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" »

The cinema has seen it's fair share of espionage superstars: James Bond. Jason Bourne, and of course, Dick Steele. Wait! Hold up! Who's Dick Steele, you ask? Dick Steele, my friends, is Leslie Nielsen's character in Spy Hard. He may not be the greatest undercover agent, but he's one in a long line of Secretly Dumb Agents hard not to love. We've taken the time to run these clueless spies through our Nielsen Ratings System, with five Nielsens being the most clueless; zero being, well, James Bond.

Austin Powers in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
For a spy who just wants to shag, Austin Powers (Mike Myers) is surprisingly effective. It's only when he gets flung into the future that he ends up as a man without a clue. At the end of the day, he relies on his mojo too much and the evidence too little. Still, he gets the job done. Ridiculous? Sure. Clueless? Only a tiny bit.

Cluelessness

Continue reading "Clueless Movie Spies According to the Leslie Nielsen Ratings System" »