Leonard Maltin

Greta's New Wave: Frances Ha

Leonard Maltin — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:27:50 GMT

Noah Baumbach, who made an impressive directorial debut with The Squid and the Whale, continues to blaze his own trail with an effervescent little film called Frances Ha, which he wrote with its star, Greta Gerwig. A tribute to the spirit of French New Wave cinema, it’s shot in black & white and scored by the music of Georges Delerue, a lovely homage in itself—but Baumbach never positions form over content, and there isn’t an ounce of pretension here. Indie darling Gerwig has a great deal to do with the picture’s success: she’s disarmingly likable, even though her character isn’t terribly bright or focused. Frances is a young woman trying to get along in New York City,...

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Star Trek Into Darkness

Leonard Maltin — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Here’s the good news: J.J. Abrams and his writing team haven’t dropped the ball. This sequel to their 2009 reboot of Star Trek is lively, well-made popcorn entertainment. Chris Pine continues to impress us as the maverick Captain Kirk, and his castmates come through with flying colors, even if some of them don’t have a great deal to do in this installment. On the other hand, Abrams and company have followed a Hollywood truism in the comic-book movie field: if you want to have a really good villain, hire a Brit, in this case the versatile Benedict Cumberbatch. He manages to underplay even potential moments of scenery-chewing, to good effect, and makes a worthy adversary for Kirk...

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The Incredible Shrinking 3-D Audience

Leonard Maltin — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT

While The Great Gatsby made a lot of money last weekend (box-office pundits said it “overperformed,” which means they called it wrong), only 33% of ticket buyers chose to see it in 3-D. I take this to mean that people intuited that there was no point to watching this particular movie through those pesky glasses. Even the box-office juggernaut Iron Man 3 could only persuade 45% of its audience to watch it in 3-D. When people have a choice, which isn’t always the case, a majority prefer to watch most movies in old-fashioned 2-D. This isn’t just a matter of Americans becoming disillusioned by the medium: it comes down to dollars and cents. Why spend an additional $3 for glasses...

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The Great Gatsby

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:15:00 GMT

Frankly, I was dreading Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, but I wouldn’t have anticipated that this master of gaudy excess had a genuine desire to do justice to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. It’s the struggle between the filmmaker’s natural instincts and his better self that makes the results so wildly inconsistent.The movie bears all of Luhrmann’s trademarks, along with a panorama of patently artificial CGI landscapes, the likes of which he couldn’t execute when he made Moulin Rouge a decade ago. What’s more, they are rendered in 3-D, a needless appurtenance that left me with a headache. The ultimate Luhrmann sequence, a gargantuan party in Jay Gatsby’s Long Island...

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Stories We Tell

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:05:00 GMT

I have a soft spot for Sarah Polley, as I’ve watched her grow up onscreen; my daughter and I used to watch her on TV as Ramona when she was 9 years old. She has blossomed as an actress and, more recently, as a daring and original filmmaker with an Oscar nomination to her credit (for the screenplay of Away From Her). But nothing could prepare us for her latest endeavor. Stories We Tell is a remarkable, and moving, exploration of Polley’s family, focusing largely on the story of her mother, who died when she was young. An outgoing actress who had a bad first marriage (resulting in two older siblings), she then married Sarah’s father, Michael Polley, a British-born actor who reads...

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Peeples

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT

Tyler Perry has become a brand name, as much as Disney or Marvel, over the last decade. As a producer with considerable clout, he’s enabled screenwriter Tina Gordon Chism to make her directorial debut, but sorry to say, this domestic comedy has little to offer in the way of originality. It’s an all-too-obvious spin on Meet the Parents, with Craig Robinson as the boyfriend (and potential fiancée) that Kerry Washington has been afraid to tell her family about, especially her imperious father, a federal judge played by David Alan Grier. You can already imagine the comic complications that arise when he shows up unannounced at the family’s luxurious home in Sag Harbor, Long Island....

