Tag Archives: Bonnie Wright

MOV016: “Bunny, Ball Ball”

This shows recording bandwidth brought to you by Starbucks.  Jeff just turned 30 so he though we should review his favorite movie, Hudson Hawk, but did they all like it?  We also reviewed Takers and the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

[display_podcast]

News:

The Past: Hudson Hawk (1991)

[asa]B000FP2OPE[/asa]

Director: Michael Lehmann

Starring: Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn

Trivia:

  • The tones that the handcuffs make are the same as the tones used in Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967) for the telephones. James Coburn appears in all three movies.
  • Coburn plays “George Kaplan”, which is the name of the fake agent from North by Northwest (1959).
  • Igg and Ook both mutter their own names as their last words.
  • Bruce Willis says, “Directions even your brother can understand,” to co-star Frank Stallone. On the script, this jab is directed at the character of Antony Mario, but it doubles as an off-screen jab at Stallone’s real brother Sylvester Stallone.
  • Nintendo humor abounds in this movie. “New Jersey’s third-largest crime family” is known as the Mario Brothers. Additionally, Hudson Hawk has been in prison so long he does not know what a Nintendo is.
  • Isabella Rossellini was originally cast as Anna Baragli, but when the movie was delayed because of scheduling issues, the part was re-cast with Maruschka Detmers. However, due to back problems, she had to leave after a few days of shooting, and was finally replaced with Andie MacDowell.
  • Michael Ballhaus was the original Cinematographer on the project, but due to delays and overruns in principal photography he left the project and was replaced by Dante Spinotti.
  • In the bar, Bruce Willis talks about “reindeer-goat cheese pizza”, which he also mentions in The Last Boy Scout (1991).
  • The Brooklyn Bridge tollbooth scene was actually filmed at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, as the Brooklyn Bridge had no toll at that time.
  • In this film Danny Aiello plays the Italian ‘criminal’ Tommy Five-Tone . This could be seen as an in-joke at The Godfather: Part II (1974) where Danny Aiello’s character, one of the Rosato brothers, attempts to murder Frankie Pentanglis, a.k.a. Frankie Five-Angels.
  • The film generally received negative critical reviews and was overall a box office bomb. James Brundage of AMC filmcritic said the film was “so implausible and so over the top that it lets inconsistency roll off like water on a duck’s back.”[2] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said of the film, “A movie this unspeakably awful can make an audience a little crazy. You want to throw things, yell at the actors, beg them to stop.”
  • It received Razzie Awards for Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Picture.
  • Part of the reason for the box office failure is that the film is clearly intended as an absurd comedy and yet was marketed as an action film one year after the success of Die Hard 2. When the film came to home video the tag line “Catch The Adventure, Catch The Excitement, Catch The Hawk” was changed to “Catch The Adventure, Catch The Laughter, Catch The Hawk”.
  • A video game based on the film was released in 1991 for various home computers and game consoles. It is a side-scrolling game where the player, as the Hawk, must steal the Sforza and the Codex from the auction house and the Vatican, respectively. Then Castle Da Vinci has to be infiltrated in order to steal the mirrored crystal needed to power the gold machine. On his journey, Hawk must face many oddball adversaries, including dachshunds that try to throw him off the roof of the auction house, janitors, photographers, killer nuns, and a tennis player (presumably Darwin Mayflower).

Talking Points:

  • Have we become the Bruce Willis Fan Club?
  • Could we put more genres into one film, please?

What We’ve Learned:

  • There are 673 Wong’s in the phone book
  • Swinging On A Star is 5 min 32 seconds
  • You dont have to be quiet to be a cat burglar
  • The Pope Watches Mr Ed.
  • Although we love her, Sandra Bernhardt cannot act
  • Bruce Willis is so cool he can turn a nun!
  • If Divinci Was alive today he’d be eating sushi naked in the back of a Cadillac

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: I love this movie and I actually do NOT agree with anyone that it’s a bad movie.
Ray: A bad movie, but I love it.. I can watch this over and over.
Steve: What did I watch? I’m still processing it…

The Present: Takers

Director: John Luessenhop

Starring: Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen, Matt Dillon, Michael Ealy, Idris lba, Steve Harris, T.I., Jay Hernandez, Zoe Saldana

Trivia:

  • The first film applicable under futures and option trading based upon box-office returns in the United States. The controversial proposal was approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in June 2010.

Talking Points:

What We Learned:

  • If you’re a Police Officer, don’t follow perps with your kid in the car!
  • T.I. is a bad MF, but could stand some more acting classes
  • If you’re a big-time criminal, be sure to live as extravagantly as possible – no one will notice.
  • Even thieves have things going on in their personal lives

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: It’s meh, See The Italian Job or the Real McCoy instead.
Ray: enjoyable, but an inferior and someone boring copy of previous heist movies.
Steve: As predictable and formulaic as it was, I enjoyed it. Worth seeing at least as a rental if you like the genre.

The Future: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Helen McCrory, Bonnie Wright, Tom Felton, Jason Isaacs

Trivia:

  • The seventh of eight movies based on the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling.
  • M. Night Shyamalan was interested in directing this installment.
  • Guillermo del Toro expressed interest in directing this installment.
  • At first, this was meant to be only one film, but due to the size of the book, and the decision that nothing could be left out to squeeze into one movie, the producers decided to split it into Part I and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011).
  • David Holmes, 25, Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt-double, was seriously injured on the set at Leavesden Studios, near Watford, Hertfordshire. He was performing an aerial sequence when he fell to the ground following an explosion, which was part of the stunt, and sustained a serious back injury.
  • John Williams, who composed the scores to the first three films, has expressed interest in returning to score The Deathly Hallows.
  • Bill Weasley is played by Domhnall Gleeson, son of cast member Brendan Gleeson.
  • The character Griphook was played by Verne Troyer in the first film; making him one of the few Americans cast; but was voiced by Warwick Davis. In this film, Davis plays Griphook in both body and voice. Davis will also be playing Professor Filius Flitwick as he did in the previous six films.
  • Cast members John Hurt and Bill Nighy have both played prominent roles in adaptations of another well-known fantasy series, The Lord of the Rings. Hurt was the voice of Aragorn in Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 film. Nighy was the voice of Sam Gamgee in the BBC Radio broadcast.
  • Composer Nicholas Hooper turned down the opportunity to score the final two films, saying that working on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) took a toll on his family’s personal life.
  • Daniel Radcliffe developed a cold from having to be in mud and dirt while filming the movie.
  • This film along with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011) are the only Harry Potter films to be released in 3D in cinemas in their entirety (only select scenes were available for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) and only in IMAX).
  • Josh Herdman announced on 9 August 2009 that Jamie Waylett would not be reprising his role as Vincent Crabbe for this film. Waylett’s character will be written out with his role in the plot taken over by Herdman’s character, Gregory Goyle.
  • First time that Brendan Gleeson and David O’Hara have appeared in the same movie since Braveheart (1995).
  • Bruno Delbonnel declined to return for the final two films, saying that “I think I was scared of repeating myself.” Subsequently, the filmmakers hired fellow French-Portuguese cinematographer Eduardo Serra.
  • Despite having stated that she would not be returning as Professor Sybil Trelawney for this film previously, Emma Thompson recently reported that she had just finished two days worth of filming as the character after all.
  • Jason Isaacs originally considered not returning for this film, fearing that his character’s arrest and imprisonment at the end of the fifth book and film would mean very little if any screen time in the finale. Upon meeting J.K. Rowling, he begged to be let out of prison. She told him “You’re out. Chapter one.” This immediately convinced him to sign on for the film.

Summary:
Voldemort’s power is growing stronger. He now has control over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide to finish Dumbledore’s work and find the rest of the Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord. But little hope remains for them, so everything they do must go as planned.

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: I’m so so excited.
Ray: Cant wait, wish there was less time between both parts
Steve: Looks good, but I’m kinda over HP.

Download Podcast