SanLuisObispo.com: Movies

MOVIE REVIEW: 'How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Vacation'

Fri, 16 May 2008 08:59 PDT

"How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" is the first feature film by director/writer Georgina Garcia Riedel. It shows.

This story about three generations of Hispanic women is supposed to be a quiet examination of female desire. There is a very thin line between quiet and tedious, and Riedel crosses the line. The result is a movie that never finds any emotional energy because the plot and pacing are so plodding.

The story revolves around Lolita (Elizabeth Pena), Blanca (America Ferrera) and Dona (Lucy Gallardo). This mother, daughter and grandmother live in a small Arizona border town where everybody knows everything that happens.

Cannes balances glamor with `Blindness'

Fri, 16 May 2008 01:39 PDT

Fernando Meirelles did boys with guns in "City of God" and murderous corporations in "The Constant Gardener." With "Blindness," the opening night entry at the Cannes Film Festival, the Brazilian director exposes the world's ultimate savages: your friends and neighbors.

A terrifying fable about how low people might go to stay alive when a plague of blindness turns them into helpless internees, "Blindness" presents an unnerving reflection of real tragedy and bureaucratic heartlessness, from Hurricane Katrina to global food shortages to the cyclone in Myanmar, where the military government has severely restricted relief efforts.

"There are different kinds of blindness. There's 2 billion people that are starving in the world," Meirelles said in an interview Thursday, a day after the film's Cannes premiere. "This is happening. It doesn't need a catastrophe. It's happening, and because there isn't an event like Katrina, we don't see."

Sarah Jessica Parker: She's not a slave to fashion

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:45 PDT

Sarah Jessica Parker says she's not a slave to fashion like her "Sex and the City" character Carrie Bradshaw.

"I am a mother, wife and working woman in the first place, clothes do not play such a big role in my life than they do in Carrie's," the 43-year-old actress told The Associated Press after the Berlin premiere of her upcoming film based on the popular HBO series.

"And there is no favorite designer or accessory as there is Manolo Blahnik for Carrie - there are so many talented and exciting designers, I could not possibly choose one favorite," Parker said Friday, sporting a white petticoat with a black girdle and black stiletto heels.

What's Indy up to? Secrecy shrouds `Crystal Skull'

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:45 PDT

Indiana Jones doesn't give up his secrets lightly, and neither does the man pulling his strings.

Director Steven Spielberg has tried to keep chapter four of the archaeologist's big-screen adventures, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," under wraps as tight as an ancient mummy's.

The stealth approach has whipped up a frenzy of expectation - and doubts about the movie's quality - as he prepares to unveil it in front of the world's toughest audience, critics at the Cannes Film Festival. The film premieres here Sunday, just four days before it opens in theaters worldwide.

Fur flies at 'Kung Fu Panda' premiere at Cannes

Thu, 15 May 2008 15:44 PDT

Fur might be a politically incorrect fashion statement on the red carpet at the world's most-prestigious film festival. Not when you're the star of a movie called "Kung Fu Panda," though.

DreamWorks Animation, whose past Cannes entries include the first two "Shrek" flicks and "Over the Hedge," put its adorable martial-arts hero alongside the festival's highbrow cinema entries Thursday with the premiere of the action comedy whose voice cast includes Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman.

"Being an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks' animation mastermind. "And it's particularly unique when it's a broad commercial movie as opposed to an art film. There's tremendous, tremendous value to that."

Who is Indiana Jones? What we know (so far …)

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:39 PDT

As the Army intelligence officer in the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" describes him: "Professor of archeology, expert on the occult, and, uh, how does one say it? Obtainer of rare antiquities."

That's about right, but there's more. Filmmaker George Lucas created a complicated flawed fictional hero in Indiana Jones, and the three movies that he dominates are studded with clues to his identity.

More biographical details are embedded in "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," Lucas' TV series now available on DVD, and in a bottomless trove of Jonesiana.

Moore aims for followup on `Fahrenheit 9/11'

Thu, 15 May 2008 04:34 PDT

Michael Moore is taking America's temperature again.

Moore, who won the top honor at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival with "Fahrenheit 9/11," plans a followup to resume his examination of the nation's status in the world in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Fahrenheit 9/11," the only documentary to top $100 million domestically at the box office, was a harsh, hilarious critique of George W. Bush and his administration in the wake of the attacks. The as-yet-untitled followup will have a longer-term approach, film executives overseeing the project said Wednesday.

Binoche had to provide her own dialogue in 'Flight of the Red Balloon'

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:14 PDT

Juliette Binoche, introducing "Flight of the Red Balloon" to audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, described the project as a "life-changing experience."

A tad dramatic maybe, but hey, she's an actress.

