Leonard Maltin

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book review: Three Chords For Beauty's Sake:

By Leonard Maltin
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August 4, 2010 4:00 AM
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4 Comments

The Life of Artie Shaw by Tom Nolan
(Norton)

This book may seem tangential on a site devoted to film, but music is one of my passions, and Artie Shaw was part of a show-business era that fascinates me; he remains one of my all-time favorite musicians. A brilliant clarinetist, he became a major star of the big band era with a string of hit records, including “Stardust,” “Begin the Beguine,” and “Frenesi.” If you insist on a Hollywood connection, he cut a wide swath through movieland and was married to four beautiful actresses: Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Doris Dowling, and Evelyn Keyes. (Connoisseurs of female pulchritude will want to note that he thought Betty Grable had

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By Leonard Maltin
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August 3, 2010 9:03 AM
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0 Comments

I don’t know how the folks at TCM keep topping themselves, but they do. For their annual Summer Under the Stars festival, featuring a different star for every day in August, they’ve hired graphic artist Michael Schwab to create a series of distinctive collector cards, depicting each star in an iconic role one can recognize even in silhouette. You can admire the whole series online HERE. These are not “virtual” creations, however: the network plans to give away 500 complete sets through a sweepstakes drawing you can read about at their site.

By Leonard Maltin
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August 2, 2010 7:44 AM
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0 Comments

The Extra Man | Kevin Kline | Leonard Maltin | Leonard Maltin's Secret's Out | Movie TrailersI’d never had a chance to talk to Kevin Kline before; what a treat!

By Leonard Maltin
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July 31, 2010 6:26 AM
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3 Comments

I’d like to extoll the virtues of a great comedy, but this isn’t it. A word of explanation: I come to Dinner for Schmucks at a disadvantage, because I love the French film on which it’s based, The Dinner Game (1998). I’ve also heard its creator, the brilliant writer-director Francis Veber, describe his filmmaking philosophy, and criticize Hollywood colleagues for always wanting to expand and complicate his material. (The Birdcage is the best translation ever made of a Veber property, but I still prefer his original, La Cage aux Folles.)

In spite of this, I honestly tried to approach Dinner for Schmucks with an open mind. I like the casting of Paul Rudd and especially Steve Carell, who—

By Leonard Maltin
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July 30, 2010 4:01 AM
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1 Comment

Get Low is one of the treats of the summer movie season, a modest film that offers ample rewards, not the least being the opportunity to watch wonderful actors at work. The setting is Tennessee during the Great Depression. Robert Duvall is well cast as a man who’s lived as a hermit for the past forty years. One day he turns up in town and asks the local preacher to hold his funeral—while he’s still alive. Over the course of the film we learn what has brought him to this moment, and what drove him away from his friends and neighbors so many years ago.

In less expert hands, this part could have become a caricature. Instead, Duvall actually—

By Leonard Maltin
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July 30, 2010 4:00 AM
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3 Comments

If you have any fondness for life’s oddballs, I think you’ll share my affection for the latest film from the writing/directing team of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, who brought us American Splendor. The Extra Man, based on a novel by Jonathan Ames, focuses on two men who exist out of their time: Henry Harrison, a pompous, world-class eccentric who gets by as an escort, or “extra man,” for aging Manhattan society women, and Louis Ives, an unworldly academic with a propensity for cross-dressing.

Harrison is vividly brought to life by Kevin Kline, who seems to revel in his character’s peculiarities. He’s proudly, gloriously strange, a creature of his own invention. This is one of the best parts Kline has ever had, a golden opportunity for him to draw on his gift for—

By Leonard Maltin
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July 27, 2010 12:11 PM
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1 Comment

To celebrate the 15th year of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, its directors decided to extend the event by an extra day, kicking off Thursday night and screening all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The results were exhausting but exhilarating. As in years past, near-capacity crowds turned out at every show, with several shows, like the newly-restored Metropolis, turning customers away.

There are other vintage film festivals around the country but none is as elaborate, ambitious, or masterfully mounted as this one, a genuine cultural event in San Francisco. It has a perfect home in The Castro, a glorious 1927 movie palace, and its programmers and board of directors create a first-class experience. There are signings with authors of film-related books between showings, along with the sale of books and DVDs, and informative slide shows that set the stage for each screening. What’s more, the audience is treated to the widest possible variety of live music. This year, Dennis James kicked off the proceedings by accompanying John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924) on the Castro’s Mighty Wurlitzer organ, the three-man Alloy Orchestra played for—

By Leonard Maltin
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July 27, 2010 4:00 AM
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19 Comments

(The Penguin Group)I know, I know: the idea of publishing a reference book in the age of instant communication sounds positively quaint. But the 2011 Edition of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide is just out, in two paperback formats—mass-market and a larger “trade size”—still alive and kicking after forty-one years (!). True, we can’t offer the immediacy of the Internet, but I still think the book is relevant, and so do a substantial number of readers around the world, thank goodness. We’ve added 300 new reviews, as recent as Sex and the City 2 and Iron Man 2, bringing the book up to a whopping 1,643 pages, and as always we’ve made hundreds and hundreds of changes, corrections, and additions. If a film is remade or followed by a sequel, turned into a TV series or Broadway play, we say so. If an actor who wasn’t well known when a film was—

By Leonard Maltin
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July 26, 2010 4:00 AM
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0 Comments

The Runaways | Leonard Maltin | Leonard Maltin's Secret's Out | Movie Trailers

By Leonard Maltin
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July 23, 2010 12:31 PM
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4 Comments

Gloria Stuart joined by fellow actresses Carla Laemmle and Pauline Wagner, all of whom are centenarians, at the "Academy's Centennial Celebration with Gloria Stuart." (photo courtesy of AMPAS)

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Categories

book review: Three Chords For Beauty's Sake:

Turner Classic Movies Plays Its Cards Right

secret's out: In Conversation with Kevin Kline

film review: Dinner For Schmucks

film review: Get Low

film review: The Extra Man

Silent Films Live Again!

A New Movie Guide

secret's out: The Runaways now on DVD

Celebrating Glorious Gloria

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