New featurettes for Fast & Furious 7

The new Fast & Furious film hits theaters this Friday, and I can't wait!! The action and the saga of the characters have got me hooked like no other current movie series. Not Avengers, Hobbit, Star Trek, or Divergent.  

If you are a fan of the series too, you might enjoy these latest short clips. Check them out here.

Featurette with Vin Diesel and Jordanna Brewster talking about the movie:

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2015/03/23/new-furious-7-featurette-takes-a-look-inside-action-sequel/

Making of the fight scene with Rhonda Rousey and Michelle Rodriguez

http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2015/03/fast-furious-7-featurette-goes-behind-the-scenes-of-the-fight-between-michelle-rodriguez-and-ronda-rousey.html

6 short scenes from the movie:

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/trailers/421541-watch-6-clips-from-furious-7#/slide/1

Lock Up (1989)

From 1989, Sylvester Stallone stars in Lock Up, not a great movie but one that is 80's style dumb fun.  The movie begins with Stallone in jail, serving out the last six months of his prison sentence and looking forward to going free.

All of a sudden, he's abducted from his cell and transported to a hellhole prison run by a maniacal warden (Donald Sutherland) with a vendetta against him. Stallone makes some friends in the jail including a mechanic played by Sharkey from License to Kill (Frank McRae) and another young man who wants to learn how to drive.   The ending is a tense showdown with Stallone and Sutherland. If you are a fan of Stallone or prison movies then you might enjoy this movie.

Robert Altman's A Wedding (1979)

Robert Altman's A Wedding is a humorous wedding satire where a blue collar girl marries into a wealthy family with mob connections.  The humor is a bit dark at times, especially when the matriarch of the higher-class family (Lilian Gish) passes away in her upstairs room of her mansion while the wedding takes place downstairs. Another scene involves a car crash.

The film is discussed by several members of the cast and crew in the book Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff (2009, Random House), In the book, screenwriter John Considene remembers that Altman wanted to make a film about "The American wedding industry".  Considene and Altman created over twenty characters and numerous story arcs, carefully planned in advance.  Co-screenwriter Allan Nichols remembers, "If anything A Wedding was about gossip and how gossip spreads and how gossip hurts, and how gossip helps and how gossip kills and how gossip kills the right guy sometimes."  In the same book, Carol Burnett (who plays the mother of the bride) remembers that Altman said to the actors "Please if you have an idea for a scene, come to me with it. I want to hear it. Some of the best scenes in my movies have come from the actors' ideas". 

Altman pledged all of his profits from the film to the proposed Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment, although the profits from the film were not much.

With Mia Farrow, Peggy Ann Garner, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Paul Dooley, Geraldine Chaplin, Dina Merril, Lauren Hutten and Desi Arnaz, Jr.

Selma (2014) + 50 years

Today - March 7, 2015 - marks the 50th anniversary of the "boody Sunday" protest march in Selma Alabama, USA of March 7, 1965.

On that day, hundreds of black marchers set out to walk all the way to  Montgomery (Alabama's capitol) to protest their inability to vote. After they crossed the Pettus bridge in Selma they were stopped by Alabama state troopers who beat them and sprayed them with tear gas. And history records that Martin Luther King Jr eventually led the successful march, which included people from all over the United States, white and black.

Selma (2014) is all about how these events took place, with a special focus on Dr. King's crucial leadership role. David Oyellowo, who was very good in The Help (2011), embodies Dr. King and is exceptional. The actress who plays his wife Corretta is also really good.

I think the best kinds of movies entertain and educate at the same time. Selma is such a movie for me, one I want to experience again. It not only impresses me visually with the period sets/costumes and striking cinematography, but it also inspires me to read more and learn more about this part of America's history, and the many people that are portrayed in the film, such as the character Oprah Winfrey plays, a woman who is denied the right to vote in a humiliating way.

Selma was only nominated for two Oscars, but I thought it should have earned at least two more for its lead actor and for its director (Ava DuVernay) who does a commendable job of bringing these events to life.

Though it wasn't showered with Oscars, I do think this film will be viewed again in the years and decades to come and will be remembered as not only one of one of the best films of 2014, but one of the best films about the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

50th anniversary of The Sound of Music

Today - March 2 2015 - marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the The Sound of Music.

The blog Birth of a Notion has a tribute today; read it here.

Here are some other tributes happening this year (Source: USA Today)

• 20th Century Fox will release a five-disc "Ultimate Collector's Edition" on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital HD on March 10. Its 13-plus hours of bonus content include a new documentary, The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg, revisiting key sites of the film.
• Legacy Recordings unveils The Sound of Music — 50th Anniversary Edition, the same day, remastered and featuring previously released orchestral cues and all vocal performances on one CD for the first time.
• Turner Classic Movies will open its sixth annual film festival on March 26 with the restored movie, at a gala screening featuring a Q&A with Andrews and co-star Christopher Plummer.
• The movie will reappear on big screens for two days, April 19 and 22, in more than 500 theaters across the USA.
• Books have already started arriving, among them Tom Santopietro's The Sound of Music Story (St. Martin's Press) and Barry Monush's The Sound of Music FAQ(Applause Books).
• And there's even a new touring production of the original stage musical planned, directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien and set to launch in September at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Good Mother (1988) directed by Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy passed away the other day at age 82; so renowned for his characterization of Star Trek's "Spock" from TV/movies that some news sources (such as CNN.com) decided to announce his passing with the headline "Actor, Poet, Vulcan, dies". "Director" should be added to the list, as Mr Nimoy directed a handful of movies, including two Trek pictures and the box office hit comedy Three Men and A Baby (1987).  The other films in his CV include the unsuccessful comedies Holy Matrimony (1994) with Patricia Arquette, Funny About Love (1990) with Gene Wilder, and  - the film I'm most curious about - The Good Mother from 1988, a heartrending drama.

Exploring such sensitive issues such as divorce, sexual harassment, and child custody, The Good Mother is not the science-fiction/fantasy film you might expect Spock would be involved with. In fact I wonder if Mr Nimoy was contractually obligated by Disney/Touchstone to direct this film after his success with Three Men.  Nonetheless, I'm sure Spock the Vulcan - ever curious about human behavior - would find the film and the issues it explores compelling.  Diane Keaton, who plays the lead, is very good as a recently divorced mother with a new lover played by Liam Neeson. Complications arise when  the lover is accused of sexually abusing her daughter and she's sued by her ex-husband for custody of the child.

I especially enjoyed seeing veteran stars Ralph Bellamy and Theresa Wright in this film; they play Keaton's wealthy grandparents who live in a lovely New England waterfont home.  My favorite part of the film is when Keaton has to explain her plight to them and asks to borrow money to pay for the legal expense (her lawyer is played by Jason Robards). Ms Theresa Wright needn't say anything - her wonderful presence alone exudes warmth, compassion, and love. Upon its initial release in 1988, critic Roger Ebert gave the film only one star in his review (Read review here), but praised the scenes with Bellamy and Wright.

The movie, overall is OK, but kind of melancholy. I think Mr Nimoy handles the subject matter sensitively and tastefully, and brings out the best in his actors, given the subject matter; Liam Neeson is especially convincing, and sympathetic.

I am interested in learning more about the making of this film, and/or any interviews with Mr. Nimoy about directing this movie. If anyone knows or has any more information, please let me know; I would appreciate any feedback!

Film legends Theresa Wright, Ralph Bellamy, and Diane Keaton in The Good Mother

Academy Award winners Diane Keaton and Theresa Wright