plus 4, More room at the bottom - Edmonton Journal |
- More room at the bottom - Edmonton Journal
- Ethan Hawke sinks his teeth into movie 'Daybreakers' - Daily Oklahoman
- Ethan Hawke bares fangs in movie "Daybreakers" - Reuters
- Movie review: Charming stars Adams, Goode, and Irish scenery carry ... - Big Hollywood
- Movie Review | Leap Year - Columbus Dispatch
| More room at the bottom - Edmonton Journal Posted: 09 Jan 2010 12:23 AM PST EDMONTON — Columbus hadn't won a road game since we were talking about Tiger Woods's birdies -- not his chicks -- but the beleaguered Blue Jackets found a care package on Thursday night. It was a gift from the Edmonton Oilers, who are even worse than the Jackets are, especially at home. If this was hockey's Toilet Bowl, the 29th-place Oilers versus the 28th-place Jackets, it was Columbus that left flushed with success after a 4-2 win that was their first on the road since Nov. 19, a 13-game drought. Meanwhile, the Oilers have only won two of their last 12 at Rexall Place, where the building was so quiet you could Oilers coach Pat Quinn's blood boiling as his players found a way to lose again. It was close, but who cares? It was another loss, the Oilers' 11th in their past 12 overall, and like Peter Finch in the great movie Network, Quinn sounded Thursday like he's "mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore." He didn't bang his brogan on the lectern as he stood before the media after the loss, but Quinn did bang his hand several times to emphasize how upset he was. "We keep sitting here and saying we've got skill ... but we're not playing like we have drive or work ethic or we really care what our occupation is and our jobs are. We're in 15th place (in the West) and I sure as hell don't like it," said Quinn, who watched as Kristian Huselius (on the power play) and defenceman Jan Hejda broke open a 2-2 game in the third period on Edmonton goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who deserved better in his second NHL start. "I have trouble giving any good grades to our players tonight. We've had a lot better efforts against teams way higher up in the standings," said Quinn, who didn't feel his team showed up to play. R.J. Umberger and Antoine Vermette got the other goals for the Blue Jackets, who have four wins in their past 25 games. Fernando Pisani, with his first of the season (on a 20-foot wrist shot) and Sam Gagner (from a nice Denis Grebeshkov feed, two minutes before Huselius scored), managed to beat former teammate Mathieu Garon. The Jackets were so excited to win a game that they kept their dressing room closed for four or five minutes to drink it all in, before cranking up the music. The relief in their room was palpable, especially to embattled coach Ken Hitchcock, who frankly needed this win more than Quinn. "All we wanted was a win ... it didn't matter who it was against. This takes the pressure off a lot of guys," said Garon, who has played all three Jackets games against the Oilers this season, winning two and losing one here in October. Quinn was furious at the final goal. It was accidentally deflected by Patrick O'Sullivan, but Quinn was steamed at all the mistakes before the puck went in. "The reason we're in 15th is because we had three guys (forwards O'Sullivan, Andrew Cogliano, Gilbert Brule) up ice on their last goal who did squat," Quinn said. "What is that, skill? Lack of work, lack of interest. We're still trying to figure that out and it's been half a year. I'm a patient guy, but I don't like goals like that. "Either the brain's not good enough or the attitude. Dubnyk, who may return to Springfield of the American Hockey League for the weekend, with Bryan Pitton coming back from Stockton of the East Coast Hockey League for the mini-camp that starts today, played much better than in his 7-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues, but his teammates didn't do him many favours. Huselius put a rebound into a hole the size of a pop-can lid to give Columbus the 3-2 lead after Dubnyk sent an Umberger shot to his right. Columbus scoring a couple of shifts after Gagner tied it is like a broken record for the Oilers, who've done that repeatedly this season. "It's such an emotional roller-coaster for us right now," said Shawn Horcoff. "We have to find ways to relax and find ways to build momentum with three or four shifts, anything to lift the bench up and bring some energy into the building." The building right now is a library, as it was in the mid-'90s, except the crowds are about twice as big. That helps the financial bottom line, but not the scoreline. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Ethan Hawke sinks his teeth into movie 'Daybreakers' - Daily Oklahoman Posted: 08 Jan 2010 06:58 AM PST ©2009 Produced by NewsOK.com. All rights reserved. No actor wants to look foolish, especially if there are a couple of Oscar nominations and a Tony nomination on his resume. And the time you worry about that, says Ethan Hawke, is "When you're sitting there, covered in fake blood, or somebody's handing you a bottle of blood that they're treating like a vintage wine." Whatever the requirements of the scene, which had him wearing fangs and playing a vampire hematologist, Hawke couldn't help having his moment of doubt. "'I hope this movie's good,' I'm thinking. 