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General Category => General Forum => Topic started by: k1w14ever on April 18, 2009, 09:54:46 pm



Title: at the movies
Post by: k1w14ever on April 18, 2009, 09:54:46 pm
Went tot he movies today and it was very very funny movie.  We always sit right up the back in the middle, just me love that sit. Well this family was sitting infront of us and I could not stop laughing(not out loud)  during the moive the guy was using sign language at one of the people.  I know some might not find it funny but in the dark I did. :P


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Newtown-Fella on April 18, 2009, 09:58:59 pm
wonder how often that happens ?

i thought movie theatres had head phones available for the deaf ?


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: dragontamer on April 18, 2009, 10:02:37 pm
wonder how often that happens ?

i thought movie theatres had head phones available for the deaf ?

Eh?

Wouldn't that be like subtitles for the blind?


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: DazzaMc on April 18, 2009, 10:20:10 pm
PMSL!!!!


(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Newtown-Fella on April 18, 2009, 11:28:20 pm

Wouldn't that be like subtitles for the blind?

that is just a bloody stupid response dragontamer ...

some movie theatres do have audio loops and headsets available for people who have a hearing problem ....



Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: HisMajesty on April 18, 2009, 11:38:12 pm

Wouldn't that be like subtitles for the blind?

that is just a bloody stupid response dragontamer ...




Comeon...that was pretty funny actually!


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: dragontamer on April 18, 2009, 11:43:13 pm
'Sok HM - it's only funny when NF says it.  ;)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: DazzaMc on July 12, 2009, 07:24:37 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DBSagWC-UM

Anyone seen it yet?

 :)



Love the song too.... good marketing...
(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/afro.gif)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Ferney on July 12, 2009, 07:34:26 pm
Not yet.

Been to Ice Age3 in 3D.   3D was good but didn't think movie was as good as the first two. 


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 19, 2009, 10:13:37 pm

I've just been to see District 9 this evening.

Awesome special effects — what else could you expect from Weta Workshops and Wingnut Films?

I can see why it is the highest grossing movie in the world last week and this.

Definitely worth seeing if you are into a bit of si-fi.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: pantherrr0 on August 19, 2009, 11:43:59 pm
have to agree with ktj  District 9 was an awesome movie


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Shef on August 19, 2009, 11:56:20 pm
Seeing as I haven't been to the movies in a Looooong time

I have to agree with DT #3(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: dragontamer on August 20, 2009, 07:59:34 am
We went and saw The Hangover.  It's been out some 6 weeks so we thought it would be really quiet.  Not so.  There were 2 theatres in the complex running it, both full to capacity.

It's bloody funny.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 08, 2010, 05:12:12 pm

I think I might go and see Gaylene Preston's movie “Home By Christmas” in about an hour and a half.

It's one of those nights where I've got nothing planned, so why not?

I live only about 6-7 minutes walk from the local multiplex cinema.

It's cheap too....only $12.50....half the price you get stung over the hill in Wellington!


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on May 08, 2010, 06:09:21 pm
Just saw Ironman 2 the other day. It wasn't as good as the original but then again IMO apart from Terminator 2 no sequel is as good as the original.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 08, 2010, 10:03:44 pm

“Home By Christmas” was a bit different than what I expected.

It was possibly a wee bit arty-farty, but it was well done.

It was just different, that's all.

Still worth seeing though.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 08, 2010, 10:08:30 pm

Maybe I'll go and see a bit of full-on action tomorrow for something different.

“The Book Of Eli” starring Denzel Washington is on at the moment.

It looks like it might have plenty of action and gratuitious violence.

Just the thing for a bit of Sunday evening entertainment....8)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Brownie55 on May 09, 2010, 12:55:39 am
wonder how often that happens ?

i thought movie theatres had head phones available for the deaf ?

Eh?

Wouldn't that be like subtitles for the blind?


PMSL (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/MSN%20emoticons/39emthup.gif)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 31, 2010, 07:59:27 pm

Go and check out Ridley Scott's “Robin Hood”.

Although Russell Crow can be a bit of a boofhead sometimes (in real life), when he is acting a role like the one he plays in this movie, he is superb.

It is a brilliant action movie, but it's not quite what you would expect. It's about the story behind how Robin Hood (and his band of merry men) ended up as outlaws. The movie ends just as the traditional Robin Hood story begins.

Definitely worth seeing.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on May 31, 2010, 08:04:37 pm
I've seen a few good movies lately - ROBIN HOOD does not appeal to me - bring back Sherwood Forest. I don't like Russell Crowe at all.

DATE NIGHT ****
BLIND SIDE *****
LETTERS TO JULIET ***
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS **

I want to see BOY - just hasn't been screening at the right times for me.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 26, 2013, 11:17:12 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

Tired of blockbusters: Moviegoers want Adam Sandler, not ‘Pacific Rim

HORSEY on HOLLYWOOD

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Thursday, July 25, 2013

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_2013jul25hl_zps9aa0dda9.jpg)

PITY the poor studio executives. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars giving moviegoers what they think they want — summer blockbusters with big stars, big explosions and out-of-this-world themes — and who makes all the money? Adam Sandler with another flick filled with childish behavior and flatulence jokes.

Los Angeles Times reporters Steven Zeitchik and Amy Kaufman dissected the phenomenon in a recent story. They found that box-office receipts this summer are 14% higher than last year, but the numbers are being driven to a great degree by small-scale movies, such as “The Conjuring”, “Despicable Me 2” and Sandler’s “Grown Ups 2”, not by the cinematic behemoths, such as “Pacific Rim”, “The Lone Ranger”, “After Earth” and “White House Down”.

Since May, there has practically been a blockbuster a week. “Man of Steel” has done well; apparently film fans never tire of a new iteration of the grand old Superman story, just as they never seem to tire of Batman. “Iron Man 3” has been a big hit too; maybe because the character is reaching the legendary level of the caped crusaders, maybe because Robert Downey, Jr. brings such a quirky, hip sensibility to the role or maybe because it was pretty much the first blockbuster out of the blocks in 2013.

Most of the others are still a long, long way from making their budget back, though “World War Z” may get there, thanks to star Brad Pitt’s tireless promotional efforts. All these movies aren’t terrible — “Pacific Rim”, in particular, has unexpected depth for an Earth-in-peril epic, thanks to the skill of director Guillermo del Toro — but a blockbuster used to be a singular event. Now, ticket buyers may be getting too much of a good thing.

When a blockbuster hits the theaters weekend after weekend — and, especially, when several of them have such similar themes — it just may be that a fatigue sets in and folks going to the movies lose interest in seeing another special-effects extravaganza. Apparently, there are times all they really want to watch is a familiar group of comedians acting gloriously immature.

Let’s hope that doesn’t give the studio execs any brilliant ideas about filling the screens next summer with comedies aimed at 14-year-old boys. Oh, wait, that’s already been done.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-comic-20130725,0,3559646.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-comic-20130725,0,3559646.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on July 26, 2013, 11:52:22 pm
I would say the all movies are down in numbers paying an insane amount to view them. Not when you can have the surround sound HD quality in your living room from a downloaded movie. If actors weren't so greedy and demanding millions of dollars just to pretend to be someone else for a few months, maybe the films wouldn't cost so much to make and the cost to watch them would be reduced dramatically, bringing more back to the theaters.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 06, 2013, 12:07:02 pm

Coming next month....



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KumjBXHdzY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KumjBXHdzY)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBNaoSvg7Xo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBNaoSvg7Xo)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on August 06, 2013, 12:33:54 pm
Watched a primo film last night - 'Assault on Wall Street.' All about a blue collar guy who seeks revenge on bankers after they rip him off.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 06, 2013, 12:56:27 pm
Watched a primo film last night - 'Assault on Wall Street.' All about a blue collar guy who seeks revenge on bankers after they rip him off.


Do you rip-off the film company by STEALING the movie?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/03_Huh.gif)  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/azn.gif)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on August 06, 2013, 02:31:02 pm
Watched a primo film last night - 'Assault on Wall Street.' All about a blue collar guy who seeks revenge on bankers after they rip him off.


Do you rip-off the film company by STEALING the movie?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/03_Huh.gif)  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/azn.gif)


I didn't steal the movie at all. I used my internet account of which I pay Vodafone a monthly fee to access material from the internet to download it. A big difference.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 06, 2013, 03:13:47 pm

Vodafone don't own the movie.

You are merely using Vodafone's services to steal the movie from the owner.

If everybody acquired movies the way you do (without paying), there would be no money to be made from making movies, so no movies would be made.

Have you ever considered that basic fact as you freeload off people who do pay to view movies?



Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on August 07, 2013, 09:36:14 am

Vodafone don't own the movie.

You are merely using Vodafone's services to steal the movie from the owner.

If everybody acquired movies the way you do (without paying), there would be no money to be made from making movies, so no movies would be made.

Have you ever considered that basic fact as you freeload off people who do pay to view movies?



I haven't stolen a thing. They still have access to it.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 08, 2013, 07:42:33 am
http://xbmc.org/

XBMC you can watch movies for free not downloading just streaming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC

To watch free movies you need NAVX

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaX7fcQJ1jw


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 24, 2013, 10:11:50 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

‘The Expendables’: Should there be an age limit on action stars?

By DAVID HORSEY | 7:27AM - Wednesday, August 21, 2013

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_2013aug21al_zps7531bc2c.jpg)
Stallone and Schwarzenegger are back in action, but should there be an age limit for action heroes? — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.

THE NEWS (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-expendables-schwarzennegger-stallone-bulgaria-20130819,0,3049964.story) that Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger will be starring in a third “Expendables” movie raises a question: Should there be an age limit for action heroes?

Obviously, plenty of actors have had long, distinguished careers. Paul Newman, the young stud in “Hud” and “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof”, stayed at it long enough to win a Golden Globe at 80 years old for his work in HBO’s “Empire Falls”. The legendary Sir Laurence Olivier had a six-decade career on stage and screen. In 1947, he was the youngest British actor ever to be knighted. Forty-one years later, he played his last film role, a year before his death at 82.

