30th Sep2013

Runner Runner – Film

by timbaros

images-2Justin Timberlake is a Princeton college student who is addicted to online poker and loses quit a lot of money, while Ben Affleck is the site’s corrupt owner, in the new film Runner Runner.

Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake) thinks he is an expert at online gambling. He earns his tuition money this way, gambling for himself and helping others to gamble. He still needs lots more money to pay off his tuition bill ($60,000). The Dean of his college tells him to clean up act in 24 hours or he’s going to be kicked out of school. Furst decides to gamble the $17,000 he currently has by betting it all on the site. It’s a risk that goes the wrong way for him as he loses all the money. Confident that the site he is playing on, Midnight Black, is fixed, he flies down to Costa Rica where he is able to locate the owner, a suave and cool Ivan Block (Affleck) and tries to get his gambling losses back. Block takes a liking to the young and very smart man and offers him a job on the spot, a job that would entail Furst being his right hand man, with promises of lots of money and living the good life in what initially appears to be paradise. Little does Furst know that Block also wants him to do his dirty work, which includes dealing with lots of shady characters in the gambling underworld. The plot picks up speed as the FBI corners Furst to demand that he helps them bring down Block or that he will be charged with a felony for his gambling in school. The next day Furst discovers that the whole operation is a ponzi scheme and realizes that his role in the operation is to take the fall for if, and when, Block flees the country. Meanwhile, Block’s ex-girlfriend Rebecca Shafran (a beautiful Gemma Arterton), falls for Furst and things get a bit complicated when they enter into a relationship. With the officials in cahoots with Block, and with Furst starting to feel the walls around him closing in, he needs to figure out who he can trust and what he needs to do to separate himself from the business, and from Block.

Timberlake is a real movie star. He is excellent as the young man caught up in web of deceit and corruption. Though it is hard to believe that the 33-year old singer/actor/dancer/everything man is a Princeton college student, Timberlake can and does hold the movie from beginning to end. Affleck is perfect as the oily, slimy rich internet kingpin, unshaven, he exudes mystery and we are quite sure that what we see is what we get. Arterton, last seen in Byzantium, is very good as the love interest, once in love with Block and then falling quickly for Furst. Feeling at times like a television movie/series (Miami Vice, CSI Miami), and at times predictable and unbelievable, Runner Runner, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Directed by Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) is a fast paced crime drama thriller that never drags, is quickly edited, and great to look at.

28th Sep2013

Prisoners – Film

by timbaros

hugh_jackman_in_prisoners_38370Two young girls are snatched right outside their homes and their parents, along with the police, frantically try to find them in the very dramatic and highly suspenseful new film, Prisoners.

The two girls are the daughters of two couples, one white couple, the Dovers (Keller and Grace, played by an amazing Hugh Jackman and Mario Bello), and one black couple, the Birches (Franklin and Nancy, played by Terrence Howard and Viola Davis). A mysterious R.V. was seen parked in their neighborhood earlier that morning, and the girls were last seen playing outside of their homes on Thanksgiving Day.

Once both families realize the girls are missing, they notify the police and band together to search the surrounding area, including the woods, for them. The police investigation, headed up by Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), is quick to find the van and it’s driver Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but there is no sign of the two girls. After attempting to run away from Loki, and not doing a good job of it as he smashes his van into a tree, Jones is quickly arrested and held for 48 hours. Jones has child kidnapper written all over his face: he has long hair, with glasses too large for his face, he is extremely introverted, and just very scary-looking, but he is adamant that he had nothing to do with the kidnappings. Keller Dover thinks otherwise. He knows in his gut that Jones is guilty, and once Jones is released after not being charged, Keller gets obsessed and follows him everywhere.

Then one night after he sees Jones trying to strangle a dog near his home, he kidnaps Jones and takes him to a run-down apartment building that Keller’s father once owned. Keller ties him up and repeatedly beats him, asking for the whereabouts of the two girls. Franklin Birch reluctantly helps Keller and for a few days both of them continue to beat and torture Jones, but Jones continues to not say anything helpful. In the meantime, at a candlelight vigil for the girls, Loki notices a young man acting funny. The man sees that he was noticed, and he drops his candle and runs away. Loki goes after him but loses him. Could this be the guy who kidnapped the girls?

Loki gets just enough information about the guy to find out who he is and where he lives. He is finally captured and taken into police custody, but he grabs Loki’s gun in the interrogation room and shoots himself in the mouth. Meanwhile, a search of his house reveals an unusual collection of snakes, and graffiti all over. Is this the end of the investigation?

Meanwhile, Keller continues to be very angry at Loki for not doing enough in the investigation, and blows up after he catches Loki following him. So who kidnapped the two girls? Are they still alive? Why doesn’t Loki do more to search for Jones who has been missing for days? As for Jones’ aunt whom he lives with, Holly (Melissa Leo), why doesn’t she seemed too concerned for Alex’s whereabouts? Why did Keller Dover meet detective Loki the day after the girls went missing and not on the night day they went missing? And the one question I really want to know the answer to: Why were the dirty dishes from Thanksgiving still in the kitchen a few days after the girls went missing? Didn’t the family have other family members/friends who could’ve helped with cleanup for the distraught parents?

