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Saturday Night Drive-In: The Thaw

You may ask yourself, as I often do this time of year, “Self, why are there so many great Christmas movies, but so few good Thanksgiving-themed films?” Sure, there’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Home for the Holidays, The Ice Storm, and Squanto. And one of my favorites, The House of Yes, starring Parker Posey—after all, how often do you get to say “I just saw a really sharp movie that featured Tori Spelling and was from the director of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”?!?

But still, I want more as I wait for Eli Roth to actually get around to making his Thanksgiving horror film, as previewed in Grindhouse. (You’ll have to YouTube the trailer yourself—no way I can link to it from a “family” blog.) Well thank goodness when I went searching this year for a DVD tutorial on how to prepare the T-day bird, I found The Thaw. Much to my surprise, it was not about how best to defrost a turkey, but instead was a heart-felt, soul-enriching tale about truly giving thanks for all that is  right in your life.

For instance, are you living in an Arctic research station, spending your days dissecting polar bears and wholly mammoth carcasses? No? Well see, be thankful!

And have you been infected by crawly little crusty critters that make you vomit a lot before turning you into a big pile of bloody goo that ends up providing sustenance for more crawly crustly critter eggs? No? There again, thankful!

And are you Val Kilmer, having gone from Tombstone, Heat, and Batman Forever in the mid-‘90s to, in just the past year appearing in direct-to-video gems such as Hardwired, Streets of Blood, The Chaos Experiment, and now, The Thaw? Are you in Delgo? Or Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans? Are you in the MacGruber movie? THANKFUL!!!

Now before we get into The Thaw, let’s stop a moment and talk about Val Kilmer. Maybe to Mr. Kilmer, if he’s out there, reading. Val, buddy, you are a very good actor. No one doubts that. Even in the past few years you’ve turned in impressive supporting work in films like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Spartan, Wonderland, and even Oliver Stone’s trippy Alexander. You were good last year in the TV miniseries Comanche Moon.

So Val, please, just stop. Sit down. Think for a moment. You don’t need to be in Renny Harlin’s Mindhunters. No one does. You don’t need to take every DTV horror mis-flick that comes across your agent’s desk. Val, we love you. Whatever happened to you on The Island of Dr. Moreau, out there with Crazy Dave Thewlis, and Fat Brando, and Pedro’s Little Friend, we can work through it. We forgive you. Come back to us.

Okay, thus endeth the career intervention. Back to The Thaw!

The Hatter Gets Some "Mad" Competition

Bear with me, dear redbloggers as I spend the next week clearing out a huge pile of movie production news. Some of it, like this update on the fourth Mad Max movie won't be sparkling new news, but I hope you find it interesting.

As you may have heard, production is moving ahead on Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth film in the Australian, post-apocalyptic action series. The original three films were created by director George Miller and made Mel Gibson a world-wide star.

(I grew up with The Road Warrior on cable in the early '80s, though for me Beyond Thunderdome played more as an overly slick, silly romp than a gritty action kick--I just never really got past Tina's wig.)

So when it was announced Miller was finally getting a fourth Max off the ground, the first question on everyone's mind was "Will Mad Mel be back?" After all, it's not unheard of these days for aging '80s action stars to dust off the walker and take another run at the characters and franchises that made them rich and famous: Harrison Ford in Indy 4, Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4, Sly Stallone in both Rocky 6 and Rambo 4, and even Ah-nold made a cameo appearance in Terminator 4, albeit via a computer-generated stand-in for the Governator.

Well it appears unlikely that Gibson will be back as Max Rockatansky, although there are still some cameo possibilities kicking around. What we maybe sorta kinda know is this: The new Max film, directed by Miller, will take place shortly after Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. So unless we're to believe that the harsh wasteland weather has really accelerated the aging process, we can count out Gibson as Max. However, in a recent interview with the Australian Herald Sun, Mel did not rule out the possibility of appearing in the film in a different role, maybe a cameo, maybe something more.

So who is the new leather-clad Madman in town? It'll be Tom Hardy, starring opposite Charlize Theron who is, quite frankly, tough enough to be the film's bad-ass heroine all by her lonesome. (Aeon Flux may not have been a great film, but Theron was plenty action-y in it.) Still, the casting of Hardy, presumably to play Max, fills me with glee. For a while this summer there were rumors that Jeremy Renner from The Hurt Locker might take the part, and I was fine with that. But Hardy kicks the project up to another level of cool. (Despite complaints from some folks Down Under that the role is going to--gasp!--a dreaded Englishman.)

You see, I finally caught up with Bronson a few weeks ago and boy oh boy does it present some fine credentials for Mr. Hardy. Hardy was in Black Hawk Down and his highest-profile role was as the Picard-clone villain in the awful Star Trek: Nemesis, the movie that shut down the old Star Trek feature-film franchise. You may also have caught him doing supporting work in Brit gangster films like Layer Cake and Rocknrolla.

