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Watch, Pass, TiVo, or Rent: Taking Woodstock

BuzzSugar — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:30:52 -0700

I wasn't sure what to make of the trailer for Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock; it seems like such funny material for the Academy Award-winning director of Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm.

Then again, maybe there is more of a dramatic arc here with comedian Demetri Martin's role as a shy, closeted teen. Is it the story of his coming out, his family's role in putting on the legendary festival, or is it just an excuse to put Liev Schreiber in a dress? I'm interested in seeing if Martin can carry a heavier role like this, and sure, I wouldn't mind seeing what Emile Hirsch pulls as a crazy hippie, but I don't know if I'm rushing out to see it on opening night.

Will you be heading to the theater for this, waiting til it comes out on video, or skipping it altogether?

Poster courtesy of Focus Features

Hardwicke and Hirsch Reteam For Supernatural Hamlet Thriller

BuzzSugar — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:45:04 -0700

To sparkle, or not to sparkle. That just may be the question when Catherine Hardwicke takes on some of William Shakespeare's most well-known material and makes it into a "modern-day supernatural thriller." The Twilight director is apparently teaming back up with Emile Hirsch (the two worked together on Lords of Dogtown) for this adaptation of Hamlet, which was initially Hirsch's idea. Here's more:

Hardwicke and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) are working feverishly to transport the drama to a small East Coast liberal arts college where Hamlet's father is the president. The story will begin with Hamlet (Hirsch) returning home for his father's funeral, only to learn that his uncle, who has taken over his father's post, is responsible for his father's murder.

At first, Hardwicke thought the idea was "scary and crazy," but now she's armed with some ideas on how to go about this project. I appreciate what Hardwicke did with Thirteen, it's just the "supernatural" part of this news that seems a little dicey after Twilight. What do you think?

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Movie Preview: Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock

BuzzSugar — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:30:59 -0700

You might see the word "Woodstock" and feel like we've seen enough about the famous music festival, but this trailer for Ang Lee's first English-language film since Brokeback Mountain actually looks like it might have something new to add to the story. Taking Woodstock is kind of hilariously hard to figure out: In the lead role there's comedian Demetri Martin (who you may know from his TV show Important Things With Demetri Martin) - and then people like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, and Eugene Levy pop up throughout the trailer and it's like, whaaa?

The movie is based on a memoir about a motel owner and his parents who are instrumental in helping the hippies pull off the seminal 1969 rock concert. This description from the book makes the movie all the more fascinating: "Hounded by the guilt that he can't live up to his parents' standards and riven by his own covert homosexuality, Tiber pokes fun at what he calls the Teichberg Curse, a scourge that won't allow the family to escape financial ruin." I wonder if that stuff is explored in the movie? We'll have to wait until Aug. 14 to find out.

I'm still wrapping my head around this trailer, but I'm optimistic. To see for yourself, read more.

Oscar Nominee: Milk For Best Costume Design

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:30:21 -0800

As we gear up for the Oscars, I'll be featuring the nominees for Best Costume Design. It's a big year for this category as the films nominated represent vastly different historical periods. Be it 18th-century England or San Francisco in the '70s, these films include some gorgeous threads. I've already presented galleries for four out of the five nominees, so today the final movie is Milk.

People often think of San Francisco's "Summer of Love" as the city's major cultural movement, but Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk features the life of gay activist Harvey Milk during another turbulent time for this town: The 1970s. And nothing helps bring this vision to life more than the detailed costumes worn by each member of the fantastic ensemble cast. From Josh Brolin's traditional suiting to the flashy polyester getups worn by Diego Luna, the '70s never looked so good!

To check out the many photos of good-looking people in high-waisted jeans and such, just read more.

View 18 Photos ›

Photos courtesy of Focus Features

Milk: Deeply Moving, Difficult, and Worthwhile

BuzzSugar — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:30:58 -0800

"I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living." - Harvey Milk

The story of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk had a huge impact on me a few years ago when I first watched the Oscar-winning documentary about him, The Times of Harvey Milk. His is truly a stranger-than-fiction tale and is so full of inspiration, absurdity, and absolute heartache that it's somewhat surprising it has taken this long to create a feature-length dramatization of his life and death. I respect director Gus Van Sant's decision to memorialize and honor Harvey Milk with his movie Milk, and to my great relief, Van Sant and his exceptional ensemble cast have done Milk's story justice.

Milk picks up Harvey Milk's life when Milk (Sean Penn) meets one of the great loves of his life, Scott Smith (portrayed by James Franco) and decides to move from New York City to San Francisco. There, the two open a camera store in the heart of the Castro, a neighborhood with a rapidly growing gay population, and there Milk begins his life as a leader of the gay rights movement in the 1970s. After trying and failing twice, he is finally elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977, largely due to the support of the gay community. For the first time, it becomes apparent that the gay community could be a powerful one, and Milk often emphasizes this during his time in city hall. As the country's first openly gay man to be elected to public office, Milk brings the gay rights movement to the city's attention as much as possible, earning him admiration and support along with many enemies - including his ultimate enemy, fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). For more about this and my thoughts on it all, read more.