The problem with Prisoners is that it raises more questions than it answers. There are several plot holes in the film, especially in the last 30 minutes when the resolution of the mystery of the disappearance of the two girls take place. But then more questions come up. Why didn’t Alex Jones speak up? What was the Aunt’s reasoning behind what she did? Why wasn’t Grace Keller upset that her husband went missing? And my question: Why was this film close to two hours and twenty six minutes long? When Prisoners is at its conclusion, it is not really concluded, as there is one major character who is missing and had not been found by the end of the film. Will he be found? We will never know.

The performances in Prisoners are what save it from being a really bad film. Hugh Jackman is riveting as the father of one or the missing girls. The horror on his face when he realizes that they are missing is so real, so emotional, so raw. He is the star of this film, and it won’t surprise me if he gets nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. His performance overshadows all other performances in this film and is his best performance ever. Paul Dano is also excellent as the creepy Alex Jones, who seems to be hiding something but won’t/can’t say what it is. Also his best performance ever.

Viola Davis as Nancy Birch is also very good as the mother who is in pain, longing for her daughter to return, as does Maria Bello as Nancy Birch. All other performances in this film are just okay. Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki gives an under-the-radar performance, not his best role, as does Terence Howard as Franklin Birch, and Melissa Leo as Holly Jones. But fault is found with writer Aaron Guzikowski for his long-winded script, and to director Denis Villeneuve for not realizing that the story he is trying to tell starts becoming unbelievable as the film goes on, and on, and on.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

24th Sep2013

I Do – DVD review and David W. Ross interview

by timbaros
images-37
In the American film I Do, Jack (David W. Ross, who wrote and produced as well) is a gay British man living in New York City and working as a fashion photographer. After his older brother’s sudden death, Jack is left to take care of his brother’s wife and young daughter. In the meantime, his visa to stay in the U.S. is running out so he needs to decide what to do. Luckily his best friend Alison (played by a charming and bubbly Jamie-Lynn Sigler) says yes when Jack asks her to marry him so that he can stay in the country. This complicates both of their lives as Jack and Alison need to appear as a real couple just in case the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service comes knocking on their door. Things get very messy when Jack meets and gradually falls for the Spanish Mano (a one note Maurice Compte). When Mano has to go back to Spain to take care of his ailing father, Jack has to make a decision that will affect everyone in his life.
Ross is a fine actor. He is very good-looking, charming on screen, with a nice smile and great hair and was once a member of the 1990’s UK boy band Bad Boys Inc. The supporting cast is also very good, including Alicia Witt as his sister-in-law, and Jessica Brown very adorable as her daughter Tara. The make or break part of I Do is the relationship between Jack and Mano. Unfortunately, Compte is not very good in his role – he doesn’t make much of an impact when on screen and it is hard to believe that Jack falls for him, the chemistry on screen is just not there. However, Ross and Director Glenn Gaylord have made a very timely film, especially now that same-sex marriage has been ruled unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court which in June of this year struck down the Defense of Marriage Act which allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages if performed under the laws of other states. I Do is a very good tale of a gay man who has to make choices in his life, something that all of us, whether gay or straight, have had to do.
images-38
I sat down with Ross back in March of this year to get more scoop behind I Do and David’s personal journey in making the film:
Was your script based on anyone you know?  I’ve had a few friends marry for their green cards and you hear stories all the time from people. I fell in love with someone who couldn’t get their paperwork and had to move back to the UK so it was heartbreak that really got me writing.
Does your character Jack have any characteristics of David Ross?
I think I stole little bits of me for every character. but Jack was based on me for a few drafts but took on his own life in the final draft which was a relief. i didn’t want to play myself in the film. people told me the characters would take on their own lives and they did in the end.
As you know, in the U.S., at state level, gay people can legally marry, however, this is not recognised on a federal level. What is your take on this?
it’s frustrating. people hear the word marriage and think it means the same thing in America. It doesn’t. There are over 1300 federal level rights that don’t come with same sex marriage. They’re usually really important, life changing rights. Things that you need when you least expect them. We’ve a long way to go with educating people as to why DOMA has to go and how it effects people in devastating ways.
While you were in London in March, you spoke at the House of Commons. What did you speak about?
We spoke with ParliOut. They invited me to talk bout the film and what is going on with DOMA in the U.S. We had a great conversation about where we are with equality and what we can expect in June.
Why did it take a long time to make I Do?
i just couldn’t crack the script. As the issue became more relevant in America and I became more involved with the people at the forefront of the fight for equality I knew i had to make the script less of a comedy and more effective and
emotional. As soon as I realized the tone and story structure I wrote the final draft in 48 hours.
You were in a boy band in the early 1990’s (Bad Boys Inc.). What do you prefer, singing or acting/making movies?
I love it all. I miss performing but making moves is so involved and multilayered artistically. I love acting. I love creating another person’s life and the technical aspects involved of putting that performance on film. I was involved in a lot of the decisions for I DO so everything came into play, my love of music, art, fashion, and story telling. It’s all there when making a film.
Ross, who was born in Bournemouth, fell into acting after a career as a model in the U.S. He was featured in many international commercial campaigns and several award winning stage shows. He was in the Sundance Film Festival double winner Quinceanera in 2006 and was recently awarded the “Rising Film Star Award” for his portrayal of Jack from the Philapelphia Qfest film festival. I Do has been featured in over 20 film festivals and has won a few Audience Awards. According to Ross, money to make the film was raised on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, while Ross spent hours on Twitter and Facebook raising more money, some of which came from fans of Bad Boys Inc.
Very good-looking and charming on screen and in person, with a nice smile, Ross spends his time promoting the film.
What is next for David W. Ross? He says ” I’m planning my next feature, which I plan to direct and a short, possibly filming in the summer. I’m also on the look out for acting roles that speak to me and I can get just as emerged in as I did with I Do’s Jack Edwards.”
I have no doubt he will easily succeed in whatever he does.

This review and interview originally appeared in Pride Life Magazine – Issue 12.

20th Sep2013

Mademoiselle C – Film

by timbaros

images-31-300x105

Not quite The September Issue, not quite Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to travel, Mademoiselle C is a new documentary all about and only about former editor of Paris Vogue and fashion stylist Carine Roitfeld.

Reading like a love letter to herself, (I am so beautiful, I have the perfect family, I am so popular and I am so wonderful) Mademoiselle C, directed by  her friend and former collaborator Fabien Constant, tracks Carine’s decision to leave Vogue and to produce her own magazine which, as we see in the film, is called CR Fashion Book (named after herself, of course). Much like The September Issue, the 2009 documentary which chronicled Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s production of her 2007 huge fashion issue, Mademoiselle C chronicles Roitfeld’s journey from inception to production to completion of the first issue of her own fashion magazine, which came out in September 2012, just in time for the fashion shows in New York, London and Milan. With a staff that practically worships the ground she walks on, through much pressure, and with the magazine getting bigger and bigger and almost out of control, more money is needed. But does Carine Roitfeld sweat about any of this? As we see in the documentary, she doesn’t have to. She is surrounded by the most rich and famous people in the fashion world. We see Karl Lagerfeld, Tom Ford, famous photographer Bruce Weber, Donatella Versace, Kanye West, and even Sarah Jessica Parker all singing her praises. Actually, no one says a bad thing about her at all. Can she really be that special and well-loved and perfect?

More self-indulgent stuff comes later in the documentary when we meet her family. Director Constant makes sure that they are shown as Carine’s special and beautiful children, how glamorous they are, just like their mother. Her daughter, Julia, who happens to be pregnant during the filming, is expected to give birth to a future model, while her son, Vladimir, uncomfortably calls his mom a MILF. We see more of Carine, throwing back her hair, going to glamorous fashion shows and parties, and living the life that she thinks she deserves. There are also photo shoots galore in this documentary, and her ideas for some of the photo shoots are quite bizarre (a nude model in a cemetery is all too creepy and inappropriate).

Mademoiselle C would’ve worked better if the director was a neutral choice, and not a friend of the family. For what it is, Mademoiselle C is only for true fashionistas, people who know their Coco from their Karl, who know their Anna from their Vera. If there was any movie that felt like a promotional video for it’s main star, then this one is it. Who is Mademoiselle C? After seeing this documentary, you kind of wish you didn’t know.

18th Sep2013

Alan Cumming interview and Any Day Now review – Film

by timbaros

images-29I walk into a junior suite at the Soho hotel and meet the publicist. Alan Cumming is nowhere to be seen but I am told that he is in the bathroom. After a couple minutes of chatter with the publicist, Alan Cumming appears. He is wearing a red velvelty button down shirt, black trousers, his hair is spiky, his face as clear and white and smooth as a baby’s bottom, and he displays his usual cheeky ear to ear grin. We sit down to chat:

I hand him a copy of the previous Pride Life magazine

Tim Baros: Thanks for your time. I appreciate it. You look great! My god, different from the film. In it you had long hair, sometimes.
AC: Ah yes, terrible.
TB: during the drag scenes, you know.
AC: Oh that hair, yes.
Tim Baros: That was a great film. I loved it.
AC: Thank you.
Tim Baros: I saw you in Cabaret in New York back in 1998.
AC: You did? Where are you from:
TB: New York, actually, I lived downtown. But I live here now, nearby, but I am from New York.
AC: Where in downtown?
TB: 14th & 8th I lived for like 15 years.
AC: I used to live at 14th & 8th.
TB: No way?
AC: Between 7th & 8th.
TB: Oh my god, ok. I never ran into you. I was there from 1994 to 2003.
AC: Ah funny.
TB: Yeah, so I lived at 252 W. 14th street, above Nell’s.
AC: I lived at 222, I lived in the Sequioua.
TB: Ah yes, the posh building. I lived in a 5 story walk up.
AC: I had a elevator.
TB: I never ran into you, I am surprised.
AC: My friend Eddie actually still lives in that building, he was right next door to me. He still lives there.
TB: Right, ok.
AC: I now live in the East Village, though.
TB: Ah, very trendy, very edgy.
AC: Very edgy.
TB: Lucky you. Did you go to the Associated Grocery Store across the street?
AC: Yes, of course.
TB: Do you remember Tequilas? The restaurant next door to the Associated?It’s a Mexican restaurant. I used to go there all the time.
AC: It’s called something else now.
TB: Well the building’s been knocked down and it is something different.
AC: There still is a, a Spanish place.
TB: That’s downstairs. That’s the church next door.
AC: Next door, behind the stoop.
TB: Yeah, behing the stoop.
AC: The posh club, what’s it called, Norwood House. It’s kind of like
TB: Member’s club?
AC: Yes, members club.
TB: That right, yeah year, Excellent.
AC:Well, we meet after all this time.
TB: Exactly.
Well, I’m 48, and you’re 48 as well.
AC: That’s right.
TB: We are the same age. We don’t look a day over 35. Ha!
AC: Ha! (Laughing with a big smile).
TB: Right?
AC: Right:
TB: So how did you get this part in this film? Who approached you first?
AC: Ah, Well, they just asked me, you know, they just asked me. Travis (Fine, the director) talked to, um, my agent or manager or something and I just got asked to do it, and they sent me it. My manager was actually, really, she was um, very um, you know, there was something, sometimes you think this is why they get all this money. Because they sometimes do things where they give you really good advice and say read this now, instead of you know this has been sent to you so she was she was very passionate about it and um, so I read it, and I met Travis initially, talked about it, and that was the start of the process.
TB: Did Travis say you were his first pick? Hopefully he said that to you.
AC: ah right (Laughing)….I am sure he did. I am sure I was.
TB: He saw the role of Alan Cumming and no no no , definitely for him.
AC: Right. I am not too sure if I was the first pick but he was disa, disabused, disavowed, or what, disabused of his, disabused, of his first choice.
TB: Yes, exactly, and you got it. And it’s a great film.
AC: I like it. Yes, I am attached. And then what was great was I was able to, ah, because I, you know, there were several drafts of it after I came on, so I got to kind of be part of that process in the way of just, which was really good, because you know, something like this is shot so fast and such a short time so it was nice to be to have it entrenched in me, to discuss it a lot, each draft, to talk about the character, it changed quite a lot actually from the time I came on until the time it was shot. The ending was completely different.
TB: I was going to ask that later. When was the film shot?
AC: it was shot two summers ago.
TB: 2011
AC: Yeah, I guess.
TB: So it’s been a while since you’ve done it.
AC: Yeah
TB: Yeah, exactly, 2 years
AC: A long time
TB: Does it feel like it was yesterday?
AC: Ah, no
TB: No (Laughing), not quite.
AC: Right (Laughing) but It feels like I’ve, ah, it feels, cause its, you know, one of these films that I guess because it is smaller it did the all festivals and it came out and sort of what do they call it a platform thing
TB: Trajectory kind of sort of
AC: Well, it you know it starts in different markets and it feels like I have been talking about it for a long time.
TB: Ah, right, ok. It still relevant.
AC: Yeah sure,  I love talking about it’s just its been you know, it feels like I, that’s actually the last movie I’ve done  it was this one, apart from a wee cameo in a friend’s thing.
TB: You did MacBeth this past summer
AC: The past two summers I actually did in Glasgow and New York last year and then I am going to do it this year.
TB: Busy boy. Time for a break. possibly
AC: I’ve got a week off in September actually.
TB: Ah great, ok. Staying in New York or
AC: I’m going to Provincetown
TB: I’ve been there, I love that place.
AC: Me too. it would be quieter then. And then, um, Santa Fe, I’m going to this great thing.
TB: You’ll never guess where I am actually from?
AC: Santa Fe?
TB: I grew up in Santa Fe. I was born in 1964 in Santa Fe.
AC: Wow!
TB: I left when I was 21 to go to college in New York.
AC: That’s funny.
TB: I stayed in New York and then came to London. So wow, you are going to Santa Fe?
AC: I am going to Santa Fe to this thing the head of, um whatchamacallit, Amazon does this thing where he invites all these different types of people, artists and writers and scientists and just people to this thing and you just go and talk
TB: Is it like an institute, like a pow wow kind of sort of
AC: kind of, we sit around and chat, there is no press,  a campfire
TB: You’ve been there before?
AC: No
TB: You are going to love
AC: Ah Santa Fe I have been to before I went one to this film festival that was there. But Amistead Maupin, you know him, he said, uh, I just recently read one of his books, I mean an audio book of one of his books, and he said oh gosh Alan you should to this because eh, I, he said he had sat around the campfire talking to Neil Armstrong about what it like being on the moon.
TB: Oh wow! As one does.
AC: So that’s uh, that’s my week off.
TB: OK. Have lots of great Mexican food, lots of great Indian food, tamales, tacos, just stuff yourself. ok.
AC: I will.
TB: Can you do that for me? Because I live here and they don’t really have great Mexican food.
AC: Yeah, it is not so big here.
TB: Yeah, not so big here, no no…
AC: We’ve got, ah, from our living room I can see a little Mexican place
TB: In the East Village
AC: San Loco, and I , we uh I and actually they are so good because when I am drunk and I go there and we always,  and we go to San Loco, and then when I was doing MacBeth I went to a nutrionist to just be, because it was crazy demanding so I went to this nutrionist to check to if everything was alright, if I was eating right, I’m vegan as well so and she said she basically said you know having a bean taco is great food to have. Yeah!!!
TB: So going back to the film, was that actually you singing in the film? Was that your actual voice? I mean it was really smooth, tender, emotional, in the moment voice,
AC: That me!
TB:  That’s you? I mean are you classically trained as a singer as well an actor or?
AC: Well, no, I’ve got singing lessons at drama school, um, but I mean, I guess, no, I don’t know, would I,  suppose so, singing is the same thing as voice, so but you know I’m not really, over the last few years I’ve got more, you know, I started singing, I do concerts and stuff, and a record,
TB; Yes, you’re a singer, plus Cabaret as well, and you sang.
AC: I’ve done a lot of singing, actually.
TB: So what you do prefer? Do you prefer acting in movies or do you prefer being on stage or singing like on a record because you do so many different things.
AC: I like them all. I I I you know, I like to be able to do different things, I bounce back and for so I’m always quite when it comes to do something I am always quite excited to be because it is not what I’ve just been doing. But you know, if I had a gun to my head I would choose the theatre.
TB: Do you have any plans for any productions in the future?
AC: Uh, there’s plans but there is nothing you know, I’m just a, one thing I am not allowed to talk about it, it ah, it’s about, there’s always plans, there’s always things, there is something coming up but I’m not going to say what it is.
TB: Fair enough
AC: It is not officially announced yet
TB: Not in Santa Fe?
AC: Not in Santa Fe, no, on Broadway.
AC: (he sings) On Broadway…
TB: Good, I will come and see you. hopefully, next year, you never know when.
AC: Yeah, hopefully next year.
TB: I sat next to you at a GLAAD Media Awards show as well, not next to you but at the table next to you.
AC: When was that?
TB: Back in late 90’s. I used to go to all of the GLAAD events of the year, the media awards and I sat at the table next to you, and you and I like looked at each other for like a brief second, and I still have that in my head. It’s really funny because you turned around and looked and I sitting there and you looked at me then you turned back and then I was thinking what was he looking at. You don’t remember that obviously I remember that obviously but you don’t….it was back in 1999.
AC: That makes sense, was I hosting or presenting?
TB: No, you were actually sitting at a table, a front table near the stage and I was at the table behind you. That was my one brief moment of looking at each other….
TB: The boy who plays Marco in the film, I mean he’s amazing, he is brilliant. How was he on set? To like deal with and to work with?
AC: Lovely. I mean, you know, I was kind of anxious, not really anxious but a little trepidatious just going into it thinking you know I don’t know really what it means to work with someone with Down’s Syndrome, what it was going to be like and what would that mean about my day daily working procedure, you know. Just, he was absolutely a darling, more professional then either guy or I, he was absolutely lovely. One of the best things about this film was meeting Isaac. Really, it was absolutely beautiful thing, I feel really lucky to have had that experience. He just reminds you of what joy is like. He was so happy he would jump up and down with happiness.
TB: And he is a great actor..
AC: and he is a GREAT actor
TB: His role was amazing. Was he easy to work with in that respect. To act off of?
AC: Yeah yeah he was really, I mean we talked, Travis is a really great one too, they spent a lot of time together so and then they got, you know, really had a laugh, became friends, and, but it was always so easy to, and then there was a sad bit in the film where we show him his bedroom for the first time with all the toys, so and, at that moment, he cries, but that was not in the script. He wasn’t supposed to be. He was just so happy, just so happy as Marco that he just burst into tears and so we had rehearsed the scene and we didn’t think that that was not what was going to happen, and so I as me, as Alan, went over to him and actually, you know, kind of quietly, I am just talking as myself, not talking as Rudy Donatello, I go ‘are you ok’, like that, as me, and they kept it in, they kept it in. And he was crying….blah, and it was lovely. I mean, it was just great. I just loved, and his face when he would see you lighting up, and then you know seeing him a lot at the film festivals and the openings and things. The opening when the film opens in at the premiere at Tribeca he came up and was just weeping. We are all used to it now because he is a weeper, he is a crier, we say ‘Oh Isaac’ and um, but it was, he was so happy that he was just weeping. and uh, the audience had just been through this traumatic experience and then they see the person they had just been watching now weeping.
TB: Are you still in contact with him now after two years later?
AC: Yeah, email, I email his mom, sent him a video. I think the last time was at the GLAAD Awards in San Francisco, I was not able to go because I was in Macbeth but the film won the award and Travis sent me a video of him dancing at the afterparty, and just like cutting a rug.
TB: Good for him! He’s living it up. He’s an actor, he’s famous.
AC: He’s a great star.
TB: He is great in the film, he is amazing. I cried at the end of the film obviously because of what happens at the end. Was that in the original script?
AC: No
TB: His death at the end…That was really shocking.
AC: It was not in the original draft I read, it evolved into a being a more sort of realistic ending.
TB: Why did they change the ending because I expected it happy ending because you know when you go to the cinema gay couple or just a couple in general in adopting a kid is going to have a happy ending. This one did not have a happy ending.
AC: Because happy endings don’t happen in real life. and that stops the film from being a little schmaltzy because you get a slice of, you know you’re hoping, you really hope that you get one of those endings, you really route for the family and for them to get back together and in a sort of a Hollywood ending, that would happen that way but in a  real life ending for those people,for a gay couple that time or even now that is the reality and that is I think what makes it so heart wrenching,  the truth.
TB: So you think this is still happening today? 1979 is different from 2013. Lots of problems with gay couples adopting children. Obviously there are but it is getting easier. In some respect.
AC: It is getting easier but its not getting easier through the state system. Lots and lots of, there’s a million, you think, you know, there’s a million families with same sex experience in America. But a very small percentage of those have been adopted through the state system. Thats, you know, its not like, Rudy and Paul, a gay couple who’ve got, who  can go to Guatemala and they didn’t, that wouldn’t even been an option for them in those days, but it just  happened, and it could, that is something so awful I think, in Britain when its legal to adopt through the state system, you know, you still have to face, it still is harder, the prejudice of each individual council and
TB: Back in the 70’s it was harder for a gay couple to adopt a kid, they didn’t even think about it, because it was pretty much impossible.
AC: Yeah, exactly, but thats great, but its sort of like I think it’s too easy to sort of think oh, it’s great, things have changed alot but still in America because I sort of said that in some things, there was, well you know the head of my school is got ah..he is with his partner they’ve got a child they adopted blah blah blah and I said was that adopted through the state system? and they’re like, ah, no, they got it from something  you know, and, that’s that, for me I think obviously great strides have been, great things happened recently with the supreme court thing and everything but I’m, I’m I’m not going to applaud just because I’ve been given my rights, I don’t think, it’s, that’s not right you know, just because equality is not, ah, a privilege.

ANY DAY NOW Review:
images-3

Rudy Donatello works as a drag queen by night but still finds it tough to make ends meet. Out of the blue Paul Fleiger (Garret Dillahunt) walks into the bar and into his life, while at the same time, the boy next door is having family problems, in the new gay drama Any Day Now.

Donatello, played sympathetically and with gusto by Alan Cumming, sings at a gay nightclub in 1979 West Hollywood with two other drag queens who are his back up singers. One night, Fleiger walks into the bar and is immediately smitten with Donatello. Why? It is not clear. Perhaps it is love first sight? Meanwhile, Donatello’s next door neighbor, Marianna (Jamie Anne Allman), is a drug dealer and sex addict who has a young son who has down’s syndrome. One night she gets arrested, leaving her son alone in the apartment. Donatello discovers the boy alone, so he has the boy come to stay with him temporarily until the situation with his mother becomes more clear. Meanwhile, the relationship with Fleiger is getting more and more serious, with both men quickly falling in love with each other.

Social services ends up getting involved and puts Marco into a foster home, making Donatello realize that he and Fleiger are fit to take care of the boy, especially after Fleiger asks Donatello to move in with him, thereby providing a stable home for Marco. However, social services thinks otherwise and digs out every dirty detail they can find about Donatello and Fleiger’s relationship to make them look like unfit parents, gay being one of the details. When the mother is suddenly sprung from jail in a plea bargain with the district attorney, with all the counts dropped, all hope seems to be lost in keeping Marco.

Any Day Now is a truly sympathetic and a well done and very current film on the trouble that gay couples have in adopting children.

Cumming gives one of his finest performances in years as the drag queen by night who at first seems lost in life but then finally finds happiness and a family at the same time. Girant, an American actor previously seen in Killing Me
Softly and Winter’s Bone, is also very good as a closeted lawyer who very slowly comes out after finding love with a man for the first time, building his confidence. More a revelation is Isaac Leyva as Marco. An actor with Down’s Syndrome, his performance is so touching, so emotional, so professional that acting seems to be natural for him. The script, by Director Travis Fine and George Arthur Bloom, is very timely and believable, while Fine’s direction is sharp and crisp. Any Day Now is a very touching and moving film.
Any Day Now was released in cinema’s on Sept. 6 and will out on DVD in Jan, 2014.

 

13th Sep2013

Rush – Film

by timbaros

images-24

 

In what is one of the most thrilling films of the year, Rush tells the true story of Formula 1 racing car rivals James Hunt and Niki Lauda, and the intense rivalry between their respective racing teams, McLaren and Ferrari, in 1976.

Chris Hemsworth plays James Hunt, the English racing car driver also known for his exploits off the track – his exploits with women, sex and drugs. Daniel Bruhl plays Niki Lauda, the famous Austrian racing car driver and three time F1 World Champion who was disfigured in a car crash during a race, which, however, did not stop him from competing again. Rush is set against the backdrop of the glamourous and excitement of Formula 1 racing and in the 1976 Formula One season which featured the 1976 World Championships of F1 drivers and the 1976 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers and contested over a sixteen race series.

In the film, McLaren driver Hunt takes the World Championship by one point over Ferrari driver Lauda, who is determined more than ever to win the World Championship himself. The 1976 Formula One races took the drivers all over the world, beginning with Brazil and next to South Africa, to the U.S., Spain, Monaco Sweden and France. From one thrilling race scene to another, with Hunt winning a few and then Lauda winning a few, Rush excitedly portrays the rivalry between both men, their ups and downs and their wins and losses, both on and off the track. This includes the many affairs of Hunt, and his brief marriage to model Suzy Miller (a fantastic Olivia Wilde), who would go on to leave him and wed Richard Burton. Lauda, on the other hand, meets and marries Marlene Knaus (a very lovely Alexandra Maria Lara), and it is not long after that he is in an almost deadly car crash in the 1976 German Grand Prix that causes severe burns to his head and body and in which Lauda inhales toxic gases that damages his lungs and blood. As a result of the crash, Lauda had extensive scarring on his head, lost most of his right ear and lost the hair on his eyebrows and eyelids. Miraculously, Lauda would return to the race track six weeks later to finish in 4th place in the Italian Grand Prix, though at the time he was still severely scarred and still bleeding from his wounds.