Newman and Olivier were able to stay in the game because they were brilliant actors who could gracefully take on more age-appropriate roles as the years went by. But what if you are an actor of more limited range who has learned to do one thing well — play an action hero? Do you have the same options?

The option Schwarzenegger famously took was to go into politics. But, now that his run as governor of California is over, he is back doing the action thing. Stallone, who proved he could act pretty well back in his “Rocky” days, steered onto the action-picture track and has not veered out of it. Now, they are together in Bulgaria filming “The Expendables 3”.

The big appeal of the “Expendables” movies is that they bring together an ensemble cast of action all-stars. Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris had key roles in the earlier films in the series. Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford have joined the crew for the third movie. Others who have been, or will be, on the “Expendables” team include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas and Mickey Rourke.

A couple of these guys are in their action prime; a few others are doing the movie as a change of pace in their varied careers. The rest, like Stallone, age 67, and Schwarzenegger, 66, are simply veterans of the genre out to prove that 60 is the new 40. Their performances may or may not convince the 17-year-old guys in the audience, but there are plenty of male Baby Boomers with sagging guts and bifocals who will be staring at the screen and cheering them on.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-the-expendables-20130821,0,214120.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-the-expendables-20130821,0,214120.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on September 28, 2013, 01:25:50 pm

Film review: Planes

By GRAEME TUCKETT - The Dominion Post | 5:00AM - Saturday, 28 September 2013

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202013/9218200s_28sep13_zps23e00558.jpg)
PLANE CRASH: Planes is a tacky and misjudged cash-in that slid swiftly into thoughtlessness and venality.

WHAT: PLANES (PG) — 92 minutes.

DIRECTED BY: Klay Hall.

STARRING: Dane Cook, Stacey Keach and Priyanka Chopra.


AGGRAVATED. There is no other word for my mood.

I know that the school holidays are about to start, because a couple of animations have just hoved into view at the multiplex. One of them is about a snail who wants to go racing (Turbo), and the other is about a small crop-dusting airplane who wants to do the same. I figure, with a couple of good film festival returnees also opening, I'll pick one of the cartoons to review this week, and let the other take care of itself. I chose Planes. Bad move.

Planes is what happens when a hugely successful franchise is tapped to pour another few hundred million into the coffers of a Hollywood studio. The franchise was Cars, and the studio is Disney. Cars was made by Pixar, and I've utterly lost track of who's sharing whose bunk in the relationship between those two companies, but somehow, probably via producer and Cars creator John Lassiter, Disney has finished up owning the Planes spin-off franchise.

The original Cars at least had a few moments of wit and big-heartedness to commend it. The film also featured the last ever performance from Paul Newman, and that is reason enough to remember it with some affection. Cars 2, not so much. That film was a tacky and misjudged cash-in that slid swiftly into thoughtlessness and venality. Planes is very much in the spirit of Cars 2.

Our hero is an unhappy crop duster. He dreams of entering, (and winning of course, for what is the point of competing, if you are not to win?) a pan-global air race. And so, with only his self-belief to aid him (and a couple of friends, including the obligatory grizzled old-timer) young Dusty takes on and defeats the world's finest air racers.

How? Who cares, it's only a movie. Right?

What I do care about is the hugely derivative and lazy writing, and the unthinking bigotry that drives this screenplay.

That Dusty will win the race is a given. It's been longer than I can remember since a Disney animation illustrated any lesson other than "winning is everything". But Planes can't even make that dubious point without denigrating its own supporting characters. There are two female planes in the race. Both are written to be no more than objects of the male's desire, to be seduced and "won" before the race is over. Then there is the Mexican plane. He is a bit dim, but full of passion, and he plays the guitar. And there is an African/American plane. He is also dim, and content to work in the fields all his life, despite his folksy wisdom. I cringed at first, but by Planes' end, I was actually angry.

If you're aged about nine, or have recently taken a couple of sharp blows to the frontal lobe, then maybe you could let this kinetic candy coloured kack wash over you, and think nothing more of it. But if you were hoping for something other than cynical, exploitative, reactionary drivel, I'd avoid Planes like a bad mussel. Maybe the one about the racing snail might be a better bet.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/film-reviews/9218169/Film-review-Planes (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/film-reviews/9218169/Film-review-Planes)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 20, 2013, 10:20:42 pm

Meet the musicians behind the movies

Music and sound make a movie.

By AMY JACKMAN - The Dominion Post | 3:31PM - Sunday, 20 October 2013

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202013/9300482sr_20oct13_zps84d8ad42.jpg)
DRAMATIC DRUMMER: NZSO principal timpanist Larry Reese enjoys recording movie scores.

TRY TO imagine how scary Jaws would have been without the buh-dum buh-dum noise following the shark around.

Would you still have cried at Mufasa's death in the Lion King without Hans Zimmer's score?

Behind every great composer is a group of great musicians and a rising star on the scene is the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

In the past year it has been involved in recording film scores for movies such as the second Hobbit movie, Mr Pip, and the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone blockbuster Escape Plan.

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra principal timpanist Larry Reese said the orchestra was becoming more sought after for films.

"Composer and conductor Alex Heffes did a film with us last year, Emperor, which was filmed here as well," he said.

"He so liked what he got with us that on his next project, which happened to be the Hollywood blockbuster Escape Plan, he convinced the studios to delay their post-production until we were free."

"He said, ‘You won't regret the time delay, because this orchestra is so good’."

Mr Reese said that with modern technology, an orchestra's location was no longer a barrier.

"It's extraordinary. We can have a link from the Michael Fowler Centre to Park Road Post in Miramar and they have a giant link in almost real-time to Hollywood and they will be listening to what's happening."

"That technology allows a lot of people to collaborate on the post-production process."

"The conductor could be communicating with people in London or Los Angeles or Prague and make instant changes to the music."

The film director was normally at the recording and music producers followed the score in a control room, Reese said.

Movie scores can take from two days till 10 or more to finish.

"We can do the whole score in three days if there's no money for a longer time period, but usually for a two-hour film that has 70 to 80 minutes of music, we will take 10 days," he said.

"When we do a CD recording of classical music, we average between 12 and 15 minutes of useable material in a three-hour session."

"For a film, because it's more collaborative, we might play a piece really well, but the movie director will say, ‘That's nice, but I want more of a scary bit here or more of a magical mystery bit here’."

"The conductor has to translate that into musical direction. It can completely change the feel of the piece."

"Sometimes we can do a three-minute piece of music six or eight times just to give the movie people options for what they will actually mix with the film."

"It has a few challenges, because it has to be perfect every single time."

The music is played directly to the moving images.

"What the composer writes is supposed to line up exactly with what is happening on screen," he said.

"We are the end of a long post-production process, so most of the movie has been finalised when we play the score."

"We don't see the pictures, but the conductor has a giant TV screen in front of him. It has the pictures from the movie and lots of time code information."

"There are streamers that travel across it, which give him visual clues as to when the music should change."

"We play along to a click track, so we know exactly how long and at what speed to play."

Reese said some members of the orchestra would bring books or another activity to the recording because they would not be needed as often.

"It can be tedious if you don't play much, but you still have to be like a sprinter on the blocks, ready to go as soon as the gun goes off," he said.

"For me it's the music that adds impact to the visual imagery."

"When I'm sitting on the scoring stage, no matter what I'm asked to play, knowing I'm contributing to the last little bit of frisson for the audience is really exciting."

But, Reese said, the best part was "watching the films and being able to go, ‘That's me’."

"Like in Fellowship of the Ring, where Gandalf says, ‘You shall not pass’. There's a huge orchestral moment with lots of timpani in it — that's me."

The NZSO has recorded 17 film scores, including parts or all of:

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, 2013.

Mr Pip, 2013.

Emperor, 2012.

Escape Plan, 2013.

Lovely Bones, 2009.

Under The Mountain, 2009.

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, 2003.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/9293104/Meet-the-musicians-behind-the-movies (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/9293104/Meet-the-musicians-behind-the-movies)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 26, 2013, 12:26:15 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

Fifty Shades of Grey’ seeks ‘breathtaking’ actor

By DAVID HORSEY | 7:12AM - Wednesday, October 23, 2013

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_2013oct23a_zpse1cdcbbf.jpg)
Now that Charlie Hunnam has dropped out, the race is on to find a male lead for “Fifty Shades of Grey”. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.

WHICH ACTOR can possibly live up to the mental image readers have of Christian Trevelyan Grey, the billionaire bondage aficionado in “Fifty Shades of Grey”, the hugely successful erotic novel that is soon to become a movie?

In the book by British author E.L. James, Grey is described as “not merely good looking — he is the epitome of male beauty, breathtaking.” There are probably male models who could come close to that standard, but what about men who can actually act? Is there anyone gorgeous enough?

Charlie Hunnam had been slated for the role, a choice that provoked protest from “Grey” fans. Best known as the young stud from FX’s biker gang series “Sons of Anarchy”. Hunnam is a reasonably handsome guy, but not exactly “breathtaking.” His blond hair and close-set eyes give him the look of a surfer dude at San Onofre, or maybe a hunky Amish farmer. A mysterious billionaire with a dark soul and a perfect face? Not so much.

Hunnam dropped out of the project last month citing “family stuff” as a reason. Besides that stuff, maybe the actor decided he did not need the grief of trying to live up to impossible expectations.

Now every time the movie’s producer, Michael De Luca, shows up in public he is being peppered with questions about who will replace Hunnam. De Luca’s public statements suggest he is looking for someone with a face even less well-known than Hunnam’s modestly familiar mug. He told the Times’ Amy Kaufman, “It’s like casting Superman or James Bond. A fresh face is appropriate.”

