World Trade Center (2006)

Directed By: Oliver Stone

Written By: Andrea Berloff

Starring: Maria Bello, Michael Peña, Nicolas Cage, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jay Hernandez, Michael Shannon, Stephen Dorff

World Trade Center is an impossible movie to critique, simply because the only real question you can ask is if the director did justice to the events that happened on September 11, 2001. I can honestly say that director Oliver Stone succeeded in his mission. But I guess the most surreal thing for me personally was not just the movie but also the fact that I was watching this movie at the foot of the World Trade Center site, at the theatres in Battery Park. It’s like being a part of something you saw on television, and you know it changed everything but it’s suddenly right there in front of you, and it’s real.

The fact that I’m here in New York and that I’m watching this 50 feet from were it happened is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s like watching Schindler’s List, then walking out of the theater and finding yourself in front of one of the concentration camps featured in the movie. It’s tough, but you know what? It’s an experience that makes life real.

Oliver Stone wanted to focus on the uplifting stories that came from such a hate filled event. Two men, John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) show us how life is worth living, that even at those most desperate final minutes it’s the beautiful things that we hold dear that keep us alive. This is more that just another survival story, this is the story of the event that changed history and how two people were saved by hope and faith. Based on true events, World Trade Center does a good job avoiding everything that we already know about that day; instead it shows us a side which up to now was only known to those men and women that risked their lives to save many. Part of the inspiration for making this movie was the story behind this amazing man, Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), the ex marine that drove from miles away to try to help in the recovery after the towers collapsed. Answering a call from God, he managed to walk into the disaster area and find the two police officers from under the rubble. Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) and Allison Jimeno (Maggie Gyllenhaal) are the wives of our two brave police officers. Their outstanding performances give life to the other unfortunate victims of 9-11—the families. If you feel that it’s to soon to be making movies about the events of that day then maybe you should see this film because this is the movie that will change your mind. The real message shining thru the horror and destruction is that we are all connected, and each person in this world has a purpose and a reason. After taking on such a controversial subject I think that Oliver Stone should be proud to say that he gave us all a reason to carry on.

Juan Marcos Percy – Importer/Exporter

Little Miss Sunshine

As someone who’s spent most of her life firmly planted on the East Coast, the road trip movie holds a special place in my heart. Lacking a car, I go to the video store, taking my pick from a wide range of classics – the feminists (Thelma and Louise on their mad dash to the border), the druggies (Johnny Depp doing shrooms in the back of his Cadillac) and the just plain gross (Tom Green and, well, the mouse).

And then there’s Little Miss Sunshine – a road trip movie that carries its soul like a trusted map in the glove compartment; a movie that picks up hitchhikers, encouraging us all to squeeze and make room in the back. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the story follows the Hoover family as they make their way to Redondo Beach for the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, where Olive, the youngest member, has just won a chance to compete. As always, catastrophe ensues—backseat squabbles, car trouble, the occasional morbidity (the script goes through a series of increasingly implausible events)—but the real obstacles have nothing to do with brake fluid; it’s the personal failings that are both heartbreaking and hysterical. As a portrait of failure, the cast is perfectly matched – Greg Kinnear as the hyper-motivated dad whose last deal has just fallen through, Steve Carell as the suicidal, Proust-reading uncle and Toni Collette as the haggard wife, caring for everyone and no one at the same time. The tone is summed up perfectly in the opening sequence where Toni Collette enters a hospital room, puts her arms around her freshly bandaged brother and says, “I’m so glad you’re still here.” To which Steve Carell replies, “That makes one of us.”

It’s to their credit that the directors don’t soften the blows; it makes the script more believable, and makes the characters seem real. Nor does the physical humor detract from the basic message of the movie (though it’s hard not to love a film where Alan Arkin snorts heroin out of a fanny pack). But Dayton and Faris have also put their finger on an essential point: that strange line between love and cruelty—a line around which most “family-oriented” films draw a wide berth—which is the essence of family, and which ultimately brings the Hoovers back together.

At its heart, Little Miss Sunshine is a study in contradictions—a movie where the slapstick jokes pack a punch, where you’ll grip your sides laughing, then say, “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.” A movie whose central metaphor—a little girl pushing her glasses up her nose and lifting her arms to thunderous applause—says as much about the limits of our dreams as it does about the significance of dreaming them. It’s a movie you should see, and then maybe see again, not because it’s particularly relevant or important, but because it makes you think about what really is.

Katie Gradowski - Temp Jockey

Lady in the Water

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Starring Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Freddy Rodriguez

Were you ever read to as a child? Do you remember what it felt like? The soothing sound of your parent’s voice, the anticipation of turning the page, the calm. Lady in the Water was like that for me. Maybe that’s kind of redundant seeing as it was an adaptation of a story M. Night Shyamalan used to tell his children, but it’s true.

Essentially, it’s a simple story. An ordinary man (Paul Giamatti) stumbles upon an extraordinary girl (Bryce Dallas Howard) and he must help her try and get home. He is helped out along the way by a series of characters that embody all that is different and essentially great about mankind.

Shyamalan has a knack for presenting unimaginable depths of thought in these really basic ways. He is a master of allowing his audience to really use their imagination. It’s like being on a journey where Shyamalan steers and our mind’s eye shows him where we want him to take us. I don’t think many people realize how amazing, nor rare, that is.

That being said, Lady in the Water is definitely not a movie for everyone. You have to leave all of your preconceptions behind and forget that you are an adult. Don’t feel like you should know better and just let go; this movie will tell you what it wants to say if you let it and not vice versa. It left me with that feeling that something inside me had been stirred up, in a good way. But maybe I’m simple. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for good, old-fashioned storytelling. Call it the child in me and I won’t be insulted. I’ll just be glad for the opportunity to remember that it’s still in there, waiting for me when I need it, reminding me that a little bit of imagination can really go a long way.

Gilliane Lataillade - Resident Advocate

Superman Returns

Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, Parker Posey

Directed by Bryan Singer

I have a dilemma. I must figure out how to talk about a movie that gave me very little to work with. Normally, I am very good about describing how I feel. Whether I love it or it, it matters not. I am all about the commentary, yet Superman Returns left me oddly silent and ever since I saw it, I’ve been trying to figure out why.

First of all, I love movies. Secondly, I love superheroes. Thirdly, I love Bryan Singer. But even he could do nothing for me.

Superman Returns puts us in a world in which Superman (Brandon Routh) has left for a long time and then all of a sudden, well, returns. (Is it because he missed his farm? His old life? Earth? What?) The only thought I had from watching the flashback sequences of Superman jumping around his farm was, ‘Hmmm, this reminds me of Spiderman meets "Smallville."’