Directed by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Frost Nixon), with a script by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), Rush has Academy Award and BAFTA written all over it. With excellent lead performances by both Hemsworth and Bruhl (with Bruhl having the extra edge because of sympathies of the car crash), to the very good performances by both actresses Lara and Wilde, Rush will be the movie to watch come this autumn. Even for non-Formula One racing car fans, Rush is a thrill a minute and expertly tells the story of the rivalry between Hunt and Bruhl. Hunt would go on to die of a heart attack in 1993 at the age 45 due to his fast and furious lifestyle, while Lauda would go on to become a television pundit and is still alive today.

12th Sep2013

Any Day Now – Film

by timbaros

images-25Rudy Donatello works as a drag queen by night but still finds it tough to make ends meet. Out of the blue Paul Fleiger (Garret Dillahunt) walks into the bar and into his life, while at the same time, the boy next door is having family problems, in the new gay drama Any Day Now.

Donatello, played sympathetically and with gusto by Alan Cumming, sings at a gay nightclub in 1979 West Hollywood with two other drag queens who are his back up singers. One night, Fleiger walks into the bar and is immediately smitten with Donatello. Why? It is not clear. Perhaps it is love first sight? Meanwhile, Donatello’s next door neighbor, Marianna (Jamie Anne Allman), is a drug dealer and sex addict who has a young son who has down’s syndrome. One night she gets arrested, leaving her son alone in the apartment. Donatello discovers the boy alone, so he has the boy come to stay with him temporarily until the situation with his mother becomes more clear. Meanwhile, the relationship with Fleiger is getting more and more serious, with both men quickly falling in love with each other.

Social services ends up getting involved and puts Marco into a foster home, making Donatello realize that he and Fleiger are fit to take care of the boy, especially after Fleiger asks Donatello to move in with him, thereby providing a stable home for Marco. However, social services thinks otherwise and digs out every dirty detail they can find about Donatello and Fleiger’s relationship to make them look like unfit parents, gay being one of the details. When the mother is suddenly sprung from jail in a plea bargain with the district attorney, with all the counts dropped, all hope seems to be lost in keeping Marco.

Any Day Now is a truly sympathetic and a well done and very current film on the trouble that gay couples have in adopting children.

Cumming gives one of his finest performances in years as the drag queen by night who at first seems lost in life but then finally finds happiness and a family at the same time. Girant, an American actor previously seen in Killing Me
Softly and Winter’s Bone, is also very good as a closeted lawyer who very slowly comes out after finding love with a man for the first time, building his confidence. More a revelation is Isaac Leyva as Marco. An actor with Down’s Syndrome, his performance is so touching, so emotional, so professional that acting seems to be natural for him. The script, by Director Travis Fine and George Arthur Bloom, is very timely and believable, while Fine’s direction is sharp and crisp. Any Day Now is a very touching and moving film.
Any Day Now was released in cinema’s on Sept. 6 and will out on DVD in Jan, 2014.

10th Sep2013

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints – Film

by timbaros

WFTCRMImageFetch.aspxA tale of a man who escapes from prison to be reunited with his wife and their daughter who he has not yet met is the premise of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, now playing in movie theatres.

Casey Affleck plays Bob, and Rooney Mara plays Ruth, a young couple in love with the rest of their lives ahead of them. With very little money between them, they turn to a life of crime to support themselves. After a robbery gone bad, they get involved in a shootout with the police, and Ruth shoots and wounds a police officer, but it is Bob who takes the blame and is sent to prison, leaving the pregnant Ruth all alone to give birth and raise their child. But he promises to her that he will come back for them.

Four years later, Bob can’t bear being away from Ruth and their child, so he breaks free from prison. This is when Ain’t Them Bodies Saints becomes the adventure of a man desperately wanting to see the two people most important in his life, his girlfriend and daughter, who was born while he was in prison. He will do anything, no matter what it takes, to see them. He will cross streams, hitchhike on trains, steal cars, his heart is aching to see them. Meanwhile, Ruth is quietly raising her daughter in a house provided to her by a friend’s father, and she is also being courted by the police officer that she shot – Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster), who takes a lot of interest in her and her daughter. Once the word is out that Bob has broken out of prison, Ruth knows exactly where he is headed.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is set in Texas in the early 1970’s, with the tumbleweeds rolling across the streets, beautiful picturesque sunsets, and landscape that fits perfectly into the story. And the performances couldn’t be any better. Affleck is perfect as the young man who crosses mile and miles to be with the people who matter most in his life. Just as good is Mara as Ruth, raising her daughter all alone in a small Texas town, trying to get on with her life, and other relationships, but Bob is always in the background of her mind. Writer/Director David Lowery has made a perfect film in which the tone exactly matches the script and sweeps you away for 105 minutes in this visually poetic film. The film title is unique in that the director wanted this film to feel like a song, Classical, American, a little rough around the edges, and meant to feel very old, like a great piece of music, emotions that are timeless and classical. And he has successfully done this.

