Month: August 2015

We’re in that weird end-of-summer period for Blu-ray and DVD in which most of the new releases are the garbage that hit theaters in April and early May while most of the big catalog releases are waiting to get a bit closer to the holiday shopping season. No one is releasing a major Blu-ray in time for Back to School shopping or Labor Day celebrations. And so this is the slightest HECG yet produced, which doesn’t mean it’s not going to be informative and fascinating. Or at least informative.

10 NEW TO NETFLIX

Even Netflix seems a little dry lately, launching a few recent indie releases, including one of our Ten Best Films of 2014, along with some interesting catalog choices including films starring Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, and Owen Wilson.

“Being Flynn”
“If I Stay”
“Kill Me Three Times”
“La Sapienza”
“The Look of Love”
“Lord of War”
“Pariah”
“Shanghai Noon”
“Two Days, One Night”
“Welcome to Me”

6 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD

“Day For Night” (Criterion)

Francois Truffaut’s “Day For Night” finally joins the Criterion Collection, over four decades after its controversial release in theaters. There’s really not much more that could be written about the actual film. I will say that this dissection of filmmaking and form has held up remarkably well. It’s a film that would resonate were it released today, even if a few of the filmmaking techniques in the film within a film would probably change. The most interesting special feature on the new Criterion release comes courtesy of video artist kogonada, who focuses energy on the three dream sequences in the film and what Truffaut is trying to say about film and his relationship to it through them. There’s also a fascinating interview with Dudley Andrew about the heated exchanges between Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut after the former saw (and hated) “Day For Night”. Godard publicly accusing Truffaut of making “Day For Night” just so he could sleep with Jacqueline Bisset is a fascinating bit of film history. There’s also great archival material. This is the Criterion release of the month and the best Blu-ray you could buy this week.

Buy it here

Special Features
New visual essay by filmmaker :: kogonada
New interview with Glenn assistant editor Martine Barraque
New interview with film scholar Dudley Andrew
Documentary on the film from 2003, featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf
Archival interviews with director Francois Truffaut; editor Yann Dedet; and actors Jean-Pierre Aumont, Nathalie Baye, Jacqueline Bisset, Dani, and Bernard Menez
Archival television footage about the film, including footage of Truffaut on the set
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
Plus: An essay by critic David Cairns

“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (Criterion)

Did someone at Criterion release this the same month as “Day For Night” on purpose? Both films are about movie production, and both films have movies-within-the-movie that comment on each other. While Truffaut’s is the vastly superior work, Karel Reisz and Harold Pinter’s adaptation of the John Fowles novel has its fans, especially those who love Meryl Streep. She was nominated for an Oscar her for her dual, multi-layered performance, although Jeremy Irons matches her in terms of quality. Their turns are the reason to see “French” again, a film that I don’t feel has held up quite as well as “Day For Night,” if it ever really worked. Pinter’s approach is too cold and studious when the book really needed opening up instead of emotional smothering. Still, Criterion does what they do with the release, which means a great transfer and interesting special features. And now it feels almost like a companion to “Day For Night.”

Buy it here

Special Features
New interviews with actors Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, editor John Bloom, and composer Carl Davis
New interview with film scholar Ian Christie
Episode of “The South Bank Show” from 1981 featuring director Karel Reisz, novelist John Fowles, and screenwriter Harold Pinter
Trailer
Plus: An essay by film scholar Lucy Bolton

“The Knick: Season One”

One of the most depressing Emmy snubs this year was the failure of the Academy to recognize the overall quality of Cinemax’s best show, this great medical drama now available on Blu-ray and DVD. I get that categories like Best Actor and Best Drama may have been too crowded (even if I would disagree that “The Knick” is the show that should have been snubbed), but not nominating a show like this for Best Cinematography proves to me that they don’t know what those words mean. “The Knick” has the strongest visual language on cable television (only “Hannibal” competes). Director Steven Soderbergh carefully considers every angle, every light source, every detail in his frame, to a such a degree that the result is mesmerizing. “The Knick” is a beautiful program, and one that I hope finds the audience it deserves on Blu-ray and in the second, upcoming season.