Onto Metropolis, a very New York-like city, where Superman returns to his old job as his alter ego Clark Kent and for some reason, people are not that surprised to see him, especially not his former love, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth). He finds out Lois is married and has a child and tries to be emotional about it but somehow he comes up short.

Enter Lex Luthor played by an oddly disappointing Kevin Spacey. It may not be completely his fault, though. Much like me, I don’t think they gave him much to work with either, except for a there’s-no-way-in-hell-I-would-even-remotely-believe-that storyline.

Even the special effects didn’t leave me too impressed. Superman saving an airplane from crashing; Superman saving a woman from a runaway car; Superman saving the planet. Eh...whatever.

The best word I can use to describe this film is vacuous. The characters, the storyline, the special effects, it all left me so emotionless. I actually remember a moment in the theatre when I realized I really didn’t care what was going to happen next. I sound like a complete cynic and I can’t help it. I had the opportunity to watch both Superman and Superman II in the weeks after seeing Superman Returns and it made me appreciate them all the more. The chemistry between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder was palpable and heartbreaking whereas Routh and Bosworth had the emotional range of a brick wall. But they are not the only ones to blame. Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor—smart, funny and just a natural scene-stealer; Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor—not so much.

I’ve surprised myself. For someone who thought it would be hard to figure out what to talk about it turns out I really had a lot to say. If you are a true Superman fan, you probably loved this movie. The rest of us, well, I guess we’re still waiting for him to return.

Gilliane Lataillade - Resident Advocate

SCOOP

Fear not, discerning moviegoers! For although your summer seems filled with despair: The disappointing sequels, the far too long “blockbusters,” the mindless excrement exploding from Cineplex to Cineplex as far as the eye can see, I offer you hope. And I call him Woody Allen.

The most refreshing film I’ve seen all summer (all year, even) is a 90-minute treat of madcap mayhem brought to you by a bona-fide film icon. The film is a comedy, but not the sort of comedy we’ve all grown used to. Not the sort of heh-that’s-funny-chuckle kind, but the sort we haven’t seen in years. Or if not years, perhaps since Thank You For Smoking tickled our funny bones. SCOOP is laugh out loud hysterical. I can’t remember the last time that I’ve truly enjoyed being in a theatre surrounded by people who are laughing so hard that we miss the next line. Or two. Paragraphs, even, lost to the sound of an audience having a great time. (Is this why most movies aren’t as funny as they pretend to be? So that we don’t miss lines of dialogue?)

If you need to know more than that, there is this. Scarlett Johansson plays against type and it works. Okay, perhaps she’s playing Woody Allen. It’s all right, it’s funny. Woody Allen plays… Woody Allen. What did you expect? But how long has it been since we’ve seen him onscreen anyway? And who else can make us laugh simply by performing card tricks for the British upper crust and driving in very tiny cars? Hugh Jackman is as suave and sexy as he’s meant to be. Ian McShane? Also very sexy, but we won’t get into that here. This is a review, not a revue and as such there are things you need to know.

You need to know that Johansson’s journalism student and Allen’s stage magician are tipped off by McShane’s reporter that Jackman’s wealthy businessman may or may not be a murderer. You need to know that there are moments of surrealism (reminiscent of Allen’s earlier work, with a special nod to Love & Death) during which you ought not to drink soda for the risk of choking and/or it violently exploding from your nose when you laugh. You also need to know where it’s playing and when, because you need to go see Scoop. Now. And if you let me know in time, I’ll meet up with you to see it, because this is the one movie I’ve seen all summer that’s actually worthy of another eleven bucks.

Rick Sayre - Pop-Culture Junkie

One-Sentence Movie Reviews...

Strangers with Candy

“If you’re a fan of the TV show, you’ll like the film as it is essentially one long, extended episode.” – LP

Road to Guantanamo

“If Michael Winterbottom manages to get his message across, you won’t know what to do with yourself or the anger that rises and falls with every new injustice—truly this year’s must-see film.” – LP

Conversations with Other Women

Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter are wonderful in this unique romantic comedy gem. The snappy dialogue and inspired half-screen shots make this film standout, but the real gem is their scorching on-screen chemistry.” - LP

DVD'S:

Basic Instinct 2 (a.k.a. Basicer Instinct)

Night Interior: Chris, Jeanne and Richard take their seats on the couch. Given that neither Chris nor Jeanne have seen the first Basic Instinct Richard volunteers to bring them up to speed.

Richard: So here’s the deal with Basic Instinct, alright? There are these murders and so Michael Douglas is like, “I’m a cop and you’re gonna see me naked.” And this guy’s murdered with an ice pick.

Jeanne: (gasps)

Richard: …and one of the suspects is Sharon Stone because she had sex with him but then they found out that Sharon Sex…

Chris, Jeanne and Richard all start laughing at the all too appropriate Freudian slip.

Richard: Sharon Stone had sex with everybody…man, woman, animal. While they were questioning her she opened her legs…

Jeanne: …and suddenly they thought, “That woman can’t be guilty.” Or did they see the hidden ice pick inside?

Richard: They got all retarded and it wasn’t until later that you find out that she’s the murderer.

Jeanne: (gasps) She’s the murderer?!

Richard: She’s the murderer.

Jeanne: Damn. I never would have guessed it.

Richard: Wait. Was she the murderer? I think she was.

Jeanne: Did you see this movie, or are you just making this up?

Richard: Dude, I saw that movie like more than 10 years ago.

Chris: I haven’t seen the movie and I’m sure she’s the murderer.

Richard: I hope there’s a refresher course at the beginning of the movie. We should totally turn off the lights ‘cause this is going to be some scary shit. It’s going to be like Hide and Seek…In My Vagina!

Jeanne gets up to turn off the lights.

Chris: Hide and Seek in your Vagina? Is that what you just said?

Richard: Not my vagina, Sharon Stone’s. I don’t have a vagina.

Richard: I’m going to do the rest of this review in sign language.

Jeanne: You don’t know sign language.

Richard does the sign for “yes” which looks sort of like he’s doing a shadow puppet of a brontosaurus. Chris starts laughing because Richard just agreed to not knowing sign language in sign language.

Richard: That was “yes” in sign language.

Jeanne: Why wouldn’t you just nod your head?

Richard: Maybe there are some people who can’t talk because they have no heads, they only have arms and hands and that’s why they have to do that.

Basic Instinct 2 has begun in the background. It begins with a very expensive looking car speeding through a tunnel. Sharon Stone is at the wheel and a young, attractive black man is sort of in and out of consciousness beside her. Everything is very shiny: the car, the tunnel, Sharon Stone’s freshly Botoxed face.

Jeanne: There’s a fast car.

Richard: (In response to the fast car reference) Is it Tracy Chapman driving the fast car?

