MCN Columnists
Douglas Pratt

Columns By Douglas PrattPratt@moviecitynews.com

12 Rounds

Wrestler John Cena jumps off the ropes to take a shot at action hero stardom as a New Orleans cop in12 Rounds, a Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment release directed by the depreciated action maven, Renny Harlin. Aidan Gillen portrays an Irish terrorist who kidnaps the hero’s wife and makes him do all sorts of crazy things…

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Wilmington on DVDs: My Dinner with Andre, Two Lovers, Do the Right Thing and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Two Lovers (Three-and-a-Half Stars) U. S.; James Gray, 2009 Joaquin Phoenix, in various weird ways, has suggested that James Gray‘s Brooklyn romance Two Lovers may be

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Vassup, Bruno

Note: this column treads into spoilery territory.  So if you want to stay pure forBruno, then avert your eyes! When Da Ali G Show premiered on HBO, I remember where I was and who I was with. It was a seminal comedic moment in my life, changing the verynature of what I thought humor could do. …

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Transformers: Triumph of the Risen

The tracking was great … just not this seemingly boffo. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen smashed the competition with an estimated weekend gross of $110.8 million and a five-day near record gross of $200 million. That left the frame’s other wide release — the decidedly femme-centric, weepy My Sister’s Keeper — picking up scraps of…

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Last Year at Marienbad

What excited folks in 1961 about Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad was its overpowering formalism and mastery of style. Each shot seems so meticulously composed, down to the mannerism of every actor on the screen, that it leaves the impression that Resnais had absolute, total control over every pixel on the screen. The lack…

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Real Dads of Hollywood

Over Father’s Day weekend as my kids and I were plotting and planning how to make their dad’s day a special one, I thought about writing a column this week on great movies about dads and fatherhood. Unfortunately, I realized in trying to come up with a list of films I would include in such…

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Wilmington on DVDs: Woodstock, Last Year at Marianbad, Waltz with Bashir and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSICS Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music — The Director’s Cut (Four Stars) U.S.; Michael Wadleigh, 1970-1994 (Warner) Both a great rock concert movie, and a superb documentary on youth culture in the Vietnam War Years, Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock

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Wedding Bell Green

The Proposal was an offer the audience couldn’t refuse as the romantic comedy romped to an estimated $34.4 million debut to gain weekend bragging rights. The frame’s other national freshman — the caveman comedy Year One — grunted $20.1 million to finish fourth overall. New titles in limited or regional release had a few bright…

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Irene in Time: A Father’s Day Gift from Henry Jaglom

Irene in Time, a movie devoid of any positive male role models, is being released Friday, two days ahead of Father’s Day. Naturally, the peculiar timing begged the question, “Who thought this was a good idea?” “Actually,” replied writer-director Henry Jaglom, “it was my idea. Sometimes, you need a marketing hook to encourage people to…

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Festival in …

They don’t have car shows in Detroit. But in Los Angeles — a once near-moribund venue for alternative cinema — the landscape is rife with celebrations of the seventh art. The unprepossessing-sounding Los Angeles Film Festival is one of two annual events (the other, AFI Fest, unspools in November) that at least on paper strive…

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The Relativity of Relationships

There’s a certain irony in a film festival held in Las Vegas — a town where the size, not the quality, of your chip stash matters and fliers offering beautiful girls sent to your hotel room are handed out on the streets — programming some interesting films that focused on emotional connections. Based on an…

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Wilmington on DVDs: The Seventh Seal, At the Death House Door, Gary Cooper and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSICS The Seventh Seal (Two discs) (Four Stars) Sweden; Ingmar Bergman, 1957 (Criterion) Antonius Block, a dazzlingly blonde and handsome, idealistic, death-haunted knight

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Tired Acts in Year One

How did Harold Ramis, Jack Black and Michael Cera — otherwise intelligent, talented people — end up involved in a mediocre, muddled project llikeYear One? I’d like to say this film is a perfectly acceptable comedy, the kind of movie that gives you a couple smiles here and there, and can be forgiven for being the kind of…

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Transformers in My Mailbox

At the end of last week’s column, which was about unnecessary sequels being released this summer, I implored readers to send me e-mails if they were actually fans of the first Transformers movie and let me know why. I had stated that I didn’t know anybody who actually enjoyed that film, which was true.  But now I’ve…

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Sub-way Stories

Hangover and Up once again dominated weekend ticket sales with respective grosses of $33.1 million and $30.7 million and that put the kibosh on new releases. The highly anticipated The Taking of Pelham 123 pulled into third spot with a just passable $24.6 million gross while the $5.6 million box office for Imagine That was…

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The Greatest Adventure of All

I celebrated my 41st birthday on Monday and, as many of us do when the clock makes another tick toward the inevitability of our own demise, I’ve been thinking about growing older, and things undone that I wanted to do (or thought I wanted to do) by now. When I was younger, I imagined many…

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Real Life Meets Cinema: Unmistaken Child and Throw Down Your Heart

Twenty-three years ago, in his Graceland album, Paul Simon anticipated the coming of the digital age and global shrinkage as well as any scientist, engineer or palm reader. It was an analog world back then, and Pope John Paul II, President Reagan and MTV Europe had yet to make a dent in the Iron Curtain….

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Wilmington on DVDs: Gran Torino, Revolution Revisited, The Rain People, and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Gran Torino (Four Stars) U.S.; Clint Eastwood, 2008 (Warner) Clint Eastwood plays a Dirty Harry guy grown old in his latest movie Gran Torino.

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Sequels Nobody Asked For

Box office receipts can be deceiving.  Most studios will look at the box office results of the latest tent-pole blockbuster and based on those results, decide whether or not the film merits a sequel.  Besides the fact that that is clearly not an artistic decision in any way, it’s also incredibly short-sighted.  Just because a…

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Land of the Loss

Belmont be damned … it was a photo-finish at the weekend box office with initial estimates giving the animated adventure Up a slight edge on the debut of the gonzo comedy The Hangover. First blush pegs Up with $44.5 million for a $200k lead on the new “boys’ night out” misadventure. The weekend’s other major…

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Columns

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

rohit aggarwal on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

https://bestwatches.club/ on: The DVD Wrapup: Diamonds of the Night, School of Life, Red Room, Witch/Hagazussa, Tito & the Birds, Keoma, Andre’s Gospel, Noir

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

GDA on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

Larry K on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

gwehan on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

Gary J Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Peppermint, Wild Boys, Un Traductor, Await Instructions, Lizzie, Coby, Afghan Love Story, Elizabeth Harvest, Brutal, Holiday Horror, Sound & Fury … More

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon