“Messing with time, messing with your mind - Philadelphia Inquirer” plus 4 more

Messing with time, messing with your mind - Philadelphia Inquirer
Piven's got 'The Goods' - Chicago Sun-Times
Review: Animated 'Ponyo' is beautiful nonsense - Petoskey News-Review
TSA arrests, grills world-famous movie star - Wired
Weinstein Co. has a lot riding on Tarantino's campy WWII movie - Los Angeles Times

Messing with time, messing with your mind - Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted: 14 Aug 2009 11:59 PM PDT

The Time Traveler's Paradox

From Carrie Rickey's Flickgrrl

http://go.philly.com/flickgrrl

Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana are one sexy couple in The Time Traveler's Wife, the film based on Audrey Niffenegger's popular novel about the guy (Bana) whose genetic anomaly causes him to slip in and out of time.

But am I the only one who gets brain cramp during time-travel movies such as this, where the past is dependent upon a future that is dependent upon the past?

As Roger Ebert noted earlier this year of J. J. Abrams' Star Trek - where alternative universes intersected, enabling the Old Spock and the Young to be in the same Möbius-strip timespace - these movies are more fiction than science.

It didn't bother me so much in Star Trek, but when I start thinking whether it's possible for a character to be in and out of time at the same time, it takes me out of the movie. (Except for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where Hermione wears a necklace that is sort of a reverse hour glass, enabling her to go back a few hours.)

Still, from The Time Machine to Time Bandits, I've always been a sucker for time-travel stories (including, as I admitted sheepishly in another post, the much-maligned but preposterously entertaining The Lake House and Kate & Leopold).

In time-travel films, I much prefer the wormhole explanation to most others. Very much like Contact, and also a little-known film called Happy Accidents (with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio), and Alain Resnais' underrated Je t'aime, Je t'aime. Also Terry Gilliam's The Twelve Monkeys and the movie that inspired it, Chris Marker's La Jetée. And of course, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Terminator and Peggy Sue Got Married.

Your favorites?

Galileo and the Numbers Game at Franklin Institute

From Peter Dobrin's Arts Watch

http://go.philly.com/artswatch

Pure science has had to justify itself somewhat at the Franklin Institute in recent years. When the museum's addition, the Futures Center, opened in the 1990s, attendance jumped, but only briefly. Since then, the Franklin has turned to traveling shows to boost visitorship. Some are only marginally related to science.

And so it's been instructive to see how well the current show, "Galileo, the Medici and the Age of Astronomy," is doing - and more than a little satisfying to Franklin watchers who think pure science can bring in decent numbers when a show is smartly conceived and promoted (as this one was).

In fact, Galileo is up at the same time as a Star Trek show, and Galileo is doing better. CEO/president Dennis Wint told me yesterday it's been seen by 100,000 visitors.

"It's exceeded our goals," said Wint. "This was a new venture for us, having a historical exhibition with a lot of important scientific instruments but not what our typical visitor expects with a hands-on special exhibition. The media in particular has been very good in telling the story."

Both shows close in September. Then, in October, "Body Worlds" moves back in.

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Piven's got 'The Goods' - Chicago Sun-Times

Posted: 15 Aug 2009 02:01 AM PDT

MOVIES | TV's Ari Gold says he's down-to-earth craftsman as he plows new field as car dealer

He's been around for decades and started acting when he was 8, but for Jeremy Piven, it was his role as Ari Gold, a manic Hollywood agent on HBO's "Entourage," that won him critical acclaim and three Emmys.

The 44-year-old actor learned his craft at the Piven Theatre Workshop, run by his parents in Evanston. Last year he drew flak for pulling out of the Broadway show "Speed-the-Plow" after the media reported he had mercury poisoning from eating sushi. His latest movie, "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard," in its opening weekend, also stars Will Ferrell, Ed Helms and James Brolin. Piven plays Don Ready, a sale-at-any-cost car liquidator.

Q. OK, when was the last time you had to deal with the hard sell from a motivated salesperson?

A. You know, I think we can all finesse a hard sell and smell it a million miles away. That's what's so fun about this movie. It's like how do these people, who are professional, figure out a way to sell at all costs? It was just completely ridiculous.

Q. You do these high-energy types so well. Are you at all like that off screen?

A. It's funny, because I kind of am the complete opposite. I grew up in Chicago, a stage actor, and I like to lay pretty low. I guess it's a testament to the great writing and directing and performing that people associate me with my character. It's gotten to the point where it's comical, like major publications actually writing about me as if I actually am Ari Gold. It's funny to people that know me. It's funny to me, because it's not me.

Q. I've heard you say you want to direct. Why do so many actors want to do that?

A. I think it is, for some, very much a natural evolution. With me, I think it probably should have been an evolution a long time ago. I know what it's like to have to get yourself in a state where you feel very comfortable and supported in order to do your best work. ... So all I'd like to do as a director is make actors feel really great and safe so they can do their best work.

Q. Have you ever used your acting skills in your private life, knowing that you can, to perhaps get out of trouble when you were younger?

A. Unequivocally, no. I haven't even thought of doing that. I just haven't been that guy. I don't even think in those terms. I think other people might think that you do. That's where you might be misunderstood. I remember talking to this woman and she was like, "I don't know if I can trust you. You're an actor." It just makes me laugh. My reference for actors is my parents, who were together till the moment my father passed away. I am from a hardworking Midwestern family of actors.