With production in limbo and a release date pegged for next August, he needs to find that fresh face fast — a guy eager for a role that could make his career or humiliate him for life. Who will that brave — and breathtaking — man be?


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-fifty-shades-of-grey-20131023,0,1058883.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-fifty-shades-of-grey-20131023,0,1058883.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on October 30, 2013, 08:35:09 pm
Could make for an interesting movie  ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZHUFR5jgE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZHUFR5jgE)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 03, 2014, 08:19:27 am

From the Los Angeles Times....

America wolfs down ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ excess

By DAVID HORSEY | 7:00AM PST - Thursday, January 02, 2013

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014jan02a_zps9bad8dcc.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-52c36544/turbine/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-hed-coming-201312-001)
Director Martin Scorsese's “Wolf of Wall Street” presents filthy greed and wretched excess in a way that seems to excite moviegoers.
 — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.


MARTIN SCORSESE and Leonardo DiCaprio are being accused of glamorizing a criminal in their new movie, “The Wolf of Wall Street” — a charge to which generations of actors and filmmakers could plead guilty.

The criticisms began with an open letter to the film’s director and leading man from Christina McDowell, the daughter of Tom Prousalis, an accomplice to Jordan Belfort, the con-man portrayed by DiCaprio in the movie. Belfort bilked millions of dollars from investors before getting caught, spending a short stint in prison and hitting it big with the memoir on which “The Wolf of Wall Street” is based.

“You people are dangerous,” McDowell wrote to DiCaprio and Scorsese. “Your film is a reckless attempt at continuing to pretend that these sorts of schemes are entertaining, even as the country is reeling from yet another round of Wall Street scandals.… Did you think about the cultural message you'd be sending when you decided to make this film? You have successfully aligned yourself with an accomplished criminal, a guy who still hasn't made full restitution to his victims, exacerbating our national obsession with wealth and status and glorifying greed and psychopathic behavior.”

Others chimed in online. Hillary Crosley on the website Jezebel said she regretted seeing the movie “and increasing the bank account of a known criminal and huckster.”

At the Huffington Post, Ernest Owens urged working-class families to avoid the film. “The man that many moviegoers might accidentally root for in theaters this holiday season was the same man that defrauded a lot of working-class people out of tons of money,” he said.

Hollywood has never shied away from the public’s fascination with bad guys. From Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in “Bonnie and Clyde” to Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to Johnny Depp in “Public Enemies”, accomplished and attractive actors have been hired to play real-life criminals in sympathetic ways on the big screen.

In the era governed by the Motion Picture Production Code, hoodlums portrayed by stars such as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson always paid for their bad deeds in the end. Bad guys were required to look bad. Today, in successful television series such as “Boardwalk Empire” or “Breaking Bad”, the criminals are presented with such psychological depth — and the lawmen are caricatured as so crooked themselves — that it is hard not to root for them.

Has Scorsese taken this phenomenon too far? Is DiCaprio’s version of Belfort too charming, too glib, too likeable? Are Belfort’s crimes made to look too benign and his lavish lifestyle too appealing? Does it make a difference that Belfort, the real-life bad guy, has gained substantial benefit from the making of the movie?

Scorsese is a great director who has illuminated the lives of criminal figures in several fine films, including “Goodfellas”, “The Departed” and “Gangs of New York”. At a time when Wall Street crooks have repeatedly ravaged the U.S. economy, does his illumination of economic crime make it look like too much over-the-top fun?

In his own defense, Scorsese has said, "This is something that's not going to go away if you don't talk about it.”

And, when crime is talked about in the language of movies — compelling images, handsome actors and smart dialogue — it seems inevitable that crooks are going to look far more glamorous and engaging than they are in real life.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-wolf-of-wall-street-20131231,0,4432336.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-wolf-of-wall-street-20131231,0,4432336.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 18, 2014, 02:54:43 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

Golden Globes 2014: Seen at the party scene

By DAVID HORSEY | 9:26AM PST - Tuesday, January 14, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014jan14gg1_004_zps255c1da2.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-52d5a036/turbine/la-et-ct-golden-globes-2014-david-horsey-20140-004)

JACQUELINE BISSET's rather drifty acceptance speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday garnered lots of snide comments from the critics, but I figure she was just short of breath. The distance from her seat in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton to the stage was considerable, plus she had to hack her way through a tangle of dinner tables, chairs and a scrum of her fellow thespians.

It is no wonder Bisset had to pause before she could breathe deeply, bring her “Scottish background to the front” and deliver her scrambled thoughts.

"I was in a daze," Bisset said backstage after receiving the award for supporting actress in a TV movie or miniseries. "I was certainly surprised, and I was completely out of it, thinking, ‘Where is my dinner?’ I still hadn't gotten the dinner I was expecting."


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Well, yeah, there’s that too. Was it so hard to get meals delivered to the back section where the TV actors and longshot nominees were seated?

I sympathize with Bisset, not only because I’ve had a crush on her since I first saw her back in the ‘70s at the height of her youthful sexiness in “Le Magnifique” with Jean-Paul Belmondo, but also because navigating a path through the Golden Globes evening was tough for many people.

For those of us who were attending the HBO party after the ceremony, there was a gantlet to be run. First, among several lonely parking garages a mile away from the hotel, find the one lonely parking garage with a lineup of shuttle buses. Then, take the slow ride on the shuttle stuck in the monumental jam of limousines trying to reach the hotel entrance. Once off the bus, stand in an unmoving line for no apparent reason — which was still a better option than getting out of a vehicle too soon, as some did.


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Those who bailed out of their limos and walked a block or two discovered the security folks would not allow them to enter the hotel on foot. They were forced to wade into traffic, commandeer a taxi, go to the back of the line of cars and buses and start all over.

Once at the hotel entrance, there was a security check and two or three more ticket checkpoints inside the hotel. There were enough security people on hand that, traveling together, President Obama, Queen Elizabeth and Vladimir Putin would all have felt well protected.

Such is the glamour of Tinseltown in this age of terrorism and lunatics with guns.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014jan14gg4_001_zps29752804.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-52d5a036/turbine/la-et-ct-golden-globes-2014-david-horsey-20140-001)

Nevertheless, once inside the party, there was plenty of fun to be had and numerous star sightings. My favorite pairing of the evening: Tom Hanks and Mike Tyson. Posing for photographs together, Tom looked like the king of Hollywood, which is pretty much what he is. Tyson looked out of his element, a bit of a lost little boy — although I mean that in the nicest possible way (Mike Tyson is the last guy I would want to anger).

The party really kicked into high gear with the arrival of “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara and her entourage. She coaxed the DJ into playing some Latin dance tunes and, as she started to shake her thing, the dance floor was flooded with video cameras and fans taking shots on their iPhones. Among the mob that joined in the dancing was none other than Jacqueline Bisset, apparently recovered from the shock of winning. She looked wistful and gorgeous.

I confess, I just stared.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-golden-globes-horsey-hollywood-20140113,0,3869508.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-golden-globes-horsey-hollywood-20140113,0,3869508.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 19, 2014, 09:25:12 am

From the Los Angeles Times....

Paramount stops releasing major movies on film

It becomes the first big Hollywood studio to embrace digital-only U.S. releases.
Others are expected to quickly follow suit.


By RICHARD VERRIER | 5:30AM PST - Saturday, January 18, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014jan18film_zps8a14873d.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-52d9eb53/turbine/la-la-fi-digital-theater01-jpg-20140117)
Harkins Movie Theater Operations in Denver, Colorado. — Photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg.

ROLL CREDITS.

For more than a century, Hollywood has relied on 35-millimeter film to capture its fleeting images and deliver them to the silver screen. Now, in a historic move, Paramount Pictures has become the first big studio to stop releasing its major movies on film in the United States.

The studio's Oscar-nominated film "The Wolf of Wall Street" is the studio's first movie in wide release to be distributed entirely in digital format, according to theater industry executives briefed on the plans who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Paramount recently notified theater owners that its Will Ferrell comedy "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues", which opened in December, was the last movie released on 35-mm film, these people said. Previously, only small movies such as documentaries were released solely in digital format.

The decision is likely to encourage other studios to follow suit, accelerating a complete phase-out of film that could come by the end of the year.

"It's of huge significance because Paramount is the first studio to make this policy known," said Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. "For 120 years, film and 35 mm has been the format of choice for theatrical presentations. Now we're seeing the end of that. I'm not shocked that it's happened, but how quickly it has happened."

Paramount has kept its decision under wraps, at least in Hollywood, and a spokeswoman for the studio did not return calls for comment.

Its reticence reflects the fact that no studio wants to be seen as the first to abandon film, which retains a cachet among purists. Some studios may also be reluctant to give up box-office revenue by bypassing theaters that can show only film.

About 8% of U.S. theater screens have not gone digital and can show movies only in the old-fashioned film format. Internationally, Paramount is still expected to ship film prints to Latin America and other foreign markets where most theaters still show movies on film.

Studios prefer digital distribution because it is much cheaper. Film prints cost as much as $2,000; a digital copy on disc usually costs less than $100. Eventually, these movies could be beamed into cinemas by satellite, saving even more on production and shipping costs.

Digital technology also enables theaters to screen higher-priced 3-D films and makes it easier for them to book and program entertainment.

Other studios were expected to jump on the digital bandwagon first. 20th Century Fox sent a letter to exhibitors in 2011 saying it would stop distributing film "within the next year or two." Disney issued a similar warning to theater operators. And last year, many industry watchers expected Lions Gate to make history with an all-digital November release of "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire".

Paramount's move comes nearly a decade after studios began working with exhibitors to help finance the replacement of film projectors with digital systems.

As a result, large chains have moved quickly to embrace digital technology: Ninety-two percent of the 40,045 screens in the U.S. have already converted to digital, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.

