 

With that in mind, what can I say except that they’re a little big and heavy and they pretty much ended my dreams of being a ballerina but I like my boobs, or as I call them Pride and Joy.  They go great with every outfit I own and I’m pretty sure that they’re also the reason why I’ve never had to pay a speeding ticket.  Plus, they allowed me to say stuff like, “I should be Ms. Golden Globes!” while I was watching the show last night…

Actually, I’m being a little bit unfair to the Golden Globes (the awards ceremony, not my boobs).  The tribute to Morgan Freeman was well-done and was probably the high point of the ceremony but then again, how can you go wrong with Morgan Freeman?  Seriously, when I’m on the verge of doing something silly (like using a review of the Golden Globes to show off my boobs) , I imagine Morgan Freeman saying, “Now, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Fashion-wise, I saw a lot of red dresses last night and that made me happy because I look really good in red.

Among the winners, Christopher Plummer (Best Supporting Actor for Beginners), Jean Dujardin (Best Actor In A Comedy Motion Picture for The Artist), Martin Scorsese (Best Director for Hugo), and Claire Danes (Best Actress In A Dramatic TV Show for Homeland) all gave good and classy acceptance speeches that made me feel good to be alive.  And Uggie the dog was so adorable up there on stage when The Artist won Best Motion Picture Comedy.  Actually, speaking of The Artist, it was kinda nice to see so many French people accepting awards last night.  (Oh, stop it!  I love France!)

I enjoyed it when Madonna won for best song because she was so shocked that she forgot to speak in her fake accent. 

On an admittedly petty note, Rooney Mara did not win Best Actress for David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and that amused me greatly because I knew that all the little AwardsDaily Fincherites were torn about how to whine about Mara losing with coming across as if they were criticizing Meryl Streep for winning.

What Did Not Work

So, let’s start with the main problem.  Last night’s Golden Globes ceremony was so respectable and predictable and slow that it might as well have just been the Oscars.  Ricky Gervais started out the ceremony by telling us that he had signed an agreement to not make any offensive or outrageous statements and then he did just that.  What’s especially annoying is that Ricky didn’t seem to be neutering himself as an act of protest or anything of the sort.  Instead, he just came across like he was too smug and sure-of-himself to realize that he was bombing.  It was as if he just expected his reputation to convince us that he was being funny and outrageous without actually being funny and outrageous.  Last year, Ricky Gervais skewered Hollywood phonies.  This year, Ricky Gervais was a Hollywood phony.  I sat there waiting for him to say just one thing that could potentially end his career and he refused to do it.

But Ricky wasn’t alone.  Seriously, where were the drunk winners launching into incoherent politically themed rants.  I mean, it’s an election year for God’s sake.  People on twitter were using the occasion to make all sorts of silly and naive political statements but the actual celebrities — the people who we depend on to act like a bunch of dumbasses — just sat there in this sort of placid anxiety like they were waiting for someone to show up for an intervention.

BLEH!

The majority of the night’s acceptance speeches were neither good nor bad.  They were just boring.  Listen, Meryl Streep is a great actress and I have no problem with her being recognized and awarded for her talent but oh my God, I nearly fell asleep trying to listen to her.  Now, if Meryl (or any other winner) had gotten up on stage and started slurring her words or making dirty jokes or something like that, it would have made for great television.  (Though I do have to give Meryl some credit for being the only winner to get bleeped.) 

The Descendants won Best Motion Picture Drama but seriously, it’s hard for me to accept that this well-made but essentially unchallenging and rather forgettable film is now the Oscar front-runner.  Seriously.  Much as with every other award it has won, The Descendants felt like something of a compromise choice and, considering that Scorsese won best director, it’s hard to gauge just how much momentum the Descendants is going to get from this victory. 

Oh!  And another thing that sucked — how did George Clooney win a Golden Globe for essentially playing the same character he always plays while Michael Fassbender’s brilliant work in Shame was ignored?  What type of game is that?

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

To quote Joan Crawford, “I’ll show you a pair of Golden Globes!”

Lessons Learned

This is shaping up to be one of the worst Oscar seasons in recent history.  Seriously, if just one deserving film or performance wins in February, I will be amazed.

Trailer: The Dark Knight Rises

Posted on by Arleigh

There’s nothing much else to say other than 2012 looks to be the year of The Dark Knight Rises.

2005 saw the reboot of the Batman film franchise. This first film in the new trilogy put Christopher Nolan on the map as an action filmmaker. 2008’s The Dark Knight with it being such a huge critical and, more importantly, a mega-blockbuster made Christopher Nolan a filmmaker who could do anything he wants and with whatever budget he asks for. Nolan was able to cash in some of that cred to make 2010’s Inception which was also a runaway success.

