"Safe House" is the new Denzel Washington flick which treads some familiar territory. There are explosions, there are also buddy cop dynamics, sexy girlfriends, and lots and lots of action. As always we hear from Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for the Takeaway. They'll tell you if this movie is a good date, and if the action-packed sequences are too much, too often, or just right.
It’s the week before Christmas, the busiest time in movie land, with over half a dozen movies opening in theaters throughout the week. The first batch of films, which hit theaters last night and today, include: "The Adventures of Tintin," "Albert Nobbs," and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Rafer Guzman and Kristen Meinzer talk about the the big holiday releases.
Two men are suing Fox Searchlight, saying the company violated minimum wage and overtime laws when they employed the two as interns on the Academy Award-winning film "Black Swan." In these uncertain economic times, many film studios and other employers have been hiring more unpaid interns. For the company that hires interns, the benefit is a free worker, and for the intern the benefit is a learning experience, and possibly a paid job offer in the future. The federal labor department has a set list of rules that unpaid internships must follow: the position should benefit the intern, it should not displace other employees, and it should be educational. Did Fox Searchlight violate these rules?
"Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s pawn." That’s a quote from the 1968 classic science fiction film, "Planet of the Apes." The movie starred Charlton Heston, and imagined a post-nuclear world ruled by powerful apes. The film spawned a media franchise of sequels, and television series. But "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," which debuts this weekend, contemplates how the primates might take power today.
Let’s make something clear. I am not a gambler. I hate the stock market. I have no interest in watching celebrity poker. On the two occasions I visited Las Vegas, I played only the penny slots (and limited the value of the pennies to $20 total for 6 hours, not counting the extra $20 my sister pushed on me).
That being said, I cannot resist a little Oscar gambling. And I’m not alone. According to Gambling911.com, the Oscars are “the 3rd biggest single day betting event of the year after the Super Bowl and Kentucky Derby” and “the most wagered on nonsporting event after the U.S. Presidential race.”
A soon-to-be-released film about marital drama just won a rare victory. “Blue Valentine,” starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, was initially given an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. The stated reason? Because the film contains “a scene of explicit sexual content.” Many people familiar with the scene described it as a fairly tame sex scene in which William's character receives oral sex. The studio and film's cast and crew appealed the rating, which was changed yesterday by the MPAA. The film is now rated R.
From 1999 to 2006 he was Attorney General of the state of New York. In 2006, he won his bid for the New York governorship by one of the largest margins in state history. But in the spring of 2008, his name was best known for its involvement with prostitution. A documentary about Eliot Spitzer's meteoric career in politics, called “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” is out in limited release now.
Today, one of the greatest screen villains of the past quarter century returns in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”
This time, Gordon Gekko, again played by Michael Douglas, returns to the investment banking world just in time to see it crash and burn ... and of course, in time to benefit from it crashing and burning.
But while some fans of Gekko and "Wall Street" are thrilled with the prospect of a sequel, we’re more interested in knowing whether the movie is good, the facts accurate, and what we might learn from it.
Several big movies open today, and Rafer Guzman, Takeaway contributor and Newsday film critic, gives us his take on what to catch in the theater and which ones to avoid.
During the summer many people long for an old-school, old-fashioned romance. But for the most part, sweeping romances tend to feature people in their twenties or thirties, and those stories generally end with a white dress and walk down the aisle.
But in one movie this summer, the romance takes place between a man and a woman closer to fifty than twenty, and we know from the get-go that the likelihood of a marriage proposal at the end is highly unlikely - because the woman in the film is already married.
What makes a film adaptation of a book work, and what makes it fail? The Takeaway talks with Patrik Henry Bass, senior editor of Essence magazine about why he believes some adaptations work better than others. We also chat with Ben Sherwood, author of "The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud," about watching his novel make the transition from page to screen.
What do you think? Which books made better movies?
Today, the widely anticipated sci-fi thriller "Inception" hits movie theaters nationwide.
Directed by Christopher Nolan of “Memento” and “Dark Knight” fame, it’s been the source of buzz and speculation for months – despite the fact that most of us know only three things about the film:
In honor of “MacGruber,” which hits theatres nationwide today, we look at the best and worst movies based on Saturday Night Live sketches – from "The Blues Brothers" (quite successful) to "It's Pat" (called "shockingly unfunny") and ask: What makes for a good SNL movie? The story? The characters? The acting?
New Movie Releases: 'Men in Black 3' and 'Moonrise Kingdom'
Is the Private Era in Space Officially Upon Us?
Why Increased Immigration is the Solution for America's Ailing Economy
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