The slackening demand for film has been felt across the industry. Last month, Technicolor, the French-owned film processing and post-production company, closed a film lab in Glendale. That lab had replaced a much larger facility at Universal Studios that employed 360 workers until it closed in 2011. Last year, Technicolor closed its Pinewood film lab in Britain.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" would seem an unlikely choice for the industry's first all-digital wide release. The movie was partially shot on film, and its director, Martin Scorsese, is a passionate advocate for film preservation. His last feature film, the 2011 3-D extravaganza "Hugo", was a loving homage to film's early days.

A spokesman for Scorsese said the director was traveling and not available for comment.

The march to digital puts further pressure on some small-town community theaters that have been struggling to finance the purchase of $70,000 digital projectors.

Those theaters are at risk of going out of business if they can no longer obtain film prints of movies. More than 1,000 theaters, about half of them independently owned, have not converted to digital. Some are turning to their communities to raise funds for digital equipment.

Others have opted to close because of the high costs.

Jeff Logan, who operates a small chain of theaters in South Dakota, has invested more than $700,000 to equip his three theaters with new digital equipment.

But Logan said that last year, he had to close a nearby drive-in theater that dated back to 1949 because he couldn't afford to install a digital projector there.

"We looked at some of the financing," Logan said. "But there was no way we would have been able to service the debt."


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-paramount-end-to-film-20140118,0,5666826,full.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-paramount-end-to-film-20140118,0,5666826,full.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 13, 2014, 02:34:40 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

After ‘The Lego Movie’ why not ‘The Play-Doh Movie’?

By DAVID HORSEY | 9:54AM PST - Wednesday, February 12, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014feb12act_zps584c6c89.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-52fbb077/turbine/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-20140211-001)
The Lego Movie” is a smash hit. Can a film based on Play-Doh be far behind? — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.

THE Toys R Us store on La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevard is likely to be swarmed by screenwriters and producers this week, given the $69-million opening of “The Lego Movie” over the weekend. If Legos can kill at the box office, they will be asking themselves, which toy on these shelves is the next hot property?

I only wish I had anticipated this trend. If I had simply written an action-packed script, hired a small film crew and reassembled the tens of thousands of Lego pieces my son long ago left packed away in the basement, I could be a millionaire by now. But who knew chunky little plastic people would be the new stars of Hollywood?

As Daniel Miller reported in the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-toy-movies-the-lego-movie-20140211,0,7647785.story) on Tuesday, not all toy- and game-based movies have been winners. But there have been enough good performers, such as the films inspired by the G.I. Joe action figure and the Transformers car/robots, that few in the motion picture business seem discouraged. Up next, Miller reports, are productions featuring Hot Wheels cars and the Ouija board, plus a Lego sequel.

Anyone who wants to take the low-budget route could follow the lead of my cartoon and do a stop-action movie with a few balls of Play-Doh. Suggestion: Don’t sweat the production values. Let Play-Doh be Play-Doh with lots of easy-to-create snakes and lumpy creatures whose legs and arms break off every minute or so. That is comedy in its purest juvenile form.

Here’s one other concept offered free of charge: Barbie has already been featured in dozens of cute animated movies geared to little girls. Maybe it’s time to give the gal with the impossibly proportioned body the kind of serious role such a big star deserves. It doesn’t have to go as far as “50 Shades of Grey”, but an adult theme for a Barbie movie would break new creative ground. Imagine the climactic bedroom scene where Barbie disrobes Ken and discovers there’s nothing down there.

That’s a shocker raw enough for HBO.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-lego-movie-20140211,0,1107757.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-lego-movie-20140211,0,1107757.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 28, 2014, 05:45:54 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

Errant thoughts on Oscar's best picture nominees

By DAVID HORSEY | 10:58AM PST - Wednesday, February 26, 2014

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THIS year’s nine Academy Award nominees for best picture are exceptional films that envelope audiences with great acting, unusual story lines and distinctive cinematography. But who among us can say they have been so captivated by a great movie that no errant thought has strayed into their mind?

I have seen all nine (which may be more than most members of the academy can claim) and do not have a favorite. Each in this group of movies has such an individual look and voice that weighing one against another is like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges.

The stunning extraterrestrial canvas of “Gravity” is utterly different from the black-and-white, small-town portraits of “Nebraska”. The epic pageant of excess that is “The Wolf of Wall Street” is far from the quieter tales told by “Her” and “Philomena”. And which is more compelling, the brutal history lesson of “12 Years A Slave”, the wrenching realism of “Captain Phillips”, the quirky con men and women in “American Hustle” or the odd couple on the edge of oblivion in “Dallas Buyers Club”?

This year’s awards have offered up a fine crop of films and, though a single lucky one will be proclaimed the best, I don’t think any one of the nine stands out as the obvious choice for the honor.

Still, as good as they are, odd little thoughts crept into my head as I watched them. I couldn’t help worrying that Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto may have done permanent damage to their bodies by starving themselves for their roles in “Dallas Buyers Club”.

I couldn’t keep from wondering if astronauts really wear shorts and tank tops under their spacesuits as I observed a weightless Sandra Bullock floating in her skivvies inside the capsule in “Gravity”. And I cannot have been the only one to be distracted by all the drugs Leonardo DiCaprio’s character ingested in “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Could anyone function, let alone survive, after taking that many pills on top of all that booze?

Yes, even as a movie pulls us into its artful fiction, a little piece of our brains cannot let go of the fact that Judy Dench and Jonah Hill and Bruce Dern and all of the rest are real human beings playing make-believe. When the camera gets so close to Joaquin Phoenix’s mustache that it is about five feet wide on the screen, it’s hard not to think of grooming habits.

All of this has inspired me to do a series of cartoons that can be seen in the gallery below. It’s a satirical rumination on what is really on our minds as we watch movies. Give it a look. Perhaps it will remind you of viewing “American Hustle” and the reaction you had when you first caught sight of Christian Bale’s belly.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014feb26oscars001_zps6010fefc.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-530d51aa/turbine/la-et-ct-oscars-horsey-on-hollywood-photos-201-001)

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(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014feb26oscars007_zps1ca35804.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-530d51aa/turbine/la-et-ct-oscars-horsey-on-hollywood-photos-201-007)

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014feb26oscars008_zps91b10e36.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-530d51aa/turbine/la-et-ct-oscars-horsey-on-hollywood-photos-201-008)

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014feb26oscars010_zps0d65abe7.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-530d51aa/turbine/la-et-ct-oscars-horsey-on-hollywood-photos-201-010)

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-best-picture-oscar-nominees-20140226,0,1221694.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-best-picture-oscar-nominees-20140226,0,1221694.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 01, 2014, 12:44:13 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

Academy Awards acceptance speeches should be more than thank-yous

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PST - Friday, February 28, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014feb28a_zps37132723.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-53103860/turbine/la-na-tt-academy-awards-speeches-20140227)

SUNDAY NIGHT, a happy cohort of entertainment folks will have their careers sprinkled with fairy dust at the 86th Academy Awards. And, as happens every year, too many of them will clutch their Oscars and bore an audience of many millions with totally lame acceptance speeches.

You would think that such a distinguished group of creative people could do better, but many of them will spend their precious moment in the spotlight simply checking off a baffling list of names. If it were merely a matter of thanking their parents and their high school drama teachers, that might be OK, especially if they share some poignant bit of personal history in the process. But few will stop with that.

They will thank the studio and their publicist and their agent and their personal assistant and the caterer and the key grip and, as the music from the pit orchestra kicks in, they will rush to name a dozen more. Why is this the default speech at awards ceremonies? Where would we be if politicians did the same?

What if Franklin D. Roosevelt had merely thanked his campaign advisors, his doctors and his barber instead of telling the country “we have nothing to fear but fear itself?

What if John F. Kennedy had not said “the torch has been passed to a new generation” or encouraged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country?” What if he had, instead, filled his inaugural address with thanks to his brother for running his campaign and his dad for bankrolling his political career and Ted Sorensen for writing his speeches?

What if Abraham Lincoln had not told us the “honored dead” at Gettysburg had “not died in vain,” but had given the country “a new birth of freedom” so that “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the Earth"? What if he had just thanked all his buddies back in Illinois and the boys in the White House telegraph office?

We would all be poorer for it if speeches were just valentines. So come on, Oscar winners. We know you’re surprised and nervous, but you are on stage — exactly where you always wanted to be. Give us some wit, some insight, some pathos. You can tell your agent you think he’s swell on Monday.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-academy-awards-speeches-20140227,0,5126710.story (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-academy-awards-speeches-20140227,0,5126710.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on March 02, 2014, 08:06:09 am
I saw PHILOMENA a few weeks ago - it is fantastic. Dame Judi Dench is magnificent.

I saw SAVING MR BANKS last week - what a wonderful movie. Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson are great in their roles - Emma Thompson is a STAR!


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 06, 2014, 09:55:02 am

From the Los Angeles Times....

The Oscar show is too long? Too bad!

By DAVID HORSEY | 10:39AM PST - Wednesday, March 05, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014mar05ao_zps4185e77a.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-53176c04/turbine/la-et-ct-20140305-001)
Oscar critics always grouse about the show being too long. Who cares? — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.

WHEN the 87th Academy Awards rolls around next year, I hope someone calls a moratorium on grousing about the length of the ceremony. Does anyone care about how long it takes, except the poor critics who are stuck scrutinizing every minute of the show?

The Oscars extravaganza is not normal entertainment. Like the Super Bowl, it is event TV. No one expects the super Bowl to be confined to a tight schedule, even if the game is tedious. It takes as long as it takes. The same goes for the Academy Awards.

Yes, this year’s iteration went 3½ hours, but it was probably worth taking the extra time, if only to avoid having so many speeches rudely cut short by an impatient producer cueing music from the orchestra to usher a rattled winner off the stage just when he or she is getting around to thanking the kids at home.

