Review: Danny Trejo Revealed in "Champion"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 13 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Champion (2005)
Running time: 81 minutes (1 hour, 21 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Joe Eckardt
WRITER: Cecily Gambrell
PRODUCERS: Joe Eckardt and Cecily Gambrell
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Vitaly Bokser, Dana Gonzales, and Daniel S. Haas
EDITORS: Joe Eckardt and Joseph Lorigo

DOCUMENTARY – Biography/Interview

Starring: Danny Trejo, Cecily Gambrell, Edward Bunker, Steve Buscemi, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, and Robert Rodriguez

His body covered in tattoos, actor Danny Trejo has appeared in such films as Desperado, Con Air, and Spy Kids. Trejo is mostly known for playing tough guys, criminals, and villains. You’ll recognize him when you see him, and you may not be surprised to learn that Trejo has a past that includes substance abuse, drug dealing, and prison.

There is another side to Trejo. His troubled childhood, which included drug addiction, armed robbery, and extensive prison time, eventually led him to a career as a counselor, where his vocation became helping people who are struggling with alcohol, drugs, and gang-banging. That in turn led Trejo into acting, beginning with work in the 1985 film Runaway Train. The 2005 documentary Champion offers an intimate and detailed look at Trejo’s life and journey and includes testimonials from actors Steve Buscemi, Dennis Hopper, and Val Kilmer, among others.

The first hour of Champion mainly deals with Trejo’s troubled youth and a 20-year period from the 1950s to the late 1960s in which Trejo beat up people and/or robbed them, while selling drugs and doing time in juvenile and prison facilities. Although interesting, some of this first hour is repetitive or dry and slows the film. Then, Champion has a Saul-to-St. Paul moment and seems to suddenly open up, revealing the man who has a great big heart and a drive to help people. Champion is not a traditional documentary; in fact, it is essentially one long interview film. What the film ultimately documents is an inspirational story of how far up someone can come from being so down. Watch it and understand why Danny Trejo is indeed a champion.

7 of 10
B+

Friday, February 11, 2011

---------------------------

2011 Black Reel Awards Nominations List

The Black Reel Awards are scheduled to be handed out tonight.  What are the Black Reel Awards?  These awards annually honor African-Americans in feature, independent and television film. The awards were launched in 2000, and this is the 11th year of the awards.

From what I understand, 60 film critics from television, radio, print and the Internet comprise the voting members of the Black Reel Awards. Voting was conducted from December 10 – 13, 2010. Winners will be announced on Friday, February 11, 2011.

2011 Nominations:

Outstanding Film
The Book of Eli
Brooklyn’s Finest
For Colored Girls
Night Catches Us
Just Wright

Outstanding Actress
Thandie Newton – For Colored Girls
Queen Latifah – Just Wright
Kerry Washington – Night Catches Us
Anika Noni Rose – For Colored Girls
Kimberly Elise – For Colored Girls

Outstanding Actor
Don Cheadle – Brooklyn’s Finest
Denzel Washington – The Book of Eli
Jaden Smith – The Karate Kid
Anthony Mackie – Night Catches Us
Denzel Washington – Unstoppable

Outstanding Supporting Actress
Phylicia Rashad – For Colored Girls
Kerry Washington – For Colored Girls
Viola Davis – Eat Pray Love
Janet Jackson – For Colored Girls
Shareeka Epps – Mother and Child

Outstanding Supporting Actor
Wesley Snipes – Brooklyn’s Finest
Sean Combs – Get Him to the Greek
Samuel L. Jackson – Mother and Child
Brandon T. Jackson – Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Laurence Fishburne – Predators

Outstanding Director
Antoine Fuqua – Brooklyn’s Finest
Sanaa Hamri – Just Wright
Tanya Hamilton – Night Catches
Allen and Albert Hughes – The Book of Eli
Tyler Perry – For Colored Girls

Outstanding Screenplay, Original or Adapted
Tanya Hamilton – Night Catches Us
Michael C. Martin – Brooklyn’s Finest
Michael Elliott – Just Wright
Peter Allen, Gabriel Casseus, John Lussenhop and Avery Duff – Takers
Tyler Perry – For Colored Girls

Outstanding Original Score
The Karate Kid
Brooklyn’s Finest
Night Catches Us
The Book of Eli
For Colored Girls

Outstanding Original Song
Shine (John Legend) - Waiting for Superman
Champion (Queen Latifah) - Just Wright
Run This Town (Jay-Z featuring Rihanna and Kayne West) - Brooklyn’s Finest
Never Say Never (Justin Bieber featuring Jaden Smith) - The Karate Kid
I Know Who I Am (Leona Lewis) - For Colored Girls

Outstanding Ensemble
For Colored Girls
Brooklyn’s Finest
Unstoppable
Night Catches Us
Takers

Outstanding Breakthrough Performance
Omari Hardwick – For Colored Girls
Tessa Thompson – For Colored Girls
Amari Cheatom – Night Catches Us
Zoe Kravitz – It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Yaya DaCosta – The Kids Are All Right

Outstanding Feature Documentary
The Lottery
Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy
Waiting on Superman
My Mic Sounds Nice

Outstanding Indie Feature Film
Preacher’s Kid
Kings of the Evening
Toe to Toe
Black Venus
Finding God in the City of Angels

Outstanding Indie Short Film
Cred
Stag and Dow
Katrina’s Son

Outstanding Indie Documentary Film
For the Best and For the Onion
One of These Mornings
Gefilte Fish

Outstanding Television Documentary
If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise
The Black List, Vol. 3
A Small Act

Marvel Meets Shane Black About "Iron Man 3"

As you may already know, Jon Favreau will not return to direct the third installment Marvel Studio's Iron Man film franchise, after directing the first two movies, which were big hits.  As Marvel interviews prospective directors, a surprising name has come up according to Collider, legendary action movie screenwriter, Shane Black, the man who created Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout.  Black also wrote and directed the excellent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (I just posted my review of it from a few years back.), which featured the star of the Iron Man movies, Robert Downey, Jr.

According to Collider, Marvel is meeting with a number of directors and the name of one of them is now known: Shane Black.  "Iron Man 3" is set to be released on May 3, 2013.

Review: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is Really Good Good

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 141 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Running time: 103 minutes (1 hour, 43 minutes)
MPAA – R for language, violence, and sexuality/nudity
DIRECTOR: Shane Black
WRITER: Shane Black; from a screen story by Shane Black (based upon the novel, Bodies are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday)
PRODUCER: Joel Silver
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael Barrett
EDITOR: Jim Page

COMEDY/MYSTERY/CRIME with elements of drama and thriller

Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Dash Mihok, Larry Miller, Rockmond Dunbar, Shannyn Sossamon, and Angela Lindvall

New York City petty thief, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey, Jr.) cons his way into an acting audition while running from the police. Before long he’s whisked away to Los Angeles for an even more important audition, this time for a part in a big movie. Harry finds an authentic acting coach in L.A. detective, Perry Van Shrike (Val Kilmer) or "Gay Perry," to help him prepare for his audition. The bright lights of Hollywood pale, however, when Harry, Perry, and Harry’s high school dream girl, Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), find themselves thrust into a murder mystery – one with an increasingly high body count.

Shane Black’s calling card is that he is the screenwriter who created Lethal Weapon, but his name may also be slightly notorious with his connection to Hollywood budget excesses, especially as he once received a then-record $1.75 million for The Last Boy Scout script. He didn’t create the buddy picture, an action sub-genre that remains popular but really ruled in the 1980’s and early 1990’s (one could say that the buddy-cop flick came to life with 48 Hours). Still, Black’s Lethal Weapon screenplay defined the buddy action flick, and Black became one of the most influential writers of action flicks.

Perhaps, we can view Black’s directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, as a send-up of the genre he, more than any other writer, helped send into the stratosphere of big-time movie making. Almost a movie within a movie, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang seems like a satire of the buddy flick. Self-referential to the point of being meta-fiction, the narrator, Robert Downey, Jr.’s Harry Lockhart, never breaks the fourth wall, but he knows he has an audience.

With all the twists, turns, deceptions, betrayal, and romance in its plot, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a clever P. I. (private investigator or private eye) farce set in the glamour weird side of Los Angeles – think rich people and Hollywood types. Many of the characters are on the edge of Tinseltown – on the outside looking in. This movie is like Get Shorty, but it’s filtered through Shane Black’s penchant for L.A. crime stories – cops and detectives working a sort of modern day Film-Noir City of Angels – a kind of neo-Noir. This is also like The Last Boy Scout, without the big budget action sequences, but more outlandish and eccentric.

Watching this film, one has to wonder why it works. Robert Downey, Jr. seems slightly miscast, but he’s such a fine actor that he makes this part his own. Val Kilmer is quite good in a part that seems a bit short for what both the character and actor can bring to the film. Michelle Monaghan also seems miscast, but she has excellent comic sensibilities and over the long haul of the picture makes a very good, if not perfect, fit.

For all the style and ambience Black and his cast bring to this movie, what ultimately makes Kiss Kiss Bang Bang an exceptional film is how shrewdly written it is. Black has astutely filled his script with the kind of off-the-wall dialogue, situations, and scenes that hooks an audience ever deeper into the film, very similar to what Quentin Tarantino did in Pulp Fiction. It’s a cunning move that both keeps an audience with a short attention span engaged while putting a nimble move on the detective genre that makes even the jaded sit up and take notice. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it is the droll comedy of 2005. It is also one of the most inventive comic turns on the detective flick (that doesn’t have to rely on parody) in decades.

8 of 10
A

Friday, June 30, 2006

---------------------------

Review: Too Much Nancy Drew in "Nancy Drew" (Happy B'day, Emma Roberts)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 14 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Nancy Drew (2007)
Running time: 99 minutes (1 hour, 39 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for mild violence, thematic elements, and brief language
DIRECTOR: Andrew Fleming
WRITERS: Andrew Fleming and Tiffany Paulsen; from a story by Tiffany Paulsen (based upon the characters created by Mildred Wirt Benson writing as Carolyn Keene)
PRODUCER: Jerry Weintraub
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alexander Gruszynski (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Jeff Freeman

MYSTERY/FAMILY

Starring: Emma Roberts, Josh Flitter, Max Thieriot, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tate Donovan, Marshall Bell, Daniella Monet, Kelly Vitz, Krystle Hernandez, Barry Bostwick, Adam Clark, and Laura Harring (Screen appearances with no screen credit: Bruce Willis, Chris Kattan, and Eddie Jemison)

The 2007 film, Nancy Drew, is a return to the big screen by the famous girl detective.

When her father Carson Drew (Tate Donovan) heads to Los Angeles to take on some high paying temporary legal work, Nancy Drew (Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts’ niece), the resourceful teen detective, is right behind him. She’s leaving her friendly hometown of River Heights for life at Hollywood High School. Nancy’s uncanny intelligence and smarts, as well as her retro manners (including her perfect picnic lunches and penny loafers), earn her some enemies. The less-than-warm reception from reigning fashionistas Inga (Daniella Monet) and Trish (Kelly Vitz) might bother the average new girl, but not Nancy, who has more important things to think about, in particular a brand new mystery.

Nancy promised her worried Dad that she'd quit “sleuthing,” but it isn't long before she gets a lead on one of Hollywood’s greatest unsolved cases of all time: the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of famous actress Dehlia Draycott (Laura Harring). Nancy happened to make sure that the Drews’ temporary L.A. home is the former Draycott mansion. With Inga’s little brother, Corky (Josh Flitter), tagging along, and a surprise appearance from her hometown sleuthing partner, Ned Nickerson (Max Thieriot), Nancy combs the long-reputed haunted mansion to solve the Draycott mystery, but some shadowy and dangerous figures aren’t happy about that.

The modernization of Nancy Drew took a character known mostly for existing in a rural, small town setting and placed her in the fast-paced and more dangerous big city. This is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is the movie bad. The script sets the supposedly unsophisticated Nancy against the Byzantine urban world, but Nancy ends up looking super sophisticated, while L.A./Hollywood seems to be a world full of narcissistic and selfish morons. It’s fun to watch Nancy basically run roughshod over a world determined to keep her in her place.

