unfinished business is a 2015 american comedy film directed by ken scott and written by steven conrad .

the film stars vince vaughn , tom wilkinson , dave franco , sienna miller , nick frost , and james marsden .

it was released on march 6 , 2015 .

the film received negative reviews and was a box office bomb .

unfinished business ( 2015 film )

title unfinished business year 2015 distributor ( s ) 20th century fox film co . ltd classified date ( s ) 17 / 02 / 2015 main language english submitted run time 90m 49s approved footage 8173 + 8 bbfc reference aff321861 registration number cfj34996
dave franco stages a boardroom presentation in one of several stock photos promoting his film
unfinished business .
unfinished business is a comedy about three unsuccessful salesmen on a business trip that could turn everything around for them .
2015 “the golden rose , ” presented as street installation at the site of the famous destroyed synagogue , lviv , ukraine , from february 2015 .
summary unfinished business is a us comedy about three unsuccessful salesmen on a business trip that could turn everything around for them .
unfinished business
opens march 6 , but appreciation for these stock photos should last a lifetime .
looking for movie tickets ? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing unfinished business near you .
to put it another way ,
unfinished business
is hoping you ' re buying what franco is selling .
as a genius promotion for his upcoming film unfinished business , vaughn and his co - stars , including dave franco , released a series of their own clichéd , ridiculous stock photos that plague business pamphlets and powerpoint presentations worldwide .
tom wilkinson , second from left , joins dave franco , far right , in this business - oriented celebration stock photo to promote their movie ,
unfinished business .
‘i know people are surprised’ … ryan gosling in london , 9 april 2015 . photograph : ian west / pa
actors dave franco , center , and vince vaughn , right , play mike pancake and dan trunkman in the film
unfinished business .
this image is part of a free , limited edition series of stock images promoting the film .
unfinished business , a comedy about vaughn and his colleagues attempting to land a deal in europe , opens in theaters friday .
actors vince vaughn , dave franco and tom wilkinson are here for
unfinished business
— and all your stock photo needs .
there ' s plenty to like in unfinished business , even though viewers expecting the debauchery of a wedding crashers will likely leave disappointed .
so unfinished business is what i’ll describe as “you get what you pay for” in the vince vaughn comedy wheelbarrow . rambly jokes ? …
jay burleson collection + unfinished business collector dvd . all four films : anathema arienette , the nobodies , the lonely , and unfinished business in one collection . will also include
making - of
behind the scenes of unfinished business and filmmaker commentary track for unfinished business . commentary will be only for our backers and not official release version of commentary . aka , the non politically correct ramblings of me and my friends with special guest aberdeen the cat . also includes digital
production bible
as well as shout - out and online screeners , ultimate digital .
reviewed at 20th century fox studios , los angeles , march 2 , 2015 . mpaa rating : r . running time : 90 min .
while unfinished business is not good and i do not recommend it , it also didn ' t make me want to pour bleach in my eyes .
the only apparent
unfinished business
at hand in vince vaughn ' s latest is torpedoing the last remains of the actor ' s comedy career .
2015 “an unifinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia , ” lviv palace of arts , lviv , ukraine , august - september .
and the film may still turn out to be horrible . rotten tomatoes doesn ' t have any reviews up yet . but today fox pulled a genius marketing stunt . it released a series of stock photo featuring the cast of unfinished business .
scathing reviews of the new vince vaughn comedy unfinished business are being offset by a nifty marketing idea . but do the studios’ clever stunts and viral campaigns really work ?
to promote the new movie
unfinished business ,
vince vaughn and other members of the cast posed for stock photos . this one is captioned ,
portrait of a handsome business leader crossing his arms with his team standing behind him .
‘business trip’ , starring vince vaughn , transforms boston’s logan airport into st . louis
vince vaughn and sienna miller — in her crazy outfit — get the vip umbrella treatment on the soggy boston set of ‘unfinished business . ’ the weather is reportedly making vince cranky .
eric d . snider is a freelance film journalist and comedy writer . he tweets here .
this quote is just one example of how uninspired the screenwriter was at the moment of writing the script for unfinished business . of course he followed it up by making several breakfast references , but none of the jokes were actually funny . it’s a shame because ken scott had a stronger cast to work with here than in his previous collaboration with vince vaughn , delivery man , a film i didn’t really like but that i didn’t dislike either . i’d rather sit through that movie than watch unfinished business because this was incredibly dull , the jokes were lame , and the story was completely unfocused and all over the place . delivery man is a masterpiece next to unfinished business . …
2014 an unfinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia , galicia jewish museum , kraków .
the ultimate digital : digital downloads of final release versions of anathema arienette , the nobodies , the lonely , and unfinished business . plus the digital
production bible
and online shout - out .
the stakes could not be lower in
unfinished business ,
the second collaboration between director ken scott and vince vaughn . watching a film with non - existent stakes is a depressing experience , especially when
unfinished business
also wants to tug on your heart - strings . heart - strings refuse to be tugged sans stakes . the characters are not people , but rough drafts of simplistic character - traits , and the actors ( game as they all are ) cannot create something out of nothing . screenwriter steve conrad has written some very good films about middle - aged male panic , most memorably
the weatherman ,
but in
unfinished business
, scenes just sit there . nothing happens .
sadly , no one behind “unfinished business” decided that audiences would get even a cursory explanation about the business part : three salesmen form their own company and spend most of the film trying to close a deal that has something to do with swarf , a metal residue left over in the creation of large steel objects . are they buying it ? selling it ? the movie can’t be bothered to tell us .
studio exec # 2 : that & apos ; s what it says on his business card .
feature your artwork or movies in unfinished business . you will get the other perks plus we will feature your artwork or your movie in our film . artwork will be placed in the bedroom of a character and your movie will be in a small stack of dvds spread out on a counter or table , etc .
by then the movie didn’t just belong to gosling . it was also the property of warner brothers , the american rights bought for $ 3m when the film was unfinished . after cannes , the studio tried selling them .
get a copy of unfinished business on dvd . special crowd - funder edition for our supporters only . will have it ' s own custom artwork and as many bonus features ( aimed at our contributors ) as possible .
unfinished business is heartfelt , has some laughs and a talented cast , but it ' s still inconsistently funny with a shortage of laughs , tonal inconsistencies and dramatic beats that just don ' t work . skip this one .
at the end of the day , jupiter ascending was a unique , individual film that took a chance .
still , “unfinished business” isn’t a laugh - free experience — nick frost steals every scene as a business underling with a kinky side — and some of the comic set pieces actually work . it’s certainly the best thing vaughn has done in the decade since “wedding crashers , ” which makes it less of a raw deal than usual .
jay burleson is an independent filmmaker currently living in north alabama . he has been described as the most prolific filmmaker in the state of alabama by sidewalk film festival programmer rachel morgan , and his faux trailer for a lost installment of the halloween movie franchise has screened in front of the original texas chainsaw massacre and won the
best fake trailer
award at the 2014 lost episode fest in toronto . his first feature film , the vhs inspired horror / comedy feast of the vampires , won the audience choice award for best film at an athens , al . film festival in 2009 . anathema arienette , one of three feature films burleson is currently adding finishing touches to , is set to premiere at the 17th annual sidewalk film festival in august of 2015 .
but in a fit of marketing genius , the promotional team behind the movie
unfinished business
decided it was time to give a little star power to those images , which often come across as goofy , stilted and random .
business trip spent several days filming at drumlin farm in lincoln , ma before moving to framingham last week .
in this red - band trailer for ken scott’s upcoming comedy unfinished business , we find vaughn in vintage deadpan mode as a salesman trying to out - maneuver his old company , which is run by a savvy sienna miller . drama !
studio exec # 1 : it & apos ; s the best film i & apos ; ve ever seen .
when reporters and gossipmongers combed through the documents leaked by the sony hackers late last year , one of the things they found was an audio recording of the meeting where the vince vaughn film unfinished business was pitched to three studio executives . ( how a meeting for a non - sony film came to be included in the sony leak is a question best ignored , shut up . ) in the interest of public service , here is a transcript of the recording .
the unfinished business photos are almost a little too on the nose . you can see them all here . while vaughn is quietly mugging it up , he costars are taking their photos a bit more seriously . and that ' s pretty funny .
if you spot business trip filming in massachusetts , let us know about it at olv @ onlocationvacations . com !
with “unfinished business , ” vaughn will be trying to break a recent box - office losing streak . his last hit was 2009’s “couples retreat , ” and misfires “the internship , ” “the watch” and “the dilemma” have come since . dave franco and tom wilkinson co - star in the r - rated tale of a european business trip gone that goes very wrong .
a comedy with its heart in the right place and everything else bizarrely out of joint , “unfinished business” finds director ken scott following 2013’s “delivery man” with another dubious attempt to sell audiences on vince vaughn’s sensitive side . playing a down - on - his - luck family man who takes an ill - advised business trip to berlin with two unfunny sidekicks [ … ]
fox had a hit last summer with a somewhat similar comedy , “let’s be cops . ” but that one skewed younger and cost less to make than “unfinished business , ” which has a $ 35 million production budget and was financed by new regency .
