Notizie

"C'mon, be one of us!" Universal Pics + Gravitas have debuted an official trailer for a comedy titled Queen Bees, a film from filmmaker Michael Lembeck. While her house undergoes repairs, fiercely independent senior Helen moves into a nearby retirement community ― just temporarily. Once inside the Pine Grove Senior Community, she encounters lusty widows, cutthroat bridge tournaments and a hotbed of bullying "mean girls" the likes of which she hasn't encountered since high school, all of which leaves her yearning for the solitude of her home. But somewhere between flower arranging and water aerobics Helen discovers that it's never too late to make new friends and perhaps even find a new love. Of course. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Ann-Margret, Jane Curtin, Loretta Devine, with James Caan, Christopher Lloyd, Elizabeth Mitchell, Matthew Barnes, French Stewart, Alec Mapa, Marianne Muellerleile, and Courtney Gains. This looks like a boat load of retirement ...

With Terminator Genisys on the way, Ryan analyses what might just be the most powerful shot in James Cameron's The Terminator...

"...the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight..."

You can tell a lot about how effective a movie scene is by watching it again with the sound turned off. Stripped of its dialogue, sound effects and music, can the sequence still communicate its message?

James Cameron's The Terminator, blessed though it is with a superb score by Brad Fiedel and numerous quotable lines, could work almost as well as a silent movie. So much of Cameron's feature debut (discounting Piranha II: The Spawning, from which he was fired after just two weeks) is told through body language and skilful shot composition.  

Watch The Terminator's opening again without sound, and you'll see just how effective and lean its visual storytelling is.

Memento Timeline Infographic. The Memento (2000) Timeline Infographic explains the multiple plot lines of the film if the viewer was having a problem understanding. Memento “chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.”

The Memento infographic poster:

Memento Infographic

More on Memento (with spoilers):

Memento is a 2000 American psychological thriller and neo-noir film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from his younger brother Jonathan’s short story, Memento Mori. It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia, which impairs his ability to store new explicit memories. During the opening credits, which portray the end of the story, it is shown that Leonard...

Chronicling one couple's adventures in procreation, "A Smile Like Yours" starts out with a premise that is certainly fertile fodder for a '90s romantic comedy.

However, the end result, directed and co-written by Rysher Entertainment founder Keith Samples (with Kevin Meyer), is a dreary, labored affair that squanders the promising concept, leaving a response of widespread indifference in its wake.

At the boxoffice, given that and the fact Greg Kinnear and Lauren Holly have yet to prove themselves as bankable leads, moviegoers will likely opt for abstinence.

On the surface, Danny and Jennifer Robertson (Kinnear and Holly) would appear to have everything going for them, including a strong, passionate relationship and good jobs. He works in construction. She is co-owner of a burgeoning aroma-therapy business. The only thing missing in their lives is a bouncing bundle of joy.

While Danny isn't so sure the timing's right, Jennifer becomes absolutely obsessed with the idea. When all homespun methods fail to produce the desired result, they surrender their bodies to a fertility clinic as their marriage, too, is tested by a series of fresh stress loads.

To the script's credit, it doesn't shy away from all the invasive treats that await couples when their attempts at baby-making shift from the bedroom to the lab. The results will likely have some nodding their heads in empathy and others squirming in their seats, but that isn't the picture's problem. It's Samples' awkward freshman direction, which places undue emphasis on all the wrong moments, suffocating potential humor, not to mention lumbering pacing (the kiss of death for a romantic comedy) that makes the film's reasonable 101-minute running time feel interminable.

The other major problem is that Holly and Kinnear (last seen together in "Sabrina") make for a cute, if bland, couple. As likable and sincere as they come across, they simply lack the dynamic that would enable them to transcend the material and make it their own. Picking up the slack is the always terrific Joan Cusack as Holly's business partner, Jay Thomas as Kinnear's work buddy and Marianne Muellerleile who's a riot as a smirking, bullying fertility clinic nurse.

Even Shirley MacLaine has been recruited (obviously as a favor to Samples for Rysher's "Evening Star"), making an unbilled extended cameo at the picture's end, but her considerable comedic talents are unable to resuscitate a production that simply fails to deliver the goods.

A SMILE LIKE YOURS

Paramount Pictures

Rysher Entertainment presents

a David Kirkpatrick production

Director Keith Samples

Screenwriters Kevin Meyer, Keith Samples

Producers David Kirkpatrick, Tony Amatullo

Executive producer Robert Harling

Director of photography Richard Bowen

Production designer Garreth Stover

Editor Wayne Wahrman

Costume designer Jill Ohanneson

Music William Ross

Music supervisors Randy Gerston, Evyen Klean

Casting Jennifer Shull

Color/stereo

Cast:

Danny Robertson Greg Kinnear

Jennifer Robertson Lauren Holly

Nancy Tellen Joan Cusack

Steve Harris Jay Thomas

Lindsay Hamilton Jill Hennessy

Richard Halstrom Christopher McDonald

Dr. Felber Donald Moffat

Dr. Chin France Nuyen

Nurse Wheeler Marianne Muellerleile

Running time -- 101 minutes

MPAA rating: R...