The controversial sitcom Action comes to DVD in February!
The show too controversial for network television Action: The Complete Series – Uncut and Unbleeped!, starring Jay Mohr, Illeana Douglas, Buddy Hackett, Jarrad Paul and Jack Plotnick, debuts on DVD this February from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
“Action” took on Hollywood and the censors with its no holds barred, bleep-filled take on the film industry. Executive Producers Joel Silver, Ted Demme and Don Reo took great pride in pushing sitcom boundaries with their wry, campy and irreverent humor along with a “no mercy” attitude toward Hollywood and the show’s characters. Shot with just a single camera, the innovative series featured cameos by top talent in almost every episode, including appearances by Keanu Reeves, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock and Scott Wolf.
In the show, mega-producer Peter Dragon (Jay Mohr) has a track-record of huge box-office hits, and a hugely inflated ego, even by Hollywood standards. A Xantac-popping, stereotypical over-the-top producer who everyone loves to hate, Peter’s record of box office hits was perfect … until his last cinematic bomb. Determined to remain on the Hollywood "hit" list he resorts to desperate measures. Dragon hires Wendy Ward (Illeana Douglas), a former child TV star who is now a call girl, to be his new development executive since she’s the only one he can trust to tell him the truth. Rounding out the cast are Jack Plotnick as Vice President of Development Stuart Glazer, Jarrad Paul playing neurotic writer Adam Rifkin and Buddy Hackett as Uncle Lonnie, the head of security who spends most of his time sleeping on the couch.
The DVD version will feature all 13 episodes from the show in 2-disc DVD set. The release is scheduled for February 21 and will carry a $24.96 suggested retail price.
Cronenberg looking forward to Golden Globes
TORONTO (CP) - David Cronenberg insists he's not bothered that his film A History of Violence is nominated for best film at Monday's Golden Globe Awards but that he didn't make the cut in the best director category.
"It's always been this way," Cronenberg said Friday in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "There are some strange voting systems. Each group has its own weird system of voting."
Cronenberg also shrugs off perennial questions about the validity of the Golden Globes, which are voted on by fewer than 100 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, often the target of scathing criticism in years past for having members of questionable credibility.
They awards seem to have an uncanny knack for forecasting the Academy Award nominees, which will be announced Jan. 31.
"Somehow the Globes just by force of will, and partly luck, have come to have meaning and are taken seriously even though, on another level, they're not," he said.
Whatever the significance of Monday's awards, Cronenberg said he hears it's a pretty fun event and hopes to see a lot of people drinking and behaving badly.
"They are a strange group but they're an interesting group. You can't write them off."
The renowned director turns serious, however, when asked about fellow Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis who wrote, produced and directed Crash, which earned one Golden Globe nomination, for supporting actor Matt Dillon.
He is furious that the film, an interweaving of stories about various Los Angeles residents on a single day, has the identical title to his own 1996 feature.
He calls it disrespectful, condescending and unjustified.
"I have now met Paul Haggis and he knows exactly how I feel," Cronenberg said caustically. "I thought it was a really stupid thing to do because when we both end up in the DVD racks together, it's going to be very confusing."
On the issue of violence that is at the heart of his nominated film, Cronenberg acknowledges he set up the brutal sequences precisely to make them both thrilling and repugnant.
And indeed, moviegoers are often compelled to cheer when a bad guy who deserved it gets blown away in such graphic fashion, yet their excitement is likely to turn quickly to guilt for having found the violence so satisfying.
"I think it's part of what the movie is about, that ambivalence that we have towards it, especially in the cinema."
But Cronenberg, who hails from Toronto - where gun violence has shaken the city - has no patience for people who suggest violence in the movies begets real-life violence.
He doubts those people even go to the movies.
"I've never felt that people were so simple that they would just do what they see," he said.
"I myself have seen, I think it must be hundreds of thousands of killings in cinema, but they're not really killings. And I've never remotely felt close to killing somebody."
Cronenberg has previously said he took on A History of Violence because he needed "a solid paycheque" after the weak financial performance of previous auteur features like 2002's Spider and 1999's eXistenZ.
While he appreciates the favourable memos from studio heads for making a film that was both a commercial and critical hit, he said he doesn't organize his work into doing one film for his art and one for the bank account.
"No, no. I don't make enough movies to do that," he says. "If it's two years of your life, which it tends to be - and it seems to take me three years between movies - I can't really afford to play that kind of game. I have to be working on something I really want to work on. And History of Violence was something that I really wanted to work on."
The film also netted a best film actress nomination for Maria Bello. The Golden Globes air Monday night at 8 p.m. EST.
Golden Globes may make a star of 'Brokeback'
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Brokeback Mountain," once ridiculed as "the gay cowboy movie" but now the front-runner in Hollywood's Oscar race, gets its first major awards show test on Monday night -- in prime time with millions watching.
The gay romance goes into the 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards on Monday with the most nominations -- seven -- of any film and with a favorite status that many in the industry think could be unshakable in the buildup to the March 5 Oscars.
The Golden Globe Awards are an only-in-Hollywood tradition. They are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a hard-to-join group composed of a large number of freelancers working for some obscure publications.
But they give one of the best awards parties in town and over the years the show has become famous as a predictor of Oscar winners. And the stars sashaying across the red carpet in drop-dead designer duds is reminiscent of the glamour of old Hollywood.
Normally the Globes help set up the Oscar race by drawing public attention to films that are the strongest contenders.
The Globes' two main awards are best drama, for which "Brokeback" is a contender, and best musical or comedy.
Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee's tale of love and loneliness in the mountains of Wyoming is a strong contender for best drama by virtue of its picking up a slew of best movie awards from film critics and nabbing top prize at 2005's Venice Film Festival.
But its makers are very conscious the movie's theme of homosexual love in the macho world of Marlboro Country could be a problem for mainstream audiences and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Lee has said he thought reaction would be split. "Some people would like it, and some people wouldn't even go to see it or it would be a laughingstock, like when they called it 'a gay cowboy movie.' Then when they see it, they start to embrace it. It's a wonderful turnaround."
"Brokeback" is up against "The Constant Gardener," a thriller based on a John le Carre novel; "Good Night, and Good Luck," George Clooney's tale of the fight against McCarthyism; "A History of Violence," a story of the violence that lurks beneath the surface in everyday life; and "Match Point," Woody Allen's "comeback" film about the cost of social climbing in Britain.
"Brokeback's" star, Heath Ledger, who has won rave reviews, is a candidate for best actor, but the competition is tough with Philip Seymour Hoffmann, seemingly the man to beat for his performance as gay novelist Truman Capote in "Capote." Other category nominees include Terrence Howard for "Hustle & Flow," David Strathairn as broadcaster Edward R. Morrow in "Good Night, and Good Luck," and Russell Crowe for "Cinderella Man."
Vying for best musical or comedy are "Mrs. Henderson Presents," "Pride and Prejudice," "The Producers," "The Squid and the Whale" and "Walk the Line."
The nomination of "The Squid and the Whale" as a comedy surprised many because the movie is a harrowing tale of a divorce as seen from the eyes of a couple's two teenage sons.
Gwyneth Paltrow Confirms She's Pregnant
LOS ANGELES - After months of rumors about a pregnancy, Gwyneth Paltrow has confirmed she's expecting her second child with Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin.
In an interview following a screening of her movie "Proof" late Thursday, the 33-year-old actress was introduced as a pregnant woman, according to the syndicated entertainment television show "The Insider."
Moderator Lou Diamond Phillips asked Paltrow, "How far along are you?"
"Far enough along to feel very cumbersome," she answered.
Paltrow's publicist, Stephen Huvane, would not comment.
A spokesman for the Screen Actors Guild, which sponsored the screening, referred callers to Huvane.
Paltrow and Martin already have a 20-month-old daughter named Apple. They tied the knot in December 2003.
Paltrow won an Academy Award for her role in 1998's "Shakespeare in Love." She plays the daughter of a mentally unstable math genius in "Proof," an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play.
The Couch Potato Report - January 14th, 2006
This week The Couch Potato Report features a film that I don't understand all the fuss over, and some films that I will fuss over.
I admit it.
I admit that from time to time there are movies that come out that are universally praised and loved, yet I can't understand why.
Even if I have respect for the actors and the filmmakers, I am usually left wondering what all the fuss is about.