enter the new vince vaughn movie unfinished business , which comes out friday . twentieth century fox has teamed up with istock by getty images to create a set of stock photos featuring vaughn along with co - stars tom wilkinson , dave franco and others .
studio exec # 1 : gentlemen , we don & apos ; t have time to come up with a title today . we & apos ; ll leave all of this unfinished business for tomorrow . for now : it & apos ; s cocaine time !
as for the actual movie ,
unfinished business
follows dan truckman ( vaughn ) and his misfit employees timothy mcwinters ( wilkinson ) and mike pancake ( franco ) as they try to close on an international deal that would save them from going bankrupt .
at the same time , however , the film keeps attempting to tug at our heartstrings , with dan’s facetime attempts to be a good husband ( a terribly underused june diane raphael plays the wife ) and dad . part of what drives dan to close this deal is his desire to afford private school for his kids , which “unfinished business” unquestioningly presents as a solution for bullying .
a hard - working small business owner and his two associates travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable - and unimaginable .
the film ' s synopsis sounds right up vince ' s alley :
what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable—and unimaginable—way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
this is your chance to have your name , or company name , in front of our film . we ' ll put it on all the posters we make , and it ' ll be in the opening and closing credits of the film as well .
there ' s one sequence in
unfinished business
that is not given enough room to breathe , but it has a lot of weird possibilities . because he can ' t find a hotel room , trunkman ends up staying in a museum art - installation called american businessman 42 : an all - white hotel room , with an entire wall of windows , where passersby can look in and watch him as though he is an elephant in a zoo . it ' s the only moment when
unfinished business
feels in any way original .
vince vaughn’s familiar comic everyman is a bit sweeter and a bit less edgy than usual in unfinished business , a mostly flat , occasionally raunchy comedy - drama that packages its star with canadian director ken scott , an underused anglo - american supporting cast and quirky berlin settings .
though it does not have a highbrow bone in its cinematic body , ken scott’s “unfinished business” has enough heart , goofiness , and raunch to make it an appealing comedy . following three misfit businessmen as they travel to germany to close the biggest deal of their careers , the film combines economic stresses , domestic drama , and underdog shenanigans for a piece of work that is silly , ribald , and entertaining .
he has recently performed at the asian art museum in san francisco and received a 2015 artist fellowship in music from the alabama state council on the arts . he is committed to supporting progressive arts in the south and is glad to be involved in the production of
studio exec # 1 : ken , with this premise and these actors , the film will write , produce , and distribute itself .
studio exec # 2 : i & apos ; m not quite sold . on this business trip , do things go awry ?
mostly “unfinished business” is a tale of unfinished jokes : hey , what if timothy mcwinters ( wilkinson ) kept talking dirty , getting high on ectasy and smoking weed ? all of those ideas could lead somewhere . none does . he hires a “sex maid” to come to his hotel room , but then the hooker - cleaner goes to the vaughn character’s room to clean it instead . he’s happily married and wasn’t expecting that . ha ha .
2014 “an unfinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia , ” ( solo ) , permanent exhibition for the galicia jewish museum , kraków .
vaughn’s r - rated comedy “ unfinished business , ” distributed by 20th century fox , is projected to see a dismal $ 5 million opening from 2 , 777 locations . the actor’s previous career - low was earned by 2013’s “delivery man , ” which opened to $ 7 million domestically .
producer : you ' ll get a producer credit in credits of unfinished business + on imdb ( as early as october / nov this year for imdb credit ) at this perk level . also includes digital
production bible
as well as shout - out and online screeners , ultimate digital .
that “unfinished business” thinks it’s a really fun idea to have a leading character named mike pancake tells you all you need to know . so , someone asks mike in a meeting , your boss’ name is , what , steve toast ? ho , ho . stop , my ribs are cracking .
executive producer / all access ( aka so much of me it ' ll make you sick ) : same as other producer credits only this time you get the name of an executive . because that ' s as good as it gets , right ? imdb version available as soon as imdb page is launched and the campaign ends and we hit our goal , obviously . so , oct / nov 2015 ! plus : your choice of either the dvd collection set or the blu - ray collection set ( including unfinished business ) and you can name a character in the film . naming a character is limited to 1 name per person and 3 names total . also limited to first name only in most cases .
but you ' ve got to hand it to a good marketing campaign . anything that helps a film stand out these days and ignites some kind of discussion is a job well done . prometheus had a similarly outside - the - box promotional campaign with its ted talk from the future . in my opinion , that stunt was better than the movie and i suspect it will be the same case here . unfinished business hits theaters friday .
ken scott : this is the great part . it really is a killer premise . you & apos ; ve got this guy , see , and he has two business partners , one older and one younger , and the three of them go on a business trip .
even as star wars : the force awakens shatters records across the globe , it wasn’t all glory for the 2015 box office . there were plenty of films – some highly anticipated , others dead on arrival – that didn’t quite justify their worth in the eyes of movie - goers .
little contained in this misfire of a film works and the few successful things are dragged out to the point where they die a lingering death .
2014 an unfinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia . conceived , designed , photographed and wrote new permanent exhibition for the galicia jewish museum , kraków .
directed by ken scott , the movie co - stars dave franco and tells the story of a business trip to europe that goes disastrously awry .
studio exec # 1 :
three businessmen go on a business trip .
that premise has everything : men , trips—the whole nine yards !
5 . the spongebob movie : sponger out of water – $ 7 million [ 5th week ; $ 148 million total ] as the lone family - oriented film out in theaters these days , “spongebob” has coasted to a sizable profit and doubling its $ 74 million budget . “spongebob” is trailing “fifty shades of grey” for 2015’s top grosser by about $ 8 million right now and could catch it to claim the top spot until “furious 7” hits theaters .
the sony pictures release will come in with a little more than $ 15 million and beat out the weekend’s other two openers , say the analysts . the vince vaughn comedy “unfinished business” from twentieth century fox will finish in the $ 10 million range and “the second best exotic marigold hotel” from fox searchlight should trail that .
associate producer credit : you ' ll get an associate producer credit in credits of unfinished business + on imdb ( as early as october / early nov this year for the imdb credit ) for this contribution amount . also includes digital
production bible
as well as shout - out and online screeners , ultimate digital .
heading to the cinema this weekend ? off to see neill blomkamp’s sci - fi adventure chappie ? or perhaps julianne moore’s oscar - winning performance in still alice ? ok , well how about unfinished business , the vince vaughn - tom wilkinson comedy you didn’t even know was coming out ? yeah . . . thought not .
a hard - working small business owner ( vince vaughn ) and his two associates ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable - and unimaginable .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…
anne - marie slaughter , president and chief executive officer of the new america foundation , gestures as she speaks during a session on the opening day of the world economic forum ( wef ) in davos , switzerland , on wednesday , jan . 21 , 2015 . ( chris ratcliffe / bloomberg - - getty images
but still , there’s something oddly memorable about these often quite smart stunts , and since generic products like devil’s due or unfinished business might disappear from cinemas and memories with speed , you can’t blame the studios for trying to add some value to the campaigns . publicity departments work best when they’re being realistic , and if there’s no positive word of mouth for a film , they’ll decide to focus conversation on something else . and as you’ve just read this article , apparently it works rather well .
already have a christmas wish for this year : erase this film from my memory . oh wait . . . it ' s already been done . thanks .
where are the razzies for these movies ? jupiter ascending ’s rotten tomatoes score is pretty crappy , but it’s not as dismal as survivor ’s meagre 7 % approval rating , or even the transporter ’s 17 % . unfinished business got an “honourable mention” by the razzie committee at 11 % , so why is jupiter ascending the one being nominated ?
let’s ignore 50 shades of grey for the moment because it ties in with a point i’m going to make later on – just bear in mind that both it and jupiter ascending have the highest rotten tomatoes score in that list . now , let’s take a look at the rotten tomatoes scores of some different 2015 movies .
studio exec # 1 : [ on intercom ] sharon , let & apos ; s get a marketing campaign started for ken scott & apos ; s new film .
a few weeks ago , i saw the first trailer for an upcoming vince vaughn comedy called unfinished business . i ' m pretty plugged in to the movie world and i had never heard of this film before . the trailer looked pretty god awful . while i ' m excited to see vaughn in the upcoming second season of true detectives , his comedy career is on the rocks and with an early march release , i figured even the presence of the ever - charming dave franco couldn ' t save this stinker .
a hard - working small business owner and his two associates travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable – and unimaginable – way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit .
richard gere joins the cast for the sequel , which sees director john madden , judi dench , maggie smith , dev patel and bill nighy return from the first film .