Jeanne: Everything’s very shiny.

Richard: (As the man in the passenger seat comes into view) Oh my god! That could be Tracy Chapman.

Jeanne: If she shaved her dreads.

Chris: That’s a cool car.

Richard: We just basically called Tracy Chapman mannish. We can’t put that in the review. Our Editor would kill us. (EDITOR’S NOTE: When you least expect it, the three of you will die.)

The cool cars engine is revving as Sharon Stone speeds faster and faster with the young guy next to her. He wakes up, sort of, and asks where he is. She starts telling him that he’s in a car with her.

Jeanne: Is that her son?

Sharon Stone keeps talking about something in her weird husky voice. She seems to be trying to explain to this poor young man, who she obviously drugged and kidnapped and is now trying to convince that she’s hot enough to have sex, that she’s the fairest of them all.

Richard: Who gave this movie the go ahead?

Jeanne: To watch tonight?

Chris: I believe you did!

Richard: No, I mean who in the world decided that there needed to be a sequel to this movie?

Jeanne: Sharon Stone’s vagina. It’s the executive producer.

Sharon Stone reaches over to the man next to her and grabs his hand.

Richard: Oh my god, she’s giving him a hand job.

She takes his hand and licks his finger…

Jeanne: A finger job?

…and proceeds to stick it between her legs.

Richard: OH!

Jeanne: OH! I don’t need to see this.

Richard: Nobody does.

Chris: Well, you wanted to, Richard.

Jeanne: Is it dusty?

Richard and Chris laugh.

Richard: (to Chris) Do you see why this is going to be gold?

Sharon Stone moans and drives recklessly through the streets of, what I think is, London. There’s not a single other car anywhere on the road so no one gets in the way of her total automotive orgasm.

Chris: There are no other cars. It’s 28 Days Later!

Sharon Stone drives the shiny car through an entirely glass coffee shop (she’s damn lucky there wasn’t a concrete wall in there or it would have taken the jaws-of-life to remove that finger from her vagina), over an embankment and into the river.

Richard: I hope it was good for you, Sharon.

The car slowly fills with water as it sinks toward the bottom of the river. Sharon Stone unbuckles and tries to wake up the guy in the passenger seat. Sharon Stone fumbles with his seat belt but it’s jammed. He finally opens his eyes to look at her but he seems pretty calm with the whole situation and just sort of stares at her. Maybe he’s only really seeing her clearly for the first time all night and, in doing so, realizes that the choice between a watery grave and Sharon Stone’s vagina is an easy one. He chooses the watery grave. She opens the car window and swims out. There’s a prolonged scene of Sharon Stone floating in the water staring down toward the car before she finally breaks the surface and stares weirdly toward the camera.

In the next scene Sharon Stone is being interviewed by the police about the death of the guy in the passenger seat. It turns out he’s a famous football (occer if you’re American but this is taking place in England so we’re going to stay hip to the lingo) player.

Sharon Stone is still speaking in her weird, husky voice and trying to make a car description sound as erotic as possible when Professor Lupin walks in. He’s apparently the lead investigator on this and doesn’t trust Sharon Stone from the start. Could it be that werewolves and nymphomaniacs are mortal enemies?

Richard: It’s Professor Lupin!

Chris: Oh no. Why are you in this movie?

Jeanne: To have sex with Sharon Stone.

Chris: Just like everyone else in the movie.

Jeanne: That’s why she’s the only female character.

Chris: No, I think she has sex with women, too.

Professor Lupin confronts Sharon Stone with syringes containing the residue of drugs and tranquilizers. He tells her that they’re way more than party drugs. In fact, the drugs in those syringes were in the body of the football player which means that they would have paralyzed his lungs so, in fact, he didn’t drown because he had already stopped breathing before they hit the water. What’s up, Sharon Stone?!?! He goes on to say that he has a witness, named Dickie Pap (possibly the most repulsive name for a person ever), who says he sold Ms. Stone those very drugs just a week ago! Sharon Stone retorts, “Your mom!” and calmly shoots him down with claims that he’s totally lying and we’re kind of on her side with this one ‘cause, come on, “Dickie Paps?” How fake is that name?

Professor Lupin: You don’t’ seem too upset by what’s happened.

Sharon Stone: (In her sultry monotone) Of course I am. I’m traumatized.

Richard: (As Sharon Stone) I can’t cry because of the Botox.

Sharon Stone meets the court appointed psychologist who will have to testify as to whether or not she’s fucking crazy. Richard points out that it’s the guy from “State of Play.” Sharon Stone makes lots of very suggestive comments like, “So this is where we’re gonna do it?” This movie is not about subtlety.

Richard: Oh, that was suggestive dialogue. Did you catch that?

Chris: I hate you for making us watch this.

Richard: (Laughs menacingly) You’re going to love me after an hour of this.

Jeanne: After an hour of her fucking every single guy?

Sharon Stone and the shrink start talking. Sharon Stone turns out to be a well-known writer. This may have been addressed in the first movie but none of us remember the first movie so it’s new to us. She begins to analyze the shrink like she’s the reincarnated, slutty spirit of Sherlock Holmes. (So he’s fictional! That doesn’t mean he can’t be reincarnated as Sharon Stone. Have you ever met Sharon Stone? Maybe she’s fictional, too.)

Richard: I bet she thought she was gonna get an Oscar!

Jeanne: Has she ever been nominated for an Oscar?

Richard: Noooo! Because we live in our reality and not Sharon Stone’s vagina’s reality.

The shrink goes on trial to testify that Sharon Stone is a narcissistic risk addict.

Jeanne: Would the bigger risk be showing her twenty-year older vagina to the world?

Richard: (Already laughing as he says it) Does Botox work for everything?

Jeanne: (mildly disgusted) Ohhhh! Richard! And it doesn’t work that well cause her face still has lot of wrinkles.

A slightly effeminate man in a big green scarf is introduced. Richard and Jeanne try and figure out if he’s gay or just European. Richard decides gay once he speaks. He confronts the shrink and there appears to be some bad blood between them. Jeanne decides gay, but Sharon Stone will turn him straight. The effeminate man turns out to be a reporter who is now dating the shrink’s ex-wife. Ouch. But I guess that means he’s not gay. He starts talking about an old patient of the shrink’s who went crazy and beat his pregnant girlfriend to death with a brick while in the shrink’s care. Apparently, the shrink’s ex-wife told her new reporter/boyfriend the story. That bitch. The shrink rebuffs that it was seven years ago and as time heals all fuck-ups it should be well out of mind. The shrink is very rule-bound and still refuses to discuss what was talked about in his sessions with that patient.

Richard: He killed the guy with the brick and he blamed it on his crazy patient. I’m calling it!

