The End of Watch costars — Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, America Ferrera, Cody Horn — sat down last night (probably for the last time) for a Pete Hammond q & a following last night’s SAG screening at L.A.’s Downtown Independent theatre on Main Street. The premiere happened at L.A. Live. (More photos and videos after the jump.)
“I guess I’m a little bit confused,” In Contention‘s Kris Tapley wrote today. After being told up one side and down the other to beware Robert Lorenz‘s Trouble with the Curve, I found myself liking it just fine.
“It’s a bit unruly in spots and amateurishly conceived in others, but never to detriment. And even Clint Eastwood‘s grizzled performance, threatening to make good on the promise of Gran Torino (i.e. that he’ll be in the self-parody business from here on out) didn’t strike the sour chord I expected it to.
“Then as the movie went along, I realized the framing — my framing — was all wrong. This isn’t Clint Eastwood’s movie. This is Amy Adams‘s movie. And she’s great. Coupled with The Master, her work here further shows a dynamic range for the actress, who by the way landed three Oscar nominations in just six years, for those keeping score at home. And if you’re still not convinced, have a look at On the Road where she shows up out of nowhere and gives a unique if brief take opposite Viggo Mortensen.”
It occured to me that all the people who loved and wrote about The Silver Linings Playbook in Toronto are helping it now, yes, but in the long run they might be hurting it. Too much effusive praise always leads to second-wavers or ticket buyers expecting the moon, and when they don’t get that they get pissed off and complain it’s been over-praised. There’s nothing better than to see a really good movie cold. It almost never happens at film festivals, but it did with Silver Linings. I told Sasha Stone during our Oscar Poker podcast this morning that I had probably spoiled Silver Linings for her, and that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.
I returned to my home last night to suffocating heat and a dead air conditioner. I asked the lady who stayed here and fed my cats during my Telluride-Toronto-NYC travels, and she said the old living-room Fedders (one of those 21″ by 14″ models) gave up the ghost four or five days ago. It didn’t occur to her to alert me. If she had I could have made an appointment last Wednesday or Thursday for a fix-it guy to come today. I made an appointment today and the guy can’t come until Wednesday afternoon. So I’ll be living in a turkish bath until then. Thank you, cat lady!
I’m in hell. I slept on the couch in front of a fan last night, and I barely slept for the heat. I have to buy a new unit. Good wall-mounted air conditioners cost $300 or $400. I’ve been online and on the phone half the morning and into the afternoon about this. I’ve just agreed to buy a Friedrich air conditioner that will fit inside my wall box. I’m buying it from a guy from Anaheim name Ricardo. He’s agreed to me at the Citadel shopping center, three or four miles southeast of downtown, at 4:15 pm.
“Friedrich air conditioners are a superior product built from high grade materials and components that deliver dependable operation for years after the sale. As a leading pioneer in energy efficiency, their partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Star program was a natural continuation of their devotion to the development of products that conserve energy and help protect our environment. And, by designing energy efficient products, they help save money on your electric bill.”
In the view of HE reader Mike Bonifer, Tom Hanks‘ eulogy for Michael Clark Duncan “gives a sneak preview of what he’ll be like in John Lee Hancock‘s currently filming Saving Mr. Banks, a making-of-Mary Poppins movie. “Ignore his impression of MCD,” Bonifer says. “The twangy, folksy way he’s talking to the congregants, the haircut and the moustache are all hints at how he’s playing Walt. Have to be. Because he’s not talking in his regular Hanks voice.”
“A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in Great Expectations, that Miss Havisham and her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world because she had been given the go-by.” — Joe Gillis (William Holden) in Billy Wilder‘s Sunset Boulevard.
Now that I’ve seen the trailer for Mike Newell and David Nicholls‘ adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ Great Expectations, I have a fairly clear idea what the movie will more or less be. I didn’t exactly beat a path to see it at in Toronto. (Or, to put it more precisely, I passed.) Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet went and called it “perfectly serviceable, but overall nothing that offers a shift to the landscape.”