06th Sep2013

You’re Next – Film

by timbaros

images-15
The Davison family – the parents and their 4 children with their partners – all get together at the family’s very large vacation house in the middle of nowhere. Little do they know what fate they face their first evening, in the new film You’re Next.

Not quite a horror film, not quite a slasher film, You’re Next is more of a survival film, survival of the fittest. It is unique in that (I am not giving anything away here based on what is shown in the trailers) members of the family get killed one by one, beginning when they all sit down to a family dinner.

Son Felix (Nicholas Tucci) brings along his girlfriend Erin (a very tough Shami Vinson) to meet the members of his family. The two other brothers bring their partners, one of them, Zee (Wendy Glenn) is not who she appears to be.  Meanwhile their daughter Aimee (Amy Seimetz) brings along her new goodlooking boyfriend.

Parents Aubrey and Paul (Barbara Crampton and Rob Moran) are happy to have the children and their partners under one roof, and to meet them for the first time.

At the family’s first dinner, son Tariq (Ti West) thinks he see something moving outside, and he goes to the window to investigate, and gets shot in the head. What happens next and throughout the film is the fate of the unknown. What is out there? What or who is doing this? This is what makes You’re Next more unique than the other films that are in the same genre. The surprises of what happens next, who is next, and who will survive. And when the plot twist is revealed near the, you will be very surprised. And at the very end there is another plot surprise that that comes very unexpectedly. Enjoy.

03rd Sep2013

Pain & Gain – Film

by timbaros

 

pain_gain_36239

In the 1980’s, three men, two who were personal trainers affiliated with the Sun Gym in Miami, kidnapped, tortured and murdered several people. One of those kidnapped was the client of one of the two men. Pain & Gain tells this story.

Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is hired by Sun Gym owner John Mese (Rob Corddry), who is impressed with Lugo’s enthusiasm (and good looks), and hires him to do personal training and to help increase membership to the gym. One of Daniel’s clients is the very wealthy Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub). Unfortunately for Kershaw, after going to a motivational seminar, Lugo hatches a plan to kidnap, extort and torture Kershaw, take all of his possessions, and leave him for dead, and enlists fellow personal trainer Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and ex-convict Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) to help.

Pain & Gain is loosely based on this true story, with loosely being the key word. Up until when the kidnapping takes place, Pain & Gain promises to be a Boogie Nights-style crime movie, with the hot Miami sun, a lot of muscle on show, and Wahlberg in the lead role. But Pain & Gain all too quickly falls apart, with scenes that are mind-numbingly stupid and a plot that suspends belief.

Once Kershaw is successfully kidnapped (after one failed attempt by the bumbling trio), he is locked up in his own warehouse in the middle of what looks to be downtown Miami. The kidnappers have Kershaw send his family out of the state, and make him sign over his possessions to them. They then attempt to kill him, unsuccessfully a couple times, but then think they have succeeded after running him over in broad daylight in the middle of busy downtown (conveniently with no one in sight).

The boys stupidly fail to check whether or not he is dead, and Kershaw survives, manages to go to the hospital, and tries to get his life back. Meanwhile, the boys are living in Kershaw’s house, spending his money, and befriending all of his fellow wealthy neighbors, with not one of them really questioning Kershaw’s whereabouts (another plot point we are expected to believe: can they all be that gullible?). They also take over his businesses, treating his employees with more respect then Kershaw ever did.

Meanwhile, Kershaw is in the hospital, and no one believes his story (really?), so Kershaw hires a private investigator (Ed Harris) to uncover the truth of his ordeal, who eventually unravels the trio’s misdeeds. The boys continue with their crime spree by attempting to rob an amoured car (which goes very wrong), and attempt another kidnapping which also goes horribly wrong when they accidentally murder the intended victim and his wife in Doorbal’s own house. The walls cave in on the boys and they are eventually caught, and at the end we are supposed to believe it happened this way, either fact or fiction.

Wahlberg, who has been in five films in the past two years, has picked a bad film to be in this time. Wahlberg produced and starred in the 2010 Oscar-nominated film The Fighter, and was most recently seen in 2 Guns (with Denzel Washington). And after starring in Ted, Wahlberg could do no wrong, but this film is all wrong. Sure, there are lots of scenes with his shirt off so he can show off his great physique, and he is believable throughout; it is just that the script that is very bad.

The other actors are fine, with Johnson playing the very dumb body builder, Paul Doyle, though it is hard to believe that a character as dumb as him could be in a gang that pulls off crimes like these. (Johnson’s character is actually a composite of a two actual members of the gang.) Pain & Gain could have been a much better and more realistic film if the director Michael Bay and the writers would’ve stuck to the actual true story, and not Hollywood-ized it. But Bay’s directorial style, where there are way too many car explosions and parts of the plot that are put in for convenience and not necessity, does not add up to a believable story.

Doorbal and Lugo ended up receiving death sentences for their crimes, and Johnson’s composite real lifers received eight years each as they testified against Doorbal and Lugo.