Buy it here

Special Features
Episode Post-Ops: Get educated on ground-breaking surgery techniques featured in “The Knick.”
Audio Commentaries: With Cast and Crew including Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, Jeremy Bobb, Eve Hewson, Michael Angarano, Chris Sullivan, Cara Seymour and Eric Johnson.

“Walt Disney Short Films Collection”

Twelve short films from the last 15 years of Disney animation are included on this excellent Blu-ray release that offers fans everything from 2000’s “John Henry” to 2015’s “Frozen Fever”. As with any anthology series, the set has its highs and lows, but it’s worth owning just to have “Paperman” and “Feast” on Blu-ray. They’re two of my favorite animated short films, EVER. And if your kids aren’t drawn to them, they still will find something to love by virtue of some of their favorite characters, including Goofy (“How to Hook Up Your Home Theater”), Mickey Mouse (“Get a Horse!”), the gang from “Tangled” (“Tangled Ever After”), and the beloved characters from “Frozen” (“Frozen Fever”). Pixar has been considered the leader in animated shorts for the last two decades, winning Oscars and fans, but this release proves that Walt Disney Animation has been keeping pace. If anything, it can help the younger members of your family learn how these things come into existence (each film is introduced by its creators) and how there are so many different ways to make a short film. “Frozen Fever” and “Paperman” have almost nothing in common structurally, and yet they’re both entertaining in their own ways. Get this for Disney fans this holiday season, but also consider it for anyone interesting in animated filmmaking. It’s a lesson in variety.

Buy it here

Special Features
An inside look at the process of developing and producing a short. Hosted by actor T.J. Miller (voice of “Fred” in “Big Hero 6”).

“I Am Chris Farley”

The team behind this funny, heartfelt love letter to Chris Farley have been wise to follow its brief theatrical run with a TV premiere and Blu-ray/DVD release in short succession. It’s kept the film in the public sphere in a way that it wouldn’t have if it just had a typical NY/LA theatrical release. In fact, it will likely be on Netflix soon, keeping it in people’s hearts and minds. This is the future. Theatrical/TV/Blu-ray/Streaming all in short order. Why waste time? The Blu-ray is slight but it doesn’t need a lot of bells and whistles. The film itself is something all Chris Farley fans will want to see, and probably own.

Buy it here

Special Features
The Farley Brothers… (and Sister)
Photo Gallery

“Unfriended”

Oh, “Unfriended.” It starts so promisingly. The premise is clever. A group of friends communicating mostly via video chat on their laptops are haunted and massacred by the ghost of a girl they bullied. The first act of “Unfriended” works, but it falls apart, largely because it gets too weighed down with histrionics and the silly secrets of these stupid characters. Really, there are no characters. “Open Windows” got a lot more mileage out of a similar conceit. Still, I get why some horror fans fell for “Unfriended.” It’s not the worst movie you could rent this Halloween season. Although it’s certainly not the best either. And it’s interesting to me that Universal thinks so little of the movie to release it on Blu-ray without a single special feature, a rarity for new release theatrical titles in 2015.

Buy it here

Special Features
None

3 NEW TO VOD

“I Am Chris Farley”

“Ten Thousand Saints”

“Tom at the Farm”

Source:: http://www.rogerebert.com/demanders/home-entertainment-consumer-guide-august-20-2015

      

No one can accuse filmmaker Paul Weitz of ever being stuck in a rut. His resume is nothing if not eclectic.

The 49-year-old son of actress Susan Kohner of the 1959 version of “Imitation of Life” fame and fashion designer John Weitz of sportswear acclaim has done animated family features (as a co-writer on 1998’s “Antz”) and raunchy teen comedies (as the co-director of 1999’s “American Pie”). There’s been universally praised under-achievers (2002’s “About a Boy,” which earned an Oscar nomination for adapted screenplay, shared with younger brother, Chris) and critically panned crowd-pleasers (as sole director of the 2010 sequel “Little Fockers“).

For every modest success (the 2004 workplace comedy “In Good Company”) there seems to be an equal and opposite modest flop (the 2006 over-reaching satire “American Dreamz”).

But since being slammed with the worst reviews of his career for “Little Fockers,” Weitz has done penance by sticking to smaller-budget titles with intriguing leads and varying degrees of success, culminating with “Grandma,” one of his best reviewed films that opens tomorrow.

