El drama independiente llamado “Multiple Sarcasms” que lo protagoniza Timothy Hutton, Mira Sorvino, Dana Delany, Mario Van Peebles y Stockard Channing tendrá la fecha de estreno del mes de marzo en las ciudades de Nueva York, Los Angeles, San Francisco y Seattle.

Luego, esta cinta se expandirá a otros mercados por el mes de abril y mayo, segun lo que nos informa el director Brooks Branch.

La cinta se ubica en la ciudad de Nueva York en 1979 y sigue al personaje de Gabriel Richmon (Huttons) un hombre que a finales de sus cuarentas es un exitoso arquitecto. Él comenzará a cuestionar las elecciones que tomó en su vida, lo que lo llevó a llegar a ser lo que es y de ser arquitecto se pasa a hacer obras de teatro, mientras examinaba su vida. Este es un drama clásico que muchos no podrán perdérselo.

Mira Sorvino

Besties Michele Weinberger and Romy White; image courtesy of infoplease.com

Tonight’s post is in honor of girlfriends. Here’s to the ladies who are supportive, give us perspective, and make us laugh. I intend to have some quality time with one of my close ladyfriends this weekend. Kristen and I are gonna boycott New Moon and catch a matinee showing of Precious instead.

So, when we think about Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” in conjunction with Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, the daffy blonde buddy comedy starring actresses who went to Harvard and Vassar, most people are probably imagining this scene.

Admittedly I find this scene, wherein the nerdy millionaire Sandy Frink (played by Alan Cumming) finally gets his high school crush Michele Weinberger (played by Lisa Kudrow) to dance with him at their ten-year reunion, to be silly and charming. And I also appreciate that Michelle won’t dance without her BFF and roomie Romy White (played by Mira Sorvino). But there’s a bit of heterosexual recouperation in this configuration. While the boy has to share the girl with another girl, he still gets the girl. If only Janeane Garofalo’s outcast Heather Mooney got to dance with them instead. She’s clearly my favorite character.

Man, I never thought I’d argue that a romantic assemblage that involved Alan Cumming resulted in heterosexual recouperation. The proudly bisexual actor seems to delight in queering everything around him. I am usually delighted as well.

Alan Cumming's cologne -- pun intended; image courtesy of mirror.co.uk

But I’m referring to this scene.

Apart from the obvious, at-times hilarious age disparity between the thirtysomething actors and the teenaged versions of their characters, I find this scene to be really sweet and moving. For me it captures how hard it is to be the weird girl and how sometimes having a like-minded ally is as essential as air or water. Also, I think it’s hella queer, even if lesbianism is something the girls claim to have ruled out (at least if they’re still single at 30). To review.

1. Rather than match their corsages with some dudes’ cumberbands, they chose to go as each other’s dates and have coordinated their outfits accordingly. In doing so, they are announcing themselves as a pair instead of as two high school girls who couldn’t get boys to take them to the prom.
2. Just as they served as each other’s date, I have no reason to believe that they didn’t make the outfits themselves. It is well-established that Romy and Michele make their own clothes, eventually opening their own boutique at the end of the movie (with, ugh, Sandy’s money).
3. Romy and Michelle are both dressed as Madonna. Romy is representing the Material Girl’s be-Gaultier‘ed Blonde Ambition period and Michelle staying true to her early Boy Toy heyday. Each girl is an individual, but complements the other.
4. By aligning themselves with the Material Girl, they are connecting themselves to girl fandom and gay iconography.
5. By dancing to Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” they link up with another 80s pop star with a memorable look, a notable girl fan base, and a big LGBTQI following.
6. And by accepting Michelle’s offer to dance after being stood up by her lunkhead crush Billy Christiansen, I think it’s pretty clear who Romy really loves.

We’re a little late to the party on this one, but we think it’s worth noting. Lucky magazine is one of several magazines — including Allure, Glamour and Self — that has been partnering with HSN.

HSN and Lucky did a “Designer Capsule Collection” that got a three-page spread in the magazine’s November issue. The apparel, jewelry and handbag designers featured all had items being sold on HSN.

That group included Shoshanna Gruss, Rebecca Taylor, Tracy Reese, Gerard Yosca, Abbe Held, Rebecca Minkoff and Helen Ficalora.

Shoshanna Dress for HSN

Why are fashion magazines partnering with HSN? Circulation and ad pages are down, leaving monthlies struggling. As part of its deals, HSN is selling inexpensive standalone subscriptions to the magazines, or packaging them as part of other product purchases. It’s a way for the magazines to add subscribers.

Speaking of parties, it looks like QVC left us off the guest list for the star-studded soiree in Manhattan for designer Isaac Mizrahi’s new collection for QVC. According to the New York Post’s Page Six Sunday, Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, Mary-Louise Parker, Mira Sorvino and Ann Heche were at the shindig.