Dan White is a good ol' Christian boy who feels threatened by and resentful of Harvey Milk's success. Josh Brolin, who is fast becoming one of the most fascinating actors in Hollywood, simply morphs into this insecure and fearful man who gradually becomes unhinged. His fate and that of Harvey Milk are tragically linked in history forever, and frankly, it's disturbing to see Dan White brought to life on screen, especially after seeing all the actual footage of him in the documentary.

The rest of the cast is equally remarkable: Franco makes for a loving, sympathetic Smith, and Emile Hirsch is captivating as Milk's young activist protégé Cleve Jones. Allison Pill is always an undeniably strong presence on screen and her depiction of Milk's sole female team member, Anne Kronenberg, is no different. Diego Luna plays one of Milk's lovers, Jack Lira, with equal parts bright beauty and troubling instability. Most of all, Penn's portrayal of this charismatic, resilient, and good-humored pioneer will surely earn him some well-deserved accolades and awards.

This project is remarkably ambitious. There are so many intersecting aspects of Milk's career, activism, and personal life, it's enough to make one's head spin. Add to this Van Sant's decision to incorporate actual footage from the '70s into his dramatized story, and you've got yourself a crazy, giant puzzle to put together. But the actual footage is crucial in this case, consistently reminding us that though this seems like fiction at times - especially now, to modern audiences - this is a true story.

Interestingly, one "character" (so to speak), the outspoken fundamentalist Christian singer Anita Bryant, is not played by any actress (though at first glance I thought for sure it was Marcia Gay Harden). Instead, her entire part in Milk's story is shown through real footage - which only makes her behavior that much more staggering. This directorial choice seamlessly blends the reality of Harvey Milk's actual life with the staging of his life by the director and cast. Overall, I can’t express enough how much I applaud and admire Van Sant’s accomplishment here. It's a complicated and deeply emotional story, and the entire production - Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, the whole cast - carried a tremendous responsibility to get this thing right and the result is a dignified homage.

I highly recommend watching the documentary first, as there was an effervescence and a beautiful light to the real Harvey Milk that no actor, not even the great Sean Penn, can capture. Both the documentary and this new film may leave you speechless and/or weepy. But his is a worthwhile story to tell and if this grand-scale production with heavy-hitting actors and a talented director gets his story out there, all the better.

Photos courtesy of Focus Features

Movie Preview: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch in Milk

BuzzSugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:30:09 -0700

One of the movies I'm most looking forward to this Fall is Milk, which filmed in my fair city of San Francisco last Winter. Directed by Gus Van Sant, the movie follows the true story of Harvey Milk, the nation's first gay official of any major American city, who was assassinated shortly after his election to office. The story has already been covered by a moving documentary, and in Milk, Sean Penn steps into the title role.

Now, I've said before that I can be a bit of a crybaby, and this trailer got me all teary. Penn seems like a great fit as Milk, letting the right amounts of warmth and passion through. The overall look of the film also seems spot-on, capturing the '70s style without seeming costumey. And the cast - oh, the cast! Some of the most wonderful actors in Hollywood appear alongside Penn in this one, including Josh Brolin, James Franco, Diego Luna, and a totally transformed Emile Hirsch.

Milk premieres at the end of October in San Francisco and will be in wide release starting Dec. 5. To watch the trailer, get your tissues ready and read more.

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Speed Racer: One Long Hangover

BuzzSugar — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:31:25 -0700

My eyeballs hurt. My head hurts. I feel tired. Watching Speed Racer has me feeling all the nastiness of a hangover but without any of the hard-partying fun. I tried coming up with other analogies for the experience of seeing this nauseating, candy-colored whirlpool of a movie, with most of my attempts having to do with sugar, dizziness and a resultant sad, empty feeling, but it appears that most other reviews have already done the legwork in this regard.

Some of the descriptions with which I most heartily agree include the following:

From MSNBC's Alonso Duralde:
"Imagine someone pouring hot, melted Starburst candies into your corneas, and you just begin to approximate the experience of Speed Racer, an ice-cream headache of a movie."
From The New Yorker's Anthony Lane:
"The entire movie, indeed, is what Tom Wolfe would call a Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, complete with achingly blue skies, customized deserts, fantastical mountains, and everything from Goodman’s shirt to Ricci’s fingernails daubed in lollipop hues; it makes the world of Pee-wee Herman look like Anselm Kiefer. So how did this rainbow of velocity end up bleached of fun?"
From Film Journal International's Frank Lovece:
"It's all a bombastic mishmash that makes you feel like you've been stuffed inside a kaleidoscope and shaken for two hours."
From The New York Observer's Rex Reed:
"I can sit through just about anything, but I draw the line at two hours and 15 minutes of fuchsia vomit. To suffer through this kind of hell, movie critics deserve combat pay."
And my very favorite, from New York Magazine's David Edelstein:
"The film is like a nightmare in which you’re trapped in an arcade with screens on all sides and no eyelids."