2012 is just around the corner and we have the third and final leg to Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. With the success and popularity of the two previous films to say that the hype and anticipation for this third film has reached stratospheric levels would be an understatement. This is not to say the film can’t flop, but with Nolan’s track record I am in the camp of highly doubt it.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for a July 20, 2012 release in both regular and IMAX (though not in 3D).

Lisa Marie Cries and Cries As She Watches A Dolphin Tale (dir. by Charles Martin Smith)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

On Wednesday evening, Jeff and I went down to the dollar theater and we finally got around to seeing A Dolphin Tale.  A Dolphin Tale is one of those movies that I was really enthusiastic about seeing when it first opened in theaters but then, for whatever reason, I just never got around to seeing it.  So, I was happy to have a chance to catch it before it left theaters for a sure-to-be popular life as a video rental.  The film’s trailer led me to suspect that I would cry and cry while watching A Dolphin Tale and I was not disappointed.

This is going to be a pretty simple review because A Dolphin Tale is a pretty simple movie and that’s exactly why it’s a good movie.  The movie tells the true story of Winter, a dolphin who was horribly injured by a crab trap and who lost her tail as a result.  After almost dying, Winter manages to fight back and is soon able to swim again.  However, swimming with no tail is damaging her spine and, unless something can be done, Winter will eventually end up killing herself.  Luckily for Winter, there’s a dedicated and eccentric scientist (played by Morgan Freeman, who can make any line sound like an edict from God) who dedicates himself to building her a prosthetic tail.  Will Freeman be able to get the tail built before Winter has to be put down and, more importantly, will Winter be able to learn how to use the new tail before her new home, the Clearwater Marine Hospital, runs out of money and is sold off to a businessman who wants to turn the place into a hotel?

If you don’t already know the answer then you’ve never seen a movie before.  Yes, A Dolphin’s Tale is predictable and yes, it’s not very subtle about manipulating the audience’s emotions but I don’t care.  The movie is just so sincere and the film’s story is just so inspiring that I had no problem allowing myself to be manipulated.    This is a movie that has a good heart and it’s obvious that for director Smith and for most of the cast (which includes Ashley Judd, Harry Connick, Jr., and Nathan Gamble, along with Freeman) that this film really was a labor of love.  The true star of the film, however, is Winter, who plays herself in this film.

The film itself is in 3-D and yes, there’s about a hundred shots of Winter swimming straight at the camera that were obviously included just because the film was in 3-D but who cares?  Yes, it’s manipulative but it works.  At the film’s end, we see documentary footage of Winter actually being rescued and cared for by the real people who we’ve just seen recreated in the film.  Not a single one of them looks as good as Harry Connick, Jr. or quite as wise as Morgan Freeman but they all look like heroes to me.

Seriously, if this film doesn’t touch you then you have no heart and you are quite possibly a member of the walking dead.

 

 

Review: Conan the Barbarian (dir. by Marcus Nispel)

Posted on by Arleigh

In 1982 the duo of John Milius (director) and Arnold Schwarzenneger (actor) brought to the big-screen the first film adaptation of the classic, pulp character of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard. The Milius-Schwarzenneger Conan the Barbarian was an instant hit and classic. It also made Schwarzenneger into an A-list superstar who would rule the 80’s and 90’s. This film was followed up by a lesser quality, though fun in its own way, sequel in 1984 with Conan the Destroyer. Milius saw this franchise as a trilogy with the third and final film to be called Conan the Conqueror. But a sort of blacklisting of Milius as a filmmaker and Schwarzenneger moving onto other projects killed the planned third film. The start of the new millenium saw an interest in restarting the third film, but after countless delays and changes in filmmakers and stars the project was once again shelved.

In 2010, the franchise which launched an Austrian-bodybuilder into superstardom was finally greenlit, but this time around it would be a reboot of the series with the film hewing coser to Robert E. Howard’s creation and world-building than the Milius version of 1982. To bring Conan the Cimmerian to life would be Hawaiian-Irish Jason Momoa (of Stargate Atlantis and Game of Thrones fame) with German-filmmaker Marcus Nispel taking on the directing reins. The film’s trio of writers (Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood) would literally take the world of the Hyborian Age which Howard had meticulously created for his Conan character and use that as the basis for this reboot.

Conan the Barbarian begins with a surprising introductory narration of the world of the Hyborian Age by none other than Morgan Freeman. This narration was one clue that while this film wouldn’t and shouldn’t be seen as thought-provoking and award-season fare it looks to try anything and everything to make it fun and relevant. The film succeeds in this respect in its own way. As we see Conan come into the world as a baby born of battle in the most literal way. It’s not often we see on the big-screen a pregnant mother delivering her child by way of battlefield C-section. From this moment forward this film will wallow in the bloody carnage and machismo-fueled world of Robert E. Howard to the nth degree.