starring vince vaughn , tom wilkinson , and dave franco , the comedy follows their struggling white - collar men as they lay the groundwork for a business enterprise . the business is less important than the struggle , of course , and the struggle provides ample room for comedy . each character has his share of personal obstacles which lead to plenty…
on the one hand , “unfinished business” wants to be a hard - r comedy , with sojourns to a co - ed sauna ( an uncomfortable sniggery scene ) and the backroom of a berlin gay leather bar ( which admittedly pushes visible - penis - related humor pretty far for a mainstream hollywood movie ) , in addition to a riot outside the g - 8 summit .
the comedy has requested a permit to film in boston’s north end / waterfront on friday , november 22th and monday , november 25th . a scene will be filmed at the fairmont battery wharf with vaughn jogging up the street while another will be shot at commercial wharf . t he crew will film night scenes on the waterfront marina at long wharf , too .
dan : the first rule is : show the client a good time . i like vince vaughn and have tried to support his efforts over the years , but what are we doing here ? at some point in the scripting of this film about three men going on a business trip to germany , the creative decision was to have a character named mike pancake , because silly last names equal laughs . later on , that same character ( who we come to learn is mentally challenged ) slips and falls face first into an exposed penis . maybe you weren ' t expecting me to explain a penis gag in the opening paragraph of a review for unfinished business , but hey , i was not really expecting to see so many in the film as a whole either . this is just one of many haphazardly assembled ' jokes ' thrown at the wall in this aggressively unfunny comedy . read the whole review at urltoken
the raunch – which has earned the film an r rating in the us – comes mostly in a pretty mild ‘glory - holing’ scene in the bathroom of a berlin gay bar .
there were critics who had plenty of good things to say about jupiter ascending . in cinemascore polls conducted during the opening weekend , audiences gave jupiter ascending an average grade of “b - ” on an a + to f scale . polygon named jupiter ascending number 8 on the staff’s list of the top 10 films of 2015 . even the lukewarm comments conceded the film’s grandiose risk - taking , with david blaustein for abc news radio stating that “ jupiter ascending is a campy visual sci - fi spectacle that could very well become a cult classic . ”
eric foner is a professor of history at columbia university and the author of “gateway to freedom : the hidden history of the underground railroad , ” “reconstruction : america’s unfinished revolution” and “a short history of reconstruction . ”
sony’s sci - fier “chappie” is marching toward a soft debut at the u . s . box office while vince vaughn is having the worst opening weekend of his career . vaughn’s r - rated comedy “unfinished business , ” distributed by 20th century fox , is projected to see a dismal $ 5 million opening from 2 , 777 locations . the actor’s previous career - low was earned by [ … ]
studio exec # 1 : roger , i wouldn & apos ; t have called it the best film i & apos ; ve ever seen if i didn & apos ; t mean it .
“ unfinished business , ” made for $ 35 million and financed by new regency , is the latest in a string of downbeat results for vaughn following “the dilemma , ” “the watch , ” “the internship” and “delivery man . ” he had five comedies top $ 100 million between 2004 and 2009 with “dodgeball , ” “wedding crashers , ” “the break - up , ” “four christmases” and “couples retreat . ”
the more you watch a movie , the easier it becomes by the facile nature of trailers to determine if something ' s going to be good . you get that buzz , that instinctual sense , that river of anticipation . at times you ' re let down , at times the promise isn ' t fulfilled , but most often you ' re rewarded . equally , as in everything with balance , you know when a film will be bad - indeed it ' s perhaps easier to spot , despite trying to approach everything with an open mind . then you watch unfinished business and you realise sometimes , even as an amateur film critic , these things are impossible to predict . because even by the awful , cringe making standards of the trailer for ken scott ' s movie , nothing could have…
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the film , which has been called “misbegotten” by variety and “woefully familiar” by the hollywood reporter , stars vaughn as a sales exec who encounters mayhem while on a business trip to europe . given his recent track record ( flops including delivery man , the watch and the internship ) , it’s unlikely to set the box office alight , and analysts predict an underwhelming $ 6m opening stateside .
a hard - working small business owner ( vince vaughn ) and his two associates ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable – and unimaginable – way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit .
other than that , the film limps along , with no sense of comic timing , slapstick reality , or even spontaneity . it ' s so airless , and yet it feels heavy as lead .
ken scott : vince vaughn worked for me in delivery man . i & apos ; m confident he & apos ; d make another film with me , or literally anyone else who asked him .
there’s plenty to like in unfinished business , even though viewers expecting the debauchery of a wedding crashers will likely leave disappointed . i feel for vince vaughn , i really do . he clearly wants to explore this more serious vein , but he keeps having to sell his former high - concept persona . it’s a fascinating existential dilemma for a movie star to find himself in ; if only it resulted in better movies .
2015’s fantastic four is a classic case of the making of the film being far more interesting than the film itself . the troubled production suffered its share of problems , from director josh trank’s reported erratic behavior on set , to painfully obvious reshoots , to the blame game that followed in the wake of its dismal reception . standing at a truly rotten 10 % on rotten tomatoes , the intended reinvigoration of the fantastic four wound up only souring the fox franchise further . our own review stated : “aesthetically drab and dramatically inert , this reboot of fantastic four manages to actually make the previous two ff movies seem better in hindsight . ” fantastic four did manage to make back its production budget , but when marketing is thrown into the cost , its losses stand at around $ 80 million .
this brand of underdog / misfit dramedy is familiar enough territory for screenwriter steve conrad , whose scripts have largely centered around the funny - sad spectacle of an ordinary guy trying to transcend his glum material circumstances — most recently in “the secret life of walter mitty , ” and before that in “the weather man” and “the pursuit of happyness , ” still the best film produced from his work . if “ unfinished business ” feels like the worst , it’s because unlike its predecessors , it’s been forced to operate like an overly broad sex farce , a genre for which neither conrad nor director scott demonstrates any particular flair or conviction .
alonso duralde , thewrap ' s lead movie critic , has written about film for movieline , salon , msnbc . com . he also co - hosts the linoleum knife podcast and regularly appears on what the flick ? ! ( the young turks network ) . senior programmer for the outfest film festival in los angeles and a pre - screener for the sundance film festival , he is also a consultant for the usa film festival / dallas , where he spent five years as artistic director . a former arts and entertainment editor at the advocate , he was a regular contributor to
the rotten tomatoes show
on current . he is the author of two books :
have yourself a movie little christmas
( limelight editions ) and
101 must - see movies for gay men
( advocate books ) .
in unfinished business , out this month , slaughter lays out why she disagrees with some parts of the lean in philosophy , but respects the facebook coo as a leader . the two women have often been held up as opposing voices in the debate about why exactly women can’t rise to the top professionally . in slaughter’s 2012 atlantic article “ why women still can’t have it all , ” she argued that american workplace structures are inherently hostile to women ; unfinished business is basically a follow - up , expanding on the argument that society needs to implement fundamental structural changes if women are ever going to be able to succeed equally at work . sheryl sandberg’s 2013 blockbuster lean in argued that internal cultural and psychological pressures allow women to hold themselves back . it’s the classic case of structure vs . agency , and each woman’s arguments have often been used to refute the other’s .
the two - week slump in the u . s . box office came after a 10 % surge in moviegoing this year , with the industry hoping that disney’s “cinderella” can reignite business next weekend .
vince vaughn’s latest , “ unfinished business ” couldn’t even crack the top 5 in its debut week , managing a terrible $ 4 . 8 million . vaughn’s comedic star power has taken some major hits with bombs like “the dilemma , ” “the watch” and “delivery man” and this career worse was exactly the opposite of what he needed . thankfully for him , he’ll be starring in the second season of “true detective” so he’ll be just fine .
screen international is the essential resource for the international film industry . subscribe now for monthly editions , awards season weeklies , access to the screen international archive and supplements including stars of tomorrow and world of locations .
a hard - working small business owner ( vince vaughn ) and his two associates ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable - and unimaginable - way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit . ( c ) fox
david o . russell and jennifer lawrence are back together once again , which means it ' s time for another wacky , outlandish , probably oscar - nominated film , this time about the inventor of miracle mop .
it’s no secret that jupiter ascending received a critical response that was below lukewarm at best – it’s current rotten tomatoes score is 26 % . the film shares its razzie nomination for worst picture with four other movies .
now he’s taken the logical next step and left the screen completely . in his new film lost river , gosling is , for the first time , the director . this spares him delivering dialogue , but at a price . on this side of the process , the director is obliged to keep talking – especially when , as gosling is , they are also the writer and producer . and especially when the film is lost river .
also there’s a long , long setup for a business meeting that gets conducted in the nude , in a sauna . the payoff ? nothing much , except franco’s character mutters , “boobs” and “butt crack . ”
the fact that a movie called hot tub time machine – starring john cusack , no less – made enough money to warrant a sequel is amazing in and of itself . the fact that the original movie was actually pretty good is even crazier . unfortunately , httm 2 is a failure on all accounts , its lack of cusack removing the cohesiveness of the first film and its general lack of laughs and innovation making it insufferable . while not as big a flop as some other movies on this list , httm 2 still lost money and – as one of ign’s worst - reviewed movies of 2015 – lost two hours we can never get back .
we’re all familiar with classic stock photos of the corporate world - the smiley - faced boardroom presentation , the friendly handshake , the high achiever climbing up the corporate ladder , briefcase in hand ,
a getty representative tells mashable . they’re all timeless classics . joining forces with new regency twentieth century fox presented a brilliant opportunity to have some fun with these stereotypes that play directly into the business storyline of the film .
neill blomkamp ’s new sci - fi movie “chappie” opens friday as the favorite to knock off the reigning no . 1 film , will smith caper comedy “focus” and top what looks like a slow weekend at the box office .
not quite vaughns worst film but god damn that franco is so . . . annoying . why can ' t someone just write a funny script without all the idiotic naked and gay jokes ? should ' ve been much better
the character mike pancake deserved to be in a much better movie . thank you dave franco from saving this film from being a total disaster . because it really is quite poor whenever he isn ' t on - screen .
