Friday March 28, 2008

Category: Shorts

And the good sportsmanship award goes to...Chicago newspapers!

Chicagoans are furious about the plans of new Chicago Tribune owner Sam Zell to sell the naming rights to Chicago's hallowed ground, Wrigley Field. The Chicago Sun-Times had a video competition for those who wanted to object, and the winner was...an intern at the Chicago Tribune!

The Sun-Times announced that they'd been punk'd, but responded cheerfully with a headline expressing their delight in learning that the Tribune had a sense of humor. The Tribune's triumph was bittersweet (not the comment about vacating the building that has been their home going back almost to the days of Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable (okay, since 1925). The video is adorable.

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Thursday March 27, 2008

Category: Movie Mom's Top Picks for Families

PBS Kids and PBS Kids Go movies available for download

Episodes of Boohbah, Caillou, Cyberchase, and Liberty’s Kids are now available for free download from public library patrons’ home computers. The award-winning series are designed to enhance child development with age-appropriate, diverse content focusing on social-emotional development, math skills and other life lessons through engagement and interactivity. These programs and many other programs and movies can be accessed through MyLibraryDV, a 24/7 video download service offered at no cost to library card holders at libraries nationwide. Check with your local library to see if they have signed up for this service.

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Wednesday March 26, 2008

Category: Interview

Interview with Jeff Ma and Jim Sturgess of "21"

Jim Sturgess ("The Other Boleyn Girl," "Across the Universe") stars in "21," the new movie based on the real-life story of a group of MIT math whizes who won millions of dollars in Las Vegas. The character he plays was inspired by Jeff Ma. I spoke to them both about the movie.

Jim Sturgess

Your American accent in the film is excellent! Was it difficult to learn?

I did not have very much time to prepare for the dialect, two weeks or so, so it was fairly intense. A decision was made not to give him a thick Boston Southie accent so there would be no extremities about who he is as a person. We did not want to be so specific it would be distracting or people would think that's the points off him.

Your director, Robert Luketic, is well known for "Legally Blonde" and other bright, light-hearted comedies with female leads. Was this a big adjustment for him?

I'm so proud of Robert for this film. He wanted to break away from the genre or the mold he was known for. I hadn't really seen any of his films and I was nervous, all these romantic comedies, but "Legally Blonde" was an intelligent look at the genre. Once I met him I was completely at ease. He wanted it to be about real people. He didn't want it to be "Revenge of the Nerds 2." Put in another person's hands it could have been completely that way. They were just students. We didn't look at them as nerds.

Tell me about the character you play. What is it like to play someone who is such a super-brain?

There's just a confidence and a quickness about what you are thinking. He's fairly mild in his approach to life but when he talks about anything mathematical that's his world and where he feels comfortable. And then you put him next to a girl and he's hopeless!

Had you ever played Blackjack before this movie?

I never had played blackjack. We played it and played it. That is all there really is to do in Vegas, and we were indulging with that as much as possible. We had blackjack camp and that taught us basic strategy. I don't think it is possible to be a good or bad player unless you are beating the system like these guys did [by counting cards]. It's a game of luck.

What do the scenes with your character's mother add to the story?

Ben and his mother brought a conscience to the film. It showed he had somebody to let down who would be disgusted by his behavior. My mother is the same. Your mother's always slightly in the back of your mind.

What was it like to shoot in Las Vegas?

Vegas just kind of blew my mind. We had a great time there but we were there too long, a month and a half. It's designed for people to come in and spend all their money and have a crazy time and go home to their normal lives. When it becomes your life it is too much and by the end of it we were desperate to get out. Boston was the antidote. It is very similar to England, great when you need a normal pint in a normal pub.

What were the challenges in adapting the real-life story for a movie?

Film has to be its own thing. There are rules of movie making. It's roughly two hours and the audience has to be engaged. While it was not the case in real life, for the movie, Ben had to have a purpose to earn the money [so the script has him needing it for tuition]. If he was gambling for an idle purpose, just for the money, if he did not have some lesson to learn, it would not work as a movie.

Earlier this week, I saw you in "The Other Boleyn Girl," a historical drama. What makes you decide that a project is right for you?