The film’s Conan as played by Leo Howard as the younger version then to Jason Momoa as the adult version looks to be different than the Schwarzenneger one. While Momoa was still quite the physical specimen on the screen he also exuded a sense of fluid, athleticism like that of a sleek jungle cat whereas Arnold’s Conan was more of the big cat of the savannah. The stand out performance in the film comes from both Leo Howard (quite ferocious as the young Conan) and Momoa. The film lives or dies on whether we believe these two actors as the characters they inhabit. Not once during the near 2-hour running time do we not believe these two as Conan.

Conan the Barbarian as a film does have several weaknesses which could derail it for me. For one, the story itself is quite cliched as we see the typical hero’s journey coinciding with the goal of saving the world from an almost cartoonish villain (Stephen Lang clearly having fun as the warlord Khalar Zym) with an equally cartoonish sidekick (Rose McGowan who seemed out of place as Zym’s witch-daughter Marique). The story’s plot seems more geared like a video game where each sequence was there to put Conan in the best way possible to do what he does best and that’s kill enemies by the score and do it with bloody panache.

While the film will definitely not score very well with many people I think they will do so as they compare it to the original Milius film. I think the mistake they also will use as an excuse to not like the film is that it’s dumb and loud. I, for one, thought I would feel the same, but as I watched the film I acknowledged those very same criticisms, saw the flaws, but in the end I still enjoyed the film for what it was: an almost gleeful, throwback to the 80’s sword-and-sorcery exploitation film that tried to cash in on the success of the original Conan the Barbarian.

Nispel’s film may not stand the test of time as the original, but in the end he made a film that actually stayed true to the pulpy origins of the character (Robert E. Howard was never known as a subtle writer and this film reveled in his blunt-way of writing). This Conan the Barbarian was several steps above the usual sword-and-sorcery stuff which the SyFy Channel seems to churn out by the dozen each year and it’s steps below that of the original. What it does share with the 1982 film is a sense of fun even if it’s at the expense of story and character and at times I’m fine with that. Not everything has to be Inception or Pride and Prejudice.

Trailer: The Dark Knight Rises (Official Teaser)

Posted on by Arleigh

The first official teaser trailer for the third and final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Saga has finally arrived in it’s official form. The teaser had leaked in bootleg form last week. People who went to watch Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 were able to see the teaser in all it’s glory on the big-screen and from my own experience it was one of the major highlight’s even before the main attraction began.

The teaser trailer plays exactly as it sounds. It teases just enough to begin the buzz and hype which should run a full year before the film’s release. We see glimpses of Tom Hardy in the role of Bane. Most of the teaser has Police Commissioner Jim Gordon in a hospital bed looking like he may have just gone a round or two with Bane. It also brings back the lesson first given to Bruce Wayne by Ra’s al Ghul from the first film about how a man could become a legend. There’s even some Inception-like imagery of crumbling high-rises that could only mean Gotham City itself now under siege.

It’s going to be a long wait til The Dark Knight Rises premieres in the theaters on July 20, 2012.

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Poster is Out!

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Poster (via TheDarkKnightRises.com)

The Official Teaser Poster for The Dark Knight Rises (Copyright 2011 - DC/Warner Bros.)

Just in time for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, Warner Bros. has just released the teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises. It’s a little hard not to get excited about this (I have a Batman Begins poster in my room, so personally, I was waiting for it), but there are a few things I notice:

1.) This poster has a mixture of the original Batman Begins Poster with the decay of Limbo in Inception.

2.) It’s thrifty. Maybe they had some old unused Inception concepts out there, and someone said, “Uhh…throw a Bat on it, and we’ll go with that.”

3.) The Dark Knight poster’s elements of fire hinted to the anarchy that the Joker tried to bring in that film. What could this be hinting at? Part of me is hoping for an earthquake, but I’m thinking it may have more to do with Bane’s destructive qualities.

Either way, we’ll all find out some Summer of 2012. Rumor has it that the teaser trailer is due to be tied to the Harry Potter film. If so, that should be interesting.

Note that the poster is from the Dark Knight Rises Official Site.

Scenes I Love: Seven

Posted on by Arleigh

[MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!!]

My weekend was full of sleep, coughing and just vegetating in front of my bedroom tv as I tried to get better from my bout of the cold and flu. For some reason or another AMC channel decided to hold a mini-marathon of David Fincher’s classic neo-noir thriller, Seven, and I must say that I probably saw all three straight showings before sleep finally took over. It surely made for some very unusual, drug-induced dreams.