Perhaps all he needed was a muse to inspire him. Not just any muse but a legendary one who has been working fairly steadily since breaking out on TV’s “Laugh-In” in 1968. And that’s the truth.

Lily Tomlin, who at 75 is hotter—and hipper—than ever with an Emmy nomination for her work on the Netflix series “Grace and Frankie,” has gathered Oscar buzz for her performance as Elle. She’s a fierce foul-mouthed lesbian poet who is not above throwing public fits and who treats most fellow human beings with unabashed disdain. The only one mostly spared is her flaxen-haired teen granddaughter (Julie Garner of TV’s “The Americans”), who she joins in a daylong sojourn to gather enough money for an abortion.

Weitz helped to get the current Tomlin re-appreciation ball rolling by affording her the chance to be one of the saving graces of 2013’s “Admission” in the supporting role of Tina Fey’s radical feminist mother, Bella Abzug tattoo and all.

The slim, silver-haired director-writer-producer has been steadfastly beating the drum for the low-budget “Grandma” since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was warmly received. In a candid interview during a whistle stop in Washington, D.C., he sings the praises of Tomlin, discusses his first film with a female lead and reveals what his “Fockers” failure taught him.

For someone who made “About a Boy,” “Grandma” is about a whole lot of women: Marcia Gay Harden as Elle’s corporate lawyer daughter, Judy Greer as her distraught former girlfriend, the late Elizabeth Pena as bookstore owner and trans actress Laverne Cox of “Orange Is the New Black.”

And, strangely, nonetheless about mentorship in some way. I was conscious that I had made a couple films about male mentorship, “About a Boy” and “In Good Company.” It occurred to me late how interesting it would be to do something on female mentorship. Clearly, Julie Garner’s character, Sage, has so much to learn from this woman who has had decades of experience.

And, eventually, she is willing to learn, which not every young person is.

At first, she is completely unaware of this woman’s history, as illustrated by her not knowing that “The Feminine Mystique” is a book as opposed to a comic-book character.

The line gets a big laugh.

A moment that’s important to me in the movie is where Lily has had a very erudite insult fest with Judy Greer and Julie says, “My friends just call each other bitch, ho and slut.” And Lily says to her, “What kind of friends are these? I don’t want to hear you use these words anymore.” I do feel like clearly Marcia Gay Harden’s character is some form of feminist, because she is thriving in a male-dominated world.

What is her job exactly?

She’s supposed to be a corporate lawyer.

I was so fascinated by that treadmill desk that she uses, I think I might have missed that detail.

It’s a job that requires a lot of espresso. That treadmill just happened to be in my brother’s office. We shot that in our offices along with the scene where the woman is examining Lily in the doctor’s office. Chris has had this treadmill desk and I called Marcia up and said, “How would you feel about walking on a treadmill desk? And she said, “Oh, great.”

From what I read, having Lily attached to the movie helped you pull the script together.

Hearing her voice made it work for me. She made an incredibly strong impression on me when we worked together on “Admission.” She is such a trouper, she is so tough in a great way. There is a point where her character is supposed to run after Tina Fey’s character.. I was watching the monitor. Tina ran out of the room. Then Lilly ran. And the next thing I know, I see her fall out of the frame and hear a loud clunk. There was a sound rug that hadn’t been taped down and she fell. But she hopped back up and said, “Oh, let’s keep on going.” Only later I learned she had hurt her hand. That and the fact she had a lot of juggling in that movie, she had to make sausage with raw meat and she had to fix a bicycle in that movie. She actually kind of learned how to do both those things at the time. We were doing a take and I said, “Lily, we are actually above the part where your hands are fixing the bicycle.” But she wanted to keep doing it. That is when it struck me what kind of actress she is. She is also that thing that you hope, which is someone who is really cynical about human nature and, at the same time, is incredibly kind.

When did you recall first seeing Lily?

I can sort of remember seeing “Laugh-In” as a kid. And certainly “Nashville.” I’ve seen that movie at least 10 or 15 times. I have a friend who was an actor in New York before Lily got “Laugh-In.” He auditioned for the same television commercial as her. They did the audition together. He distinctly recalls seeing these men in suits who were judging whether they were going to hire this young women for a shampoo ad or whatever kind of ad it was, and how judgmental they were of her. And they didn’t know how to put her into a box. It’s almost too good to be true, but he says soon afterwards, she told him, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this anymore. I am going to do one more audition and I am going back to Detroit or whatever.” And it was for “Laugh-In.”

