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14 articles from 2009
Movie Reviews: “Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”
23 December 2009 12:08 PM, PST
| Studio Briefing - Film News
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One of the most surprising blockbusters of all time was the original Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, which grossed more than $217 million in the U.S. The sequel (or "squeakquel" as its called in the title, is not likely to perform as well, although several critics are advising box-office followers to expect the unexpected. Not that they can find much to praise about the film; most of their reviews sound as if they wish they could be writing about something else. Comments Claudia Puig in USA Today; "For anyone over age 8, the arrival of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel may not be the most welcome news." Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle brought his four year old along to the screening, who, he says, "laughed pretty much nonstop throughout." However, he writes, "despite its success as a babysitter for preschoolers, it's a not a very good film." Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News says the "movie's plot is a hodgepodge of standard kid-film elements." Tongue firmly placed in cheek, Betsy Sharkey comments in the Los Angeles Times: "Perhaps not since The Godfather: Part II have we seen a sequel come along that more than matches the mastery of the film that came before it -- all the pathos, the brio, the epic sweep ... the cheese balls" Actually Sharkey's is one of the few positive reviews of the movie. "The script includes enough clever moments to help put The Squeakquel in solid family entertainment territory," she concludes. And Michael Sullivan in the Washington Post pays the movie this left-handed compliment: "Call it a Christmas miracle, albeit a minor one: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel isn't entirely awful."
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Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel Reviews
23 December 2009 1:53 AM, PST
| Reelzchannel.com
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If you've got young kids, you've probably resigned yourself to the fact you'll be taking them to this movie at some point over the long holiday break. Here's what you're in for.
"Perhaps not since The Godfather: Part II have we seen a sequel come along that more than matches the mastery of the film that came before it — all the pathos, the brio, the epic sweep ... the cheese balls."
— Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
"...a frenetic but undeniably funny follow-up that offers twice the number of singing-and-dancing rodents in another seamless blend of CGI and live-action elements."
— Joe Leydon, Variety
"Closing out a pretty great year for children's movies — Up, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline among them — Betty Thomas's dutiful animated and live-action sequel to 2007's Alvin and the Chipmunks brings up the rear with capable mediocrity."
— Ella Taylor, Village Voice
"...a charmless sequel."
— Michael Rechtshaffen,
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- reelz reelz
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Tao Ruspoli's Top Ten Films of All Time
12 December 2009 6:25 PM, PST
| ioncinema
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Godard's Breathless is the film that made me want to become a filmmaker. I saw it my freshman year in college and I couldn't believe how a director could take a few great characters and a mostly hand-held camera and make a film that said so much about life in a world in which absolute values had become irrelevant (both filmically and ethically.) And what a face Belmondo had! - Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of all time favorite films. This month we profile Tao Ruspoli, helmer behind Fix which ropens November 20th at the Village East in NY. He gave us his top ten (as of November 2009).
8 1/2 (1963) Federico Fellini I'm sure this film has been on this list 100 times,
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- Ioncinema.com Staff
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Interview: ‘The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day’ Director Troy Duffy on Hollywood’s ‘Financial Irresponsibility’
8 December 2009 4:13 PM, PST
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – “There’s not a bigger ‘f*ck you!’ from Hollywood than when they say: ‘Eh, we’re not going to release this film.’” But then the fans say: “Oh, you know what? About $100 million says that you are retarded. It says that you made a bad decision,” “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” star Sean Patrick Flanery said in a Chicago interview with HollywoodChicago.com.
Flanery added: “Everybody thinks they know. Executives say: ‘We do this for a living.’ Well, you f*cked up. You f*cked up! You didn’t put this in the theater, and with no advertising, people just picked it up and said: ‘You’re an idiot. This is a good film.’”
Left to right: Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Connolly, Norman Reedus and
Clifton Collins Jr. in “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day”.
Photo credit: Stage 6 Films
While the sequel (actually) received a theatrical release on Nov.
