FRESH AIR The team behind Step Brothers has an enviable life. Director Adam McKay and actors Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly get to hang out together, make jokes and get paid for it. The three first worked together on the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and they enjoyed collaborating on the film so much that they thought another film was in order. Leaving behind the world of car-racing, Step Brothers centers around two grown men who never managed to leave their respective parents’ houses. Drama ensues when their single parents marry and the two adults become […]
ALPHA OBAMA: No Sleep ‘Til Jerusalem!
ASSOCIATED PRESS: AMMAN, Jordan — Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to work for a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations “starting from the minute I’m sworn into office.” In a news conference here before departing for Israel, he said any U.S. involvement in peace talks must recognize not only Israel’s security concerns but also the economic hardships facing Palestinians. He said he would continue to regard Israel as a valued ally. “That policy is not going to change,” he said. “What I think can change is the ability of the United States government and a United States president […]
DARK KNIGHT OF THE SOUL: Batman Star Christian Bale Arrested For Assaulting His Mother And Sister
TIMES OF LONDON: Christian Bale, the actor who plays Batman, was arrested today for allegedly assaulting his own mother and sister before last night’s premiere of The Dark Knight. The Welsh-born actor was in custody at a central London police station today being questioned over the incident which is thought to have taken place in his Dorchester Hotel suite on Sunday night. MORE THE GUARDIAN: The actor Christian Bale, 34, was arrested on Sunday night after his mother and sister reported him to police for an alleged assault. His mother Jenny, 61, and sister Sharon, 40, are said to have […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Best Batman Movie Review As National Security Critique We Have Ever Read
BY SPENCER ACKERMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT The thought of Vice President Dick Cheney in a form-fitting bat costume might be too much for most people to bear. But the concepts of security and danger presented in Christopher Nolan’s new Batman epic, “The Dark Knight,” align so perfectly with those of the Office of the Vice President that David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff and former legal counsel, might be an uncredited script doctor. Insofar as it’s possible to view an action movie that had the biggest three-day-opening in cinematic history as a comment on the current national-security debate, “The […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR The Dark Knight lived up to its hype. The latest installment in the Batman film series set records with its opening weekend, taking in an estimated $155 million at the box office. Spider-Man 3 previously held the record, taking in $151 million last year. Director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan and actor Christian Bale are two of the driving forces behind the blockbuster’s success. The Dark Knight is the third collaboration for the pair, who previously worked together on Batman Begins and the dueling-illusionists thriller The Prestige. Nolan first made a name for himself with the Oscar-nominated low-budget hit […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Post-BBQ Beatdown Of The Truth
Shyamalan To Shoot Next Flick At Soon-To-Be-Built Phillywood Studio GROUNDBREAKING on an $85 million Hollywood-style movie-production studio in Delaware County won’t begin for at least a couple months, but one director already wants to shoot his next film there: M. Night Shyamalan. The studio’s developers – Philadelphia real-estate attorney Jeffrey Rotwitt and Santa Monica, Calif.-based Pacifica Ventures – say they could be only days away from securing crucial tax breaks. Their Sun Center Studios would be built in Chester Township on the 33-acre site of the Tri-State Sports complex. They also are in advanced negotiations with Paramount Pictures – which […]
CINEMA: Knight On Broke Bat Mountain
NEW YORK TIMES: LOS ANGELES — Fevered fans pushed “The Dark Knight,” the sixth of the Warner Brothers series of “Batman” movies, to record three-day ticket sales of $155.3 million over the weekend, shoring up what so far had been a wobbly year at the box office. REVIEW: THE DARK KNIGHT (2008, directed by Christopher Nolan, 152 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The Dark Knight, the most hotly-hyped movie of the summer has arrived and it is a big, turkey dinner of a blockbuster. It has non-stop action, it features real actors and it has the late Heath […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Mad Men seems to be an easy sell. The AMC television drama just racked up an astounding 16 Emmy nominations after winning two Golden Globes. Matt Weiner is the man behind the successful program, which focuses on Madison Avenue advertising executives in the 1960s. Before creating Mad Men, Weiner wrote and produced episodes of the HBO series The Sopranos, which garnered him both a Writer’s Guild Award and an Emmy. NEW YORK TIMES: Weiner (pronounced WHY-ner) is the creator and show-runner of “Mad Men,” which means the original idea was his: he wrote the pilot; he writes every […]
NPR FOR THE DEF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Rhett Miller ought to be a household name by now: With model-esque good looks, considerable stage presence, and an arsenal of catchy pop songs, the charismatic frontman for alt-country favorite Old 97’s doesn’t want for raw materials. Alt-country favorites the Old 97’s are as reliable as a worn pair of cowboy boots and an old flannel shirt. The band has been playing for 15 years now, and they just released the album Blame It On Gravity. Miller takes a break from their summer tour to talk about the group’s new album and the band’s career. Miller also performs […]
HOT DOC: NY Mag Has The New Tarantino Script
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: The script is 165 pages long and follows a squad of American soldiers called the Bastards — a guerrillalike force who travel behind German lines in 1944, striking terror into the hearts of Nazi soldiers. The Bastards are headed by Lieutenant Aldo Raine — the role we’d imagine Tarantino is hoping to land Brad Pitt for — described by the script as a “hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee,” who has around his neck a scar from where he survived a lynching. (“The scar will never once be mentioned,” Tarantino writes.) In a parallel story, Inglorious Bastards […]
MILESTONE: S.O.S. Celebrates 100 Years Of Distress
TIMES ONLINE: “Send SOS,” one of the Titanic’s radio operators supposedly said to another after the famous ship struck that infamous iceberg. “It’s the new call and besides this may be your last chance to send it.” That “new call” is 100 years old today, and people around the world who owe their lives to that piece of Morse code may reflect this morning on its importance. In the past century, “SOS” has become a firm part of popular culture used in everything from DIY programme titles to Abba hits. But it began life in a far more serious setting […]
CINEMA: It Was A Dark and Stormy Knight
ROLLING STONE: The Joker represents the last completed role for Ledger, who died in January at 28 before finishing work on Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It’s typical of Ledger’s total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I’m Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there’s a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976’s Network, sign me up. Ledger’s Joker has no gray areas — he’s all rampaging id. Watch him crash a party and circle Rachel, a woman […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR The American Film Institute (AFI) has named the top ten American films in ten popular genres. From sci-fi flicks to classic Westerns, the lists include some of the most influential works in American cinema. Today’s Fresh Air presents archival interviews with several of the actors and a screenwriter whose work has been recognized on the new list: Eva Marie Saint, star the AFI’s seventh-ranked mystery movie, North by Northwest, speaks with Terry Gross about her career, her Oscar-winning role in On the Waterfront and being typecast as a “sexy spy lady.” Screenwriter Robert Towne and actress Faye Dunaway […]