Now You See Me playing in Montpelier, Vermont! :) #nowyouseeme @lionsgate #lionsgate (at Capitol 5 Theater)
Filtering by Tag: lionsgate
My boss, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer, is up for a Motley Fool “Best CEO of 2012” award. My life will be miserable if he loses….so vote for him…do it for me. :)
P.S. - Not a great pic of us from many years ago….but still.
There is a click-through on the pic.
This is my celebration of Mad Men today since it rocked in the ratings last night!!
The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook
We’ll assume this is the unofficial cookbook for Mad Men since the official version would most likely begin with “Hand book to wife.” Since Don Draper, his midday boozing buddies and Joanie’s assets invaded our Sunday nights, we’ve been a bit more inclined to buy skinnier ties, knock back a few during the work day and wish we could just trade lives with any of them… even Pete. (Seriously, how did he get Trudy? We mean, come on.) With The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook, you can take your first step into living out the life of Don Draper and company. It features over 70 recipes that will drop you smack dab in Mad Men era NYC. From the old-school drinks to the dishes served up at some of the swanky restaurants the cast dinned at, it’s all ready for you and your power suit to enjoy. $12
Hmmmm…a Hunger Games inspired wedding video from StyleMePretty.com. Thoughts?
Hahaha!! A Hunger Games Coca-Cola commercial…with a spin.
Mad men is coming, Mad Men is coming!!!
Return of the King: The Triumphant Return of Mad Men
Some things are worth waiting for. Barbecue. Miracles. Hoverboards. And definitely watching Don Draper dress down an inept secretary.
Give an ecstatic welcome back to Mad Men, therecord-holding, Emmy-winning, advertising-as-a-metaphor-for-life drama you’ve missed like a beloved family member, premiering its fifth season on March 25 at 9/8c on AMC.
You’ve watched this show. But if you haven’t, just know that the flagrant consumption of oyster plates and three-martini lunches alone makes it worth the watch. That, and Joan Harris. And now, Don, Peggy, Roger, Pete and the rest of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce will be casually day-drinking their way back into your heart for the two-hour season premiere. (Yes, a feature-length episode of Mad Men.)
Of course, to fully appreciate such a momentous occasion, you’ll need to make a party out of it. And AMC’s got that covered for you with their Mad Menparty guide, which, yes, includes cocktail recipes and trivia.
You could also just make your own top-10 Sterling’s Gold list.
Give an ecstatic welcome back to Mad Men, therecord-holding, Emmy-winning, advertising-as-a-metaphor-for-life drama you’ve missed like a beloved family member, premiering its fifth season on March 25 at 9/8c on AMC.
You’ve watched this show. But if you haven’t, just know that the flagrant consumption of oyster plates and three-martini lunches alone makes it worth the watch. That, and Joan Harris. And now, Don, Peggy, Roger, Pete and the rest of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce will be casually day-drinking their way back into your heart for the two-hour season premiere. (Yes, a feature-length episode of Mad Men.)
Of course, to fully appreciate such a momentous occasion, you’ll need to make a party out of it. And AMC’s got that covered for you with their Mad Menparty guide, which, yes, includes cocktail recipes and trivia.
You could also just make your own top-10 Sterling’s Gold list.
Note:
Mad Men, two-hour season premiere March 25 at 9/8c, new episodes Sundays at 10/9c the rest of the season
Hunger Games Piece on Good Morning America
Variety’s Review of THE HUNGER GAMES!
The first novel in Suzanne Collins’ bestselling trilogy is a futuristic fight-to-the-death thriller driven by pure survival instinct, but the creative equivalent of that go-for-broke impulse is absent from director Gary Ross’ “The Hunger Games.” Proficient, involving, ever faithful to its source and centered around Jennifer Lawrence’s impressive star turn, this much-anticipated, nearly 2 ½-hour event picture should satiate fans, entertain the uninitiated and take an early lead among the year’s top-grossing films. Yet in the face of near-certain commercial success, no one seems to have taken the artistic gambles that might have made this respectable adaptation a remarkable one.
Relentlessly paced, unflagging in its sense of peril and blessed with a spunky protagonist who can hold her own alongside Bella Swan and Lisbeth Salander in the pantheon of pop-lit heroines, Collins’ latest book cycle seemed a logical candidate for adaptation from the get-go. Narrated in a first-person style that favors swift exposition over descriptive detail, the series also offers a filmmaker plenty of leeway not only in visualizing its dystopian world onscreen, but in tackling the real-world parallels implicit in this grim vision of totalitarian rule.