'If this is bad, not only is it embarrassing, it's DISGUSTING.'" For "Daybreakers," which opens today, Hawke was willing to tackle a genre that he, as a star of stage, screen and TV, hadn't chanced upon before. He "bought into the vision," the concept that German writer-director siblings Michael and Peter Spierig came up with. A virus has allowed vampires to take over the world, hunting the last remaining humans, farming their blood. Hawke's character is a vampire who wants to save the human race by developing artificial blood or a cure for vampirism. "This whole story — a world where vampires have taken over and vampires are destroying the last of their human blood supply — that's a metaphor for the human race today. That elevates the whole movie," Hawke says. "The thing that makes a great genre movie is one that's not just entertainment, not just horror or sci-fi or whatever. The ones I love are the genre pictures with some subversive message underlying it all." Hawke, 39, has spent the last couple of years aging into and busily living up to a label The Washington Post once gave him, "a middle-aged actor who rarely stops working." He took the role in "Daybreakers" while performing a nine-hour trilogy of Tom Stoppard plays, "The Coast of Utopia." He's about to direct Sam Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind" on the New York stage. "That has me more nervous than I've been in a very long time," he admits. And then there is the TV project he just finished — an adaptation of "Moby Dick" in which he plays Starbuck. "Working on a film of a classic novel reminded me of being 18 and doing 'White Fang,'" he says. "When I was in high school, they made me read that story. I hated it. But that piece is poetry, beautiful, prescient poetry." Hawke doesn't just look for messages in genre films like "Daybreakers." He hunts for deeper meaning in the classic roles, too. "The fact that Herman Melville was writing this book about how pursuit of oil and greed for oil was going to corrupt and destroy us, a book about hunting whales in the 19th century, is amazing. It's like reading a newspaper from today — different kind of oil, still pursuing it. It still corrupts us. His guiding principle, Hawke says, is trying to mix up the work — doing less lucrative plays for his craft, indie films for his art and commercial fare. McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
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| Ethan Hawke bares fangs in movie "Daybreakers" - Reuters Posted: 07 Jan 2010 12:50 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood is wild about vampires, and actor Ethan Hawke hopes to take a bite out of that craze with his starring role in the movie "Daybreakers," which has what he calls a new take on the genre. The movie, opening on Friday, hits theaters as Hollywood has been exploring a renewed love affair with immortal bloodsuckers. The romance-drenched "Twilight" movies are generating blockbuster ticket sales at box offices, largely by appealing to school-age girls. Critical hit "True Blood," which enters its third season this year on cable TV network HBO, aims at adults with its sexual content and social commentary. But Hawke said there's still room for "Daybreakers" at Hollywood's crowded vampire dance. "We are the antidote to 'Twilight' and 'True Blood' and things like that. We are an old school horror movie," Hawke told Reuters. "My hope is we will end the inundation of the genre. There's always the saturation point. Maybe (it's popularity) ended two weeks ago, I actually don't think so," he said. In "Daybreakers," Hawke plays a vampire scientist who lives in a world where bloodsuckers are the dominant species. Humans are scarce because they have been treated like lunch, but Hawke's character is trying to find a blood substitute so vampires can feast, guilt free. Instead, he makes a discovery that looms even larger for the vampire race. Hawke said the science fiction nature of "Daybreakers" and the allegory to natural resources being bled dry sets the film apart from teen-oriented tales like "Twilight." He called it "the first post-adolescent" vampire movie in recent years. RIDING A VAMPIRE WAVE Hawke read the script back before 2008's "Twilight," which made $385 million at worldwide box offices, and November sequel "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" with its $683 million take. "I read it and I was like, 'Guys, time to bring back the vampire.' Little did I know that we'd be riding a long wave of people" with the same idea, he said. Hawke appears to take it all in stride, though, because at this point, the 39 year-old actor is a veteran of entertainment industries. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in 2001's "Training Day," and he has written two novels. But don't expect a third one from him anytime soon. "Now I have three kids, and adult life has been bearing down on me a little bit," Hawke said. "I have this fantasy that I'm going to write a ton of books when they go to college." Hawke had one of his most iconic roles in 1994 film "Reality Bites," in which he played a bright slacker who shared a grunge ethos with the bands like Nirvana, and went from one low-end job to another. "How much of that is me? I've had a funny relationship to my own success my whole life where I kind of chased it and then chased it away," he said. But that does not mean Hawke is slacking off with his own career these days. His latest project is directing a New York stage production of the Sam Shepard play "A Lie of the Mind." Unlike when he was younger, Hawke said he now realizes he needs to have financial success, otherwise he can't get his passion projects -- like an eventual follow-up to his romance movie "Before Sunset" -- off the ground. "Life is full of all these weird compromises, and you have to live in reality about it," he said. "You can't have children and not pick your kids up and go to school." (Editing by Bob Tourtellotte) Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Movie review: Charming stars Adams, Goode, and Irish scenery carry ... - Big Hollywood Posted: 07 Jan 2010 05:50 PM PST Glenn