You told me how dedicated she is, but is she naturally funny?

She is naturally funny, but not in the way you think of most comedians as being funny. Often times, you will be with a comedian and they will tell you something really funny. But then five minutes later, you hear them say the same thing to somebody else with a slight alteration in the delivery at the point where you didn’t laugh. She is sort of like Chris Rock. She isn’t afraid to talk about cultural things that divide people or upset people. I think I have only seen the tip of the iceberg with Lily. I think she has that thing that most of the great actors I’ve worked with who have been doing it for decades have, which is they are still anxious about whether they are going to be good. They are really self-critical. One of the marvelous things about her is how much she cares about Jane Wagner (Tomlin’s spouse since 2013 and partner for nearly 40 years). One little thing that she helped with, which ended up not being so minor, is when I first wrote about the relationship between her and Violet (Elle’s longtime partner who died), it was all glowing terms. Lily said, “Look. this is fake. If they are really together, they would have been crabbing at each other and been on the outs at various periods.” So I layered that in.

There is talk that, 40 years after Lily got her first Oscar nomination for “Nashville,” she just might get her second one for “Grandma.” It sort of reminds how your brother directed a small summer movie, “A Better Life,” which earned Damian Bichir an Oscar nomination in 2011. But there are probably other, more personal reasons why you made “Grandma.”

Doing this film is really more about survival for me. You mentioned earlier “American Pie,” which was lovely, and “Little Fockers,” which I blew. Partly because I didn’t have the political wherewithal. I overestimated the degree to which I could sell people on things. When I went into it, I thought I could do some meditation on mortality and aging. I learned a lot. I remember learning what if feels like when you have a mental collapse. It seemed like it was something that shouldn’t be causing that, the stress around the job. I hadn’t admitted to myself that the reason to do that movie was money. But, at this point, I’m glad I did it because I don’t think it’s bullshit to learn through failure. But, in this case, I realized I had to do something for no other reason than that the story had written itself and that this person was perfect to play it. There was nothing tactical. There was no thought that “If Lily could play this role that is really close to her, she could get recognized for it.”

I get the feeling when your mom was still acting that women weren’t as marginalized in Hollywood. Their power to attract an audience was valued. That is why it is wonderful how you were able to portray this multi-generational array of women. You even hired a transgender actress to play a trans woman. Plus, you manage to touch upon such topics as abortion, the lack of women’s health clinics, sperm-donor children and feminism without being preachy.

When I made “Admission,” I did notice with a great deal of chagrin that I hadn’t made a movie with a female protagonist before. There were a few like Toni Collette in “About a Boy.” They were substantial roles, but they weren’t the lead.

One thing that people forget about “American Pie,” probably because they focused on the sight of Jason Biggs deflowering a dessert, is that the female characters played by Alyson Hannigan, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari and Natasha Lyonne are far more self-aware and enlightened than the guys.

Thank you. That was done when there were women executives at Universal. Stacey Snider was chairman. We went in and said, “We want to aim this at women.” And we were very conscious that we wanted the women to have control at every point. To me, there is a scene where Natasha is telling Tara that she deserves to have an orgasm. Which is something that you don’t see much, probably because the MPAA freaks out about it.

You have a daughter?

Yes, I have an 11-year-old daughter and two sons, 4 and 8. I’m looking forward to my daughter seeing this maybe in a couple years. Actually, every part of the political aspect of this I’ve talked about to her and my wife has as well. She knows what abortion is, she knows what gay rights are and how important it is, she is a feminist. There is a lot of swearing in “Grandma” but we swear sometimes.

But it’s funny swearing.

I will say a lot of it is Lily’s improv. When she first read the script, she said, “She’s a literate character. Does she have to swear so much?” I said, OK, we can cut it out. But then, on set, she was coming up with the most colorful language.

Did your mom ever warn you and your brother to not go into show business?

