There are many reasons to watch Troy: the crisp direction by Wolfgang Peterson; the all-star cast of Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, and Brian Cox; the re-telling of Homer's The Iliad with action movie tropes. The very best reason, however, is Brad Pitt.

Pitt spent over seven months training his body to almost physical perfection for his role as Achilles. And since scenes were shot out of chronological order, Pitt had to maintain his exact body appearance throughout the filming, which entailed a long, hard exercise regime for the entire length of the shoot. So herewith, we're going to rate Brad Pitt's film roles and decide whether they're hunky, or the "pitts." He's no slouch in the looks department on a regular day, so keep in mind that zero Pitts is still better than 10 Buscemis.

Interview With a Vampire (1994)
This is, arguably, the film that rocketed Pitt to stardom. He plays an undead vampire so beautiful, even Tom Cruise wants to make out with him. In embodying Anne Rice's Louis, Pitt needed no special effects to make himself seem like a supernatural being.

Rating:

Continue reading "Is Troy the Hottest Brad Pitt Role Ever?" »

Overlooked during its initial release, Striking Distance is notable for three reasons: It's a "boat cop" movie with some solid chase scenes; it's another "macho-tastic" entry in the filmography of director Rowdy "Roadhouse" Herrington; and finally, it's set in Pittsburgh, a vital, but underrated film locale. The cat-and-mouse game between Det. Tom Hardy (Bruce Willis) and the Polish Hill serial murderer is set on the city's "Three Rivers," which was, in fact, the film's original, Pittsburgh-specific title. And though it isn't anywhere near New York City or Los Angeles in terms of film production, Pittsburgh has been the backdrop for a number of distinctive movies.

Continue reading "Hollywood's Infatuation With Gritty Pittsburgh - From Flashdance to Striking Distance" »

Steve McQueen on a motorcycle leaping 65 feet over a barbed wire fence while fleeing the Nazis -- it's one of the most memorable scenes in The Great Escape... and it certainly looks like Steve McQueen on that bike. But even though the King of Cool did much of his own stuntwork, it was Bud Ekins who actually made that spectacular jump.

Ekins, who also doubled for McQueen in Bullitt, was a renowned member of that select club of daredevils, the Hollywood stuntman. It's also an underappreciated club. Stunt performers have the guts but don't get much of the glory, risking their lives without the corresponding payday or A-list cachet. Ekins reportedly made $1,000 for that jump, while McQueen got a paycheck of $400,000 for the movie.

Continue reading "Bud Ekins Is the Real Steve McQueen in The Great Escape's Greatest Scene" »

Man racing to outsmart the machine -- with nothing less than the fate of the world at stake -- is a classic movie storyline. In WarGames, Matthew Broderick convinces the W.O.P.R. computer that thermonuclear war is futile; matinee idol Keir Dullea outsmarts the wily HAL 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey by sneaking into the Logic Memory Center; and Linda Hamilton is always one step ahead of Skynet in The Terminator trilogy. Movie computers, for all their power, speed and single-mindedness, still can't hold a candle to real live people when it comes to creative problem-solving. And it's not just on screen.

Continue reading "Mankind Outsmarts Computers on Screen and Off... For Now" »

The surest sign that Mother deserves a holiday all to herself is that you never remember it until the very last minute (if at all!), but she still loves you all the same. This year John Wayne wants you to get your rear in gear and put that card in the mail, hence The Sons of Katie Elder, in which a woman's funeral reunites her scattered brood and sets all manner of Old West mayhem into motion.

Wayne's own uneasy relationship with his mother must have been an inspiration to him in the role of John Elder; the biography John Wayne: American chronicles his desperate attempts to win her approval -- which she withheld even after he became the star of the century.

"Unlike his father," the book states, "Wayne fulfilled his mother's dreams of success, and she never forgave him for it... In Molly's eyes, even his spectacular success was only a prelude to ultimate failure. Until it came-- as she was certain it would, she would continue to remind [Wayne] that he was nothing special."

Continue reading "Consider Katie Elder Your Mother's Day Heads-Up From The Duke" »

For most people, a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion is fairly determinative. But then again, most people haven't successfully thwarted the world's greatest fugitive hunter, Tommy Lee Jones. Yes, after battling revenue agents, criminal investigators, and U.S. attorneys for a decade, Dr. Wesley Snipes (he holds an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, SUNY/Purchase), was handed down a three-year prison sentence for failing to file $5 million worth of income taxes.

