Geek For E!

Free screening passes to Parental Guidance in Baltimore!

Hi all!

We’ve got 25 pairs of tickets to the Baltimore screening of Parental Guidance on December 20th, starring Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott.  Here’s the synopsis:

Old school grandfather Artie (Billy Crystal), who is accustomed to calling the shots, meets his match when he and his eager-to-please wife Diane (Bette Midler) agree to babysit their three grandkids when their type-A helicopter parents (Marisa Tomei, Tom Everett Scott) go away for work. But when 21st century problems collide with Artie and Diane’s old school methods of tough rules, lots of love and old-fashioned games, it’s learning to bend and not holding your ground that binds a family together.

http://www.parentalguidancemovie.com/

 

Here’s how: log onto www.gofobo.com/rsvp and input the code GFEMGCT to download your tickets.

Remember, screening tickets do not guarantee admittance.  Seating is first come, first served. So make sure you get there early to grab yourself a seat!

Good luck!

 

Movie Review: Hitchcock

Good Eeeevening.  Tonight’s story is a tantalizing tale of a man obsessed with making a film about a perverted serial killer.  Don’t be alarmed, it all comes out right in the end.  Of course, “right” is all a matter of opinion…

I love Alfred Hitchcock.  His tv show Alfred Hitchcock Presents (probably in the 3rd or 4th round of re-runs by the time I got to ‘em) were a constant source of joy to my little eyes, as were the short story collections he edited.  With titles like “Stories Not for the Nervous”, “12 Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do on TV” and “A Hangman’s Dozen”, is it any wonder I’m a horror junkie?  To me he was the equivalent of The Cool Uncle, the member of the family that made you feel as if you were in fact bonded with somebody.  Later on, when I was finally allowed to see Psycho, The Birds and Frenzy, I was already predisposed to love ‘em.  And love ‘em I did.  All this build-up is to give a bit of context; I was also predisposed to love Hitchcock, and love it I do.  It’s a marvelous love letter to the master of the macabre that shows exactly how hard he worked at crafting the movies we now consider classics.  Though I’m sure it won’t get any film historians seal of approval for accuracy, Hitchcock is accurate enough for fans like me who would rather see Hitch as a benevolent but off-kilter genre poppa-bear than see him as a twisted horror of a man like the one in HBO’s The Girl.  (All apologies to Toby Jones and his remarkable portrayal.)

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Movie Review: Anna Karenina

Love.  Betrayal.  Scandal.  Devastation.  No, I’m not talking about the Petraeus affair.  It’s time to dust off your high school classics and delve into Anna Karenina…or for some of you, time to get acquainted.  It’s not note-by-note faithful to the Tolstoy classic, but this film’s wonderful blend of traditional storytelling and avant garde filmmaking captures your attention and holds it fast.  Not a bad trick for a movie that’s over two hours long.

Here’s the Cliff Notes version; lovely, spirited Anna is married to a dull bureaucrat.  But her heart gets a kick-start when she meets the dashing young Count Vronsky.  However, their love is forbidden, as she’s already hitched; Russian high society won’t stand for that sort of rule breaking.  It’s all kindsa Russian Downton Abbey up in here — even Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery, as Princess Myagkaya) makes an appearance!

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Movie Review: Life of Pi

Many have said that the bestseller Life of Pi would be impossible to film.  In addition to the story itself, it deals with the three things directors loathe to work with; children, animals and water.  But Ang Lee pick up the gauntlet and the result is a movie of awe-inspiring beauty that may not touch on everything the book has to say, but is instead a beautifully shot tale of one boy’s struggle to survive and keep his sanity and personal faith intact.

Pi Patel is a man from India that moved to Canada as a youth.  But getting to Canada was an ordeal, and when a writer (Rafe Spall, Prometheus) comes to hear Pi’s story in the hope of religious awakening, Pi tells a story of shipwreck, savagery and survival.  And a tiger that shares the lifeboat with him.  Yeah, a tiger.