The next day, as she prepared to introduce another of her movies at the festival - Amos Gitai's "Disengagement" - Binoche elaborated.

Cannes: animated documentary recounts war horrors

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:44 PDT

It's an animated documentary - which is perhaps a contradiction in terms.

Israeli director Ari Folman thought the unusual technique was the only way to tell his story of recovering from long-repressed, nightmarish memories of his time as a young Israeli soldier waging war in 1980s Lebanon.

"Waltz with Bashir," competing for the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is based on interviews with Folman's friends and fellow former soldiers, which were recorded and used as audio in the film. In a few cases, when his friends hoped to maintain their privacy, actors recounted their stories.

It's indie movies vs. Indy's movie at Cannes fest

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:49 PDT

The Cannes Film Festival usually starts with a movie that's light and goes down easy. So Wednesday's dark, apocalyptic opening film seemed a puzzling choice - even to the movie's director.

"Blindness" by director Fernando Meirelles, whose films include "City of God," and "The Constant Gardener," is about an epidemic of blindness that strikes suddenly and inexplicably, with victims shunted off to a squalid institution. Compare that to past opening night films that have generally been festive or crowd-pleasing - like "Moulin Rouge" or "The Da Vinci Code."

"To be honest, I still don't think that this is the best film to open the festival," said Meirelles, whose movie stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal and Danny Glover and is based on a novel by Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago.

`Wire' actor to shoot students' short film

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:36 PDT

Clark Johnson will direct a short film about masculinity and youth written by nine Manhattan high school students.

"Misunderstood," by students at the High School of Graphic Communication Arts, won a contest by Scenarios USA, which uses filmmaking to foster youth leadership, advocacy and self-expression, the nonprofit group announced this week.

The fledgling filmmakers are seven girls and two boys, a mix of juniors and seniors.

Heston's Ten Commandments to be auctioned

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:49 PDT

Thou shalt find the Ten Commandments up for bid this summer.

A pair of faux granite tablets that Charlton Heston cradled in the 1956 biblical epic "The Ten Commandments" is expected to fetch as much as $60,000, said Marc Kruskol, a publicist for the auction Profiles in History. It is the fourth set of tablets that remains from the film that featured Heston as Moses.

The five-piece costume Heston wore in 1959's "Ben-Hur" - the film that won him a best actor Oscar - is also among the 1,000-plus pieces of Hollywood memorabilia the auction is selling this summer. The central piece is the dark green kaftan worn by Heston's Judah Ben-Hur in the scene when he hears Jesus give a sermon.

Court lets prosecutor remain on `Alpha Dog' case

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:53 PDT

California's highest court ruled that a prosecutor who helped in the making of "Alpha Dog" may remain on the death penalty case on which the film is based.

In a similar ruling Monday, the court also reinstated a prosecutor who was taken off a rape case after she published a crime novel about a similar case.

In the "Alpha Dog" case, an appeals court had removed Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen after he turned over probation reports, police files and other sensitive materials to director Nick Cassavetes. "Alpha Dog," a fictionalized account of the killing of a Southern California teen starring Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake, was released last year.

'Jones': Real archaeologists don't have whips

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:46 PDT

Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia.

Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves behind. While actual archaeologists like the guy and his movies, they wouldn't necessarily want to work alongside him on a dig.

Indy's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology will be on display again May 22 with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," in which he's sure to rain destruction down on more historic sites and priceless artifacts.

Sex and the City premieres in London

Tue, 13 May 2008 11:10 PDT

The "Sex and the City" stars lit up London's Leicester Square for the world premiere of the cinematic sequel to their New York adventures, delighting fans with glamorous - and sometimes quirky - outfits that helped make the show an international hit.

Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays columnist Carrie Bradshaw, stole the show with her soaring Philip Treacy hat. She was joined by co-stars Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, known on screen as Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. They were eager to gloss over the reported problems that delayed the film's production - and chat instead of the boost the series has given their careers.

"Professionally it's been the best 10 years of my life. I wouldn't have wanted to have done it any differently with any different women or any different men," Parker said. "So it's been glorious."

Paging Dr. Jones: Crystal skull stolen

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:17 PDT

Indiana Jones better get his alibi ready. A large crystal skull similar to those at the center of the upcoming Harrison Ford movie was recently stolen from a New Age store, puzzling employees in part because of the laid-back nature of shop regulars.

"We have zero shoplifting in here, and I have no idea why anyone would take something as lovely as that," said Persis Newland, owner of Kindred Spirits in Claremont, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

The skull, named Solar Ray by owner Don Marr, had been on loan at Kindred Spirits for about four months and went missing about two weeks ago. It had sat on an altar in the store's classroom area and was considered one of the shop's prized objects.