The Chloë Grace Moretz weeper If I Staystood its ground on Friday by taking in $6.8 million at the box-office, beating out fellow newcomer Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, which took in just $2.62 million. Guardians of the Galaxy continues to rake in the bucks, as it made $4.8 million. Coming in third was the Jim Caviezel headlined football drama When The Game Stands Tall with a $3 million showing.
If I Stay, based on Gayle Forman’s book, centers on two musically inclined youths (Moretz, who spent seven months learning the cello, and Jamie Blackley) whose romance takes a tragic turn after Mia (Moretz) is involved in a car accident.
If I Stay should continue its momentum throughout the weekend, especially since movie fans don’t mind a mix of tears with their popcorn ( The Fault In Our Stars made over $124 million domestically).
In the clip below, Moretz explains how the life after death theme is handled with If I Can Stay:
Person of Intereststar Jim Caviezel, who starred as a shady warden last year in the Sylvester Stallone/Arnold Schwarzenegger feature Escape Plan, dons the white hat once again in the sports film When The Game Stands Tall.
In the fact based film, Caviezel plays Coach Bob Ladouceur (he’s known as Coach Lad), a man who led the De La Salle High School Spartans to 151 straight wins. When The Game Stands Tall also looks at how Coach Lad united his team through tragedy and heartache. Even in the darkest of times, Coach Lad relied on his resolve, family, and faith to carry the way.
Jim Caviezel’s didn’t take the role simply because the movie has a faith based message. “I took it because it’s a great story,” said Caviezel. “Does it have faith elements in it? Yes. But at the end of the day, so did To Kill A Mockingbird. So did Ben-Hur and Braveheart. I’m looking for stories that are moving to me that have some sort of redeemable quality to it.”
With a body of work that includes the first rate features The Thin Red Line, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Passion of the Christ, Caviezel has carved a creatively gratifying career. But before he became a movie star, the actor was a 21-year-old waiter looking for a little bit of direction. Thankfully, James Stewart was one of the men who stepped in his path.
Click on the audio below to hear Caviezel relay an important conversation he had with Stewart in regards to making movies.
When The Game Stands Tall, co-starring Michael Chiklis as assistant coach Terry Eidson, is now playing nationwide.
Two recent Warner Archive releases, Trialand Young Man With Ideas, feature Glenn Fordas well intentioned lawyers. Don’t expect a cookie cutter story from either film, however, as each release are blessed Ford’s acting versatility and engaging narratives.
If hard hitting dramas are your cup of tea, Trial packs a wallop. Glenn Ford is David Blake, a law professor who needs actual court experience to keep his day job. His desperation lands him in the hands of shady attorney Barney Castle (Arthur Kennedy, who received an Oscar nod for the role) and Barney’s ex-lover/secretary Abbe (Dorothy McGuire).
A 17-year-old youth named Angel Chavez (Rafael Campos) is on trial for a girl’s murder. Since Angel’s caught in a town poisoned by racists, his Hispanic roots could spell his doom. David immediately bonds with Angel and becomes a surrogate father figure, but the trial is compromised after David uncovers Barney’s Communist leanings. Directed by Mark Robson (Peyton Place, Von Ryan’s Express), Trial contains an inspired and showy performance from Kennedy, as Barney is more than willing to sacrifice Angel’s life to increase the Communist Party’s hold on the nation.
Trial – Warner Archive Collection
The entire ensemble, which includes Katy Jurado (HighNoon)as Angel’s mom, Juano Hernandez (Kiss Me Deadly) as the principled judge, and John Hodiak (Battleground)as the prosecutor, all do excellent work. Special mention goes to the palpable chemistry between Dorothy McGuire (The Spiral Staircase) and Ford. Both Abbe and David believe in making the world a better place, but for Abbe her road took a bit of a detour.
McGuire fills an exposition filled scene that could have gone sideways with conviction. There’s nothing about Abbe’s story, even if she’s a supporting player in the proceedings, that’s boring. And much of that credit goes to McGuire’s sheer believability in the role.
While the supporting players gets their moment in the sun, it’s Ford who serves as Trial’s narrative backbone. As always, he brings a reliable and sure-handed approach to the part. Although David Blake’s handling of the Angel Chavez case gets a bit shaky, Mr. Ford is always on steady ground. Trial is Manufactured On Demand and can be purchased at The Warner Archive Collection site.