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- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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Oscars quiz: What film lost all five bids for acting?
5 December 2009 11:15 AM, PST
| Gold Derby
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All of the films below received five Oscar nominations for acting. Only one was totally snubbed in the performance categories. Which one? To see the answer, click on the "Continue reading" link below. Answer: "Tom Jones" (1963) lost all five: Albert Finney (actor), Hugh Griffith (supporting actor), Diane Cilento, Dame Edith Evans, Joyce Redman (supporting actress). As for the others: "The Godfather: Part II" (1974) won one: Robert DeNiro (supporting actor). "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) won one: Estelle Parsons (supporting actress). "All About Eve" (1950) won one: George Sanders (supporting actor). Note: "Network" (1976) was also nominated for five acting slots, winning three: Peter Finch (actor), Faye Dunaway (actress), Beatrice Straight (supporting actress). "Peyton Place"
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- tomoneil
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AFI's 100 Years ...100 Movie Quotes
4 November 2009 4:45 AM, PST
| Extra
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"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)
“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” —Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.
The Godfather (1972)
“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” —Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.
On the Waterfront (1954)
“You don’t understand!
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Top 250 Movies as a Subway Map
2 November 2009 1:45 PM, PST
| Cinematical
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Here's a different way of thinking about well-known movies: imagine each one is a stop on a subway line! Designed by David Honnorat and posted at Vodkaster, the cinematic subway map is based on the top 250 movies as voted by IMDb users on June 19 (which, I suppose, is why The Hangover made it). Honnorat created 16 different imaginary subway lines, including "Universally Acclaimed Masterpiece," "Political drama," "Drama about tolerance," "Dark and weird drama," and other, more traditional categories, and then placed each film on one of the lines. He asked: "How would you go from Alien to North by Northwest without crossing The Godfather: Part II? Which station have you not visited yet?"
The placement of movies on the map can be amusing (Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction side by side with Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America on the gangster line) as well as bizarre yet strangely fitting
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- Peter Martin
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What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #10
27 September 2009 1:56 AM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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Two Paul Newman titles from the recently released Paul Newman Tribute Collection (pictured right) I mentioned on Tuesday, a look at a film I watched in preparation for one of last week's screenings and a reminder of a Blu-ray I recently reviewed make up this week's list.
On top of everything below, on Saturday I went to a screening of the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 3-D double feature, which ended up being a lot of fun as I am pretty sure it was the first time I actually saw Toy Story 2 on the bigscreen. The 3-D is quite good and the opening moments of Toy Story 2 lend themselves so well to the format it's almost surprising it wasn't originally intended to be released in 3-D. Of course, as with all quality films, the 3-D does nothing for the story. These films were never considered classics for
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- Brad Brevet
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Gun Battle Clip From Public Enemies
18 June 2009 6:17 AM, PDT
| Reelzchannel.com
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The first full clip from Michael Mann's Public Enemies is now online. Just follow the link here.
The scene is a full-blown night shoot-out complete with tommy guns, broken glass, and a heck of a lot of bullet holes. FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and his team attempt an ambush outside the forest hideout of gangster John Dillinger (Johnny Depp). In terms of style, the scene seems to borrow not only from Scarface (the 1932 Howard Hawks version), but also the first big shoot-out scene in The Godfather: Part II, which sees Al Pacino diving for cover indoors while shooters ambush from a wooded area outside.
Public Enemies is based on the Bryan Burrough book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34,
which tells the stories behind the rise and fall of Dillinger in the 1930s. Melvin Purvis pursued Dillinger and
eventually
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- Rich Z Zwelling
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Quiz: How Well Do You Know Francis Ford Coppola?
10 June 2009 1:10 AM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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At the beginning of this week I brought you my exclusive one-on-one interview with Francis Ford Coppola as his latest film, Tetro, hits theaters tomorrow, Thursday, June 11. I figured why stop there and decided this week's quiz would focus on the Oscar-winning director and see just how well you know the man that brought us such classics as the Godfather trilogy, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now.