The shrink meets up with his ex-wife and confronts her for ratting him out to the new beau. He claims that the patient never mentioned any plans to kill his pregnant girlfriend and she should be sure to mention that in her nightly pillow talk to the reporter.

Richard: (Still trying to call the ending) The girlfriend was pregnant with HIS baby!

Jeanne: The girlfriend was pregnant with the clone of Sharon Stone.

Charlotte Rampling plays the shrink’s friend, who’s also a shrink. Despite the shrink’s obsession with patient confidentiality he tells her everything that Sharon Stone had said to him when they were talking. Hypocrite. During his conversation with Charlotte Rampling, the shrink gets a call from Professor Lupin. He explains that Sharon Stone has been released because the guy who said he sold her the drugs (holy shit, I guess there really is a Dickie Pap!) had perjured himself in a previous case.

Professor Lupin: Now that she’s back on the streets she’ll do it again but next time I’m going to fucking nail the bitch.

Jeanne: Everybody’s gonna nail the bitch. That’s the point of the movie. It should be “starring Sharon Stone’s Vagina.” Sharon Stone can just be a guest extra.

A new scene opens with the shrink in a lecture hall. We pan past a painting of Sigmund Freud and hear a thick Austrian accent speaking about—really, who cares? The lecturer is an older man who sort of looks like he’s wearing a raccoon as hair. That's all we need to know.

Richard: Is this a flashback scene with Sigmund Freud?

Chris: Is that Joe Ezsterhaus?

Jeanne: Did something die on his head?

Richard: Can you guess what it was? It was Sharon Stone’s vagina!

A new scene starts and the shrink is at a coffee house.

Richard: Oh my god! She’s going to show up there. She’ll be like, “My vagina and I were out for a cup of coffee and we saw you…”

Chris: I swear to god, stop saying vagina!

Instead the redheaded barista comes over and hits on him.

Richard: (Worrying that the shrink who he really liked in “State of Play” will turn out to be a villain) I don’t want him to be bad.

Chris: He’s not! This movie is not three-dimensional. This movie is paper thin, Richard. Sharon Stone is a crazy whore and she’s gonna…

The shrink shows up at his offices the next day only to find Sharon Stone there waiting for him. Although I imagine it’s totally unethical in the world of mental healthcare, she wants the shrink, who testified that she was a narcissistic risk addict in her hearing, to be her personal shrink. But since she’s hot he totally agrees. Men are so easy.

Jeanne and Richard rattle off a few more vagina jokes. For the sake of taste they will not be repeated here. Chris, once again, begs for there to be a cease fire on the vagina jokes. Richard makes a hand puppet and starts talking in a high-pitched voice.

Richard’s hand puppet: Why don’t you like me, Chris?

Jeanne: (laughing) Is that supposed to be a vagina?

Chris: I don’t even…

Jeanne: (still laughing) You’re creeping me out, Richard.

Richard: (laughing) I had to stop because I was creeping myself out.

Sharon Stone confesses to the shrink that weeks prior to the accident she’d been having a fantasy about a woman driving a car while a man was touching her and then the woman drives off of the road and the man is killed. She reveals that she feels as though she may have made it all happen.

Jeanne: Well, when you drugged him and drove off of the bridge, yeah… What is she wearing? It’s like a unitard. Maybe she’s gonna do some jazzercise.

Richard: Basic Instinct 2 as directed by Bob Fosse.

In their next session Sharon Stone catches the shrink off guard by telling him that a reporter told her about a controversial case that he was involved in. It’s the case where his patient beat his pregnant girlfriend to death with a brick. She’s playing with something in her hands. Chris first thinks that it’s a vibrator. Then Jeanne suggests that it might be a Pez dispenser. We all finally realize it’s a lighter in the shape of Big Ben. Sharon Stone and the shrink discuss the boundaries of patient confidentiality. Apparently, as long as what you’re confessing to happened in the past the shrink can’t rat you out. The only problem is if you tell him about something you’re planning to do in the future. This seems weird to us all.

The shrink, in a move that proves that all shrink’s are actually fucking crazy, buys all of Sharon Stone’s books and starts reading them. The steamy parts are read to us in voiceover.

In Sharon Stone’s next psych session she explains that death is way more exciting than sex and that although she only vaguely remembers some of the many men that she sleeps with, the memory of watching one of them die would stay with her more vividly. The shrink asks Sharon Stone if she’s ever watched someone die before.

Jeanne: Yeah. That guy that she’s accused of killing.

She says, “No.”

Chris: This is really…

Jeanne: Boring? I almost want them to start having sex. I’m just really bored.

Richard: How did all of these actors get involved in this movie?

Jeanne: Sharon Stone’s vagina can also hypnotize people. When she spreads her legs it’s like that whirling black and white swirl thing. They can’t look away.

Richard: Oh my god. We’re going to see that later.

Jeanne: It’s going to tell us to buy Pepsi.

At a party later that evening the shrink is talking with Charlotte Rampling but when Charlotte sneaks away to light a cigarette she runs right into Sharon Stone. She chats with her in a friendly way because she’s totally unaware that it’s the crazy Sharon Stone. When the shrink looks over and sees the two of them talking he panics and runs to rescue Charlotte Rampling.

Chris: (referring to the shrink) He’s like, “Holy crap, Sharon Stone’s talking to my mom.”

Richard: (shocked and offended on behalf of Charlotte Rampling) Mom?!?!

The shrink interrupts the two women and introduces them. Charlotte Rampling’s face goes very sour when she finds out that Sharon Stone is the crazy killer that the shrink’s been telling her about. At the same moment the weird lecturer with the dead raccoon hair comes over and appears to be a friend of Sharon Stone’s. She gets around.

Jeanne: Yikes. Is she going to have sex with him?

Richard: Oh my god. If they have that scene in the movie I will cut out my eyes.

Chris: (about Sharon Stone) She looks dead. Her lips are like purple. She looks like a corpse that’s still waddling around.

Jeanne: Maybe there’s going to be a twist and she really drowned at the beginning but he can see ghosts and then at the end he’s going to tell her that he sees dead people.

Richard: He sees dead people?

Jeanne: She’s really dead. She died at the beginning. Like The Sixth Sense. That’s what I’m trying to get at here.

Another scene in the shrink’s office. Sharon Stone is trying to convince the shrink to see her outside of the office but he says that it’s against the rules. She mentions that some people meet their shrinks for things like tennis. Jeanne thinks that she only said tennis to get the idea of balls into his head.

Jeanne: Do you think she’s actually just playing herself?

Richard: No, I think she’s playing her vagina.

Chris: Stop it!

The shrink attends a party that night and picks up a young blonde woman to take home.