It’s a shame that the film has so many good supporting characters, but simply drops them here and there, some with no rhyme or reason. This is a Nancy Drew film that is just too Nancy-centric. Still, in spite of its limitations, Nancy Drew is likeable. It lacks the snappy freshness of the Bonita Granville Nancy Drew movie series made in the late 1930s, but this new Nancy Drew is fun on its own.

6 of 10
B

Saturday, March 15, 2008

----------------------

"X-Men: First Class" Trailer on Facebook; EW Has Photo Exclusive

Entertainment Weekly likes to share its breaking news and exclusives:

EW.COM PHOTO EXCLUSIVE: 'X-Men: First Class' trailer targets Facebook fanbase tomorrow

Mutants can control minds, burn through walls, control the weather — and now, they can “friend.”

The trailer for the superhero reboot X-Men: First Class goes up tomorrow, with Fox is releasing it in on Facebook as part of an effort to build a social networking community around the film, opening June 3. The fan page can be found at Facebook.com/XMenMovies, and it’s already 1.6 million wannabe-mutants strong.

The trailer will offer fans a first look at the younger years of Professor X and his team of superpowered pupils. The movie, directed by Kick-Ass filmmaker Matthew Vaughn, stars James McAvoy (Atonement) and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) in the Professor X and Magneto roles, respectively. Mad Men‘s January Jones co-stars as Emma Frost, the ultra-sexy Marvel Comics telepath known for her revealing white outfits and diamond-skin armor.

There are many questions surrounding the movie, and a big one can be asked about this mysterious new photo from Fox, released exclusively to EW.

Full story and exclusive photo on EW.com: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/02/09/x-men-first-class-trailer/

DreamWorks Animation Announces Voice Cast for "Rise of the Guardians"

DREAMWORKS ANIMATION NAMES ALL-STAR CAST FEATURING CHRIS PINE, ALEC BALDWIN, HUGH JACKMAN, ISLA FISHER AND JUDE LAW FOR RISE OF THE GUARDIANS ON NOVEMBER 21, 2012

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA) today named its all-star cast for Rise of the Guardians, featuring Chris Pine in the lead role of Jack Frost, together with Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher and Jude Law. The film, scheduled for release on November 21, 2012, is based on “The Guardians of Childhood,” a series of highly anticipated children’s books by William Joyce.

Rise of the Guardians is being directed by Peter Ramsey and co-directed by William Joyce, produced by Christina Steinberg and Nancy Bernstein, written by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro and Michael Siegel.

“It’s a thrill to be working with such an all-star team of actors and filmmakers on Rise of the Guardians,” commented Bill Damaschke, Chief Creative Officer at DreamWorks Animation. “When we bring Bill Joyce’s imaginative vision to the screen in 2012, audiences will experience an incredible story with a truly epic sense of adventure.”

More than a collection of the well-known childhood legends, Rise of the Guardians tells the story of a group of heroes – each with extraordinary abilities. When an evil spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the immortal Guardians must join forces for the first time to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children all over the world. This epic 3D adventure stars Chris Pine as Jack Frost, Alec Baldwin as North (Santa Claus), Hugh Jackman as Bunnymund (Easter Bunny), Isla Fisher as Tooth (Tooth Fairy) and Jude Law as Pitch (The Boogeyman).


About DreamWorks Animation SKG
DreamWorks Animation creates high-quality entertainment, including CG animated feature films, television specials and series, live entertainment properties and online virtual worlds, meant for audiences around the world. The Company has world-class creative talent, a strong and experienced management team and advanced filmmaking technology and techniques. DreamWorks Animation has been named one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” by FORTUNE® Magazine for three consecutive years. In 2011, DreamWorks Animation ranks #10 on the list. All of DreamWorks Animation’s feature films are now being produced in 3D. The Company has theatrically released a total of 21 animated feature films, including the franchise properties of Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon.