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“Who could
completely resist a picture with Carmen Miranda having a bowl of fruit
on top of her head?”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A silly MGM musical comedy directed without any passion by Robert
Z. Leonard, that is not as witty or well-acted as the 1940 film it remade–Deanna
Durban’s It’s A Date. It’s about a gold-digging mother (Ann Sothern)
and daughter (Jane Powell) team who compete over the same singing role
and unwittingly are pursuing the same man (Barry Sullivan). Everything
about this film feels forced. But, then again, who could completely resist
a picture with Carmen Miranda having a bowl of fruit on top of her head? 

Popular Broadway star Sothern vacations in Rio before starting her
next stage show. Unknown to Sothern or her pretty and ambitious daughter,
Powell is hired to appear in her starring Broadway role. The Rio venue
is reason for some goofy musical numbers with a Brazilian flavor, though
some opera is also thrown into the mix as a touch of MGM class.

It never really excites, but the costumes are colorful and the music
is bouncy and the viewing is effortlessly pleasant. And what the hell its
slight story is so easily forgettable, that even immediately after viewing
one might not be able to recall ever seeing the film. The song with the
most pep was “Time and Time Again.”

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The Wu-Aroma Tale Continues… (Official Sneak Peek)
By Marks

Posted on 13 Feb 2010 at 10:54pm

Did you ever really know how the Wu-Tang really get down? Well, a new movie called The Wu Tang Saga is being released on February 25th that captures over 2 years of footage and 9 concerts . Here is the official trailer to the documentary. Dig it… For more, go to Wu-Tang Saga.Com Official Video – Wu Tang Clan “Take It Back” (Video) SNEAK PEEK CLIPS – “NWA: The World’s Most Dangerous Group” Wu-Tang Documentary aires on BET!

Two ends of the Mumbai social spectrum find their lives intersecting in “Taxi No. 9211,” a largely gripping drama about an ornery cab driver and a ruthless yuppie. Slickly mounted, high-concept fourth feature from helmer Milan Luthria (POW theatrics “Deewaar”) is refreshingly different from run-of-the-mill Bollywood, without considering occasionally taking a turn into the inconceivable, and develops its separation theorize in stimulating ways. Ardent perfs by leads Nana Patekar and (surprisingly) John Abraham rev up the human drama, making this of interest to Bollywood-sisterly events. B.O. proper for the Feb. 24 liberating has been OK for a specialty matter.

Short-fused, working stiff Raghu (Patekar) can’t hold down a regular job, and works as a cabbie without his wife, Sunita (Sonali Kulkarni) knowing. Raghu desperately needs 30,000 rupees ($700) to pay off a debt in the next 24 hours, and sees his chance when rich playboy Jai (Abraham) hails his cab.

Jai is on his way to court to contest his late father’s will, in which he’s been cut off without a rupee. When Raghu’s cab crashes, Jai mislays the key to the safe-deposit box in which his father’s original will (favoring him) is stored. Raghu finds the key, realizes its worth, but refuses to hand it over to Jai, whom he sees as an arrogant rich kid. A potentially deadly game of cat-and-mouse develops between the two.

After a leisurely set-up, with an off-screen narrator (Sanjay Dutt) intro’ing both men’s backgrounds, the personal drama really develops in the third reel as the two meet in Raghu’s rickety vehicle, with Jai urging him to drive faster and faster to meet the court date. But when the hearing is postponed for 24 hours, Rajat Aroraa’s script develops in unexpected ways, as both men’s lives quickly start to melt down. Ultimately, the pic turns into a drama of two men, both deeply flawed by pride, who eventually find some kind of common ground.

Veteran character actor Patekar is tops as the misanthropic, rather pitiful cabbie, but the revelation is the perf of male pin-up Abraham, till now in steamy dramas which largely called for him to take his shirt off. Two very different thesps develop real chemistry, boosted by Kulkarni’s nicely gauged performance as Raghu’s young wife.

Film has only one real musical number — a sex-drenched sequence, early on, of Jai carousing in a night club — that could easily be cut.

After all the drama, the ending is light, with a celeb cameo by actress Priyanka Chopra and (following a recent trend) a musicvid-style end-title sequence with Patekar, Abraham and Sameera Reddy that’s huge fun.

A fanatic-rape flick of unusually high technical ineptitude, even for this egregious species, which features Canada doubling as California and Cassavetes as the doctor trying to reveal the problem of just what is doing all those shower-curtain murders and inflicting such massive internal injuries on the female victims. We are indebted to The Monthly Fog Bulletin for their scholarly note pointing out that the movie chickens inaccurate of the central Doppelgaenger of Ray Russell’s novel – the huge size of the incubus’ phallus – and it’s a castration that reaches out into the entirety layer. Cassavetes’ presence inevitably raises echoes from Rosemary’s Baby, but his baleful looks are miscast on the side of the angels. The however decent faith is that this buffoonery made him enough money for a person of his own independent films. CPea.