Snipes is no stranger to evading the law. First there was 1993's Demolition Man, in which his maniacal Simon Phoenix escaped encarceration in an ice cube to terrorize a Utopian Los Angeles in the year 2032. Then there was U.S. Marshals, the 1998 sequel to the Harrison Ford thriller The Fugitive. In this film, Snipes plays a U.S. Agent arrested and imprisoned for murder and espionage, only to escape and lead Jones' Marshals on a dangerous chase to prove his innocence.

For the purposes of this exercise, Wesley, we'll concede that you are neither a sociopath nor frozen in ice; in which case your most valuable insight will have to come from the latter performance. Luckily, there's plenty to work with to plan your escape.

Continue reading "U.S. Marshals Provides Insight for a Wesley Snipes Escape" »

When an actor wins an Academy Award, it's a huge honor, but it's not always a career booster -- the post-win films of Cuba Gooding Jr., Mira Sorvino and Halle Berry spring to mind. But there are certain Oscar-winners who specialize in alternating between highbrow and popcorn pictures.

Take Sir Ben Kingsley, who won his statuette for his riveting performance as the title character in Gandhi. After his seminal role, he went on to work with auteurs such as James Ivory (Maurice), Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List) and Warren Beatty (Bugsy). Kingsley snagged his second Oscar nod for Bugsy; he would go on to earn two more nominations, for Sexy Beast and The House of Sand and Fog.

Continue reading "Sir Ben Kingsley Is No Snob When It Comes to Picking Movies" »

There are a lot of information out there about Chuck Norris. Sadly, not a lot of those things are true, thanks to popular Internet meme, ChuckNorrisFacts.com, which posits that Norris is an indestructible superman who eats diamonds for breakfast, among other things.

In honor of The Octagon, the best Ninjas vs. Norris movie ever made, we're going to reverse that trend by presenting eight Chuck Norris facts that are actually completely true. (Get it? Eight? Like the sides of an octagon?)

True Facts About Chuck Norris

1. His name is Carlos Draak: Chuck Norris was born Carlos Ray Norris, Jr. In point of fact, though, Carlos' father changed his name to Norris from Draak before Chuck was born. Therefore, technically, Chuck Norris' actual birth name is Carlos Ray Draak, Jr.

2. Norris was a karate champ: Lest we forget, Norris opened a series of karate training schools, and was named "Fighter of The Year" by Black Belt Magazine. He even trained Steve McQueen's son, Chad McQueen.

3. He's only been the villain once: All of Norris' roles have been heroic, with the exception of Way of the Dragon, his first lead part. In it, he played the nemesis of his idol, Bruce Lee. It rocketed him to stardom, and he's never looked back.

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There's a certain staid formula for Westerns: Good versus bad. Cowboys versus Indians. Sheriffs versus outlaws. You get the idea. Even when the film serves as a vehicle for ideas about violence, alienation or ethnicity (The Searchers or High Noon), some Westerns feel stodgy and stilted, particularly those shot in studio backlots.

In contrast, Sergio Leone's so-called spaghetti Westerns have a fresh feel based in visual storytelling. You can credit the director's combination of incredibly wide shots filmed on location with tight close-ups to build tension while developing character without much dialogue. His 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is so stylistically compelling that at times it feels downright avant garde.

Continue reading "With a Limited Grasp of English, Sergio Leone Kept the Script Secondary" »

Pat Morita has the distinction of being the only Asian-American to garner an Oscar nomination in an acting category -- for The Karate Kid. Sure, other actors of Asian descent have been nominated and even won, including the guy who beat Morita for Best Supporting Actor: Haing S. Ngor (The Killing Fields). But Morita -- also famous for his role on Happy Days -- was the only one born in the United States...even if his roles often dictated he affect an Asian-type accent or broken English.

Morita's place in the annals of Academy Awards history is especially appropriate because he and Mr. Miyagi, his Karate Kid alter ego, were both victims of a dark episode in WWII history, the internment of almost 120,000 people of Japanese descent -- most of them U.S. citizens -- following Pearl Harbor.

Continue reading "The Real Life Trials of The Karate Kid's Pat Morita" »