Archive: February, 2011
Steven Rea, Inquirer Movie Columnist and Critic
Well, this is what passes for a surprise: "The King's Speech's" Tom Hooper wins best director over "The Social Network's" David Fincher... and the best picture goes to "The King's Speech." It's a wrap!
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"I have a feeling that my career's just peaked." -- Colin Firth, in classic British self-deprecating mode.
Steven Rea, Inquirer Movie Columnist and Critic
This just in via Variety:
An edited version of "The King's Speech" has earned a PG-13 rating from The Classification and Rating Administration, the org announced today.
The Weinstein Company submitted the alternate version after the film received an "R" for colorful language last year.
Steven Rea, Inquirer Movie Columnist and Critic
Down these mean streets a man must go … and occasionally he has to ask for cash, too.
The Film Noir Foundation, a most-worthy non-profit based in the Bay Area and run, by among others, the film noir scholar, author, and diehard fan Eddie Muller, just got some props on the editorial page of the New York Times of all places. The editors write: “Critics have wondered why we love to watch tragedy. It’s easier to understand why we love film noir. In tragedy, none of the characters know they’re going to be tragic until it’s too late. The characters in film noir know what terrible cards they’re holding. We’re the bystanders witnessing a pitiless world where the game is rigged.”
Right now, the Foundation has a blogathon going where folks are encouraged to add their thoughts about Mitchum and Bogart, Chandler and Hammett, Out of the Past and Kiss Me Deadly, to the conversation. And then, if you’re really enthused, you can send the Foundation a few fivers so it can continue its efforts to preserve and restore vintage noirs from the 1940s and ‘50s.
Steven Rea, Inquirer Movie Columnist and Critic
It’s not too late.
Somehow, between seeing Jonah Hex three times, Grown Ups twice and sneaking your Jack Russel terrier into Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (in 3-D, of course), you managed to miss a few of the nominees vying for the coveted best picture Academy Award to be handed out on Sunday, February 27.
Well, luckily, AMC Theatres is doing their annual Best Picture Showcase again (the 5th year now), presenting all ten contenders – five on Saturday, February 19 and five on Saturday, February 26 – so you can catch up on the ones missed, revisit the ones you did see, and give it another go trying to figure out what’s happening with Leonardo “You need to go deeper” Dicaprio and that dream extraction business.
Steven Rea, Inquirer Movie Columnist and Critic
You know the documentary film crew "interviewing" boxing brothers Dicky and Micky at the beginning of The Fighter?
SnagFilms, the free online movie site which recently announced that it was expanding its up-to-now non-fiction library to include narrative fiction films, has the real documentary on its hands. It's High On Crack Street: Lost Lives In Lowell. Shot by Mary Ann DeLeo, Rich Farrell and John Alpert in 1998, the hour-long piece profiles three citizens of the Massachusetts mill town who tumbled into crack addiction. One of the three is Dicky Eklund, the ex-prizefighter who went the distance against Sugar Ray Leonard and whose brother, Micky Ward, is the central figure in the the Oscar-nominated The Fighter.
In David O. Russell’s film, Christian Bale plays the strung-out, doped-up Dicky, and Mark Wahlberg is his pugilist sib, “Irish” Micky Ward. Melissa Leo is the boy’s hardscrabble, beehived mom, Alice Ward. The real Alice can also be seen in High On Crack Street, answering the query “What do you think the biggest danger is that’s waiting out there for Dicky?”
Steven Rea's previous blog posts can be found here. Read his most recent columns and reviews, here. He also curates the movie stars and bicycling photo blog, Rides A Bike. Reach Steven at srea@phillynews.com.