So, you're probably getting the picture, but still, read more.

Speed Racer tells a fairly convoluted story of greed, the evils of capitalism, family and car racing. Speed is a boy (played by Emile Hirsch) whose sole interest is driving a race car. He idolized his brother Rex until Rex apparently brought shame to the sport and died in a fiery crash. Now Speed loyally races for his father's motor company and he ignites the rage of crazy corporate tycoon Royalton (Roger Allam) when he refuses to race for the Royalton company. Royalton is a shady organization that forces its racers to cheat and demolishes anyone who threatens to beat one of their own, since a Royalton loss would bring down Royalton stock value. See? There is a whole subplot about stocks! I'm not even a kid and I was so bored by so much of this film.

The performances are more or less fine (I think?) given the situation, though the actors often appear to be cracking under the immense strain to breathe real life into a world that literally doesn't exist around them. Clocking in at two hours and 15 minutes, this assault on the senses is way too long to hold the brief attention span of a child, and it's frankly just not enjoyable for adults. So, aside from the visuals (which are cool for about twenty minutes, but what to do with the last 115?), I frankly can't recommend seeing this movie. There's just no point.

To see the trailer and more videos from Speed Racer, check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:30:00 -0800

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below, Awake, a thriller staring Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba is out on DVD as well.

Into the Wild
There has been no shortage of buzz around this heartbreaking and visually stunning film directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsh. While it didn't make it as far at the Oscars as many hoped it would, it did make it onto my March Must-Haves, and I know many people are just as excited as I am that this movie is finally out on DVD. Into the Wild is based on the best-selling true story by Jon Krakauer all about a young, upper-middle class man with the world at his feet who decides to part with his normal, steady life in search of adventure. He sets out on a journey across the country and eventually ends up alone in the wilderness of Alaska.

The breathtaking scenery and unforgettable characters, along with the thought-provoking tale of a young man's journey on the path less taken makes for an important and moving film. Special features include interesting information about the true-life inspirations for the movie.

For two more selections, read more.

Things We Lost in the Fire
Starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, Things We Lost in the Fire is Susanne Bier's directorial follow-up to her Oscar-nominated After the Wedding. At first glance, this movie looked melodramatic and depressing but I gave it a shot (after all, who can resist Benicio?) and I'm so glad I did.

The story follows a widow (Berry) attempting to put her life back together after her husband tragically dies. Benicio plays the husband's childhood best friend, now a troubled recovering drug addict, who moves in with the grieving woman and her children. Together they deal with the loss and learn to accept each other, in memory of the man they all cherished. This isn't an escape movie, but it is touching and features some beautiful performances by Berry and Del Toro. Special features include audio commentary and extra scenes.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
First off, until now I've never been concerned that a DVD cover might have the same effect on my vision as looking straight into the sun. Those are some bright colors. Moving on. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium stars Dustin Hoffman as a 243-year-old toy store owner and Natalie Portman as the store's manager. When Mr. Magorium discovers he's not well, he turns to Portman's character to take over his magical world of toys. Lots of colors, slapstick comedy and whimsical fun make this a great choice for family viewing, especially with little ones in the house.

Movie Preview: The Air I Breathe

BuzzSugar — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:30:32 -0800

This movie is intriguing for the incredible ensemble cast, although when that's the only good thing its own stars have to say about it, that's not a good sign. The Air I Breathe opens in New York and Los Angeles tonight and I wanted to get your thoughts on the preview, as I'm a little torn. There's a lot of talent piled into this flick (Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, Julie Delpy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emile Hirsch), but I'm a little confused by the trailer . . . which is maybe the point.

Apparently the plot follows several intersecting stories based on "four emotional cornerstones: happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love." IMDB continues, "A businessman (Whitaker) bets his life on a horse race; a gangster (Brendan Fraser) sees the future; a pop star (Gellar) falls prey to a crime boss (Garcia); a doctor (Kevin Bacon) must save the love of his life."

The New York Times reports that debut feature director Jieho Lee describes his movie this way:

"[It's] a film noir variation of The Wizard of Oz and an exploration of the theme of character as destiny."

Huh. Okay. To check out the trailer and tell me what you think, head on over to iVillage.

Photo courtesy of ThinkFilm

Trippy New Trailer For Speed Racer

BuzzSugar — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:30:00 -0800

I have to say, Emile Hirsch was totally right when he told me during our interview that the Wachowski siblings' high-octane family action movie Speed Racer would be "pretty kooky. Pretty groovy. Very psychedelic." Indeed, the new trailer for the film, in theaters May 9, looks like a candy-colored trip. I got a little dizzy watching it, but it's also pretty darn cool looking.

To make things more interesting, the cast is awesome, from Susan Sarandon to Matthew Fox to John Goodman. I'm not too precious about the old Speed Racer cartoon series, so I'll be curious to find out how the Wachowski siblings have updated it for modern moviegoers. To check out the crazy trailer for Speed Racer, read more

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