It is different each time, different reasons depending on where you're at in your own life space. For this one it's like it's going to be fun and inspired by true events, it reads like an absolute piece of fiction and captures your attention. Your ears really prick up and then I was completely hooked.

What makes you laugh?

Anything tragic is normally pretty funny. The last comedy I saw was "Superbad," which I thought I wasn't going to enjoy but there was so much heart to it and so much honesty and it was ridiculous as well. If people are trying to be funny you just sniff it out but if people are going to be honest, it is really funny. "The Cable Guy" is the most warped and tragic film so lonely, but very funny, hilarious.

And what inspires you?

Absolutely everything! Things I'm completely unaware of. Having your ears and eyes as open as you possibly can.

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Filed Under: 21, blackjack, gambling, jeff ma, jim sturgess, las vegas, movie

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Wednesday March 26, 2008

Category: Contest

DVD Giveaway: Jimmy Carter documentary

I have three copies of the outstanding documentary about Jimmy Carter to give to readers. Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme follows Carter as he talks about his controversial book that termed the Israeli occupation of occupied territories "apartheid." This is a fascinating portrait of a Nobel Prize-winning statesman whose failures as President have been eclipsed by his humanitarian work since leaving office. The DVDs will go to the first three people who email me at moviemom@moviemom.com -- good luck! (Be sure to put the title of the DVD you want in the subject line of the email.)

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Tuesday March 25, 2008

Category: Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Believer's annual Film Issue

My very favorite magazine, The Believer, has an annual issue on one of my very favorite topics: Movies. And this one is their best, yet, with Chuck Klosterman's essay on what I always say is the single most popular theme in film: the journey, or road movie. It often seems to me that at least 20-30 percent of films have as their theme two or more people who don't know each other or who know each other and don't like each other having to accomplish something together, usually involving a trip of some kind. That includes everything from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Toy Story," "The African Queen," "Midnight Run," "North by Northwest," "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," "Two for the Road," "Easy Rider," and even "College Road Trip." Rolf Potts writes about the way that international marketing of movies affects their content, dialog, and humor. Two of the most fascinating directors, Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, have a conversation. And the issue includes Part I of the provocatively titled "Pervert's Guide to the Cinema," which is not what you think -- it is a kaleidoscopic illustrated lecture by Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek, talking about films and what they mean. His passion for his theories and for the films he describes are so intense that he literally enters into them through meticulously re-created sets that place him in Norman Bates’ cellar, Neo’s chair opposite Morpheus, and the hotel bathroom from Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation.” This issue, the DVD included, is bracingly engaged and engaging and a real treat for any cinephile.

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Tuesday March 25, 2008

Category: Contest

DVD Giveaway: Extreme ski documentary "Steep"

Think triple black diamond times, um, infinity. Steep is a documentary about people who ski down big mountains with sheer descents so steep they are just about perpendicular. I have three copies of the DVD to give away to my readers and they will go to the first three people who email me at moviemom@moviemom.com -- good luck! (Be sure to put the title of the DVD you want in the subject line of the email.)

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Monday March 24, 2008

Category: Contest

Contest: Blackjack tip cards from "21"

Think you can beat the house in Blackjack? That's what a group of MIT students did. By counting cards, which is perfectly legal, they won very big in Las Vegas. Their story was told in a book called Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, now retitled "21" to tie in with this week's release of the movie it inspired.

For those of us who are not MIT math geniuses, there is a playing card-size cheat sheet to guide your betting. Want one? I'll send one to the first three people to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com. Stay tuned -- later this week I will post my interviews with star Jim Sturgess and the MIT math whiz who inspired both the book and the movie, Jeff Ma.

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Sunday March 23, 2008

Category: Animation , Family , Fantasy , Interview , Movie Mom's Top Picks for Families , Musical , Remake

Interview with Hugh Welchman of "Peter and the Wolf"

Peter and the Wolf," this year's Oscar-winner for best short animated film will be shown on PBS this Wednesday from 8-9 Eastern Time. It is a brilliantly imaginative film and well worth setting aside some family time to watch it together.