And, sure, some of the stunts Ellen DeGeneres pulled, like handing out pizza and shooting a selfie, may have gone on too long. On the other hand, those were moments in which we could see the larger-than-life stars act like normal people. Who wanted pizza? Who helped pass out the sloppy pieces? Who was most excited to get in on the photo that crashed Twitter?

The thing is, most people are not glued to the screen for every second of the show. For many, it’s a social occasion. People are jumping up to refresh a drink or pull something out of the oven. They are bantering back and forth during the boring bits and debating whose dress is the sexiest and which actor is aging least gracefully.

Folks in the Oscar audience are not sitting there like they are at the symphony. They are multitasking — talking, drinking, eating, laughing, complaining, whooping it up when their favorite film wins and moaning when the one they hate grabs an award. The Oscars ceremony is not just another TV show, it’s an excuse for a party and, like any party, who cares how long it takes as long as it’s fun?


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-long-oscar-show-20140305,0,4618811.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-long-oscar-show-20140305,0,4618811.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on March 12, 2014, 02:58:06 pm
A friend and I went to see 12 YEARS A SLAVE yesterday. It's graphic and violent but it is an amazing movie.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 28, 2014, 12:23:00 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

A flood of reaction to ‘Noah

By DAVID HORSEY | 10:13AM PST - Thursday, March 27, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014mar27noah_zpse41a02e4.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-53332e4f/turbine/la-et-ct-horse-hed-20140324-001)
With the Biblical epic “Noah” ready to flood movie theaters, its distributor is trying to remind purists that it's only a movie.
 — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.


UNTIL film director Darren Aronofsky got his hands on it, the old tale of Noah’s Ark had devolved into a cute children’s fable of giraffes and elephants and bears and bunnies crowding onto a big boat.

Aronofsky has re-envisioned it as what it really has always been: an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world disaster story. Biblical literalists, though, are not entirely happy about this new telling of one of the most ancient stories in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Aronofsky’s “Noahopens on Friday in theaters across the country (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-noah-sabotage-grand-budapest-hotel-20140326,0,4391185.story) and the big question for Paramount, the studio that paid more than $130 million to produce the film, is whether the large Christian audience that showed up for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and the more recent “Son of God” will pay to see what Aronofsky has called “the least biblical film ever made.”

If Glenn Beck has his way, no right thinking person will go see the movie. The eccentric conservative TV and radio commentator has told his followers, “I hope that ‘Noah’ is a massive failure.” Without actually viewing the film (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-noah-early-reviews-ark-sized-ambition-uneven-results-20140321,0,6055905.story), Beck has dismissed it as two hours of “dangerous disinformation” that portrays Noah as a drunk with an environmentalist agenda.

Other religious conservatives, however, have expressed a distinctly different opinion of the film. Among them is Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, who previewed “Noah” and gave credit to Aronofsky for telling a compelling story. “It is a creative interpretation of the scriptural account that allows us to imagine the deep struggles Noah may have wrestled with as he answered God's call on his life," Daly said.

On Wednesday night I went to a screening at Paramount Studios in Hollywood to see “Noah” for myself. I followed it up by re-reading the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis. The contrasts between the two versions are stark.

The story in the Bible is brief — not much longer than a pitch for a disaster movie — and Noah doesn’t have a word of dialogue until after the waters have receded and his sons find him drunk and naked in his hut. Aronofsky bulks up the sketchy tale, turning it into a cross between “Game of Thrones” and “Waiting for Godot”, with some antediluvian “Transformers” thrown in as ark builders.

Arguably, God comes off better in the film than in the book. In the Bible, just 10 generations into his creation, the Big Guy is not happy with the sinful ways of human beings. He wants a redo, so he drowns everybody but Noah and his family. Then, sounding a little regretful — “Oops! My bad,” sayeth the Lord — God promises Noah he won’t do it again, even though he knows Humanity 2.0 will be just as awful as the first version.

Aronofsky’s movie keeps God off in the clouds and lays the heavy choices on Noah while graphically portraying the wickedness and violence of those early humans. You can see why they kind of had it coming. Besides their murderous ways, they were a bunch of polluters who didn’t recycle and ate way too much red meat.

The richest part of the film version, though, is the way Aronofsky gives depth and dimension to Noah and his family and the existential issues they face. Yes, he takes great liberties with the details, but, for any Christians interested in something more intellectually rigorous than old fables, Aronofsky’s “Noah” would be a great starting point for a Bible class discussion about justice, mercy, faith and obedience.

Paramount may have less trouble than expected attracting a Christian audience already intrigued by the second story in the Bible. The tougher sell might be to a general audience unaccustomed to having their disaster flicks served up with such a grim and challenging vision.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-noah-20140324,0,4553870.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-noah-20140324,0,4553870.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: ssweetpea on March 28, 2014, 01:58:34 pm
An elderly lay preacher friend of mine said last week that she was interested in seeing Noah purely because she wanted to see how they managed to stretch out a story that can be told in under 3 minutes in order to make a full length movie.

I wonder if the ark has 7 sheep on it.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on March 28, 2014, 02:14:37 pm
Cuban Fury is FANTASTIC!!!!!!


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 28, 2014, 02:19:43 pm

Review: Energetic ‘Noah’ goes overboard — to riveting effect (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-noah-review-20140328,0,1626920.story)

          (Los Angeles Times — March 27th, 2014)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on March 29, 2014, 08:21:23 am
I've seen the shorts to NOAH a few times now. If the shorts are anything to go by - definitely not a movie I have any interest in seeing.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on April 03, 2014, 10:35:10 pm

From the Los Angeles Times....

Hollywood action movies: Could they be any worse?

By DAVID HORSEY | 9:17AM PST - Wednesday, April 02, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_2014apr02am_zps9833a585.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-533c32c0/turbine/la-et-ct-horse-hed-here-20140402-001)
Hollywood action movies — could they be any worse? — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.

A FEW NIGHTS AGO, I finally caught up with watching the most recent Tweedledee and Tweedledum of action movies — “White House Down” and “Olympus Has Fallen”.

White House Down”, with Channing Tatum in the lead role, was one of the flubs that drove a big revenue decline at Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2013 — losses that contributed to last month’s layoff of 216 employees at the studio’s Culver City headquarters. “Olympus Has Fallen”, starring Gerard Butler, was made for less money and did pretty well selling tickets. The contrast in box office performance, though, is one of the few things that sets the two movies apart.

During production, it was common knowledge that two cinematic versions of an attack on the White House were in the works and, since their release, many people have noted the remarkable similarities between them. If a viewer did not know they were made at the same time, it would be easy to think one was a remake of the other.

Tatum plays a cop who is rejected as a candidate for Secret Service agent’s position in the White House. Butler plays a Secret Service agent who has been banished from the White House and relegated to a desk job. In both movies, when bands of terrorists start blowing up D.C. and take the president hostage, these Secret Service outsiders are the only ones left inside the White House to save the day. Both movies feature kids in peril. Both have admirable, resolute presidents (a rarity in the era of “House of Cards” and “Scandal”). Both make the Speaker of the House a central character. The similarities run deep.

If these were books or news articles, one might suspect plagiarism at work. However, the reality of Hollywood action movies is different. There are certain formulas that everyone uses. In the case of “White House Down” and “Olympus Has Fallen”, it is the venerated “Die Hard” formula that has worked so well for the Bruce Willis franchise. If two screenwriters apply the same formula to an attack on the White House the resulting films are bound to be clones of each other.

In their third acts — that final 45 minutes when everything starts blowing up and the hero and chief villain come face to face for a final confrontation — just about all action movies are the same. These predictable climaxes are seldom very interesting. One of 2013’s better action movies, “Man of Steel”, was a very original reinvention of the Superman story, but the climactic battle was just the usual overload of noise and mayhem.

Man of Steel” ended with an epic fist fight — the most unshakeable convention in action movies. By some strange logic, the top good guy and top bad guy, no matter the potency of their weapons or level of their powers, must always end it all in a brawl, as if they were two cowboys in a saloon.

It would be nice, for once, to be surprised. Remember the moment in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when Harrison Ford was confronted by a hulking Arab assassin brandishing a huge scimitar? For just a beat, Ford, as Indiana Jones, contemplates hand-to-hand combat. Then he realizes what a ridiculous idea that is, pulls out his pistol and shoots the bad guy. It was unexpected and it was funny. It spoofed convention.

That’s what we should wish for in future action movies: fewer explosions and a lot more surprises.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-action-movies-20140402,0,4963937.story (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-action-movies-20140402,0,4963937.story)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: nitpicker1 on April 08, 2014, 08:26:02 am


Making a movie in 48 hours hard on crew   
 
JO MCKENZIE-MCLEAN   

Last updated 12:06 07/04/2014 
             
Temporary insanity is one way to describe the feeling of making a film in 48 hours with only just over two hours sleep.

Cromwell filmmaker Raymond Lum, of Sword Productions Ltd, is recovering today from a weekend of sleep deprivation after co- writing, directing, filming and editing a film for the Rialto Channel 48Hours Furious Film- Making Challenge.

Lum and a group of Cromwell actors, assistants and a musician leapt to action on Friday night when a text with the team's genre came through: The Revenge Movie.

The team's task - complete a revenge movie centred around a main character - a liar called Morgan Foster, using the line - "Not with that you're not" and a using a ball as a prop. They also had to include an extreme close-up shot.

Lum said the genre, one of a possible 12, was much easier than last year's when he landed a robot/android genre.

"There is more drama this year . . . we have a group of kids who know someone and there is a relationship breakdown and there is a bit of a twist at the end."

He would not reveal any other details of the film, which would be screened at The Nose restaurant in upcoming weeks, he said.

"The biggest challenge has been the lack of sleep. I've only had about two and a half hours . . . but I love doing film work. It's my passion."

The competition, in its 12th year, attracted more than 800 teams from around New Zealand this year.

Assistant director Odette Pride said it was her second year working alongside Lunn and this year, while filming seemed more polished, it was not without its "chaotic" moments.