Jeanne: Now he’s going to have sex with her while picturing Sharon Stone’s vagina over her face.

Chris: This whole review is just going to be Sharon Stone’s Vagina, Sharon Stone’s Vagina, Sharon Stone’s Vagina…

Jeanne: There’s nothing else to talk about. I have nothing else to say about this movie.

And the shrink does take home the blonde woman and have sex with her while staring at Sharon Stone’s picture on the back of her book and recreating an angry sex scene from the book. In the middle of sex the phone rings and on the answering machine his ex-wife’s voice comes on crying. He runs to pick it up and learns that something terrible has happened.

When the shrink reaches her he finds that the reporter has been murdered—he’s naked in bed with a belt tied around his neck suggesting some sort of autoerotic asphyxiation. In a keen observation, Chris raises the question, why did she call him and not the police? As the shrink examines the scene (and ruins any potential evidence for the police) he steps onto a Big Ben shaped lighter on the floor and crushes it. This is, in itself, a bad move, but to incriminate himself even more he then picks it up to look at it. Way to put your fingerprints onto everything. As expected, when the police arrive they key in on the two most suspicious things: why would she call him before the police and why are his fingerprints all over the lighter? Hasn’t this guy watched “Law and Order?” “CSI?” Doesn’t he know that you don’t mess with the crime scene?

The next day Sharon Stone has another session with the shrink. She confesses to being the dead reporter’s other girlfriend. She gets around. And, as was the case in the first Basic Instinct, since she was sleeping with the dead guy Professor Lupin thinks that she must have killed him. Although, according to Richard, she did kill the guys that she slept with in the first Basic Instinct.

Richard: London now has an awful case of crabs which can be traced back to Sharon Stone.

The shrink pointedly asks Sharon Stone if she murdered the reporter. She asks him if he would believe her if she said “no” and he replies that “it depends.” She’s getting angrier and snaps at him, “On what?”

Jeanne: On whether I find pieces of him hidden in your vagina.

Richard: (laughing) That was awesome!

Chris glares at Jeanne for having made yet another vagina joke.

Jeanne: I’m sorry. I can’t stop. It’s like Tourettes.

After the tension between Sharon Stone and the shrink eases a little she begins to ask him if he fantasizes about her and if he’d be turned on if she said she fantasizes about him. It all turns into a very kinky monologue from Sharon Stone that concludes when she storms out of the shrink’s office and tells him that she’s through with therapy.

The next scene opens with Professor Lupin and the shrink talking. Professor Lupin is trying to convince the shrink that it’s his moral obligation to spill whatever Sharon Stone has told him during their sessions because he’s sure that she must have killed the reporter as well as that football player and he should speak up to prevent a third death. The shrink is holding steadfast to his rule of not telling anyone, other than Charlotte Rampling, what’s said in his sessions. Professor Lupin then turns everything around on the shrink by asking him if he knew about an article that the reporter was writing about him and his crazy patient who killed his pregnant girlfriend. At this point I’m inclined to think that this case must be important in the end ‘cause it’s like the 80^th time they’ve brought it up. Professor Lupin demands to know where the shrink was the night before around the time of the murder. The shrink explains that he was mostly having sex with someone. Professor Lupin requests her name. He’s probably going to ask her out because now he assumes that she must be easy.

There’s a recurring shot of a building throughout the movie. The building looks mostly like a giant Faberge Egg and it’s where the shrink’s office is supposed to be. Since the beginning of the movie we’ve been in doubt as to whether this is a real building or a waste of movie budget money to CGI an egg-like building.

Richard: Is that a real building?

Chris: I don’t know.

Jeanne: It has to be. They didn’t have the kind of budget to fake a whole building. It was all spent on making Sharon Stone’s vagina not look forty-five.

Richard: There’s a lot of talk about her vagina…

Jeanne: …and not a lot of seeing it.

Richard: What we don’t know is that this movie is actually about Sharon Stone’s penis.

The shrink goes home and sits alone reading more of Sharon Stone’s books.

Chris: Dude, you’re so boring.

Jeanne: This whole movie is boring.

Chris: I blame Richard.

A new scene and Charlotte Rampling and the shrink are visiting the guy with the dead raccoon for hair.

Jeanne: (referring to the dead raccoon head guy) Why can’t someone kill him already?

Sharon Stone randomly shows up at the weird guy’s office as well. He then says to Charlotte Rampling and Sharon Stone, “Why don’t you girls go outside” so the shrink and him can talk. Richard is offended that he would refer to Charlotte Rampling as a “girl.” The raccoon headed man asks the shrink if he thinks that he’s crazy. We all reply “yes” but he shrink says “no” for some weird reason. Maybe he hasn’t noticed the animal that died on his head. The raccoon headed man explains that he would be crazy to recommend the shrink for the professor’s chair because of George Cheslop. This is the name of that patient who beat his pregnant girlfriend to death with a brick while under the shrink’s care. Again, I would like to point out that I believe this must be important due to this, now, 81^st mention of it. Richard would like to point out that the raccoon headed man has a droopy face. It’s very true. As he leans to the side it’s as though the Jello just below the surface of his skin slides with it and his whole face oozes in that general direction. If it helps, imagine Gumby on a really, really hot day.

It’s now night and the shrink has spotted Sharon Stone on the street. He begins to follow her through the streets of SoHo past prostitutes and more prostitutes. She stops to talk to a young man standing in front of a building. The shrink hangs back and watches. The man suddenly grabs Sharon Stone and pulls her into the building. Worrying for her safety, the shrink runs after her. You’d think the guy who diagnosed her as a risk-addict would know better than to fall for this. The shrink runs through the building searching for her and stumbles upon a room with a young Asian woman dressed like a dominatrix whipping a very fat man on a bed. Even at this point he hasn’t realized that Sharon Stone has only come here so that she can not only have sex with the main actors but so that she can also get in some time with a few extras as well. He continues up to the roof where he hears screaming/moaning sounds. He walks over to a skylight and peers down on a large orgy. In the mass of people he sees Sharon Stone underneath, obviously, not in need of rescuing. She makes some very unattractive faces as she has sex to the loving melody of what we think is Rammstein.

The shrink tells the story to Charlotte Rampling who has no sympathy for his sick fetish. She says he should cut off contact with Sharon Stone immediately and if she calls back he should give her Charlotte Rampling’s number because she’ll relate differently to a woman. We all giggle at this because we have the minds of 12 year olds.

Chris: She sure will.

Jeanne: (whispers) Vagina to vagina.

Richard: (laughing) Oh my god, that’s so disgusting! I was gonna say it but I was like ‘That’s too disgusting to even say.’

We all question our choice of DVD review this month.

