Category: TV & Movies

If one had placed money on Elaine Stritch performing, as Eubie Blake had done, well into her 90s, it wouldn’t have been considered a sucker bet. At 87, Stritch performed a one-woman show and, despite complications due to diabetes, she looked and sounded as strong as ever. Preparations for the show, “At Home at the Carlyle: Elaine Stritch Singin’ Sondheim…One Song at a Time,” were documented in 2014’s excellent film “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me.” True to the character of its subject, this documentary presented a warts-and-all portrayal of a woman celebrating her 70th year in show business.

Watching her in powerful action at the Carlyle Hotel, where she once famously resided, one couldn’t be faulted for thinking the Michigan native might defy the odds and live forever. Alas, as any Broadway baby knows, every show, no matter how great, eventually closes. On life’s grand stage, Elaine Stritch took her final bow today. She was 89.

Stritch was considered the premiere interpreter of Stephen Sondheim, who in 1970 wrote her signature song, “The Ladies Who Lunch” for the show “Company.” The song was a cynical yet triumphant bit of truth-telling, a perfect fit for Stritch’s acerbic, …read more

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“‘Speed’ vs. ‘True Lies’: The Human-Sized Superhero”: In his inaugural blog on the new site, This Movie Should Be Played Loud, Aaron Aradillas writes a splendidly insightful analysis of “action figure heroics.”

“By the time actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, doubt and pain gave way to optimism and righteousness. The clear-cut morality of earlier action movies came roaring back with a vengeance. Old guard action stars like Eastwood and Charles Bronson continued to dole out their brand of vigilante justice, while guys like Chuck Norris, Ken Wahl, and Michael Dudikoff became next generation action stars. But the two leading lights of action movies during the ‘80s were Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. With their bulbous muscles that made even Popeye’s look puny, a gift for self-promotion, and the ability to tap into a pop patriotism that became the key component of crowd-pleasing movies in the 1980s, they set a new standard in what we looked for in action movie heroics. It was a combination of Reagan-era optimism and ‘Jane Fonda’s Workout’ as they became pumped-up, glistening specimen of masculine perfection and strength. The most erotic scene in ‘80s action movies …read more

Three years ago, Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel co-starred for director Jake Kasdan in “Bad Teacher” and had an enjoyable, raunchy chemistry. She was the bad teacher of the film’s title: a drunken vixen who was only working with children because she needed money for a boob job. He was the irreverent, easygoing gym teacher who saw through her flaws and schemes and wanted to hang out with her anyway. It was a one-joke movie, but there were enough shadings and variations within that one joke to make it somewhat fun.

Now, Diaz and Segel co-star for Kasdan again in “Sex Tape,” but their characters are so indiscernible as actual human beings, it’s hard to tell who they are, much less whether they have any sort of enjoyable, raunchy chemistry. She’s a married, stay-at-home mother of two who writes a blog about her family, and that’s about it. He’s her husband, who works at a radio station in some capacity, maybe…? They make a sex tape to spice up their formerly frisky marriage and it accidentally goes public. It’s a one-joke movie that feels like a one-joke movie.

It’s a high-concept premise that ends up being preposterous …read more

When Marie Brenner published her article “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, in Vanity Fair in 1996, she had the American public’s full attention. Here was an insight into the mind of Jeffrey Wigand, the man whose life had become public property over the course of a few years. Why? Because he had done the unthinkable; he’d blown the whistle on big tobacco. CBS had come under fire for trying to air an interview with Wigand shot for the news program “60 Minutes” in which he revealed that Thomas Sandefur, the head of Brown & Williamson, one of the seven largest tobacco companies in the country, had lied under oath when he swore that nicotine was not addictive. B&W had fought back, trying to bring both Wigand and the network down and it almost worked. Reading Brenner’s article, you certainly get a sense of the tremendous weight on Wigand’s shoulders and the struggles of a few people to see that he was not buried by the scandal that B&W orchestrated. It seemed inevitable that someone would try to dramatize it. What was missing was the sense that anyone involved was particularly heroic, something writer Eric Roth and writer/director

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TRAILERS

Ghostbusters (1984). * 30th anniversary new trailer* Directed by Ivan Reitman. Written by Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis. Starring Bill Murray,
Dan Aykroyd,
Sigourney Weaver. Synopsis: Three unemployed parapsychology professors set up shop as a unique ghost removal service.

Wish I Was Here (2014). * Pop-up …read more