"This year we decided to take a light-hearted approach and use a lot of outdoor locations but it poured with rain all Saturday morning so we had to change locations pretty quickly but the filming went well," Pride said.

After an entire day filming, one actor pulled the pin during the last scene and the child actors had to be thrown a few chocolate energy bars to keep them going, she said.

"Everyone who has done it has said, 'call me, I'm doing it next year'. There is a wrap party [on Sunday night] but I will be home in bed."

Organiser Tim Groendaal said there were about 700 people from Otago and Southland competing in the challenge and numbers were growing each year.

"Per head of population, it is the biggest short film competition in the world. I think normally, when it comes to filmmaking it's a long protracted process for people and you don't get the quick fix gratification this provides . . . and it works because it is a cool social activity for people. That is the big thing for us.

"It isn't about winning the awards - that's the cream on top if you get that far - it's that social experience. Having Peter Jackson as a patron and guy who selects wildcard winners from the shorts is not a bad thing either."

The films had to be finished by 7pm last night, and would go through a regional final process.

The grand final is held on May 30 with Oscar-nominated scriptwriter Josh Olson heading the judging panel.

 http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/9911166/Making-a-movie-in-48-hours-hard-on-crew
 


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on April 10, 2014, 12:14:48 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202014/9922446sr_Noah_10apr14_zps91ef50a2.jpg)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 24, 2014, 07:43:58 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Kim Jong Un has made Seth Rogen's silly film the must-see movie of the year

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PST - Tuesday, December 23, 2014

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix%202014/latimes_20141223dh_zpsf1187999.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-5498db8a/turbine/la-na-tt-kim-jong-un-seth-rogens-film-20141222)

THE bizarre saga of the cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment could provide the story line for a better movie than “The Interview”, the film that inspired the hack. Still, much like Seth Rogen’s goofball comedy about the fictional assassination of North Korea’s baby-faced despot, Kim Jong Un, the real world tale is not a profile in courage or maturity.

Start with Seth Rogen. He and his creative partner, Evan Goldberg, have been buddies since they were kids and retain the comic sensibility of 14-year-old boys. Trying to widen the scope of their work beyond the pratfalls and bodily functions of amiable stoners and binge-drinking frat boys, they came up with what they considered a more adult concept: a movie about two knuckleheaded TV journalists being recruited by the CIA to “take out” North Korea’s pudgy potentate.

It’s an idea with great satiric promise, but, according to reviewers who managed to preview the film before Sony canceled its release, it is promise unfulfilled. The one thing it does deliver, though, is Kim’s on-screen death. However hilarious his pretend demise may be, Rogen should have put down his bong long enough to consider that somebody in North Korea might not be amused. Think of how outraged Americans would be if China or Iran produced a film making a joke of President Obama being killed. (Admittedly, not all Americans would be outraged; some would be lining up at theaters to see it, right Limbaugh fans?)

The thing is, Rogen has never claimed to be the adult in the room. He just makes the movies; somebody else gives them the green light. In this case, it is the Sony executives in Culver City who decided to grant Rogen free rein, ignoring the concerns of the chief executive of Sony Corporation, Kazuo Hirai. Given that the Tokyo-based boss might have a little more insight into Kim’s temperament, the American management might have been smart to listen to him. Still, I suppose they should be commended for erring on the side of artistic freedom, especially since they have paid dearly for it.

The hack has paralyzed Sony’s computer system, cost the company tens of millions of dollars, drawn lawsuits from current and former employees who say the company failed miserably in protecting their private information, and inspired speculation that the studio will soon be put up for sale. Besides all that, the exposure of private emails has been deeply embarrassing, especially for the studio’s co-chairman, Amy Pascal. She has had to do penance for a string of jokey emails that insinuated Obama’s taste in movies would not extend beyond pictures with African American actors and themes like “Django Unchained”, “12 Years a Slave” and “The Butler”.

For his part, Obama has branded the Sony bosses as a bunch of wimps — not for sending dumb emails, but for shelving “The Interview” in response to the hackers’ threats. Sony gave the major theatre chains permission to back out of commitments to screen the film and the theatre owners, worried that moviegoers would be scared away from the multiplexes, happily took them up on the offer. Obama said this capitulation was wrong.

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” the president said. “Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like or news reports that they don't like.”

Obama, like the grown-up stepping in to sort things out among a brood of naughty children, is pledging to take action based on the FBI’s preliminary finding that the North Koreans are the principal culprits in this crime.

“They caused a lot of damage,” Obama said. “And we will respond. We will respond proportionally, and we'll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.”

A lot of people are wondering if North Korea has already been hit by an American response. At 2 a.m. on Tuesday the country's Internet service went kaput. The outage lasted nine-and-a-half hours. It could have been the U.S. getting retirbution — no one was saying — but experts also said the rickety Internet link has failed all on its own more than once in Kim Jong Un's backward nation.

By far the most childish person in this weird scenario is Kim. He praised the Sony hack but, like a schoolyard bully who is too cowardly to take responsibility for his misdeeds, Kim denies he had anything to do with it. Kim is such a deluded, petulant punk that even the Chinese leaders who have propped up the dismal North Korean “Hermit Kingdom” for nearly seven decades are now engaged in a very public debate about whether they should let Kim and his regime collapse.

There could not be a more deserving and ripe target for sharp political satire than Kim. “The Interview” may have gone too far by killing him off, but may not have gone far enough in portraying him as the world’s most obnoxious brat. At least that’s what the critics say.

Sooner or later and one way or another, we will all get to see for ourselves, of course. Kim may have wrecked Sony, but he also has made Rogen’s juvenile farce the must-see movie of the year.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-kim-jong-un-seth-rogens-film-20141222-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-kim-jong-un-seth-rogens-film-20141222-story.html)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on December 24, 2014, 09:40:46 am
I saw the fantastic movie "What we did on our Holidays" - Billy Connolly is MAGNIFICENT as always.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Crusader on December 24, 2014, 08:14:18 pm
So want to see 'The Interview' now. I wonder if there are any North Koreans who would want to go with me.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: reality on December 25, 2014, 12:41:26 pm
yes, I am keen to see the movie now to,

...might be hard to find many North Koreans who have escaped from North Korea ;)

but...I think secretly most North Koreans would hope the movie comes true 8)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: nitpicker1 on December 25, 2014, 05:00:47 pm

yes, I am keen to see the movie now to,

...might be hard to find many North Koreans who have escaped from North Korea ;)

but...I think secretly most North Koreans would hope the movie comes true 8)

Google, Microsoft help screen Sony film

December 25, 2014, 11:03 amAFP

...The Interview became available for rent in high-definition streaming at Google Play, YouTube Movies, Microsoft's Xbox Video service and at a dedicated seetheinterview.com website for a price of $US5.99 ($A6.48). ...


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 08, 2015, 11:35:20 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202014/20141230_InternetCrash_10997147sr_zps30f2b51e.jpg)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 27, 2015, 04:36:16 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Clint Eastwood's ‘American Sniper’ brilliantly blurs ideological lines

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PST - Monday, January 26, 2015

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20Pix%202015/latimes_20150126dh_zps1udezex4.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-54c5f682/turbine/la-na-tt-american-sniper-blurs-lines-20150126)

CLINT EASTWOOD's masterful, controversial new movie, “American Sniper”, is generating a useful debate that, at heart, is about wolves, sheep and sheepdogs.

Visually dynamic with a taut plot line, Eastwood’s film takes the audience straight into the horrific, intimate details of modern war by telling the fact-based story of Chris Kyle, the most prolific sniper in U.S. military history. We see the chaos and violence that surrounded him during four tours of duty in the Iraq war and his increasing alienation from the happy family life to which he intermittently returned throughout all his years at war.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the movie is a huge hit and a major contender in the Oscar race. It is especially popular among conservatives who see it as a bold celebration of muscular patriotism. Some antiwar liberals, on the other hand, are disturbed by what they perceive as a glorification of a war that should never have been fought.

Leftie filmmaker Michael Moore outraged conservatives when, in a tweet, he noted that his uncle was killed by a sniper in World War II. “Snipers aren’t heroes,” he wrote, “And invaders r worse.” An uproar ensued, led by a tweet from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who suggested that Moore “spend a few weeks with ISIS and Boko Haram.” The brouhaha compelled Moore to offer a fuller assessment of the film, which he mostly praised, noting that “there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie.”

Conservative fans of the film may have overlooked that antiwar element. They may have also not heard that Jane Fonda — “Hanoi Jane” — has gone on Twitter to favorably compare “American Sniper” to her own lauded Vietnam War-era antiwar movie, “Coming Home”. She ends her tweet with “Bravo Clint Eastwood.”

Having seen the movie myself, I would contend that “American Sniper” is neither pro-war nor antiwar; it is simply the reality of an asymmetrical conflict reproduced as precisely as art will allow from the tight perspective of the American soldiers who are fighting in it and the families at home who pay a big price for having their loved ones repeatedly sent into battle.

Some critics argue that the film’s tight perspective is precisely the problem. In their view, leaving out the deception and political hubris that led to the American invasion, as well as the complex history of exploitation and colonialism in the Mideast, makes the movie a simplistic story of good Americans shooting at bad Muslims. I understand the point, but I also believe that there is room for a movie that does not hammer the audience with a message and, instead, with a textured portrayal, gives them a lot to ponder.

For me, I’ve found a lot to think about in the central theme of the movie, which was also the motivating principle of Chris Kyle’s life. In an early scene, an actor portraying Kyle’s father tells his sons that the world consists of wolves, sheep and the sheepdogs that protect the sheep from the wolves. That becomes Kyle’s mission and, in the end, after all the carnage, the only regret Kyle expresses is that he could not save even more of the soldiers he was assigned to protect.