Whipp, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The romantic-comedy "Leap Year" gets by, barely, on the charms of its stars and the beauty of its Irish scenery. Amy Adams and Matthew Goode aren't particularly convincing during the loathing portion of their on-screen couple's love-hate relationship, but when the ice thaws, they bring a tender depth of feeling to the oh-so-ordinary material. There's half a watchable movie here and, as luck would have it, you have to sit through a good 45 minutes of creaky contrivances to get to the good stuff. The set-up has control-freak Anna (Adams) freaking out herself when her pink-tie-wearing, cardiologist boyfriend of four years, Jeremy (Adam Scott), gives her diamond earrings instead of an expected engagement ring. When the helmet-haired Jeremy goes to Dublin for a cardiology convention, Anna books a ticket to Ireland, intent on using a folksy, Emerald Isle leap-year custom that gives women carte blanche to pop the question. Yes, underneath all the order and precision, Anna is an incurable romantic. Bad weather diverts Anna's plane to Wales. There she hops a boat and lands in Western Ireland, specifically in the town of Dingle, though there is scant evidence of the charming Dingle in the movie. (Catch the Robert Mitchum movie, "Ryan's Daughter," for the real deal.) What we do see is one lonely pub, which also functions as the hotel and taxi hub. There Anna meets scruffy charmer Declan (Goode), and she hires him to drive her to Dublin in time for Leap Day. Now, it's about 220 miles from Dingle to Dublin, but somehow our couple's journey stretches to three days - enough time for them to drop their guard and fall hopelessly in love. First, though, Anna has to see past Declan's rudeness, and he needs to look beyond her penchant for control. One night in a bed-and- breakfast, where they're forced to act as a married couple in order to get a room, works wonders in settling both these issues. There's not one surprising moment in the script, but Adams and Goode allow you to look past the familiar and develop a rooting interest in them as a couple. Adams isn't particularly endearing (or convincing) playing prissy. But she's got sincerity in spades as well as the ability to dive headfirst into impulse moments after displaying the huggable sensitivity we first saw in "Junebug." As for Goode, it seems ridiculous that, after excellent work in "Match Point," "Brideshead Revisited" and, most recently, as Colin Firth's lover in "A Single Man," it will be a silly movie like "Leap Year" that makes him a star. So be it. Director Anand Tucker ("Shopgirl") gets more mileage from Goode's reaction shots than he does all the wacky scenes featuring road-blocking cows and high-flying, high-heeled shoes. And Tucker knows what he has in Ireland, too, presenting the rugged beauty of the bogs, lakes and mountains of Connemara in western Ireland in an unadorned way, knowing the area needs no embellishment. OK, the sunset finale at the Cliffs of Moher is a little over-the-top, but by that point you don't care - because you actually care. That's the surprise of "Leap Year." Two and half stars out of four.
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| Movie Review | Leap Year - Columbus Dispatch Posted: 08 Jan 2010 04:06 AM PST Rich in cliche and brimming with the potent idiocy common in January romantic comedies, Leap Year manages to do every possible thing wrong. The film is riddled with stereotypes and improbabilities. Taking a page from the dreadful Renee Zellweger-Harry Connick Jr. debacle, New in Town, it asks viewers to believe that an unpleasant, materialistic, self-centered yuppie will transform into a loving, caring individual if only she can spend time with a handsome, salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar guy. Directed by Anand Tucker (Shopgirl), Leap Year starts out with a silly premise: Prissy American Anna (Amy Adams) is desperate to get married, but her doctor boyfriend (Adam Scott) is more concerned with his upcoming conference in Dublin, Ireland. Anna's ne'er-do-well dad (John Lithgow) suggests she make use of an ancient Irish tradition (apparently so old that nobody has ever heard of it): She should surprise the guy in Dublin on Feb. 29, because on that day women are allowed to ask men to marry them. Why women can't do the asking any day is beyond my understanding; it's 2010 and not the 17th century (but nobody checked with me when they were working on the script). Anna heads off to the Emerald Isle, but bad weather thwarts her travel plans. She ends up in a tiny hamlet, where she is forced to pay a sexy Irish barman (Matthew Goode, recently seen as Colin Firth's dead boyfriend in A Single Man) to drive her to Dublin. Naturally these two fall in love after a series of mishaps that prove Anna utterly unworthy of having anyone root for her happiness. In reality, Declan would have wanted to drop her in the River Shannon five minutes after meeting her. He would have kicked her out of his car halfway to Dublin, retired to the pub for a few Guinness drafts to push the entire experience out of his mind and decided the priesthood isn't a bad way to go. The worst part of this equation is that the appealing Amy Adams -- just seen in 2009 as the Julie half of Julie & Julia -- has no excuse for being part of the mess. She's a fresh and likable actress who is perfectly capable of holding her own with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman (her co-stars in Doubt). Why she is a party to such a movie remains a mystery as puzzling as the question of why anybody thought Leap Year was a good idea. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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