To the contrary, actually. I wrote a play at school and she sent it to this Young Playwrights Festival, which I think still exists. Through that, I didn’t win it but I got a one-day performance at Circle Rep in New York. I was 16 and I kind of got it in my head that I might be able to try to do this. Later on, I found out my dad was freaking out a lot more about me trying to do this. Not Chris. I think we were 21 and 25 when we got our first job. But for me it was long enough that my dad was worried. But my mom told him to chill out.

But you weren’t considering the fashion business at all?

That they would have dissuaded me from. My dad was constantly at war with John Fairchild, the head of “Women’s Wear Daily.” My dad also thought it was a silly thing to do. He was kind of addicted from the money he made from it.

He wrote novels, too, though.

He did. He did some really good biographies of World War II German figures.

Have you known anyone like Elle who made wind chimes out of her cut-up credit cards?

No, but I needed a good reason why she couldn’t give the money to her granddaughter for the abortion. To me, the idea that an academic doesn’t have 600 bucks handy seems completely normal.

What are you doing next? I read it is something with your brother.

We are writing something together. It is an adaptation of a really beautiful Japanese film, “Like Father, Like Son.” We are doing it potentially for Spielberg to look at, along with the however many other things he has to look at. And I’m doing innumerable drafts of an adaptation of a novel, “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett. There was a hostage situation in Peru in the ‘90s where people were held for weeks and weeks. It’s based on that. It is an ill-starred romance.

Source:: http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/learning-through-failure-paul-weitz-on-grandma

      

The original Mickey Mouse club pre-dates me, but I remember it in re-runs. Who doesn’t know the theme song written by a little known actor? On the last day of D23 Expo in the Anaheim Convention Center, nine of the original Mouseketeers were re-united for the panel presentation “Celebrating Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club—60 Magical Years.” Movie critic Leonard Maltin also made a surprise appearance.

The author of “The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book,” Lorraine Santoli, hosted this reunion of the original Mouseketeers and the panel featured Sherry Alberoni, Sharon Baird, Bobby Burgess, Tommy Cole, Darlene Gillespie, Cubby O’Brien, and Doreen Tracey, along with actors for the serial “Spin and Marty,” Tim Considine (Spin Evans) and David Stollery (Marty Markham).

“The Mickey Mouse Club” ran from 1955 to 1959 and had a total of 39 Mouseketeers. The main cast members belonged to the red team, but there was also a blue and white team. There were originally three adult co-hosts: Jimmie Dodd, Roy Williams and Bob Amsberry (Season 1-2). Each weekday had a theme: Mondays was Fun with Music Day. Tuesdays were Guest Star Day. Wednesdays were Anything Can Happen Day. Thursdays were Circus Day. Fridays were Talent Round-up Day.

Walt Disney had wanted regular kids, but these kids had to sing and dance. Burgess recalled that when he auditioned, he “had a gimmick.” He didn’t sing, but he tried a barefoot jazz dance. That got him in. Burgess would later win a dance contests and make appearances on “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

O’Brien came from a performing family. His gimmick: he was a drummer like his father and older brother. But it also helped, he explained, that he and fellow Mouseketeer Karen Pendleton looked good together. The audience was treated to a clip showing Cubby drumming with his father Haskell “Hack” O’Brien and Warren O’Brien (Cubby has another older brother, Haskell Jr. who plays the trumpet). O’Brien told the audience that his father had just turned 100 this year. After he hung up his mouse ears when the show ended, he continued to work as a drummer eventually working Broadway and touring with people like Tony Award-winner Bernadette Peters.

Gillespie commented that she came down to the auditions with three other girls from a San Gabriel dance school and performed a farm dance. When asked if she could sing, she bravely volunteered that she could and sang the theme song for the 1954 Disney movie “Davy Crockett.”

When Alberoni joined, the show had already been on for a year and she remembers sitting on the floor in front of the television with her brother wearing those plastic mouse ears. It was her brother who got a call to audition, but his gimmick was already taken by Cubby. Brother Roy could play drums and tap dance, but his sister could play the trumpet and tap dance and he recommended her. Now that’s one good brother.

Cole was the only person from his western swing band ensemble that was chosen when they auditioned. His gimmick was he could sing and play the accordion. His mother would end up working at the studio as the welfare guardian for other child actors such as Don Grady who would go on to the TV series, “My Three Sons.” Grady then was known as Grati and was on the blue team for the third season.