The simple formulation about wolves, sheep and sheepdogs is one of the things conservatives especially love about “American Sniper”. They are always the quickest to declare that our armed forces, filled with men like Chris Kyle, are the only ones standing between all of us at home and the barbarians who would destroy our freedoms. We are the sheep, they are the sheepdogs and the killers of Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and their ilk are the vicious wolves. As glad as I am that the United States has the best sheepdogs in the world, though, the picture is incomplete. There are also shepherds.

Good shepherds can see the broader landscape. They can understand what might be going on beyond the horizon to make the wolves so ravenous. They can make a wise judgment about when to hold the sheepdogs in check, when to turn them loose and when to call them back. Bad shepherds, though, read the landscape wrong and depend on the sheepdogs to save them from their mistakes.

American Sniper” is a well-told story about the sheepdogs — the tiny percentage of Americans who volunteer to fight and die to advance the objectives of U.S. foreign policy.

In the background are the sheep; the vast majority of us who go on with our lives, risking nothing, protesting little, with only a vague appreciation of what these soldiers are doing, for good or ill, on our behalf.

And then there are the shepherds; too many of them quick to deploy and use up the sheepdogs without looking over the horizon and finding a better, more permanent way to protect the flock and give the sheepdogs a rest.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-american-sniper-blurs-lines-20150126-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-american-sniper-blurs-lines-20150126-story.html)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: reality on January 27, 2015, 01:24:05 pm
Sarah Palin pictured holding sign saying ‘F*** you Michael Moore’

35 MINUTES AGO JANUARY 27, 2015 12:42PM

R
REPUBLICAN Party presidential aspirant Sarah Palin has been pictured holding a sign that turned Michael Moore’s name into gun sights.
The former Alaskan governor was at the Las Vegas Shot Show, a trade expo for shooters and hunters, when she posed holding the sign with a couple of supporters.
The picture was posted on Facebook by Afghanistan war veteran Dakota Meyer, and has been liked over 50,000 times, and shared almost 30,000 times.

For Full Story
http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/sarah-palin-pictured-holding-sign-saying-f-you-michael-moore/story-fnh81jut-1227198116241


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 27, 2015, 06:29:09 pm

I'm sure Michael Moore will regard that as a notch on his belt....pissing off a retard like Sarah Palin would definitely be a good thing.


But about that “American Sniper” movie.

It sounds like yet another American wankfest where they try to pretend that a Sepo saves the world.

No wonder people get pissed off with them and fly Boeing airliners into their buildings....(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/44_Witch.gif)


And don't forget that the Americans were silly enough to elect a clown like Dubya to be Prez....he dragged them into a war which sucked more than a Trillion dollars out of their economy and threw them into a huge financial crisis which resulted in millions of 'merkins being thrown on the scrapheap as their jobs disappeared and they got kicked out of the homes they had mortgaged up to the hilt. And the idiots were actually stupid enough to elect him back into the White House for a second term.

Say no more about dumb Americans, eh?  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/idiot2.gif)  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/uglystupid2.gif)



(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp331/MadMadDog/Dubya%20Gallery/0144518964000.jpg)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: reality on January 27, 2015, 08:24:21 pm
ktj..."And don't forget that the Americans were silly enough to elect a clown like Dubya to be Prez"

..yeah..god thing kiwi's are alot smarter eh..we elected a great leader for our country..John Key..the americans must be envious ;D


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Alicat on January 28, 2015, 07:56:43 am
Back to topic .... at the movies.

I really enjoyed American Sniper. It was a excellent movie. I certainly did not see it as pro or anti war. I saw it as an extremely well done movie.

War is not pretty, but war is, sadly, a fact of life. Like most movies that are based on  true story - they are exactly that - 'based' - with a fair amount of poetic licence.


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 21, 2015, 01:26:12 pm

It's “Oscars” time again....


(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp331/MadMadDog/Los%20Angeles%20Times/latimes_20150220dh_Oscars2015_zps0ff96b62.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-54e63753/turbine/la-et-horsey-on-the-oscars-in-2015-photo)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 21, 2015, 01:26:41 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

Amy Pascal deserves an Oscar for Best Recovery from a Humiliating Hack

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PST - Friday, February 20, 2015

(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp331/MadMadDog/Los%20Angeles%20Times/latimes_20150220dh_zps8cdabf36.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-54e6909b/turbine/la-na-tt-amy-pascal-oscar-20150219)

SUNDAY will bring the American film industry’s most glittering night of the year, the 2015 Oscars, but the biggest movie story of recent months will only be noted if the evening’s host, Neil Patrick Harris, makes it the subject of one of his jokes.

That is very likely. How could anyone resist drawing humor from the rich trove of weirdness contained in the hack of the computer system at Sony Pictures? Who would have thought that a loveable stoner doofus like Seth Rogen would be the guy who inspired a devastating cyber attack on a major U.S. industry — an attack that exposed the shocking vulnerability of American corporations that have become completely reliant on vast computer systems plugged into the untamed frontier of the Internet? And who can help but laugh — nervously — at Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s mercurial young despot, whose head famously explodes in Rogen’s controversial comedy film, “The Interview”?

For those who missed this story, here are the main plot points: Rogen had grown tired of making movies about 20-something slackers who spend their days masturbating and smoking weed. Trying to think bigger, he hit on the comic possibilities of a movie about an American journalist being drafted by the CIA to assassinate a dictator in the middle of an exclusive interview. Cool concept, right? Thinking about it some more, he realized the movie would have a stronger impact if the dictator being portrayed were real, not some made-up ruler of a fake country. North Korea’s tubby tyrant was the obvious choice to fill that role.

Over the objections of her bosses in Tokyo who live a whole lot closer to the Korean Peninsula than she does, Amy Pascal, co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment, gave Rogen the green light for his movie. Everyone knew the North Koreans would shriek and stamp their feet, but what else could they do? Their missiles can’t reach the studio lot in Culver City.

Unfortunately, their hackers can. Or somebody’s hackers. It is still not absolutely certain who was behind the cyber invasion, but the FBI and U.S. intelligence services have convinced President Obama it had to be the North Koreans. The cinematic portrayal of the hermit kingdom’s supreme leader being “taken out” just to elicit laughs from cineplex audiences was branded an act of war by government officials in Pyongyang. And it provided a convenient opportunity for them to put their army of well-trained hackers to work exacting revenge.

And, boy oh boy, did it work. On the day before Thanksgiving, devilish images appeared on all the computer screens at Sony Pictures. The system locked up and the entire studio was forced to communicate with pens and paper and personal phones. Then came the massive data dump — all kinds of stolen personnel records and internal communications, plus copies of complete movies that had yet to be released in theaters, delivered to media outlets that were more than happy to share them with readers and viewers.

Pascal was humiliated when some of her pirated e-mails were bared to the world. There were racially-tinged jokes about what sort of movies Obama might like to watch. And there were messages to and from Pascal from various parties talking about how celebrities are a bunch of narcissistic whiners.

Sony seems to have recovered from the hack, but Pascal got booted from her job. Still, thanks to being a talented and influential Hollywood player, she landed well. Pascal is now overseeing the reboot of the “Spider-Man” franchise for Sony and, no doubt, will be at the head of many successful movie projects to come. It will not be surprising if she shows up on the Academy Awards red carpet on Sunday.

If Pascal turns out to be the butt of a few jokes, she will laugh along with everyone else, even if it hurts a little. And why not? It’s not an international incident, it’s just show biz.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-amy-pascal-oscar-20150219-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-amy-pascal-oscar-20150219-story.html)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 25, 2015, 10:22:42 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

American Sniper’ shoots blanks at Oscars

By DAVID HORSEY | 8:00AM PST - Monday, February 23, 2015

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20Pix%202015/latimes_20150223dh_zpshq4mp3ac.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-54eaf6bf/turbine/la-na-tt-american-sniper-oscars-20150223)

POLITICAL STATEMENTS were more numerous than good jokes on the stage of the 2015 Academy Awards. Equal pay for women, protection of voting rights, encouragement for young gay people, acceptance of new immigrants and even a better government in Mexico all got shout outs from Oscar winners, but the movie that has made the biggest political stir got only an award for sound editing.

That movie, “American Sniper”, was the people's choice for Best Picture, according to a fan poll noted by ABC, and Clint Eastwood's Iraq War film took in more money at the box office than all the other top nominees combined. When it came to gold on Oscar night, though, “Birdman” beat it out for Best Picture and “Sniper” star Bradley Cooper had to stay put in his front row seat when the Best Actor envelope was opened and his name was not called.

Conservative pundits are sure to take this as further proof that Hollywood is out of step with real America. Eastwood, the special guest star of the 2012 Republican, was slighted. Meanwhile, that Castro-loving leftie, Sean Pean, got to stand in the spotlight and hand the Best Picture prize to Alejandro Inarritu, a gosh-darned Mexican! Good grief! John Wayne must be rolling in his grave.

This will spark the latest round in a debate about “American Sniper” that has been going on since the movie opened in December. Is the film a skillful and subtle examination of the shattering costs of war, as seen through the eyes of Navy Seal Chris Kyle? Or is it a glorification of George W. Bush's trumped up war? A lot of hot air has been expended on talk radio and cable TV news shows arguing all aspects of those questions.

So, “American Sniper” may have been ignored by Oscar, but not by me. I'm giving it a special cartoon award for all it has contributed to the American punditry business.


http://www.latimes.com/la-na-tt-american-sniper-oscars-20150223-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/la-na-tt-american-sniper-oscars-20150223-story.html)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 29, 2016, 08:39:40 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

A cartoon extravaganza: What if everyone skipped the Oscars?

What if the Oscars gave out awards but nobody showed up … except maybe Leonardo DiCaprio?

By DAVID HORSEY | 8:00AM PST - Sunday, February 28, 2016

HOLLYWOOD's glamorous Smith couple — Will and Jada — made it known early on that they would be absent from the 2016 Academy Awards ceremony because not a single non-white actor had gotten a nomination.

In subsequent days, a lively and important debate has ensued about the lack of diversity in the movie industry.