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With Bogart On The African Queen

Leonard Maltin — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:17:49 GMT

Last week I got to sail on the actual African Queen with Bogart—Stephen Bogart, that is. The occasion was the first annual Humphrey Bogart Film Festival, held in Key Largo, Florida, the setting of the 1948 Bogart-Bacall picture Key Largo. My sailing companion was Stephen Humphrey Bogart, the famous couple’s son, who hosted the festival. Much like the TCM Classic Film Festival one week earlier, this event drew movie buffs from all over the country—along with two avid fans from Sydney, Australia—to watch vintage films on a big screen, even outdoors at night, and to meet Stephen, as well as Jack Huston, the grandson of Bogie’s friend and collaborator John Huston. Stephen has worked in...

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The Game-Changer: Ray Harryhausen

Leonard Maltin — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:05:00 GMT

When Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad came out in 1958, it didn’t dominate the box-office as Iron Man 3 did this past weekend. That’s because fantasy and comic-book movies were considered grade-B material and kiddie fare in those days. The biggest hits of that year were films for grown-ups like The Bridge on the River Kwai (released in late ’57) and Peyton Place. Walt Disney’s Old Yeller was a hit but still ran a distant tenth. What Harryhausen and his producer-partner Charles H. Schneer did with films like Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Three Worlds of Gulliver was to plant the seeds of imagination in the next generation of moviemakers: Spielberg, Lucas, Peter...

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Disney, Hitchcock, and Marilyn Flying High

Leonard Maltin — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:05:00 GMT

If you fly out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on American Airlines’ commuter service, American Eagle, you must take a shuttle bus to a remote terminal, where you’ll be surrounded by giant photographic blowups of celebrities boarding American planes, back in the days when flying was a more romantic experience than it is today. We’re talking about the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, and early ‘60s, which is where the timeline stops in this informal gallery. (The “newest” stars on display are Paul Newman, Grace Kelly, Eartha Kitt, and Jerry Lewis.) I’ve been yearning to share these wonderful pictures with you—many of which have never been reprinted, I dare say—but I couldn’t’ get a...

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Well-Forged: Iron Man 3

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:38:00 GMT

Sequels are a tricky business. I thought Iron Man 2 squandered much of the good will the original 2008 film, and its oddly inspired casting of Robert Downey, Jr., engendered. His performance as the impudent industrialist Tony Stark crossed a line from snarky to simply cocky, and the actor seemed to be coasting on autopilot. Fortunately, Downey and his collaborators have made a significant course-correction for Iron Man 3, a much more satisfying and enjoyable picture. Stark is appealingly vulnerable this time around, in more ways than one. At key moments in the narrative, his Iron Man suit doesn’t function properly and his all-purpose A.I. helper Jarvis (voiced by Paul Bettany) ...

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Sugar And Spice: Love Is All You Need

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:26:00 GMT

I’m a huge fan of Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, who has given us Brothers, After the Wedding, and the Oscar-winning In A Better World. These are serious, adult films, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Love is All You Need is not a standard-issue romantic comedy. It’s lighter in tone than her previous work, but Bier and her longtime writing partner Anders Thomas Jensen have woven serious undertones into the fabric of this bittersweet romance. Pierce Brosnan gives one of his best performances as a hard-shelled businessman, based in Denmark, whose son is about to get married. He and the bride’s mother (Trine Dyrholm, last seen as the jealous Juliane Marie in A Royal Affair)...

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Remembering Deanna Durbin

Leonard Maltin — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:03:11 GMT

The only people who don’t like Deanna Durbin, it seems to me, are people who’ve never seen her movies. Possessed of a glorious, bell-like soprano voice, she was presented to moviegoers of the 1930s in a series of irresistible comedies that showcased a fresh, sunny screen personality. Delightful films like Three Smart Girls, One Hundred Men and a Girl, and Mad About Music were said to have saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy; I don’t know if that’s actually true, but they were enormously successful, and her fans have remained devoted to her for decades. In 1946 she was the second-highest paid woman in America, but a few years later she walked away from the spotlight, moved to...

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Movie-Buff Heaven: The TCM Classic Film Festival

Leonard Maltin — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:39:12 GMT

Another edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival has wrapped in Hollywood, and I had a great time hosting a variety of events, as a backup to the channel’s stalwarts Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz, and meeting a vast number of dedicated movie fans from all parts of the country. From opening night on the red carpet, where I saw longtime friends Ann Blyth and Jane Withers reunited, to a showing of Cinerama Holiday at the Cinerama Dome, where I interviewed two of its featured players, it was a jam-packed weekend. One of the highlights for me was a presentation of Hollywood home movies by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Randy Haberkamp and Lynn Kirste, the...

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A River of Dreams: Mud

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:10:02 GMT

Writer-director Jeff Nichols fulfills the promise he showed in his previous film Take Shelter with a beguiling fable called Mud. The film takes place in a small community along the riverbank in Nichols’ home state of Arkansas, where it was produced. It spins a multilayered story inspired by the filmmaker’s favorite author, Mark Twain—an imposing role model, to be sure. Matthew McConaughey heads the cast as a mysterious figure who attracts the attention of two impressionable young boys, perfectly brought to life by Tye Sheridan (whom you may remember from The Tree of Life) and Jacob Lofland. McConaughey’s name is Mud and he’s a wanted man, trying to survive on an island near his...

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Pain & Gain

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:08:01 GMT

What burns me up about Pain & Gain is that the trailer, and even the excerpts shown on TV, make it look like fun. It is fun, for a while, an irreverent crime yarn filmed in Michael Bay’s signature adrenaline-junkie style. Then it turns ugly—uglier than you can imagine. Bay has said that when he read the screenplay he envisioned a cross between Fargo and Pulp Fiction; perhaps he didn’t consider the fact that those two fine films are so wildly different in tone and ambition that a mash-up wouldn’t be a good idea. Freely interpreted from real-life events, as reported by journalist Pete Collins, this latest Hollywood version of a “true story” by Christopher Markus and Stephen...

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A Voyage Worth Taking: Kon-Tiki

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:05:00 GMT

Thor Heyerdahl made history by traveling nearly 5,000 miles on a balsa-wood raft in 1947. His book about the adventure sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, and his subsequent 1951 documentary earned an Oscar. Now two Norwegian filmmakers have created a compelling new drama about the voyage of Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl, as played by Pål Hagen, is a single-minded explorer and scientist who falls in love with Polynesia, and becomes convinced that it was discovered by South Americans who sailed there on the currents, following the sun. There’s just one problem: no one in the scientific community believes him. Undaunted, he gathers a disparate group to join him and sets sail from...

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The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:03:05 GMT

Having made a number of movies dealing with cultural identity, Mira Nair was an obvious choice to direct the screen adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s critically acclaimed novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, even though she is Indian and the film is rooted in Pakistan. It is a provocative, multilayered film, and while imperfect it still feels genuine, and that is perhaps its most crucial asset. The story unfolds in flashback as American journalist Liev Schreiber interviews a controversial professor (Riz Ahmed) on a day when political tensions threaten to come to a boiling point in Lahore. Ahmed is perfectly cast as a young Pakistani man who, in the year 2000, emigrates to the U.S. to...

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At Any Price

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:01:03 GMT

It actually hurts to write this review, as I’ve been a booster of Ramin Bahrani’s work from the moment I saw his debut feature Man Push Cart. His subsequent films (Chop Shop and Goodbye Solo) made it clear that he was not a flash-in-the-pan, but one of the most exciting voices in contemporary American cinema. But nobody’s perfect, and I can only call his newest effort a misfire. As true as I find his other films, this one rang false to me from the very first scene. Bahrani usually works with nonprofessional actors. Here he has the benefit of an experienced cast, led by Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron, but their characters are so hollow and unconvincing I don’t know who could have ...

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Studio Vaults Open—On DVD

Leonard Maltin — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:04 GMT

Many of the major studios no longer want to be in the DVD (or Blu-ray) business; they’d rather stream or download their films. There are some notable exceptions, however, and they spell good news for serious buffs and collectors. Warner Home Video dominates the market with its highly successful DVD-on-demand service at warnerarchive.com. They’re so good at this game they now distribute Sony and MGM’s on-demand product and have just taken over what is left of Paramount’s new release schedule. Every week Warner adds new titles, ranging from ultra-rare early talkies to recent TV shows and miniseries, from the third season of The Ricky Gervais Show to season one of Dr. Kildare, not to...