Bronson is certainly in that vein: It tells--with great stylized, theatrical flair--the true story of Michael "Charles Bronson" Petersen, hyped as "the most violent prisoner in Britain." And Hardy, as Bronson, is utterly magnetic with his shaved head, handlebar mustache, and wild, glaring eyes. The role and the film's heightened aesthetic doesn't allow for much nuance in Hardy's performance, but as the film follows Bronson through 20 years of beatin' the puddin' out of people in and out of prison, it's safe to say if you're looking to put the "mad" in Mad Max, this is your man. After 25 years, I can't say I had much initial enthusiasm for a new Mad Max movie, but Hardy's casting has me seriously interested, bordering on excited.

How about you? Are you ready for more Max? Okay with Hardy and Theron's casting?

The Blind Side

Of all the horror movies I watch, all the CG and rubber gore I rarely blink at, I felt an inescapable sense of dread at the start of The Blind Side and instinctively moved to cover my eyes. The film opens with Sandra Bullock’s Southern syrup-drenched voice over, but on screen we’re seeing an old NFL film. Look, it’s the Redskins and there’s John Riggins, so it must be from the ‘80s. Yep, there’s Joe Theismann… and it’s a night game… which means a Monday night game… and… oh my god no… they’re playing the Giants… and there's L.T….

Every football fan over 30 remembers what comes next, and as Bullock’s character explains in her narration, it changed professional football and Michael Oher’s life. Thanks to that oh-god-cover-your-eyes moment live on Monday Night Football--when Joe Theismann’s shin suddenly went 90 degrees the wrong way (a moment that in the days before YouTube was still seen over and over again on television)--the left tackle’s need to protect the quarterback’s blind side became much more important and hence much more valuable and financially lucrative.

And because of that, the real-life Michael Oher, a hulking, surprisingly quick mountain of a man, went from living on the streets at age 16 to avoid daily life in the projects to becoming a first-round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens last spring. In fact, in one of those nifty little art-and-life serendipities, this past Monday evening I got home from a screening of The Blind Side—the wonderfully moving dramatization of Oher’s story—just in time to catch Oher himself live on TV, helping the Ravens crush the hapless Browns on Monday Night Football.

The Blind Side tells the true tale of young Michael Oher (Quentin Aaron), a looming giant growing up in a solemn, silent self-protective cocoon. Big Mike, as he’s called by others, goes anywhere in the Memphis night to escape his mother’s broken home, but he’s not getting anywhere.

Then Oher is given a couch to sleep on for a night by Leigh Anne Touhy (Bullock), an interior designer, Taco-Bell-franchise socialite, and a bona fide bull-headed, Ol’ Miss-loving, Southern belle. Michael’s night on the expensive Touhy Family couch turns into two, then a week, then a month, as all the Touhys end up helping the behemoth of a boy find his place first in the classroom and only later on the gridiron. (Football is barely mentioned during the film’s first half.)

Based on the book The Blind Side: The Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis, the film is written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie) with a sure hand for negotiating obvious sports-movie clichés past the dopey. The Blind Side may draw its inspiration from how Oher’s quiet, mammoth gentleness hides deep, protective strength, but its tone comes at you like Lawrence Taylor himself, bearing down with every heavy pound of crushing, inescapable power.

A Little Freeze Frame for Your Friday

We had a good streak going for the past several weeks with lots of people taking a shot at Freeze Frame glory... until it all came crashing down last Friday when the stills from Raising Arizona, The Rock and Adaptation clearly stumped so many of you that you threw in the towel without even trying.

Therefore, I tried to make the images for this weekend's game a little easier -- but I'm not just going to hand it to ya, folks!  What fun would there be in seeing your name in bold and creating a dazzling aluminum foil trophy for yourself if everyone could identify movie images in a matter of milliseconds?  None, I tell you.  There would be no fun in that at all.

So we shall soon see what brave men and women are up to the task this time around.  As always, enter your guesses into the comments link directly beneath this post, and we'll announce the winner in bold on Monday, AND give selfmade Common Thread Button o' Pride pins out (rather, we'll tell you to make them yourself because it's more meaningful when you put a little elbow grease into something) to anyone who mentions the link amongst the trio.  I think this one is reeeeeaaaallly easy, but then again, I said the same thing last week and only a handful of people got it.

Will you be one of the triumphant ones for this challenge?  I've got a good feeling that you will, so get ready to give it the ol' college try...

Movie #1

Movie #2

Movie #3

Good luck!  And be sure to check back on Monday for the winners (and the answers, of course).