This raises the question: What if they gave Oscars and nobody came?

There are plenty of reasons, both serious and silly, that film industry folks might choose not to show up.

Los Angeles Times editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey ponders a scenario at this year's Academy Awards, hitting all the eeshs and oohs. We're talking racial diversity, unequal pay and — ding, ding, ding — Leonardo DiCaprio's possible lead actor Oscar.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160228dh_zpsnoffdmum.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-56d0d18b/turbine/la-et-david-horsey-oscars-2016-illustration-20160226)

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-skip-the-oscars-20160226-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-skip-the-oscars-20160226-story.html)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 01, 2016, 11:29:51 am

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a1bdbd772b487f5cb2f741ef115a20082da85da8/0_0_2400_3459/master/2400.jpg?w=940&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=b955583723ca6c2ba2396054631ec91b) (https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a1bdbd772b487f5cb2f741ef115a20082da85da8/0_0_2400_3459/master/2400.jpg?w=940&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=b955583723ca6c2ba2396054631ec91b)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 02, 2016, 12:20:12 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160302_Oscars_zpsysrvfjjd.jpg) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/56d51fbef699bba7a12ff1c7/1456807904257/OscarsW.jpg)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 06, 2016, 10:42:19 am

What's the bloody point?  (http://images.proboards.com/new/huh.gif)

The original movie is fine exactly as it is and doesn't need to be remade.

What's wrong with coming up with something original instead of trying to improve a Kiwi classic which doesn't need to be improved?




from the Sunday Star-Times....

Goodbye Pork Pie remake is coming (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/77581207)

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202016/20160306_14107871s_zpsdjjoypmf.jpg) (http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1457209258/871/14107871.jpg)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: guest49 on March 06, 2016, 11:44:30 am
Riveting...


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on September 14, 2016, 09:32:32 pm

Now this looks like it has the potential to be a great movie. It is certainly an interesting story.

I'll have to keep an eye out for its release in New Zealand.




from The Washington Post....

The nearly forgotten story of the black women
who helped land a man on the moon


By STEPHANIE MERRY | 7:00AM EDT - Tuesday, September 13, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160913hf_HiddenFigures1_zpsa9nhu2vy.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/09/09/Style/Images/hidden-figures-DF-04856_R2_rgb.jpg)
Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) in gray, flanked by fellow mathematicians Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), left,
and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), meets the man they helped send into orbit, John Glenn (Glen Powell) in the upcoming
movie “Hidden Figures”. — Photograph: Hopper Stone/SMPSP/Twentieth Century Fox.


IT ALL STARTED with a mysterious photograph.

In 2011, Mary Gainer was a historic preservationist for NASA, and she stumbled on a 1943 picture of a thousand people standing in a huge building. Gainer figured that the black men posing in the front were probably machinists, and the rest of the group was mostly white men in suits and ties.

But scattered here and there was something unexpected: Women, some white and some black, in conspicuous knee-length skirts and pompadour hairdos.

Gainer, who worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, tasked her new intern, Sarah McLennan, to get to the bottom of it. There were too many to be the few secretaries employed then, so who were they, she wanted to know?

Unbeknownst to Gainer, another person was on a similar hunt — only Margot Lee Shetterly was a step ahead. Shetterly's father was a scientist who worked at Langley, so growing up in the 1970s and '80s, she was aware of the history of black women at NASA.

“There are these women and I knew them, and my dad worked with them and they went to our church and their kids were in my school,” she said recently over the phone from her home in Charlottesville. “It was my husband who was like, ‘What is this story? How come I've never heard about it?’”


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160913lmal_LangleyMemorialAeronauticalLaboratory_zpsgtljajdd.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/09/12/Others/Images/2016-09-12/hiddenfigures1473703631.jpg)
This photo — unearthed by NASA historic preservationist Mary Gainer in 2011 — was taken at the NACA Langley Memorial
Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA Langley Research Center) on November 4th, 1943 during a visit by Frank Knox,
secretary of the Navy. — Photograph: NASA Langley Research Center.


This was a special story, she suddenly realized: black women living in Jim Crow-era Virginia hired by NASA to do math and research that would launch men into space.

Shetterly started poking around and linked up with Gainer, whose intern was compiling oral histories from former employees and their families. Shetterly's book about those math whizzes, Hidden Figures (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006236359X), came out last week. In January, a movie version (http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/hidden-figures) will hit multiplexes with a cast that includes Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.

And just like that, a piece of history that was nearly lost could become common knowledge.

Shetterly and her neighbors all knew the stories of these women. “Growing up in Hampton, the face of science was brown like mine,” Shetterly writes in her book.

But at the very place where these prodigies were employed, the history was fading.

Everyone knows what a computer looks like: the hard drive, the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse. But in the middle of the last century at Langley (which was until 1958 part of NASA's precursor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), it looked different. Women who used pencils and paper to calculate data from wind tunnel tests, among other research, were called computers. The first of their kind were hired in 1935, and their ranks swelled during the labor shortage of World War II. In other fields, as men trickled back from overseas, women returned to more traditional roles at home, but not at Langley. The female computers became invaluable as the needs for aircraft advancements gave way to a different kind of battle: beating Russia to the moon.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160913hf_HiddenFigures2_zpsmvfi26dt.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/09/09/Style/Images/hidden-figures-DF-00227_R_rgb.jpg)
Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) and NASA mission specialist Karl Zielinski (Olek Krupa) in “Hidden Figures”.
 — Photograph: Hopper Stone/SMPSP/Twentieth Century Fox.


The women who had these jobs may not have felt remarkable. They were just happy to have work that paid better than the alternatives — teaching and nursing. The jobs were classified as “subprofessional”, even though they entailed specialized math skills.

One such woman was Katherine G. Johnson. At 98, she still lives in Hampton, and has emerged as the most high-profile of the computers. In the last year, she's won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saw a building named after her and had a bench dedicated in her honor. On her birthday, in late August, #HappyBirthdayKatherineJohnson (https://twitter.com/hashtag/happybirthdaykatherinejohnson) started trending on Twitter. In a few months, Henson, an Oscar nominee, will play her onscreen.

Like a lot of the other computers, Johnson studied math in college. She was also one of three graduate students to desegregate West Virginia University in 1940, but marriage and a family derailed her plans for an advanced degree. At NASA, she worked on the life-or-death task of determining launch timing. Her calculations helped propel Alan Shepard into space and guided him successfully back to Earth; they landed Neil Armstrong on the moon and brought him home.

She never talked about work much, her daughter Joylette Hylick said recently.

“To come home and start talking about complex equations wouldn't go over with teenagers,” Hylick explained. Plus, “we had activities — church, sports, music lessons, the whole nine, so it was quite a full life. She was not a stay-at-home but she also was not a workaholic in the sense that everything revolved around that.”

When asked about her accomplishments, Johnson, a prodigy who graduated high school at 14, tends to deflect in every interview. Shetterly says Johnson told her again and again, “I was just doing my job.” (Johnson was unavailable to comment for this story.)


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160913hf_HiddenFigures3_zpsvcgpjvdc.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/09/09/Style/Images/hidden-figures-DF-03283_R3_rgb.jpg)
Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe, left), Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer)
in “Hidden Figures”. — Photograph: Hopper Stone/SMPSP/Twentieth Century Fox.


It wasn't until well into adulthood that Hylick realized the importance of her mother's job.

After all, she was a trailblazer amid rampant discrimination. The earliest group of black women who worked at NACA were segregated from another computing pool of white women, and they had to use different bathrooms. At lunch in the cafeteria, they were relegated to a table with a white cardboard sign that read “colored computers”. One woman, Miriam Mann, snatched the sign off the table and hid it in her purse, depositing it at home. At first, replacements would materialize, but when Mann kept taking them, they eventually stopped appearing. It was the first of many victories.

Now seems like the right time for this history to re-emerge. “There's been a movement in the last couple of decades to diversify the history of computing,” said McLennan, the former intern, who is now a visiting assistant professor at Virginia State University. “The earliest histories of that kind of thing were about innovators or big companies, but it didn't necessarily look at the social aspect.”

The film's producer, Donna Gigliotti, credits the current interest in encouraging women to pursue science and math for helping get the movie made so quickly. It's rare for a producer to option a book based on only a 55-page proposal, but that's what Gigliotti did.

“Really, you can feel it in the zeitgeist,” Gigliotti said, and the rapturous response to the trailer confirms that.

Whatever the reason, Shetterly is happy that people will know not just about the John Glenns of the world, she said, but the whole team that helped him get where he was going.

“We want the big stories, of course, of the great men, but there's as much drama and interest and lessons to be learned in actions that people like us take on a daily basis,” she said. “History happens as soon as I pick up my coffee cup — it happened 30 seconds ago. It's history.”


• Washington-area native Stephanie Merry covers movies and pop culture for The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-nearly-forgotten-story-of-the-black-women-who-helped-land-a-man-on-the-moon/2016/09/12/95f2d356-7504-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-nearly-forgotten-story-of-the-black-women-who-helped-land-a-man-on-the-moon/2016/09/12/95f2d356-7504-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html)


Title: Re: at the movies
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 27, 2017, 10:31:23 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

A 14-year-old king of Hollywood critiques
the best picture Oscar nominees


By DAVID HORSEY | 9:10AM PST - Sunday, February 26, 2017

I'M A BIG FAN of all the Academy Awards' best picture nominees — an impressive group of films with stellar actors in complex
human stories that, even in the case of “La La Land”, break away from conventions and stereotypes. But, there is a group of
movie fans who may be less impressed, who might want fewer adult themes and more car chases and stuff blowing up…


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/David%20Horsey/latimes_20170226dh_Oscars2016a_zpszubykhkb.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-58b2682e/turbine/la-na-tt-oscars-horsey-20170225-001)

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-academy-20170225-htmlstory.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-academy-20170225-htmlstory.html)