The last movie that left me feeling this way was Clint Eastwood's MYSTIC RIVER, and now you can add THE CONSTANT GARDENER to that list.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see what all the fuss is about regarding this film based on the best-selling John le Carré novel.
I respect the source material and I like the actors in the film, but as I watched THE CONSTANT GARDENER I was constantly waiting for something to happen.
And when something did happen, I just didn't find it satisfying.
However, many other people who have seen the film did find it satisfying.
And I don't understand why.
In the film Ralph Fiennes from THE ENGLISH PATIENT plays a stereotypically stiff British diplomat based in Africa who falls in love with the fiery Rachel Weisz from ABOUT A BOY.
He's happy to turn a blind eye to the truths surrounding them, but she takes on the humanitarian plight of the Africans, sometimes at the expense of his career.
Then she and an African doctor she is rumoured to be having an affair with are murdered and Fiennes gets involved in the investigation.
He discovers corruption and that the Africans are being used by giant pharmaceutical companies as guinea pigs to test new drugs.
Eventually, his own life is in danger, and that all sounds interesting...right?
But man did I find the film boring!
Yes, the acting is excellent, and the film is well made, but I wasn't involved in the story, and in the end I was left less than interested. Not bored, mind you, but close.
I don't think THE CONSTANT GARDENER is a bad film, but I didn't like it, and I am not sure why anyone else would either. I just don't get it.
Read the book, skip the movie is what I suggest.
Now even though it was suggested to me by several people that I skip the thriller RED EYE, I didn't, and even though it isn't a quality film like THE CONSTANT GARDER, RED EYE is what I would describe as a "good rental."
Rachel McAdams from WEDDING CRASHERS, THE NOTEBOOK and MEAN GIRLS is a woman who is kidnapped by a stranger on an airplane.
She is told that if she doesn't help with the plot to assassinate the deputy secretary of Homeland Security her father will be killed in his home.
The kidnapper's name is Jackson Rippner - ha ha ha - get it? Jack Ripper? Oh, that is inventive!
Not much else is as inventive as that in RED EYE, and that is hardly inventive at all, so how did I arrive at the conclusion that this is a "good rental", you ask.
Well, first off, the lovely and talented Rachel McAdams is on the verge of becoming a major film actress, and she's Canadian, so to see her in her early work will be interesting in the years to come.
Secondly, Cillian Murphy, the actor who plays Jackson Rippner, is just so creepy. And in this case, creepy is good!
And finally, even though you have to sit through more than an hour to get to it, the final 30 minutes are filled with some real cinematic tension.
No, I don't think RED EYE should be at the top of anyone's list as a movie that needs to be seen, but if everything else that you wanted to see is out, and you like thrillers, then RED EYE is a "good rental."
I was hoping to proclaim the documentary GRIZZLY MAN to be better than just a "good rental", but I am not even sure that it is that.
GRIZZLY MAN centers on amateur grizzly bear expert Timothy Treadwell who traveled to Alaska to study and live with the bears.
In October of 2003 Treadwell was killed by a bear, along with his girlfriend.
Filmmaker Werner Herzog was given access to over 100 hours of video shot by Treadwell during the latter portion of the 13 summers he spent in Alaska.
The film shows you the dreamer, the idealist, the failed actor, the recovered alcoholic, and the seemingly ungrounded man that Timothy Treadwell was.
What it doesn't show you is a much of that footage that was shot with the bears.
Herzog keeps cutting away to people talking about Treadwell and his fate. A fate that one person says is "...what he deserved."
Had it included more footage of the bears in their natural habitat, and Treadwell with them there with his passion and desire to protect them on full display, GRIZZLY MAN could have been a superb movie.
As it is the film is a mildly entertaining look at a man's life, as told by others with only sporadic looks at what the man at the centre was trying to do.
I liked GRIZZLY MAN, but I was prepared to love it. The film let me down.
I also feel the film SERENITY let me down, but I may have let it down too.
Serenity is the movie that is based on the failed TV science-fiction show FIREFLY.
Both the TV show and movie are about the crew of a star ship freighter. Captain Reynolds and his motley crew make their living doing odd jobs out on the frontier, some of them not exactly legal.
They bicker and at times almost come to blows, frequently due to the fact that one of the character's sister is wanted by the government after she was rescued from a top secret laboratory.
