For those looking for some off-the-beaten-path selections well assayed, over on A Critical Moment, Brad Schreiber has up an interesting Top 10 films of 2008 list that includes the LAFCA-honored Waltz with Bashir, Mister Foe, the French treat The Girl Cut In Two, The Counterfeiters (last year’s winner for Best Foreign Language Film) and Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected. For more, click here.
Monthly Archives: January 2009
Yonkers Joe
Yonkers Joe is partly a telegraphed drama of familial reconciliation, but also an ode to analog-era gamblers now outdated and overmatched in the age of upscale, digital-surveillance casinos. The title character (Chazz Palminteri) is a gruff East Coast cardsharp who finds his mostly uncluttered life (he has a girlfriend of equally knockabout motivation, Janice, played by Christine Lahti, but seems disinclined to opt for any sort of ordinary domesticity) suddenly complicated by his estranged, mentally challenged namesake son (Tom Guiry). Stricken with emotional and anger problems stemming from his virtual abandonment, Joey is approaching his 21st birthday, and with that milestone a forced decision — not really in his own hands — about his future residence. So with his cohorts and young Joey in tow, Joe the elder heads to Las Vegas, looking to run a loaded-dice craps scam, and score a payday that will allow him to afford posh group-home care for his son. Think of it as a patriarchal Rain Man, with a pinch of to-scale 21.
Distracting coverage problems certainly mar any hope for a smooth setting of scene, and writer-director Robert Celestino repeatedly overplays his hand with inserts that make Joe look considerably less slick than we’re led to believe. The script also doesn’t give Palminteri much to inform his character’s new-fashioned cruelty (he’s not physically abusive, but deems Joey “my sentence”), other than an absentee mother and some major avoidance issues. That leaves some of the film’s father-son drama to be sold in sheer emotive force rather than via persuasive content. But Palminteri and a passel of familiar small screen faces (did Dick Wolf cast this movie?) earn the film slight passing marks, if only mostly because it’s interesting to see old operators have to adapt their schemes for new times. (Magnolia, R, 102 minutes)
Their Time > Your Time
Hey, you know what’s great? Getting up early and building your entire day’s schedule around an interview commitment with an actor or director, and then getting hosed, or stood up. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if it’s individually, provably their fault or that of some flak. It all boils down to the same point: the time of famous people is infinitely more valuable than yours, and in these exchanges, you will suffer the whims and fuck-ups of others.
In Regards to Lizzy Caplan’s Boobs…
Actor Derek Waters, as the second entry of his new back-page column “What the H?” for H Magazine, has a free-flowing rumination about/interview with friend Lizzy Caplan, and the fact that he just recently saw her boobs on HBO’s True Blood. It’s not a total home run, but it is funny, and studded with truth. Namely: guys dig boobs.
Aero, Egyptian Celebrate Foreign Film Globe Nominees
The five Golden Globe nominees for Best Foreign Language Film will screen next week at the Aero Theatre, before the directors of all the nominated films convene for a special seminar at the Egyptian Theatre on Saturday, January 10. German director Uli Edel’s The Baader-Meinhof Complex will screen on Wednesday, January 7 at 7:30 p.m., followed by a discussion with Edel and writer-producer Bernd Eichinger; the following evening brings a double-feature of Everlasting Moments and Waltz with Bashir; Friday, January 9 features a double-feature of the French drama I’ve Loved You So Long and the sprawling Italian crime ensemble Gomorrah. On Saturday,
January 10, at 1 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, the directors of all five films will
sit for a free-admission panel moderated by Mike Goodridge, of Screen International.
The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica; the
historic Egyptian Theatre is located at
Palmas
information on tickets, directions and each site’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM, or visit
the Cinematheque’s eponymous Web site by clicking here.
John Travolta’s 16-Year-Old Son Jett Dies
John Travolta’s 16-year-old son Jett — the one named for the actor’s love of flying, and the one who may or may not have been autistic — has died in a most curious-sounding accident, reportedly after striking his head on a bathtub, possibly after a seizure. An all-around tragedy, to be certain, but the tabloids will have a month-long field day with this one, particularly if they can figure out a way to link to the mystery surrounding Jett’s diagnosis to this mishap — an easy series of dots to connect for the checkout lane set.
Kate Bosworth Turns 26, Gifts Fans with Sheer-Top Pics
It’s Kate Bosworth’s 26th birthday today, and she gifted fans with some sheer-top and pantyhose photos, part of a cover spread for the UK’s Tank magazine by Todd Cole. Wow, thanks Kate. Umm… I forgot to get you anything, actually. Sorry. Tell you what, though — send me the top and I’ll pose in it myself, too.
For more photos, click here, or traffic Tank‘s curiously link-free web page, if you must.
Foreign Film Fans Send Bernie Madoff a Message
Who says criminal pranksters aren’t foreign film fans? The folks who stole a $10,000 copper statue from the Florida estate of super-scamming douchebag extraordinaire Bernard Madoff were seemingly inspired by a 2005 German movie, it turns out. The Edukators focused on three leftist radicals who break into homes of the wealthy, not to steal but to rearrange furniture as an anti-capitalist statement and leave behind menacing notes; Madoff’s objet d’art was found in bushes Wednesday
behind the Palm Beach Country Club with a note signed by “the
educators,” and warning Madoff to “return stolen property to rightful
owners.” Err, as they did?
Brazil’s Oscar Submission Screens, One Night Only
Directed by Bruno Barreto, an Oscar nominee for 1998’s Four Days in September, and written by Braulio Mantovani, an Oscar nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay for City of God, Brazil’s 2008 submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award screens January 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Aero Theatre. Based on a true story and featuring young actors plucked from theater groups in and around the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Last Stop 174 tells the tragic saga of a boy in search of a family and a mother in search of her son, all against a backdrop where lies, degradation, corruption and violence are the norm, and justice is an unreal concept.
The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.