Jeanne: It’s mostly Sharon Stone talking. Who wants to watch that?

Professor Lupin tells the shrink that his ex-wife has been saying that he lied during the trial of the patient who murdered his girlfriend. The shrink confronts the ex-wife at a bar and she says that he kept going on about how he knew what was going to happen. He explains to her that he didn’t know but he felt that something would happen and those are totally different. She then just goes into hysterics about how she’s a suspect in the reporter/boyfriend’s murder and the cops keep saying she’s not cooperating ‘cause she doesn’t know where his notes are for the article he was working on. The argument gets more heated and she runs from him.

Chris: Jeanne’s falling asleep.

Richard: Are you kidding me?

Jeanne: I’m bored.

Chris: That’s how terrible this movie is. Jeanne’s falling asleep.

In all fairness, it should be noted that Jeanne has managed to fall asleep during episodes of her favorite television shows and that the mere fact that she was falling asleep does not necessarily reflect the worthiness of a film. However, in this case it may be directly connected.

Some people in the bar try to keep the shrink from going after her but he punches his way through.

Chris: He’s gonna walk in on them having sex.

Jeanne: (sleepily) He’s gonna join in. Wait, who’s having sex?

Simultaneously:

Jeanne: Sharon Stone and anybody.
Chris: His ex-wife and Sharon Stone.

He ends up in the ladies room (a ridiculously nice ladies room for a bar/club) and finds her with her throat slit in one of the stalls.

Richard: Oh! She’s not having sex with your ex-wife. She murdered your ex-wife.

Jeanne: You show up at pretty incriminating moments.

Jeanne: (As he drags her from the floor in the stall to the floor in the middle of the bathroom) Why don’t you put pressure on the wound?

The shrink drags her body out of the stall and shouts to two women who’ve just entered to go and call an ambulance.

Jeanne: Yeah, you just fought with her in public. It’s gonna look real bad.

Richard: (As the shrink pleads with his ex to stay with him) She’s not gonna stay with you; she’s dead.

Chris: And she divorced your ass!

Richard: Double strike.

Jeanne: And she, in the whole six degrees of separation thing, was way closer to having sex with Sharon Stone ‘cause she had sex with that guy who had sex with Sharon Stone. He’s a whole degree further away.

Professor Lupin confronts the shrink, claiming that it looks like he murdered his ex-wife to keep her from bringing to light the things she read in the dead reporter’s notes about his patient with the dead girlfriend.

At this point in the movie, Jeanne is completely asleep. Chris and Richard are so in awe of it’s badness that they discover there are really no words left to say. Oh, except for these:

A voiceover quoting from Stone’s character’s book is read.

Chris: She’s a bad writer. Almost as bad as the person who wrote this movie.

Sharon goes full monty at her hot tub. Luckily, moments later, the shrink tries to drown her. Sadly, it does not work.

Jeanne: (stirring from sleep) Uhnn.

Richard: Jeanne, you missed it.

Jeanne: (sleepily) What happened?

Chris: Nothing.

Jeanne: Okay, babe.

Richard: We got to see it.

Jeanne says something totally unintelligible in her sleepy language. It may have been “I want a Pepsi.”

Sharon Stone spends what’s left of the movie making it look very convincingly like the shrink is the murderer but, much like the first movie, Sharon Stone is still the actual killer. We think. At this point, one person down, we are wondering if perhaps Ashley Judd’s Twisted would have been a better bad film to review. The movie ends with the shrink being drugged and hospitalized in a mental institution. Which is probably a pretty typical outcome for anyone associated with this film.

Richard: I thought this was going to be like the best bad thing ever. Never let me do this again.

Chris: I won’t.

Richard: Ever.

Chris: Ever again.

Pictures and Frames would like to note that any references to Sharon Stone and/or her vagina were made regarding her character, Catherine Tremell. We loved her work in Irreconcilable Differences and we wish Sharon Stone and her vagina all the best of luck in their future endeavors. Enjoy Pepsi.

PS: I think I’d still rather watch Basic Instinct 2 than Crash. –Richard.

 A Bronx Tale (1993)

Directed By: Robert De Niro

Written By: Chazz Palminteri

Starring: Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri, Lillo Bracato, Francis Capra, Taral Hicks, Katherine Narducci, Clem Caserta

Ever since I can remember, gangster movies have been one of the pillars in male society. For some strange reason I have never shared this interest for all things Italian. The Godfather stands to be the top or one of the top manliest movies out there, and yet, in my book, it’s mentioned very far, far, far down the list. Yeah, the characters have their appeal but there’s only so much that you can talk about in a story about murder—Italian style.

On the whole this genre has always caused me to reluctantly explore any new titles marketed as gangster flicks. With the exception of a few surprising movies (Goodfellas, Once Upon a Time in America), I cant say that that I find the appeal. But as the gods of cinema rule over our hearts, and with Robert De Niro in the director’s seat, A Bronx Tale has all of the potential of becoming another one on a very short list of gangster movies that I recommend.

This is a Bronx story, one that could happen to any of us—growing up in a community where crime is all around and deciding between the life your father wants you to live and the life the streets will give you. Written by Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale is a story of what can happen when both the good and the bad teach us to be better human beings, in the midst of racism and social change we are all forced to see a reality that can only be altered with love and tolerance. Both Lorenzo (Robert De Niro) and Sunni (Chazz Palminteri) become fathers to young Calogero (Lillo Brancato), each offering a life lesson, one in a bus and the other in a bar. As Calogero grows up (Francis Capra) he sees the causes and effects of the gangster life. After falling in love with a black girl, he is also forced to face his own prejudices. The story is filled with moral lessons brought to life by a great script and superb acting, and a surprise cameo by everybody’s favorite gangster Joe Pesci.

Juan Marcos Percy – Importer/Exporter

BOOKS:

The Good Life by Jay McInerney

“For some reason, I couldn’t make myself leave, feeling like it should’ve been me in there, that I’d never done anything in my life to justify my surviving. And maybe this was the first time in my life I had a chance to do something important. So I went back to the pile and joined a line, and pretty soon a body was found twenty feet away from me. Work stopped as we passed up a body bag and it started to come back. When it got to me, I grabbed it and the zipper broke open and I was looking at a face burned beyond recognition. It was black. I’m not sure how I knew it was a woman, but I was sure that it was. And I started shaking. A fireman from Long Island who was behind me in the line kind of moved up to comfort me, try to get me to let go. Because I was holding on to it. For some reason, I couldn’t let go. Finally, I passed the bag on, and ten minutes later I found myself standing in a puddle of blood…

After the fumes from the broken gas lines knocked me out, I finally staggered out. I didn’t know which way I was going. I felt dizzy and nauseated. I hadn’t slept. I could hardly see at that point, from the dust. St. Vincent’s had a station set up to wash eyes, and after that I started walking uptown. All of a sudden, this beautiful woman appeared out of the dust and the smoke. And it was you. Whenever I’d closed my eyes, I’d seen that woman without a face. But there you were, giving the world a new face.”