A no person-too-edifying study of waist-elasticity catastrophe, much in the autobiographical vein of S.O.B and tackle in Edwards’ own home in Malibu, where he has gathered around him a virtual plethora of real-enthusiasm friends and offspring. Lemmon plays a hypochondriacal architect, panicked at the design of his impending 60th birthday, who is too obsessed with his shrink from of failing sexual and resourceful powers to consideration the verified anxieties of his family. While his singer chain (Andrews) busies herself organising a kith and kin get-together in his honour (while awaiting, unbeknownst to him, the results of a biopsy for suspected throat cancer), he is off indulging himself in a inconsequential surplus-marital shenanigan with a beguiling patient, dabbling with a profit to the church, or finding allay with a sexy worth-teller’s health-giving mark in rub down. Lemmon, even though presented with witty lines and sect pieces, is irritating less than sympathetic, and allowed to coast in a hackneyed retread of the unstable he has been playing for too many years. The siesta is a thinly obscure tribute to Edwards’ little woman Andrews, which shows him at his most embarrassing.

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Disney has released another brand new Little Einsteins movie, Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue, that should please parents and children who enjoy this educational, clever animated series. Aiming high in expecting little children to appreciate great works of art in the fields of painting, music, and the decorative arts, Little Einsteins is a most unusual (and most welcome) celebration of high culture in a deceptively simple children’s animated series.

I’ve written before about Little Einsteins (please click here to read that earlier review), and watching this new DVD release, Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue, I was again taken with the show’s gentle insistence on not pandering to its young audience. There are a lot of shows out there aimed at this same young group, but Little Einsteins is deliberately designed to celebrate works of art that most grownups would be hard-pressed to identify.

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The Little Einsteins consist of Leo, June, Quincy and Annie (Leo’s little sister). They’re explorers whose adventure efforts are aided enormously by Rocket, their morphing rocket ship that can travel on land, sea, and in the air. For Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue, Rocket receives a feather from the magical Firebird, who spreads music and happiness over the vast expanses of Russia. Caged by the evil Matryoshka nesting doll/ogre Katschkai, who hates music, the Firebird’s absence has brought gloom and unhappiness to the steppes of Russian, and it’s up to the Little Einsteins and Rocket to hunt down the clues to find the key to her cage.

As with all Little Einstein episodes, the opening has a run-down of what works of art will be incorporated into the episode. For Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue, Kandinsky’s painting, Improvisation is utilized for a backdrop to one of the Little Einstein’s encounters with the nasty Katschkai. Matryoshka nesting dolls and a fabulous Faberge egg are also used, and naturally, Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite plays constantly in the background – all heady stuffy for a little kids’ program.

And that’s the great element in the Little Einsteins series. In a world where art and music programs are being slashed or eliminated in so many elementary and secondary schools, Little Einsteins takes a stand for the vital importance of these areas of study, and in its own small way, starts very young children on the road to appreciating them. But it’s not a dry lecture; in fact, your child won’t suspect they’re learning about some of the great works of art unless you tell them that fact. The Little Einsteins adventures are so beguiling and quickly paced, your children will be caught up in the fun – not hung up on trying to “learn” something (which, of course, they will anyway, without knowing it). After watching this just once, my five-year-old daughter remembered the Italian musical terms adagio, moderator, Allegro, and presto, in their correct order. I’m all for mindless children’s entertainment – in fact I celebrate it – but when a show can do that for a small child, it’s pretty amazing. Will she forget those words? Very probably. But that music and those decorative works of art will probably always be floating around somewhere in the back of her mind.

This particular new movie, Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue, is nicely designed, with the series’ signature use of photo-montage techniques quite striking in some spots (there’s a great shot of Rocket and the gang flying over the frozen wastes of Siberia). It’s really a bright, color-saturated-looking series, and little viewers will be instantly drawn to its design concept. Lush, classical music, beautiful objects d’art, and TV producers who aren’t afraid to champion culture in a little kids’ program, add up to an unique viewing experience for you and your child.

The DVD:

The Video:
Digitally perfect, the full frame video image for Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue is excellent, with no compression or edge enhancement issues. Colors are saturated.

The Audio:
Especially nice (and a testament to Disney’s understanding of the purpose of the series), the soundtrack is available in a powerful Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix (the Stravinsky cues sound amazing here). French and Spanish mono tracks are also available, as are close-captions.