Tracey explained that the studio couldn’t accommodate all of the parents and kids on the set so the mothers would wait in another part of the studio and knit or play cards and would have lunch with their kids before the kids would go back to the on-site school or to work on the set. “It made you feel you were independent and you were responsible. All the mothers became friends.“

“The Mickey Mouse Club” premiered Oct. 3, 1955 and was a variety show for children which had a newsreel, a cartoon, serials, and singing and dancing. It was an immediate success. The theme, “The Mickey Mouse Club March,” was written by Jimmie Dodd, one of two adult performers and the Head Mouseketeer. He would later compose the theme song for the TV series “Zorro” and some theme music for “Walt Disney Presents: Annette.”

Dodd composed about 30 songs for the show and because he was deeply religious, he often composed songs that had strong moral lessons. Dodd unfortunately died in 1964 soon after he was hospitalized while working on a new show. The other two adults who were on the show have also passed away. Roy Williams, the inventor of those mouse ears, passed away in 1976 and was originally an animator for Disney. (Bob Amsberry who was a songwriter as well was only a cast member for the first two seasons. He died in 1957 in an auto accident.) All of the Mouseketeers on stage had fond memories of both Dodd and Williams, but they said it was Dodd who really made the show what it was.

One of the songs Dodd wrote for “The Mickey Mouse Club” was “Annette” for Annette Funicello. Santoli recalled that Funicello was “America’s sweetheart.” A clip of Dodd singing and Funicello dancing with Burgess to the song was shown on the screen. The mood of the audience was silently respect for Funicello who passed away in 2013 from multiple sclerosis-related complications.

Because Burgess and Dodd resembled each other, they performed a dance number called “Father and Son.” Burgess got up to perform on stage while his performance with Dodd was shown on the main screen and his performance on stage was projected on to the two side screens.

Similarly, Sherry Alberoni and Sharon Baird performed their parts as the musical number “Sometimes There Just Ain’t No Fish” with them and Karen Pendleton played on the main back screen. (Pendleton was paralyzed in an auto accident and was not on stage or in the audience).

Good friends Considine and Stollery came on stage to recall their roles in the series “Spin and Marty.” The series was about a western-style summer camp where a snotty rich kid, Marty (Stollery), meets and eventually becomes friends with the athletic and popular Spin (Considine).

There was a lot of love on stage and by today’s standards, the show might seem corny but it was hugely popular during its time. Other Mouseketeers in the audience included Nancy Abbate, Billie Jean Beanblossom, Judy Harriet, Tommy Kirk and Paul Petersen.

Abbate was with the show only for the first season with the red team. Petersen, Harriet and Beanblossom were on the white team for one season. Tommy Kirk starred with Tim Considine on two serials as “The Hardy Boys.” Kirk also played Travis in the Disney classic “Old Yeller” and was in other Disney classics such as “The Absent-Minded Professor.” Petersen was on “The Donna Reed Show” and appeared on “Houseboat” with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. In 1962, he released a single that reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The front rows of the auditorium were filled with the families of all 14 of the Mouseketeers present. At the end of the panel, the Mouseketeers in the audience were called on stage. Becky Cline, director of the Walt Disney Archives, called up film critic and historian Leonard Maltin, who presented each of them with a “Mouse-car,” original awards found in the Disney archives. Walt Disney had originally intended to present his version of the Oscar to people who had given special service to the company with these but because of his death in 1965, never had the chance to use them all. Dave Mason accepted a Mousecar on behalf of Annette’s family and the AnnetteFunicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases.

Maltin was the host on the DVD version of the “Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Spin and Marty” and earlier in the day had hosted two panels on Stage 23: “Disney in Concert: A Silly Symphony Celebration.” The “Silly Symphony” series were 75 animated short films produced by Walt Disney Productions between 1929 and 1939. “Silly Symphony” shorts won Academy Awards for Best Animated Shorts seven times and introduced the character Donald Duck.

In return for Maltin’s surprise, the Mouseketeers had a surprise of their own and they performed the traditional song to make Maltin an honorary Mouseketeer, complete with him being crowned with Mouse-ears. Downstairs, during my last view of the exhibition hall, I heard a woman telling her companion she thought that all the original Mouseketeers were dead and corrected her. On the D23 Expo Stage 23, those Mouseketeers shared nothing but fond memories, spoke of lifelong friendships and still had the sparkle that made them great entertainers as children. The audience was enthusiastic and respectful and obviously also had fond memories of the TV show.

