Paul McGuinness has never thought of himself as a teacher of life lessons, so it comes as a bit of a surprise for him to hear it relayed that Kelly Curtis considers him an adviser–hell, a mentor. It comes as even more of a shock to discover that Curtis recalls…
Josie and the Pussycats is not a comedy, and it’s even possible the movie’s not a work of fiction, despite being “based on” Dan DeCarlo’s 38-year-old Archie Publishing comic book. It’s tempting to brand the film as documentary, this year’s Scared Straight. There’s very little that’s funny about a movie…
Easily the most creepy (and, by far, most interesting) thing about Along Came a Spider, yet another adaptation of one of James Patterson’s alleged mystery novels featuring beleaguered Detective Alex Cross, is how much co-star Monica Potter looks, sounds and acts like Julia Roberts. Granted, it’s hardly a startling revelation…
By 1974, John Hammond had played with damn near every great bluesman who ever lived: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Duane Allman, Charlie Musselwhite, Mike Bloomfield, John Lee Hooker, the Staples Singers. For starters. He had made records with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm when they were still young Hawks, with…
This is how famous Denis Leary is: He begins and ends a story by saying, “To this day, when I see Mick…,” and by Mick, he means Mick Jagger. They became pals, oh, seven years back, when the Rolling Stones were on that week’s farewell tour, kickin’ it in the…
Ennio Morricone can tell you stories about each of his 400 children — where they were conceived, what they mean to him, why each one remains so singular and special he cannot and will not choose a favorite. He’s proud even of the orphans, the runts, the bastards, the children…
Gil Cates takes a long, deep breath before answering the question: Is producing the Academy Awards show the ultimate no-win situation? Cates has produced nine of the past 11 Oscar telecasts, and he returns March 25 after a year’s layoff; for those scoring at home, Cates is not to blame…
To keep it simple, Enemy at the Gates plays like a cross between the PlayStation game Medal of Honor, a World War II Nazi-shoot-’em-up viewed through a sniper’s scope, and a Harlequin Romance novel. It’s history lesson as video game, video game as soap opera, soap opera as highbrow drama,…
One can only imagine the pitch meeting at which comedian-turned-film-actor Denis Leary told ABC programming execs he wanted to write and star in a show about a pill-popping, Scotch-swilling, chain-smoking, adulterous New York City cop who utters obscenities as casually as he exhales. It’ll be a 30-minute show, Leary probably…
Sam Hamm is, relatively speaking, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, meaning he earns his keep penning screenplays without having to subsidize his income by tending bar or waiting tables. He has a handful of films to his credit, some little known (1983’s Never Cry Wolf, his debut), some enormously profitable (1989’s…
It’s almost impossible to know what to make of Monkeybone after one viewing; there’s so much going on in this dreamland of stop-motion and computer-generated animation and celebrity cameos that you have trouble keeping up with it. Indeed, like a half-remembered dream, the movie’s often so overwhelming that even its…
So they’re of legal drinking age now, and they look it, too: On the CD sleeve, Donnas A., C., F., and R. dress it up and tone it down ’til they resemble girls who went from serving cocktails to ordering them without having to flash fake IDs. Gone are the…
It was to have been a routine stop on a routine press tour, yet another town in which the actress was to show up, chit and chat with the local media about her movie, then move on — the traveling salesman getting the word out, moving The Product. Denver, Dallas,…
Lance Barton, thin as paper and frail as fine china, is such a horrific standup that during an amateur-night performance at the Apollo Theater, he is booed with so much force — the audience whips up its own whirlwind — he’s literally knocked off the stage. Lance’s manager insists he’s…
Sometimes, usually out on the golf course near his home in upstate New York, Dan DeCarlo feels terrific, far younger than his 81 years. He’ll thwack the ball, reflect upon his 55 years of marriage to the same beautiful woman, and occasionally contemplate a life spent drawing and creating some…
The man who made Problem Child, Beverly Hills Ninja and Brain Donors — movies that are to humor what Robert Downey Jr. is to clean living — has, perhaps all too explicably, become Hollywood’s most coveted and celebrated comedic director. “From the director of Big Daddy” — so blares the…
When the lights finally came up in the Washington, D.C., movie theater, Leonard Nimoy sat still, silent and a bit shaken. He could scarcely believe what he had seen — and what he had not seen. The movie was beautiful, but beneath the surface sheen, there was no heart, no…
Eddie Izzard knows precisely why he wanted to become a performer, be it an actor or standup comedian or, for that matter, a street performer entertaining passers-by for spare change. When he was 6 years old, Izzard was living in South Wales with his parents and older brother. Before that,…
For his first film as director, The Indian Runner in 1991, Sean Penn chose as his source material Bruce Springsteen’s “Highway Patrolman,” off the album Nebraska. It was a perfect song, and it spawned a nearly perfect movie; Penn, writing his own screenplay about two brothers — one good, one…
For 17 years, Dorothy Swanson has waged the loneliest battle: keeping good shows on television, a medium that exists as if only to taunt her. You can hear in her voice the strain such a struggle has taken on her. Her voice breaks and softens when she speaks about the…
If M. Night Shyamalan makes movies to be seen twice, then Joel and Ethan Coen make films to be pawed over a dozen times. O Brother, Where Art Thou?, an opulent and often slapstick updating of Homer’s The Odyssey by way of Preston Sturges, Robert Johnson and Clark Gable, sneaks…
He wanders into the lobby of New Times’ Dallas, Texas, office looking not a little lost and anonymous. It’s little surprise that no one asks him his business or offers him assistance, as his is not a recognizable face, and even when it’s revealed to a couple of curious passersby…