In 1999’s Summer of Sam, Spike Lee shows us how one neighborhood can react in panic to having a serial killer running amuck so close to home. From July 29, 1976 to his capture on August 10, 1977 David Berkowitz terrorized New York by going on a killing spree, claiming a neighbor’s black dog gave him orders to do so.  Originally dubbed “The .44 Killer” due to his choice of weaponry, he was eventually called “The Son of Sam”.

Lee’s main focus here is not about the actual killer, but how a neighborhood reacts to him.  In particular, the main key player here is a hair dresser named Vinny who just can’t keep it in his pants when it comes to women other than his wife.  Vinny is played by John Leguizamo, who’s acting is all over the place here.  At times it seems like he is way over the top and other times the complete opposite.  I had a real hard time sympathizing with him as he goes on toying with his wife played by Mira Sorvino.  Sorvino almost channels My Cousin Vinny’s Marisa Tomei.  The other key player here is Ritchie, plyed by Adrien Brody, who is Vinny’s longtime childhood friend.  To me Brody was one of the few bright spots to the film.  Granted we don’t know what brought him to be the Italian boy turned British punk rocker, but he does it well.  It’s this sudden change in attitude and appearance, along with bad timing, that makes him the perfect suspect in the eyes of some of the neighborhood hooligans he grew up with.

Lee himself makes a cameo appearance as a reporter who delivers the news in such a dull and lifeless manner that makes you wonder why he would even bother putting himself on-screen.  A cameo appearance I did like was Soprano’s Michael Imperioli, who also was a writer on the film.

Overall I was disappointed with the slow pace, and dragged out, and sometimes unneccessary scenes.  Despite a few decent performances, I was dissatisfied with the film.  I give Summer of Sam 2 1/2 pitchforks.

This week on Californication, Hank Moody’s best friend from High School comes to visit him. Hank is leery of his visit because over the years they have grown apart. He doesn’t believe they have anything in common anymore. He’s right of course. They don’t.  Their lives have gone in completely different directions. But over the course of the show, those differences come to not matter. What they do have in common is where they came from. What they were growing up. They are still friends that wish they had kept in better touch. This episode hit home because last Saturday I went to my High School Reunion. I’d tell you how many years it has been, but it’s a number I’m not comfortable talking about. Lets just say that if falls somewhere between the 10^th and the 30^th. Anyway, I was a little apprehensive about going because it’s always strange to reconnect with people you haven’t spoken to in years. I bet you thought I was going to give the actual number of years there. The sentence would have had more impact with the precise number, but I figured I’d let the writing suffer. As I said, it’s not a number I’m comfortable talking about.

A couple of friends of mine that I hadn’t seen in years came over to my place before the event for a little pre-game. I pre-game for everything. Sporting events, parties, dentist appointments, etc… I imagine a lot people did this because a reunion isn’t something you can step into dead sober. A little liquid courage can be a good thing. And it was. When we walked in the door, I was relaxed and ready to talk because lets face it, a reunion is all about talking. I didn’t see anyone dance, but I saw everyone talking up a storm. The conversations in the room basically drowned out the music. One friend was talking so much, he actually lost his voice. It was a really good time. No one left until they kicked everyone out. That’s the sign of an excellent reunion. So it got me thinking about High School Reunion movies. After doing a little preliminary research, I discovered I’m a pretty big fan of that genre.

Beautiful Girls – This is one of my favorite movies of all time because they get almost everything right. The whole story centers around Timothy Hutton’s character coming home for his 10 year High School Reunion. Why it works is because even though the Reunion is the catalyst for everyone getting together, it’s really about the relationships of the main characters. On the surface they seem one dimensional, but as the movie progresses, you see there is more to each one of them. They aren’t just the jock, the piano player, and the court jester. All they are is a group of guys trying to find their way, and not doing a very good job of it. They are completely different, yet they have each others backs. I think most groups of friends can relate.

The music is this film is sensational. The title song by Pete Droge and The Sinners is the perfect soundtrack for this film. It really sets the tone. Using Beth by Kiss to display a change in attitude of Michael Rapaport’s character was pure genius. It’s funny and surprisingly touching. I can’t believe it worked. The only slight misstep was when the guys all broke out singing Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. I like this scene and I hate this scene. It’s a nice moment in the film, but it is also completely unrealistic. I believe guys would sing a song in a bar, just not something by Neil Diamond. Also, before their reunion, they had a pre-game party. You know why, because that’s what people do.

On a side note, the acting in this film is great. Matt Dillon, Timothy Hutton, Michael Rapaport, Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino, and Lauren Holly nail their roles. They’re perfect. But it’s Natalie Portman that steals the show. She’s only 13 in the film, but out acts everyone in every scene. It’s unbelievable. You start believing she’s the most beautiful girl. Timothy Hutton’s character completely falls under her spell, as does anyone who watches the movie. I know right now you think I’m creepy, but that is the way the movie was designed. You are supposed to feel that way. I won’t be judged. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself the favor. You won’t be disappointed.

