Results tagged “willsmith”

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

If you didn't see Tell No One in the theater last year, go out and immediately buy or rent the best movie released in the U.S. in 2008. Rarely does a film set up such a fantastical premise and deliver on it so perfectly. Slumdog Millionaire never deserved the mini-backlash it received. Based on its kinetic cinematography alone, it was one of the best films of the year. Sure, Dev Patel's performance was a little flat (ok, very flat), but Freida Pinto was absolutely luminous and the child actors were a revelation. As for Marley & Me and Seven Pounds...skip and skip. Spend your money on the great Leonard Cohen or any of these comedy specials.

Christmas darling ($7M/$43.7M).

In a down weekend due to bad weather across the country, middling Jim Carrey "comedy" continued to hang around like a drunken slut ($7.7M/$100.1M).

The Wrestler marks the return of Mickey Rourke to prominence and, to a lesser extent, Darren Aronofsky. I think both are welcome occurrences. Be warned, though--the squeamish should avert their eyes during the meat slicer scene. The Tale of Despereaux is just the sort of broad, silly tale of redemption that a sucker like me always enjoys a little too much. Seven Pounds would probably be high on my must-see list if it starred anyone other than Will Smith. Seriously people--let's put a stop to this man and stop going to his movies!

The holiday box office season is generally a time for light-hearted, star-driven films that keep audiences engaged. After all, it is tough in this economic climate and with so few days before Christmas to take two hours out of your day to sit in a theater and really become involved in the characters on screen, even if the dialogue is upbeat and the main squeeze is totally that one guy from that one movie. The new Will Smith film Seven Pounds does an admirable job of two of these key elements, eschewing the easy-to-swallow fare in favor of meatier pieces for the audience to chew on.

. Never have. Never will. I mean, don't people realize that it's Kiefer Sutherland up there on the screen. Anyone really scared of facing down Kiefer in a bar fight? Does anyone still think Jon Stewart is funnier than Stephen Colbert? David Lynch's films don't always work for me, but I love that he exists.

In a pathetic display of media-generated conformity, audiences rewarded the witless finished a distant third, as Jolie's hot, naked ass only managed to garner $20.6M ($90.7M) in its second frame.

Hancock is a nearly great movie. I suppose that means it was only good, but that obscures the fact that, unlike other good movies, it could have been great.

If you don't want to deal with the crowds that will invariably shuffle mindlessly into , but here he shines as a petty drug dealer pursuing the transcendent Olivia Thirlby.

         

A few weeks ago we ran a story called "Irksome and Insufferable: The Ten Most Annoying Singers". Given that actors are just as capable of being annoying as musicians, I thought it would be worthwhile to throw out 10 names for public review. I avoided the easy ones (Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, etc.) and tried to cobble together a list of actors who--for whatever reason--are actually considered to be pretty good by the masses. But not by me! In their own ways, each one of these actors makes me anxious whenever I watch them.

As a true devotee, I feel it's my duty to spread the word about the criminally overlooked : there's no there there.

was a hair behind at $16M ($176.7M).

The list is a little long this week since I'm including the Christmas Day openers. Having already raved about yesterday, I'll lead off with what some are calling the best horror film of the year, The Orphanage. For any horror fan who's tired of torture porn and bad Japanese re-makes, this is the movie for you. Grim and spare, it's a horror film for adults and Spain's foreign-language entrant for next year's Oscars.

surged unexpectedly, bringing in an even $45M, also far above original projections. Come to think of it, that may be an even more depressing statement than the one above.

Of all the big holiday releases, I Am Legend is probably the one I'm least excited to see. And that's saying a lot considering , I just get the feeling that there's absolutely nothing in the movie that will surprise me. And I'm sure that the dark ending of Matheson's source novel has been scrapped in favor of something more life-affirming. Because Will Smith never loses, right? Depressing.

Nine are dead in Omaha, Nebraska today after a man opened fire in a shopping mall, and then shot himself. Police do not have a motive so far. Did you have this conversation this morning? "Sorry, boss, I can't come in to work today...a terrible cough, I, uh, flu symptoms, definitely -- what waves? Uh, I don't know what you're talking about...." Lots of SoCal surfers took a sick day and busted out on...

This strike photo outside of Warner Bros. was taken last week on November 27. If they waited a few days, it would have been witty to play off the 28 Days Later reference... oh well, maybe they have that new Will Smith movie in mind... or maybe they just like to eat people. That or they have dermophagia (gross!). Photo by movie lover via the LAist Flickr Pool (join and add your own photos!)...

As firefighters sought to contain the smoldering remains of California, officials are keying in on how the fires started. One of the largest fires, the Santiago fire that burned 22,000 acres was, reportedly set by an arsonist. President Bush toured parts of California and declared, "We're not going to forget you in Washington D.C." I guess he didn't visit any poor children. There's at least one good story to come out of this tragedy....

Today in major LA Fire Department events: an early morning structure fire in North Hills sending smoke into the flight path of Van Nuys Airport, a big rig with a trailer overturned on the Southbound Harbor freeway causing a Sig Alert, and a medical emergency in the Hilton Hotel at Universal City where staff mixed ammonia & bleach solutions creating hydrochloric acid (oops!). Is it the second Thursday of the month? Ah, it is!...

6:00 - The FIB-u-less Orbit gum lady (What kind of accent is that? Is she South African? British by way of Argentina?) gives the Dirtiest Mouth award to Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. Their acceptance speech, which is delivered by not-so-silent Bob, is only one sentence long but somehow manages to get 70% bleeped out. The Orbit gum lady vows never to date either of them. 5:58 - Dane Cook jokes, "This just in,...

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend...

A Word or 51: I thought I was watching my TiVoed Golden Globes broadcast last night but it turned out to be the Screen Actors Guild Awards with the same winners almost across the board. If the Oscars follow suit can't we just get rid of this circle jerk and have one stinkin' awards show? Tonight - Monday - January 29, 2007 UCLA @ Stanford (PRIME, 5:00 p.m.) College basketball Carnival Marathon featuring The...

Tonight - Wednesday

Tonight - Thursday Kings @ Sharks (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.) "Survivor: Cook Islands" (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) The scheming gets more intense, it's all in your head. "The Office" (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Christmas party double episode! "The OC" (Fox, 9:00 p.m.) For those that can stomach its Chrismukkah episode. "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central, 11:00 p.m.) Rajiv "Say it 10x Fast" Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post "The Colber(t) Repor(t)" (Comedy Central, 11:30...

Sometimes LAist wishes we lived in a city that wasn't all about the movies and publicizing them. Somtimes LAist wishes we could go down a city block without being overshadowed by a building-sized fish featuring the voice of Will Smith (Highland and Santa Monica), or a Christmas-Kranked Jamie Lee Curtis (Beverly and Robertson) or the huge monoliths on Sunset Boulevard. Sometimes LAist wishes the movie studios would pay us to have huge movie banners pasted on the outside of our homes.