The Extras:
A cool little feature is the Magic Mission Mode, where you can read fun, informative pop-up facts about the artists featured in the episode. You can watch this mode in either “Active” (with remote) or “Auto” (without remote) control. It’s sweet. There’s also a bonus episode of the series, Rocket Soup, where the gang must gather together the ingredients needed to make Rocket go, including peas, cheese, and jumping beans. Featured artists and works include Paul Klee’s Moonrise and Dvorak’s Humoresque #7. Another great episode.

Final Thoughts:
Just like many of us who learned classical music cues and opera arias from the brilliant Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes cartoons, your child can go one step further and experience some of the great works of art in this delightful, informative – and most importantly, exciting – little series. I highly recommend Disney Little Einsteins: Rocket’s Firebird Rescue.

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Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

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“It’s spirited! It’s living!”
–Colin Clive, “Frankenstein”

In 1946 the illustrious creativity journo Ray Bradbury wrote a short story called “The Small Assassin” in which an infant stalked and killed its parents. It took Hollywood a scattering years to capture up, but eventually they produced such possessed-children movies as “The Inclement Seed,” “Rosemary’s Babe in arms,” “The Exorcist,” “The Omen,” and in 1974, “It’s Astir.”

Right away, I realize that “It’s Alive” has turn a cult classic from its numerous goggle-box and video showings, so don’t everybody start literature in to complain to my not liking it. The fact is, it’s a nice-looking mediocre little horror picture. But Grub Streeter, producer, and manager Larry Cohen did snap up a legitimate, snarly outlook for grossing people out by having a child born with fangs and claws that attacks and kills most anyone it sees. I intend it’s the mental image alone rather the cinematic manner of the view that continues to appeal to people.

After all, the film shows very little existing power (it’s rated PG-13, not R), and it leaves most of the blood and gore to the audience’s imagination. Now, in most instances, I would cheer this approach, but regrettably in the case of “It’s Alive,” Cohen not only leaves insensible the graphic mayhem, he leaves out-moded practically caboodle else that defines a gifted motion show. Beyond the initial premise, I found “It’s Alive” mostly empty, exhausting, and amateurish.

You skilled in a obscure is in in a delicate condition when the best separate fro it is the melodious soundtrack, which in this case was composed by the basic Bernard Herrmann. For those of you unpractised with Herrmann, he’s the gyrate who did the music looking for “Citizen Kane,” “The Day the Mother earth Stood Still,” North By Northwest,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Psycho,” and a hundred other screen classics. He did “It’s Alive” right between his apply on Brian de Palma’s “Sisters” and Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” Why in the faction Herrmann agreed to do a menial-budget horror film on the side of Cohen is anybody’s guess, but the music, although not his most inspired, is reminiscent of everything the composer ever did and evokes an appropriately spooky mood during the film.

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Cohen’s pacing of the piece is imitative at best and clunky at worst. Scenes don’t so much unfold naturally into one another as they go lurching awkwardly from chestnut to the next, practically bumping each other off the screen. And things aren’t helped by the poor miking, which renders some of the dialogue almost unintelligible as it fades into muddled mumbling.

Nor is the acting any better, with the a person exception of a strong portrayal by John Ryan as the essential character, Frank Davis, the father of the demon child. Yet, Ryan’s character is so unqualifiedly unsympathetic, it’s definite to notice Ryan’s acting ample to like it. The beget is a creepy, extroverted PR director who helps us apprehend why his new offspring is so gross.

Beyond Ryan, though, the rest of cast looks like they’re appearing in a high school play. Sharon Farrell as Frank’s wife, Lenore, is so undependable in her portrayal of the distraught mother that it’s hard to tell if she’s gone around the subservient or if she’s just a bad actress. Daniel Holzman as Chris, the relation of the monster, is plainly a bad actor, but at least he has the reason of being young. The others in the cast seem either unsure of what they’re doing or badly directed, because there isn’t a lot of opinion among the share of them. Worse, the three silver screen veterans who force have turned in solid performances–Chap Stockwell, Michael Ansara, and Andrew Duggen–aren’t given more than a minute or two of room divider measure each.

Despite the mainly schlocky demeanor of the picture, Cohen does manage to do a four of things hand. The cinematography can be very Hitchcockian in its various strange camera angles, and the administrator waits an appropriate while before showing us what the baby in point of fact looks like. Most of the time, the infant monster’s carriage is made known only through its own mention-of-view shots as it crawls all round darkened spaces hunting its devour, and it’s just in the final moments of the movie that we get on a clear look at it.