‘WAR HORSE’ WARNING FOR PARENTS FROM ORSON BEAN

Yesterday Orson emailed me a heads up for parents with respect to Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse,” which hits theatres Sunday. Some vague plot points are given away, so consider this a spoiler warning:

I would urge your readers not to take children to the Spielberg picture “War Horse.” The “horse in peril” stuff is deeply disturbing. At the advance preview my wife and I attended, we couldn’t watch bits of it, and upset people were walking out. I had seen the Broadway production in which the horses are portrayed by life-sized puppets, with four men working each horse puppet. It is one of the best productions I’ve ever seen. Within a few minutes, you don’t notice the people working the puppets. When the horses are caught on barbed wire, it is frightening. But since they are puppets, it is by no means too terrifying to watch, and it is also deeply moving as far as dramatizing the horrors of war.

But in the film, with apparently real horses in agony, it will give kids nightmares for weeks. The movie is being marketed as a family friendly affair, and indeed, the first half of it is reminiscent of “Lassie Come Home.” Then there is a sudden switch, with sections as intense as the opening of “Saving Private Ryan.”

I can’t imagine what Spielberg was thinking of. Anyone who could possibly enjoy the second half, would be turned off like crazy by the first half.

Good to know. Nothing I’ve seen in the promotion, other than the PG-13 rating, even hints at any of this.

THIS JUST IN FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF NO SHIT: ‘HIGH PRICES FOR LOW QUALITY FILMS KEEPING FAMILIES AWAY FROM THEATERS’

Some interesting numbers hidden in the obvious:

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I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail. (more…)

Up is Pixar’s most ambitious film yet. It teaches us the truth that Pixar knows well: Life isn’t a series of merit badges or experiences, but of relationships, well cultivated. The best relationships are love stories and this is no exception.

They teach all of this in one short scene – and then expound upon it throughout the film. But the point remains. We are meant to love and be loved and to let the soul go on its adventure of finding its counterpart.

Carl finds Ellie, his soul’s counterpart at a young age and they fall in love. They love the same things – adventure and the adventurer, Charles Muntz – and each other, and so they are married.

Part of being in love is making promises to one another and Carl makes a big one to Ellie. Some of these promises we keep; others we can’t. That doesn’t mean that the promises weren’t true, only that they were unfulfilled. We do it because we want to share a dream. Ellie and Carl dream together. Their decrepit playhouse becomes their dream house which they refurbish with hard work and imagination.

Along the way, they live the good life, even though the greatest adventure – having children – is denied them by biology’s naked unfairness. Instead, they return to the dreams of their childhood, such as going to South America’s Paradise Falls, “A Land Lost in Time.” They save up to go live the adventure but that too is denied them by the everyday little expenses that add up – a broken leg, a wrecked roof, a flat tire. And yet they keep saving, crossing their hearts, and telling one another that one day, they’ll go to Paradise Falls. Of course, life gets in the way. They forget their dreams and by the time Carl realizes it and buys the tickets, it’s too late. (more…)

Hollywood has a problem.  They are currently losing the cultural popularity contest.  A new Pew research poll shows that only 33% of Americans have a favorable view of entertainment industry.  By way of comparison, Rasmussen reports that 48% of the public identify with the Tea Party movement.  To further add perspective, less than six months after he left office, CNN reported that President Bush’s favorable rating had climbed to 41%, eclipsing that of the denizens of Tinsel town.  So why is the entertainment industry losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the American public?  The answer is simple.  It’s all about values. 

Hollywood did have a Golden Age, and the current time is not it.  While most people know Clark Gable for 8 famous words, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” and his role in the film “Gone with the Wind,” what a lot of people don’t know is that he was a genuine American hero.  At the height of his popularity he enlisted in the military to serve his country during World War II.  As an observer-gunner on a bomber, he participated in 5 combat missions and was almost killed when flak and enemy interceptors nearly took down his B-17.  He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism.  He was eventually promoted to the rank of major.  While his valor and physical courage were probably uncommon, the values that he represented were not.  

We could pull example after example from Hollywood’s golden age of celebrities who represented values that were more in line with main stream America then they are today, but let’s fast forward about sixty years and see what passes for Hollywood values today.  (more…)

On Monday, February 22nd, a very special, one-night-only theatrical event will take place at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, CA.  With proceeds going to benefit the American Red Cross, an all-star cast will perform a staged reading of 110 Stories, a theatrical presentation of a series of first-hand accounts of the events of September 11, 2001.

I find it remarkable that September 11th is objectively the most relevant, powerful and  important event of the last twenty years and yet playwrights and producers have been reluctant to address the issue on stage or screen.

And the approach that playwright Sarah Tuft takes in presenting 110 Stories is to take the real stories and the actual words of people whom she interviewed in the days following the attack.  Ms. Tuft then constructed the show by stitching the interviews together as over-lapping monologues.