Thursday Threes: The Answer

When I asked what actor was in Men Don't Leave, Titanic, and Primary Colors, I got enough "Leonardo DiCaprio" guesses I worried for a second maybe he was in all three and I'd finally committed the dreaded "Double Threes Answer" foul-up I've been fearing. But a quick double check confirmed that while of course Leo was in Titanic, no he was not in Men Don't Leave (perhaps confusion with This Boy's Life?) or Primary Colors. Whew.

Most of you did get it correct, but the most correct fastest was faithful redblogger and reader who rocks Matthew S.! Matthew gets the construction-paper medal while in second was steady Threes placer Jim and in third was Arianaa. Congrats, all!

So who was in all three of those films? Light up the Inviso-Text for the answer!

It was indeed Kathy Bates, appearing this weekend in the terrific The Blind Side as a Memphis-based tutor--not much of a geographic stretch for Bates, who was born there. Before her big break-out role in 1990's Misery, Bates was working as an actor on stage and in film and television for two decades--she had bit parts in Two of a Kind and Arthur 2, and did guest spots on TV shows such as St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, and China Beach.

In 1990, Bates also appeared in the under-rated, under-seen family drama Men Don't Leave, starring Jessica Lange, Joan Cusack, Arliss Howard and young Charlie Korsmo and Chris O'Donnell. Men Don't Leave was the second film from Risky Business director Paul Brickman, one of the great "lost" directors of the past 20 years. The very talented Brickman hasn't made a film since then.

Of course in 1997's Titanic Bates played the "unsinkable" Molly Brown, and in the following year's thinly veiled Clinton roman a clef Primary Colors, she was Libby Holden, the campaign adviser and old friend of the "Stantons." Holden was very loosely based on the real-life Betsey Wright, Governor Bill Clinton's chief of staff in Arkansas.

Bates recieved a supporting-actress Oscar nomination for Primary Colors--she was also nominated in 2002 for About Schmidt and won the best-actress Oscar for playing super-fan Annie Wilkes in Misery.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Last summer I read the four Twilight novels back to back and immediately understood why millions of women around the world went gaga for Stephenie Meyer's fictional Forks, Washington-based universe.  While I don't consider myself a Twihard by any means, I'm also not too proud to admit that I did, in fact, enjoy the books.  And even though New Moon was my least favorite in the series, I still had high hopes for its adaptation. I mean, it just kinda had to be better than Twilight, right? 

If you were reading redblog a year ago then you know that while I had several issues with the first film, I did find some of its cheesiness a bit charming. (What you might not know is that I watched it in the theater again -- twice -- after I wrote that review and actually liked it more each time.)  Therefore, I figured that with a new director (Chris Weitz) and a bigger budget that would surely remedy the embarrassingly bad "special effects situation," there was no way the sequel wouldn't be a superior film.  Alas, fellow Twilight fans, I have bad news for you: I was very, very disappointed by New Moon.

For the most part, the adaptation follows the story arc of the novel. Vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and mortal high schooler Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) are happy together for like two seconds, but then a few members of Edward's family start lusting after Bella's blood when she gets a paper cut (at her own birthday party, no less), and so Edward's all, "Sorry, babe, but this isn't gonna work."  Bella sinks into a deep depression when the entire Cullen clan skips town, and the only person who is eventually able to cheer her up is her old buddy Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who's put on approximately one gazillion pounds of muscle -- and continued to use Crest White Stripes without abandon on his already-blinding choppers -- since we last saw him.  It is then revealed that he simply cannot bear to have his shirt on.  It physically pains him to do so -- he gets a really wicked contact rash and no one on in La Push (where he and his fellow Quileute tribe members hang) can figure out how to help him.  OK, so I made that part up. Jacob's shirtlessness is never actually explicitly explained in the film, but one can infer that it has something to do with him being a werewolf. But forget about the werewolf part for a second because I just need to say that it is seriously Ridiculous (notice the capital r?) how much Jacob's running around half-nekkid in this movie.  Or running around half-nekkid in the pouring rain.  Or in slo-mo.  I just kept thinking, "This is like Baywatch... with guys" during all of his scenes (and some of Edward's -- he also goes shirtless a few times and has a classic/hilarious bad-boy-walking-in-slo-mo scene to boot). I suppose I should be happy that some dudes are getting objectified-to-the-max up on the big screen for a change, but instead I just felt embarrassed for them.

Back to the plot... Just as Bella's life finally regains some normalcy and her friendship with Jacob starts turning into something more (no one can resist all that shirtlessness), the Cullens pop up again. Specifically, Edward's sister Alice (Ashley Greene) decides to drop by, and around that same time the girls learn that Edward thinks Bella is dead (long story). Because she can see glimpses of the future, Alice knows that Edward plans to take a page from Romeo and Juliet and -- since vampires can't off themselves -- will attempt to join Bella in death by putting on a fab-u light show over in Italy.  Meaning, he's going to stand in the sun and reveal his sparkling vampire skin to humans, thus ensuring he'll be killed by the royal vampire clan, the Volturi, 'cause showing your bling-bling face in public is against their rules.  Why would Edward be so distraught over Bella's death?  Wasn't he the one who left her?  Yes, of course, but he was just trying to protect her -- he really does love her -- but vampires shouldn't be with humans -- daaahhhh!!!!!   Don't you see how complicated their relationship is?!?!  Why else do you think they're always fumbling over their words and gasping and sighing and breathing heavy?!?  Because it's hard to be a human and vampire in love, people!

