Columns By Douglas PrattPratt@moviecitynews.com
Nickelodeon & The Last Picture Show
Peter Bogdanovich’s paean to the early days of moviemaking, Nickelodeon, has been released as a 2-Disc Double Feature Director’s Choice title by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Nickelodeon / The Last Picture Show. Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show was available previously as a Special Edition. Each film is presented on a separate platter and is in letterboxed format only,…
Read the full article »Roger and Me
When I was a little girl growing up in Oklahoma City, I was a little geek who read books voraciously and wrote incessantly. I told stories to myself while walking to school to pass the time. I scribbled stories during class, hiding a notebook inside my textbook so my teachers wouldn’t know what I was…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Nothing But the Truth, Johnny Got His Gun, In the Realm of the Senses and more…
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Nothing But the Truth” (Three Stars) U. S. Rod Lurie, 2008 (Sony) The most effective of writer-director (and ex-movie critic) Rod Lurie’s political melodramas
Read the full article »Short Cuts
There’s a lot of stuff percolating in the movie world these days, as well as a number of thoughts that have been percolating in my noggin. So, what follows is a series of scattershot thoughts and theories that I’ve been collecting over the past few days: I know that Obsessed was the number one movie at…
Read the full article »Play Stalk Man Woman
Audiences opted for the perverse office politics of Obsessed with the film bowing to an estimated $28.8 million. The frame’s other national debuts included the hard kicking actioner Fighting with $11.3 million in third position and, close behind, the potent drama The Soloist with $9.7 million. Also new was the eco-documentary Earth that bowed on…
Read the full article »Frost/Nixon
Most reminiscent of (and more satisfying than) Good Night and Good Luck, Ron Howard’s 2008 docudrama, Frost/Nixon, from Universal, is about a television news personality who rises to the occasion and achieves a journalistic milestone when tasked with interviewing an emotionally enfortressed politician. Yes, the imitative but psychologically thorough performances by the two stars- Michael Sheen as David Frost…
Read the full article »Elisabeth Shue and Thomas Haden Church
This week Noah talks to Elisabeth Shue and Thomas Haden Church about their new film Don McKay, working together and working apart, the wonder of Meryl Streep and Shue’s great work in Cocktail! Listen to Noah Forrest Podcast with Elisabeth Shue and Thomas Haden Church
Read the full article »Yellow-facing and White-washing: The Racial Issues Raised by the Casting of The Last Airbender
I’ve been loosely following the whole kerfuffle surrounding the casting of M. Night Shyamalan‘s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender (renamed The Last Airbender, presumably to avoid confusion with James Cameron‘s Avatar project), wherein the lead characters of the Asian-influenced animated television series have magically become white people in the live-action version. Avatar is one of my own kids’…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler, In the Realm of the Senses, Assault on Precinct 13 and more …
CO-PICKS OF THE WEEK: NEW Frost/Nixon (Three-and-a-Half Stars) U.S.; Ron Howard Taken from Peter Morgan‘s stage play — which also starred the spot-on Frank Langella as
Read the full article »Summer 2009 Preview, Part Two
I wrote last week about the first two months of summer, which promise to offer lots of action, from Wolverine to Star Trek, from Angels and Demons to Sam Raimi dragging us to hell with his return to the horror genre, and new flicks from the Terminator and Transformers franchises. July and August are loaded this year with a…
Read the full article »17 Again … and Again … and Again
The body switch comedy 17 Again trumped the competition with an estimated $24.2 million to lead weekend movie-going options. Another freshman, the political-thriller State of Play, ranked second with a $14 million debut and the high energy sequel Crank: High Voltage slotted sixth on a gross of $6.7 million. Year-to-year box office was once again…
Read the full article »Drunken Sex or Date Rape? A Look at the Issues Raised by Observe and Report
There’s been a bit of a brouhaha stirring over opening weekend about the alleged “date rape” scene in Observe and Report. When the film played at SXSW I didn’t hear a single person even mention this scene as being at all controversial. Now, as the film is seen – or not seen – by a larger…
Read the full article »Summer 2009 Preview, Part One
Ahh, can you smell that? Trees are blooming, flowers are blossoming, and Hollywood is preparing to assault your senses with explosions, car crashes and cyborgs. Yes indeed, my friends, the summer movie season is soon upon us. Considering the shrug-inducing first four months of the year, it will be a pleasure to watch movies that…
Read the full article »Hannalujah!
The great Easter egg hunt delivered record breaking numbers with Hannah Montana: The Movieleading the charge with an estimated $34.3 million. The holiday session also included two other national debuts. Anti-Paul Blart: Mall Cop Observe and Report ranked fourth overall with a middling $11.1 million while the live-action manga adaptation Dragonball: Evolution eked out $4.6…
Read the full article »What’s the Truth About Objectivity in Documentaries?
The idea of a documentary film tends to evoke a certain perception that what we’re seeing on-screen is purely non-fiction, a “document of the truth.” But is it possible to say that any documentary encapsulates some objective idea of “truth,” as opposed to the story the filmmaker seeks to tell, albeit through footage taken from…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Doubt, Alexandra, The Last Metro, Fallen Angels, No Country for Old Men and more …
CO-PICKS OF THE WEEK: NEW Doubt (Four Stars) U.S.; John Patrick Shanley, 2008 (Miramax) In Doubt, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman play a gorgon, dictatorial nun and a chubby-faced, affable progressive priest, battling in a Bronx parochial school in 1964. And they stage a classic actor‘s duel for director-writer John Patrick Shanley’s tense, humane…
Read the full article »Catching Up
With April here, it seems we’re not too far away from better movies – or at the very least, better produced and slicker products – so I thought I would look back on a few films from the first couple months of 2009. Because I work in the film business, my expectations (good or bad)…
Read the full article »Marley & Me: Bad Dog Edition
Running 115 minutes, the enormously popular 2008 family film, Marley & Me, depicts the full life of a family dog as the family grows up around him. In his younger years, he is especially rambunctious, which contributed to the film’s superb marketing campaign that suggested the movie would be another Beethoven-style slapstick piece. Instead, the…
Read the full article »Pop Goes the Diesel
Fast & Furious lived up to its moniker, speeding past the competition and re-writing the record books with an estimated $72.4 million debut. In another expansive frame the only other national debut — the droll retro-comedy Adventureland — didn’t provide much in counter-programming with a $5.7 million tally. The session was also rife with limited…
Read the full article »ShoWest Sampler: Animation, 3-D and the new Woody Allen Film
LAS VEGAS — It’s been rumored here that the annual ShoWest soiree, as sure a harbinger of spring as any returning robin, soon could go the way of such once-storied conventions as COMDEX, VSDA, NATPE, NAB, Summer CES and E3. The computer industry’s “geek week,” as COMDEX became known, once brought 200,000 conventioneers to this…
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