Great Movies
Chaz's Journal
Happy 6th Anniversary to Brian Tallerico from RogerEbert.com
Expressing our gratitude to Managing Editor Brian Tallerico, who has now been a part of the RogerEbert.com team for six years.
Expressing our gratitude to Managing Editor Brian Tallerico, who has now been a part of the RogerEbert.com team for six years.
The movie questionnaire and 2015 reviews of RogerEbert.com editor Brian Tallerico.
Writer Brian Tallerico responds to our Movie Love Questionnaire.
For Michał Oleszczyk, translating for his mom makes for a more active engagement with the movie.
It's simple, really: Trailer for Adam Sandler's "Jack and Jill" (Dennis Dugan, 2011) + memorable scene from "Hardcore" (Paul Schrader, 1979) in which George C. Scott discovers that his missing daughter has been making porno movies. Instant movie magic.
(tip: Pat Healy)
Marie writes: Once upon a time when I was little, I spent an afternoon playing "Winne the Pooh" outside. I took my toys into the backyard and aided by a extraordinary one-of-a-kind custom-built device requiring no batteries (aka: artistic imagination) pretended that I was playing with my pals - Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too - and that there was honey nearby; the bumble bees buzzing in the flowerbeds, only too happy to participate in the illusion. And although it didn't have a door, we too had a tree - very much like the one you see and from which hung a tire. A happy memory that, and which came flooding back upon catching sight of these - the animation backgrounds from the new Winnie the Pooh; thank God I was born when I was. :-)
(click to enlarge images)
Last week Slate ran a story about the "Hollywood Career-o-Matic," which claimed to use data from Rotten Tomatoes to chart the trajectories of Hollywood careers. Interactive feature: Just enter the name of an actor or director and it will instantly generate a graph showing that person's critical ups and downs.
For example, here's one for M. Night Shyamalan, with each dot representing the Tomatometer score for the features he has directed:
Slate concludes that, according to Rotten Tomatoes data, the Best Actor in movies is Daniel Auteuil, with John Ratzenberger the best American actor, since he's voiced a character in every Pixar movie. Best Actress: Arsinée Khanjian. Worst Actress: Jennifer Love Hewitt. Best Director: Mike Leigh. Worst Director: Dennis Dugan (veteran of Adam Sandler movies such as "Happy Gilmore," "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" and "Grown Ups").
Yes, this is all so silly that the mind boggles, but let's start with the premise itself: What is the correlation between reviews and careers in Hollywood? Adam Sandler and Michael Bay wouldn't look much more impressive than Shyamalan if you looked only at reviews. And the Slate piece is riddled with misconceptions about the Tomatometer:
Take a breath and be brave. Very, very brave.... smile....Behold the "Willis Tower" in Chicago (formerly the Sears Tower) - the tallest building in North America and its famous attraction, The Skydeck. In January 2009, the Willis Tower owners began a major renovation of the Skydeck, to include the installation of glass balconies, extending approximately four feet over Wacker Drive from the 103rd floor. The all-glass boxes allow visitors to look directly through the floor to the street 1,353 feet (412 m) below. The boxes, which can bear five short tons of weight (about 4.5 metric tons), opened to the public on July 2, 2009.
View image Rob Schneider in "yellowface", playing Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry."
"Flamers" was the title of a screenplay by Barry Fanaro ("The Golden Girls," "Kingpin," "Men in Black II") that had been re-written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor ("Citizen Ruth," "Election," "About Schmidt," "Sideways"). Once Adam Sandler decided to star in the movie, this script was serially re-written some more by Sandler, his friends, and various others. The result opened this weekend as "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," directed by Dennis Dugan ("Happy Gilmore," "Big Daddy," "The Benchwarmers").
The film has not been well-received by critics (14% at Rottentomatoes.com at this writing). Manohla Dargis, in the New York Times, wrote: Fear of a gay planet fuels plenty of American movies; it’s as de rigueur in comedy as in macho action. But what’s mildly different about “Chuck & Larry” is how sincerely it tries to have its rainbow cake and eat it too. In structural terms, the movie resembles a game of Mother May I, in that for every tiny step it takes forward in the name of enlightenment (gay people can be as boring as heterosexuals), it takes three giant steps back, often by piling on more jokes about gay sex (some involving a priceless Ving Rhames). Into this mix add the stunningly unfunny Rob Schneider, who pops up brandishing buckteeth, glasses and an odious accent in apparent homage to Mickey Rooney’s painful, misguided turn as the Japanese neighbor in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” has been deemed safe for conscientious viewing by a representative of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog group. Given the movie’s contempt for women, who mainly just smile, sigh and wiggle their backdoors at the camera, it’s too bad that some lesbian (and Asian) Glaad members didn’t toss in their two cents about the movie. If Mr. Sandler dares speak in favor of gay love in “Chuck & Larry” — at least when it’s legally sanctioned, tucked behind closed doors and not remotely feminine — it’s only because homosexuality represents one type of love among men. Here, boys can be boys, together in bed and not, but heaven forbid that any of them look or behave like women. But there's a little more to this one than the usual Sandler vehicle. New York Magazine explains some of the backstory in "A Peek at the Movie ‘Chuck & Larry’ Could Have Been":And in the dramatic conclusion of Payne and Taylor's script, Chuck and Larry kiss on the courthouse steps — "not just a timid exchange," the stage notes add, "but the long, passionate melting together of soul-mates. Tongues and everything. Hot. Wow." Needless to say, this scene never made it into the final version.I believe that ending was already perfomed by Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."
A trio of guys try and make up for missed opportunities in childhood by forming a three-player baseball team.
A serious breach of security has ripped through the movie industry. Somehow, some way, a critic in Florida (of course) got in to see "Benchwarmers" -- and leaked it to the press! Well, OK, so maybe that shouldn't be considered much of an intelligence leak (more like a diaper leak), but it happened to Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel, and he's going public about it. On his blog, Frankly, My Dear..., Moore says he got an invitation to a screening Monday night at a local theater, where seats were saved for the press. It seems the regional Sony publicist had forgotten to inform him that the press had been uninvited. (He should have read Scanners last week!)