Grosse Pointe Blank – The premise for this movie is fantastic. A hitman returns home to kill someone and attend his High School Reunion. Sure, it’s unrealistic, but it totally works. The reason is that the hitman is conflicted with life and wants to get back the girl he deserted on Prom Night. It’s funny, a little violent, and it has Dan Aykroyd as a rival hitman. What’s not to like?

The acting is superb. John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin and Jeremy Piven do a great job making this premise work. The reunion itself is hysterical. Piven chasing after Jenny Slater is worth the price of admission. Granted, no one at my reunion got into a fight to the death, but how would I know if they did? Only Cusack, Piven and Driver knew about his fight, so it may have happened. I didn’t get in to that fight at my reunion. As far as you know. Oh, and if you don’t own the soundtrack to this film, your music library is incomplete. Go buy it today. You’ll thank me later.

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion – I don’t have a lot to say about this movie. I thought it was o.k. It had some good moments. Janeane Garafalo was funny. I thought the reunion was a joke. It wasn’t realistic in any sense. I didn’t really like the main characters. I thought Mira Sorvino, who clearly loves a reunion movie, was decent. My biggest problem with the film is that I don’t like Lisa Kudrow. I don’t think she’s funny. I didn’t like her on Friends, and I don’t like her in this movie. She’s like the female Dane Cook. Her comedy leaves me wishing for real comedy. O.k, that was a cheap shot. She’s better than Dane Cook. Either way, this High School Reunion was obviously written by someone who has never been to a real reunion.

Peggy Sue Got Married – This was the first High School Reunion movie I ever watched. It did a couple of things I really like. It showed you the reunion, and then let Kathleen Turner go back in time to see if she would have done things differently. On some level, everyone wants that opportunity. Who wouldn’t want to change the way they did some things in High School?

Nicolas Cage was awesome. He truly acted in this film like he did in Raising Arizona and Adaptation. The only real problem with this movie was that when Kathleen Turner goes back in time, she looks so much older than the rest of her classmates. She’s beautiful, but way older. It takes a few minutes for you to let that go. (A quick aside, what happened to Kathleen Turner? Have you seen her lately? How can someone go from being so white hot and sexy to what she has become. It’s not age. Something else is going on there and I’m afraid to know the answer. She is pretty funny on Californication, though). It’s been a while since I’ve seen this movie, but my guess is that it will hold up.

Reunions have a way of making you take stock of your life. You start wondering where the time went and how you ended up in your current situation. I don’t like to do that. It never turns out well.

What I’m going to take from the Reunion is not my station in life, but that I can still be friends with people who no longer have anything in common with me. We grew up together. We know what we once were. That’s big. No matter how much you think you’ve changed, who you were is a big part of what you have become. It was great seeing my friends. I missed them. Lets hope it doesn’t take another five or ten years to see each other again.

Mira Sorvino

Things I like about this movie:

1. Nobody can hit a damn thing while firing a pistol wildly. Having fired a pistol, more than once, and having gone shooting with people who are rather good with pistols, let me mention that the damn things are really not much good when firing at long distances, like, say, across a movie theater such as happens in the film.

2. Mira Sorvino’s characters, Meg. I like everything about her, but most especially I like her fashion sense. And I mean that completely unironically. I really, really like how she dresses. And I love the way her bangs hang in her eyes, and I love the necklace with the razor blade on it. In addition to her fashion sense, I love that she is tough and smart and fearless and has some principles. From her opening scene, to her confrontation with the police, to her various arguments with John Lee (played by Chow Yun Fat,) Meg holds her ground. She’s not stupid, she’s not suicidal — she’s merely very firm in her goals.

3. I like the slow pace of the filming. The entire movie takes places over a couple of days. But the filming is slow and contemplative. It allows the viewer to look around in each scene instead of being hammered over the head with the immediate action.

4. I love the action scenes!

5. The cast is full of Ye Old Familiar Faces, including Danny Trejo.

This is probably my favorite Mira Sorvino movie, with Mimic a very close second. It’s also the first Chow Yun Fat movie I ever saw, way back when, and I appreciate the film for making me go look up his other works. So this movie was sort of my gateway into Hong Kong cinema.

If you’ve never seen it, or you haven’t (like me) seen it in ages, I recommend checking out The Replacement Killers.

Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Studio: Downes Brothers Entertainment

MPAA Rating: PG 13

Director: Jon Gunn

Review Rating: 7

 Based on the novel by Karen Kingsbury, Like Dandelion Dust is the story of the struggle between the biological couple and the adoptive couple of a small boy.