-An excerpt from Jay McInerney’s The Good Life

Since 9/11, there have been a lot of writers who have tackled the subject of terrorism, patriotism, fear and what it means to be a New Yorker in the wake of this unshakeable tragedy (Jonathan Safran Foer readily comes to mind as he was one of the first writers who bravely tackled the subject). Jay McInerney’s latest novel, The Good Life, released earlier this year, tells a different kind of story altogether, a familiar one in that it is ultimately a love story, but one that takes place in the weeks after the day the towers fell.

McInerney could easily have exploited this event for his own purposes, made a sentimental mess out of his characters’ lives or arcs, but because he is such a skilled writer (the man can actually make a run-on sentence sound like poetry) and because he also happens to be a native New Yorker, every word, scene and plot twist held within his 353-page novel feels true—and consequently, heartbreaking.

Corrine and Luke, the former a mother/screenwriter, the latter a retired stock broker, two people whose lives have meaning only on the surface, meet in the aftermath of the WTC tragedy. Although they are both already married, they embark on a journey together that ultimately mirrors the one that their own city is also undergoing. McInerney has long been a master at adding depth and emotion to a world that is anything but, writing at length about the rich and their constant drug-induced social climbing ways. What makes this novel different, however, is the incredible undercurrent of hope and faith that subtle runs through it—Corrine and Luke were both two people that, before 9/11, had given up on the idea that their lives had any meaning or purpose, that they could ever really be happy, and yet it is through this tragedy that they come to find a new beginning where there had previously only been an ending.

Lily Percy - Editor

MUSIC:

Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche

Every review that I’ve read of Sufjan Stevens latest release, The Avalanche, a collection of b-sides and leftovers from last year’s Illinoise sessions, has contained the following line, expressed in a variety of ways: “How is he going to keep this shit up?”

The “shit” in question is his quest to write an album for each of the 50 states, a project that has thus far taken him (and us) to Michigan and Illinois. It appears that music critics and fans alike are skeptical of Stevens’ talents and abilities (Critics, skeptical? What a shock!), but if anything The Avalanche should serve as fair warning that this man’s talent runs deeper than any simple gimmick would have you believe.

Stevens has apologized for what he worried might be an album full of songs not even worth releasing, but just one listen to the 21-tracks on The Avalanche proves otherwise. The title track serves as a great starting point for the album, and songs such as “Adlai Stevenson” (my personal favorite), “The Henney Buggy Band,” “Saul Bellow” and “Springfield, or Bobby Got a Shadfly Caught in his Hair” will soon become additions to your long list of beloved Sufjan Stevens songs.

I for one do not often stop to wonder if he will be able to carry this through another 48 states—I’m too busy enjoying his music, and waiting patiently for his next release, to really care.  

Lily Percy - Editor

Johnny Cash – American V: A Hundred Highways

The very idea of cover songs was created for the sole purpose of re-invention, allowing the artist covering the other artist’s song the opportunity to add his own unique and indelible mark upon the familiar lyrics and music. That is unless you’re Johnny Cash, in which case you take a song, any song, and make it solely your own.

American V: A Hundred Highways, produced by the legendary Rick Rubin, a frequent collaborator in the past few years, was Cash’s last album recorded before his death in September 2003. While Cash did not write most of the songs included on the album, they all seem to have been written specifically for him. From his tender phrasing on Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” to his sullen, ominous and yet altogether hopeful rendition of Springsteen’s “Further On (Up the Road),” the songs included on American V are moving and unforgettable—the perfect eulogy for a man who lived a life of faith, sin, hope and love as a walking contradiction who will never be pinned down nor fully understood.

Lily Percy - Editor

Mat Kearney – Nothing Left to Lose

As summer rolls gloriously into cooler breezes, Mat Kearney is the orange crunch of fall.

With an aural magic spun similar to contemporaries Mayer, Mraz and DeGraw, Kearney’s sneaks have broken onto the scene with distinguishing scrapes of reflective soul and acoustic sincerity. His stories are set in solid ground and are grown in life, kept alive and inventive with infusions of hearty hip-hop and upright spoken word beats.

Unpredictably fresh is the only way to describe Kearney’s work on this record. As the listener, you are wrapped in a comfort that is more whole-wheat reassurance than Jack Johnson-like bliss; just when you think you’ve found his territory, he challenges the notion. Creatively unassuming and truthful, he finds a way to bring out an imperfect, steady light in songs we think we’ve heard from many a brown-haired “J,” but upon a closer listen we find otherwise. Each song is filled this time around with a different integrity and marrow—a man knowledgeable of the signs and detours ahead, yet still compelled to share and guide. Bring Mat Kearney along as a companion and nudge yourself to turn over a new leaf.  

“She’s part of a generation longing for reconciliation/And this future that they’re facing and this poison that they’re tasting/My girl, I know this love that you’re chasing//My girl America’s crying when she’s lying on her bed at night/I can see that she’s screaming when she’s dreaming for her freedom/My girl America’s dying while she’s trying just to stop this fight/Don’t stop believing, my girl America//…The hands that have held you where you are/And I can see we’ve strayed so far/A king born under that morning star/As a crown of thorns was placed to erase/Each tear that’s touched your face/And his palms and his sides where pierced with spears/He hung in love just to draw you near/My girl, out of this whole world/Can’t you see this is where we started//”

--An excerpt from “Girl America,” off of Kearney’s album, Nothing Left to Lose.

Jehan Mondal - Staff Music Writer

SPOTLIGHT:

Edward Burns

In the 1990s, the film industry suddenly found itself in the midst of an invasion at the hands of independent filmmakers. Directors like Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater and Quentin Tarantino decided to take matters into their own hands and make their first films, almost completely self-financed. One of the premier pictures at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival was The Brothers McMullen, co-starring writer-director Edward Burns.

            Born on January 29, 1968 in Queens County, New York, Edward Burns was the middle child of Irish Catholic immigrants. He grew up in Long Island, eventually attending Hunter College in Manhattan where he studied film and graduated with a degree in English Literature. After college, he spent several years as a production assistant on “Entertainment Tonight,” where he earned most of the money he used to subsequently finance his directorial debut.