What’s really breathtaking is that the bulk of Life of Pi rests on the shoulders of Suraj Sharma, a young man who makes his acting debut in this movie.  As most of the film is a two-man show — with one man being a very large Bengal tiger — that’s a ballsy move on Lee’s part, but Sharma carries the day, delivering a performance that is heartbreaking, uplifting and completely believable.

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Movie Review: Rise of the Guardians

“The boogeyman is gonna getcha if you don’t watch out!” Well, he may also win the day if you don’t believe in the warm happy mythologies of childhood, so you’d better get with the happy Easter, Christmas, dreamtime and tooth-under-pillowness of it all Right Now.

Rise of the Guardians isn’t exactly a fits-all kind of film; there’s no Hanukkah Harry , no Kwanzaa Pimp or any other religious stuff that doesn’t deal with the Big J-Dog.  Then again, with Santa large and in charge on the posters, there’s no doubt what you’ll be getting in the theater, so just roll with it.  And who doesn’t love a badass Santa that sports tats and a thumb ring?

There are three other Guardians who “bring wonder, hope and dreams” to the kids of the world; the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy.  They too get their own unique spin; EB is a boomerang-toting badass who just happens to paint eggs, the Tooth Fairy is a beautiful half-human/half-hummingbird with an ability to multitask, and Sandman is a rolly-polly ball of adorable that could be the most powerful of them all.  But when Pitch — otherwise known as The Boogeyman — threatens the world with his own brand of darkness, another Guardian is tapped to rise up and lend a hand.  And so it comes to be that the new Guardian is…Jack Frost?  He’s just as baffled as the other Guardians as to why he was chosen.  Don’t worry though, all will be revealed in good time.  And it’s definitely a good time.

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Movie Review: Skyfall

Bond is back, baby.

Have you been missing the ol’ motifs from earlier Bond films?  Oh then honey, Skyfall is the film for you.  Not that that’s surprising; there had been hints at the start of 2006’s Casino Royale that this new interpretation of Bond would come with a bit of character origin story.  Now with three films in, you’ll see plenty of what Bond fans know and love; the groovy acid-trip opening credits montage, the Shirley Bassey-esque “Skyfall” sung by Bassey heir apparent Adele (who knocks it out of the park, btw), and the iconic in-the-barrel-of-a-gun view of Bond.  And hey, is that a DB5 over there?  An added bonus is the “50 Years Of Bond” logo at the end credits, a wonderful nod to the history of the series.

But Skyfall doesn’t require those motifs to fit it in with films that have gone before, however much fun they are to see.  Gorgeous cinematography and camerawork echo the exotic locale shots of earlier films.  The scene where Bond heads into a floating casino is breathtaking with it’s use of lanterns, huge illuminated paper dragons and ripples on the water that are a lovely counterpoint to all that candlelight.  There’s also a birds-eye-view of a Firefly-like Shanghai that zooms in to Bond swimming in a pool at the top of a building that is simply perfect.  What?  I’m an angle nerd, it’s true. Skyfall is a perfect mix of old and new that takes the “Craig Bond” down a path that is comfortably familiar, yet thrillingly new.

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Movie Review: The Sessions

The Sessions is a film about Mark O’Brien, a man who lived the better part of his life in an iron lung. I say better part for two reasons. One, he’s spent much more than half his life in the thing, and two, he has continued to live life in a spectacular fashion by creating poetry and basically living his life in an honest and (almost) pitiless fashion. John Hawkes’ (Winter’s Bone) unflinching portrayal makes us forget that he’s handicapped, something that can be celebrated all on it’s own. However, Helen Hunt’s portrayal of Cheryl (the sex surrogate Mark visits in order to lose his virginity) is a how-to in the art of understated characterization. This kind of performance pulls you in with it’s believability, and makes The Sessions not only film we’ll definitely hear more about come Oscar season, but an ensemble piece that celebrates life and the individual’s ability to live it to the fullest.