( and the less said on the dopey subplot about tim’s unhappy marriage and his desire to have sex in new and interesting positions , the better , except that it leads to some of the film’s clumsiest , most leaden gags . )
michael mann’s tech - crime thriller starring chris hemsworth was one of 2015’s first box office flops , debuting against american sniper and landing at a measly # 10 on its opening weekend . pretty much dead on arrival , the story of an imprisoned hacker released to help the authorities stop a global tech catastrophe didn’t fare well with critics either . our 5 . 4 / 10 review said “if there’s one thing that blackhat demonstrates it’s that michael mann has nothing left to say . ”
vaughn’s box office pull isn’t what it used to be - he last starred in the scott - directed delivery man , which topped out at $ 30 . 7m in the us and canada – so expectations won’t be huge when the fox - distributed unfinished business opens in the us , uk and other international markets over the weekend beginning march 6 . the cast ( including tom wilkinson and sienna miller ) and european locations ( berlin ) might be marginal selling points outside the us ( where delivery man managed $ 20 . 5m ) .
but although studios continue to distract attention from the movies themselves with such trickery , the proof is in the rather deflated pudding . in the summer of 2006 , the most talked about film by far was new line’s high - concept thriller snakes on a plane . as soon as it was announced , the film became online catnip , and fake trailers , artwork and fan fiction flooded the web . the official campaign capitalised on this outpouring with reshoots to include fan - created dialogue , a competition for bands to send in music for the end credits , and prerecorded messages from star samuel l jackson that you could send to your friends’ phones . but the buzz failed to turn into box office , and the film opened to a disappointing $ 14m in the us .
the dramatic beats don ' t work and the plot isn ' t a very appealing one , but
unfinished business
is a comedy that had me consistently laughing throughout . the three leads all have great chemistry and deliver on a lot of laughs . vince vaughn and tom wilkinson are both solid but it ' s dave franco who stole all of his scenes and had me laughing the hardest . besides that , it moves at a great pace , the characters were entertaining , and as i said , i was laughing consistently throughout .
in the summer of 2005 , the horror remake house of wax wasn’t at the top of anyone’s must - see list , until a rather smart stunt involving its star , paris hilton , suddenly made the film’s release seem like a genuine event . turning public hatred of the socialite to their benefit , warner bros heavily publicised her gruesome death in the film and even released “see paris die” t - shirts . however , an opening weekend of just $ 12m stateside suggested that it wasn’t quite enough of an incentive .
how about his father ? a voice cuts in behind me : “can we stick to film questions ? ” the publicist , i realise , is sitting there , bandaged . gosling looks a little awkward . “yeah . . . he wasn’t so involved . ”
despite an impressive cast boasting sean penn , idris elba , and javier bardem , the gunman – directed by taken’s pierre morel – failed to make an impression in 2015 . penn stars as a retired black - ops merc that finds himself the target of a hit squad seeking retribution for an assassination he performed years earlier . while we thought the movie was “okay” with a score of 6 . 8 , the gunman lost big at the box office , falling short of its $ 40 million budget by more than half .
the critics have yet to weigh in , but it is ahead of where blomkamp’s last film “elysium” was on twitter , though trailing it on facebook . that one starred matt damon and opened to $ 29 million in august 2013 and topped out at $ 93 million domestically .
inside the cinema , gosling and smith enter to warm applause from an audience fresh from the film . some of the crowd bought £50 curzon memberships just to be able to get a ticket . he explains how the idea for the film took hold when he was in detroit making political thriller the ides of march . the place had always fascinated him , the home of motown and the auto industry . having found the modern reality was “40 miles of abandoned neighbourhoods , ” he bought a camera and began to shoot . a story started percolating .
the jay burleson collection . my three feature films : anathema arienette , the nobodies , and the lonely in a 3 - case dvd set with one - of - a - kind artwork designed to tie all three films together in one nifty package . each film will include as many bonus features as i can possibly fit on the discs . signed by various cast and crew ( by request ) and numbered with 1 35mm film still taken from the set of each individual production . also includes digital
production bible
, shout - out , online screener links , ultimate digital .
while adding some colour to a mediocre film’s campaign helps to increase awareness and online conversation , it’s failed to translate into an increase in box office . a study last year by nielsen showed that the younger , more digitally aware consumers who would be the core audience for online stunts are losing interest in the cinema , with a 15 % decline in their attendance year on year . it’s also worth remembering the importance of simplicity . google conducted a survey which found that a film’s official trailer is three times more important than any other information source when it comes to influencing moviegoing decisions .
the nobodies on vhs - just for my friends jason od and jeffrey parker , and anyone else that wants to check out our shot on vhs horror film , on an actual vhs tape ! stars lane hughes from you ' re next . trailer to be released as part of this campaign .
his mother , donna , has seen the film . “she liked it , i think . ” she was “involved in the process , ” visiting him in detroit . ( in high spirits at the curzon , he will expand on her opinion : “she thinks i could be funnier . ” )
sienna miller pops up every now and then in the role of dan’s vile former boss , to remind us just how awful successful women are , while nick frost plays some kind of business advisor ( again , the specifics are unclear ) whom the boys catch cottaging in a nightclub .
despite hits like christopher nolan’s “interstellar” and “inception” and the top - grossing film of all time “avatar , ” there have been many more recent misses . lana and andy wachowski ’s “jupiter ascending , ” “after earth , ” guillermo del toro’s “pacific rim” and tom cruise’s “oblivion” all came up short domestically .
even the captions seem to be in on the joke . vaughn is described in one stock photo as a
handsome business leader crossing his arms with his team standing behind him .
another features wilkinson and franco among a group of workers
enjoying victory on a white background .
nfinished business certainly lives up to the promise of its title : the film looks as though it needs another six months’ work . vince vaughn stars – and for many , that will be all the review required – as dan trunkman , a hard - pressed father whose job takes him and two dunderheaded colleagues ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) to europe in pursuit of a life - changing contract . the job itself has something to do with the disposal of metal shavings , although we never find out exactly what : given how toweringly stupid all three men are , perhaps they eat them .
with a $ 49 million production budget , “chappie” cost about half of what those films did , so it will have an easier path to profitability . it stars hugh jackman and deals with a robot ( voiced by sharlto copley ) that is captured by criminals , and the film has its share of laughs .
audiences are able to distinguish a fun viral video from a film that’s actually worth seeing , and filmgoing decisions still appear to be based on more substantial factors . this year’s biggest hits , fifty shades of grey and american sniper , benefited from an inbuilt audience , and controversy that wasn’t carefully orchestrated by studios .
– $ 13 . 3 million [ debut week ] neill blomkamp will no doubt be happy to move on to the “alien” franchise after his latest failed to match expectations , which in some cases were as high as $ 20 million . “chappie” seemed more of a family film , but its “r” rating likely kept its more viable audience home . that proved to be a common theme this weekend . budgeted at $ 49 million , “chappie” may be able to scrape through to profitability , but it will have to overcome negative critical response ( 30 % freshness on rottentomatoes ) and modest audience interest ( the film has a b
2 . focus – $ 10 million [ 2nd week ; $ 34 . 6 million in total ] – will smith’s latest tumbled down to second place after a somewhat lackluster opening last weekend . it was another film , like “chappie” that met with middling critical acceptance and audience interest – mirroring “chappie’s” b cinemascore .
the result ending up at cannes still troubles him . “a lot of people worked very hard on the film , and it was a chance to showcase their work . . . ” he frowns . “but this movie was basically homemade . and to be there in tuxedos . . . it felt incongruous . ”


night games is a 1966 swedish movie directed by mai zetterling and starring ingrid thulin .

the film premiered at the 27th venice international film festival where it was considered so controversial that it was shown to the jury in private .

the film was also the cause of former child-star shirley temple 's resignation from the san francisco international film festival .

temple denounced the film as “ pornography for profit ” and was against it being shown at the festival .