Even though I was told that I didn't need to see the series to enjoy the film, I constantly felt as if I was missing part of the back-story.
That is where I failed SERENITY.
Where it failed me is the fact that it wasn't as interesting as STAR TREK, STAR WARS, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY or many of the other science fiction films that came before it.
No, you don't have to be original to be good, but when you can't be original, it is still important to be good.
I didn't think SERENITY was good.
People who are fans of the series FIREFLY, and the movie SERENITY, are called Browncoats. For the record, my coat is black and I won't be changing the colour anytime soon.
I also won't be changing my allegiance to movies made about KING KONG anytime soon. Ever since I saw the 1976 remake of the film, I have been hooked. I have seen the original 1933 version and the 1976 update several times, and I must admit that I have also seen Peter Jackson's new version...three times.
It is for people just like me that the new box set containing PETER JACKSON'S KING KONG PRODUCTION DIARIES has been released.
PRODUCTION DIARIES is an impressive 2-DVD set that gives us an inside look at the six-month production process of the newest film with 54 featurettes produced while the movie was still being filmed.
Nothing is off-limits and after you have seen both discs you will feel as if you know what goes on behind the scenes on a major motion picture set.
In addition to the DVDs the box set for KING KONG PETER JACKSON'S PRODUCTION DIARIES also has a 52-page production memoir and some art prints.
I enjoy the character of King Kong, I've enjoyed all of the films made about him, and I enjoyed the backstage look I got from PETER JACKSON'S PRODUCTION DIARIES. I also found out something I didn't know...they are already making sequels!
KING KONG PETER JACKSON'S PRODUCTION DIARIES, SERENITY, GRIZZLY MAN, RED EYE and THE CONSTANT GARDENER are all available on DVD right now.
Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report
Nicolas Cage is an arms dealer in LORD OF WAR who confronts the morality of his work.
Al Pacino, Rene Russo and "The Sexiest Man Alive" Matthew McConaughey topline TWO FOR THE MONEY a film about bookies in the sports-gambling business.
Some of the people who brought you the AMERICAN PIE films present a sequel of sorts called BAND CAMP.
And I will tell you about the SPECIAL EDITIONS of two classic Robin Williams films DEAD POET'S SOCIETY and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM.
I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!
ABC Moves Walters Oscar Special
Barbara Walters interviewing celebrities on Oscar night is almost as much of an Academy Awards tradition as weeping starlets and shout-outs to agents. Walters will do the special again this year, but it won't air the same night as the Oscar ceremony.
Instead, ABC says Walters' special will air Wednesday, March 1, four days before the 78th annual Academy Awards. The move comes in part because the network will begin the Oscar telecast at 8 p.m. ET, rather than 8:30 as in past years. That means red-carpet coverage will begin in the 7 p.m. hour, the time when Walters' show usually airs to the eastern half of the country (it followed the awards out West).
And, in a win-win for ABC, March 1 is also the final night of February sweeps, giving the network one final stab at bigger ratings in the period.
"We've been wanting to expand the celebration of the Oscars for some time, and moving Barbara's special to Wednesday as part of our strategy for the February sweep makes it the true national kickoff event for the awards broadcast," says Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment. "Her specials are always star studded and glamorous -- now they'll signal that even more is on the way."
Walters is okay with the change too, saying she's "very pleased" the show will air in the same timeslot across the country. "And being seen earlier in the week gives us much more flexibility than in the past in terms of guests."
A lineup of guests will be announced in the coming weeks.
Country singer Cyndi Thomson returns to music
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - In a surprise move, country artist Cyndi Thomson has returned to the Capitol Records Nashville artist roster after a three-year-plus hiatus.
Thomson's 2001 debut album, "My World," went gold, and her single "What I Really Meant To Say" spent three weeks atop Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. But the following year, she stunned the industry by walking away from her career, saying she couldn't "commit to those obligations" that go along with the profession.
At the time, Capitol Records Nashville president/CEO Mike Dungan said the label's staff was "heartbroken and bewildered at (her) decision."
Now, the label is seeking songs for 29-year-old Thomson, who is set to begin recording a new album in late February. Before stepping away, Thomson had said she planned to "continue writing and creating music," but it is unknown how much work she did.