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Phil Klein Dedicates Song of Resilience in Wake of Sandy, Pledges to Donate Profit to Help Storm Victims

Gotta love how folks are coming together after the awful devastation of Hurricane Sandy.  Take it away, PRNewswire!

SYRACUSE, N.Y., Nov. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — “Sometimes, the times get tough/Sometimes, the going gets rough/That’s the time we say/’Don’t count us out…in any way!'” Those are the opening lines to the country song “We May be Down but we’ll Never be Out,” written by 85-year-old retired music professor and OURMUSIC (http://www.songtale.com) founder Phil Klein — and as people all over the Northeast suffer in the midst of the horrendous wasteland they once called “home,” Klein hopes country artists will record the song and donate their profits to organizations directly helping victims of superstorm Sandy.

“Americans are resilient. In spite of unprecedented storm damage, people are pulling together to overcome the effects of catastrophe,” Klein stated. “And that’s exactly the spirit ‘We May be Down but we’ll Never be Out’ conveys. We’ve proven over and over you can never count Americans out, and we’re proving it once more right now.”

“The piece was originally written in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, but it is even more applicable now. The country needs a musical rallying cry! Therefore, three free downloads (for anyone) are available at my web site www.songtale.com. The downloads include a recording of the song by Nashville’s arranger/vocalist, Tim Hayden, two different Karaoke tracks, and a lead sheet (music).”

As a member of ASCAP, Klein has registered “We May be Down but we’ll Never be Out” with that organization and pledged to donate his profits from the song to charities that will have the greatest impact on Sandy’s victims. He’s encouraging groups and solo acts alike to record the song and donate any resulting profits to help Americans affected by Sandy.

There will certainly be takers. “We May be Down but we’ll Never be Out,” an upbeat country song with a hint of Southern rock, has catchy lyrics, an energetic tune, and plenty of heart. In fact, it sounds as if Klein wrote the song with the purpose of rallying Sandy’s victims. In the third verse, Klein says,

“Sometimes, it’s hard to begin,
Sometimes, you just can’t win,
But that’s the time we say:
‘We know there’ll be a better day!’
And when we look into our hearts,
Our strength and courage starts,
And suddenly, there is no doubt:

“We may be down, but we’ll never be out!
We may be down, but we’ll never be out!”

Music, says Klein, has a powerful ability to inspire people. “We saw it in the days following 9/11, particularly in country music. Several popular songs were written and recorded during that time, and each one served to unite Americans and spur them to action,” said Klein. “I’m asking recording artists to help me have the same effect on people today.”

Movie Review: Cloud Atlas

“Oh, he always plays the bad guy.  Just watch.”  I heard that all the time when I was growing up.  My mom was quite the connoisseur of movie pigeonholes.  She’d have been gobsmacked by Cloud Atlas, a film that takes actors and has them portray characters good, evil and all shades in-between.  This is a film that is described as a “sweeping epic”, and rightly so.  But it also manages to take time to let the viewers really get to know the characters and care what happens next.  I did something I haven’t done in awhile when I watched Cloud Atlas: I never once took my eyes off the screen.  That played hell with my scrounging in my purse for that last bit of chocolate I’d dropped, but for this film sacrifices had to be made.

How to describe Cloud Atlas without taking pages of narrative to do so?  Aye, that’s the rub.  Well, it tells several stories from the viewpoints of even more characters.  These stories happen at various points in the history of our world.  As the movie progresses, these stories become tangled up in one another, and you see that one simple act can really change fate.  I usually don’t share my screening notes in reviews, as most people don’t dig gibberish, but interspersed among the bits of story I jotted down were the words fascinating, powerful and epic.  And I don’t jot that kinda stuff down very often.  This is the first time I’ve ever used ‘em all to describe one film.

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