night games ( 1966 film )

what
night games
is is not pornographic , nor shocking , but for 1966 , it certainly wasn ' t everyday viewing . …
former child star shirley temple black quit the board of the san fransisco film festival to protest its decision to show nattlek ( night games ) . she regarded it as pornography .
with the headline : screen : ' night games ' on view at festival theater ; mai zetterling ' s movie a deliberate shocker licentious and explicit scenes stressed .
unrelated to the persona video games , although jungian psychology is a major theme in both .
in a sense ,
night games
provides a measure of the permissiveness explosion , or whatever newsweek is calling it this week . when the film was first exhibited at the venice film festival in 1966 , it was considered the most daring ever made . the police closed the theater to the public , and the judges saw it at a private screening .
the joker ( cesar romero ) - 19 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie .
the penguin ( burgess meredith ) - 19 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie .
though
night games
, directed by mai zetterling had been on my watchlist for about two years as i worked to find a copy anywhere , i never bothered to try and find a review , i ' d rather go into a film as blind as possible .
nearly three years later , with
i am curious ( yellow )
on the horizon ,
night games
can be seen for what it is : not a sexploitation film in any sense , but a serious attempt to get inside the mind of this character .
night games has patience and an eye for detail . it lets moments arrive organically , and faces are framed in a way to emphasize their uniqueness . it ' s often gorgeously shots , and certain moments are incredible . the newspaper castle sequence should be taught in film classes .
was a thirty - minute prime time , live - action television series broadcast by the abc network between 1966 and 1968 .
mai zetterling ' s
night games ,
which opened at the festival yesterday , is the swedish film that the directors of this year ' s venice film festival considered too raw for public showing in their urbane festival hall . ( it was shown to the jury in private , and did not win an award . ) view full article in timesmachine »
mai zetterling ' s
night games
is an absorbing , even brilliant film , but it fails to evoke much of an emotional response . it is a film made entirely in the mind , as if the heart were no concern , and it can be seen that way - - as a cold , aloof study of human neurosis . but not for a moment did i care about any of the characters .
so , i was unaware of its
notorious
past of having been
banned
at the venice film festival in 1966 , only being seen by the judges and made available to the press , and that shirley temple - yes , she of the good - ship lollipop - walked away from the sf film fest over the inclusion of the film , feeling it was pornographic .
night games
- jan fights impotence ( literal and symbolic ) and anguished childhood memories in a decadent swedish castle where risqué parties and daring scenes defy 1960s ' movie censorship , reaffirming the ground - breaking role of swedish films in helping advance adult , sexually concerned themes in international cinema .
the riddler ( frank gorshin and john astin ) - 11 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie . astin plays the role for a single season 2 storyline .
message body ( your name ) thought you would like to see the film quarterly web site .
this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are . see what’s now showing
the searing film exhibited a fine sense of pacing , comic timing , and gripping buildup in a series of emotional climaxes . the film follows the structure of albee ' s play , delineated by three acts :
nattlek , or night games , is a 1966 film by swedish director mai zetterling , based on her own novel . zetterling ' s background was peculiar for the time : she had actually been an established actress and continued to act throughout her directing career , which isn ' t that common even today . i had actually meant to watch her aristophanes ' adaptation , the girls , but my computer decided to quit on me , so i went with this controversial work instead . jan ( keve hjelm , who had just appeared in bo widerberg ' s love 65 ) brings his fiancée mariane ( lena brundin ) to his old family mansion and , once there , starts having flashbacks or dreams — or maybe a little bit of both — about his childhood ; the film then unfolds…
clinically moody arthouse thats so aesthetically sumptuous and beguilingly structured . ' nattlek ' aka ' night games ' directed by swedish mai zetterling ( who sadly made more films as an actress than she ever got to do as a director ) , shares the iconoclast sensibilities of luis bunuel with the craftsmanship and eye for detail of jean cocteau . its an extremely cold tale of a man…
so begins , without further preamble , the romantic comedy our souls as night , adapted from kent haruf’s quiet , deeply thoughtful final novel . it could have been made as a very different film for festival and art house audiences . here the casting dominates the story , sacrificing some of the novel’s density and depth for the much wider appeal of reuniting robert redford and jane fonda onscreen since the chase ( 1966 ) , barefoot in the park ( 1967 ) and the electric horseman ( 1979 ) .
a 1966 psychological drama by ingmar bergman , starring bibi andersson and liv ullmann . as with much of bergman ' s filmography , the movie rides heavily on symbolism and philosophy . its plot is . . . hard to explain .
the black - and - white film , masterfully directed by mike nichols ( in his directorial screen debut ) , captured probably the greatest performance ever of elizabeth taylor ' s career ( she won her second academy award as well as best actress praises from the new york film critics , the nat ' l board of review and the british film academy ) .
in 1967 a one minute film was created for the central office of information . the information film was filmed kenning , london and showed batman played adam west taking a break from fighting crime and helping children with their technique of road safety .
her work in this film led to a notorious libel suit involving the future novelist graham greene , then employed as a film critic by the magazine night and day . at a cocktail party , after what he later described as “a dangerous third martini” greene dreamt up the idea of deflating the temple balloon , but he peppered his review of her performance in wee willie winkie with such litigious terms as “dubious coquetry” , “dimpled depravity” and “mature suggestiveness” .
as for
night games ,
it is a movie based almost entirely on technique and intellectual calculation . miss zetterling seems to be influenced by fellini ; we get orgies attended by grotesque people who play themselves as if they were trapped inside . and we get the hero , grimly picking his way through this maze , trying to figure out what went wrong . but his problem is the movie ' s problem : no heart .
premiering on january 12 , 1966 , as a mid - season replacement , the series featured actor adam west as the perennial character of batman , while burt ward donned nylon stockings and fairy boots for his portrayal of the erstwhile sidekick , robin .
the shocking content - the dramatic portrayal of the destructive , sado - masochistic , and cruel battles in one couple ' s tempestuous , love - hate relationship during a late night ( 2 am ) to dawn brawling encounter while victimizing another young couple - was thought to be too vitriolic , frank , explicitly blasphemous and foul - mouthed for the film screen . [ note : it was the first american film to use the expletive ' goddamn ' and ' bugger ' . ] the mpaa ratings board gave the film a seal of approval after warner bros . appealed and made a few cuts of the most extreme profanity ( such as
screw you
) . it was the first film to be released with a
suggested for mature audiences
warning .
male frontal nudity : the montage of surreal imagery that starts the film includes a brief shot—less than a second , but still recognizable—of an erect penis .
melting film effect : trope codifier at the least , as this is just one of the ways bergman reminds you his movie is only a movie .
and that is a fairly good argument , i suppose , for the freedom filmmakers are currently enjoying films like
night games
or
i am curious ( yellow ) ,
by expanding the limits of allowable subject matter , open up large areas behind them where serious filmmakers can seriously consider the way we live . eventually this freedom trickles down into the mainstream product , and you get
goodbye , columbus
or last year ' s
the graduate ,
playing to enormous audiences who hardly care about the pioneers .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…
born in the theater : the famous moment in which the film appears to crack and melt right after elisabet and alma are about to have a confrontation .
what will people say , after all , when they get wind of their unusual arrangement ? addie is articulate and daring ; louis is tongue - tied , formal and a bit boring , not as prepared as she is to make a leap into the unknown . the first night that he shows up at her house , he brings his pjs in a brown paper bag and discreetly comes round the back . that night their mutual nervousness isn’t very conducive to conversation or companionship , yet there is a delicious sense that these two weathered souls are boldly breaking a worthless taboo as they climb into addie’s big bed together , in full night clothes . by the time louis finally settles down to make a few remarks , she is already fast asleep .
as a result , for years , only the 1966 batman film represented the tv series on vhs , laserdisc , dvd and , later , blu - ray formats . in the 2000s , a two - dvd set called holy batmania was released featuring archival interview footage , rare promotional items , and also never - before - released screen test footage from pre - production of the series . in the late 2000s , adam west also released a special dvd in which he discussed each episode of the series . bootleg dvd versions of the series itself , featuring episodes recorded off tv broadcasts and of wildly varying quality , became common place at science fiction conventions . return to the batcave : the misadventures of adam and burt was also released on dvd , though as noted above the film was only able to utilize 1966 movie footage ( including a sequence paying tribute to julie newmar ' s catwoman that only features footage of lee meriwether ) .
impaled palm : one of the surreal inserts that opens and closes the film is a shot of a palm getting a nail pounded through it jesus - style .
catwoman ( julie newmar and eartha kitt ) - 15 episodes with two cameo appearances and the 1966 movie . newmar plays the character for season 1 and 2 , but due to film commitments was unavailable for the movie and season 3 and was replaced by lee meriwether for the movie , and kitt for season 3 . the casting of african - american kitt as catwoman marked the first time in american television that two actors of different race were cast as the same ongoing character .
minimalist cast : there ' s only four or five ( if you think the boy from the prologue is meaningful ) characters in the whole film . it ' s only alma and elisabet who are onscreen for the great majority of the film , with the head doctor and elisabet ' s husband being in it very briefly .
on the night before his marriage , a young man and his fiancee return to the castle where he grew up to find out why he is impotent . in flashbacks , it is shown that his aristocratic mother indulged in nearly every sexual perversion known to man .
