I always look forward to my annual interview with John Wilson, founder, driving force, and Head Berry of the Golden Raspberry Awards Foundation. Arguably the only film award given strictly on merit, the Razzie singles out the worst of the worst that big studios foist on an innocent public, and as someone who sits through… Read More »
MAGIC MIKE XXL: Flash and Dazzle
Steven Soderbergh is an executive producer of MAGIC MIKE XXL, but that is the only trace of that director to be found in this sequel that is more about joy than angst. Channing Tatum, returning as the eponymous male stripper, has taken the fun and dazzle from the original and eschewed most of the cerebral… Read More »
JUPITER ASCENDING. Not.
The Wachowskis know how to produce a spectacle. In that, they may very well be the cinematic heirs of Cecil B. DeMille, whose films featured showmanship of the highest caliber, but some of whose films could charitably be described as insubstantial. And such is the case with the space saga, JUPITER ASCENDING, a film chock-a-block… Read More »
Bennett Miller on FOXCATCHER
During a press day, it’s usually the publicist who gives the signal that time is up. In the case of Bennett Miller, though, he was concerned that the opening and closing of the door would interfere with the sound I was recording. That’s why he set a timer on his phone, and why at the… Read More »
Dr. Sasha Bardey Knows his SIDE EFFECTS
Of all the people involved in the making of Steven Soderbergh’s SIDE EFFECTS, Dr. Sasha Bardey may have been the perfect interivew subject. The film is a psychological thriller of the first order, with the classic Hitchcockian motif of an innocent bystander being suddenly entangled in a fiendish plot that spells certain doom for that… Read More »
STEP UP to Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum is game for a challenge, whether starring in a film that requires serious dancing, or tackling a multi-city press tour. When I talked to him on July 21, 2005, his boyhood on the bayou seemed like a fun place to start before moving on to the dangers (to him) of dancing with a car,… Read More »