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Ernest Borgnine: A 16-year-old inside a 94-year-old

June 20, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

THE VETERAN ACTOR STARS IN “ANOTHER HARVEST MOON,” OPENING JUNE 24

Ernest Borgnine has longevity.

Ernest Borgnine (with Anne Meara) in "Another Harvest Moon"

At the age of 94 he can look back on an acting career that includes a best actor Oscar (for playing the titular lovesick butcher in 1955‘s “Marty”) and roles in landmark movies like:

“The Wild Bunch,” “Bad Day at Black Rock,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Johnny Guitar,” “The Vikings,” “The Flight of the Phoenix,” “Escape from New York,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “Ice Station Zebra” and “The Poseidon Adventure.”

And those are just a few of the more than 100 films in which he has appeared.

So when he gets recognized on the street (and it happens all the time), what movie do strangers always mention?

“It’s not a movie,” Borgnine said in a recent telephone interview.

“It’s the TV series. ‘McHale’s Navy.’ Everybody knows that show.

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Posted in Art house fare | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

“THE TREE OF LIFE”: Terrence Malick dives into the Mystic

June 17, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE TREE OF LIFE”  My rating: A-

138 minutes | MPAA rating:  PG-134

“The Tree of Life” is a sublime, transcendent movie experience.

“The Tree of Life” is like watching your car rust.

That both of the above statements are true only goes to show the uniqueness of the latest effort from the reclusive Terrence Malick.

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Posted in Art house fare, Deep thoughts...maybe | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

“THE WOODMANS”: Art, death and Francesca Woodman

June 17, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE WOODMANS” My rating: B (Opening June 17 at the Screenland Crossroads)

84 minutes | No MPAA rating

How do you compete with a ghost?

That’s the conundrum facing a family of artists in the wake of the suicide of their hugely talented and deeply disturbed daughter.

George and Betty Woodman struggled much of their lives to make it as artists. He was an abstract expressionist painter. She was a ceramicist whose credo was to make useful objects.

But they were easily eclipsed by their daughter Francesca, who picked up a camera in high school and by the time she was enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design was already on the way to being one of the 20th century’s great photographers.

Her classmates recall a girl who didn’t come to learn so much as to refine her already established style. Francesca specialized in self-portraits, often nudes, taken in aging rooms with peeling wallpaper and worn floors.

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Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

“MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS”: Penguin poop

June 17, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS” My rating: C  (Opens wide on June 17)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Jim Carrey used to be dangerous.

You wouldn’t know that from “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” a soft-hearted comedy that has “cute” scrawled all over it.

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Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

“GREEN LANTERN”: Green around the gills

June 17, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“GREEN LANTERN” My rating: C- (Opening wide on June 17)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“Green Lantern” suggests we’ve reached the tipping point on special effects extravaganzas.

Just about every shot in this adaption of the long-running DC Comics series is crammed with CG doodling. There’s stuff here that, had we seen it even ten years ago, would have left us in the geek version of post-coital exhilaration.

But the truth is that we’ve seen so many special effects in recent years that they’re no longer special. They’re ho-hum.

Know what makes a movie special? Great characters. Fantastic dialogue. Interesting stories.

None of which are in evidence here.

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Posted in Popcorn movies | 1 Comment »

New DVDs: Fran, Rooster and a poor man’s “Rear Window”

June 13, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“PUBLIC SPEAKING” (May 24)

God bless Martin Scorsese. When he’s not making a big Hollywood movie, he’s out there churning out interesting documentaries.

“Public Speaking” is a profile of humorist and essayist Fran Lebowitz. It’s not a conventional biography; anything we learn about her origins and literary history arrives as part of several extended conversations or, more accurately, monologues delivered by the delightfully ascerbic Lebowitz.

I love her because she’s an elitist. She claims that NYC was ruined when city fathers decided to sell it to Middle America as a tourist destination. As a result, she complains, the streets of Manhattan are awash in “hillbillies.”

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

OPINION: Jeff City? Who needs ’em?

June 12, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

JUNE  12:

It’s been a crappy weekend for Missouri’s filmmaking community.

After months of buttonholing state legislators to make the case that the film industry is good for the Show Me State, advocates for Missouri moviemaking have received hugely discouraging news.

Gov. Jay Nixon has eliminated the Missouri Film Office, which legislators had voted to continue funding to the tune of $200,000 a year.

Among other things the film office, headed by Jerry Jones, scouts film locations for out-of-state producers and acts as a liaison between filmmakers and local talent, vendors and movie professionals.
But as of July 1 the office will cease to exist.

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Posted in KC Film Scene, Local film, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

KC Gayfest…just around the corner

June 10, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

One of the summer’s most anticipated films, a documentary about a homegrown C&W star and the story behind Hollywood’s first openly gay feature film are among the attractions of this year’s Kansas City Gay & Lesbian Film Festival scheduled for June 24-30 at the Tivoli in Westport.

But even before the fest gets underway, it’s offering a teaser. “Going Down in La-La Land,” based on the hit novel about a young actor who finds himself a star in the adult entertainment world, will be shown June 16 at the Screenland Armour Theatre in North Kansas City. It’s a benefit for GSP.

For tickets, trailers of all the films and more detailed information visit http://www.kcgayfilmfest.com and www.castromovienights.org.

Here’s the schedule for this year’s Gay Fest:

FRIDAY, JUNE 24

Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor in "Beginners"

6:30 p.m.:  “BEGINNERS” — Inspired by his own father’s late-in-life coming out, Mike Mills’ celebrated film centers on a son (Ewan McGregor) dealing with his newly widowed — and liberated — father (Christopher Plummer).

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“POETRY”: The quiet power of “Poetry”

June 10, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“POETRY”  My rating : B

139 minutes | No MPAA rating

Beauty and brutality, poetry and pessimism are uneasy neighbors in Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry,” a character study about an elderly woman whose rosy view of life is shattered by the casual cruelty of the modern world.

Mija (Yun Jung-hee, Korea’s greatest actress, who came out of 16 years of retirement to take this role) is a sixtysomething widow rearing her teenage grandson. She lives off a pension and the money she earns bathing and cleaning up after a cranky stroke victim.

Yun Jung-hee in "Poetry"

Once a great beauty, Mija takes girlish pleasure in being told how pretty she still is. In fact she’s flighty and shallow and — perhaps because her looks have always seen her through — naively upbeat.

That’s about to change.

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“SUPER 8” : J.J. Abrams phones home

June 10, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“SUPER 8” My rating: B-

112 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

J.J. Abrams’ highly-anticipated “Super 8” is a riff on all those Spielberg-inspired films from the ‘80s in which suburban kids got sucked into other-worldly adventures.

“Goonies” is a big influence here. So is “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a half-dozen other titles.

As a work of homage, “Super 8” will have you tabulating references to all those movies. It makes for a diverting parlor game.

The film itself is a mixed bag. The first half is excellent, with Abrams and a spectacular cast of young performers delivering several strikingly original sequences.

And then “Super 8” becomes a movie we’ve already seen way too many times. It’s not awful, just discouragingly familiar.

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Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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