There are these guys, see? And they’re dressed in slightly out-of-date suits, gray mostly. And they wear hats –each and every one of them, all the time.
They dress like “Mad Men” and they’re led by a “Mad Men” star (John Slattery). But they’re not in advertising, circa 1962. No, these guys run a vast bureaucracy that clocks in every morning and decides our fate.
You might have noticed in recent decades how the movies seem to be bending over backwards to not offend Chinese sensibilities. Chinese villains are a thing of the past. “Red Dawn” had the North Koreans taking over a corner of America. “Mission: Impossible” or James Bond may venture into Chinese waters or lands. But God forbid it be because of anything the Chinese communist oligarchs are doing.
When Roland Emmerich made “2012,” darned if the Chinese weren’t saving the human race by building big, polluting diesel arks for the last humans to ride out the apparently-canceled cataclysm that 12-21-2012 was supposed to foretell.
The extent to which the Chinese are getting to influence Hollywood — directly, in films shot there, and in Chinese co-productions (“Kung Fu Panda” movies, etc.) is explored in this New York Times story.
News organizations still break stories on this or that “crack down on freedoms” in China, the corruption, scandalously badly polluted air and dissent. But you have to wonder if even many of these companies, which after all, own film and TV production companies too, will start self-censoring as well in an effort to protect their access to a lucrative, if repressive and predatory market.
The adorably hand-animated “My Dog Tulip” is based on a fictionalized memoir by the English writer J. R. Ackerley.
The film features Christopher Plummer plummily narrating the story of how Ackerley, seeking that one perfect “friend,” sort of settled on a lively, sociable but utterly untrained Alsatian (German shepherd) named “Tulip.” He fell for this dog and her kind, marveling that any creature could “find the world so wonderful.” She “came into my life and transformed it.”
What, exactly, was “Made in Dagenham,” the gigantic Ford factory in the UK, back in 1968?
Nothing less than equal rights for women, Nigel Cole’s “Norma Rae from the UK” suggests. It’s a cheeky and uplifting “inspired-by-a-true-story” tale that overcomes its predictability with sparkling performances, a dash of wit and a lot of heart.
The sometimes exuberant James Franco makes for an oddly muted Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in “Howl,” an all-star cast bio-pic about Ginsberg’s most famous poem and the 1957 obscenity trial it provoked.
Documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman attracted Hollywood talent, far and wide, for this film, had an epic poem and a classic culture clash as their subject and still produced a corpse from it.
His posture, ramrod straight. His manners, impeccable. His breeding and entitlement obvious even if you don’t know his real name is Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George.
But the client who has been signed up for speech therapy by his gently insistent wife is only Mr. Johnson to the down-on-his-heels actor-counselor and therapist. And Mr. Johnson’s problem is as obvious as his awkwardness in simple conversation.
“I buh-bloody well stutter!”
And as “Bertie,” begins his therapy, there’s a need for him to get over this. Bertie is The Duke of York, younger brother to the Prince of Wales, and he has speaking engagements. But when his shallow, playboy brother abdicates, Bertie’s speaking calender will only fill up as he becomes king. When Britain is plunged into World War II, a speech by the king to rally the nation is a big deal. Every ear in the empire will hang on every word of “The King’s Speech.”
One of the best films of 2010 captures the funny, touching and inspiring relationship between the man who will become King George VI (Colin Firth) and the brash Aussie (Geoffrey Rush) who tries to figure out why he stutters, and to help him over it so that the free world won’t despair every time the stammering, stuttering George opens his mouth.
You’d better watch out.
You’d better not swear.
Have a gun handy, loaded for bear.
Santa Claus is coming…to Finland.
Whose idea was it to turn those latter day Caribbean pirates Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy and (director) Gore Verbinski loose on a cartoon, ostensibly for kids?
Because “Rango” requires some explanation. It is funny, inventive and downright daft. At times.
But who is it for, what is it and most pointedly — what is the point?
Those “Hot Fuzz” Brits Simon Pegg and Nick Frost make their Hollywood debut with “Paul,” a sometimes amusing meet-the-alien farce that aims to be every fanboy’s wet dream. But it’s sort of their shot at a foul-mouthed pot-sex-bodily-functions- Judd Apatow-style comedy and as such seems watered down, with just a hint of the British eccentricity that made them cult heroes.
You’ll want to stay through the closing credits of the new motion capture animated adventure “Mars Needs Moms,” a film from the people who gave us “The Polar Express.” There are four minutes of clips of the real-live cast of the film, Seth Green, Joan Cusack and Dan Fogler among them, wearing the mo-cap suits, dots covering their faces so that the sensors can digitally mimic their movements, actions and facial reactions as they act out what’s going to be animated.
It’s fascinating and also the lightest and funniest part of this film, based on a book by “Bloom County” creator Berkeley Breathed. Though light enough in tone, packed with good messages and delivering a couple of lovely, touching moments, “Mars” still has that plastic look that made you wish you were seeing the REAL Tom Hanks in “Polar Express” or the REAL Jim Carrey in “A Christmas Carol.”