as a ingrid thulin fan , thanks for the superior picture quality of this decadent film , and your swift mailing ! now i am your fan too . . .
in 2013 , dc began publication of batman ' 66 , a comic book series telling all - new stories set in the world of the 1966 - 1968 tv series . jeff parker writes the series , which features cover art by mike allred and interior art by different artists each issue . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
la story . . . lauren bacall and humphrey bogart in the film version of the big sleep . photograph : allstar collection / cinetext / warn / sportsphoto ltd . / allstar
all psychology is freudian : averted — as the title suggests , psychology in this film is primarily based on jung ' s ideas , which the viewer is apparently expected to know all about .
i ' m starting to think bergman ' s single largest contribution to swedish film was to mess up its critical economy . can we talk about zetterling , sjöström and stiller , too , please ?
the film ' s title refers to virginia woolf ( 1882 - 1941 ) , an influential british feminist writer who pioneered the ' stream of consciousness ' literary style while examining the psychological and emotional motives of her characters . [ note : perhaps the ' fear ' of vw refers to the film ' s characters who are suffering marital discord in the emotionally - draining film , and who may have ' known ' that she suffered from mental illness and ultimately went insane and committed suicide . ] the title is also a parody of who ' s afraid of the big bad wolf ? , a tune sung in disney ' s three little pigs ( 1933 ) animated short film . the names of the two major characters , george and martha , are those of the first us president and his wealthy wife - a marriage of convenience .
in addition to the fantastic sets and costumes , the series also featured a number of james bond - inspired gadget - filled vehicles : batmobile ( which had originated in the comics ) , batcycle , batboat , and the batcopter . the batmobile donor car was a 1955 lincoln futura that george barris customized in only three weeks . two batcycles appeared on the show ; the first was a barely modified harley davidson , and the second was a highly modified yamaha . the batboat was built by glastron . some of the specialty vehicles - in particular the batboat and batcopter - were constructed under the budget for the 1966 film .
george won ' t allow martha to play
blue games for the guests
when they kiss and she moves his hand down onto her breast :
everything in its place martha , everything in its own good time .
honey asks again about the most sensitive subject of the evening - their son . the feuding couple use the imaginary son as a weapon in most of their arguments :
now we sec his head , now hers , and over and over they turn , rolling and writhing in bed . have the movies invented a new position ? or has the phrase
a roll in the hay
been taken literally ? kids who learn about sex at the movies are in for a miserable time if they try the roll . and that seems to be the trouble with the hero of night games , one of a number of movies in which the rotating slows down enough for us to see anguished faces . then we know that although the lovers have certainly been trying their calisthenic best , they have not succeeded . as these are all too likely to he serious movies , we can ' t very well…
who ' s afraid of virginia woolf ? ( 1966 ) , a famous and shocking black comedy , was based on edward albee ' s scandalous play ( ernest lehman ' s screenplay left the dialogue of the play virtually intact ) . it was first performed in new york in october of 1962 , and it captured the new york drama critics circle award and the tony award for the 1962 - 63 season .
although its elements point towards nailbiting tension , this isn ' t so much what lift to the scaffold is about ; it draws more on the blanket fatalism of film noir rather than the savage irony so often associated with the genre . key to this is jeanne moreau as tavernier ' s lover , florence ; in the film ' s signature sequence her man fails to turn up , so she walks the streets trying vainly to find him . filmed on the fly without professional lighting , accompanied only by miles davis ' s brilliant , melancholy score , these few minutes capture the bleak and beautiful essence of malle ' s film . dw
woolf won five academy awards from its thirteen nominations : best actress ( elizabeth taylor ) , best supporting actress ( sandy dennis ) , best b / w cinematography ( haskell wexler ) , best art direction and best costume design . the other eight nominations included best picture , best actor ( richard burton ) , best supporting actor ( george segal ) , best director ( mike nichols ) , best screenplay ( ernest lehman ) , best sound , best original music score , and best film editing . [ note : the film became noted as the only one in academy history up to that point to be nominated in every eligible category . it was also the first film to have every member of its cast receive an acting nomination . ] as compensation for his defeat this year , director mike nichols won the best director oscar the next year for the graduate ( 1967 ) over norman jewison , the director of the best picture victor in the heat of the night ( 1967 ) .
they have returned at two o ' clock early on a sunday morning from one of her father ' s
goddamn saturday night orgies ,
according to george . as they bicker at each other , it is revealed that george is a tired , defeated teacher , married for twenty years to the daughter of the president of the college .
she alternated these performances with small parts in now forgotten feature movies such as the red - haired alibi ( 1932 ) and to the last man ( 1933 ) , opposite randolph scott . while filming a second series of shorts for educational under the title frolics of youth , she and her mother were approached by the much bigger fox film corporation ( later twentieth century - fox ) with a view to shirley featuring in the film stand up and cheer ( 1934 ) . she passed the audition and was signed up for $ 150 a week . when the film opened , she stole the show with the song and dance routine baby take a bow .
the series spun - off a motion picture in 1966 featuring most of the tv cast . after its cancellation , west and ward continued to portray batman and robin in voice only for several saturday morning - cartoon versions of batman , and appeared on screen once more as the dynamic duo in the two - part comedy special
legends of the superheroes
which aired in 1979 and also featured frank gorshin returning as the riddler .
on the other hand , it’s hard to imagine two better - matched people sharing pillow talk . she says she always thought of him as a good man — a judgment that not all the townspeople share when it comes out , on their third night together , that he once left his wife and daughter for a brief affair with a fellow teacher .
double vision . . . a still from the coen brothers ' film blood simple , set to be remade by zhang yimou as a woman , a gun and a noodle shop . photograph : sportsphoto / allstar / cinetext collection
in the sloppy kitchen in a famous sequence in which she munches on a fried chicken leg and puffs on a cigarette , she repeatedly - with a deep whiskey voice - berates her husband for not remembering the film the line is from :
what ' s it from , for christ ' s sake ? . . . some damn bette davis picture , some god - damned warner bros epic .
exasperated at her criticism of his cocktail - party behavior , he inquires :
do you want me to go around braying at everyone all night the way you do ?
the voiceless : elisabet has been sent to recuperate after suddenly deciding to stop speaking ; the number of times she speaks during the film can be counted on one hand and all of them may just be imagined by the characters .
the plaintiffs won ; $ 5 , 250 punitive damages were awarded to fox , $ 7 , 000 to the actress and night and day folded . but as a postscript to the episode , the mature shirley temple bore the novelist no grudge . in 1989 , she sent him an inscribed copy of her autobiography , child star , and invited him to tea .
she was acting in pictures from the age of four and rapidly captivated filmgoers with her blonde ringlets and dimpled charm . dolls , books and games were named after her in a merchandising campaign matched only by walt disney and mickey mouse . yet her talent was modest . she sang off - key and cynics dismissed her dancing as “mere jigging up and down” . she liked to do impersonations but her acting was generally regarded as cute rather than compelling .
mai zetterling ' s night games is reminscent of joyce ' s _ ulysses _ wherein is to be found the memorable line ,
history is the nightmare from which i am trying to awake .
this is a nightmare from an unusual perspective , a nightmare of unbridled female psychic destruction . zetterling ' s courageous look at what happens to a woman who has none of the usual economic constraints on her psychic development in a context of european spiritual decline is compelling to say the least . unfortunately , this print seems to be one in which the infamous orgy sequence which was purported to contain actual sex is truncated or cut entirely . ( imdb lists the original running time at 105 minutes and this one comes in at 101 . ) but the transfer to dvd is pretty good and the strange and even shocking turn of events is otherwise preserved .
but the film is essentially the story of a jerky guy recalling how his mom was kind of crappy and how that ' s the reason why he is shitty to women these days ( but he ' s trying to change ) . not interested .
suddenly voiced : elisabet , who spends most of the film in silence , speaks in three instances , though it may not have happened . it ' s interesting to note that the camera avoids showing elisabet ' s mouth moving in the first two instances .
in 2016 , an animated feature film named batman : return of the caped crusaders was released to celebrate the show ' s 50th anniversary with adam , burt and julie reprising their classic roles , as well as a sequel ; batman vs . two - face .
juxtaposed halves shot : alma and elisabet in the climax of the film . their faces are juxtaposed to show that their individual identities have become indistinguishable from each other ( or they ' ve melded , or they were each other all along , or something ) .
she had the child star’s built - in self - destruct mechanism — what had seemed peachy in a moppet became arch in adolescence . attempts to extend her career into young womanhood were unsuccessful and she made her last film in 1949 — washed up in hollywood at 21 .
nicholas ray ' s astonishingly self - assured , lyrical directorial debut opens with title cards and lush orchestrations over shots of a boy and a girl in rapturous mutual absorption :
this boy … and this gir … were never properly introduced … to the world we live in …
a shriek of horns suddenly obliterates all other sound – their shocked faces both turn toward the camera , and the title appears : they live by night .