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HOW TO PITCH A MOVIE…AND MORE

Leonard Maltin — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:26:03 GMT

It’s long been a joke in Hollywood that the only way to sell a movie is to compare it to a previous hit. But what’s a joke to some people is a tutorial for others. Last week I received a pair of press releases that took this concept to a new level. The first was for Detention of the Dead, “a teenage horror-comedy about a group of oddball high school students who find themselves trapped in detention with their classmates having turned into a horde of Zombies.” Here’s the punchline: “Think The Breakfast Club meets Shaun of the Dead.” But wait, there’s more: the very same day, another e-mail touted a more promising-sounding historical picture set in 1889 China called Empire of...

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OBLIVION

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:30:01 GMT

Truly original science-fiction ideas are few and far between, at least within the realm of Hollywood moviemaking, so Oblivion scores points for both its premise and its execution—up to a point. And if you’re going to spend two hours with just a handful of characters, they might as well be played by charismatic and attractive people like Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, and Olga Kurylenko. (Their faces even stand up to scrutiny on an IMAX screen!) What’s more, Cruise reaffirms his position as the ultimate Movie Star, completely credible in both his physicality and ability to convey feelings lurking just beneath the surface of that ageless face. The time is 2077. Earth is no...

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ANDRÉ PREVIN: A WELCOME RETURN

Leonard Maltin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:00:01 GMT

One of the first records I ever purchased was André Previn’s jazz version of My Fair Lady….and I’ve never fallen out of love with this wonderful album. Now, nearly sixty years later, Previn is back at the piano alongside Michael Feinstein for a brand-new collection called Change of Heart. It’s the latest in a long line of records that performer and musicologist Feinstein has masterminded, in his tireless quest to call attention to underappreciated songs by some of America’s greatest musical talents. In this case, he persuaded Previn to dig through his “trunk” of forgotten and unrecorded songs, many of them written with his onetime wife Dory, a gifted lyricist. (Remember “You’re...

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42

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 04:35:02 GMT

Jackie Robinson made history as the first black man to play on a major league baseball team, but he titled his autobiography (which has just been reissued) I Never Had It Made. That and the experiences dramatized in this new film give us some idea of what the talented young athlete went through when he was recruited by Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey. Rickey knew that hiring a black player was the right thing to do, and a good business move at the same time. He also knew what kind of man it would take to endure the challenges and humiliations of being the first man of color in an all-white baseball league. Newcomer Chadwick Boseman does a fine job as Robinson,...

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DISCONNECT

Leonard Maltin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 04:30:00 GMT

At a time when so many movies offer nothing but escape, it’s refreshing to encounter one that has something to say about modern society, and a great cast to bring it to life. Written by Andrew Stern and directed by documentary filmmaker Henry Alex Rubin (Murderball), Disconnect takes a sobering look at the wide-ranging impact that social media and interconnectivity is having on our everyday lives. That it manages to do so without ever becoming preachy is no small achievement. In one story thread, Jason Bateman and Hope Davis’s teenage son, a loner who seeks refuge in his bedroom composing music, falls victim to a cruel prank. Two fellow students are sending him provocative...

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NEW AND NOTABLE FILM BOOKS

Leonard Maltin — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:38:26 GMT

As always, there are more new film books than I have time to digest, but it’s been a while since I posted a survey, so here we go. As usual, these notices are based on skimming, rather than careful reading, these recent publications…but I feel confident enough to recommend them and didn’t want to wait any longer to spread the word. HOLLYWOOD UNKNOWNS: A HISTORY OF EXTRAS, BIT PLAYERS, AND STAND-INS by Anthony Slide (University Press of Mississippi) Tony Slide has been documenting film history for decades, and has now turned his attention to the least-chronicled participants of Hollywood’s golden age: extras, bit players, and stand-ins. In the silent era, before studio...

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