An all-star cast has volunteered their time to perform the play:

Maria Conchita Alonso (Caught, Saints & Sinners, Broadway’s Kiss of the Spider Woman)
Ed Asner (Up, Elf, The Mary Tyler Moore Show)
Michael Beach (Third Watch, True Romance, Soul Food)
John Hawkes (Deadwood, Eastbound & Down, American Gangster)
Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Oz, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle)
Sharon Lawrence (NYPD Blue, Grey’s Anatomy)
Katharine McPhee (American Idol, The House Bunny)
Gail O’Grady (American Dreams, Boston Legal)
Stelio Savante (110 Stories – Original Cast, Ugly Betty, My Super Ex-Girlfriend)
Sophie Sinise (CSI: NY, Anatomy of Gray)
Nicholas Turturro (NYPD Blue, World Trade Center)
Diane Venora (Bird, Heat, The Insider)
Malcolm-Jamal Warner (The Cosby Show, Malcom & Eddie, Sherri)
Michael Welch (Twilight, New Moon, The Riches)

Narrated by Nic Harcourt (KCRW; Editor at Large: Music and Culture for LA: The Los Angeles Times Magazine)
Directed by Mark Freiburger (Dog Days Of Summer) (more…)

I was in grade school when The Gathering first aired in 1977 — right in the middle of that second Golden Era of television that within a few years produced Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, The Night Stalker, Holocaust, Jesus of Nazareth, and Salem’s Lot. And while I missed the Emmy winner for Best Drama back then, twenty years later my intense dislike for Ed Asner’s obnoxious politics almost caused me to miss it again during a rare broadcast late one evening right around the holidays when I couldn’t sleep. 

What a mistake that would’ve been (and after “Up” Asner can now do no wrong). The Gathering kept my full attention until almost dawn and made such an impact that I made sure to grab the first opportunity to catch it on VHS a couple years later. Which is a good thing because for some inexplicable reason one of the best television films ever, and most certainly the best Christmas television film ever, hasn’t been available on home video for years, was never has finally been released on DVD, and only rarely broadcasts on cable anymore.

That’s the long way of saying, keep your eye out because this one’s special and hard to find… (more…)

It doesn’t happen often enough, certainly not as much as it once did, but every now and again, up on the magic screen that expresses the best and worst of Hollywood, something special happens – a moment of perfection that allows you to ease back and relax in the knowledge that you’re in the very best of storytelling hands. Pixar’s tenth and best film, “Up,” opens in just this way, with a montage bearing witness to the childhood friendship, courtship, marriage and old age of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen (Ed Asner and Elie Doctor).

There’s nothing terribly special about the life of the Mr. and Mrs. Fredricksen.  They shared no slow motion runs on the beach or proposals of marriage atop the Eiffel Tower. There’s was an ordinary existence built on abiding love and the moments of the everyday. But it’s from the familiar that the power of this unforgettable sequence comes from. We relate to the decades that pass between them, recognizing them as our own. And when Ellie dies, leaving Carl without his soul mate, we also recognize that they pass much too quickly.  

Carl and Ellie had dreamed of an extraordinary life. One filled with travel and adventure. But reality always intruded, eating their savings and worst of all, the years. Today, at 78, Carl seems content to bide his time alone until he can rejoin Ellie, but reality intrudes once again when Carl’s faced with life in a nursing home. His decision to inflate thousands of helium balloons and float his house to South America has little to do with a desire for adventure. He’s hanging on to Ellie in the last way he knows how – by finally living out their dream.

Along for the ride is Russell (Jordan Nagai), an 8-year-old Junior Wilderness Explorer and accidental stowaway. Filled with hyper-enthusiasm and a fearlessness borne of his ability to see the “cool!” in every situation – no matter how dangerous, he drives poor, grumpy Carl — who wants only to peacefully and in solitude live out his days on a cliff next to a waterfall — nuts. (more…)

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Dreamworks Animation have definitively proven that Digital 3-D is a blockbuster format. Not only has Monsters vs. Aliens seized a monstrous $58.2M in opening weekend ticket sales, Real-D (the technology provider) and Dreamworks have revealed that $25M or so of that gross was generated specifically from 3-D and IMAX 3-D. Fox is reporting that fully 43% of the total take was from the estimated 2,218 Digital 3-D screens.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS tore up the box office this weekend - especially in 3-D

That means that the Per Screen Average for the movie in 3-D was about $11,700, while the 4,800 or so traditional 35MM 2-D engagements had a Per Theatre of just an estimated $4,780. Exhibitors who figured out a way to overcome the credit crunch and pay the estimated $100,000 to convert a traditional theatre into one that can show Digital 3-D made a killing this weekend.

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