            The Brothers McMullen was made for $25,000 and shot in eleven days, over a period of eight months. Burns made the film when money, time and scheduling permitted. It was done as simply and inexpensively as possible. Oftentimes this meant shooting in a guerrilla style, without permits at a cemetery, a street corner or even Central Park. Burns recalls, "I'd call everybody up after work and say, 'Let's go down to Central Park and shoot the break-up scene before the sun sets.'" Almost all the money for the movie went towards expensive equipment rental, film stock and lab fees (in the days before digital video). He auditioned actors after placing an ad in a New York arts magazine, calling for actors willing to work for a meal. He also avoided location fees by writing a script that could be shot mainly at locations he knew he could use for free (the McMullen house that the three brothers live in was Burns’ parent’s home. Another location in the movie was the director of photography’s apartment).

The end result is a funny, character driven story about three men at different stages of their lives, and how they respond to the world around them and the relationships they are in. While working at Entertainment Tonight, Burns was able to get a copy of the film to Robert Redford. The Brothers McMullen went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival before securing distribution with Fox Searchlight Pictures.

"I feel Irish-Americans are the forgotten minority group. Nobody else is making films about them. You have Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky making films about Jewish-Americans, you have Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola making films about Italian-Americans and you have Spike Lee and John Singleton making films about African-Americans. Who is making films about Irish-Americans?" – Edward Burns

            Edward Burns would again touch on the subject of Irish-American brothers in his second film, She’s the One (1996). Burns plays opposite Mike McGlone (a Brothers McMullen alumnus) as two men who’s romantic lives reflect the way they have been brought up by their father, played by John Mahoney. McGlone’s Francis is a conservative Wall Street businessman whose marriage is disintegrating as he ignores his wife in favor of his mistress. Burns’ Mickey is a cab driver that is perfectly content to be free of career responsibilities and keeps his emotional connections at arm’s length ever since he walked in on his fiancée and another man. When Mickey enters a whirlwind romance and Francis’ wife learns of his adultery, the two brothers have to decide what kind of men they are going to be, and what they will sacrifice for the women they love. With a supporting cast that includes Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and Maxine Bahns, She’s the One is a witty comedy that further exhibits Edward Burns’ gift for clever dialogue and well-drawn characters.

“I had never been on a real film set before, so my first day showing up on [She’s the One] was sort of a shock to see campers and lights and dolly track… I was intimidated to say the least.” – Edward Burns

            One of the things that Edward Burns was wary of was having too much money to work with on his sophomore project. The studio was prepared to let him make a $10 million movie, but Burns shied away from such largess. “I was just afraid if my second time out, I had that big a budget and the film flopped, that I would never be given the chance to make another film. So we made it for $3 million, it made its money back and I’m still making movies, so I guess that’s a good thing,” says Burns.

            For his third film, Burns put comedy on hold and moved in a much more dramatic direction. No Looking Back (1998) is a film about a small town waitress who feels she needs to do something else with her life. One of the interesting things about the film is that the waitress doesn’t particularly have any big dreams she wants to follow, she simply wants to start fresh, someplace else. Though the comic wit of his first two films is not clearly seen in the film, the complexity of character is certainly evident. Even after this dramatic turn, Burns’ continued to receive criticism from within the independent community that his films were not “edgy” enough. Of this criticism Burns has repeatedly said that he’s not interested in the independent film community, he simply wants to make his films.

“I've been trying to find the people that I can learn from, both as a director and an actor… That's sort of what I've been doing.” – Edward Burns

            “You wanna explain the math of this to me? I mean, where’s the sense in risking the lives of the eight of us to save one guy?” This is the simple, direct question that Private Richard Reiben asks his captain in 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. Burns delivers an outstanding performance as Reiben, the acerbic Ranger who proudly displays “Brooklyn, NY, USA” on the back of his fatigue jacket. Burns’ passionate Reiben fuels some of the picture’s best and most intense character scenes.

            Burns has said that doing this film with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks was a no-brainer. He remembers, “You know, that script was incredible and to work with those guys...because that was such a learning experience and [because] I don't have any formal acting training, I learned so much from Hanks and Spielberg, and more importantly watching Hanks interact with Spielberg, about the things they would talk about regarding the scene. I learned a lot as an actor just by observing them.” Burns was also able to pick up a few pointers on filmmaking from the movie’s legendary director, “Well, first, you're working with Spielberg. I spent three months looking over his shoulder. I'm at the ultimate graduate film school. At lunch I got to listen to him talk about why The Godfather is great. You know, these ultimate film seminars every day at lunch.”

            Edward Burns continues to subsidize his directing career with his acting roles. He’s continued to work with people he can learn from, playing opposite Robert De Niro in 15 Minutes (2001) and the lead, opposite Dustin Hoffman, in Confidence (2003).

"I suffer from Irish-Catholic guilt. Guilt is a good reality check. It keeps that 'do what makes you happy' thing in check." – Edward Burns

            Burns’ fourth and fifth films as a director, Sidewalks of New York (2001) and Ash Wednesday (2002), struggled to find an audience, not to mention a theatrical release. The filmmaker recalls, “I was antsy to get back behind the camera and that's why I kind of rushed into production on Ash Wednesday, which was part of the reason, I think, that it only got released in New York and L.A. It's the one film I've made where it's hard for me to look at that one because there are a lot of compromises made due to budgetary restrictions.” The disillusionment of trying to make personal, character driven work in a world of high cost entertainment drove Burns to experiment with digital video. 2004’s Looking for Kitty was, for Burns, a return to a small budget film where he could tell the story of real people dealing with real situations. He felt refreshed after the experience, really wanting to return to the form that had been so creatively rewarding for him in the past. The film was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004, but may finally get a limited release in August of 2006.

            Also released in 2006 is The Groomsmen, Burns’ latest study on manhood and relationships. The film deals with the questions and responsibilities that men must face as they leave adolescence behind and fully take on the duties of marriage and fatherhood.

            Despite the directions that Hollywood and “Indie-wood” seem to be heading in, Edward Burns strives to make the kinds of films that interest him. Even when most of the attention goes towards flashy, unusual, cutting edge films, Burns still believes there is a place for personal pictures with something to say.

David Sayre

Independent filmmaker, essayist

“People ask, "What's the advice you'd give young filmmakers?" And I always say, ‘Don't try and compete with Hollywood. Take your lack of resources and make it work for you. Look at Clerks, El Mariachi, Metropolitan, even McMullen, Slackers. All of these films embrace their lack of resources and instead focused on story or style or characters, and dialogue. And that's what made them the films they are." – Edward Burns

Director Filmography:

The Brothers McMullen (1995)

She’s the One (1996)

No Looking Back (1998)

Sidewalks of New York (2001)

Ash Wednesday (2002)

Looking for Kitty (2004)

The Groomsmen (2006)

Select Actor Filmography:

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

15 Minutes (2001)

Life or Something Like It (2002)

Confidence (2003)