Inklings

Category: movies

  • Clint Eastwood

    This soon-to-be 80 year-old actor/director/producer has had quite the career. Lately he’s had such a string of directorial successes some people probably didn’t know he was ever an actor. I’ll never forget the first Clint Eastwood movie I watched. It was probably one he’d just as soon the world forgot, but in ‘Every Which Way But Loose’ the orangutan-owning, biker-loathing, prize-fighting trucker Philo Beddoe epitomized the Eastwood toughness factor in nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt. All things considered, the gravely-voiced machismo of his character was what typified a lot of his later roles and seeing it almost every other day on HBO made it a cult hit with us boys growing up. It wasn’t exactly the most impressionable program for an eight-year-old to be watching, but let’s be honest, Clint Eastwood could beat the crap out of Sesame Street.

  • Ferrell: License to Laugh

    One of my friends recently sent me a link to the latest Will Ferrell comedy, The Other Guys. The marketing for the motion poster is brilliant… and funny. After watching the trailer, I think the flick has a chance to be one of Ferrell’s better films. I can’t say that I am a die-hard Will Ferrell fan, but the guy can sure play the part of the everyman boob quite well. I still think one of his greatest feats as an actor was his interesting dramatic turn in Stranger Than Fiction.

  • ‘King of the World’

    I went to see James Cameron’s Avatar this past weekend and couldn’t help but appreciate the irony. One of the previews before the flick was Shutter Island, a Martin Scorsese thriller starring none other than Leonardo DiCaprio. I thought of how that young actor’s career has fared since screaming from the bow of Cameron’s Titanic just over a decade ago. Titanic, at the time, held the record for being the most expensive film ever made, now Leo’s preceding the latest ‘most expensive film ever made’. I haven’t followed Leo’s arc of success that closely but it seems Cameron was responsible for jettisoning him into super-stardom. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Cameron’s latest offering won’t be launching the careers of any rising stars or starlets – unless, of course, you’re on the creative render staff at Weta Digital.

  • Hollywood Retreads

    I realize that this formula has been around for a while but in my opinion it’s getting downright ridiculous. The latest Hollywood 80s love-fest is with TV actioner The A-Team. Don’t get me wrong. I was among the millions that tuned in to watch The A-Team as a kid, but the campy special-op Vietnam vets that MacGyvered their way out of peril each week with Reagan-era machine-gun-toting inaccuracy was a genre that shouldn’t be messed with (I still marvel at the way the ultra-violence was made palatable for prime time by making sure any vehicle that rolled forty times featured a shot of the passengers crawling out uninjured. And don’t even get me started with all the lead flying and no one getting killed; even my Dad snickered at the shoddy marksmanship of the “A” Team.)

    No one doubts that this series had a profound impact on 80s culture (Mr. T was not only a household name but camouflage and muscle shirts became a fashion staple) but it’s as if Hollywood is harvesting the low-hanging fruit. They’ve discovered a bank roll with Gen X man-boys the world over. My guess is it won’t be long before Magnum PI starring Robert Downey Jr. in a ‘stache gets the silver screen send-up. They’ll probably even cast Selleck himself to make a cameo as a villain or something.

  • Inappropriate Choices

    I saw the trailer for the new Warner Brothers flick Sherlock Holmes and couldn’t help but feel this way about their choice to cast Robert Downey Jr. in the lead. I think he’s a superb actor, but this choice, in my opinion, reflects Hollywood’s tendency to latch on to the surefire winners for even recycled fare to make it profitable. I believe that WB is jumping the shark…again. They even feature Holmes and Watson escaping death in that infamous hero cliché shot (an explosion sends their silhouettes hurling away from a fireball towards the viewer). Who knows, maybe it will be a hit – a la Michael Keaton as Batman – and children the world over will flock to libraries and bookstores to sponge up every last bit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. Only time will tell.