Q. Have to ask: Have you stopped eating fish since your mercury poisoning?

A. Yeah. There were a couple of misconceptions. No. 1, that I got it from eating sushi. I had given up for some 23 years all meat. The only protein, or my source of protein, was from fish. I was eating fish twice a day for 23 years. It's a man-made problem. Mercury is a serious problem, and we are learning more and more about it. I was diagnosed within the first week of rehearsal with Epstein-Barr [virus], and a resting-heart rate of 47, which is alarming if you're not a professional athlete.

Unfortunately, and this is my own fault, I hadn't stopped working in a couple of decades. I come by it honestly; the idea of turning down work is sacrilege, you know? So I didn't and I hit the wall in rehearsal for this play and I thought if I can just make it to opening ... and then if I can just make it another month and then another two months. I dropped onstage the fourth month of a six-month run and ended up in the hospital. I was told by three doctors I had to stop.

I followed doctors' orders. People need to sell papers, and it turned into a little bit of a "Sushi-gate." It is what it is, and I'm not a victim. What I do for a living speaks for itself. I love to act and am onto season six of "Entourage." The better news for me is "The Goods." I am insanely proud of this movie, and if people want to be angry with me about a play that I was asked by my doctors to leave a year ago, then please hold onto that. But if you are interested in being entertained, I've got some fun stuff coming at you.

Scripps Howard News Service

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Review: Animated 'Ponyo' is beautiful nonsense - Petoskey News-Review

Posted: 15 Aug 2009 02:08 AM PDT

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TSA arrests, grills world-famous movie star - Wired

Posted: 15 Aug 2009 02:01 AM PDT

*Has Bobby Jindal been informed?

http://www.zeenews.com/news555566.html

I don't wish to participate in US' religious paranoia: SRK

Updated on Saturday, August 15, 2009, 13:28 IST

New Jersey: Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who was detained for as long as two hours early on Saturday at the Newark airport in the US, thanks to his surname 'Khan', has reacted strongly to the episode calling it 'uncalled for'.

Speaking exclusively to Zee News about the incident that has left him deeply saddened, Shah Rukh said, "I am devoid; it hurts your self respect. I don't want to make an ego issue out of it but I think I would avoid coming to this place now."

(((Shah Rukh Khan is a movie star and he does have an ego, but he's always struck me as a reasonable guy for a man in his position. Basically, a bunch of TSA goombahs from Jersey grabbed him at one in the morning, and gave him the "phone call? We're divine in the airport here, you don't get no stinkin' phone call" routine. Needless to say this untoward episode is getting colossal press in the Indian media as today is Indian Independence Day.)))

(((My guess is, they grabbed him because he looked weird. Guys who have a billion screaming fans have funny body language.)))

Further elaborating on the episode, Shah Rukh said, "I was made to answer silly questions which had no relation with a legal and a general interrogation. They didn't let me use my phone for an hour. I was travelling alone as the US consulate hadn't allowed a visa to my bodyguard who coincidentally has the same name. As it is I am quite reluctant in coming to the US and I would make sure that I avoid it in the future." (((I'm not saying the USA needs Shah Rukh Khan to survive, but that stinging remark is probably worth 50 million dollars in collateral damage to Indian-US tourism.)))

When asked what he had to say about Ambika Soni's statement on the issue where she had called for frisking laws to be made stringent for foreigners in India, "the way they are in US", the actor said in a lighter vein, "Yes, perhaps that way you can frisk and grill Angelina Jolie too." (((When Pakistani Moslem terrorist assault Bombay, they don't need to go to the airport; they steal boats and then shoot up the bus stations. So I guess it would make sense that they need to frisk movie stars.)))

"This has happened with me before and that's why it concerns me all the more. As it is I shy away from coming to the US because I don't want to participate in their paranoia about religion and everything that the US has developed into over the years. I don't want to say that it happened because I am a Muslim as it may lead to something else, but I think it had something to do with that only. We can only avoid this by not coming to the US," added Shah Rukh.

Suggesting what can be done to avoid such embarrassments, the actor said, "I guess they need to modify the system. I am sure they can do much better than this, being the advanced country America is." (((There must be a special new category for "failed states" it stands to reason that there ought to be a category for "formerly advanced countries.")))

The actor ended up by saying, "This particular episode makes me appreciate our independence one million times more. I need an incident like this to strengthen my faith in God further. I am looking forward to coming back to my country."

(((Y' know, at one in the morning, the cops get kinda bored. I happened to see an Alfred Hitchcock movie a couple days ago, and the characters were so weird that I noted the origin of the screenplay, which came from a novel written by a guy named "Jack Trevor Story." I had a vague feeling that I'd heard of Jack Trevor Story, that he'd worked in the movies or in television somewhere. So I looked him up, and discovered this sad narrative of a dissolute, craggy-looking Bohemian guy working in film, who got worked over by London bobbies. Basically, because he has the wrong face, the wrong attitude. Yeah, at one in the morning even London bobbies get surly. I guess we can be glad that Shah Rukh Khan didn't catch this particular species of intimidation.)))

http://www.savoy.abel.co.uk/HTML/jtstory.html