 Regardless of your personal opinion on children, this movie and its’ storyline manage to hit very hard in the emotional spots in a wonderfully painful way. Imagine, you’re one half of a wealthy couple who adopted a lovely boy and spent seven amazing years with him, only to get a phone call one day stating that due to a technicality in state law, the biological parents are going to reclaim their son and you’re expected to cooperate fully with it all. The flip side of that being the biological parents, an alcoholic who recently got out of prison and the wife who called the police on him years ago when he beat her, and who never told the man that she had even had his child until after he got out of prison and they were back together. With all that in mind, the movie raises the question of who should the child be with, because both sets of parents have a perfectly valid claim upon him, and he’s not old enough to decide for himself. Or rather, the courts won’t let him. Things continue on their merry way for a bit, Joey is sent (by himself!) across the states to stay for a bit with the biological parents, and as we can all guess, it goes pretty horribly. The adoptive parents are informed that there will be a succession of visits with the bio-parents, 3 of them, and then Joey will go to live with the bio-parents for good. And after the second visit, where Joey is bruised and scared witless, the adoptive parents decide to make a run for Haiti with some religious folks off on a Mission – a last desperate effort to keep their family together, to just disappear, like dandelion dust.

 Barry Pepper, who stars as alcoholic and enraged bio-dad Rip Porter, does a phenomenal job at portraying his role. Rip is a broken man, he tries so very hard to hold his little newfound family together and things are just conspiring against him. There’s plenty that’s his fault, yes, but outside influences aren’t helping either. Pepper’s efforts at Rip’s emotional state draw you right into the mind and frustration of the character with surprising ease. Mira Sorvino stars as Wendy Porter, bio-mom and rock of strength. True, she spends a great deal of time with sparkling eyes because she’s crying – you would be too, if you had to go through this mess. Cole Hauser of Pitch Black fame stars as Jack Campbell, adoptive dad and moderately wealthy potentate. Jack, along with his wife Molly (Kate Levering), tries to buy his way through the mess of keeping ownership of his one beloved child, always afraid for Joey and in the end willing to throw away all his creature comforts in order to stay together. And of course we have up and comer Maxwell Cotton, who plays child Joey in the movie. Although the subject matter revolves around the child, there’s probably more focus on the adults, as they are the ones deciding that small boys future.

Right now, Like Dandelion Dust is a festival movie only, let us hope the film makes it to the big screen worldwide, because yes, it really is that good.

Check out a Behind the Scenes vignette

WORD

inane [i-neyn] adj. 1. lacking sense, significance, or ideas; silly: inane questions 2. empty; void ∞ n. 3. something that is empty or void, esp. the void of infinite space

BIRTHDAY

Confucious (551 BC), Ed Sullivan (1901), Max Schmeling (1905), Al Capp (1909), Brigitte Bardot (1934), Rod Roddy (1937), Ben E. King (1938), J.T. Walsh (1943), Steve Largent (1954), Janeane Garofalo (1964), Mira Sorvino (1967), Moon Unit Zappa (1967), Naomi Watts (1968), Joseph Arthur (1971), Bam Margera (1979), Ray Emery (1982), Hilary Duff (1987)

STANDPOINT

When it comes to the world of music, I’m in a bit of a shitty spot.

Because, you see, no matter what your particular music inclinations (and I’m sure they’re fantastic), there’s a 73% chance I feel different. Yes. It’s confusing. Let me clarify a bit.

For me, there are only three sects of music listeners out there.

“I don’t care if it’s cool, I just like that song.” – You’re someone who has uttered the previous statement about 9,233 times. You turn on the radio. You hear a song that begs you to drive faster, tap your foot and sing at the top of your lungs. The song ends. Some smooth DJ informs you that the last song was the newest release by Pink, Nickelback or some similarly dreadful source. For about three seconds, you wrestle with the following contradictory facts: (a) you’re relatively sure the artist is somewhat uncool, and (b) you just don’t care because it made you bounce around and sing. If bouncing around and singing in your car is important to you, you’ll likely choose the last option. And, hey, that’s more than all right. Just don’t go around offering up your opinion when the rest of us are talking about what constitutes good music. You’ve eliminated yourself as trustworthy. Sadly, you’re definitely part of the problem. Yes, you’re a fucking moron if you think the new Green Day album is “really good” just because everyone else is listening to it. You either suck at evaluating music or you just don’t care enough to be discerning. Either way, you’re someone who contributes to the MTV culture and that’s just not OK. Ever.

