It's going to be a scorching Thursday here in SE Georgia. On the agenda today: take Gabriel to school, run by the library, take Gabriel to speech therapy, and go to our eye appointments.
Movies Opening This Week:
Magic Mike Steven Soderbergh's new drama takes us inside the world of male stripping. Channing Tatum, who has been everywhere the last two years, stars as a Tampa male dancer/stripper who takes a young kid (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and teaches him how to succeed in the business, how to pick up women, etc. The film is earning good reviews. Tatum's producing partner, Reid Carolin, wrote the film, which is somewhat inspired by Tatum's own brief stint as a dancer at 19. It's likely to be earnest and a little cheesy, but the reviewers are praising the performances of Tatum and Matthew McConaughey (as a slick, sleazy businessman) and Soderberg's skill at cutting through the cliches.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
Ted The trailer looked terrible. Seth MacFarlane, who created the obnoxious, long-running, mysteriously-popular animated TV show The Family Guy, directs his first feature film and voices the title character, a stuffed teddy bear who, due to a childhood wish that came true, can talk and move around like a human - and who generally makes life insufferable for his long-time owner, played as a grown-up by Mark Wahlberg. Mila Kunis, surely the only reason to see this film, plays Wahlberg's girlfriend. I expect raunchiness, violence, self-abuse, crudeness. It's actually getting decent reviews, though some of the major critics (The New York Times chief among them) have panned it hard.
Verdict: Not Interested
Madea's Witness Protection A.k.a. This Year's Tyler Perry Drag Show That I Wouldn't See if You Paid Me To. Eugene Levy, who plays the same role with the same expressions in every movie, is the CEO of a company that, unbeknownst to him, is running a Ponzi scheme. He enters witness protection and of course ends up in Atlanta... in Medea's house. Perry's films are never screened for critics, who would of course slaughter them. Perry has his fans, though, and this one will probably be a hit.
Verdict: Not Interested
People Like Us A rare thing: A modestly-budgeted studio film released in the heat of the summer, with bankable near-stars (Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, once-star Michelle Pfeiffer), about family relationships. Pine plays a NYC salesman forced to go back to LA when his dad suddenly dies. While settling his pops' estate, he discovers that he has a 30-year old sister (Banks) whom he has never met. A good cast - which includes Olivia Wilde, Philip Baker Hall, Mark Duplass, and Jon Favreau - in a well-received (as of now, a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) film directed by Alex Kurtzman, who has been responsible for writing some recent blockbusters: the first two Transformers movies, Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek, the Fox show Fringe.
Verdict: Very Interested
Take This Waltz Lovely, talented Canadian actress Sarah Polley made a wonderful film in 2007 called Away From Her that was an auspicious directorial debut which contained an Oscar-nominated performance by Julie Christie. She returns with her second outing - the plot concerns a young Toronto woman (Michelle Williams), married to a cookbook writer (Seth Rogen!), who is attracted to a rickshaw driver/artist (hottie Luke Kirby). Matters intensify when the man moves across the street, and the two are stealing away whenever they can. Michelle Williams is a consistently brilliant, up-for-anything actress, and Sarah Silverman is supposed to be good in a crucial supporting role.
Verdict: Very Interested
*
Happy birthday, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), one of my favorite artists. At least a million smart folks know more about Rubens than I do, and there is bountiful information about this essential master out there for you to read about out, but I will take this opportunity to show two of his more famous paintings:
Daniel in the Lions' Den
(at the National Gallery of Art)
Rubens' painting about the Old Testament prophet Daniel who, envied his position as chief counselor to Persian king Darius, who was betrayed by his friends, who encouraged Darius to condemn him to a den of lions. The next morning Darius, suddenly concerned about his friend, opened up the lair and saw that Daniel was still alive, miraculously saved by God. In the painting, the sleepy, yawningly indifferent lions surround Daniel, who gives thanks to the Lord. North African lions kept in a royal menagerie at Brussels were used by Rubens as models. (c.1614-1616)
The Elevation of the Cross
(at the Cathedral of Our Lady; Antwerp, Belgium)
In this resplendent work, the center panel of a triptych, Rubens reveals his influences: the Italian Renaissance artists he studied early in his career in Italy (before he returned to Brussels, where he has his most fertile, twenty-year period), Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Titian, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The action is self-evident: muscular-bodied men carry the cross on which hangs the pale Jesus. (1610-1611)
*
I'm reading an interesting mystery set in 1976 Laos called The Coroner's Lunch, by Colin Cotterill. I know next to nothing about the country of Laos.
It's a landlocked country primarily wedged between Thailand and Vietnam. In 1975, the Pathet Lao, a coalition/organization made of up communists resisting colonialism, sought to take over the sovereign country; Laos had gained independence from France after the French fell to the Vietnamese in 1954. That part of the world was in transition in the mid-1970s and the Pathet entered the capital city of Vientiane and took control, establishing a communist People's Democratic Republic. The new government took draconian measures to centralize decision making, control of the media, round up and jail supporters of the former government, and enforce political control. Almost 10% of the population immediately sought refugee status.
And that's where I'm at now. I think I'm going to like this series.
*
And, of course, we need another entry in my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time.
(in English-language film)
Glenn Close
as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction (1987)
For my money, Close has had two great film roles - here and as the Marquise Isabelle in Dangerous Liaisons - and this is the one she'll be remembered for a century from now. The movie is a potboiler (literally!), an intriguing, manipulative, water-cooler thriller that's a lot of sick fun, but Close, with her terrifying, delusional stare, manages to both juice it up and give it an emotional heft. We see the sadness and the cheated, angry, naked loner behind the psycho. But let's be real here, too: Close gives good crazy and gets one of the great loony lines: "I won't be ignored."
Information:
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg45/gg45-50298.html
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2770.htm
Images:
http://cdn02.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2012/06/channing-tatum-new-magic-mike-stills.jpg
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/06/people_like_us_banks_pine_a_l.jpg
http://www.oceansbridge.com/paintings/collections/16-17th-century-european-paintings/big/Peter-Paul-Rubens-xx-DANIEL-IN-THE-LIONS-DEN-xx-NGW.JPG
http://www.thecross-photo.com/images/rubens_elevation.jpg
http://www.worldstatesmen.org/la.gif
http://www.grouchoreviews.com/content/films/3437/1.jpg
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