Chicago – “Mother and Child,” with an all star cast of Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Smits and Kerry Washington, is mindful of its subject matter, that rare and elusive connection between a mother and their offspring. However, the film has difficulties when the characters become inconsistent with their past backgrounds after that connection is introduced.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Mother and Child opens with a flashback, a birth. Fourteen year old Karen brings an unexpected pregnancy to term and gives up the daughter for adoption. In the present day that girl is Annette Bening, over 50 and single. Her life consists of caring for her elderly mother and working long hours as a physical therapist. She is embittered, and blames much of her life’s trials on the giving up of her child, who she doesn’t know. It is her obsession, even in keeping a diary of thoughts to the child.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Mother and Child opens with a flashback, a birth. Fourteen year old Karen brings an unexpected pregnancy to term and gives up the daughter for adoption. In the present day that girl is Annette Bening, over 50 and single. Her life consists of caring for her elderly mother and working long hours as a physical therapist. She is embittered, and blames much of her life’s trials on the giving up of her child, who she doesn’t know. It is her obsession, even in keeping a diary of thoughts to the child.
- 5/23/2010
- by PatrickMcD
- HollywoodChicago.com
Chicago – “Mother and Child” is an intense exploration of the various stages of motherhood, through the performances of Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Samuel L. Jackson. Leading the eclectic cast through their paces is director Rodrigo Garcia.
Garcia, the son of famed author Gabriel García Márquez, has carved his own artistic niche in a career directing both prestige television and film. Besides sheparding the HBO’s favorites “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under” and “Carnivále” at various points, Garcia also produced and help develop the HBO adaptation of “In Treatment.”
His films are characterized by their human relationship elements, including “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her’ [2000] and “Nine Lives,” which Garcia also wrote. Mother and Child is his fourth film directed from his own screenplay.
Scene from ‘Mother and Child’ featuring Samuel L. Jackson as Paul and Naomi Watts as Elizabeth
Photo Credit: Ralph Nelson for © 2009 Sony Picture...
Garcia, the son of famed author Gabriel García Márquez, has carved his own artistic niche in a career directing both prestige television and film. Besides sheparding the HBO’s favorites “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under” and “Carnivále” at various points, Garcia also produced and help develop the HBO adaptation of “In Treatment.”
His films are characterized by their human relationship elements, including “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her’ [2000] and “Nine Lives,” which Garcia also wrote. Mother and Child is his fourth film directed from his own screenplay.
Scene from ‘Mother and Child’ featuring Samuel L. Jackson as Paul and Naomi Watts as Elizabeth
Photo Credit: Ralph Nelson for © 2009 Sony Picture...
- 5/19/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Sandra Bullock The Blind Side The 2011 British Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011 — or exactly two weeks before Hollywood’s Academy Awards. The annual BAFTAs are presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. For the 2011 awards, eligible films will be those screened between Feb/Mar 2010 and Feb. 2011. So, Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side could be in the running next year. This year, the big winners were the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, actor Colin Firth for A Single Man, and actress Carey Mulligan for An Education. Photo: The Blind Side (Ralph Nelson / Warner Bros.)...
- 3/27/2010
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
Vera Farmiga, George Clooney in Up in the Air (Dale Robinette / Paramount); Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron in The Blind Side (Ralph Nelson / Warner Bros.) (middle); Meryl Streep, Steve Martin in It’s Complicated (Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal) (bottom) On Tuesday, James Cameron’s Avatar once again topped the North American box-office chart, with $2.688m, a minuscule 0.4 percent drop from the day before, according to figures provided by Box Office Mojo. The Academy Awards nominations announced early that day apparently didn’t have much of an effect on the film’s grosses, unless the attendance drop was going to be much steeper. However, that hasn’t been the case in the last several weeks. At a distant second, Mel Gibson’s [...]...
- 2/4/2010
- by Michelle Hutton
- Alt Film Guide
Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw in The Blind Side (Ralph Nelson / Warner Bros.) "… Far and away the biggest-grossing movie with a female as its sole main player, which is certainly a challenge to conventional Hollywood assumptions (men can star alone, while women need a costar of either sex)." That’s Sandra Bullock in the 2009 football drama The Blind Side, right? Wrong. Film commentator Stuart Byron was referring to Goldie Hawn in the 1980 army comedy Private Benjamin (right), which earned $69.8 million at the domestic box office (about $173m in 2010 dollars, as per Box Office Mojo’s average ticket-price ratio). That same year, Hawn co-starred with Chevy Chase in the comedy Seems Like Old Times: $43.9m (or approx. $109m [...]...