“Even if I’ve listened to a band for years, once I hear one of their songs during a TV commercial, I think they’re shit.” – OK, I get where you’re coming from. You’re an indie rock enthusiast with a chip on your shoulder. You’re absolutely right. But you’re also absolutely wrong. Unfortunately, the music you like is conveying ideals and beliefs that you own, that you share. And it’s not likely these ideals and beliefs have anything to do with “selling out” or being the song employed in the promo for the upcoming season of fucking “Grey’s Anatomy.” It sucks that millions of people (who’ve done nothing but turn on the TV) have discovered one of your favorites songs of the past three years, a song you found because you do the legwork, you’re constantly researching, looking for good music. You’re head’s up. But your head’s also up your ass if you can’t be happy for Vampire Weekend because the guys in that band, while they probably adore playing the smaller artsy venues in front of you and 100 other people, are looking for maximum exposure. And, while it sucks you gotta hear people you know to be moronic talk about how “it’s great when they curse at the beginning of ‘Oxford Comma,’” deal with it. You owe it to those who’ve brought you so many hours of listening pleasure. The main reason you suck is because you make others feel uncomfortable about their choices. And, hey, who the fuck are you?

“What in the good goddamn is wrong with you people?” – Here’s the group I’m in with most of the people I call friends. It takes work to be in this group. You have to constantly adjust your position. But in a quality way.  Most of you out there see things in black and white. And that’s worse than listening to Creed. The world ebbs and flows, and you gotta ebb and flow with it, brother. Just because an artist is making supremely shitty music right now, doesn’t mean it’s gonna be that way forever. People change. Attitudes get readjusted. We all eventually get shown the light. I’m of the personal unpopular opinion one of my favorite bands, R.E.M., will come back around one day and get back to some seriously good business. You probably disagree. That’s cool.  

Here’s the bottom line: Listen to music you like. It’s fine. But you need to understand, no matter which group you fall into, you’re never gonna be completely right. Unless you’re me. Sorry abour your luck.

QUOTATION

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were. ← Khalil Gibran

TUNE

In the spirit of my Standpoint, I offer “Sweet Pain.” A 90s song from a Blues Traveler, a band just about everyone’s deemed irrelevant. Listen to it. Do you feel what I can feel?

GALLIMAUFRY

→ I think Esquire sending someone who knows very little about pop culture to interview Gerard Butler had a great result. As a matter of fact, there’s not much Esquire can do that doesn’t meet with my immediate approval.

→ The LAPD is pretty fucking relentless. Just ask Roman Polanski, who’s been wanted by Los Angeles authorities for over 30 years. He was arrested this past Saturday night in Switzerland. Finally. Seriously, how in the world is the USA supposed to bring anyone to justice if it can’t bring down this guy? Top notch work, everyone. Now, how about you all get back to work on shit that really matters? Thanks.

→ Christ. Peter Forsberg wants back into the NHL. The team on the top of his wishlist? You guessed it, genius. My Philadelphia Flyers. Stay away, Peter. We’ve moved on.

Alicia Keys-Keep a Child Alive

Usher-Powered by Service

CGI-DAY 3

Today, Day 3—Thursday, seems to be celeb day, even more than the past two. I was in a press conference with Usher (who just donated a million dollars and is launching a new youth service program, “Powered by Service” www.poweredbyservice.org). Really Usher, you’re chewing gum for this? The new project aims to mobilize 5 million young people in initiating projects to serve their communities. He is partnered with several other organizations, including Philippe Cousteau and his focus on Oceans of the World with the “Waterplanet Challenge.” I bumped into, literally, James Brolin who was standing with Barbra Streisand—ended up dashing for the exit with them at the end of the night when we were ducking out a bit early.

Ricky Martin opened a session about human trafficking—his focus with the Ricky Martin Foundation (www.rickymartinfoundation.org). He’s looking very buttoned up in his black suit and gray tie. He gets choked up as he says, “I’m here because there are so many kids who didn’t make it,” we lost them, he tells us, to slavery, sexual slavery, and human trafficking.

This is also the focus of Mira Sorvino and Julia Ormond, who are here. There’s Bono being called up on the stage, next to Jessica Alba. Eve Ensler, Jesse Jackson….and this is before the evening awards ceremony with Demi & Ashton, Alicia Keys performing, Ben Stiller as MC, Lisa Ling presenting an award, and Quincy Jones giving a super-long speech. The carpet is blue throughout this hotel, but today it seems it ought to be red.

Queen Rania of Jordan—the most stunning ruler in the world—is one of the panelists on the dais for “Building Human Capital—Creating Jobs and Strong Communities.” She gets a big reaction when she tells us, “It would cost $11 billion dollars to put every child in the world into primary education. That is the money Americans spend on their pets every three months.”

Devastating statistics again float out: On average, paternally-led families that earn one dollar a day spend, on average, 2 cents on education and 20 cents on alcohol, sugar drinks, prostitution, and gambling. When mothers are given the money to make family decisions, almost 95 cents gets re-invested into their families.

Brad Pitt, with his pointy, Green Arrow-looking beard, gets the hallways buzzing—he is a featured panelist in the Town Hall meeting, “Building a Better Future—A Progress Report on Make it Right, New Orleans.” Make it Right was born from this conference three years ago, and will, by this time next year, have built 150 houses in the Lower Ninth Ward that are green, aesthetically designed, sustainable, and affordable. Many families are already back home from their paradigm-shifting work. Bill Clinton wonders why, if we can do it in New Orleans for no more money than traditional, wasteful architecture—why would we ever build the old way, anywhere, again?

After truly dense days of emotionally and intellectually challenging forums large and small, the evening awards are a nice relief. The ballroom has gone through a mild transition—tables have dark tablecloths instead of white, more elegant chairs have been swapped in, the crowd arrives more dressed up with lots of cocktail dresses, suits, and an array of beautiful native fabrics from cultures around the world. Juanes, the most popular Latin recording star, does a couple of great numbers, and Alicia Keys, a CGI member with her outstanding fight against AIDS (www.keepachildalive.org), closes out with her hits, including “Superwoman,” particularly poignant considering the day’s insights.

To have been present this week to such profound commitment and the energy to make change, it felt like the people in these rooms had the drive and determination to solve all the problems in the world. How can we not, every one of us, want to be part of that?

Philippe Cousteau-Waterplanet Challenge

Ricky Martin-Ricky Martin Foundation

People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away.

The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.

He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan’s golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal skepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”

“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.

Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.

“You always look so cool,” she repeated.

She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her…

-all passages, of course, from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and pictures from the 1949, 1974, and 2000 film adaptations.

The novel, being an American classic, like all things American, is perfect in places and hideously overrated in others.

Mira Sorvino looked beautiful in a long black dress at the premiere of Like Dandelion Dustat the the 35th Deauville American Film Festival, in Deauville, France.

The dress also accentuates her cleavage, don’t you think?!!!

ciao

angel

Trapped Wind (PG-13)

Hold onto your hats! She's gonna blow!

 A group of adrenaline junkie storm chasers (Colin Farrell, Mira Sorvino & Patrick Duffy) attempt the impossible: to capture a live tornado and bring it back to their secure holding facility in Florida. Here they hope to breed it with a previously captured hurricane… thus creating the world’s first category ‘6′ mega-twister capable of destroying the entire eastern seaboard!

If it was able to break free?…

By all rights, Terry George’s “Reservation Road” should be a 2 a.m. Lifetime Television weeper. All the trappings are there — a freak car accident that turns into an unsolved hit-and-run case; a grieving father who sees closure only in revenge; a driver whose sanity is buckling under the weight of what he’s scrambled to cover up — just waiting to be exploited shamelessly. But here’s the real shocker: That … never … happens. ”Reservation Road” is no crudely simplified fable with a villain and a hero and a gift-wrapped ending; it’s not that kind of movie. No, what happens here is complex, delicate and deliberate. Don’t expect to walk away unshaken. 

Of course, part of what makes “Reservation Road” so compelling is the (admittedly) hokey-sounding crisis at its center: Driving home from a late Red Sox game with his son, Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) veers off the highway and rams into a child on the roadside at a gas station, killing the 10-year-old boy while his father Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) watches, too shocked to remember the car or the driver’s face. Dwight, without quite knowing what he’s doing, drives away, leaving Ethan, his wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) and their daughter with a dead body and no answers.

All of this happens very early, and there’s a reason for those emotionally punishing first 10 minutes: These events provide a framework for the rest of “Reservation Road,” which grows more unsettling each minute. The pile of coincidences is a stretch — or is it? In a small town, is it so hard to believe that the victim and the criminal might know each other? Have kids in the same school? Maybe George pushes this angle a bit too hard, makes it a bit too unsubtle, but perhaps this is necessary to pull us in. After all, nothing about this film is easy because ”Reservation Road” splits us right down the center, forces us t0 see humanity in the criminal (a divorced dad afraid to lose partial custody of his son), demons in the wronged man (whose grief takes him to an ugly place). To identify with one man is to identify with the other. Phoenix and Ruffalo’s gut-wrenching performances ensure this much.

Oh, and speaking of the performances: Many argue that the faceoff of 2007 was DiCaprio/Damon in “The Departed.” Hardly. What Phoenix and Ruffalo do in “Reservation Road” lays waste to that claim. These two pour themselves into roles that require a frightening amount of emotional energy. Phoenix, who specializes in surly intensity, shows how close resignation can be to blind rage. He takes Ethan’s sadness to a place no one can touch, not even his wife (Connelly, who’s more nakedly emotional than ever). “How do I get you back?” she asks. Damned if Ethan knows, either, and Phoenix makes this internal confusion hard to watch but impossible to ignore. Unglued, too, is Ruffalo’s Dwight, whose decision to leave the scene sticks in his subconscious like a hunting knife in the gut. He can’t shake the guilt. Credit must go to Ruffalo, one of the finest actors out there, for not reducing Dwight to weepy, drunken heap. Ruffalo is too smart, too intuitive an actor to make that mistake. Instead he gives us a man who is slowly unravelling, who knows more with each day that he did much more than kill a child: he killed himself.