Made in 1952, the 84-minute Young Man With Ideas is lighthearted fare, as Glenn Ford is Maxwell, a Montana legal researcher who quits his job and heads out to Los Angeles with his family in tow. Encouraged by loving wife Julie (Ruth Roman) to start over in California, he lands a job as a bill collector while spending his free time studying for the bar.
Their new digs is the former residence of a bookie, and when Julie accidentally takes a bet over the phone, their domestic bliss takes a momentary turn for the worse. Along with a mobster (Sheldon Leonard) on his tail, Maxwell also must pull away from the advances of law classmate Joyce (an astounding Nina Foch) and a French singer with money problems (Denise Darcel).
Each woman have their respective hold on Maxwell’s decision making, but eventually this affable and self deprecating chap must grow a backbone and end his passive ways. Ford proves he has a deft comedic touch in the feature, and he’s wonderful working opposite all of the actresses.
Young Man With Ideas – Warner Archive Collection
Nina Foch, who also starred that year in Scaramouche with Janet Leigh and Stewart Granger, is a total revelation as Maxwell’s fetching colleague. Foch had a long career in Hollywood and also spent years working as a renowned acting teacher, and her unpredictable and compelling delivery shines through in this predictable yet ultimately engaging comedy.
When Maxwell enters Julie’s (Foch) Los Angeles apartment, she’s seductively dressed to the nines. A happily married Maxwell is there to study for the bar exam, but Julie’s advances momentarily distract him as she walks into the living room to ask, “The fire still burning alright?” It’s a sexual innuendo that’s subtly played to the hilt from Foch, with Ford effectively lending support as the befuddled Maxwell. The beautifully shot and performed sequence between Ford and Foch can be seen in the preview clip below.
Although not as weighty as Trial, Young Man With Ideas has its share of moments, and along with my lifelong appreciation for Ford and Roman, I’m now a huge fan of Nina Foch, even without the fireplace.
Weaving The Past: Journey of Discovery has extended its exclusive engagement at Pasadena’s Laemmle Playhouse 7 through Thursday, August 28. The film, which received an Accolade International Film Competition Award of Merit and The Indie Fest Award for Documentary Feature and Editing, is a personal story straight from writer/director/producer Walter Dominguez’s soul.
“Facing certain imprisonment and death by execution, my grandfather and his comrades escaped across the open U.S.-Mexico border and began a new a life as laborers laying railroad tracks in the wide expanses of the American West and then eventually as miners in Arizona,” said Dominguez, who produced Weaving The Past with his wife, actress Shelley Morrison. “The work at the mines in Arizona, where discrimination against Mexican laborers was rampant, caused them to begin unionizing Mexican miners, and then from their base of operations in the U.S. becoming major players in the growing movement to overthrow Porfirio Diaz, which ultimately succeeded – at great personal cost and death.”
Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery is an insightful and thought provoking look at the importance of tracing one’s roots while also continuing to forge one’s own path.
“I had a wonderful director, years ago,” said Morrison, whose work includes a highly successful run on Will & Grace and the film Mackenna’s Gold. “My roots are in the theater, and this wonderful director . . . I was doing a Tennessee Williams play and he said, ‘Of course it’s important (to believe). If you don’t believe, then the audience won’t believe it. But let the audience do some of the work, that’s what they’ve come here for.'”
In the following clip, Morrison and Dominguez talk about taking the audience on their own journey of self-discovery and why it’s important for them to not spell everything out for the viewer (Dominguez elaborates on a scene that was cut from the movie).
The De La Salle High School Spartan’s streak of 151 straight wins is the shiniest aspect of When The Game Stands Tall, as no one can deny the accomplishments of Coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) Assistant Coach Terry Eidson (Michael Chiklis) and the various players who achieved this seemingly unreachable pinnacle.
Getting to that mountaintop, however, requires more than athletic acumen or coaches that will light a fire under a player’s belly. In real life, the two coaches are soft spoken (Caviezel gives a subtle yet effective performance as Coach Lad).
Hollywood, CA – August 4, 2014: Jim Caviezel and Coach Bob Ladouceur at Tri Star Pictures’ red carpet premiere of WHEN THE GAME STANDS TALL at the Arclight Hollywood Theatre.
“You can’t fake anything about coaching. I thought the only other coaching job I really liked a lot on film was Gene Hackman (in Hoosiers),” said Coach Lad. “I thought he did a phenomenal job. And I thought Jim Caviezel did too because he played it to my personality. It wasn’t over the top. I looked at it and thought, ‘well that’s kind of how I am.’ I was real happy with how he did it.”