- 1/9/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
It's a rare box-office treat when a film that has been in release for two weeks is destined to hit the number one spot at the box office. But The Blind Side has been a surprise since it debuted opposite New Moon two weeks ago to a solid $34 million and then did the unthinkable, which is gain 18% of its audience its second frame. Now the Sandra Bullock-starrer has earned a robust $105 million and is destined for a number one slot this weekend. It helps that the weekend following Thanksgiving is traditionally a slow one in theaters. Hollywood usually turns...
- 12/3/2009
- by Nicole Sperling
- EW - Inside Movies
A few months ago, as All About Steve came and went having revealed more about Steve than audiences could bear, I wrote in this blog about the disservice Sandra Bullock was doing herself, clinging to outmoded girly roles when her talent (and the sunny goodwill she has earned with audiences) could support more serious and more mature characters. Am I a genius or what? Okay, maybe not. But the great response our Sandy (we can call her that, can't we, because she's a star who feels very much one of the people) is getting for her more serious, more mature...
- 12/1/2009
- by Lisa Schwarzbaum
- EW.com - The Movie Critics
A funny thing happened when I went to see The Blind Side, aside from me not being as bothered by Sandra Bullock's blond hair as I was when I saw All About Steve, that is — I didn't cry. And I liked the movie more because of it. Say what you want about the film's "cotton candy-uplift" — EW critic Owen Gleiberman certainly did — but I think writer-director John Lee Hancock deserves some credit for showing some restraint. Spoiler Alert: Unless I missed it, he never once had Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) say the words "thank you" to Leigh Anne Tuohy...
- 12/1/2009
- by Mandi Bierly
- EW.com - PopWatch
Chicago – “Based on a True Story” films are difficult to pull off, especially those that are the improbable story of a white Memphis family adopting an African American football prodigy. Sandra Bullock is the mother, through it all, in “The Blind Side.”
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The football-themed title refers to protecting the quarterback’s blind side, the area where he can’t see a defensive linebacker coming. Symbolically, it also describes the life of Michael Ohr (an exceptional Quinton Aaron), a Memphis teenager who is discovered to be homeless by the Tuohy family, and is taken in by the firecracker Mom, Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock).
Michael’s blind side is his past, a difficult road of negative parentage and squalid conditions. The shelter that the wealthy Tuohy family gives him is almost too much for him, much as the private school a previous mentor managed to get him into.
”The Blind Side” opens everywhere November 20th.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The football-themed title refers to protecting the quarterback’s blind side, the area where he can’t see a defensive linebacker coming. Symbolically, it also describes the life of Michael Ohr (an exceptional Quinton Aaron), a Memphis teenager who is discovered to be homeless by the Tuohy family, and is taken in by the firecracker Mom, Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock).
Michael’s blind side is his past, a difficult road of negative parentage and squalid conditions. The shelter that the wealthy Tuohy family gives him is almost too much for him, much as the private school a previous mentor managed to get him into.
”The Blind Side” opens everywhere November 20th.
- 11/20/2009
- by PatrickMcD
- HollywoodChicago.com
Chicago – This 20-image slideshow contains the official press images for the Fall/Winter schedule from Warner Brothers including “Whiteout,” “The Informant!,” “The Invention of Lying,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” “The Box,” “The Blind Side,” “Ninja Assassin,” “Invictus,” and “Sherlock Holmes”.
Movie synopsis and cast information in order of release date:
“Whiteout”
In theatres on September 11
Director: Dominic Sena
Writers: Screenplay by Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber and Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short, Tom Skerritt, Alex O’Loughlin, Shawn Doyle
Action Thriller. Carrie Stetko, the lone U.S. Marshal assigned to Antarctica, is investigating the continent’s first murder, which draws her into a shocking mystery. Now, with only three days until winter, Carrie must solve the crime before Antarctica is plunged into darkness and she is stranded with the killer.
“The Informant!”
In theatres on September 18
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writers: Screenplay by Scott Z. Burns
Cast: Matt Damon,...
Movie synopsis and cast information in order of release date:
“Whiteout”
In theatres on September 11
Director: Dominic Sena
Writers: Screenplay by Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber and Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short, Tom Skerritt, Alex O’Loughlin, Shawn Doyle
Action Thriller. Carrie Stetko, the lone U.S. Marshal assigned to Antarctica, is investigating the continent’s first murder, which draws her into a shocking mystery. Now, with only three days until winter, Carrie must solve the crime before Antarctica is plunged into darkness and she is stranded with the killer.