Bookended by scenes set in a high-tech city, the film quickly immerses the viewer in the mud and grime of District 12, the poorest of the dozen civilian sectors that make up the futuristic nation of Panem. The government maintains order through nationally televised bloodsports known as the Hunger Games, in which two “tributes” from each district, a boy and a girl, must participate in an annual winner-kills-all-and-takes-all bloodbath.
Pluckier and more resourceful than most is 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), a skilled archer who hunts to provide for herself, her mother (Paula Malcomson) and her younger sister, Prim (Willow Shields). When Prim is selected at random to represent District 12 in the games, Katniss bravely volunteers to take her place and winds up paired with baker’s son Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares a brief, vague history.
Accompanied by some leaden comic relief in the form of a drunken mentor (Woody Harrelson) and a garishly made-up escort (Elizabeth Banks), the two are whisked off to the Capital, an ivory tower of a city imagined as a fantastical explosion of color by production designer Philip Messina and costume designer Judianna Makovsky, among others. There, all 24 tributes are made over, trained for battle and interviewed by a beaming, blue-haired celebrity host (Stanley Tucci) as a prelude to this lethal mash-up of “Survivor,” “American Idol” and, at one point, “Project Runway.”
The questions raised here, regarding the morality of violence as entertainment and the brutality of pitting children against each other, have been addressed before, and to more potent effect, in films like “Series 7: The Contenders” and the shockingly violent Japanese actioner “Battle Royale.” Yet if the satirical and topical elements aren’t exactly fresh, the script (by Ross, Collins and Billy Ray) does give them a few knowing spins. Particularly shrewd are the behind-the-scenes moments when Panem’s President Snow (a quietly malevolent Donald Sutherland) pressures Seneca (Wes Bentley), the keeper of the games, to maintain control of the situation, a subplot that reps one of the few deviations from the novel and lays the groundwork for “Catching Fire,” the next film in the Lionsgate series.
But once the games begin and the contenders are released into a densely forested arena, rigged with “Truman Show”-style cameras for maximum coverage and trackability, the film clings to Collins’ text as if it were itself a survival guide. Readers may find themselves mentally checking off plot points as Katniss looks for water; flees fires; makes strategic use of a wasps’ nest; tries to suss out whether Peeta loves her, wants to kill her or both; and uses her many years of hunting experience to evade, outwit and inevitably destroy her attackers.
Whatever its earlier shortcomings, the picture really should have spread its wings at this stage, morphing into a spare, stripped-down actioner fueled by sheer adrenaline and nonstop harrowing incident. That intention is evident enough in the darting handheld camerawork and quick cutting style favored here by the filmmakers, including d.p. Tom Stern and editors Stephen Mirrione and Juliette Welfling. Yet while the individual setpieces are well staged, they also feel a bit too neatly scheduled within the story’s framework, and the frequent toggling between the arena and Seneca’s control room only undercuts the momentum.
Lawrence, who auditioned brilliantly for this role with her even rawer turn in “Winter’s Bone,” again projects a heartrending combo of vulnerability, grit and soul while convincingly playing several years her junior. The camera remains so glued to her every expression and gesture that no one else, save perhaps Lenny Kravitz as Katniss’ suave professional stylist, is given the opportunity to hold the screen against her.
The film does achieve a strong surge of emotion when Katniss forms an alliance with young tribute Rue (winning newcomer Amandla Stenberg), culminating in a stirring sequence that pauses to acknowledge the sheer, impossible inhumanity of the situation. Yet after this high point, things settle into a more prosaic, anticlimactic rhythm, and the central drama, pivoting on the nature of Katniss’ and Peeta’s relationship, never sparks to life.
What viewers are left with is a watchable enough picture that feels content to realize someone else’s vision rather than claim it as its own. Any real sense of risk has been carefully ironed out: The PG-13 rating that ensures the film’s suitability for its target audience also blunts the impact of the teen-on-teen bloodshed, most of it rendered in quick, oblique glimpses; whether this is the morally responsible decision is open to debate. Weirdest of all: Hunger, the one constant in Katniss’ hard-scrabble life, barely even seems to register.