the film opens under a moonlit sky in the middle of the night on a small new england college campus ( in the town of new carthage - an allegorical name ) . under the credits , an academic couple walk through the deserted campus - george ( richard burton ) , a 46 year old , bespectacled history professor , and his 52 year old wife martha ( elizabeth taylor ) , a large , boisterous , blowsy woman with heavy wrinkles . martha ' s drunken laugh acutely punctuates the title
who ' s afraid of virginia woolf ?
after drunkenly weaving their way home , they enter their home and switch the lights on . martha looks around the living room discontentedly and parodies bette davis ' mannerisms , exclaiming :
mr . freeze ( george sanders , otto preminger , and eli wallach ) - featured in 6 episodes . he is very different from the way he is in the comics , though the later batman and robin film based the arnold schwarzenegger version of the character on the tv show .
kiss me deadly is the black - hearted apotheosis of film noir , and a key film of the 50s , embodying the profoundest anxieties of eisenhower ' s america : it ends with the detonation of a nuclear device on malibu beach and , presumably thereafter , the end of the world itself . robert aldrich ' s moral universe is so violently out of kilter that even his opening credits run upside down . his hero , mike hammer , is an amoral , proto - fascist bedroom detective and 1 , 000 % scumbag , but the villains he encounters are far , far worse .
two - face / harvey dent ( william shatner ) - eastwood was cast to play two - face in 1968 , however the show was cancelled before any appearances . he is the main villain of
batman ' 66 : the lost episode
as well as the feature film batman vs . two - face .
jamie ( well sketched by young iain armitage ) is a quiet boy glued to the games on his cell phone . ( the fact that the oldsters don’t own these new - fangled contraptions is a bit unlikely , but becomes a plot point later on . ) his stay with grandma while gene tries to get his life together introduces the first real challenge to addie and louis’ arrangement , and their way around it is both sensible and amusing . the dynamics between the three characters is gently engaging rather than dramatic , and you can feel the energy shifting as rom - com is put on the back burner to family life , train sets , a new dog . opening the film up beyond the sleepy neighborhood and the house on cedar and 12th street , batra sends the trio on an idyllic camping trip in the colorado mountains , beside a breath - taking river . jamie and the dog in one tent . addie and louis in another .
cameron crowe called double indemnity
flawless film - making
. woody allen declared it
the greatest movie ever made
. even if you can ' t go along with that , there can be no disputing that it is the finest film noir of all time , though it was made in 1944 , before the term film noir was even coined . adapting james m cain ' s 1935 novella about a straight - arrow insurance salesman tempted into murder by a duplicitous housewife , genre - hopping director billy wilder recruited raymond chandler as co - writer . chandler , said wilder ,
was a mess , but he could write a beautiful sentence
. noir ' s visual style , which had its roots in german expressionism , was forged here , though wilder insisted that he was going for a
newsreel
effect .
we had to be realistic ,
he said .
you had to believe the situation and the characters , or all was lost .
parental neglect : one of the reasons for elisabet ' s condition , recounted by alma in the film ' s climax , is having a son she didn ' t want and who she can ' t bring herself to love . it ' s said the son lives with relatives and elisabet only sees him sporadically and unwillingly .
unlike the earlier movie serials of the 1940s , this was the first batman project to feature batman ' s rogues gallery of villains . cesar romero made numerous appearances as the joker , while burgess meredith reinvented the image of the penguin , with his crooked smile and trademark
squawk
. julie newmar provided catwoman ' s rolling
r
s , only to be replaced later by lee meriwether for the 1966 movie , and again in the final season by eartha kitt . two men provided their talents to the role of the riddler - frank gorshin ( in the first and third seasons ) and john astin ( in a one - off second - season appearance ) .
louis malle ' s first fiction feature , based on noel calef ' s 1956 novel , occupies a very interesting space . it qualifies as film noir for its appropriation of us postwar cinema in its tale of lovers gone bad , but also heralds the imminent arrival of the french new wave . the director was in his mid - 20s at the time and clearly using the crime - thriller genre ( something he never returned to ) as a testing ground and not a strict template . perhaps that explains why his film is such a melting pot of influences , drawing not only on hitchcock but also the master of suspense ' s overseas admirers , including henri - georges clouzot and his les diaboliques .
one of the most dramatic , riveting moments of the film blurs fantasy and reality . martha brings up another embarrassing wound from the past , questioning george ' s manliness . she describes a public boxing match incident which her daddy orchestrated in his back yard . when george told his father - in - law that he didn ' t want to box , martha got into the pair of gloves herself and punched george pow right in the jaw , sending him crashing into a huckleberry bush . during her story telling , george finds a shotgun in another room , stalks his prey , and takes aim at the back of martha ' s head . when honey notices the gun , she screams in fright . martha turns her head to face him as he pulls the trigger - out blossoms a brightly - striped umbrella , a symbolic display of his weakness and sexual impotency in another of his games . he adds sound effects :
pow . you ' re dead !
they laugh , mostly from relief and confusion .
one of the amazing things about the third man ,
steven soderbergh once wrote ,
is that it really is a great film , in spite of all the people who say it ' s a great film .
he ' s right . it ' s one of the greatest , in fact : a witty , elegantly shot and steadfastly compassionate thriller suffused with the dreadful melancholia of the finest noir . it ' s set in allied - occupied vienna , where writer holly martins ( joseph cotten ) pitches up at the invitation of his old chum harry lime . except that when martins arrives , lime turns out to be dead . at least that ' s the prevailing wisdom at his funeral .
it’s fascinating as well as heartening to see that their chemistry and sex appeal are still intact as they circle 80 , and one imagines this netflix original film will prove irresistible to the older demographic . premiering on the big screen in venice , it made an appropriate , historic salute to the ageless pair who are being awarded twin gold lions for their career achievements .
when they get back , trouble is waiting in the shape of gene . schoenaerts brings deep - rooted resentment and brooding to the film’s sole dramatic role , creating some much - needed motivation for the final scenes and the choice addie makes between louis and her family . given the lightness that has preceded it , the thoughtful ending feels like reality has brusquely broken in .
the robert e . parilla performing arts center is the hub of cultural activity at the montgomery college rockville campus . for the 2018 – 2019 season , patrons can select from a wide variety of performances including music , drama , dance , and art - house films . discover the guest artist series , children’s series , college performing arts series , music series and film series .
in his screenplay , robert towne develops two dominant metaphors ; the first centres on water . during a period of drought someone is dumping water from local reservoirs , and it becomes clear that this most precious of human resources is being manipulated by land speculators in their own interests . the name of evelyn ' s husband , hollis mulwray , evokes william mullholland , the los angeles engineer responsible in the 20s for the deals that , in the old western phrase ,
made water flow uphill in search of the money
. the name noah cross suggests the protective old testament patriarch played in the 1966 blockbuster the bible by john huston , but here reprised in a less benevolent mode as a self - righteous plutocrat who has harnessed the flood in his own interests .
gainax ending : alma and elisabet packing up to leave , a ghostly elisabet caressing alma in the mirror , alma leaving alone as elisabet seems to have disappeared , brief shots showing alma seemingly acting out the memory of a stage play that was elisabet ' s . then a shot of ingmar bergman filming the movie , and a shot of film running out of the camera and the arc light going out .
perhaps that was because the film ' s hero does not care for himself . the story concerns a young man who brings his fiancée back to live in the gloomy manor where he spent his own childhood . the house is saturated with the presence of his late mother , a domineering woman who smothered his emotional development . his idea is to return to the scene of his crippling and try to break through his hang - ups .
atmosphere from bergman , psychology from freud , pictures from fellini , and politics from marx coalesce into this , a piercing psychological drama about confronting your past as the only way to reinvent your future . zetterling pushes her film forward like a mad symphony , simultaneously dissecting both the oedipus complex and the decadent upper class . and the clever one - liners ( which , by the sheer number of them , seem to have been shot onto the manuscript page through the barrel of a shotgun ) !
kiss me deadly opens with a woman , naked under a raincoat , fleeing headlong and barefoot down a highway at night . rescued by hammer , then un - rescued by her faceless original captors , she dies screaming under gruesome torture with pliers ( aldrich was always at the vanguard in his use of violence ) . thereafter , hammer finds himself on a terrifying hunt through the criminal underworld of los angeles , from his gleamingly modern office in posh brentwood to the dilapidated flophouses of bunker hill , as he bludgeons , browbeats , blackmails and brutalises his way inch by inch towards a resolution that will destroy everyone and everything , all in search of the elusive
great whatsit
– a deadly , molten , much sought - after package that ' s grandfather to the suitcase in pulp fiction and the chevy nova in repo man .
somehow all the planets aligned for ray , a novice director with an achingly poetic - realist vision of depression - era texas and the determination to implement it wholesale : a perfect source novel , edward anderson ' s thieves like us ; and exactly the right combination of producer ( john houseman ) , studio ( rko ) and sympathetic studio head ( dore schary ) . the result is luminous in its imagery , highly sophisticated in its musical choices ( the folk song i know where i ' m going succinctly and repeatedly stresses that they don ' t know anything at all ) suffused with romantic fatalism – they ' ll die by night , too ; you know it from the start – and enriched by ray ' s total identification with his characters ' doomed trajectory . ray ' s first masterpiece , and a pinnacle of poetic noir . john patterson
it ' s set in a castle in sweden and it features the kind of depraved upper - class partying at which the question
don ' t you wish you were dead ?
is answered by
i ' m dead already .
a jazz ensemble plays as ingrid thulin gives birth ( to a dead child , of course ) , and at a wedding - night party the groom ( keve hjelm ) , who can ' t make it , gets up from bed , lets the birds out of their fancy cage and puts the cage on himself . and he vomits great gushing torrents - - i . e . , his whole past life . at a final party , he dynamites the castle which , because it is where his childhood took place , is presumably the block to his potency . he literally blasts through . it all seems like…
the near perfection of roman polanski ' s chinatown starts with diener / hauser / bates ' s haunting art nouveau poster for the film : an emblematic hokusai wave breaks against jack nicholson ' s silhouette as the smoke from his cigarette floats up to merge with faye dunaway ' s medusa - like hair . the movie ends equally unforgettably with the line ,
forget it jake , it ' s chinatown !