"Peter and the Wolf" was originally written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 as a way to introduce children to the instruments of the orchestra. A brief narration tells the story of the little boy who goes into the forest with his pet duck and cat. They meet up with a little bird and have an encounter with a scary wolf. Each character in the story is represented by a different instrument.

Bird: flute
Duck: oboe
Cat: clarinet
Grandfather: bassoon
Wolf: French horns
Hunters: percussion
Peter: strings

There have been many film versions of the story. Perhaps the most famous is a Disney animated cartoon made in 1946. This latest version, produced by Hugh Welchman of Breakthru Films, dispenses with the narration, which only takes up three minutes of the half-hour-long musical composition, but creates a complex and involving story with a contemporary setting that remains very true to the themes of the original. I spoke to Welchman about the challenges of creating Peter's world for the painstaking stop-motion animation to create the film.

How big was the set?

"We were working at a one in five ratio. That's the normal scale for stop-motion animation. The set was truly enormous. The forest had 1700 trees, each 6 feet high. The set was 80 feet long; it was like going into Wonderland. We also did all the close-ups at 1 in 3 [ratio]. The grandfather puppet was 3 1/2 feet high. With that size, you get so much more detail. The grandfather’s hands were incredibly detailed which gave it a real different quality and makes it much more real.

The set was built in Poland and they worked amazingly quickly to build it. That was one of the fastest part of the process; making the models took much, much longer. We wanted it set in modern Russia and so we went there to take photographs. On a playground somewhere they found [the model for] Peter. And they were arrested by the KGB for taking photographs of a power station! The Russian police didn’t really know what to do with these two women. They thought they were eco-terrorists. So, they wiped their photos.

But the Russians are very knowledgeable about film, especially animation.

Yes, they’ve got a heritage with stop-motion.

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Filed Under: animation, hugh welchman, interview, orchestra, peter and the wolf, stop-motion

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Sunday March 23, 2008

Category: DVD Pick of the Week , Movie Mom's Top Picks for Families

Trevor Romaine's DVDs about Kid Problems

Trevor Romaine knows how to talk to kids about the problems they think no one understands. His DVDs are a great way to begin conversations at home, in school, in Scout troops, religious groups, or in other community gatherings. They are just right for that stage in life when children first begin to want to look beyond their parents for answers to questions that trouble them and they speak to kids in a frank but matter-of-fact tone that is very reassuring. Most important, they provide very concrete, practical suggestions for coping with some of the most complex troubles of childhood and early adolescence, from homework to bullies to divorce and loss.

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Filed Under: bullies, homework, loss, middle school, trevor romaine

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Saturday March 22, 2008

Category: Documentary , Interview , Spiritual films

Interview with Ilana Trachtman, director of "Praying with Lior"

Ilana Trachtman found the subject of her documentary, "Praying with Lior," at Rosh Hashanah services. Lior has Down syndrome. His devotion to prayer has inspired the members of his close and loving Jewish community in Philadelphia. But the movie is not just about him. It is the story of a family.

Trachtman was a successful director of television programs . Her work was meaningful and satisfying and she was not looking for an independent film project.

What happened?

I prayed with Lior, that's what happened to me. I was feeling estranged from prayer and went to a Rosh Hashanah retreat. The morning service was very long. I was counting the pages, thinking of what we would eat when services were over. It was literally like hearing a call. Behind me there was this off-key but consistently engaged and enthusiastic voice. I was really compelled because I had never seen anyone like Lior in services before. I grew up in a huge synagogue that never had anyone like Lior. The struggle I had with prayer, this person with half my IQ seemed so natural. I was filled with curiousity and envy. This was in the fall. His bar mitzvah was in May. I needed to get started quickly.

How did you get the permission of the family?

I expected I would have to do a lot of explaining, but when I started talking, Lior's father said, "We've always wanted to do a documentary about the bar mitzvah." That same spirit of generosity pervaded the entire experience. It was one miraculous moment after another on every level, a very b'shert (destined) experience all the way along.

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Filed Under: disability, down syndrome, jewish, prayer, praying with lior, reconstructionist

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