Ross, a reliable craftsman directing his first film since 2003’s “Seabiscuit,” makes a point of delineating between the haves and have-nots: While the Capital is an overlit, f/x-heavy wonderland, the bleak, desaturated images of rural-industrial poverty in District 12 could have been influenced by the photographs of Dorothea Lange. Given such wildly disparate parts (one scene suggests “Little House on the Prairie” invaded by Stormtroopers), the look doesn’t entirely cohere, though auds will gladly suspend disbelief. Complementing James Newton Howard’s orchestral score, the unusually lyrical, C&W-steeped soundtrack, boasting contributions from Arcade Fire, Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift, nicely suggests an America mired in an uncertain future.
Piece about Hunger Games on the Today show today!! :)
The Red Carpet (or black carpet) for the Hunger Games premiere in Los Angeles last night from about 50 floors UP!
The Muppets made a Hunger Games parody!! Hahahaha!!!
I love that Daily Candy has BOTH Friends With Kids AND Hunger Games on their must watch list!!!
Friends with Kids
Maya Rudolph burping babies, Kristen Wiig slapping Jon’s Hamm. Another walk down the Bridesmaids aisle, perhaps? Newbie directorJennifer Westfeldt’s funny baby/mama drama is a grand debut that sticks with what works — but a sequel it is not. Just-friends Jason and Julie (Adam Scott and Westfeldt) skip the complicated “I do” and cruise straight to the Baby on Board bumper sticker. Caution: rocky road ahead.
It’s like: The Next Best Thing after Friends with Benefits.
Take: Parents who reach for the bottle.
Premieres: March 9
The Hunger Games
Don’t act like you’re above it. Now that winter’s gone, we need a new bone to pick — who better than Kat and her beau and arrow in Seabiscuitdirector Gary Ross’s fight-to-the-death thriller? You know the ingredients: a dystopian government and impending doom garnished with an impossible romance. We could go into more detail, but there’s no need to beat a dead (battle) horse.
It’s like: 1984 for the Survivor age. And it’s already slaying Twilight: Eclipse advance-ticket sales.
Take: Your appetite.
Premieres: March 23
Trailer for SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD starring Steve Carrell and Keira Kinightley!!
What do you think?
Poster Decoder
Each week, marketers release new movie posters, many for films whose releases are still months away. But for those who know where to look, one-sheets can reveal studios’ hopes and insecurities about their products. In this space, we will attempt to decode the hidden meanings of the week’s new posters.
Hunger Games
What the art says: The flags, the stadium, the fiery logo, it all adds up to one big, “Huh?” But not as big a “Huh?” as the decision to not make better use of its (jawdropping) star.
What the text says: If you haven’t read the books, stay home. No stars. Not a mention of a producer or trollish director. Even Suzanne Collins, the enormously popular author of the series, goes completely ignored.
If you haven’t seen WARRIOR, you’re really missing out. Go get it today!
WARRIOR on DVD
If you have a brother, you remember some epic fights from when you two were kids. They all started innocently enough with Nerf guns, plastic swords or water balloons, but somehow always ended with a gaping wound on one of your foreheads. So the most basic storyline of two brothers duking it out in Warrior is not exactly a revolutionary idea. That being said, it’s pretty badass when one is an ex-marine and the other is a former MMA fighter and the movie isn’t some corny, plot-less film. It also happens to be the most entertaining thing we’ve seen Nick Nolte in since his mugshot. $15
I know I’m a little late to post the trailer…it was up everywhere. But I love that Cool Material just posted it!
The Hunger Games Trailer
The Hunger Games is supposedly one of the most anticipated movies of 2012. We never read the books, so we didn’t really get it until we saw the official trailer. You remember that short story that almost everyone was forced to read in school about the kids who gather rocks so someone, at random, can get stoned to death? (It’s called “The Lottery.”) Now combine it with Running Man. Throw in a badly done up Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and Lenny Kravitz and it’s not too difficult to start calling this a blockbuster…even if we have to wait four months to see it.
WARRIOR is a seriously great movie. Modern day ROCKY!! GO SEE IT!
The trailer for WARRIOR - I’m totally not kidding when I say you have to see this movie. It’s emotional and uplifting - it’s really a story about a family finding their way back to each other. Go, go, go!!
Beautiful music video for WARRIOR that opens tomorrow! Brilliant film - a modern day Rocky - MUST SEE!!
Warrior is going to rock. It’s a modern day Rocky (with Mixed Martial Arts fighting instead of boxing) starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton with Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison and Frank Grillo. It opens September 9th!