Source:: http://www.rogerebert.com/festivals-and-awards/mickey-mouse-club-reunion-at-d23

      

Let’s get this out the way quickly: the premiere of “Fear
the Walking Dead” on Sunday isn’t in the same realm as the unforgettable debut of “The
Walking Dead.” Director Frank Darabont defined the visual language and world of
Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel in that incredible episode, and it feels like
the creators of this highly-anticipated spin-off made the wise decision not to
even try and do anything that remarkable. In fact, the first episode of “Fear
the Walking Dead” is likely to be considered a disappointment by the rabid fans
of the AMC hit given how much time it takes to set up its characters and world
without much in the way of action. The opening of this first season of “Fear”
(and AMC has already commissioned a second season) is clearly about foreshadowing
more than action. But don’t worry, you get to see some of the make-up work that
has defined this now-franchise. It’s not all omens of what’s to come. It’s the
beginning of the end, but it is definitely the end.

What “Fear the Walking Dead” has in common most obviously
with “The Walking Dead” is an emphasis on “family,” whether that’s biological
or otherwise. The family at the center of “Fear” is a blended, modern one.
Madison Clark (Kim Dickens of “Deadwood,” “Gone Girl”) is a cool guidance counselor
at a high school in El Sereno—the kind of caring adult who doesn’t bust the
good kid for bringing a knife to school and lets him off with a warning. She’s
a widow with two children, Nick and Alicia, and a new boyfriend named Travis
(Cliff Curtis), who teaches English at the high school. Travis has an ex-wife
named Liza and a son named Christopher, who resents dad for divorcing mom and
not coming through on his promises.

“Fear the Walking Dead” actually opens with Nick, who we
learn is a serious junkie, waking up in a drug hangover in a church that’s been
turned into a place to get high. He’s looking for someone. He finds bloodied
bodies and the girl he was shooting up with the night before chewing on them.
Something is very, very wrong. Although, as it’s revealed, this is not the
world of “The Walking Dead”…yet. People are going about their business outside
the church, unaware of the Armageddon that awaits them.

Of course, no one believes Nick. It was the drugs, right?
Even mom doubts his story. But Travis starts to think there might be some truth
to it. Before you know it, everyone will realize that Nick was the canary in
the coalmine and they should have listened to him when they still had a chance
to get out of town. Just as on “The Walking Dead,” parts of this makeshift
family are separated and will struggle to get back together as civilization
falls around them. Just as on “The Walking Dead,” I’ve already been surprised
that a character was killed off. It must be tough to get an acting gig on one
of these shows—you know your days are numbered.

The West Coast setting of “Fear the Walking Dead” gives the
show a much different aesthetic than the Georgia setting of the original
series. It’s not just the fact that walkers don’t yet outnumber humans—the rural
look of “TWD” has been replaced by California open spaces and architecture. And
yet the show also feels of a piece visually with “TWD,” which is a good thing.
I particularly liked the foreshadowing in episode one of an increased number of
siren sounds in the distance, although Travis teaching his students Jack London
is a bit on the nose.

Production values are strong and the entire cast is
effective, although they’re not given quite enough to do in episode one. The
second episode (only two were available for press) is notably better as Dickens
and Curtis get in on the panic and are allowed more challenging beats as
actors. I think some people will be put off by the pace of “Fear,” although I’ve
always been amazed at how much wandering in the woods fans of the original
series were willing to put up with, so I could be wrong. Personally, I’m ready
to get to it after two episodes. Let’s connect the dots from this series to the
one we know so well. If the writers stretch out the foreshadowing and planning
for the end too long, even fans will get frustrated. For now, the show is good
enough to make the end of the world into hit television. Will it be great
eventually? Maybe. The potential is there and AMC is sure committed to it. If “Fear
the Walking Dead” is off to a slower start than the series that spawned it,
perhaps we should be patient. After all, AMC has given the show exactly what
these characters have lost: time to breathe.

Source:: http://www.rogerebert.com/demanders/fear-the-walking-dead-captures-the-end-of-the-world