And so “Reservation Road” leave us with a whole mess of unanswered questions. Dwight takes a life, reacts badly and suffers dearly for it. But does he suffer enough? Can he ever suffer enough? Does he deserve to die? Would his death give Ethan the kind of closure he wants and needs? Don’t expect an eleventh-hour hug, a Kleenex or a cheat sheet. “Reservation Road” offers no comfort and no answers … which, in an odd way, makes the film something of a miracle. 

Grade: A-

source: celebritypregnancy.sheknows.com/

It’s baby boom time in celebrity land!

Mira Sorvino gave birth to Holden Paul Terry Backus June 22^nd.  He weighed 8lbs 12oz.

Jason Priestly and his wife Naomi Lowde-Priestly welcomed their baby boy on July 9^th.  No name or weight has been released yet.

Molly Ringwald welcomed her twins on Friday July 10^th.  Adele Georgina Ringwald Gianopoulous entered the world first and 10 minutes later her little brother Roman Stylianos Ringwald Gianopoulous was delivered.

Congratulations to all the new parents!!

Congratulations to Mira Sorvino and husband Christopher Backus on the safe arrival of their third child – a boy!

Holden Paul Terry Backus arrived on June 22 in L.A. Weighing in at 8 lbs., 12 oz., following a difficult pregnancy and a long labor and delivery.

“As soon as they placed him in my arms I knew it had all been worth it,” Sorvino, 41, says. “He is my miracle baby. With everything that threatened this pregnancy and both of our lives, he came out of it completely unscathed: perfectly healthy, beautiful and wonderful!”

During her pregnancy, Mira ended up with placenta previa, which caused her to be hospitalized for weeks and then put on complete bed rest.

“I developed a blood clot (DVT) due to all the inactivity and had to be anti-coagulated for months to prevent a pulmonary embolism,” she said. “I spent another two-and-a-half weeks at the hospital, during which time, missing the children and my husband and knowing what the separation was doing to the kids became almost unbearable. Prior to this nine-week hospital stay, I had only ever spent one night away from Johnny, 3 and Mattea, 4.”

Labor and delivery also were long.

“The baby was very big and he came a couple of weeks early so it took longer than we thought,” she said. “During the day we had some scary difficulties with the epidural as I achieved almost no progress with the labor and then at night the placenta created problems again. Although it was not blocking the baby’s path as it had done for almost the entire pregnancy, it started causing me a substantial loss of blood. Just as we began begging for a C-section, the situation turned around and the end of the birth was very easy.”

Mattea and Johnny, meanwhile, are now adjusting well to their baby brother.

“They make up songs to sing to him! My only challenge has been convincing them not to touch him and pet him while he’s sleeping, because they wake him up!”

SOURCE

Contenha o vírus. Contenha a verdade. Stephen Dorff (Blade) e as vencedoras do Oscar® Mira Sorvino (melhor atriz coadjuvante por Poderosa Afrodite, 1995) e Anjelica Huston (melhor atriz coadjuvante por A Honra do Poderoso Prizzi, 1985) estrelam esta alucinante história de ação e intrigas baseada na série de livros campeões de vendas escrita por Robert Ludlum (A Identidade Bourne, O Casal Osterman). O coronel Jonathan Smith (Dorff) é um especialista em doenças e ex-agente secreto da Covert One, uma agência de inteligência de elite composta por especialistas políticos e técnicos que reportam diretamente à Presidente (Huston). Quando um vírus assassino desconhecido entra em cena, Smith é chamado à ativa para descobrir e isolar a origem do vírus antes que ele ameace a vida de milhões de pessoas. Com um elenco de estrelas coadjuvantes como Blair Underwood (Regras do Jogo) entre outros, será uma corrida contra o tempo para que a Covert One consiga conter o vírus e descobrir a verdade por trás de uma conspiração nos mais altos e perigosos níveis da sociedade.