The questions range from his work as a director, producer and writer and touch upon his Oscar history, box-office accomplishments and even a question regarding his family ties to actors you may or may not know. This quiz may be a little tougher than some of my others, but if that's the case you may learn a couple of things. Win-win right?
Check out the sample question below or click here to get started:
Francis Ford Coppola won the Best Director Oscar for which one of the following films?
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- Brad Brevet
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Coppola: "The Godfather" Should Have Stayed One Movie
3 June 2009 11:47 PM, PDT
| JustPressPlay.net
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Well, this is certainly interesting. When discussing sequels and how inferior they are to the first movie, people often point to The Godfather: Part II as the go-to proof that a sequel doesn't have to suck. I too like to name that movie, along with The Road Warrior and Toy Story 2, to give examples of sequels that can be better than the original.
Francis Ford Coppola apparently disagrees, believing that the story of the Corleones should have ended with the first movie, and that II and III should not have been made.
In a new interview with Movieline, Coppola debunks the developing of a fourth film, while admitting that the Godfather sequels were more or less cash-ins.
"I don’t think Godfather ever should have had more than one movie, actually. It was not a serial, it was a drama. The first movie wrapped up everything. To make more
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- Arya Ponto
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Scarface named the public's top gangster movie
26 March 2009 5:56 AM, PDT
| Boxwish.com
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Famous for its swearing, violence and Al Pacino’s invitation to “say hello to my little friend”, Brian De Palma’s 1983 gangster epic Scarface has been voted the public’s favourite gangster film in a poll by entertainment website IGN. It’s not surprising that the flick proved popular in the survey as 26 years after Al’s Tony Montana climbed to the top of Miami’s underworld drug hierarchy, hygienically-challenged boys still emulate him, quoting his famous phrase, plastering his image on their walls and wishing they had a chance with Michelle Pfeiffer. But being named more popular than The Godfather, really? The masterpiece that always sits smugly at the top of best film ever lists? That’s a shock. Click over to find out where the Oscar-winning mafia classic did chart in the poll.
Missing out on the top spot, the Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino (him again!
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Straight Men Kissing
9 March 2009 7:41 PM, PDT
| AfterElton.com
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In real life, straight men don’t kiss each other all that often — not counting
a certain game of Truth or Dare I participated in back in college.
But in movies and on TV? Straight men seem to kiss each other fairly often.
Thing is, it’s rarely for romantic reasons.
So why do they kiss, if not for romance? Interestingly, they seem to find
almost every reason under the sun - some good, some bad and some just plain
weird. Here are 12 of them graded by adding a score for sexiness plus a score
for freshness minus a score for gay panic equaling an AfterElton.com Hot Kiss
Rating.
Christopher Meloni/Lee Tergesen GLAAD
Awards Kiss
Actors Christopher Meloni and Lee Tergesen gave the audience exactly what it
wanted at the 2000 GLAAD Media Awards, kissing each other the way their Oz characters, boyfriends Chris Keller
and Tobias Beecher, might have kissed.
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- AfterElton.com Staff
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DVD release inspirations including High School Musical 3
16 February 2009 2:38 AM, PST
| Boxwish.com
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Morning Boxwishers and how was your Valentine’s Day weekend? Packed with non-stop hearts and flowers or maybe a little more low-key? Well, loved up or not there are some great new DVDs on release from today to bring some sunshine into your Monday morning. We’ve got singing and dancing courtesy of those perky teens at East High, crime thriller suspense that will keep you guessing until the very end and futuristic sci-fi action. Click over for more details on these new DVDs and our ideas on how to be inspired by them…
If you see… Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale and co. return in the third instalment of Disney’s musical phenomenon High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
Why Not Work the teen fashions from the film, whether you’re a style disciple of Troy or of Gabriella we’ve got the gos on how to get the look.
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2009 |
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14 articles from 2009
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