I’ve always seen Seven as Fincher at his most exploitative best. If there was ever a modern grindhouse exploitation film of the past twenty years I would have to consider Seven as one of them. From start to finish the film just felt grimy and made one feel dirty just for having seen it. Take away all the gloss and veneer afforded Fincher due to modern film technology and techniques this film was grindhouse to its core. No better scene exemplifies and solidifies Seven as a grindhouse exploitation film than it’s shocking, nihilistic ending which bucked traditional Hollywood happy ending (or at least and ambiguous one).

It’s been made famous due to the powerful performances from the three leads who dominate the scene. It is almost played off like a stage play with some gorgeous camera work from cinematographer Darius Khondji switching from Morgan Freeman to Kevin Spacey to Brad Pitt with mathematical precision as the scene unfolds through very strong dialogue by screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.

The performances shown by Spacey is both chilling and otherworldly as the sociopathic John Doe urging Pitt’s Det. Mills to become wrath and punish him for his sin of envy. Looking helpless and desperate is Freeman’s Det. Somerset trying to talk some sense and decency to the rapidly unraveling Mills who has just learned that what is inside the box he’s been screaming for is his wife’s head.

The fact that the unfolded and ended the way it did honors the grindhouse sensibilities of past exploitation films where the good guys never always win and even when they do it’s at a very heavy cost to the victor. This climactic ending to Seven is so nihilistic that when the film was first shown in 1995 many walked out grumbling at such a dark and heavy ending. Where was the Hollywood happy ending everyone was so used to. There was no cavalry charging last second to save the day. No deus ex machina intervening to show that Mill’s wife was still alive. No, Fincher and crew knew they had something special in their hands and went full tilt to see it through.

It’s no wonder I still consider Seven to be David Fincher’s best film to date.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Red (dir. by Robert Schwentke)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Red (which I saw at the dollar theater this previous Monday) is a lot like the boy who took you to Homecoming: likable, occasionally enjoyable, but ultimately rather forgettable.  It’s a movie that you enjoy for what it is but, at the same time, it’s hardly a film I could ever imagine watching twice.  I never went out with Taylor again after Homecoming either. 

Anyway, the movie itself is about a retired CIA agent (Bruce Willis) who spends all of his time flirting on the phone with Sarah (Mary Louise Parker) who works for the company that sends Willis his pension checks.  (Willis always rips the checks up so he’ll have an excuse to call Parker.)  As the Christmas season approaches, Willis is paid a visit by a bunch of men dressed in black who proceed to blow up his house.  Willis escapes death, kidnaps Parker (under the pretense that her life is in danger because of how much they talk but mostly just so he can date her), and sets about getting all of his fellow retired spies (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren) together.  Meanwhile, a determined, young, and hot CIA agent (Karl Urban) has been assigned to track Willis down and kill him.

The plot is really pretty standard but director Robert Schwentke keep things interesting by both playing up and acknowledging just how ludicrous the standard action movie is.  If nothing else, this is a film that respect its audience.  It undesrstand that we understand that we’re watching an action movie and it assumes that we’ve seen enough action movies that we know how the genre is supposed to work.  And while Schwentke pulls off all of the standard action moves like a pro, what makes the movie memorable are the small moments where he plays with and subverts our expectations. 

He’s helped by his cast, a solid group of professionals who could play these roles in their sleep but yet, to their credit, still appear to invest themselves in the film.  All of the performers make strong individual impressions yet still manage to gel perfectly as an ensemble.  As opposed to most films of this sort, you really believe that these characters are old friends and that they do have a shared history.  One of the film’s main strengths comes from observing how all the different characters respond to each other — nobody has the exact same reaction.  This is kind of what Sylvester Stallone tried to pull off with The Expendables.  The difference here, I suppose, is that Red features John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and Bruce Willis while Stallone had to work with Jason Stathan and Terry Crewes.

Among the cast, Malkovich is probably the real crowd pleaser as a former MK-Ultra experiment.  He is convincingly insane in his role and he gets almost all of the film’s best one liners.  He also has a scene where he deflects an incoming rocket in a way that made the audience cheer.  However, for me, the best part of the film was the unexpected chemistry between Parker and Willis.  Through all of the action sequences and self-referential humor, you really do hope they end up together.

That said, there’s still something missing from the film.  It never quite goes as far as you would like in embracing the inherent absurdity of the action genre and, after a strong start, the film does have some trouble maintaining its frantic pace.  Add to that, Richard Dreyfuss shows up and and throws the whole ensemble out of whack by attempting to chew any piece of scenery he can get his teeth on.  Still, for what it is, Red is an enjoyable little movie and sometimes, that’s enough.