Hollywood, CA – August 4, 2014: Assistant Coach Terry Eidson at Tri Star Pictures’ red carpet premiere of WHEN THE GAME STANDS TALL at the Arclight Hollywood Theatre.
I asked the coaches about the key to building trust with their players. Play the audio clip below to hear their answer:
When The Game Stands Tall opens Friday, August 22.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, The November Man doesn’t open stateside until August 27, but that hasn’t stopped Relativity Media from announcing a sequel is already in the works (news was scooped by Latino Review).
The story, based on Bill Granger’s book There Are NoSpies, centers on Peter Devereaux (Brosnan), a CIA vet who trains a novice agent (Luke Bracey) on the ways of killing and surviving in their deadly business.
“The November Man is a gritty series that re-invents the spy genre with its master Pierce Brosnan by combining the best elements of James Bond and Jason Bourne while echoing the cool, sleek action movies of the 70s,” says Relativity’s president of production Robbie Brenner. “We are excited to launch the film later this month and to continue to explore Peter Devereaux’s dangerous world with Pierce over the years to come.”
During The November Man press conference, Pierce Brosnan explains how his “unfinished business” with James Bond as well as his affinity with producer Beau St. Clair and Granger’s writing led him to taking the project:
For Chaney Jr., being an effective pastor doesn’t solely rest on one’s charisma or delivery. Any sermon on the proverbial mount may bring the message across, but faith is a shared experience and when pastors relate their struggles while preaching the gospels, that bond can only grow stronger.
“Any pastor worth his salt has experienced brokenness in some phase in their life,” says Chaney Jr. “They’ve been broken down to the point where nothing else satisfies that inner hunger but God. I think that’s why people relate to the best pastors around. It may not be just their delivery style or their innovation in ministry – people realize that (pastors) have been broken by the same things that they are experiencing. That goes a long way and that’s what resonates with most people.”
I asked Pastor Wayne Chaney Jr. about the mentors he seeks for advice. Click on the media bar below for his answer:
Romans 10:9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Benedict Cumberbatch has signed on to The Jungle Book as the voice of Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger who serves as Mowgli’s adversary. This Warner Bros. adaptation isn’t the only Jungle Book that’s in production, as director Jon Favreau is on board Disney’s version of The Jungle Book.
The Warner Bros. film will be directed by Andy Serkis, whose motion capture work as Gollum and Caesar should lend itself well to the ambitious rendering of Rudyard Kipling’s classic. Both Serkis and Cumberbatch worked together on The Hobbit pictures.
Cumberbatch, who was seen last year in Star Trek Into Darkness, is known as a nattily dressed individual. He explains in the following audio clip why he has an affinity for Spencer Hart’s sense of style, especially when it comes to Savile Row suits.
Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s pulp classic Sin City came out in 2005, and a more seasoned Jessica Alba brought a different take on vengeful and strong willed dancer Nancy Callahan.
“I was so young and I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin,” said Alba, who in the years since has collaborated with Rodriguez in the Machete films and Spy Kids: All The Time in the World in 4D. “Being on a stage and dancing – it was all kind of terrifying to me . . . I was terrified. I didn’t want to make a misstep and I knew how incredible this world was.”
Experience has a way of strengthening one’s resolve and skill set, and since Sin CityAlba’s acting chops are on a different level (if you’re a pulp/film noir fan, check out her performance in the terrific and brutal The Killer Inside Me).
Click on the audio bar below to hear Jessica Alba talk about the sense of confidence she brought to her work in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For.
Co-starring Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Powers Booth, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For opens August 22.
Grammy winning singer Michelle Williams and gospel singer/pastor Deitrick Haddon (Preachers of L.A.) spearhead Oxygen’s new series Fix My Choir which, if the title suggests, will bring new harmonies and a reinvigorated attitude to various choirs in need of direction.
“It goes way beyond the music,” says Haddon. “People have learned how to harmonize and sing over their issues in a choir. And there are a lot of issues in a choir. That’s the beautiful thing about it – we’ve been able to confront their demons and become better singers.”
For Michelle Williams, her journey as a singer was obviously shaped by her family and choir, but it also took certain individuals to nurture her passion and drive. Click on the audio bar to hear the Destiny’s Child member and solo artist (Journey to Freedom comes out September 9) talk about how the song “Reach Out And Touch” marked a formative stage in her life. In the clip, Haddon also elaborates how talent shows and performing the Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney track “Say, Say, Say” gave him early confidence as a singer.