, as lapidary a pay - off as scarlett o ' hara ' s ,
after all , tomorrow is another day .
the last four years of her screen career were an anticlimax . her infant precocity gave way to mere pertness ( of which there is no shortage in hollywood ) in such films as the bachelor and the bobby soxer ( 1947 ) , that hagen girl ( 1947 ) , with ronald reagan , and a kiss for corliss ( 1949 ) , her screen swansong , opposite david niven . this period also included the first film in john ford’s cavalry trilogy , fort apache ( 1948 ) , in which she co - starred , aged 20 , with her husband .
metaphorically and cinematically , it ' s a picture about crossing over – in one sumptuous camera setup we track the characters over the border . that shot is famous , but it ' s no richer than the single setup in a cramped motel suite that proves how hank quinlan ( welles himself ) plants dynamite on the man he intends to frame . these scenes were a way for welles to say ,
i ' m as good as ever
, but they are also crucial to the uneasiness that runs through the picture and the gloating panorama of an unwholesome society . the aura of crime has seeped into every cell of ordinary behaviour : the city officials are corrupt , the night man ( dennis weaver ) needs a rest home , and the gang that come to the motel to get susie are one of the first warnings of drugs in american movies . not least , of course , quinlan – a sheriff gone to hell on candy bars .
she was born on april 23 1928 in santa monica , california , the daughter of a bank teller . like many a proud mother , gertrude temple enrolled her child in dancing classes at the age of three and promoted her vigorously . a talent scout from educational pictures , a small company specialising in shorts , spotted shirley and invited her for a screen test , which led to her appearance in 1932 - 33 in a string of film spoofs known as baby burlesks . among them were the incomparable more legs sweetrick ( as marlene dietrich ) , the pie - covered wagon and polly - tix in washington .
however , with studio boss jack warner ' s insistence on keeping the integrity of the play , and the teaming of real - life husband and wife mega - stars elizabeth taylor and richard burton , the film was guaranteed success . the two portrayed an on - screen couple : a sharp - tongued but ineffectual professor ( burton ) and his complaining wife ( taylor ) , in the company of a new professor ( segal ) and his mousy wife ( dennis ) . [ note : the couple had originally been teamed in the mega - flop cleopatra ( 1963 ) . robert redford rejected the role played by george segal . ]
as in so much film noir , the crux of the story is a case of cherchez la femme . in this case la femme is abby marty ( frances mcdormand ) , wife of texas bar owner julian ( dan hedaya ) . julian suspects abby of having an affair with one of his staff , and when private eye loren visser ( m emmet walsh ) confirms this to be the case , julian sets a murder plan in motion . for most directors this would be enough , but the coens embrace the full - on complications of the genre to create a genuine sense of an
easy
crime spiralling out of control .
as in that film , the story concerns a conspiracy to murder . ex - foreign legion soldier julien tavernier ( maurice ronet ) , a veteran of french military misadventures in algeria and indochina , is planning to kill his boss , who is also his lover ' s husband . on paper , the plan is seamless – tavernier secures his alibis and enters his victim ' s office unseen , by means of a rope – but things soon get messy . on returning to the crime scene to retrieve a key piece of evidence , tavernier finds himself trapped in the elevator , leaving his car parked outside with the keys in the ignition .
taking its atmospheric title from a line in dashiell hammett ' s hard - boiled novel red harvest ( an allusion never explained ) , blood simple is perhaps the coen brothers ' most straightforward movie , even though it is , ironically , not at all simple . in a manner that would come to be their stock - in - trade , the film is a cacophony of cross - purposes , in some ways a rehearsal for their breakout effort fargo , which also depicts a nefarious plan gone wrong . it also marks the use of literary genre elements in the
real
world , a formula that would later be refined by quentin tarantino .
but its gorgeous form makes it worth a watch nonetheless . the beautiful tones of the film , the playful shot compositions and the way jan slides from one time into another , going seemlessly from the present into the past and vice versa , solely changing his form from adult to child . it reminded me of juraj herz’s the cremator where kopfrkingl is sometimes like a hinge of two different spaces that pass around him in such a quiet manner that the viewer takes notice of it only after a while . with jan , on the other hand , the time change is obvious right away as he becomes a child again , while the space stays the same .
the screenplay was adapted by daniel mainwaring from his own novel , build my gallows high ( the film ' s uk title ) . but the sharpened splinters of dialogue also bear the mark of cain — james m cain , that is , the legendary author of noir landmarks the postman always rings twice and double indemnity , who performed vital but uncredited rewrites . according to mitchum ' s biographer , lee server , it was cain who expunged kathie of any traces of lovability .
she can ' t be all bad — no one is ,
one character remarks of her . to which jeff shoots back :
she comes the closest .
rg
a netflix presentation of a wildwood enterprises , wildgaze films production cast : jane fonda , robert redford , bruce dern , matthias schoenaerts , iain armitage , judy greer director : ritesh batra screenwriters : scott neustadter , michael h . weber , based on the novel by kent haruf producers : robert redford , finola dwyer , ted sarandos , erin simms coroducer : scott robertson executive producer : pauline fischer , sarah bremner , ben ormand director of photography : stephen goldblatt production designer : jane ann stewart costume designer : wendy chuck editor : john f . lyons music : elliot goldenthal casting director : avy kaufman venue : venice film festival ( out of competition ) 101 minutes
one of the first films to cement the nascent sundance film festival ' s reputation , blood simple isn ' t so much neo - noir as neo - neo - noir , using postmodern flourishes that still seem bold today . the most vivid is walsh as visser , presented more like a cold - blooded universal studios monster than a gumshoe , and the non - naturalistic lighting is often at odds with noir tradition , with the brothers allowing brilliant shafts of bright light to puncture the neon - lit dark . best of all is the use of the four tops ' it ' s the same old song as a motif – a neat touch that expresses genre familiarity with affection rather than cynicism . damon wise
swedish oddity , because 20th century swedish cinema has to be more than just bergman . when a boy is looking for his mother he visits the numerous rooms of a large mansion and finds odd groups and individuals ; it is as if fellini was here . and of course the sequence , basically the first scene ( well , second ) segues into a celebratory birth watched by all those weird and numerous party guests . we’re off to a good start . the boy becomes a man and our male protagonist who brings a woman – dead ringer to his mother - to the mansion to show her his childhood . for he is , so he claims , still a child . and so much of the film is a…
martha : george ' s biggest problem about the little . . . about our son , about our great big son , is that deep down in the private - most pit of his gut , he ' s not completely sure that it ' s his own kid . george : my god , you ' re a wicked woman . martha : and i ' ve told you a million times , baby . . . i wouldn ' t conceive with anyone else , you know that baby . george : a deeply wicked person . honey ( grieving and drunk ) : oh my , my , my , my , my . . . nick : i ' m not sure that this is a subject for . . . george : martha ' s lying . i want you to know that right now . martha is lying . there are very few things that i am certain of anymore , but the one thing , the one thing in this whole sinking world that i am sure of is my partnership , my chromosomological partnership in the . . . creation of our . . . blond - eyed , blue - haired . . . son . . . martha : . . . george , our son does not have blue hair or blue eyes , for that matter . he has green eyes , like me . beautiful , beautiful green eyes . [ note : the black and white film didn ' t betray the fact that elizabeth taylor ' s eyes are in fact purple . ] george : he has blue eyes , martha . martha : green . george : blue , martha . martha : green you bastard .
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shirley temple , who has died aged 85 , was the screen’s most popular child star of the 1930s , receiving at the age of eight 135 , 000 birthday gifts from fans the world over .
throughout the depression years , her sunny disposition helped audiences forget their woes and a special oscar was presented to her for “bringing more happiness to millions of children and millions of grown - ups than any other child of her years in the history of the world” . it might have turned many a tiny tot’s head , but shirley had her mother constantly at her side to ensure she was kept on an even keel .