“The Informant!”
In theatres on September 18
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writers: Screenplay by Scott Z. Burns
Cast: Matt Damon,...
- 8/11/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Rating: 1.0/5.0 Chicago – “Land of the Lost,” starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, and Anna Friel, is horribly conceived, almost entirely laugh-free, and with absolutely no personality of its own. It’s one of the most inert, dull, and dead-on-arrival major summer films in a very long time with no target audience likely to be satisfied by it.
What exactly is the target audience of “Land of the Lost”? I’ll admit that I assumed it would be a PG-rated family comedy going in. Little kids love dinosaur poop jokes, right? Much to be great surprise, “Land of the Lost” is not for kids. Sure, it sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old, but parents may blush at jokes about characters getting “wet” or sitting on a vibrating crystal. Even pre-teens will roll their eyes when Chaka gropes Holly for the fifteenth time.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Land of the Lost...
What exactly is the target audience of “Land of the Lost”? I’ll admit that I assumed it would be a PG-rated family comedy going in. Little kids love dinosaur poop jokes, right? Much to be great surprise, “Land of the Lost” is not for kids. Sure, it sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old, but parents may blush at jokes about characters getting “wet” or sitting on a vibrating crystal. Even pre-teens will roll their eyes when Chaka gropes Holly for the fifteenth time.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Land of the Lost...
- 6/5/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Chicago – This 34-image slideshow contains the official press images for “Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Jorma Taccone, and Anna Friel. The film, written by Chris Henchy & Dennis McNicholas and directed by Brad Silberling, opens on June 5th, 2009.
Synopsis:
“Space-time vortexes suck.
Will Ferrell stars as has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, sucked into one and spat back through time. Way back. Now, Marshall has no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts to survive in an alternate universe full of marauding dinosaurs and fantastic creatures from beyond our world—a place of spectacular sights and super-scaled comedy known as the Land of the Lost.
Sucked alongside him for the adventure are crack-smart research assistant Holly (Anna Friel) and a redneck survivalist (Danny McBride) named Will. Chased by T. rex and stalked by painfully slow reptiles known as Sleestak, Marshall, Will and Holly must rely on their only ally...
Synopsis:
“Space-time vortexes suck.
Will Ferrell stars as has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, sucked into one and spat back through time. Way back. Now, Marshall has no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts to survive in an alternate universe full of marauding dinosaurs and fantastic creatures from beyond our world—a place of spectacular sights and super-scaled comedy known as the Land of the Lost.
Sucked alongside him for the adventure are crack-smart research assistant Holly (Anna Friel) and a redneck survivalist (Danny McBride) named Will. Chased by T. rex and stalked by painfully slow reptiles known as Sleestak, Marshall, Will and Holly must rely on their only ally...
- 6/2/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Chicago – Universal has released a slate of new images from their 2009 schedule of films. We brought you information and the first available images last year, but we’re back with 23 more exciting images.
This 23-image slideshow contains official press images and schedule information for the announced slate of films to be released by Universal Pictures in 2009 including new movies starring Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe, Matt Damon, Benicio Del Toro, Vince Vaughn, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Johnny Depp, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
These 2009 Universal Pictures include, in release order, “Fast & Furious,” “State of Play,” “Fighting,” “Wild Child,” “Drag Me to Hell,” “Land of the Lost,” “Public Enemies,” “Funny People,” “The Wolfman,” “The Green Zone,” “The Boat That Rocked,” “The Last House on the Left,” “Couples Retreat,” and “25/8”. All films have images in the slideshow below.
The release dates, cast lists, and filmmaker information for these Universal Pictures films can be found below in release date order,...
This 23-image slideshow contains official press images and schedule information for the announced slate of films to be released by Universal Pictures in 2009 including new movies starring Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe, Matt Damon, Benicio Del Toro, Vince Vaughn, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Johnny Depp, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
These 2009 Universal Pictures include, in release order, “Fast & Furious,” “State of Play,” “Fighting,” “Wild Child,” “Drag Me to Hell,” “Land of the Lost,” “Public Enemies,” “Funny People,” “The Wolfman,” “The Green Zone,” “The Boat That Rocked,” “The Last House on the Left,” “Couples Retreat,” and “25/8”. All films have images in the slideshow below.
The release dates, cast lists, and filmmaker information for these Universal Pictures films can be found below in release date order,...
- 1/13/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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