Coincidence? I Think Not.

A teeny film called New Moon opens tomorrow and stars a homely, unpopular, random dude named Robert Pattinson.  Why Summit Entertainment, the same studio behind the Twilight adaptations, would choose today to release the trailer for Pattinson's 2010 romantic drama Remember Me is just beyond comprehension.  Certainly there are no women out there who experience Pavlovian drool responses to his voice, his image or that crazy hair.  Why would anyone think this trailer would get any attention right now?

</End sarcasm.>

Hmm, I'm not feelin' it. First off, I can't even really tell what this is about. So then I read its plot description (which I'll put below in Invisotext because some might consider it spoilery) and subsequently felt like the trailer was trying to make the film out to be something it's not. However, there are lots of clips of RPattz looking pretty (even when he's all banged up, he's pretty... it's amazing!), so I guess that's all that matters in the end. And while I like Lost's Emilie de Ravin and LOVE Chris Cooper, what's scaring me off from this one is the fact that it was written by Jenny Lumet, who also penned one of my most-hated films of 2008, Rachel Getting Married.

Since I'm not a crazy Pattinson stalker (you know who you are), as of right now I'm putting Remember Me on the I Hope A Better Trailer Comes Out Or I'm Definitely Not Seeing This in the Theater list.  Does anyone out there feel differently? 

Oh, and if you want the possibly spoilery plot summary, click and roll to reveal the Invisotext: "Tyler (Pattinson) and Ally (de Ravin), find their relationship tested after Ally witnesses her mother's murder and Tyler reels from the suicide of his brother, which leads to his parents' (Pierce Brosnan, Lena Olin) divorce." From the trailer, I thought this would be a "boy from the wrong side of the tracks falls in love with a girl whose dad thinks he's garbage" type of story. I guess that might still be applicable, but I was really surprised to read about the murder and suicide subplots -- weren't you?

Your Thursday Threes

You know how it works!

I give you three films, you tell me what single actor was in all three of them.

Enter your guess in the comments section directly below this post, and if you are the first with the correct answer you'll find yourself with the homemade construction-paper medal! (You do all the making. And provide all the materials. But it's really an honor. Trust us.)

I won't publish any guesses until tomorrow when I put the correct answer up.

What actor was in:

Men Don't Leave

Titanic

Primary Colors

The Close-Up Poster Answer

Aw, here I thought I was being tricky, but most of you had no problem. Almost everyone nailed it, though there was one guess of Encino Man. Um, no.

Jessica was first with the right answer, followed by Paul N. in second (Paul's closing in on a win one of these days!) and Christopher Welch in third.

Here, take another look at the close-up view of this movie poster:

Hang on, I'm about to make it way too easy for you:

Follow me over the jump for the full poster and some fun, informative facts!

redblog Readers Who Rock: Donna

Yes, dear redblog readers, today we are talking with THAT Donna. The Donna who, along with Millar74, has dominated our Threes challenges for as long as we can remember. The Donna who won a free DVD rental per week for a year in redbox's Facebook Photo contest. The Donna who handily snagged herself a swag bag during our September Month o' Contests With Actual Prizes. 

So sit back, relax, and prepare to meet the movie trivia whiz that is...

Name: Donna G.

Posts as (username): Donna

Age: 41

Location: Oak Creek, WI

Occupation: Teacher

When did you start using redbox, how did you find out about us, and how close is the redbox you usually go to?

I started using redbox about a year ago, when there were free codes every Monday. I had heard about redbox online and when one appeared in my local grocery store, I was hooked. My nearest redbox is about a mile from home.

Are there certain types of movies that you prefer to see in the theater… and along those same lines, are there certain types of movies that you prefer to watch at home?

I’m cheap and watch most of my movies at home on DVD (from redbox, of course). But there are some movies that need to be seen on the big screen (big, epic, action movies for instance) and then I’ll go to the theater. Although I do like to see scary movies at home where I can watch it in bed and pull the covers up over my eyes.

Do you prefer a packed theater or a nearly empty one, or does that depend on the movie? 

It depends on the movie. I finally went to see Paranormal Activity the other day and there were only like 5 other people in the whole theater and I was there alone. I didn’t find it scary in the least, but it might have been different with a packed theater. Action movies need a full theater. Sad or dramatic movies are better in an empty theater where I can cry in privacy.