Download:

http://rapidshare.com/files/26720607/COTHFrar.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720617/COTHFrar.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720611/COTHFrar.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720612/COTHFrar.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720613/COTHFrar.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720614/COTHFrar.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720621/COTHFrar.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720620/COTHFrar.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720633/COTHFrar.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720631/COTHFrar.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720632/COTHFrar.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720619/COTHFrar.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720650/COTHFrar.part13.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720630/COTHFrar.part14.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/26720595/COTHFrar.part15.rar

Password: gforce

Giveaway: Expedition Africa Wants To Give You Cool Things – Film …

There have been a couple of recent bellwether showings of Judd Apatow &s Funny People (Universal, 7.31) in Los Angeles — a friends-of-Apatow screening plus a research screening that happened (I&m told) about eight days ago. And the word is better than pretty good, …. Funny films. Or would the anti-Apatow crowd prefer Liar Liar and Romy & Michelle&s High School Reunion? Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey Author Profile Page at April 24, 2009 12:01 PM. comment #12 …

Emilie S says: May 18th, 2009 at 2:41 pm. A large supply of water purification tablets and Miss Congeniality. emvark at gmail dot com. Elaine R says: May 18th, 2009 at 2:54 pm. Most importantly I would have clean water with me but also I ….. A big machete and a dvd from that survival guy-Bear! That guy is RESOURCEFUL!! Chrysa says: May 27th, 2009 at 2:08 am. I would take a canteen. The movie I would take is Romy & Michelle&s High School Reunion! Mimi the kitten says: …

There have been a couple of recent bellwether showings of Judd Apatow &s Funny People (Universal, 7.31) in Los Angeles — a friends-of-Apatow screening plus a research screening that happened (I&m told) about eight days ago. And the word is better than pretty good, …. Funny films. Or would the anti-Apatow crowd prefer Liar Liar and Romy & Michelle&s High School Reunion? Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey Author Profile Page at April 24, 2009 12:01 PM. comment #12 …

Emilie S says: May 18th, 2009 at 2:41 pm. A large supply of water purification tablets and Miss Congeniality. emvark at gmail dot com. Elaine R says: May 18th, 2009 at 2:54 pm. Most importantly I would have clean water with me but also I ….. A big machete and a dvd from that survival guy-Bear! That guy is RESOURCEFUL!! Chrysa says: May 27th, 2009 at 2:08 am. I would take a canteen. The movie I would take is Romy & Michelle&s High School Reunion! Mimi the kitten says: …

There have been a couple of recent bellwether showings of Judd Apatow &s Funny People (Universal, 7.31) in Los Angeles — a friends-of-Apatow screening plus a research screening that happened (I&m told) about eight days ago. And the word is better than pretty good, …. Funny films. Or would the anti-Apatow crowd prefer Liar Liar and Romy & Michelle&s High School Reunion? Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey Author Profile Page at April 24, 2009 12:01 PM. comment #12 …

Trivia bonus question:  Who’s the real-life actor dad of 24’s Keifer Sutherland?  Jude Dude Answer:  Who cares, playing heroes runs in the family. (Dad Donald Sutherland played a hero in the “Human Trafficking” TV mini-series.)

For the many millions of enslaved (aka trafficked) people every year, the danger and depredation  don’t stop after the TV shoot’s a wrap.

“Human Trafficking”:  Sounds so much better than “Today’s Slave Trade.” Even the two-part TV “complete miniseries,” by its subtitle under  the “Human Trafficking” header, acknowledged that the main target merchandise of today’s sex slave trade is not boys but girls.  An online photo advertising the miniseries:

Maybe too laden with heavy grief for those who care, and too glossed with prurient interest for those who do not, the global sex slave trade in girls cannot be named for what it is and receive the anti-trafficking funding needed by social activists.

And indeed, caring, courageous social activists have caught the political attention on the need to stop human trafficking.  Certainly it is not only the overwhelming numbers of girls and women, but also some boys and men, who are trafficked and not always for sex or only sex.  Concentration-camp-style, farm-and-construction, and domestic-servant-to-master-behind-closed-doors-type labor are also options.

This week, Secretary of State Clinton spoke up about it: Clinton: US Has “Responsibility” To Fight Trafficking

Slavery:  Now a bigger global criminal enterprise than black-market weapons, second only to the illegal drug trade.  But all the pieces fit together.   The big-three of global crime are (1) drugs, (2) slavery, and (3) arms because, to take a common slavery example, profiteers cannot enslave girls, boys and young women to degradation serving male tourists in brothels without drugs to numb the human merchandise and without guns to enforce the profiteers’ dominance over the merchandise.

Remember the media brouhaha (understandable) over Catholic priests (all males) who were caught for buggering little boys?  These crimes,  heinous, yet also a social barometer in sounding a bigger public outcry than you have ever heard raised against the systematic rapes of girls who have not just one but two natural orifices below the belt in which to be abused by men.  Of course there are a relatively few women who for whatever reasons (socialization, trauma, derangement) act out in predatory violence against others. But in a global profit-based economy,  to understand the big-picture “why” of trafficking requires looking to the source of the demand that leads to criminals trafficking, drugging and coercing girls who grow into pimp-controlled women  as a cheap source of supply.

To focus on meaningful global political solutions it helps to notice who is doing the most of what to whom.